Embracing Paradox with Prashanthi Amarnath

Clarity can feel like safety, but what if the constant demand for answers is the very thing keeping you stuck? Lizzy sits down with writer Prashanthi Amarnath, author of Embracing Paradox, to talk about Taoism, uncertainty, and the lived reality of becoming someone new while you are still carrying pieces of who you used to be. If you have been moving through change, stress, or a season that feels unresolved, this conversation offers a calmer way to relate to it without denying what is real. 

Prashanthi shares her spiritual journey, including devotion, doubt, and the surprising relief of realizing that wandering is not a mistake. We dig into what “paradox” actually looks like in daily life: loving someone while feeling frustrated, growing while feeling behind, and wanting a vision for your future while still practicing mindfulness and presence. Through Taoist stories and metaphors, we explore Wu Wei as non-forcing, how patience can reveal what pressure cannot, and why alignment often looks effortless from the outside. 

We also get practical about ambition and modern life. Prashanthi reframes integration as the goal, not endless self-editing, and explains how emotional regulation helps you pursue goals without being controlled by fear, shame, or the need to prove your spirituality. We close with a tool you can use immediately when you feel triggered and a powerful reminder to check what “glasses” you are wearing when you look at others, choosing love as vision without abandoning truth or boundaries. 

If this helped you breathe a little deeper, subscribe, share it with a friend who is in a transition, and leave a review so more listeners can find ModernZen Collective. What paradox are you learning to hold right now?

Connect with Prashanthi on Instagram @embracing.pa

Transcript

Becoming In The In Between

SPEAKER_01 0:47

This month on the podcast, we've been exploring what it means to embody what we've called in. And one of the most honest parts of that process is learning how to exist in the in-between. Because becoming doesn't always feel clear, it doesn't always feel resolved. And that's exactly why this conversation feels so important right now. Today I'm joined by Prashanti Amarnath, writer of Embracing Paradox, a book that explores how we can begin to find balance, not by eliminating chaos or uncertainty, but by learning how to hold it. Drawing from Taoist principles, her work invites us to move through change, stress, and the unknown with more ease and with a deeper trust in ourselves. This conversation is a reminder that you don't need to have everything figured out to be in your becoming. You simply need the capacity to stay with what is. So let's get into it. Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of the Modern Zen Collective podcast. I'm so excited for today's interview. We have Prashanti Amarnat here. She is the writer of Embracing Paradox. And I feel like this is just the perfect time for this episode. There has been so much energy happening in April, especially with the new moon that we just had the other night. And there's just a lot of things swirling around. And I'm sure 2025 was so crazy. 2026 is just going at the speed of light. And I know that everyone's been experiencing a lot of shifts, a lot of change. And with that comes a lot of uncomfortability, a lot of discomfort, a lot of complexity. You know, we're not quite the people we used to be. We're not quite the people who we're stepping into. We're in this in-between and we're trying to do lots of different things at once. So this is the perfect time for her to come on. I'm so excited to have you here. Thank you so much for taking the time out of your busy mom and job and just wife and just woman schedule that you have going on. So thank you so much for being here today with me.

A Spiritual Path With Detours

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Thank you very much, Lizzie, for having me here. It's um it's it's truly an honor to be here and to be able to um give a voice to my thoughts. So um, all right. So before we really get into anything today, right, I really want to start somewhere very simple. Um so maybe we'll start with my spiritual journey because it it it really didn't begin with a search for a meaning. Uh it really started the day I was born, which is um very funny because I had no idea what I was getting into. Um I didn't ask for spirituality. Um it just showed up. It showed up early, it just showed up uninvited, and and it was very persistent. And I was very fortunate to be born into a family that was broad-minded, not enclosed inside like this one idea of God or truth. I grew up around many religions, many rituals, many ways of praying, questioning and and wondering. And and at the time, right, it just it just all felt quite normal. Looking back now, I realized how rare that was. And, you know, one of the most significant influences in my life has been my guru, Sri Satya Saibhaba. And I want to say this honestly, my relationship with my guru wasn't a straight line. I wasn't, you know, always devoted to him and with unwavering faith. It was very human. There were times that I felt deeply drawn to him, and there were times that I walked away very far, spiritually speaking, right? We were not on the same page, not because I was trying to rebel, I just couldn't relate anymore. I questioned things, you know, I felt disconnected. And for a long time I thought that distance meant I was I was just failing spiritually, right? Like I had slipped off that path. What I understand now is that I wasn't failing. I was wandering, and wandering as it turns out is really not a mistake in in a spiritual life. It's often part of the curriculum, as Ram Nas would say. You know, growing up in India, spirituality is everywhere. You can't avoid it even if you try. You know, you you you told one corner there's a temple, a Hindu temple, another corner, a mask, another corner, a church. Sometimes all within this the same few streets, the idol worship is everywhere, which for me was deeply confusing growing up because I kept wondering, what exactly are we worshipping? The form, the stone, or you know, was it the ritual or the idea? Or are we just like hoping that something listens? You know? And this question really stayed with me for a long time, you know, until one day my guru said something very simple. He said, I am just the finger pointing to the moon. Once you see the moon, there's no use for the finger. And you know, that sentence just landed so deeply in my body, because that was a a moment. Because suddenly everything just made sense. The guru, the idols, they were never meant to be the destination. He was pointing gently but firmly back to my own divinity. You know, the idol wasn't the truth, it was a doorway. And once you walk through that doorway, you don't worship the door anymore. You know, that realization changed how I looked at everything. And at that moment, now entered my life. You know, it was I was uh some uh it was a a spiritual, um a huge spiritual event in my life, but it just feel dramatic. It just like, you know, when now entered my life, it just felt stamiliar, like something ancient that just has had been waiting for me patiently to recognize her. And around that time, I was in a very intense phase of my life, right? I was striving hard, chasing goals, achieving things, like building a life that just looked so impressive on the paper. But no matter how much I did, it was never enough. You know, there was always a white saying more. What what are you doing next? How are you going to be better? And I believed that was because at some point I realized that something uncomfortable. Like I wasn't exhausted because I I hadn't achieved enough. I was exhausted because I was trying to prove something. And then last when it hit me, like I didn't have to add more to my life. I just needed to like clear space because you know we don't experience the the reality directly. We experience it through our inner state. And whatever excess outside just gets filtered through what's happening inside us. And if our inner world is crowded with fear, ambition, and and all of that, our outer world's gonna feel the same. And no external sexist can override that. And and now speaks about this quietly, doesn't demand that we conquer the world. It asks us to look inward and ask, what am I carrying? Because the outer war is always the reflection of the inner war. And and when the inner war softens, the world doesn't suddenly become perfect, but it becomes livable. And and this realization is what eventually became a seed for my book embracing paradox. Not because I had answers, but because I had learned how to stay with questions, like how the devotion and inquiry can coexist, how effort doesn't have to cancel surrender. And the guru was the finger, and the now was the moon, and and different expressions, and and and you know, and and even doing this podcast, you know, it lives right there in that space. Um, because I'm I'm an extremely private person. And for for someone like me to to live in the paradox and to put my life out here in in the open forum, I'm I'm living that true paradox of holding the uncertainty, holding the truth. And and that's why I I love the theme um that that you, Joel, had set for your podcast, and it just it aligns with what I am going through because it is about the integration, it is about the embodiment, because we can keep running around looking for information, looking for guru, looking for um, but but the real work happens inside right inside of us. And and it's it's it's that recognition and it's that embodiment, and that and that's where the grounding and embodiment matters a lot.

