AYUDH Reflect- a mindfulness initiative

AYUDH Reflect is a monthly meeting of young minds with Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya. Each meeting will consist of the following:

• Meditation

• Discussion around a relevant topic for young people in the world

• Breakout rooms to get to know other AYUDH members better and share about what we’ve been going through in the past month

• A bhajan sung by Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya

• Games and fun activities with the group

The next AYUDH Reflect session will be held on April 16th, at 9 PM ET.

We look forward to seeing you there!

AYUDH Reflect Discussions - 2023

March 23, 2024

Discussion:

March was a special AYUDH Reflect session. AYUDH Americas was joined by Swami Amritaswarupananda Puri for a discussion on the importance of the Bhagavad Gita in our lives.

Read more about the discussion in our blog article - Blog on Swamiji’s Gita message

FEBRUARY 20, 2024

Discussion:

In February’s AYUDH Reflect session, Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya kicked off with the question, “How can we maintain healthy relationships with friends, family while controlling attachment and managing expectations?”

After opening up initially to the audience, they had the following answers including listening, honesty, understanding that both people are not perfect, lowering expectations, the fact that conflict is a part of all relationships - see it as an opportunity for growth, asking ourselves “what would Amma do?”, and finally, rather than what I want — what does the situation need?

RamanandJi then began his response.

All entities in a relationship are, in some way or another, attached, even planets in a solar system by gravity. Attachments are an inevitable part of our life and world - our friends, our families, workplace colleagues, the food-web, relations between countries. You CANNOT deny the fact that attachments and relationships exist. According to The Science Journal, relationships play a very important role in our overall well-being. Having good relationships lowers the risk of physical diseases and ailments.

Ramanandji had a classmate who was a girl, and a friend, in 2nd grade. The girl gave this idea: we should all study together, divide and conquer, and we all do the exam together. They did the exam together, and the girl told the teacher the boys were cheating. The teacher gave a big scolding to Ramanandji. RamanandJi joked that this may have put him on the path of Brahmacharya.

In the Roman Empire, during the 3rd century, is when the concept of Valentine's Day came about. When Roman soldiers were banned from marriage. St. Valentine would secretly help soldiers get married. RamanandJi then posed the question, “If its Valentine's day, how should one ensure it's the best possible day for your partner?” The foolproof approach is to give our partner the best possible gift, and expect the lowest possible gift from our partner.

Relationships are an equation between expectations and acceptance. Keep these two balanced, as expectations too high leads to dissatisfaction, while acceptance too high leads to being steamrolled - having them balanced leads to the perfect scenario.

Be realistic about your expectations and keep those in mind when you go about relationships.

1. Be practical: There is nothing called an ideal relationship: No relationship is going to be smooth, no matter who it’s with. Nothing is utopian in nature, and everything will have it’s highs and lows. We just need to be prepared for it.

When RamanandJi looks at his parents, they really shouldn’t have been together - no similar likes and dislikes, so many differences of opinion, but they made it work for 50 years. The bond they both had was so special. His father always thought how he can do things best to make things better for his mother - especially during her time of need with Parkinson's.

2. Communicate: How to handle a situation when things don’t go right? Communication is so important. We need to be open and honest. If we want to have long term meaningful relationships, it’s not just about me communicating to the other person, we need to be good listeners. Sometimes we just need to keep quiet sometimes too - talking is not always the best solution.

3. Respect: Accept the other person’s shortcomings - we can help them change and get better, but we need to accept who they are and respect them for the way they are. As Amma says, expect a frog to behave like a frog, expect an elephant to remain an elephant. We also need to respect their perspectives, not just shortcomings.

4. Support: Any relationship will be healthy and strong only when there’s a support system. When we support the other person, they will support us. In any design, when one supports the other, it is by nature that the other supports this as well.

When it comes to a situation, ensuring you first go through these three steps - forgiveness, reconciliation, warning - then we can react appropriately.

January 16, 2024

Discussion:

In January’s AYUDH Reflect session, Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya discussed New Year’s Resolutions.

He mentioned the main reason that we don’t seem to stick to our new year’s resolutions over time as the mind tends to drift towards inertia.

Resolutions don't stick because of two things.

1) We’re unclear about WHY we’re taking the resolution.

2) We’re unclear about HOW we’re taking the resolution.

In order to stick to our resolutions, we need to have absolutely clear answers to these two questions. We can write them down on our phone, so that we’re reminded of them repeatedly.

The following points can help us stick to our resolutions as well.

1) Be positive

• We all have the potential to achieve whatever we want, we don't recognize it, or we refuse to recognize it.

• Edison failed hundreds of times, he only achieved success because he had firm conviction that he can do it.

• It's not just a slogan, we need to actually believe that we can achieve our resolutions.

• We need to develop a proper understanding and awareness of our abilities, and be self confident.

