Thirty Minute Mentors Podcast Transcript: Interview with Mindfulness Guru Dr. Kamlesh Patel

I recently interviewed Dr. Kamlesh Patel on my podcast, Thirty Minute Mentors. Here is a transcript of our interview:

Adam: I am joined today by a very special guest, a leader of literally hundreds of thousands of people; Dr. Kamlesh Patel, also known as Daaji, is a spiritual leader, acclaimed author, yoga master, and mindfulness guru. For those of you not familiar with Dr. Patel and with what he brings to the table, you will know by the end of today's episode. Dr. Patel, thank you for joining me. And thank you for joining us today.

Daaji: Thank you so much for having me.

Adam: First things first, how did you get here? I understand that your background is as an entrepreneur and in the business world. Can you talk a little bit about your early days, building businesses?

Daaji: Well, I started this meditation while I was studying in School of Pharmacy. I was in third year when I started this meditation. I stumbled upon this way of meditation from a friend of mine. And then after graduation, I moved to New York, where I got my license to practice as a pharmacist. And then slowly, I started a pharmacy business and they looked at a few drugstores in New York and New Jersey. And I think I can give a lot of credit to heartfulness way of practice of meditation- because it guides you continuously on what to do and what not to do during your meditations. I think it is not only business, but also every behavioral level, every level at every cross junction that we meet in our life. You know? it helps us to decide which way to take and which way not to take especially. And in sort, I think this system of meditation has helped me tremendously in making decisions correctly, it stays in life.

Adam: Going back to your time as an entrepreneur, what are some of the things that you remember that are most impactful to what you do now in your role as a spiritual leader and mentor and guide to hundreds of thousands of people in helping them live more mindful lives?

Daaji: You know how our pharmacy business is in the United States, right? There is an over the counter area, the prescription area that is structural is even bigger. Then you will have surgical stuff. You may even have groceries and things inside your store and the key factor in running a pharmacy. As an entrepreneur I'm not talking about Walgreens or CVS or corporate or chain drug stores; I'm talking about independent mom and pop pharmacies, where you depend on many people who help you every day and every night actually. And when you are on a tour for example, you are working in one drugstore, you move to the next drugstore or you're out of state or you're traveling abroad for work. You, you leave your place with the confidence and with the trust that my people who are working with me will succeed. So always remember that what makes me successful was this process. A level of respect for each other, that has helped me a lot, that we can freely trust each individual. It's only when we don't trust individuals, we get into problems. And of course, sometimes or the other, the other person may misunderstand you during the business times and we do the wrong thing. But then this meditation teaches you how to understand the other person better. So though another person has made a mistake, you realize that he had made a mistake in your frank conversation, then it goes away and he wouldn't repeat it again. And that's what helps me- that I can trust people. If I can trust a world, in the material world. In the pharmacy world, I can trust them with cash operations and banking. I can certainly trust in a spiritual organization. People who have faith based on that I think we are able to make moves in all directions and we trust people, and that's why we are in more than 135 countries in the world. People are practicing without any hindrance without any hesitations, and more than that, in practice, they experience the thing they all expect from meditation.

Adam: Can you talk about at a very high level your advice and philosophy on how people can live a more mindful and in your word, heartful life?