SPEAKER_01 9:50

Yes, yes, wow. You said so many wonderful, poignant things that I was just nodding my head to. I think it's I really liked how you spoke about your spiritual journey and that there were times where you felt this like intense devotion, and then there were times when you felt this separation and this distance. And speaking about it as that is part of the journey. That's part of you creating your own language with your own divinity, like you said. And that that paradox is so those opposites, like the yin and the yang, the two sides, they coexist together to create the journey. You know, there isn't just one or the other. And I really like that because I felt like that in my own, my own journey with my own spirituality. And even as I, I feel like once I crossed that threshold where, like you said, like you saw the moon, you know, you you recognize that it wasn't all the things, the material 3D things here in this world that are trying to depict, you know, what we are speaking to, which is ultimately that divinity around and within us. I feel like that I have got gone on that journey as well, where like it's been, it has been a push and pull, you know, or like different times where, especially now that I'm on the road with my kids and I have these two young kids, I don't have the kinds of time that I used to have to devote to certain practices. Like there, it's really hard for me to sit and meditate with my eyes closed and be still because life around me isn't still. Like there, I have to be focused and things. So I really appreciate that you spoke about that because I have that, that is still my journey to this day. Like how much I can I can be devoted to that spiritual, that spiritual part of me. And now it just honestly it just looks different than it used to.

What Paradox Really Means

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Yeah, absolutely. And and this I I guess we need to talk about how how do we actually, I mean, what do we actually mean by paradox in everyday life, right? Like is it? There are struggles, there are the the the the non-spiritual struggles going through. And and the way out, and telling you Lizzie, this works because it it works in my life. Uh, I put it in practice and I see how how far I've come, because paradox isn't some abstract philosophy word, right? Paradox is your Tuesday afternoon, paradox is relationships, paradox is is being human. And in everyday life, paradox is when two things that appear to contradict each other are both true at the same time. Like you can de relove someone and you feel frustrated with them. You know, you can be growing and feel like you're going backward. You can you can know what matters to you and still hesitate to act on it. That's paradox. It's not confusion, it's complexity. But the the moment we encounter paradox, we get uncomfortable because we are so conditioned to seek clarity, answers, and resolution, because clarity feels safe from the time. We are young, we're trained to look for conclusions. Hey, what is the right answer? What does this mean? What's the plan? Like clarity gives us the feeling that we are in control, and mind wants everything to line up nicely, like a checklist. You know, I understand this, I have processed this, I've moved on, but life doesn't actually work that way. Life moves in cycles, not straight lines in seasons. And and there is a cease this constant need for a resolution as a kind of a subtle resistance, the resistance to not knowing, the resistance to letting things unfold. And we're often not asking for clarity because we're curious, right? We're because we're asking because we're uncomfortable, because we want attention to go away. But the paradox doesn't ask to be solved, it asks to be held. And and the Taoist system invites us to stay with life the way it is, like moving, changing, unresolved. And if you don't mind, I would like to share this um story from Taoism that captures this beautifully, right? Um, Zhuangzi once dreamed. He was a butterfly, not imagining one, but being one, like him as a butterfly. He was floating just freely, without identity and without the effort, right? And then all of this was in a dream. But when he woke up, he asked, Am I Zhuangzi who dreamed or was I a butterfly? So he asked, Am I Zhuangzi who dreamed I was a butterfly? Or am I a butterfly now dreaming I'm Zhuangzi? So, and and here's the thing, right? The story never answers the question because the Tao isn't interested in resolving that paradox. It's interested in loosening our grip on fixed identities and and fixed meanings. And and paradox reminds us that you're not as solid as we think. And this is why paradox is so uncomfortable to the ego and and so embarrassing to the wisdom. Because the ego wants certainty, and and paradox just teaches us that yeah, you can be unfinished and whole and and all of that at the same time. And and that clarity just often comes from patience and not from forcing. So, paradox in everyday life isn't something that we we try to eliminate, it's something that we just try to live inside of. You know, life really is being a problem to solve, and and it kind of like you kind of build a relationship with life and and with how everything is flowing, and and that is the the beginning of the wisdom. Um and and now it talks about this um beautifully. And uh um, yeah.