2) Be realistic

• We need to ask ourselves: “What can I realistically do? What are my abilities?”

• Just as we need to be aware of our abilities, we must be equally aware of our shortcomings.

3) Be specific

• Be very clear of what the goal is

• RamanandJi shared a story when he once told Amma he wants to fast for 41 days. Amma told him, “It’s better you eat healthy and help others, rather than not eat, fall sick, and make others take care of you. Why exactly do you want to fast?”

• When asked that question, RamanandJi didn’t have an answer - demonstrating the power of a specific goal when it comes to resolutions.

4) Be ready

• Be ready for factors under your control, environmental factors, and factors entirely out of your control.

• RamanandJi shared another incident where he once thought he was being thoughtful by complimenting someone on her food, but it turned out it was actually cooked by someone who she was at odds with.

• Similarly, we can take actions that we judge to be the best in the moment, but there can be factors outside of our control that we need to be ready for and accept.

5) Be joyful

• At the end of the day, we should go through this journey with a smile on our face.

• As Amma says, whether we laugh or cry, the days will go by - so it’s better we find a way to laugh and be happy as we go through life.

December 20, 2023

Discussion:

In December’s AYUDH Reflect session, Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya discussed strategies for AYUDH mindfulness.

Some initial points that he mentioned were as follows:

• Eat without watching any YouTube. One can enjoy the food much more if one isn’t distracted by other things.

• It’s easier to stick the mindfulness practice if one is already engaged in action. It’s easier to go to spiritual practice from a state of action, rather than a state of laziness.

Challenges in Mindfulness

• YouTube is a distraction which takes us away from mindfulness.

• When stressed about a presentation, or ruminating about the past (not being in the present moment) makes us unmindful.

• Not being physically active, makes the mind distracted. Doing physical workouts can energize and focus you.

• Being stuck in your room, makes you stuck in your head.

• One stress/distraction buster is watching something funny on YouTube. Watching YouTube is not detrimental, as long as we’re learning something new. Follow up with the learning. Learning things is a form of mindfulness.

Tips to be Mindful

• Have a morning routine!!! There’s more receptivity to being mindful, if starting something mindful in the morning.

• Gratitude journaling – realize that life is bigger than just me; there’s so much beauty in the little things.

• Look through the window and see something random, draw it, and label what you draw. It calms your mind down and grounds you in the present moment.

• Offer whatever you’re doing to Amma – attitude of surrender.

• At night, focus on the things that did go well. Seek more gratitude in the simple things.

• Mental visual exercise, think about a calm safe place, like a childhood ice cream shop.

• Be strong!!

Ideas for AYUDH Mindfulness

• Do something small to give your mind a win.

• Take a shower for five minutes, once a week or so.

• 1% Change. Try to improve something about yourself by 1%.

• Try engaging in regular sports activity with friends (like ping pong).

• Meet up with someone in person rather than text.

AYUDH Discover

• Learn something new about your immediate environment. Maybe have people snap a picture of it. Nature pic of the day?

• Creating art.

• 1 new chore a day.

• 5-minute meditations.

Other Ideas

• AYUDH Lift for physical strength.

• AYUDH Thankfulness. Daily Gratitude.

• Make your own meditation.

November 28, 2023

Discussion:

In November’s AYUDH Reflect session, Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya answered multiple questions from AYUDH members.

The first question was about social media, and it’s use when it comes to combating stress effectively. Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya answered as follows:

Sometimes when you watch a short video that makes you laugh – it can remind you how to be joyful in stressful moments. It can help in this case.

Our mind is a set of thoughts. Our mind is a piece of cloth, which is nothing but strands of threads weaved together. So when we start to take out each thought, the mind ceases to exist – the highest spiritual state. The mind wants to exist, so it always looks for more thoughts to generate – and social media is the perfect venue for this. So why do we get stuck to social media? There are a couple of reasons. 

We get stuck to social media because of validation. It brings similar thinkers and people with similar hobbies together.

The algorithms of social media do a good job of understanding how you think, and start to feed you think that you like the most. This helps the mind get more satisfied.  

It’s all about moderation – we shouldn’t be on this all the time.

The second question dealt with how and when to stand up for yourself in different situations?

First off, we need to understand the other person’s side. This will make things so much easier to interact with them effectively.

Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya told a story to illustrate this point.

A Mahatma come across a scorpion that’s drowning, and furiously trying to keep its head above the water. The Mahatma goes into the water and tries to save the scorpion, but once the scorpion is on the Mahatma’s hand - it immediately stings him and he drops it in pain. However, this doesn’t deter the Mahatma as he goes again to save the scorpion, and get stung again. This is repeated a couple of times before he manages to get the scorpion to the land safely. His disciple asks him, “Why would you try to save this scorpion after it kept stinging you? I would have let it die for hurting you to this extent!” The Mahatma responds, “What else would you expect from a scorpion? That is its nature, it’s the only thing that it knows. We can’t get angry at the scorpion and expect it to not behave like one.”