Daaji: It's really easy. We all have some level of conscience. Follow your conscience. That's as simple as that. When the heart speaks louder, follow that. And I've seen that heart speaks louder. When we are about to do wrong things. I want you to notice that whenever a nurse is supposed to do something wrong or starts pumping faster our heart becomes heavier? Avoid that or the contrary when I have to decide something really good. I will not say anything hurtful. Give some level of confidence that yes you can do this. Let me make it very clear from this; what I mean people say follow your heart and heart always guides you correctly. How to understand this? Let us say our heart never missguides us. Our heart speaks volumes when we do wrong thing. Heart follows what is natural. Now what I mean by natural is this; go when I'm able to see things properly or when I'm able to heal properly. My heart doesn't give any signal. But the day I have some issues- my eyes are burning and I am not able to hear properly. The heart will tell me it's time to visit doctor. So, anytime there is a natural thing, the heart signals that you got to attend to this, when we are doing things in a natural way, heart will not speak anything, the heart will only give you confidence, go ahead and do this. So, this is one part of it. The second part of this whole heartfulness way, we should not ignore the spirituality of material and we should not get into the material world so much that our spiritual life suffers. I need to play with it. I need to juggle both wings of my existence. And that's very simple that you know, whenever we are doing something I find when I'm driving, or I'm cooking or taking meals, or I'm with my friend, I can remain with my heart attentive to my spiritual life. I can play a game while keeping this attention inward. And to cite an example of how meditation can help, I don't know if you used to watch Chicago Bulls playing in the 80s and 90s and Michael Jordan was playing. I used to root against the Chicago Bulls. I'm a Lakers fan. And I used to, as a kid, root against Michael Jordan. And he always used to win. So it wasn't a very happy era for me as a basketball fan. But I do remember very well, I didn't give credit to Phil Jackson, great coach, phenomenal importance to meditation. And before each game, whether it was this game or a trial game, or just a practice, or a final game, he would make the team meditate for a few minutes before the start of a game. And when he joined the Lakers, he did the same thing. He taught all the players how to meditate because he was the Zen meditator. And when we meditate, we are able to focus and harness or attention or energies on the goal. And you are so focused and you are so much in resonance, resonance with the other players, then teamwork also gets improved.

Adam: Along those lines- can you give advice? I'm gonna ask a little bit about how people can better incorporate meditation into their daily routines. So for starters for people who don't meditate at all, what is your advice on the easiest and most likely way to adopt some form of meditation into your daily routine?

Daaji: Well, one is to first determine I want to pursue this and I haven't decided to pick up any system of meditation. Meditation means focusing your mind on a simple object, you need to focus on one object. Relax with heartfulness- where we meditate on the heart thinking that Divine Principle is already there, in my heart. And that's all- you sit with this idea for what 10 minutes to 15 minutes and see what happens. The day you meditate, you make a journal and see the differences on a day you meditate. See how your day goes. Second day you skip it, see how your day goes. 30 days you meditate and see how your day goes. Likewise, you start appreciating what you see in science, when we experiment in pharmacy, developing new drugs, you are a scientist, you are your laboratory, you will run all kinds of experiments and new products are developed. With meditation you are the scientist, your heart is the laboratory, and the kind of experience you feel is the new product. Now the day when you meditate and have this new level of consciousness. See how it is. Do you like it? Do you miss it the day you don't meditate? How your day was spent the day you meditated, and how your day was spent when you did not meditate. This will tell you volumes about what meditation is all about; what it can do to us and the consciousness level. So I think people are very smart. And when you feel that, yes, I can really benefit every single day that I meditate. And I don't think we need to tell them any other things. They will meditate regularly then the same.

Adam: For people who do meditate, what advice do you have on how they can take their meditation practices to the next level?

Daaji: Hmm, no one has asked me this question before. Thank you. It's a very smart one. Now you're first out to understand, do I need to take it to the next level? Am I frustrated enough with my present level of meditation? I give you this website or this Hearts app, you meditate with this Heart App where they utilize the power of transmission. Okay, just as we were trying to compare day with meditation, day without meditation. Now I would like you to do an experiment, meditation the way you like it, and you meditate the heartfulness way, with transmission, and see how fast you can change and go very, very, very deep in your meditation. So again, an experiment I'm offering, which can change your consciousness, the very first session, you know this, a lot of experiments were done by Harvard University, about how consciousness changes in case of monks who have been meditating for a number of years. To their credit, they must have had almost 20,000 hours of meditation aggregate. And then when they put out probes to measure the system, the consciousness you have, you see certain waves and the gamma or delta. But with this heartfulness meditation even if you are a first time meditator when you meditate with this transmission. You're able to see the same waves, the very first session, and your experience also will, you will say, wow, this is something out of the world.

Adam: A big part of what you talk about and what you do and your work has literally touched millions of people, not an exaggeration, which is incredible, is how to make better and more effective decisions. And as a leader, as a CEO, as an entrepreneur, that's a little more important than good decision making. And I want to know if you could talk about how to make better decisions, the decision making process and your advice on that. I really give you free rein because this is an area that I think is incredibly valuable to all of our listeners.

