Dream Power Radio

Madhu Dasa - Experience Joyful Enlightenment and Prosperity with the Monk Mindset Method

May 05, 2024 Debbie Spector Weisman
Madhu Dasa - Experience Joyful Enlightenment and Prosperity with the Monk Mindset Method
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Dream Power Radio
Madhu Dasa - Experience Joyful Enlightenment and Prosperity with the Monk Mindset Method
May 05, 2024
Debbie Spector Weisman

I'd love to know what you think of this episode. Text me here.

     If you think being a monk has no relevance to your life, think again. This is not about people secluded from society spending their lives in deep contemplation. Modern monks do spend time in a monastery, and after they complete their studies, they’re free to share their knowledge with the world. This ancient wisdom has a lot to say about how we live our lives today and how we can use these teachings for personal and business success.

     We discuss this with Madhu Dasa, a former monk turned conscious business and holistic coach. In our lively conversation, Madhu talks about how his five years in a monastery turned his life around and led him to share the knowledge he learned with others. Madhu has developed a program called The Monk Mindset that helps people improve their lives. Madhu explains:

·      how he shed his initial resistance to this training

·      what the Vedic arts are and how they relate to us

·      why embracing a holistic approach to living nurtures the soul

·      the pivotal way to promote positivity

·      the relationship between spiritual fulfillment and financial acumen

·      how his method promotes personal and business success

·      the practices that lead to inner peace

·      the transformative power of music

     Anyone looking for a deeper understanding of themselves won’t want to miss this enlightening episode of Dream Power Radio.

     Madhu has generously offered a special gift for anyone who mentions “dream” on his website.

     Madhuri Pura Dasa, formerly a monk, is a Holistic Health & Business Lifestyle Coach who has trained hundreds of health and wellness professionals, coaches and influencers in ancient sciences and helps them create 6 & 7 figure online business. He lived and trained for half a decade as a monk in the Bhakti Yoga tradition. During these years, he travelled extensively studying Vedic arts and sciences under renowned teachers. In his free time he is a professional musician who tours internationally. Website: https://madhu.life/

 

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Want more ways to find joy in your life? Check out my website thedreamcoach.net for information about my courses, blogs, books and ways to create a life you love.

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Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

I'd love to know what you think of this episode. Text me here.

     If you think being a monk has no relevance to your life, think again. This is not about people secluded from society spending their lives in deep contemplation. Modern monks do spend time in a monastery, and after they complete their studies, they’re free to share their knowledge with the world. This ancient wisdom has a lot to say about how we live our lives today and how we can use these teachings for personal and business success.

     We discuss this with Madhu Dasa, a former monk turned conscious business and holistic coach. In our lively conversation, Madhu talks about how his five years in a monastery turned his life around and led him to share the knowledge he learned with others. Madhu has developed a program called The Monk Mindset that helps people improve their lives. Madhu explains:

·      how he shed his initial resistance to this training

·      what the Vedic arts are and how they relate to us

·      why embracing a holistic approach to living nurtures the soul

·      the pivotal way to promote positivity

·      the relationship between spiritual fulfillment and financial acumen

·      how his method promotes personal and business success

·      the practices that lead to inner peace

·      the transformative power of music

     Anyone looking for a deeper understanding of themselves won’t want to miss this enlightening episode of Dream Power Radio.

     Madhu has generously offered a special gift for anyone who mentions “dream” on his website.

     Madhuri Pura Dasa, formerly a monk, is a Holistic Health & Business Lifestyle Coach who has trained hundreds of health and wellness professionals, coaches and influencers in ancient sciences and helps them create 6 & 7 figure online business. He lived and trained for half a decade as a monk in the Bhakti Yoga tradition. During these years, he travelled extensively studying Vedic arts and sciences under renowned teachers. In his free time he is a professional musician who tours internationally. Website: https://madhu.life/

 

Support the Show.

Want more ways to find joy in your life? Check out my website thedreamcoach.net for information about my courses, blogs, books and ways to create a life you love.