The Butterfly Dream And Identity

SPEAKER_01 16:14

So you speak a lot about living with these two opposing things that may be completely different but true at the same time. How do we, and it causes all the discomfort and uncertainty, like you said, especially, you know, our minds and our egos want that certainty, want that roadmap, want to know what's going to happen. How do we start to build that capacity within ourselves to sit in that discomfort, to sit with the uncertainty, to sit and hold the paradox?

SPEAKER_02 16:45

It's beautiful that you brought this question up, Lizzie, because I was sitting with this. Um, because so let's ask this question honestly. Like, what happens when you're constantly trying to resolve uncertainty? Let's start answering that question, right? And and when I sat with that, what what came up was the tension, you know, that mental tension, the emotional tension, that spiritual tension, because uncertainty isn't always a problem that we need to solve. And and the moment we try to treat it like one, we turn life into something adversarial, like something that we must conquer or control. And and this is where Taoism offers a very different view, right? It says the Dao is like a container that can never be emptied and can never be filled. It is it is infinitely deep. And and just sit with that, right, for a moment, because if if it can never be emptied, it cannot be exhausted. And if it can never be filled, it cannot be overwhelmed. Yet most of our anxiety comes from assuming the opposite that clarity might run out, that we must lock things down now. You know, if then if we don't figure it out, everything's gonna fall apart when we constantly try to fix life, we are unconsciously shrinking something infinite down to the size of our fear, you know, just a moment because that is this is this is so important for for us to realize Tao is inexhaustible, but our fear is so right, we're so minuscule. And when we try to shrink it into that size of the fear, you know, and that's why the Tao doesn't rushes towards answers, it does the opposite, it dulls what is too sharp, it untangles what is what is tangled, and without force, it darkens, you know, what we think is eliminated. It just brings all the opposites together. In other words, it slows us down. And this is why we, you know, the need to fix everything actually keeps us stuck. Because when clarity is forced too quickly, it hardens into certainty. And uncertainty becomes rigidity. And and there's a very simple Davis um parable that explains this beautifully, right? It's about a person trying to untie a tightly knitted rope. They pull, they pull it harder, you know, that the and as they pull it harder, the tighter the knot becomes. You know, they they tug, they strain, they they grow frustrated, you know, finally exhausted, they stop pulling and you know, simply hold the rope. And as their hands relax, they begin to see the space inside the knot. What force could not solve? Patients could see. And and the now teaches that life works much the same way. Not every knot needs to be attacked. You know, some knots loosen only when the tension is released. And this is exactly what happens when we are obsessed with fixing uncertainty. We keep pulling, we rush to define, oh, this is who I am, this is what this means, this is where I'm going. But many parts of life don't untie under pressure, they reveal themselves under presence. You know, the the Tao remains concealed, yet it's constantly present. It doesn't explain itself, it doesn't announce itself. You know, it even predates the idea of higher power, like instead of like a distant deity demanding obedience, the Tao is that quiet source, like moving directly into our everyday life. The creation, destruction, the life, and the death and light and dark, you know, not hierarchies. It's like a dance. And when we understand this, you know, we stop approaching life with demands, like fix this, explain this, resolve this, we begin approaching it with humility and owl, like like Wu Wei, often you know translated as non-forcing, doesn't mean doing nothing. It means the right effort. The effort that flows instead of strains, you know, that just shows up in the simplest moments, like cooking a meal and passing to recognize the the farmers, the soil, the unseen labor behind each ingredient. And you know, suddenly that the moment is no longer mechanical, it just becomes relational. And this is how the sacred enters the ordinary. And then here's the paradox that Taoism leaves us with, right? Fullness can can restrict, but the emptiness can can liberate like a cup. A cup is useful, uh, precisely because it is empty. Once it's full, its usefulness stops. And the same is true for us. When our minds are overfilled with answers, labels, and conclusions. There's no room for insight. And this is how the urge to fix everything just traps us. We become so full of certainty that nothing new can enter. No, not not every confusion needs a resolution, not every question needs an answer. Just need space. And when we stop forcing clarity, another kind of understanding just emerges. Not the fruit ones, but but the alive ones. And then that's when we stop being stuck because we're no longer fighting reality. We are finally listening. We are aligning with Tao and we are in the flow with Tao. And it's um it it's you know that there's something, right, when when we recognize that we witness a real mastery when human beings, you know, sometimes show this extraordinary skill. It doesn't matter where art, work, relationship, or the way, you know, they just move through their life. It often looks effortless, like almost magical. You know, and they don't seem to be like forcing anything. They're not, you know, tense and and that's and then they're not constantly even trying to correct themselves. And uh sometimes you say, Oh, that's talent. But Taoism would say something very different. It would say that what you see is not talent, it's alignment.