Daaji: Thank you. What meditation does, it improves first of all your consciousness. Now consciousness is made up of four major things. The three major things. I'm sorry. One is ego, second is intellect. And third is mind. Now when we meditate the mind becomes very sharp. Your intellect improves to the extent of becoming intuitive, becomes wiser. An ego gets so refined, that your ego goes to the next level. Let me explaine to you this ego business first, when you see a player or when I give an example of Lakers, that you're a Lakers fan and I say, I was only saying, did you see the Chicago Bulls playing in 80s and 90s and it's easy how you came up, I'm a Laker fan. Okay, now we associate we identify ourselves with what we like, when we cherish that also forms a state of ego. If I say, I belong, I love this game because I love this player. So identify myself in the player. If I may, for example, a flute player, I mean the music and if you give a performance in an orchestra, and where the listeners of the audience are so ecstatic with your flute playing they give you a standing ovation at the end of it. Next day, you have a performance again, would you be happy with yesterday's performance? I doubt it. You would like to become better. You'd like to perform better than what we did yesterday. This is an improvement. But to think that you see, there is nobody better than me as a flute player or a basketball player in the whole of California or in the entire United States. But that ego becomes now arrogance, then it will constrict your consciousness and it will not help you in making decisions. What am I doing? Am I becoming proud or am I having pride in my work? Or am I becoming arrogant and amaze somebody who is subordinate and since I'm a boss, so they'll be using my authority and subdue the other person's better opinion. When we meditate, we are able to understand the other person so easily. We become so considerate and compassionate about everything, we try to understand the other persons and when we try to understand they are coming up with the best ideas. And as a result, organization improves, there will be more unity, there will be teamwork in an organization, see, and fortunately, if the other person is also meditating, I think that will create a heavenly atmosphere in a corporate world where everybody understands there is no competition. There's empathy. Likewise, at the intellectual level, I don't have to mentally dissect things so often when you become wiser and that happens to you know, inner introspection. You are playing out the thing within yourself, thinking when you meditate, if I do this, what happens if I don't do this? What happens? Then the other options will come if I do that. So there are many options settling and unsettling. And finally you're able to conclude with wisdom. So, from an ego perspective, from intellect perspective, it helps us now from mind, how does it help hte mind also influence consciousness? The main role of mind is to think thinking is at a mental level. But as we evolved in meditation, I experience more with the heart than thinking with the mind. Let me explain this a bit more. When I used to do my business in New York for two months, three months, I would ruminate over the problem. Answers, they didn’t come so easily. Until my wife asked what is wrong with you? The new cell restorick. Oh, this is what has been going on since the last two, three months. But she comes up with immediate answers. She's not thinking, she felt the problem and give the solution. Women have this strength of referring to the heart instantly. While we as men, we keep thinking logically. Thinking is inferior to feeling. So when you feel you are able to give instant answers, and that's what happens during meditation then you feel the problems.

Adam: How do you reduce stress in your life?

Daaji: I appreciate new scientific discoveries in medical science. You heard of vaccination. Of course, there are a lot of debates going on these days. But vaccination is a great thing to me. It prevents diseases as far as it doesn't have side effects. To remain stress free. I need to vaccinate my mind. Once the stress has peeked into your system and it becomes quite challenging to de-stress yourself. But this way of meditation instead of meditating we also have a special technique or we call it the rejuvination. If you use this technique of rejuvenation with our preceptors on the trainer, they will destress the system within 20 minutes. So one can try it also and feel totally distressed and feel that calm. So I really encourage the audience to listen and try out these rejuvenation methods of heartfulness.

Adam: You're a yoga Master, literally a yoga master. I mean, I've taken a lot of yoga classes. I've been practicing yoga for several years now. And I look around the room anytime I take a yoga class, and I'm blown away by how much better everyone in the room is me than me then I see people and I say, Wow, she's a yoga master. He's a yoga Master, but you're actually a yoga master. Can you tell our audience some things that they should know about yoga? I mean, obviously, in the U.S. Yoga is an extremely popular practice. It's a lot more popular in India. It's popular globally. But I mean, it's not every day that we have the opportunity to hear from someone with such deep insight on The topic I would really just love for you to give our audience some insider insight.