Announcer (00:00:04) - This is Dream Power Radio, the place where your dreams turn into reality. Here is your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:00:13) - Hello, hello, hello and welcome to Dream Power Radio. I'm your host, Certified Dream-Life Coach Debbie Spector Weisman. This is a place where we talk about dreams, both daytime and nighttime dreams, and how you can use them to make the internal shift to a life you love and rediscover the truth of who you really are. One of the things I love about doing this podcast, and in fact, one of the reasons I started it in the first place, is I get to meet the most fascinating people and learn about ideas and practices I'd probably never know about otherwise. Today's episode reflects this. We're going to be speaking with a monk, actually, to be specific, he's a former monk, and he has a lot to say about the ancient wisdom he's studied and how it translates into our own personal and business lives. I don't know about you, but my image of a monk is an old man with a shaved head, wearing robes and sandals, who lives high up in the Himalayas and is as far removed from what I like to call 'real life' as anyone and someone who's totally disinterested in the ways of the modern world.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:22) - But as you'll soon see, Madhuri Pura Dasa, also known as Madhu, does not fit into this stereotype at all. He's young, handsome, and now as a conscious business and holistic coach, very much interested in making the Vedic arts accessible and relevant to everyone, and by doing so, helping his clients thrive physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. And with that, welcome to Dream Power Radio, Madhu.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:01:52) - So grateful to be here with you, Debbie, where we actually get to talk about transformational topics.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:01:57) - Absolutely. Well, Madhu, before we get into what you teach, I want to go into your own journey a little bit. You were born into a family of monks. And as I understand it, your father tried to bribe you into becoming a monk. Tell me about that.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:02:13) - Yeah, well, lo and behold, I took the full bait and did become a monk. He just wanted to try to get me somewhat inclined to do spirituality. And so growing up, they talked about all these quote unquote weird things that I thought were strange, at least in terms of spirituality, and not what most people were talking about, say, on TV or on the radio.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:02:31) - And as any proper child, I was totally like, this is weird. I don't want anything to do with my parents’ weird spiritual thing. But when I was 16, my father said, I'll give you $100 if you read the Bhagavad Gita, which is an ancient literature teaching on the various concepts of yoga, and not necessarily yoga, being the physical postures as we know it in the West, but rather yoga literally meaning connection and divine connection. How to connect with self and understand who we are, how to connect with divinity, how to connect with this universe and the nature around us, etc. Then I loved what I heard so much that I dove in head first and did wind up shaving my head and becoming a monk.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:03:08) - Well, what was it like spending all those years in a monastery? I mean, did you ever believe that, after that, you'd be able to come back and fit into the modern world?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:03:18) - I don't know how much I actually considered that because it was so consuming. And there was there's such a focus on the presence, and there's a concept that you focus so much on, the presence that the future has no choice but to happen beautifully. And so I never quite had the idea of what I would do when I grew up, per se. But I did know that becoming a monk and living in what I call like a spiritual frat house, which meant it means like you're in a monastery with a bunch of other, in my case, men, you know, women or with women. Men or with men. And waking up too early to do meditation and do various services throughout the day. It was so consuming and so blissful that honestly, I never had a conception of what will I do next. And it wasn't until about 4 or 4 and a half years into being a monk where with my teachers, they were like, hey, it might be time to become a quote unquote normal person again. And which is what 99% of monks do. They're student monks, and they graduate to become normal people and integrate what they learn as being a monk into society. As they start to live in a house and create a family and all of that jazz.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:04:22) - So I was--

