3/15/23, 3/22/23, 3/29/23

• Tamas (laziness/lethargy): stress manifests as escapism
• Rajas (aggression): manifests as anxiousness, frustration- amplifies stress
• Sattva (balance): the mind is balanced and stress manifests as motivation to meet the challenge and deal with the problem head-on

• The more we can train our minds (sattva) the more our minds can be cool-calm-collected
• When we are trying to move to sattva, we can’t just jump from tamas to sattva. We have to move from tamas to rajas to sattva

1. Moving from tamas to rajas

• Acceptance: the circumstances we are faced with in life are beyond our control- it’s inevitable had to happen that way
• Law of Karma 1) Every cause has an effect 2) There is a do-er of every action 3) Every action is the result of an action
• Examples: wrongful conviction, 2 people born at the exact same time- one the song of a beggar and one the song of a king– this is a chain of causes and effects from previous lifetimes
• When we accept a situation we should see the silver lining- seemingly negative, surprisingly positive
• In summary: 1) can’t control circumstances 2) find silver lining 3) find purpose
• Finding the motivation to act comes from our ability to know what’s important (prioritization)
• Visualize your own funeral- what would we want people to say about us

• Review from last week- moving from tamas to rajas comes from acceptance- accept the circumstance we are faced with in the present- confront the challenge head-on
• Try and overcome the feeling of “why is this happening to me”
• It could not have happened in any other way- find the positives in the circumstance- an opportunity for growth

• Plan–
  • Prioritize- understanding what is important- ask myself “Is what i am about to do taking me where i genuinely want to go in life?”
  • What we geniunely want in life is to be virtuous
  • When we are focused on a goal (i.e. becoming a doctor) don’t just focus on the final outcome but the habits and virtues of the journey
• Review of the Eisenhower Matrix: (https://www.productplan.com/glossary/eisenhower-matrix/)
  • First Quadrant  (upper left): urgent and important
  • Second Quadrant  (upper right): important, but not urgent
  • Third Quadrant (lower left): not important, but urgent
  • Fourth Quadrant (lower right): neither important nor urgent
• Spend more time in Q2- where virtue development happens
• In order to make good habits easy to engage in: 1) craft environment that forces these habits to be easy to engage in 2) break down a good habit into manageable chunks

Moving from tamas to rajas: accept, plan, visualize

• Focus on effort-redefine success to be something within your control (not result driven i.e. sticking to a schedule)
• Focus on intent- be motivated by love/selflessness instead of selfishness (this naturally reduces stress because then the action itself becomes its own reward)
• Focus on the present- don’t project into the future and also have the faith that Bhagavanji is watching over us– be the confidence that we can overcome any challenge presented to us