Similarly, if we can have this attitude when someone talks ill of us, we can have the thought – “Well, this is all they are capable of.” We need to show pity to them, instead of feeling belittled ourselves. In fact, if it helps us, we can even view them as inferior to us in order to allow the feeling of compassion and mercy to flow through us in these situations. We can utilize this attitude to help us deal with people who are abrasive and may otherwise rub us the wrong way.

There were further questions asked by AYUDH members throughout the session regarding how to deal with emotions and sharing various experiences.

October 24, 2023

Discussion:

In October’s AYUDH Reflect session, the topic was, “Good stress vs. Bad stress”

Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya started off by saying, “We do need some level of stress in this world.”

He went on to explain an analogy via a smartwatch. For a smartwatch to work effectively, it needs to be pressed against the wrist with some base level of stress in order for all of the sensors such as heart rate, blood pressure, and more to work. However, if you wear it too tightly, it can cause your hand to go numb, and effect the nervous system seriously.

This is analogous to good stress and bad stress. An easy way to way to demarcate the two is as follows:

Good Stress: This is about what needs to be done.

Bad Stress: This is about what the outcome would be.

In the famous Bhagavad Gita verse, Chapter 2, Verse 47, Lord Krishna says that while we have full control over what we do, we have no control over the outcome. There’s no point in believing that our actions are going to control what the results are going to be - however, we shouldn’t be demotivated to the point of inaction. We need to work towards the best outcome, tempered with the understanding that things may not turn out the way we desire.

When we do feel stressed in the future, these are some steps we can take to remedy it:

1. Identify the exact cause of the stress.

   • 90% of the time, we’re not stressing about what’s the root cause of the problem - we focus on more peripheral things

2. Time management is extremely important.

   •  Most of the time we don’t stress because of what needs to be done, but more because of when it needs to be done

3. Be realistic about things.

   • We want things to turn out in a particular way, understand that it can’t always be like that - “It won’t always be my way”

4. Utilize social support.

   • Family members, friends - they may or not be capable of helping us, but just sharing things with them will help alleviate a lot of pressure 

Physical methods to use to alleviate stress can also be used, such as the following:

1. Chant your mantra.

   • When trying to get out of the loop of unnecessary thoughts, the best way to get out of it is to put in some thoughts that disconnects that “vicious cycle” of thoughts

   • The mantra provides this disconnect that can help us

2. Take deep breaths.

   • Associate it with Ma/Om, it really calms us down - the simplest of meditation techniques can affect us in a positive way significantly

   • Calms the nervous system down with deep breaths (ma/om), reduces the stress in us by activating the hormones of endorphins, serotonin, etc. that help calm us down physically

September 19, 2023

Discussion:

In September’s AYUDH Reflect session, the topic was, “How can we stay environmentally aware on a day-to-day basis?”

Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya mentioned that the most important thing to keep in mind is that “We are a part of Mother Nature”. We are such a small part of it, so insignificant in the grand scheme of things.

In Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya’s life, growing up in the metropolitan atmosphere of Bombay, and moving to Ettimadai, a town that nestles the forest, afterwards - he had to deal with being directly in contact with Nature for the first time. It opened his eyes to how we truly do just share this Earth with all other creatures. As our societies “advance” we shouldn’t move away from this understanding, but instead move to be more in tune with Mother Nature.

While we pride ourselves on our intelligence, the intuition of Nature and its species are always correct - for example, in the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004, all of the animals on the coastal areas moved away far beforehand, sensing the impeding danger. Even in everyday life, dogs are used by the police force to sniff out substances that can’t be detected accurately with all of our technological advances.

We can make sure to go about our day with the following steps in order to stay more in tune with Nature:

1. Immerse ourselves in nature once a week.

   • For at least 30 mins, one day in a week, we should put our phones away and have a direct connection with Nature

   • We can divide the 30 minutes into 4 sections, and just focus on each sense for each section, i.e. touch, smell, sight, hearing

2. Have one selfless “hour” a week.

   • We tend to be very self-centered around our relationship with Nature

   • For one hour in the week, let’s be as selfless as possible, to plants, animals and other humans

3. Take care of a plant.

   • Taking care of a plant will help us to not only be more in tune with Nature, but also to learn what it means to take care of another life

   • Be practical about the type of plant you care for, given the region you’re in - and make sure that someone is watering it in case you’re away for extended periods of time

July 20, 2023

Discussion:

In July’s AYUDH Reflect session, the topic was, “How can one operate in an environment with cliques?”

Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya mentioned that the main thing to keep in mind when it comes to cliques is to realize that they will always exist. Accept that groups are a part of the world, and it’s only natural that birds of a feather will flock together. We shouldn’t view them as inherently bad or good, but just accept that it is the nature of how people operate.

