Бернд Колб — интервью «Атман» (Берлин, 2016), занятие 1

[Speaker 1]
So, ladies and gentlemen, dear friends, I want to welcome you. Welcome to another Atman talk, talks about soul. And usually, we're starting with a couple of minutes silence, but today we have the privilege and the honor that my very special guest Geshe Michael Roach will play the sitar for us.

Thank you so much. Yeah, it was about 10 years ago. I was on Bali for a holiday, meeting some US-American friends there, actually chasing a meditation teacher.

And to be quite honest, I was not so deeply interested in these things, and he always tried to seduce me to pay a little bit attention to all these spiritual gifts. And I always was a bit like defensive maybe. And then he said, okay, if nothing helps, I have one book for you, and I have it even with you, and I give it to you as a gift.

And somebody wrote this book with the name Geshe Michael Roach, and 10 years later, you're sitting here. Welcome again, Geshe Michael, in Berlin. So, we decided to make this talk more like a dialogue.

And I was very happy to also have made you curious about the whole thing. But for those few who might not know yet your extraordinary life story, for those few, I want to start with the question. When you decided to go to India, what did you look for, and what did you find?

So I was in the university, and I was very happy, and I was being very successful. It was Princeton University, and I had just gone to the White House to get an award from the president, and I was feeling very confident about my life. And then I got a telephone call that my mother was dying, and she brought us up.

And I was very shaken, and I was actually pretty strong in the church, and I was going to be a priest. And I was already accepted to the seminary, and I just couldn't find the answers that I was looking for. So one day I met an Indian friend, a young student, a classmate, and he said, what you need to know, you cannot learn in the university.

You have to go to India. So, I don't know, I had never gone anywhere, and I had never been outside of America, and I just immediately said, okay. And then he said not to worry, he would meet me in New Delhi, and he would show me where to go, and he said, you need to meet Buddhist people.

And then, so I got arrangement with the university, and I collected the ticket money, and I flew to New Delhi, and he wasn't there, and he never went to India, and he would trick me. And I didn't know anybody at all, and I was like 20 years old, and I just started wandering, and someone told me there were some Tibetan monks coming out of the Himalayas, because they were refugees, and so I tried to meet them, and then eventually I started studying with them, and then I entered a monastery, and became a monk, and I stayed for 25 years in the monasteries, and finished the course of study in the monastery, and then at the end of that, after the final examinations, my lama encouraged me to go to New York, and start a business, to see if I could use that knowledge in the real world, and I was against the idea, and I didn't want to go, but ...

and we played this game, you're not supposed to say no to the lama, so I ... I just didn't go, you know? And then finally one day, he gave a very beautiful teaching, and I was overcome with emotion, and I said, you know, I'll do anything you ask me to do.

He said, go to New York tomorrow. And so I went to New York, and we started a small business, three people, we started a small business, and he told me it had to be in diamond business, and then I used the principles they taught me, which are mostly compassion, and helping other people, sharing, and that became the largest diamond jewelry company in the world. It reached a quarter billion dollars a year, and in 2009 we sold it to Warren Buffett, and then I just started ...

people started asking me, how did you do that? And so I wrote a book, and then now my friends and I, we go around the world and just share that with people. So ...

and I found, as far as my mom, you know, she died a few years later, and ... but I brought her to India before she died, and she studied with the lamas, and she spent several months learning how to enter the bardo, and what to do in the bardo, and she met the Dalai Lama, and had some time with him, and they trained her how to go on, and that was very beautiful. So I sort of was able to find what I was looking for.

Like that. Wow. So ...

what was your ... maybe most comparing before and after, your most surprising discovery? No one ever asked me that.

And ... and there's a tradition in the monastery that we don't talk about our personal practice much, and we don't talk about what's happened to us, because, I don't know, it's just a tradition. But I was thinking about that question, and I would like to share something.

Wow. Well, just one thing, and when I was ... had been a few years in the monastery, it's a very demanding program, very tough program, and we meditate a lot, and we memorize a lot of books, and we do debating with each other, and all day, and into the night, we work really hard.

And one day, I was ... and we also serve our teacher, so that's part of the program, that we have to learn to serve. And I was making my teacher some tea, and they drink about 15 cups a day, or 20 cups a day, salt tea, butter tea, and I was ...

I was standing at the stove, and I was waiting for the water to boil, and then suddenly, because I had been working so hard, I realized that the pot on the stove was coming out of my own mind, you know, and I just saw it for like a half hour, and I was just stunned. So we say that you have karmas in your mind, according to how you've treated other people. So maybe you've, I don't know, shared a pot with someone before, and when you did it, you saw your own motions, and you heard your own words, and that makes an impression on your mind, and then that becomes a seed in the subconscious, and then maybe a month later, or six months later, you are standing at the stove, watching this pot, and then suddenly you realize that it's coming out of a karma in your mind, and you see the process. If you're working really hard, if you're meditating really hard, and studying really hard, and serving people, and then I just went into ... we had a temple, and there was nobody in it at that moment, and I sat down and meditated, and then I had some extraordinary experiences, and one that I remember, maybe is the most beautiful, is that today we saw the faces in the exhibit here, exhibition, and there's a kind of meditation where if you go very deep, and if something good happens, you transcend space.

So you start to see faces, like one, two, three, and then they start to speed up, and your mind is capable, if you really meditate, your mind can open to see all the faces of the people in this world in a few minutes. They're just going like this, and then you start to see faces of people in other worlds, that there must be other worlds, and you start to see them, just flashing like this, and you have this intense feeling of love for them, and that's just a little part of that experience, and it was a very beautiful experience. Oh, yeah.

First of all, thank you for sharing. It's a privilege that you shared that with us. And so, when you say so, like in a normal way, yeah, there is all of a sudden the object that you usually see, and you have the impression that the object is there, and you see it, and your mind observes, that you had this reverse of the process, that all of a sudden your mind was no longer the receiver, but you got a consciousness for that your mind is the sender.

Yeah, yeah. We are actually, in every talk, I want to come to that point. Thank you so much that we start with already.

Because to me, very interestingly, I mean, I just recently, not so long time ago, started to go into quantum physics, and I have the privilege that I know some of the greatest scientists of today that tried hard to explain me, and I have to say it was hard to get. But actually, it seems like that what we learn in quantum physics is exactly what you are describing, and it seems to me that it is exactly what was already described and written in ancient cultures that inspire us still of today. But now, this western scientific view crosses the old, let's say, eastern enlightments about that.

So, when we are talking about Atman, and you are certainly somebody with your background that not meet this word for the first time today, it is quite new to a certain extent to bring it to the west, because it is translated with soul. And in a way, I know where this translation comes from, but I think we have to go deeper into that translation, because to me, as we learned in our discussion before that we share this also, we see the concept of Atman on the one hand, then we see the concept of basically Christian-driven concept of soul here in the west, and we see the concept of Anatman that Buddha brought up. So, I want a bit go into that with you, even knowing that we will touch ground of the unspeakable, and so many cultures try to express these experiences in poetry and writings and even in music, whatever.

So, let's try our best to go into it. You mentioned before that you wish that we discuss the term soul of this western Christian-driven meaning and the term Atman. So, what does both terms mean to you?

In classical Buddhism, and we study very deeply, and we have a project for 30th anniversary this year to save the ancient scriptures. So, we have saved about 10,000 books. Which is so precious, thank you for that.

And if you look through those books, and if you study what people call Atman, meaning soul, is there. In Buddhism, we believe in it. So, when you say Atman in a western context, and you say soul, and you know, I grew up in the church, and I really enjoyed the church, and I still enjoy the church.

It's Christian church. Yeah, and I really enjoy it. And it was very important to me, and it's always been important to me, and Jesus has been important to me, but what I was taught when I was a child is that, and I don't know if that's what you mean by Atman, but it's that there's a soul.

