Hey everyone, it's Dr.Z.
So recently I was reading
this book by an Indian guru
named Nisargadatta, it's
kind of a famous book.
In the 70s this guy is an
uneducated guy in India
and got woke,
basically got enlightened and
basically sits in his room
in Bombay and takes guests
and answers questions.
And there's a book called
"I Am That" about this.
And it was an interesting story
because this American comes
to him it's a kid and says,
"Man, the world is a mess man,
Vietnam and racism.
And how are we gonna fix the world, man,
it's so terrible."
And Nisargadatta kind of
looks at him and goes,
"The world is just a
reflection of yourself.
Why blame the reflection?
set yourself right
mentally and emotionally,
forget about the reforms and
pay attention to the reformer."
And when I read that it brought everything
that's been happening
lately into sharp relief.
So many people are out
there on social media
and elsewhere expressing outrage.
And it's justifiable
outrage over whatever it is,
whether it's COVID or racial injustice.
But when you actually
look at what's happening,
they are projecting blame onto something
without turning inwards.
There was a study,
a psychological study
where they showed Americans
sweatshop factories say in China,
and then measured their level of guilt
because these factories
are producing clothes
that they're buying.
And their guilt levels were really high
it made them feel bad
personally, like a bad person.
They then gave them an out and said,
"You know what, Nike or whatever company
is making this stuff.
And you can tweet about it
or you can do something about it."
And when they did, when they blamed Nike,
"Nike why are you so horrible?
You should be ashamed of yourself."
They then measured those
people's guilt levels (whistles)
dropped right off they felt better,
by blaming the third party.
What they never had a chance
to do was to look inward
and go what is it about
me, that I can change
because the world comes from me?
Why blame the reflection
when I need to look at the source?
And that's hard, that's painful.
That's why we have projection
and denial and moral outrage.
Because it makes us feel better
because we know deep down
there's something with
us that we need to fix
but that work is hard.
And reading Nisargadatta made
me look inwards at myself
and go, you know what?
I project a lot of blame
at other people too.
I should maybe try to look
inward, maybe meditate more.
Maybe if you're religious pray more,
maybe just look inside
because if we fix ourselves
and actually realize what it is we are,
which is the source of the
world, the world fixes itself.
And that's what I wanted
to talk about today.
Let's really think about
what we do out in the world
and social media and
outrage and call-out culture
and all these things.
Maybe what we ought to do is
turn that lens back inwards
and it hurts.
It's gonna hurt for a
while, but when you're done,
oh it's such a liberation and
watch the world get better.
All right, that's all I got to
say, please share this video.
If you're woke, if you're not woke,
please share this video also.
And we up.