Flowing Toward Your Higher Self

SPEAKER_01 23:11

It's so my mind went to so many different things as you were speaking because you said so many amazing one-liners. I just possibly can't even bring them back to the surface. I swear you just like laid some expert advice on us for the past couple of minutes. I was just like hanging on every word. It is it's you're so spot on. It's so interesting because I feel like you're speaking about similar things that I speak about, but in this different language. And I think that's what it is, right? It's like we all are moving towards present in this moment. I feel like with what you're speaking about allows us to be more in the present moment. And like you said, it turns into relationship. It turns into relationship with life, relationship with others, instead of this mind thing where you're trying to plan everything out, where you're trying to control, where you're trying to make sure X, Y, and Z happen in this specific way and show up as a specific person. It's I really liked how you talk about how you spoke about it becomes rigid, it becomes hard. Your thoughts become hardness and stagnation inside of you that has no room for the dance and the playfulness that life is. Beautiful. That's it's so crazy just to have that realization, you know, to hear you say something in a different way that really inspires me to think about something totally different. And that's the point of this podcast. It's like to bring people like you on here that have this amazing perspective and this experience and expertise that is so different than mine. And we're saying similar things, but it's so different, and it's giving different people the a way to grasp and hold something and to understand something in a different way. I'm just loving this conversation so much. I really wanting you to speak some more about how we can improve ourselves in this lifetime, you know, move more towards our highest self with using these Taoist principles, using this embracing paradox idea. How can that help us reach, you know, towards becoming that higher version of ourselves?

SPEAKER_02 25:54

Absolutely. Um, let me start with the like a very classical Taoist metaphor, right? That explains um that we could use to explain this concept. It says that we're all floating in a river, right? Imagine the river is is moving anyway, and it's carrying us along, whether we like it or not, right? And some people are swimming against the current, and some people are just swimming with it. And the ones that are swimming with the river know they are being carried, and the ones that are swimming against it don't, you know, and and they think that they are in control. And that's why they're exhausted. You know, that the light living in harmony with Tao doesn't mean giving up. It doesn't mean doing nothing. It's intelligent. You know, Taoism talks about balance and change, not as things to stabilize, but but as moments to respond to, right? Balance isn't stillness, it's it's responsiveness, and then change isn't an obstacle, it's the nature of life. And when you stop fighting the river, you don't become weaker. You suddenly acquire the power of the river, the power of the Tao behind you. And that is your higher self. So this person that's flowing with life, they don't disappear. They just become aligned with the current. And now calls this the art of sailing. You know, a wise sailor doesn't command the wind, they study it. They adjust the sails, they they they read the conditions, they cooperate with what is. And here's where this gets personal for me, because I used to be the one swimming against the river. Yeah, I had learned through life experience that I had to protect myself. You know, that vigilance was survival, that control meant safety. That version of me, you know, really did the best it could. It kept me alive. You know, it helped it really helped me challenge, you know, navigate through like real challenges. But at some point I realized something quietly but clearly that I don't need to know everything the way I used to. You know, I don't need to grace, I don't need to swim upstream just to grow my strength. Life just taught me again and again that there is a more optimal way of maybe sail. And and I won't say that I've mastered this, but what I've realized is I've I've I've graduated from one kind of learning and now I'm ready for a deeper one because the the learning never stops. But the you know, but the lessons get better, they get subtler, more spacious, less dramatic, more alive. And then at some point, right, I I stopped treating difficulty as as failure and started seeing it as part of the curriculum. Because this is where Naoism becomes very practical because it teaches what blocks us from flow is often our constant self-interference. It is our own overmonitoring, our own overthinking, our compulsive self-awareness on the deepest level. We get in our own way by watching ourselves too closely. And this is where Taoism asks this very radical question, right? How do we stop getting in our own way? Because the and that's where the you know the answer is found in that emptiness. Not emptiness is numbness, but not emptiness is disconnection from the rest of the world, but but as the spaciousness, and this is what Taoism calls fasting the heart. You know, and and this doesn't mean like heart in a in an emotional sense, it means the mind heart, you know, the psychic center where identity, fear, and and and control just constantly is in, you know, to fast the heart is to quiet that center, not to become heartless, but to to like stop interfering with life's intelligence. And and there's a Davis teaching that sounds shocking, right? Until you feel it. It says the highest kind of person has no heart, you know, but that is no compassion, but no clutter, no compulsive grasping, no need to control. That person is described as a mirror. You know, like imagine a mirror that grasps nothing, it receives, but it does not retain anything, like water, like still water, which reflects whatever passes through it, but it doesn't hold. And this is the living in flow. Like you respond fully, then you release, move with what is, you learn, you adjust, you let go. And somewhere along the way, you maybe stop trying to like graduate from life, and you know, at some point we start to enjoy that the learning itself is is actually fun. Life, the the process itself is fun, the learning is fun, and and then you you realize that yeah, this is a this is my curriculum, but I'll make it a beautiful one. And and that really is all about embracing and sitting with this and and and and and that and and being in that center space would eventually get to a place where you'll start enjoying life and where you start living every moment with your hundred percent um your your presence in that moment, and that's what Rambas again says, be here now. So um it's being in that moment, giving your hundred percent participation to your life. And and that is that'll keep you going towards your higher self and it's not gonna be an overnight big bang moment. It's gonna be a softening, and you know, every every moment is is um, you know, when your thoughts drift away, it's it's about you really bringing um back and then holding both because this is what um Davison keeps reminding us again and again that life cannot be divided into good and bad. And and and there's a very old, very popular Davis story, if you don't mind, I could share it that just comes, that captures this, you know, better than any explanation ever could. Um so once upon a time, right? There was this farmer. Um one day his this horse just ran away, and all the neighbors came by and said, Oh no, how terrible. This is such a bad luck. And the farmer said, Maybe. And and the next day the horse returned, and alongside it with it, it came with seven wild horses. And now the neighbors gathered and said, Oh wow, how lucky you are. And then the farmer said, Maybe. And you know, on the following day, the farmer's son tried to ride one of the wild horses. He suddenly broke the leg, and the neighbors came back and said, Oh, this is awful. How how unfortunate. And the farmer said, Maybe. And then, you know, the next day the soldiers came to the village to recruit the engine for the army because the the son's leg was broken, he was not taken. And the neighbors came again, what once again they came and said, Oh, how lucky he didn't go. And the farmer said, Maybe. You know, that's the whole story. You know, no models fell down, no conclusions handed to us. And that's what makes it uncomfortable and powerful, because from any single moment in life, it is actually impossible to know whether something is good or bad. Because we only know based on that very narrow snapshot, you know, a very limited point of view. And and this brings us to that question like, what does it look like to hold the opposing experiences, emotions together at the same time? It looks like this, right? This it this feels painful, and I don't know what it will become. And this feels like a loss, and I'm not rushing to define it. This feels good, and I'm not clinging to it either. So holding both doesn't mean detachment, it doesn't mean indifference, it means staying open, it means not collapsing into conclusions um too quickly, right? So the farmer doesn't deny what's happening, the horse is lost, the leg is broken, you know, he he doesn't add a story to it that freezes the event in the meeting. He leaves room. And and that room, that's where the life needs moving, you know. Um and that's that's the capac and that kind of builds the capacity to sit with the uncertainty and um and and with the discomfort because we've been built it by resisting the urge to label everything immediately. Oh, this event is good, this is bad, this was a success or a failure. And and those labels, yeah, of course, they give us comfort, but they also shrink reality.