And my mom would tell me, when you die, that's the part of you that lives. And then, if you're a good person, that part of you will go to heaven. And that was my childhood understanding of soul.

That kind of soul, Buddhists accept. We believe that the mind stream, stream of the mind, which is called Santana in Sanskrit, not the band, is immortal and never dies. So, it has no beginning, and it has no end.

So, in that sense, and it can be perfected. So, in that sense, it sort of matches what my mom taught me about soul. So, when we think of Atman as soul, that's a good idea, and that's very much part of Buddhism.

And then there's an, when you say Anakman, which means no Atman, it has a completely different meaning in Buddhism, and I think it's very much misunderstood. And I like to give the example of a woman who's out working all day, you know, and last week she had an incident with her children, and they were supposed to get ready for school early, and they didn't. And then she got angry, and she said something like, you are the stupidest kids in Berlin, or something.

And then we say, when she hears herself criticize her children, and she calls them stupid, when she says stupid, she hears her own words. And that creates an impression on her mind, and then that becomes a karmic seed in the unconscious. So, hearing her own words creates an impression, and that becomes a karmic seed in her own mind.

Next week, she comes home from shopping and working all day, and she opens the door to her home, and suddenly her husband attacks her, and calls her stupid, you know. And we believe that at that moment, the seed that she planted last week with the children is splitting open, and an image comes out like the pot on the stove, and it comes out of the mind, and then she sees her husband calling her stupid. And then she will react, and say, I didn't do anything.

I just came home, I just opened the door, and these guys called me stupid, you know. And I didn't do anything. I didn't say anything yet.

I just opened the door, and he called me stupid, you see. So, we say at that moment, it's a cool idea, there are two husbands in front of her. One husband, she thinks she didn't do anything to create him.

He's just out there, and he's yelling at her, and for no reason, he called her stupid. And then there's another husband in the same room, and he was coming out of the karmic seed that she planted when she called her own children stupid last week. So, that husband is coming from her.

So, we say there's two husbands. There's always two husbands in the room, you know. One doesn't come from you.

You didn't do anything. And the other one is coming from what you did last week. And the one you're upset at is always this one.

And this one never existed, and cannot exist, because nothing happens without a reason, and nothing happens without a cause. So, this husband, you didn't do anything, the you-didn't-do-anything husband is anatman. He doesn't exist as a—that atman means person.

He doesn't exist as a person. And then this other husband, which is in the same room, who's coming out of the karma that you planted last week with your kids, that one exists, and that's anatman. That's a living being, and that's a soul.

That's a spirit. That's an existing thing. But this one, who's not my fault, never existed, and that's anatman.

And the one you get angry at is this one. So, the irony of life, the tragedy of life, is every time you hated somebody, or every time you disliked somebody, or every time someone hurt you, that one never existed. And that's anatman.

And it liberates you when you take responsibility and say, he's calling me stupid, but now I understand where he's coming from. You know, he's coming out of my— then you're free to be a nice person, and you don't call him stupid, because then you'd have to hear stupid again. And that's samsara.

That's a cycle. He calls you stupid. You say, no, you're stupid.

You plant another seed. And then next week, you come home and he does it again. And so, the idea of the husband who doesn't exist, anatman, is how you free yourself.

So, we're talking about consciousness, subconsciousness. I think after you had a long way of spiritual practice, especially meditation, it seems to me like you say, you have to work hard on that. You have to train that.

But it is a capacity in every one of us. So, what would you consider in this world where we are facing tremendous challenges, tremendous challenges out of this material illusion and this material focus and this big misunderstanding between the soul, the atman, and the ego-myself, that the ego-myself creates the illusion that all there is is material. And if we believe in everything is material, material always has an end.

So, it is an inner logic to say, yeah, if I'm just material and I will die, there will be no heaven and there will be no hell. It's just over. And if I'm thinking like this, it has an inner logic to me to say, yeah, but when it's like that, then I need everything here and now.

And I optimize my here and now as good as I can, knowing or believing that life has an end. So, I personally think this tragedy has caused, especially in the last century until now, an orientation coming originally from the West, now hitting deeply also the East, if you see the idea of New India or China where it is a virus spread all over. American virus.

It's really an American virus.

[Speaker 2]
It is. It's good that you said that. I'm sorry.

It's good that you said that. It's true.

[Speaker 1]
It's a McDonald's virus. I would say the Europe created it, you manifested it. Because if you go philosophically back to this moment in time where I think we took the wrong turn, it was when Descartes was coming with this cogito ergo sum.

So, I think, so I am. So, this existential idea of thinking is all there is and that's me, set the ground for McDonald's and all the manifestations. So, this was a collaboration, I would say.

But my question to you is, if from a spiritual point of view, I was through my last four years traveling through Asia and digging into these old Eastern philosophies and also practices, I was always trying to discuss this phenomenon with all these masters. And I said to them, okay, I mean, you see that we are wrong as a global society. Let's do something against that.

Let's help us to awake or whatever. And there was quite a lot of them who denied that, who said, no, this is the way nature is. And if we are on that track, it is also for a reason.

So, we do not want to intervene. What is your perspective on that? Should we let it go?

Should we let it happen what happens? Or is it also our responsibility as a human at least to do our very best also to inspire others to reflect that and have a higher consciousness? The way the Buddha did it, people don't know too much about it, but historically in the scriptures, he said we should start from teaching people how to be successful materially.

We should start from that point because most people can only relate to that. So, it is not a modern problem. It has always been that way that people can relate to money and things.

So, Buddha said when you start teaching someone, you start at the bottom and you teach them how to be successful in a material way. For many years, I did not understand why my Lama sent me to New York and why he forced me to do this business. I was very much against it and I was angry.

But you have to do it the Lama says. I only did it because he said to do it. I did not understand it and I was actually angry.

I said in my mind, I am like why are you making me do this thing? It took years for me to get out of it and now you are asking me to do it again. He said and Buddha said that to teach, to convince people that goodness is correct, you have to start with material things.

So, you teach them to give material things as a way of getting material things. Actually, the success of our business was based on the success of our charity helping the Tibetans save their literature. So, we say that when you share what you have, like if I want money, there are four classical steps in the scriptures.

The first one is I have to decide what I want. Then at the lowest level, just to teach people that it works, the principle, you say you can make money. And they say yeah, teach me.

And you say okay, number one, these are the four ways to plant the karma. They are called shi, sampa, jowa and tartu in the scriptures. So, shi means decide what you want.

And then the lowest level is money. And then second step is find another person who wants it. Identify a person you know who wants money or material things.

And then the third step is to give up one hour a week of your own time to provide it to them and to make sure they get it. And then those three steps plant the karma in your mind. And that seed in your mind doubles every 24 hours.

So if I help you make $100, then within three days, if that seed opens, I will see $800 come to me. And we doubled our sales every 18 months for 19 years. And it works.

Those three plant the karma. And then there's a secret that people don't know about. The fourth step.

The first three plant the karma. If I share with you, or I give to you, I plant the karma. And then the problem is that karmic seed can stay, because it's a potential, it's neither mental nor physical.

It can reside, it can live in your mind for 100 years and not open. If it always opened within one day, the whole world would know. And the whole world would be sharing everything they have automatically.

Or if you kill the animal and suddenly a big cut opened up in your face, you wouldn't ask me about vegetarianism. If you cut the animal's throat and suddenly you have a big gash on your own throat within the next hour, everyone would be moral. You see?

But karma takes time to ripen. So there's a fourth step, which is, it's a meditation that you do before you go to bed. And we're encouraged to not do meditation posture.

We're encouraged to go like that on our bed. And just think about how we help this other person. And when you think about how nice it was that you did a good karma for someone else, it feeds the karma and it will grow fast.