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:23) - Essentially being a practicing monk.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:04:25) - Yes. And so there are what we call the one percenters. There are some monks that go to be lifelong celibate monks. And that's that more cliche that we see where it's like the old man with the shaven head up in the mountains. And I have many friends of which  who fit that bill. But most of us, yeah, 90 something percent of monks, we will graduate at some point to become integrated back in society, to take what we learned as a way of to not be a taker in this world, but be a giver, try to be a contributor and actually improve the quality and the consciousness of the world around us.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:04:57) - Okay, so I want to get into a little bit about what it is that you practice and teach, and I think it was described as the Vedic arts. So can you explain what that is and what someone who's not a monk can get out of it?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:05:12) - Absolutely. So the Sanskrit word Veda literally means knowledge. And so when we talk about Vedic arts, we're really talking about like the ancient wisdom literatures from the East. And these literatures were only written down about 5000 years ago. That's it. And they're still practiced today. So these Vedic arts or these wisdom literatures teach everything from Ayurveda, which is improving the quality of life to the hunter Veda and martial arts to anything you can practically imagine. There’re ancient knowledge books on it, specifically with the Vedic arts that we refer to. Here are the ways in which to improve the quality of our life through these ancient teachings. Veda. This term it's almost like in in English we have ology, like the science of or like the knowledge of something. So Ayurveda, for instance, Ayur in Sanskrit means the quality of life, and Veda means the study of or the knowledge of. So it's taken this ancient knowledge of our quality of life or whatever the case might be, we can give various examples and translating it from the ancient Sanskrit meanings into, in our case in English, and then making it relevant so that anyone in a day-to-day life can start to implement these practices. From improving your diet to your routine, to your sleep, to your meditation, to whatever the case might be in such a way is to actually witness the improving of, say, your quality of life, your clarity of mind, your cleansing of the heart and the unwanted things inside of the consciousness, etc.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:06:45) - A couple of months ago, I actually interviewed someone who practices Ayurvedic medicine. Is that something you do as well?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:06:52) - Certainly. Yeah. That was one of the focuses I got into as a monk, because everyone will go different directions. Some people they want, they love to cook, so they learn how to cook. Some people they...Whatever the case might be, everyone's engaged according to their natures. And so for me, the two directions I took was teaching meditation, yoga, meditation. I would go to colleges, universities, teach that as well as Ayurveda and in other words, the world's oldest holistic science that we currently know of.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:07:18) - Let me get back to what got you started, which was the Bhakti, which, as you explain, isn't like the yoga, the yoga or anything that most people to say they practice yoga do. It's not the poses, it's the actual philosophy. So can you tell me a bit more about that?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:07:40) - Most certainly. In short, yoga, we actually have the cognates still in English because Sanskrit and English are connected, because English comes from primarily Latin and German and Latin comes from Sanskrit, and as do many other languages in the world. So yoga means to yoke or to connect literally comes from the word yoke, which in English we have yoke literally to connect or to unite. So yoga literally means connection. And then when we talk about yoga, we have different practices of yoga. One being, as you mentioned, Bhakti yoga which means to connect through bhakti, which means love and devotion or devotional service, devotion and action. And there's other yogas, there's Guyana yoga. We're linking up through our intellect and through our study. There's karma yoga, linking up through our actions and whatnot. And so the practices there of the ancient yoga tradition are ultimately how to improve. it's not even improve our consciousness, how to understand our true nature of as being a soul, as being a perfect, eternal spiritual entity that's temporarily covered by conditioning and matter and how to uncover that through the linking process of divinity, through uncovering the true nature of self.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:08:50) - And there's various methodologies of doing that. Bhakti yoga being the epitome of all the yoga systems as it's taught in these ancient wisdom literatures. Out of all the highest things to do in this world, love and devotion are the highest and are the best. No one will argue that concept. We all know love is supreme, and so connecting divinely through love is the practice of Bhakti. And that's what really captured my heart. But more captured my intellect because every question I possibly could come up with was answered so in depth, in ways that would practically break my mind from these ancient Bhakti yoga texts.