Goals Without Losing The Present

SPEAKER_01 34:27

Yeah, yes, I totally, I totally agree. I love that story so much. It really does perfectly illustrate what you're talking about right now. I think one thing that I my mentally I had struggled with in the past, and I feel like this is something that a lot of people struggle with, is we've been taught our whole lives to have goals, to have a vision for the future, to have things that we're aspiring to. We've got a 10-year plan, a five-year plan, a one-year plan, we've got our New Year's resolutions. You know, we may or may not still be doing those, but we have our eyes on a prize, on a target somewhere. Especially in the corporate world, we are trained to have our three big goals that are in front of us every single day. We look at them every single day. They're on our computer, they're on a sticky note in our bed, in our bathroom, at our home, they're they're all, you know, what are your three goals? Your boss is gonna come to you and ask you what your three goals are and what you're doing to meet those goals. And so there's that one side of us where we have this target that we're trying to reach because this is our vision for the future that we want to have. And so we are breaking reverse engineering that back to the things we need to do every day. So there's that one side of it. Well, then there's this other side that we're speaking about right now that you're speaking about that says you need to just live in the present moment. You need to just go with the flow, allow life to take you, just be here now and do these things. I'm I'm with you on all this. Like, I'm not saying this is that, like, I'm with you on all this, and I live like that now. But I'm thinking about who I who the old lady was and like how did I get to the place where I am now? It's really hard to wrap your mind around having both. So I'm curious what you say, what comes to you, what you say to that, what does Dow say to that when it's like we have this vision of what we want our future to be and we need to take certain steps to get there? However, how do we live with the river? How do we live in flow and still make it somewhere that we want to go, you know, without having to look at our goals every single day and make sure we're checking off the boxes on the to-do list, you know, every single day to get us there. So please speak to that because that's something that that I feel like is a it's a hard thing to get around.