It will open faster. It will open within a month or a few weeks. And then suddenly you have...

Our company, imagine trying to hire double the people every 18 months. You're already at 5,000 people. Then every 18 months you have to double the staff and train them.

And we did it. For years I wondered why my Lama made me do a business. I don't understand.

And then finally I realized the Buddha said, show people material results and they will believe the system. And then they'll grow up. Then they start asking for higher things.

They start asking for compassion. They start asking for peace. They start sharing with the whole world.

So in this tradition of ancient Buddhism, we start with material things just to demonstrate the principles. And then we grow out of them. So yeah, I think we're at a stage...

I travel a lot to China. They're just having material success and it's so important to them. And I have friends who have...

Our friend has a Maserati and what's that kind of Volkswagen van? That's like... You mean the Maybach?

He's got all these toys, you know. Because they didn't have them. And he's experimenting with things, you know.

And then you have to grow out of it. Like a child, you have to grow out of it, you know. And then Buddha...

But Buddha said, teach people to get things first. And then raise them up to a higher point where they don't need the things, you see. Just to prove that the system works.

Do it with physical things. And then bring them higher. And the goal is immortality.

But you start with Maseratis and... You know? You know, like that.

So... It's like that. It's just to demonstrate that it works.

[Speaker 2]
Okay.

[Speaker 1]
Okay. So... I completely get this idea.

And it's intriguing to me because, of course, inspiration, if it should create a resonance, has to deal with the people where they are and where they stand. And in which situation of life they are. And we will not get new ones tomorrow.

So we have to deal with the ones we are, we have. So... But what would you say if somebody would say to you, yeah, amazing, that based on these principles you can have economical success, but there is other people not using these principles also have economical success.

And obviously, as far as I know, those corporates that I know from inside, you better should go there one day. Because I don't know, I'm not sure if they ever have heard of it so far. We can change that.

We will change that. Okay. But so far, they have tremendous success.

They have good balance sheets. And actually it is based on the opposite. It is based on competition.

It is based on separation. It is based on greed. And to me in a very, yeah, tragical way, they are quite successful with that.

And actually even in universities we are training, the McKinsey world is training, yeah, how to deal with competition and how to be better than the other and faster and blah, blah, blah. So what would you say, why is that, that obviously as a result being successful, there can be two completely even contradictive philosophies to go there? Yeah, it's a good question.

I'm writing a book with a Chinese businessman. We just met in, where were we? Munich.

Frankfurt. We met for three days and worked on it, on this trip. And the subtitle is The Death of Global Competition.

And it relates, I think, to a question I got in Ukraine. Okay. And somebody asked me, this system sounds noble and it sounds logical and I wish it was true, that those who share more will get more, like Jesus said.

It sounds good, the mechanism that you describe with the impressions, it actually makes sense, but there's this problem. And he said, here in the Ukraine, there's one highway in Ukraine, it's the largest country by land mass in Europe, right? There's one highway, it goes from the airport to the town, Kiev.

And I asked, because I went out to do a program in the countryside and we had to drive across cow pastures to get there. And I'm like, what's going on, where's the highways? They said, people steal the money.

The government steals the money, you know? And I'm like, wow. And they said, that's our problem with your system, because people who want a highway contract will bribe someone in the government.

They'll give them a kickback and then they will get a contract and then they get wealthy. So, your system, I wish it was true, because then the world would be just, the universe would have a justice to it. And I wish it was like that, because it would be so easier to deal with life.

But you have people who give a bribe and then they make a lot of money. They're actually stealing not from one person, they're stealing from everyone in the country. You know?

If stealing is a bad seed, then those guys are making, I don't know, there's 50 million people in Ukraine, they're making 50 million bad seeds. You know? They should be broke.

You know? They should be destitute. You know?

You say, well, what about this problem? And my Lama used to say, okay, here's here's giving a bribe in 2014 and here's making a profit in 2015 and here's cheating someone in the year before, 2013. Sorry.

Being generous to someone. Okay. Okay?

And here's having your company, your highway construction company fail. Bankruptcy. So here's a bankruptcy.

Here's a huge profit from the bribe. Here's the bribe. And here's some generosity prior to the bribe.

Then it looks like, to us, there's a, this is the Buddhist answer, there's a false correlation between the bribe and the profit. So it looks like the bribe in 2014 created the profit in 2015. It looks like cause and effect.

And when he taught me this, my Lama kept going like this. He was trying to explain this to me, and he kept doing this, you know. And then finally I said, Mama, you know, can you just stop doing that?

You know, I'm trying to listen, but you're doing this on the chair. He said, I'm sorry I have to do this. You know, I said, why?

He says, every day at eight o'clock I have to do this. You know, and I'm like, what are you talking about? You know, he says, why are you doing that?

He said, this makes the sun come up tomorrow morning. He said, I have to do it, you know. Then I said, I said, Lama, it doesn't make the sun come up.

The sun will come up anyway. He said, no. Every time I do it, the sun comes up.

You know, and I said, but there's no connection. You know, it's before, and that happens, it's before, and that happens afterwards, but there's no causal connection. That's the Buddhist answer.

He's... giving the bribe is banging on the chair. The sun coming up is making money.

Yes. And there's no causal connection. They are prior and subsequent.

They are earlier and later, but there's no real connection between them. He got money because he was generous the year before he gave the bribe, and if he pays a bribe, two years later his company will fail. That's the real causation going on here.

So, there's a false... It looks like this one is connected to this one, but really this one is connected to this one, this one is connected to this one, and it's very beautiful. So, it appears to a limited consciousness, a limited awareness that a bribe is causing a profit, but it will all...

The first law of karma is that you cannot get a good result from a negative action. It's the first law of karma. And you cannot get a bad result from a good action.

Like you can't... And Jesus said, you don't get thorns from... Figs from Thessaloniki.

Figs from Thessaloniki. Jesus was trying to say the same thing. You don't plant a banana and get a cactus.

Yeah. I mean, let's say it in modern terms, and it's true. It's true.

So, in my... You know, I lived a long life, and I watched these big... I gave a talk two weeks ago to all the major diamond producers in the world.

These guys... Rio Tinto made 84... Sorry, 35 billion dollars last year.

The chairman was there, you know? And, you know, it looks like this is the cause of this, but it's not, you know? And I've seen them destroy the earth, sell diamonds for blood, and I've seen what happens to them, and they fail.

Sooner or later, they fail. It's a cause for failure, but you have to live long enough to see it. Sure, sure, sure.

And I have, you know? And it's true of countries also. Those which are violent, like the United States, they will have violent problems, like this week.

And those which are helping people, like the Syrian refugees, like Germany, they will have, as a nation, they will have a beautiful future. And that's cause and effect. That's real cause and effect.

There's an apparent cause and effect, which is anatman. Yes. You see what I mean?

Yes. It doesn't exist. That connection we call...

That's what Buddhists call anatman. It appears that the husband... It appears that he's yelling at you for no reason.

And it appears that the bride is causing the prophet. But this is maya. This is illusion.

And it's anatman. It doesn't really exist. And it's a cool...

It's a cool thing. So, observing this, even getting this, as you say, you should not judge in the first moment if you see something happening. It needs a deeper reflection.

Maybe it needs also time. And maybe it needs also somehow, let's call it first round, a certain sensitivity. Because what appears to me is that in a time where most of the human are so mind-driven, the mind is always trying to categorize and archive whatever happens very quickly.

I had, on Saturday, I had the most famous German neuroscientist on stage. And we discussed it. And he said, you know, neuroscience found out that our brain is very lazy.

And actually thinking costs our body system energy and heavily thinking costs a lot of energy actually. And so the brain in its trickiness and smartness tried to avoid that. And so they found out, for example, that more than 50% of all our action comes through habit.