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:09:25) - Well, but you're right, love. It all starts with love. And you know, one of the things that I truly believe in is unconditional love and unconditional love of self. So is that part of it also?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:09:37) - Yes. In order to actually love outwards, there has to be a sense of self-love. Because we're just projection beings. We can only project our experience of consciousness onto others. We can't doubt that we're conscious, because the fact that I can even ask myself in my conscious is an indication that I am conscious.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:09:56) - So there's no question of if I am conscious, but I will never know with certainty empirically if someone else is a conscious living entity. But I can then project and extrapolate from my own experience that other living entities are also conscious sentient souls or entities. And so from that sense of projection, we can understand that if I have internal self-hatred, then I will find all the evidence in the world to encourage that idea that I deserve to hate myself, or whatever story we tell ourself. The mind is constantly just trying to give evidence, provide evidence to make that true, which is why people focus so much on positive affirmations. Because if you tell your mind something enough times, you'll start to actually believe it. That's why a liar believes their lies. The more they tell them and actually believes it to be true. And so in that same way, if we don't practice self-love, then it's very difficult to actually give full, unconditional love outwards. So that unconditional love to ourself is an essential practice to be able to properly connect or link through love with others.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:10:57) - Well, how do you help someone who, maybe before seeing you or getting in touch with you, didn't have that sense of self-love? How do you nurture that?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:11:07) - So there's a combination of philosophy and then practice. Or we could say applied knowledge. In other words, the knowledge and the applied knowledge. The philosophy portion of what I'm referring to really means a proper conception of self. Because until we understand, what am I as a little -- like, am I just this meat soup blob that just grows and stink sometimes and dies? And like what? Like what is the purpose of all this? It's actually bewildering if we don't have something to ground us. And so a proper conception of who we are philosophically is an essential first step. And understanding how to start to say, love ourselves or even understand who ourselves are, from which then we can start to love or fill in the blank to ourselves. The ancient yoga literatures, these ancient Vedic texts, they teach that the nature of the soul is eternal, blissful and full of knowledge.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:11:57) - And really, what that means is that we know that we're not the body because God forbid, somebody chops my finger off and me less of a person, somebody cuts the whole arm off. No, because the body is constantly changing. Every seven years, every cell in the body is renewed. That means we've reincarnated, take on a new skin every seven years. So if you're over, say, 21, congrats. You're at least three reincarnations in. So the body's always changing, and we can witness the body change, so we know we're not the body. Similarly, we can also understand we're not the mind because we can witness and change the mind. We're not we're not bound by the fluctuations of the mind. So we understand. I'm not my body. I'm not my mind. I'm something divine. The real me that's driving around the robot. The biomechanical robot aka human body. What is that real me? When I say this is my hand, my hair, not I hand my hair, we say mine.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:12:48) - Who is the owner of that hand that's driving around the body? We call this the unit of consciousness, or the soul or the spirit. And we're talking about the same thing. Pick whatever vernacular one so desires, but we're talking about first understanding the nature of self. And then from there we can start to expand on the idea of individual purpose. In Sanskrit, there's a term called dharma, which means the intrinsic nature of someone. What is your unique gift? Everyone has one because everyone is unique and unlike any other living entity that will have ever existed or will ever exist. And so how do we take your unique personhood and take the gifts that you've been divinely imbued with, and then extract them and give them out in a way that improves the quality of life of other individuals? And I mean, I'm just touching the tip of the iceberg. But like if we get a proper philosophical conception of self, then the next step is we can get into what are the practices and the habits to start to unconditioned the mind, not change, because we're just trying to clean out the temporary, dirty things that we've blinded ourselves to our real identity with.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:13:51) - And how do we start to cleanse those things out so we can see ourselves for who we are? And that is a divine soul.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:13:58) - And that is it. And with that, we are going to take a short break. We are speaking all about the ways of a former monk with Madhu Dasa and we'll be right back.