SPEAKER_02 36:56

Oh yeah, absolutely. And I I'm I struggle with that every day. And you know, we were talking about the the work and all that. And um this is a paradox that I'm actually really struggling with. And since this this episode, this this series is all about embodiment, I want to talk about how I'm dealing with this paradox uh myself. Um and you know, and and it is the paradox that I can be spiritual, like you said, I can be on that side, and I can also like the the love the worldly pleasures like the the ones that your boss is asking for, um a performance report, a raise, a bonus. You could be both. So every time, right, I like something, like a like a luxury or a beauty, and and a voice in my head said, Really, are we still doing that? You know, and and I believe that voice, you know, I I I judge myself constantly, you know, I judge my taste, I judge my desire, I judge the parts of me that wanted more than than survival and then spiritual correctness. You know, I I I genuinely thought that if I if I was truly awakened, I wouldn't want this. So, you know, I tried to outgrow myself and honestly that version of growth was violently deep because I I fought myself, I spiritualized self-rejection, I called it discipline, I called it maturity. But the truth is I did not do all this inner work just to end up being ashamed of being human. Because at some point I hit the wall, not not a dramatic breakdown, more like an exhaustion, the kind where you realize that you're not actually healing anymore. You're just endlessly editing yourself. And you know, at that point, something in me said, I'm not doing this, like I'm not going to amputate those parts of myself that um, you know, and and call it enlightenment. I'm not I'm not healing forever. I'm ready to integrate. And integration for me looked like this, right? I stopped pretending I was trying to transcend my humanity and I admitted that okay, I want to live inside it fully, consciously. And and here's the part people usually twist, right? The higher consciousness does not mean you stop wanting things, doesn't mean you stop climbing that ladder at your professional environment, doesn't mean that you stop uh you know wanting things, wanting luxury. And it means that you stop being unconsciously run by them. You know, I don't enjoy beauty because I'm empty. I enjoy it because awareness enjoys form. And Tao says Tao is is made of the unknown, and it also has the 10,000 things of form. And and I don't like comfort because I'm avoiding depth. I like it because I have a nervous system, I have a human body that I'm I'm responsible for taking care of. And and the Tao never asks us to recheck the world. It flows through everything, through silk, through stone, through the bonus checks, you know, through everything. It never told us to become smaller. It said become aligned. And alignment is uncomfortably honest, right? And it's a hormounc that most people don't want to touch in their lives. Like you can't enjoy things without letting things own you. And and that kind of freedom and Tony Ninja doesn't come from repression, it comes from regulation. Because spirituality without emotional regulation doesn't make you enlightened, it makes you disconnected. Like floating about life is not growth, it's avoidance, which is a nicer language. Because the real growth is learning how to stay here without abandoning yourself. And yes, this means power, you know, not control, not dominance. You know, you have the power to regulate your system to understand what you're feeling instead of overriding it, like to integrate the lessons instead of working on yourself for the rest of the life. And at some point I realized that the healing was a doorway, you know, but it was never a destination. I didn't come here to heal forever. I want to live. And then this is where the dial clicked for me because ru we isn't passivity, it's it's not surrendering your will, it's just refusing to keep fighting yourself. And ru wei was was the you know end of that internal war. No more choosing consciousness against what I want, my desires and my growth, you know, no more growth that requires self-detroy. I'm both. And and you know, that doesn't make me less awakened, it makes me real because I don't need to prove my spirituality through denial, because in real life, this looks very simple. I enjoy what I enjoy without disassociating, I grow without erasing myself, and I I learned how to co-create with the divine through presence and not through pressure, right? And I and I stop forcing what doesn't need force, because when you stop projecting parts of yourself, life doesn't push back as hard. And and this and this is what walking the Tao, walking the wisdom, walking the integration looks like now. It's not perfect, it's not pure, but it is very honest, it's grounded, and it is still evolving, you know, because I'm I'm still learning. And and this um and this is fully unmistakably human, and that's who we are. And it's okay to have both things, and and it's okay to strive for for what you want, your goals. If boss is asking for three goals, go ahead and set those three goals for him because that is also life. Life is not denial, because because in in in Hinduism, um I was born into Hinduism, Hindu culture, and um there are three three types of yoga that we follow. Once karma yoga, bhakti yoga, and jnana yoga. Karma yoga is action, doing, doing things without expecting anything in rhythm. And that's your karma yoga. And bhakti yoga is your your your love for God, the divine, the the almighty. And then the jnana yoga is questioning yourself. Who am I? Like who is this person that wants to do all this? And and and all of these three are needed for for living this life, for for understanding what all of this is about. All three paths are needed. We can't just not do work. We can't say I'm not gonna set my goals. I have to set my goals. That is part of my the part of the curriculum that I was signed up for. Um and it's it's that integration. We talk about the integration, um, it's the mind, body, soul. It's all three have to integrate together and and want to be able to um perform the actions at an optimal level. And and that is what aligning with uh with the do the do way is is really about.

Suffering As Teacher And Training

SPEAKER_01 43:58

And um I love that. It's not either or it's integrating all aspects of yourself and understanding that we're not here to be perfect, we're here to be human and embrace and accept this beautiful life that we've chosen to live at this point. So how can we catch ourselves when we're trying to force resolution or we're trying to force clarity?