It is not reflected. If a situation seems similar, we're doing the same thing. Our brain does not have to get overactive.

So the more routine we build, the more difficult it is to rearrange settings or give another perspective or angle on a situation. So would you consider that the many kinds of but basic idea of meditation should be something everyone should, in a way, practice? Should we teach that to our children?

Should this be something we teach the children in school? Yeah. But I'll throw in something else.

Karma, when a seed opens in your mind, you yelled at your kids last week, and when the seed opens in your mind this week, it opens in four different ways. So the first one is you get what you did. And that's the one we're familiar with.

You know, like, if I call my kids stupid, then my husband will call me stupid next week. That's the one we're familiar with. The second way in which a karmic seed opens is habit.

You will be highly likely to repeat the action because, you know, if you yell at your kids and you plant a karmic seed and it doubles every 24 hours, you're more likely to yell at them again. The third way a karmic seed opens is that it ripples out past your kids, past your husband, and creates the people you see in your world. You see?

So if you've been an angry person, you will tend to meet angry people more and more. You see what I mean? So, my lama, he was very tough.

We lived together for 25 years in the same house. Very tough. Sometimes he hit me.

And he's very demanding, and never said a nice thing to me, I mean, maybe once. And he would say to me, do you think people in the world are getting worse, you know, like less aware and more greedy? Things like that.

And I'd say, yeah, I mean, it's much worse than before. And he'd say, that's coming from you. That would be his third, he'd say third rule of how karma opens.

He'd say, things are getting worse, like with violence in the world now. 50 people died, that's the highest ever. The idea that a kid should go out and shoot 50 people is a very unique American thing.

And according to the laws of karma, I have to take responsibility. I created this kid. My seed opened, and I created this kid.

Then I'm not shooting people. I don't do that. So why should I see a person shoot people for no reason?

And then my Lama would say, they double every day. The seeds double every day, you know. Did you push somebody on the subway?

Did you say something to someone in traffic? And then if you double that energy for a month, it's a million times more. Somebody will shoot 50 people.

You created this. Then I'm like, whoa, you know. You know, and then he says, don't get freaked out, you know.

He's like, they say, nyonpa ma che, don't get freaked out. He'd say, don't think of that side of it. Think, I can stop it.

If I stop it here, I can prevent all those things, because if I stop yelling in traffic, and if I stop pushing people on the subway, then the shooting will stop. Because that's also coming from me. And it's a very, he said you should feel happy to know that you're creating it, because now you can change it by yourself.

You know, and you should be excited. Yes. I also get this point, and I think if there is like universal laws of cause and effect, actually, by the way, also like more or less observed by quantum physics, it is no longer to me a question of a belief system.

It is somehow a truth. Maybe for many people hard to accept. Maybe for many people hard to get.

Because what it would need. So, I guess you're telling this to thousands of people every year.

[Speaker 2]
I guess.

[Speaker 1]
We see 20,000 people every year. So. And we spoke at the physics department in Princeton.

So. And it was very interesting. I guess so.

Yeah, yeah. I guess so. I guess so.

For both sides, I would hope. Yeah, yeah. So, you're giving, you're spreading the message actually to many, many people.

And what you're, what I take out of that is everything would happen if you follow consequently through is a matter of what kind of decisions you are taking. So, the starting point for any change or any reflection and understanding is that I have to consciously take with my proper will a decision. And that is the good news from the Lama.

Yeah. Saying to you, hey, don't be sad about the past because you have not been conscious of. Yeah.

But now you are. Yeah. You can take a decision and from this moment on.

You can change it. You can change it. So, this is by the way also.

So, hopefully that nobody get me wrong. This thing with the habits is a disaster and a chance in the same time. Yeah.

It's the same thing. Yeah. Because the good, so the first of all the bad news is, okay, more than 50% of our action happen unconsciously.

Yeah. In the first round, this sounds like a bad news. Mm-hmm.

The good news in that is if we are able as a, let's say human system to structure habits, the good news is that 50% of our action will also be taken subconsciously without any effort for us to take as long this what you call seed and I think it's a brilliant picture of that as long as you are the gardener planting that seed and in the best way consciously. So, I think here in this audience and I would guess in many audiences you meet, there is intelligent people, I would suppose. Very intelligent tonight.

Question is if we are lowering the average or… It's another question. So, obviously there is smart people getting this message and I think they are logically able to understand it because it's rather simple.

But to get consequently into this decision and you hear Geshe Michael telling so poetically and simple about it that everyone can say, ah, if it's that simple, I can do immediately. Yeah. They have somehow to trust you that your theory is right.

They have to make their own experiences but how can you make an experience if you doubt already the system and you don't consciously go into it. So, again I repeat my question from before. I think if someone is at a level consciously to get this and say from now on I think about what I'm doing because it has a chain reaction to my life and to the world I'm creating.

This initial point where this switch goes from A to B, this is the point I'm targeting also with my work. So, what could we do? How can we inspire?

What is the most convincing argument to the people if they, for example, would argue with you and say, Geshe, you know yesterday what happened? I was very, very good to somebody. I trusted him.

I borrowed him money. I did everything he asked me for. By the way, it felt good afterwards.

But now he disappeared. He was a liar, a cheater. He was not there in Delhi waiting at the airport.

It's so disappointing. Actually, this cannot be true. I'm stupid to do that.

I won't repeat that again. I'm not the stupid one in the world. So, what would you give him, give us as, let's say, a courage to trust into that?

I think there's three or four answers. One is, what do you call it? Testimonials.

You know, you collect enough people who used it who can stand up and say, you know, I tried these four steps to plant a seed and I got this result. I'm looking at Maria. She's married to Peter, who's over there.

He came to me, I don't know, three or four years ago and he works with me for a long time. He said, you're very nice, but I need a wife. And I said, well, don't ask me stupid questions.

Just plant one. You know, plant the seed in your mind. Use the four steps, you know.

Like, I want a wife. Look for someone who's lonely. Help them for one hour a week.

Before you go to bed, think about what a nice thing you're doing. And then a wife will come out of your seeds. And he did it.

And she's there. And she's a supermodel, a Russian supermodel. Wow.

You know. And they asked me, they're vice president of our company. They're like, they're with me, he's with me 13 years.

And he said, Geshe-la, you know, we're always traveling and you do a lot of things for free and we're not making enough money to buy a house. We want to buy a house. And we don't want, we want to pay cash.

We don't want to pay a mortgage. We're tired of paying rent, you know. He's, what do we do?

And I'm like, just use the... Yeah. Use the, use the four steps.

You know, I want to buy a house, pay cash. You know, then find someone else who needs shelter. Help, one hour a week, help them get their shelter.

And then when you go home at night, put water on the karma by being happy about what you did in a non-pride way. You know. And they got their house like, when, last year?

Year and a half. They got the, they paid cash. You know.

So, that's one way. You can have testimonials. Yes.

You know. A second way, you can encourage people to try a small experiment. You know, like that's what we do in a business seminar or something.

We'll say, just go home and try a small thing. Like, I want a promotion within the next six months. Or, one famous example, I want my husband to wash the dishes.

You know. Pick a, don't listen, okay? Did it, don't listen.

You know. Do a small experiment to confirm these steps. And that's why my Lama sent me to New York.

The third answer to the question my Lama gave me was that if you don't find a system that works, you will continue to suffer. And life will continue to hurt you. And sooner or later you'll be desperate and you will try.

So, you have those three choices. You know. Accept a testimonial.

Do a small experiment to confirm it for yourself. Or just don't do anything. And life will inspire you to try later.

Because life gets worse and worse. That was his answer. I'm like, oh, thanks.

You know. But it's true. He said, the reason you're not doing a small experiment with something that makes, that seems to make sense is that you're not hurting enough yet.