 

Announcer (00:14:47) - Welcome back to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:14:53) - Yes, welcome back to Dream Power Radio.  I'm your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. And we're talking about the ways of a monk with Madhu Dasa. Well, Madhu, when you got out of the monastery, you really had high hopes for spending your life sharing all this wisdom that you learned. But you soon found out that even though it was great to share it and it was very satisfying, it didn't always pay the bills. What do you believe held you back at that point for being both spiritually and financially rich?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:15:27) - Yeah, certainly. I mean, you said it well, and that is that there was no lack of desire to share. However, after a few years of really giving it my all and, looking at the bank account and going, oh, all the time and being so below the poverty line, I realized very quickly that just like anything else in life that we want to be good at, the first step is proper education, proper acquisition of knowledge. And so really what it took for me, first and foremost was the knowledge and developing the skills of how to become financially literate.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:16:00) - In other words, how does one actually sustainably bring money into our life in a way that's integrity, with integrity, where you're never having to be manipulative or salesy or some of those negative connotations that can come in with business. How does one do it with strength and integrity in a way that's actually going to be of service? And so it took years of education. I mean, I'm still educating myself, and I probably will for the rest of my life, but years of starting to get familiar with the concepts of how to utilize the energy that is money which isn't good, which isn't bad, it just is. And how to utilize money in such a way as it amplifies what's happening internally. If you got good ideas, the money will help create those good ideas into reality. If you got quote unquote bad ideas, it will also help kids as bad ideas into reality. So really just getting a proper conception of what money is and how to bring about it in an integral way that will help me and help others with that money.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:00) - And you also believe that money is energy.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:17:04) - Well, certainly. I mean, there's an example of a knife. A knife isn't good or bad. It could be used by a surgeon to perform surgery and save someone's life. It could also be used to stab someone to take their life. So the knife was never good or bad.  It was an energy that somebody utilized that facilitated their desire to similarly money. It's not good or bad, but it shows you what's on your mind and what needs to be worked on.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:17:28) - Very much so. So you went in and got knowledge to become financially literate. But what do you think was the turning point to actually help get that money in, so you were living in integrity and making money at the same time.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:17:44) - Yeah, I'm pointing to my brain, my mind. For anyone who's listening and not watching, I'm pointing to my mind. Because no matter how much knowledge that goes in, we still have limiting beliefs according to our conditioning. It's just an inevitable aspect of being in a human body and having a beautiful prefrontal cortex, which allows us to ask good questions and have recursive language, but it also allows us to ask a lot of doubts to ourself and challenge our ideas and beliefs and thoughts.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:18:13) - And so for me, the primary obstacle to overcome was my limiting beliefs of myself. Can I do this? Am I good enough? Can I really charge for this? Are there people who want this? I could probably go for hours with the types of ways in which my mind would fight me, but it was diligently overcoming these limiting beliefs so that I could unapologetically show up and serve and change the lives of others.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:18:37) - And it's so true. I mean, it's one of the things that I help people see is that you don't realize that you have these thoughts going on in your head. They're there all the time, and until you become aware that they're there, then you could deal with them. You could say, why do I believe that I'm not worth it. I think I'm worth it. Why? Why do I keep telling myself why? Why does my subconscious think that? Well, no, it's when you look at it as a factor or look at it and say, no, it's not a fact, it's a story you told yourself. Change the story and that's how you get there.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:19:14) - Couldn't agree anymore. Couldn't say more eloquently myself.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:19:18) - So one of the things that you did to help bring in the money and say was develop a program called the Monk Mindset Method. So tell me a bit about what that's about.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:19:31) - What I did is I tried to encapsulate the essential teachings that allows one while living in the monastery, acting as a monk, to actually create success in their life and success. Let me be very clear when I say success. The way I would define success is that you wake up and you live the life that you want, and you go to bed, and then you do that over again. It's not an achievement. It's not a one-time thing. It's an experience of life. A successful life is showing up in doing the things that empower you and empower others that bring you not just happiness, but a deeper sense of purpose as well. And how does one actually live a successful life? It takes diligent planning.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:20:11) - It doesn't just happen all on its lonesome, it takes a plan. And so the monk mindset method is a whole system that we put together from gaining crystal clear idea of what somebody actually wants in their life, like what that vision is, and then what habits does one actually need to commit themselves to doing on a regular basis that will guarantee them that desire? And according to that desire? What are your value systems so that we can prioritize what desires are more important than others? And once you have the desires and those behaviors, then what does your day need to look like on a consistent basis so that you can be certain that you're going to get to that goal as soon as possible? And what are the things that are going to stop you from being consistent? And like this? We have a whole protocol based around getting really in touch with your unique gifts and unique desires, and then how to bring them back out into life in a sustainable way, not just let me shoot for the stars and hope I make it out of the park, but rather say, how do I diligently create a protocol and a plan that I know with certainty? If I simply just don't stop, I will achieve the success that I want in my life.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:21:17) - And I think it's important that you do stress that it's not an instantaneous, instant gratification kind of thing. You know, life is a journey. And so I think that that sort of is an example of it. I would think.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:21:31) - Yeah, absolutely.  The material mind wants to say, once I get that, then I'll be happy. But we know  certainty that it's not the truth. All we have to do is watch a movie or to watch a couple videos and ask someone, hey, you got everything? You happy? No. This is where happiness comes from. It's a sense of inner fulfillment, inner contentment, inner work, per se. And then from the place of understanding that reality, then we can actually do the work it takes to experience that success on a regular basis.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:00) - And this teaching helps people not only in their personal life, but also in their business life as well. Right?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:22:07) - Essentially, yeah, it is, it is. So whatever success we've gotten to in our business and I'm very grateful for our situation. It's because of creating an explicit plan using the monk mindset method, and then following through with it in a way that eventually provided us a situation.