SPEAKER_02 44:33

Yeah, absolutely. And and that is um and then it's very important. I talked about this in the book as well. It's it's about being the architect of your own life. And honestly, I don't mean it in like a you know hustle culture, control everything kind of way, right? It means in real life. Right? It's not a mistake, it's not a sign that you're doing something wrong, it's built into the human experience, right? And then and then here's a paradox that the very suffering that we hate encountering is the same thing that teaches us what no book, no teacher, no podcast can ever do. Because when they meet the suffering directly and when you don't turn away from it, when you look at it in the eye and recognize for what it is, like something really changes, not because the crazy pain goes away, but because we stop fighting the reality. And and this is where now comes in. In in now's philosophy, right? Water is one of the most powerful uh metaphors because water doesn't argue with the rock, it doesn't resist the bend in the river, it just flows around what it cannot move. And over time it shapes what once seems immovable. And then suffering is like that rock in the river. Because resistance makes it hurt more. And flow turns it into wisdom. And when we resist suffering, we add a story to it, right? This shouldn't be happening. Oh, I should be further by now. I failed, I'm behind. Um, but the but the flow says, the Tao says, Okay, this is here. What is it teaching me? And and suddenly like that suffering isn't an enemy, it becomes an instruction. And I often think of life as as a video game, right? Like every level isn't there to punish you, it is there to train you. Like timing, patience, your discernment, when to move, when to pause, when to stop forcing and and actually look around. And once you extract the lesson, you don't need to keep replaying the level. Now you can take it off the book. That's growth. Growth isn't always dynamic. Sometimes growth is quiet. Sometimes growth looks like staying present instead of just spiraling. And and so how does invasive paradox support the growth, right? Because paradox allows two truths to coexist. This hurts and it's shaping me, and I don't like this, and I don't need to like escape it. I don't see the full picture, and I can still take the next honest step. That's not weakness, that's literally, right? It's like how how can we how can we be evolving and grounded at the same time? And this is the the heart of becoming. It is it is it you if you're always evolving but never grounded, you're reckless, you're constantly chasing like a future version. But if you're grounded but never, you know, fully evolving, you get stuff clinging to familiarity as well. And the Tao talks about the uncalled block. Oh, that is a master of metaphors. The kind of metaphors in the paradise, because this metaphor is perfect for explaining a paradox. And um, it's about like something whole without being perfected, right? You can grow. Imagine an uncalled block. You can make anything out of it. So and and it is that that you can grow without betraying who you are, you can evolve without needing to perform your transformation. You you you become by staying rooted while allowing change to just move through you. And and this is where being an architect kind of becomes real because the architect doesn't control the weather, right? They don't stop storms from coming, but they build a structure that can withstand the storms. And that's the difference, you know. And and if anything, that my own journey taught me uh something. There there were seasons where I felt completely lost, like I was inside a maze, and nothing was really making sense. And um, you know, but the maze wasn't there to trap me, it was there to teach me how to move, where I lead my energy, where you know, what really drains my spirit, what looks good to the ego, but feels wronged in my body. Everything around us is spiritual. Like our routine is spiritual, the boundaries are spiritual, the inner dialogue that we have with ourselves, that's spiritual too. Like how you how you respond when things don't go your way is spiritual. And my fault didn't come here to just achieve, it came here to experience, it came here to feel, to become more alive. And I've learned this, like how I I feel inside is that my compass, not happiness, it's alignment. If my life feels constantly constricted, right, that's information. So I keep reworking the structure, not from fear, but from wisdom, you know, which um which again brings us the question like how do you really trust yourself, right? When everything feels so unclear, like we don't wait for certainty because certainty is is rare. The moment is available, trust is built through small, honest steps that are, you know, taken in the fog, like like walking through the mist in the mountains, like you don't see the whole path, but with each step, the ground appears. That's the Taoist trust, not forcing clarity, but demand you know, not demanding answers, but just staying in relationship with it. And then here's you know something so powerful. No matter what happens, you decide what it means. You know, you decide whether it makes you smaller or more spacious, whether it fractures you or measures you. That's where the power comes back. Because now you have the power. So if you're in in a season right now, or if anyone watches the season where you know everything feels so confusing, heavy or flow, maybe we're not failing. Maybe you know, we're not being um you know, it's not a it's not a big failure on our side. Maybe we're just being shaped like water, you know, that shapes the stone. Becoming is in a straight line, it's always a spiral. You meet the same lessons, you know, with more awareness, more resistance, and and a deeper trust. Um, and and that is growth. Um, so yeah, so we're not here to build perfect life, but um, but we want a life that can hold both joy and sorrow, like without losing that center. And this is why we don't fight the current, we learn to just move with it.

Practical Tools And Love Glasses

SPEAKER_01 51:15

Yeah, I really I really like how you spoke about that your soul came here to feel more alive, you know, and I think a lot of times people judge their lives based on their level of happiness. And happiness can shift all the time. And the way that you're speaking about it, it's we didn't come to be here just to be happy. We came here to experience all the emotions and the curriculum that has been laid out for us and chosen for us. And I think that's a great thing for us to remember. It's not just about the highs, it's about feeling, it's about being present, it's about acknowledging what's happening and not trying to force things or quickly move through them, allowing them to move through in their own time, which becomes a lot shorter when we're just when we're present with them, instead of constantly trying to force them down or out or away. They can just continuously come back up or they just live there, you know, until more gets added to them, which makes them come to the surface in such a bigger way. Maybe that is detrimental to us at certain points. So I really like that you spoke about that. Um I know one thing that I really like about your book is that it's practical tools, you know, for people to use. It's not just it's not just words on a page, it's not just ideas or new perspectives, it's translating that into practices that people can use in their daily lives. So I'd love for you to speak about what you hope people feel, understand, what you hope they do after reading your book.