And life will hurt you. So, you can wait if you want. And, you know, learn the four steps.

Write them down. Keep it in your pocket. And then when life hurts you enough, use it.

So, that would be his answer. You know, there is a very famous German, yeah, we call him a genius, 250 years ago, called Goethe. And I think he was, in his way, also pretty much into these topics.

And he was writing about it in his way. And there is a passage, a famous passage, a famous quote, that would maybe translate into English like, mind for the spirits you're calling. You might get them.

Be careful who you call. So, if I follow this basic principle you're describing, and so, I guess, everyone here in the room has something to wish for, to hope for. And now you come around the corner and say, easy, pop, pop, pop, pop, pop, seat, opening, duck.

It's true. That is, I think, a very, very positive message you're giving. Again, relating back to the talk on Saturday I had with the neuroscientists, and I know many of you also attended, and I just repeat for those who didn't.

Gerald Hüther is a very long and very close friend of mine. And his work is about potential, and unfolding potential. And he is writing books like, Why Are We Not What We Could Be?

So, he says, there is a capacity in every one of us that makes it possible to unfold our highest potential, and then we can more or less achieve everything. And I think, in a certain way, this matches pretty much at least as regarding the phenomenon. And when we were discussing, Gerald and me, I said to him, you know, if I'm thinking back in history of people that really unfolded, but really to a full extent their potential, there is not only really cool heroes come to my mind.

Say again? There is not only heroes come to my mind.

[Speaker 2]
Oh, okay, okay.

[Speaker 1]
Especially in the German history, I think we had last century a guy who absolutely unfolded his potential to a maximum. And at least in the beginning, he was really, really successful with that. That's why I say, how can we, as a human, win a feeling for this what we wish for?

Because this maya, this illusion, this kind of irritation, confusion in our life might also lead us to things that we wish for, but as we cannot think through the real consequence as the cause and the effect later, this principle of karma is working in actually any direction. So this seed you are talking about, yes, can contain a positive spirit or something, but if the law is true and it has to be universally, so what about planting a bad seed and doing the same principle? Does it work?

Yeah. If you ignore lonely people, you will never find a partner. And if you refuse to share what you have with others, you will lose what you have.

And yeah, same with negative seeds. Same principles work with negative seeds. So if this is the case, then it needs next to the strong wish for something also maybe something that we could call an ethic.

Yeah, there's a famous example of the guy who wanted to be the best weapons dealer in town, you know, and he asked the lama, you know, how do I increase my business? And so yeah, there's a caveat, there's an exception in the rules which says it cannot be something which harms other people. What you wish to achieve, like I want to be the biggest drug dealer in Berlin or something, the thing which you wish to achieve cannot be something which hurts other people.

Yeah, and then that's a negative karma. So, just out of curiosity, because your example with the testimonials impressed me, especially the first one. Oh, he also planted her.

Your friend, wherever he is, wished for having a nice relationship and out came the supermodel. She's also a PhD in engineering, I mean, you know. So, now, can we quickly go, abstractly, sorry, you are here, can we quickly go through to her perspective on the thing?

So, is she only a creation of him? Yeah, it's a good question. She planted him.

Okay. Then, it's very interesting, in that new book with the Chinese businessman, I came up with this idea a couple of days ago, because I got the question from somebody, what will happen if she plants the seeds to make you wash the dishes, but what if you plant the seeds never to wash the dishes? Then, there's a Titanic and the iceberg will collide, you know, like, will her seeds win or will your seeds win?

And the answer is very intriguing. And I like to say, John, you'll appreciate it, when the seeds get on the bus, the universe has to move over. It means your seeds are more powerful than what's currently possible.

You see what I mean? So, what's currently possible will have to change to fit the seeds you planted yesterday. You see what I mean?

It's very cool, you know? So, if she plants seeds to meet her husband, and she's living near Moscow, and he plants seeds to have a nice wife, and he's living in Austria, the universe will bring them together. The seeds will force them together.

Circumstances will bring them into the same room. Because the seeds are more powerful than... The seeds are running the whole world already.

So, it's a very cool idea. She has to have planted him, and he must have planted her. And the seeds were so powerful that Moscow and Vienna had to cooperate.

Oh, yeah. That's quite a strong achievement, I would say. No, and it's true.

It's true. The universe has to accommodate your actions. The consequences of your actions cannot be stopped.

So, the universe has to move. If you plant a seed, the universe has to move over on the bus to fit your seeds. It's very nice, I think.

And she did plant him. Congratulations to you. Let me come back to this idea of soul.

Can I ask you about it? Yes, please. I'm curious.

[Speaker 2]
Yes, please.

[Speaker 1]
I didn't know about the Atman Project. And I started to hear about it. And I was curious.

And if you don't mind, why you chose the word Atman? And does it mean soul to you? Why did you choose it?

And what does it mean to you? Actually, I was falling over this term in Indonesia about two years ago. Where in a discussion of some spiritual things, I heard this word Atman, which is originally coming from Sanskrit.

And in the Indonesian language, the Sanskrit is somehow like the Latin is for German. So, you have a strong influence from some terms that Veda brought also to Indonesia. And we talked about this phenomenon of these pictures, why they are attracting people so much and cause so emotional feedback.

And somebody mentioned Atman. And it actually resonated to me, sounded to me. So, I asked, wait, wait, wait.

What was that Atman? What does it mean?

[Speaker 2]
Please translate to me.

[Speaker 1]
And then actually, Vivit translated me. She says, yeah, it's something like soul. And I was writing down and it didn't leave me.

And this word felt so familiar to me, surprisingly familiar to me. And then when I was really more or less pushed to do this book and this work, it was not my idea. I was really like pushed to do that.

From many people and situations, I went to research more about the term Atman. And I thought I heard this word before. And then after a while, finally, I felt again into it where this familiar feeling came from.

It came from the book of Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha. And Siddhartha was when I was a teenager, with 14 years old, I got this book. And this was one of my most influential literature at the time.

Not really getting it, but feeling it. And then after 30, 40 years, no more touching this book. I forgot that when you, nowadays, digital, you can look through the whole text of Siddhartha and the term Atman is 16 times mentioned in this book.

And even the German translation, it's Atman, it's not translated into soul. And all of a sudden, to me, some circle closed. That there was a strong inspiration in my youth, in a very important time of my development, where I got inspiration from.

Then forgetting it intellectually, but it was still memorized somehow inside. And then, interestingly, with this work, it came back to me. And for the first time, it made sense to me.

And I read Siddhartha again. And it was really enlightening that I read this book 10 times in my youth. I couldn't stop reading it.

But now, with 51 years old, I finally got the message of this book. And so, for me, the term Atman actually is quite different to the term soul in the Western understanding. And I also have one question that I put in these talks regularly.

Because when you talk to Western people, then, first of all, you have two kinds. You have the one who believe in soul, that there is. And you have the one who are saying, this is romantic.

I have friends also like this, and I also love them. So, it's not a criteria for me. But in the West, when you start talking about soul, the way we're talking about it is always, yes, we have a soul.

Yes, we have a soul. And in the East, my friends in the East, they would never mention like this. They always say, we have a body.

We are a soul. And I think this is the big difference between Atman and soul in his dedication of the term. And, again, if you go deeper philosophically in this observation, it is, to me, no surprise that in the West, we have it.

Because the West is about having. And then, when we come to that point, I always ask my counterpart, so, who is the one who has the soul? Who is that?

So, who is this you, or who is this me that has a soul? So, obviously, this opens up this discussion of this ego, me, and the understanding of a myself through my thinking. And this unthinkable, unspeakable, but actually feelable something, the Mysterium, that in the Western philosophy and religions, the mystics also mentioned.