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:22:27) - One of the things I'd like to do when you're talking with people about systems they have is ask if they have an example. So you have an example of somebody who has been able to thrive using the system?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:22:39) - Yeah. How long do you have? Well, I'm grateful that we've had hundreds of clients that have gone through a different programs and protocols. So certainly we have endless names from people you've never heard of to politicians and actors and whatever the case might be. But more important is one for themself experiencing a modicum of transformation. Let me give you an example. If we're in a dark cave and somebody tells us, oh man, there's this cool thing outside which called the light globe, and it's like a sun and it beams light and we'll say, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've never seen that.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:23:10) - All it takes for a reasonable amount of faith in that person is to see one beam of light. If all we can do is get one crack through and we go home, maybe there is a light that exists in the same way as if we can just get one crack in the default programming of our psychology and our conditioning to realize, wait, maybe I am in control of my destiny and my future. Maybe I actually can create the life that I want, and I step outside of that conditioned programming of society, of the environment around us. That's where real faith will happen, as opposed to say, well, happen to them. But maybe they're just lucky. Maybe they're just blessed. No. If I myself get a taste, then I know that it's possible. And so maybe more importantly than specific names, is giving some examples of things anyone could do immediately to improve their quality of life that are relatively natural or easy to apply to.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:23:58) - What do you mean by that?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:24:00) - Sure, sure. So an example might be anyone could do the following exercise and they're guaranteed to feel more clarity in their life after an example. You sit down and you turn anything with an on off switch off. Like you lock the door. You tell them I'm in the house, leave me be for 15 minutes, I don't exist, I'm busy. Yeah, you lock the door, you turn off the phone, the laptop, etc. and you sit down with a legal pad and a pen, and you write down everything you want, and you don't stop until you can. As soon as you say, I'm done, write ten more. And then once you like, I'm definitely done. You write ten more. And in this way, really brain dump and like, get clear and be honest with yourself. Like, what do you really want in your life? Not just in terms of things. Definitely. Right. Those two. But like. Like what? What is what type of work do you want to be doing? What kind of relationships do you want? What do you want your health to be looking like? What do you want? Your purpose, the direction of your purpose to be, etc. and you write these things down and you don't let your mind quit because it's going to want to quit.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:25:00) - And then once you've done that, you prioritize. You say, okay, which of these are the most important to me? And once you've identified the most important, then you write down a list. You can pick one and say, what do I know I need to do and commit to on a regular basis that will guarantee me this result. You write out all the things that you already do know. Of course, there might be additional things that we might need to learn, but most people know 90, 80 plus percent of what they need to know to move in the direction of their dreams anyway. And then from there, ask yourself, what would stop me from consistently following this plan I just did? And how do I make a plan to not stop and like this? I mean, these are just a few examples of ways in which anyone could immediately sit down. And when you're done, when you unlock that door, turn the light back on. Well, you need a little light to write, but you know what I mean.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:25:44) - When you when you step outside of that introspection session and you integrate those thoughts back into the world, there's no alternative to feeling relief because clarity provides relief and knowing, wait, I now I know exactly the direction I want to move in, and I know what things can help me move in it. And in this way, one will feel successful, actually.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:04) - Exactly. Getting that sense of self-awareness that you wouldn't have otherwise by really getting within and getting to think about things you'd probably would have not thought about otherwise.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:26:16) - Yes. Well said.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:26:18) - Yes. Well, for those of you listening on the podcast, you can't see, but behind Madhu is a wall full of guitars, violins and other kind of musical instruments. So obviously one of your passions is also as a musician. So tell me, is there a spiritual relationship between the Vedic arts and music?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:26:42) - Certainly is. And the cool thing with music is 100% of people like it. If you ask 100% of people, you say you like music. Everyone says, yeah, the style of the music, that's a detail. But 100% of people like music and it's a language. It's a language that can be learned by anyone, just like any other language. But it's a unique kind of language in that other than linguistic languages that are out there, it is a language that you can communicate with anyone around the world because again, everyone likes music. So I took a fascination to it when I was young and studied very deeply into music theory and various aspects. And you can only see about half of the instruments on the other side of the room. We've got all types of drums and flutes and pianos and anyway, a lot more. So I took a great fascination to it. And one of the biggest things that drew me to the practice of Bhakti yoga, to which I want to dedicate five years of my life learning and studying as a monk, was that one of the primary practices is called kirtan. Now kirtan literally means chanting divine names accompanied by rhythm and melody, in other words, by music, by playing instruments and then chanting mantras.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:27:45) - On top of that, or mantra literally means Manasa means the mind, and Trayate means to deliver to free. So these two Sanskrit words together mantra means to free or to deliver the mind. And we do that not just by sitting and chanting the mantra, but by using the vehicle of music to bring the sounds of the mantras deeper into the mind. Because if I just say them over and over, the mind will be distracted. But if we put it with a little rhythm and we put it with a little bit of melody, the medicine goes down. It goes a lot deeper into it, passes the mind, and it actually goes into the bay of the heart, into a place where we can actually assimilate the mantras that we're chanting and actually make the transformation to mantras have available for us.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:28:29) - That is fascinating. So were you allowed to bring your instruments into the monastery?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:28:34) - Most certainly. Yeah, we actually would do at least an hour. Well, at least 30 minutes to an hour every day of musical meditation where we would get together. And not that everyone had to learn instruments. But, you know, some people learn even just basics of like, say, some drums or some they could be some cymbals, some bells, some simple instruments, and you do mantra meditation. And so anyway, to give you an example, one person would chant a mantra (chants mantra). Everyone would respond the mantra and we go back and forth as a way of again, to use the music as a vehicle to bring these mantras into the mind, into the consciousness, so they could be situated as opposed to without the music. It's a little more difficult.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:29:16) - I would think so. Well Madhu, how can people find out more about you and your work?