Daaji: Well, you want me to reveal the secret. But I'm gonna share with you today is, unfortunately, in the Western world, yoga is understood in a very limited way. They think it's as soon as you do the physical exercise. At the most some people will learn how to do this breathing exercise. And that's all and yoga is not just that. There's more to it than that. Yoga also includes meditation intensive. It’s close but there are so many of the steps are there and I would recommend people to start first with meditation and then incorporate physical exercises or reading exercises. Because once your mind is disciplined the next thing to discipline becomes very easy. Yoga is all about union meaning of yoga is very simple, meaning union union of the Indian way, whatever consciousness I have, allows it to soar higher into super consciousness and a law that also blends into the deepest level of my subconscious. So, when I move from whatever consciousness I have to go higher and lower, that means it becomes broader, my consciousness bandwidth will become broader and broader and broader. And this is how we evolved in yoga, but most people don't seem to pay attention to consciousness. They only remain limited to this physical exercise of asanas. So, I would encourage everyone to start first the meditation and then slowly take up yoga.

Adam: A big topic that you speak a lot about is improving motivation. First question on the topic is as a leader, what advice do you have on how to better motivate the people around you and the people under you?

Daaji: I do it by setting an example from my site. Even in the business world, in a when I had to do something instead of telling others I will do it first and people will follow it and how to do it correctly. So first motivation will be by becoming an example. In a family situation also individual children please don't go on playing with iPad or iPhone for so long. Or stop watching cartoons or stop watching TV. But what to do when you yourself are watcching TV in the bedroom and you are sleeping. Well good saying good night to your phone or your Twitter message and putting it under the pillow and you expect your teenage girl or daughter not to do it. It's not going to happen. We have to become an example. We have to set an example first, only that will motivate it, not the words.

Adam: So my follow up question to you is, how do you motivate yourself on the days you don't feel motivated?

Daaji: Okay, this is the generic question- the day I don't feel motivated. It's only for one thing or the other, is it? I don't feel motivated for what? Maybe I don't want to go to work perhaps. Or I don't feel motivated to cook my breakfast and have breakfast, but I feel motivated to go to sleep perhaps. So find what motivates you and go to sleep. Because to me, when when you don't feel like doing anything or go to sleep, sleep is the best thing that you can do. Sleep the superpower. It will enrich us like nothing else,

Adam: You probably have a special superpower which involves reading my mind because you literally transitioned into my final question, which is how can we sleep better?

Daaji: Again my friend merited well, but I see you know, it is a special problem for all ages. I think we are struggling with sleep. We're not made to sleep. After midnight, for example, human system cannot withstand all that. Our system is too fragile. It can withstand up to a certain age maybe 30, 35, 40 perhaps that you can stay awake all night. And the next day also you will be able to go to work, but after a certain age it catches up on us. I'm able to sleep within 5, 10 minutes. I can go to sleep very easily if I cross more than 10 minutes or 15 minutes, some days, I would think I just lie down and think that the cold air is blowing or my head or cold breeze is sending an entire body is becoming another cooler by another three to four degree temperature. So I mentally imagine that my whole system is cooling down and doing that I fall asleep very fast. Most important thing I would say is we have to sleep at a regular time. We need to establish a kind of a biological clock in our system so that we don't suffer much at the health level. You take the statistics of people working at night. That means they are not sleeping at night they are sleeping during their time though they are sleeping at hours as required during daytime, but not sleeping at night time itself compromises our health, especially look at nurses, doctors, health care workers, truck drivers are working all night sometimes their health, their age, be greatly affected by not sleeping properly at night. What happens to us when we are not sleeping properly at night, the next day, we become irritable, we become angry, unless this one tells us something that we have lost some level of focus. So we need to readjust our life and if we don't sleep properly, most toxins with gets biologically physiologically reboot or nervous system they don't get removed. So the toxin buildup will remain in the brain and that becomes a cause of Alzheimer and many other diseases. Moreover, when we don't sleep properly our immunity also suffers we remain prone to various infections. Blood Pressure also suffers heart rate suffers a student who has not slept all night and attends the classes. his attention remains compromised by 40% he will not be able to recollect 40%. So, I mean, we pay a big price when we don't sleep properly. And also after reading well after preparing the class, well, that night if you don't sleep, memory consolidation will not happen in your brain. You will forget most of the things that you learned if you didn't sleep. So to me, that's why I call sleep a superpower. It provides longevity. It gives us health, both mental and physical.

Adam: Dr. Patel, clearly a man of many superpowers, thank you for joining us. Thank you for Your wisdom for your expertise, very much appreciated. Thank you for having me. Thank you so much.

Daaji: I wish you well, and meditate if you can download the app.

Adam: Thanks a lot.