SPEAKER_02 53:05

Absolutely. So one of the most dramatic understandings, right, that I've had on this path is that there is no they, there's no other. I know that sounds really abstract, um, but until it really lands um in your body because um culturally we are trained to do the opposite. We train to think we are separate, to to really categorize, to to reduce people to labels, roles, personalities, and you know, say, I am this kind of person, they are that kind. And and you know, one of the most radical shifts happens when we start seeing not how different people are from us, but how similar they are to you. You know, and that shift didn't come to me through thinking. It came when when competition fell away, and when I stopped needing to be ahead, right? More evolved and more spiritual, more together, because competition creates that distance and and love dissolves it. And I noticed um something very simple that then I truly love someone, like not idealized, but but real love. Like I see everything, their fear, their confusion, their tenderness, their conditioning, their the humanity, and and suddenly there's no other, just you know, another person trying to feel safe, trying to be seen, trying to move through the life without breaking. And that realization really changes how we live. Uh, and and so here is is that tactical integration, right? So one simple way to practice this in in daily life, um, I've talked about this in book as well that I'd like to share today is that next time that we feel triggered by someone, right? Like annoyed, defensive, or superior, interior, irritated, judgmental, whatever, right? It's and and ask yourself one question. What part of me lives here too? Not as a as a self-blame or as a as a self-judgment or recognition, um, you know, it's that impatience that you see, you you felt it too. And this is very Taoist because the Tao doesn't divide the world into me versus you, it recognizes that the movement and you know, that fear moving from one form, desire moving through another. And, you know, when you stop resisting that, something soften, like you don't collapse your boundaries, you don't excuse harm, you simply stop creating unnecessary separation, you know, and with that something harmful happens because you reclaim your energy, because resentment drains energy, comparison drains energy, competition drains energy, recognition restores it. And this doesn't mean you like everyone, it it means you stop making enemies out of reflection. And and slowly, right, almost without trying, we begin to meet life with more ease, more compassion, more groundness, more clarity. And then this is how philosophy becomes lived wisdom. Not by changing the world, but by changing how you meet the person standing in front of you. Sometimes that person is just another human. And and and then seeing that and recognizing that that familiarity between another person and and you, I think that would be the biggest lesson um that um that I I believe my book uh has to offer. Um to to see that humanness in other person and recognizing that they are just like me going through the human emotions, going through the world. And um and it is also seeing through um the the lens of love. My there's a speech um that I want to talk about that my guru gave many decades ago. Um that um I've never forgotten. I think it was in the year 1958. I was not born then, but but and then even now, like when I return to his words when I hear them, they don't feel old, they just feel timeless. He said, Love makes the whole world kin. Not love is emotion, not love as a sentiment, but love is vision. And then he went on to say something very simple, right? And it's very powerful. When you speak to people with love, you cannot develop hatred. Think about this, right? Hatred cannot coexist with love and action. Like and then he he offered a metaphor that has dated me all these years. He spoke of a farmer. A farmer just, you know, he he plants a small seedling in the soil and then watches it grow with with great care. And then, you know, they remove the weeds, they be protected from the pest, they very patiently, you know, not for that inward immediate reward, but for that day of harvest. And my guru said, just like that farmer, we must nourish love within ourselves. And just as carefully we must pluck out the weeds, which are nothing but the hatred, the envy, the resentment, before they take root. And, you know, he then said something that that he framed how I see the world. He said, if you wear red glasses, everything looks red. If you wear glasses of love, everything will appear lovable. You know, it's it's such a simple truth and yet so profound because we don't see the world as it is, we see the world as we are. He spoke about the eye of love. The eye of love sees all beings as God, not only the poor, but the rich as well. And this is the part always surprises me. He said, Oh, we must love the rich too, even even more deeply because they often have fewer chances to develop the attitude of renunciation. You know, that is compassion without judgment, not separating, not ranking, it's just saying, you know, my I grew harassed for all beings, to see all things as embodiments of love and to worship them, not not with rituals, but not with incense, but with flowers of love. You know, this the speech the sweet things feels especially relevant now because the world doesn't need more judgment. It doesn't need sharper divisions, it it needs a shift in vision. It it needs us to ask what glasses am am I wearing? Like when I look at another human being, is it fear, anger, comparison, uh competition, or is it love? 'Cause love doesn't mean agreeing with everyone. Right? Love doesn't mean avoiding truth. It means choosing to see the humanity. Even when it is difficult. You know, if you tend that inner field with care, if you pull the weeds early, and if you choose to just see through the eyes of love, the harvest takes care of itself. Because not when we need a love becomes a vision, but the whole world just becomes our kid. And this is what being in alignment with Tao and being in alignment with Wuei is all about. The wor i it it takes care of itself. The the the the the Tao, the universe, the Christ consciousness that handles all of the universe, that moves, that handles the seasons and and that that handles everything in the universe, which is in perfect condition. You know? We have to trust that that intelligence that's behind all of it. And we are part of it. It's recognizing and and it is that being in alignment with it, and love, choosing love, always choosing love is is the easiest way to be in alignment with Tao. Because that changes everything. And really love is love is all we need at this at this point of um uh our existence in this world.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:57

I love that. I love that so much. I'm definitely going to wear my love glasses today. Yeah, I love that. That's like just such a great thing to think about. Like an easy thing to be like, okay, what glasses are you wearing right now? Like, how are you looking at the world right now? You know, I how are you looking at that other person that you're in conversation with? You know, I I really like that. I really like that a lot. And it's something that I can I can actually bring to mind to bring this to my awareness, you know, bring bring my awareness to that present moment and what how I'm looking at the world. That's so beautiful. Is there any final thing that you want to leave our listeners with today that's just something you feel called to share?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:44

We've had a wonderful conversation today. I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna really help listening back to this conversation, Lucy. I think I I just love the direction, the the steps that uh the the questions that you asked, the right bronzing. I think it involved a lot of feelings within within me, a lot of things that have I have kept within myself. Actually, I was able to put put uh put words to it. And uh thank you. Thank you for asking all the right questions. Um, this was such a great conversation. It's such an honor to be here, Lizzie. I've been listening to some of your conversations that you've had with uh with Nikki. You and Nikki have had multiple conversations on that podcast. I was listening, and I'm I'm I'm a huge fan. I'm gonna go down that list and keep listening more to your to the podcast. I really enjoy being here in your company today.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:33

Thank you. Well, yeah, thank you so much for your time. I I really appreciate it, and I'm really excited to dive into your book. I really am. Um I think that leaning into the DAO and the way that you have and how it has shifted how you're living your life. Like I'm super curious to dive deeper. So I really, I really appreciate you coming on today and sharing your vision, sharing your experience, sharing your expertise, and sharing your energy, you know, with myself and with our listeners. So thank you so much. And it's 1111 right now where I am. So I think this is the perfect time.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:20

I'm a huge believer.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:24

Great. Well, thank you so much again. And thank you everyone for listening to the end. I'm going to link all of Prashanti's information in our show notes and her book, especially. So go on, get it, dive deeper, and take some steps. So thank you so much, everyone.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:44

Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:53

Thank you so much for spending time with us on the Modern Tech Collective podcast.