 

Madhu Dasa (00:29:22) - Well on all platforms. Madhu.life it's Madhu.life and that's our website. And pretty much anywhere you look up Madhu.life where it's not a common name, you'll be able to find us pretty much anywhere. And we give all of our courses away for free. So our monk mindset method, our Ayurvedic courses, our courses on wealth for spiritualists, our, conscious closing systems, everything that we teach, we give away for free and we only sell implementation. So out of the many thousands of people we help and, you know, a few hundred clients, we just help people who don't want to do it themselves per se. So we give everything for free. So anyone who's like, I really want to understand more about my health holistically, or I really want to say more about controlling my mind, or I really want to understand how do I grow my business, but with integrity, etc. just send me a message on any platform modern life and will get you access. But I'll give you an extra gift. If you come from this podcast. Why don't we do dream? If anyone says to me the word dream, not only will I give you access to our free community with many, many, many people from around the world. But in addition to that, I have one particular resource which is actually around dreams like, bringing our dreams into reality and into fruition.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:30:31) - And I'd like to gift that to those who are coming just from this podcast itself. So that's a little extra bonus or so.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:30:38) - And it's terrific. Well, Madhu, thank you. And thank you for being on Dream Power Radio today.

 

Madhu Dasa (00:30:45) - Thank you for doing the amazing work of keeping something like this beautiful project going.

 

Debbie Spector Weisman (00:30:49) - We've been speaking about having the mindset of a monk with Madhu Dasa. I hope you've enjoyed today's program. If so, please hit that subscribe button so you don't miss out on any future episodes. Until next time, this is Debbie Spector Weisman saying, sweet dreams everybody!

 

Announcer (00:31:08) - You've been listening to Dream Power Radio with your host, Debbie Spector Weisman. For more information on Debbie or to sign up for her newsletter, go to DreamPowerRadio.com. This has been Dream Power Radio.

 

Becoming a monk
Life as a monk
Vedic arts
Ayurveda and meditation
Philosophy of yoga
Self-love and consciousness
Nurturing self-love
Financial literacy
Overcoming limiting beliefs
Monk Mindset Method
Success as a journey
Faith and transformation
Self-awareness exercise
Vedic arts and music