So, the mystics always, also the Sufis from Islam, they mentioned this term soul in a different way than religiously is treated. So, and for me, this feeling about our true existence, the true self, because literally, word by word, if you translate Atman, it's the true self. So, it is about self and it's about truth.

And here again, we have two very unsharp terms. Is there a real ultimate truth, or is there just a reality? Or do you have a truth and I have a truth?

This is an endless philosophical debate. But, to me, why this work is called Atman, is that if you encounter another through a photograph, and all of a sudden, this material presentation starts getting alive somehow, because you start feeling something about an object. But what you feel, and people describe a lot what they get from these objects, and sometimes even people say, yeah, this grandmother spoke to me and gave me even a message.

Then I would suppose it's not the grandmother that spoke to this person. And it has nothing to do with the material physical object, but it is an inner dialogue. And I liked very much in the beginning when you described, after your meditation, that you visualize faces.

And maybe you think I know what you mean, because these kind of visualizations I had too, and they are very three-dimensional, they are very lively, and it is really sometimes you might even feel you can grab them. They are still there. And so, I think, coming back to your question, the term Atman as a concept seemed to me for this phenomenon much more relevant than the term soul in this Western context and interpretation.

I had the pleasure to go through the exhibit before this talk, and I was wondering, you know, you are leading us through the thing without speaking, and then I was supposed to be watching the faces, but sometimes I am watching you. And I was curious, how have those faces affected you? And does it change each time you see it?

Actually, again, thank you so much for what you also shared with us before, because now you give me the chance to relate this a little bit, what you said before. So, what you said is, actually, for most of the people on a level of a certain consciousness, we are thinking that there is outside of us an object, and this object is separate from us. And we just see that, and we judge that, and it has a form, a color, a taste, whatever.

And what you described with your teapot experience, which I think is a fundamental experience, is that all of a sudden you had this feeling that you reversed this direction, that all of a sudden there was not a teapot coming through your eyes and your brain, and you say, a teapot, ah, wonderful. No, you had this feeling that still the mind is in between as a form giver, but the way this object is created comes more from this inner mysterium and takes form, goes through your mind, but changes direction. I think that is exactly the same phenomenon that you described with, yeah, I saw these pictures, maybe sometimes they saw me.

Because what I think is happening there, if you can open up, if you go through an exhibition and you are curious about pictures, it is all about the object, so you are curious what you will see. And if I tell you, yeah, this is portraits from Asia, and this is your expectation, and you are maybe a hobby photographer or something, there is people coming out of this exhibition asking me, what camera do you use? I was going to ask you that.

So, then actually what you see is, or the process of your reception is, there is an object, there is me, and I see the object, comes through frequencies of colors and lights, and takes form, and comes to an interpretation, oh, an old Balinese grandmother or whatever. That is also the reason why I give no description about these people, because I don't think, I should not help the brain even to go deeper in these categories. But actually what I want to achieve with this is, that if somebody can be so tolerant against his own mind, and that is sometimes not easy to do, and open up and say, okay, if this guy is telling me I should stay here for three minutes, not twinkle with the eye, just breathe and receive whatever happens, and I do, then something can happen.

And in a way, all, when the people describe, yeah, and then the faces start changing, and they get three-dimensional, and the man turns into a woman, and there is magic happening. So, this is, I would say, a little glimpse of what you are describing with your teapot experience. It gives us a little taste what our mind is really doing, and it should help to deliberate us from being slaves of the mind.

And if somebody can have a reflection on that, coming out of this exhibition, and goes home and saying, hmm, I don't know what exactly happened there, but there happened something, and it was more inside me, it has not only to do with this outside object I'm looking at, then I think this is my aim, that I want to give an inspiration through this work, that people have a starting point, getting curious about it, and then maybe now, from now on, I send them to you, and you help them further. I have another question.

People often ask me, and it's asked in two and a half thousand years of Buddhist history, you know, we all create, we all collect different seeds in our life. So, through the process of living, we do things with other people, and we hear ourselves, and we see ourselves, and we hear ourselves think, and all of those things create seeds in our minds. And so, we feel like we are separate, and we are individuals.

And then people will ask me, in the scriptures, classically, is there a place where all these individual Atmans become one? Do they all eventually flow into one big ocean, and we all become like one person, or one Atman? So, first there are individual Atmans, who are acting ignorantly, and then in the process of their life, they become more enlightened, and then finally, they flow into a single ocean, and there's almost no difference between the people that's one Atman.

How do you feel about that question? Actually, I have, as you, as a master of creating simplicity, and explaining something complex, I also try from time to time. And I'm telling, I want to share the idea of the Veda about it.

Because the original idea of the Atman is not separatable from the Brahman. And so, but this is, as a philosophical, or whatever kind of wisdom concept, it's quite complex, so I try to make it simple. And I give the example, or the picture, the imagination to say, okay, imagine for a moment, that all there is, all there is, you might call it universe, whatever, all there is, is an ocean.

All there is, is an infinite ocean, without any border, and it is actually water. But, somehow there is activity in this ocean, there is magnetism, there is gravity, there is some forces into this ocean, that make the waves coming up. And then, all of a sudden, there is a drop of water, for a moment, separating from the ocean.

Then I would say, this is the Atman, in my understanding. Because it creates form. The form is somehow separated, for a second, from the ocean.

It came out of the ocean, where it ever was, water. And it will fall back to the ocean. So, it will not disappear.

That's why this illusion of time and ending dissolves, in a way. Because, I believe that I exist. I believe that I exist, somehow, like a symphony of frequencies.

In a way, a composition. And I think, this is my eternal core. But, I exist with this composition, into the ocean.

And from time to time, if I'm lucky or unlucky, I get a drop, for a moment in time, separated from the ocean, but still water. And when I go back to this ocean, I will be part of the ocean again. And you will never get the same drop, back again, out of the ocean.

That is also a bit the difference, from the soul concept, to the Atman concept and the Brahman concept. Because, the soul concept, more or less, gives us the hope, that maybe, we as a person, survive death. So, the loving couples, that are so in love and so romantic, they say, our love will last over our death.

And so, we have to make a signal or some code, that our soul, when we meet in heaven again, that we realize ourselves, something. This is stuck into the believing or thinking, that we are a person. I believe that we exist.

I believe in the so-called individuality of the Atman, that is in the same way, collective, and not separable, and never separated. Only this moment in time, where the form gets a drop, and seems to be separate from the ocean, but still is water, came from the ocean, will go back from the ocean, is ocean. That gives us this illusion of separateness.

And in this moment of time, where we are the drop, that is what we call life, in my understanding, in my imagination. And as we are still water, and as we are still the whole ocean, we can, of course, overcome this trap of mind, that our mind, in our self-reflection, see the drop in the mirror, and say, hey, you are a drop, you are separated, you are individual, and optimize you as a drop. Maybe you are the nicest, beautiful drop in the world, and you can win a beauty contest or whatever.

And let's go for that. Or, you develop something, which is a capacity of every drop, that your consciousness, actually, you just have to reawake. It's not that enlightenment, to me, is nothing to achieve, in terms of, when I train hard, I will get enlightenment.

The most enlightened human beings are babies, they are still in this enlightened space. So, actually, what comes after our childhood, or these first 18 months of our existence as humans, is that, especially also from our social context, our mind takes control, and our mind tells you, you are Michael, and you are this and that, and whatever, and you follow this illusion more and more, and you start more and more believing what your mind is delivering you. So, that does not mean that you lose your potential, that does not mean that you use your subconsciousness, that only means that you cover it more and more through the mind, and the mind always reflects you as shiny illusions, and some of them you might like, some of them you might not like.

And I hope that we can inspire people, not only to reflect about that when they not like what they see, I hope that we can encourage people to tell them that it's pretty cool, pretty cool also to reflect on that, when even in your outside reflections you like what you see. And so, this is my understanding of time, of eternity, of separateness, or of unity, if you want. Last question.