With this understanding in mind, how do we go about dealing with these environments?

Being a bridge between groups is the ideal way to operate, not closing yourself off to other perspectives and allowing yourself to grow.

B – Broadmindedness, bond, befriend, build, balance, benevolence

R – Respect, receptive, responsive, rationality, realization, reassurance

I – Inclusiveness, individuality, invitation, integrity, inspire, interconnection, innocence, involve, incorporate, integrate

D – Dynamic, diplomacy, ditch division, daring, diversity

G – Genuine, graceful, grow, gaiety, guiding, generosity, gratitude

E – Evolve, equality, embrace, empower, engage, empathy, encouragement

The acronym above was the product of discussion with AYUDH members and RamanandJi to define what qualities we can imbibe in order to be a bridge between groups and operate harmoniously in any environment.

June 20, 2023

Discussion:

In June’s AYUDH Reflect session, the topic of discussion was Amma’s teachings. Br. Ramandamrita Chaitanya had the following takeaways that we can learn from Amma’s life.

The way Amma conducts her life is Her message. Amma overcame all possible barriers:

• Financial: Poor fisherman community

• Gender: Woman in rural 1950s kerala

• Educational: 5th grade dropout

• Language: Only malayalam

• Caste: Lower caste

Amma exemplifies the following qualities that we can all look to for motivation.

Determination/Courage: Amma's parents, family, and friends thought she was crazy when she started to give darshan, but she thought to herself, “I’'ll not give in, I'll keep going”.

Patience: Amma started giving darshan in the 1970s, yet only started to get recognized internationally in the 1990s. Amma never asked, “Why am I not getting recognized?”. Instead, she continued to focus on the goal of helping people.

Perseverence: Amma has said that Her only goal is to help people in whatever way She can. She toils for 12-13 hours a day with darshan, and then leads so many charitable projects that all work towards this goal.

Simplicity/Humility: There is no comparison to Amma’s simplicity and humility. Even with the MA Center organization today on an international scale, Amma remains supremely humble. Recently, when accepting the C20 Chair position, She remarked that She is just a 5th grade dropout.

May 23, 2023

Discussion:

In the AYUDH Reflect May session, the discussion centered around a Q&A with Br. Ramandamrita Chaitanya.

The first question was around the topic of goal-setting and failures.

“How can we make sure that we set realistic goals? How do we avoid failure when working towards them?”

• Failure is part and parcel of the process of getting to the goal

• Don't give too much importance to failure

• We should be fixated on the goal, but be flexible

• Tensile strength is the most important, we must be strong AND flexible — like the wings of an airplane

Make a flexible, workable plan to train the mind — reward yourself when correct actions are taken, and punish yourself when not.

The second question dealth with navigating self reliance. “How should we know when to be self-reliant and when to ask others for help?”

• We should never hesitate in asking for help

• We have limited knowledge and perspective on issues, and when we try to do everything ourselves, it’s easy to feel overburdened

• Think of ourselves and others as a part of a collective flow — tap every resource available to acheive your goal

• You should know that you need to ask for help when you feel your efficiency is going down in completing certain tasks

April 18, 2023

Discussion:

In April’s AYUDH Reflect session, the topic of discussion was goal setting. Br. Ramandamrita Chaitanya laid out an acronym-laden framework around the most effective way to set goals.

1. Be specific. (Get out and look) - What exactly am I trying to achieve? Define the goal as specifically as possible!

2. Be realistic. (Get on and learn) - Take into account of what we can and can't do. Make educated, thought out decisions.

3. Be practical. (Get organized at last) - Aim for the highest, but break the big goal into smaller, achievable goals.

4. Be accountable. (Get on and lead) - Set a timeline to achieve your goals and set reminders.

5. Be joyful. (Get on another level) - Never forget to celebrate the smaller wins! Positive reinforcement for our mind.

6. Be flexible. (Get over (it) and live life) - Remind ourselves that our life isn't for the goal but the goal is to benefit our life.

March 28, 2023

Discussion:

In the AYUDH Reflect March session, the topic was a natural follow up to peer pressure, self-confidence. Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya brought the following points as food for thought:

1. Self-confidence is about developing the necessary belief or faith in our own abilities.

2. This can spill into overconfidence when we fail to take into account our disabilities and make note of them in different situations.

3. “I am who I am – I am not who I think others think I am.”

February 21, 2023

Discussion:

In the inaugural AYUDH Reflect session, we discussed the topic of peer pressure, with Br. Ramanandamrita Chaitanya mentioning the following:

1. What is the real source of peer pressure? Does it come from others? Or from ourselves?

2. Peer pressure can affect us in many stages of life including school, college, and professionally.

3. Being comfortable with who we are is what will help us overcome this seeming “peer” pressure