There's a human drive to direct other people's thinking, you see what I mean? So, when you take people through the exhibition, is it your hope that the process of the exhibition itself will take them to a better place? Or do you feel like you have to talk after the exhibition to get them there?

Like, in our business, training business, both of us have training companies, we have this major problem with what we call follow-up, you know? Someone comes to a weekend, they get all inspired, and then we let them go. We might not see them again ever, or we might not see them for a year or six months.

And then, I don't know about John, but I always feel guilty that I haven't given them some kind of guidance for the time that I'm not going to see them. And, man, that's probably my bill collector. Yep.

Just kidding. Just kidding. So...

So, I was wondering, do you feel compelled or somehow responsible to guide people's experience, or is it your intention that the pictures themselves will do the job, and you don't have to give them a lecture after the exhibition to make sure they go the right way with it? Actually, I think if we would consider this experience as somehow, and it's very, very thin ice to mention this in Germany, to somehow be a spiritual experience, and I would guess that most of the people that come out would not consider it like that, because they are afraid that the neighbor would say they are crazy. So, if some people, if people want to go, in a way, on a spiritual journey, and it comes out of a desire or of a desperation or of whatever motive it is, I experienced in my journey in the last four years so deeply incredible things that I would not have believed if somebody would have told me before.

And it is not only this kind of funny firework you see in the sky. It unfolds your inner, whatever it's your inner, and there is light and there is darkness. And I like this term of Sanskrit, of the old Indian way to accompany people, which is guru.

Because guru means darkness, ru means light. So, the one who accompanies you on this journey from darkness to light. So, I believe that, yes, we should accompany people.

I believe that in the first round, without a deep inspiration, without an experience that breaks up this kind of prison the mind is in, you cannot offer more. So, this is kind of a first step. And what I'm trying here to do, and that is also why I'm so privileged that you followed my invitation, is that I say, okay, people, if you start getting curious, if you have questions, I will invite people who have dealt with that for a long time and have experienced what you might experience in your future if you're curious.

But I always recommend for most of the people, I think it's not a good idea to go on a solo trip and not being accompanied by experienced people. That can be very dangerous also. And so, yes, there is inherent responsibility for people like us.

When we are trying to inspire people and we really achieve the goal and break up this wall, then we have to be there when there is questions. And I'm about writing a book where I will share my journey, that does not mean somebody has to copy, because cannot. I started from a certain starting point, and everyone has a different starting point.

But I can only say I was very privileged to have had grateful and very compassionate masters that I met, that took me by the hand, that explained me in many ways. And I was so privileged to have that. And so what I try to do is make an offer.

I don't want to push people. I think we just can be an inspiration, and then if somebody is more interested, they have to come back and tell us this. When I say us, then you are also part of this, because I think the people now know you in this context.

They know that you have answers for them. So I try to collect a few people that I personally know and I love, and I'm convinced that there are no fake people, real people. And I can only encourage you.

I personally have to share with you that my feeling about you is that you are a very true person. And so I can strongly recommend by my heart, if somebody will ask me, is there people that can inspire me further or whatever, I will in the future definitely mention your name. And this gives me the chance to deeply say thank you.

Thank you, Michael. Thank you for coming. Thank you for sharing so much with us.

Thank you for inviting me. As a tradition, we let now our friendly audience take the opportunity to put us the one or the other question, if there is. Please.

[Speaker 2]
I have a question about what you mentioned.

[Speaker 1]
Okay, hello. You mentioned the four ways how the karma seeds opens, and I can't remember the fourth one. Yes, I did.

You're really good. No one asked me that. I asked you about the fourth, the fourth way.

So, not to confuse the two fourths, there's four steps to plant a seed successfully. Just to quickly say, decide what you want. Select someone in your life who wants something similar.

Help them for one hour a week. And then, those three plant a seed, and that seed may not open for a long time. By the way, they may not open for hundreds of years.

And nothing can destroy them. So, if they don't find the correct watering, they will just sit in your mind indefinitely, and they will outlive your body. So, your body, it's very common that people do a lot of actions in their life.

The actions they do create seeds. Those seeds double every 24 hours in the subconscious. So, by the time their body falls apart, there's a big debit card.

I mean, there's a big bunch of seeds in your mind, and there's a very beautiful idea in Buddhism that if those seeds never open, if you die, and this is the question of the brain supporting consciousness, if because you die, the seeds you created also die, then there's no justice in the universe. You see? That means you can do something to somebody, and if you're lucky, you die before it comes back.

And then, somehow, Newton's third law is broken. There should be an equal and opposite reaction. You see what I mean?

So, the Buddha said, Newton's third law, that anything you do has to come back to you, is more powerful than your body. It will survive your body. So, the fourth way a karma opens is that, if necessary, it will open after the death of your body.

And that's a cool idea. And, you know, because if you can do something to somebody and not get a reaction because you died first, the universe would not have justice. And that justice is more important than you.

And it's very interesting. So, a seed cannot be destroyed, and in time, it must open, whether you're alive or not. If it has to open after you die, you will live again.

And that's the fourth way karma opens. It's a very cool idea. If it doesn't open, and you can just die to get out of it, then the rule that there should be a justice to the world is broken.

So, if you have any seeds left over before you die, which everybody does, they must open. And you must... That's why we say your consciousness, or in one sense, Atman, your mind stream, Santana, is infinite.

And even after you become perfected, you will live forever. And it's just a question of time, how long it takes you to get perfected, but either way, you will live forever. Your Atman will continue forever.

So, nice question.

[Speaker 2]
Thank you.

[Speaker 1]
I'm very proud that you caught it. Okay, more questions.

[Speaker 2]
As much as I deeply appreciate the combination between this material wealth aspect and the creation of consciousness, and hearing all the giggling about the Maseratis everywhere in the world, I still have a question as our mundane world we're living on is finite. What would be your direction if somebody is still in this greedy mode and approaches you? You know, because there is not enough material resources for Maseratis for every one of us.

[Speaker 1]
Yeah, good question. I call it... It's a chapter in the new book.

It says, the world is not a pizza. And what pizza means to me, because it's on my mind today. He promised to take me out for pizza at Twelve Apostles later.

And Jonathan. Johan. So, we have this mindset that we feel like the world, the resources in the world, are limited, and that there's eight pieces, slices of pizza to a pizza, and all economic systems up to now have been based on how you divide the pizza.

The assumption is that there's only so many resources in the world. And then, you know, American system would say, would be, you know, fight over the slices. You know, you pull, I pull, and we fight over the slices.

And maybe Pepsi-Cola gets more slices than Coca-Cola. You know, that's the American capitalism. And then there's socialism.

You know, let's split. You get four, I get four. You know, or there's different ideas.

All economic systems boil down to there's a limited pizza. It has so many slices. And, you know, how do we divide it among us?

Do we compete for those pieces? Or, you know, in this system, it's a very, very interesting thing. If I give another person a slice, my slice of pizza, you know, if I decide to give it to you, if I do the four steps, I want more pizza.

So I have to find a person who likes pizza. This is a different system. And then I have to give them the pizza, number three.

And then when I go home, I have to have two things I enjoy. One is, you know, Brent's face was so happy when he got the pizza. You know, and I'm supposed to play that movie in my mind again and again.

And I'm supposed to fall asleep with that because your mind opens like a flower when you're asleep. That's a fourth consciousness, isn't it? Then I'm also supposed to be happy that I'm using a new system to create pizza for myself.

Because in this system, if the seed I created by giving Brent one of my slices, if this system is correct, and if the seed opens two days from now, I get half a pizza from somebody else. You see? And four more slices are created in the world now.

But what you have to appreciate about this system is those four new slices were not taken from anyone. They didn't come from anyone's pizza. They're coming out of my mind.

There's an extra half a pizza in the world that wasn't there two days ago. You see? So instead of resources being limited, in this theory of economics, by sharing, the pizza becomes bigger.

And it's a revolutionary idea. Resources will be found where resources weren't there before. And I always tell people this story.

In 2000 years, my Lama said, okay, I had all these students and I was really enjoying being, you know, semi-famous in New York. And he said, it's time for you to do a three-year silent retreat. And I'm like, but I'm semi-famous, you know?

I can't... I can't... I can't stop now.

And he said, I'm the Lama, do a three-year retreat. And I did. I went into a single room and I spent three years in the room, you know?

And when you go in and people hand you food under the door, you don't see anybody for three years, three months, three days. This is the tradition. So, you know, you can't keep anything.

So I gave away all my business suits and I gave away my computer, you know? And then, I stayed there for three years. I just meditated.

And then when I got out, I asked... I think Elizabeth is here, no? Or she went to Holland.

My secretary is here. She's been my secretary for 25 years. And when she...

when I came out, I said, I need a laptop, you know? Can you get... I need...

You need to get me a laptop. And she got me a laptop. And...

And I opened it up and I said, you know, this is weird. This thing is weird. And she said, what's wrong with it?

And I said, you know, you don't have... we don't have any more money? Did we lose all our money?

She said, no, no, we have lots of money. I'm like, well, why'd you get me a... a laptop without a disk drive?

You know? Where's the disk... floppy disk drive?

And she says, well, they don't have floppy disk drives anymore. And I'm like, well, how am I going to send any emails to people? You have to copy it to the floppy disk and take it to the post office and mail it to Russia.

How am I going to communicate with people? You know, you're just gypping me. You give me this cheap computer.

She says, no, no, you just use the internet. And I'm like, what's the internet? She says, you...

you type a message and you push a button and it goes up to a satellite and it goes to Maria in Moscow and that's it. You know? And I said, oh, sorry.

I said, forget that. I can't afford that. You know?

The long distance charges on that, you know, keep sending messages up satellites, you know, you're going to make us bankrupt. You know? Give me a floppy disk drive.

It's only like a couple bucks. You know, you don't get these long distance charges. She says, Kishla, this internet thing, it's...

it's free. You know? It's free.

You can go to McDonald's, I'm sorry, and... and send a message and it's... it's free.

You know? And I said, well, I don't like this. I don't want to do that because probably it has to go through a lot of switching stations.

It's going to take like three weeks to get there. You know? And she's like, no, you don't understand.

It's free and it's instantaneous. It goes to the place the next day without a floppy disk drive. You know?

And I'm like, wow. Now, in my world, and I know this sounds weird to you, but it's true. In my world, keeping silence meaningfully for three years created the internet for me.

You see? You see?

[Speaker 2]
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Speaker 1]
You see? And... I don't know where your internet's coming from, but that's how I planted my internet.

But why I mention it is that there occur... there occur events in... in the history of the world when suddenly there are unexpected energy resources.

And... an example in the United States... this is going to get really weird.

I'll give one more example. So, you know, I was asked to consult with some people who were involved with the decision whether to sell China, an oil company, or not. And it went to the Congress.

You know? And the Congress was debating. I forget the name of the company, but it was...

you know, they were debating whether they should approve the sale of a... of a oil company to China. And I had an opportunity to speak to some people involved with it.

And I taught them the four steps. You know? I said, I want more energy resources in my country.

Number one. Number two, I must identify a person who needs energy resources. Number...

like China. Number three, I must give it to them. And when I perceive myself giving it to them, that plants a karmic seed in my mind.

If I go home and be happy about it, when that seed opens, new unexpected sources of energy should suddenly show up in my country, in my country, much more than I gave to China. Because it doubles every 24 hours. And you know, you can call it a coincidence or not.

They sold their oil company, and they started fracking, which I'm against, but I think the United States is now the largest producer of oil in the world. It didn't exist prior to the sale. You know what I'm saying?

Like, you can say it's weird, or maybe it's not true, but what I'm saying is that you can call it a new Tesla battery. In this system, the universe has to move over when your seeds show up. You see what I mean?

So, if I am in some way responsible for sharing energy with another country, then the universe has to put new energy supplies in my country somehow. It may be a Tesla battery, it may be a better solar cell, it may be fracking, which I don't support, but, or wind, or somebody will discover something new. And it's, those discoveries, like the internet, are not accidental.

They must have a cause. They don't just happen. Nothing just happens.

So, we say there's a moral cause, an ethical cause, for every event. And that's what physicists have to come to. You know, it's really cool.

Anyway. Yeah, so, there will be enough clean energy for everyone if we keep sharing what we have. That, now, that's a good question.

Okay? Will that energy create pollution? And this is a deep thing.

This is a really deep thing. Okay? The definition in Tibet of what is moral and what is immoral is extremely interesting.

If you take an action and it creates a desirable result for you, that's moral. And if you take an action and it creates an undesirable result for you, that's the definition of wrong or immoral. So, if I share energy in a kind and compassionate way, you know, with true concern for the Chinese people's welfare, then the energy I get back, which will be ten times more, will be clean.

Super clean. No undesirable effects. You see, it's very interesting.

It's very interesting. What about what? Oh.

Yeah, that means I created a good karma by selling the oil company, and I... You want to know, really? Somehow I hurt the people in the process.

I hurt someone in the process so that energy is not clean. The energy is dangerous. You see what I mean?

So, you can have a... We call it Karnat Vendring. Ashokala Krishna Yoginis Yor Trivida Maitreya Sham.

Where is Earl? What is that? Yeah, what chapter?

Yoga Sutra. Fourth chapter. Sometimes you get mixed good karma and bad karma.

So, like, if I share some... I have an apple, and you're hungry, and I cut the apple in half, but I throw it at you. I will get energy supplies, but they will be dirty.

Somehow they will hurt me. You see what I mean? It will be mixed.

Mixed results. So, when you use those steps, it has to be with a feeling of love. Otherwise, you get a contaminated result.

Like fracking. Yeah. That gets into another set of four, which we don't really have much time to talk about.

But, you can remove old bad seeds. There's a system for removing an old bad seed. So, in this theory, the fracking is like the husband who calls you stupid.

Okay? So, there's two frackings. There's an Atman fracking, and there's an Anatman fracking.

There's a fracking which is not your fault. It's the big oil companies who hate people. And there's the fracking which is your fault, and that's because you hurt somebody in the past.

Okay? So, so that fracking, which is Anatman, it's the fault of the oil companies. I didn't do anything.

It's like the husband who yelled at you, and you believe you didn't do anything. You just opened the door and he called you stupid. Then in this system, you must have called someone stupid last week.

And that's why, then that's the second husband, is the one that you deserve. He's the husband you planted. He's the husband that's the result of something you did yourself.

So, if we want to stop fracking, you know, I went to jail during Vietnam. I was, I was put in prison, so I know about it. You know, you can go, you know, protest, and you can get arrested, and you can go to jail, a prison.

But, but you also have to understand that what you see is coming from you. Ultimately, you created fracking, and ultimately you have to clean it up by being more responsible with how you use your car. You see what I mean?

You, you have to save the environment on an individual level in this system, and then fracking will be banned as it is in England. You see what I mean? So, Geshe Michael, I think there is many good reasons to meet again.

Thank you. To deepen all the quite interesting discussion, we could only scratch the surface, but I think we did. I think I took away a lot.

And, as we said, this can and should be a beginning. Those people who are more curious about what we are saying, especially what you are saying, there are books, there are seminars you are giving, and I really hope that we also will keep in touch to see where our interconnections interfere, and where we can support. And I promise you, if I ever cut an apple in two pieces, I will never throw it away.

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