Dr. Kshama Metre, popularly known as Doctor Didi, is an Indian rural development leader, and a pediatrician, who has led the Chinmaya Organization for Rural Development since the founding of its predecessor organization in 1985, and she leads the organization as its National Director.
Dr. Kshama Metre – India 2019 Transcript
March 28, 2019
Dharamsala, India
Maitri Project – Mount Madonna School
Dr. Kshama Metre: I have to first actually tell them how wonderful they all are looking in their dresses so it’s good to see you. Some of you look very Indian in the dresses. You’re looking very good, the colors look so nice on you.
Ward Mailliard: So I just want to say a couple words of introduction. So I met Didi- she’s referred to here as ‘Didi’, older sister, but I don’t think she’s my older sister, but I have reverence for her as an older sister, because of the work that she does in this world. And I explained to you that she gave up a life of relative ease- if you can say that being a doctor is ever easy- but she left the life of being in Delhi in a very promising practice and served the village people here, and especially served women and children in this area. Her work extends to so many things. One of the things we aren’t able to do this time because of our timing is go out to the villages and meet some of the women’s collectives. But the women’s collectives that have been created are changing this area. And we met- a long time ago somebody said ‘you have to go meet her’ and so I did, and then we flew back to Delhi together. We were brought together. And she has served Chinmayananda for many, many years, since 1985?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yes, that’s right, you got it.
Ward Mailliard: And the work that’s been done here is just done day by day, day by day, bit by bit, piece by piece, solving this problem, that problem, creating this opportunity, that opportunity. But for someone to take an organization from its very beginning to what this is today, takes a lot of perseverance over a long period of time, and that’s how things get accomplished. And so I knew from the moment I met her that this was someone special and it’s a privilege to bring you guys here to talk with her. And I always learn something, and I love hanging out with her and just being around her, so it’s a privilege for me to be here as well.
Student: Ok, I have the first question. So, as a pediatrician and the director of CORD, you must have created so much positive change in the lives of so many women and children. What is it that you most want them to learn and take away from their relationship with CORD? And what are some of the challenges that they face?
Dr. Kshama Metre: The most- I mean the biggest take is that everyone has great potential, everyone. You have to just tap them, make them realize, and open more opportunities. That’s the lesson they have to learn. That we can do something. Each one has to know that ‘I can do something.’ I may be different from someone, but I have something very unique about me and I can do it.
Challenges? Every job has a lot of challenges, but however each challenge makes you grow stronger. You asked the challenges the children and the mothers have? Their pretty different from each other, that’s why it’s very important to listen to people. Even if a group sit together, if they sort of interact with you, I will know exactly what is pricking you most. So it’s very different from each one to the other. But there’s certain common things that come out generally when you work with people. Making women stand on their own, with their own jobs, or earning cash in hand, getting the money in their own hand, is sometimes a challenge for some of them. But once they realize that they can work, it opens up certain areas for them to run. And that gives them the power to be themselves.
So those are the kinds of- and I think it’s all over the world, it’s not very unique to just us here, it’s all over the world. When I go to Japan, or the US, or I go anywhere else, a lot of dignity comes from making your own money too.
Ward Mailliard: Historically, that represents a change, doesn’t it?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yeah.
Ward Mailliard: Can you say something about that change?
Dr. Kshama Metre: The change that has occurred here over the years?
Ward Mailliard: Yeah.
Dr. Kshama Metre: See, most women believe that they’re not doing anything. When they’re looking after their own homes, their own children, doing all the domestic chores, and in these mountains doing agriculture and looking after the few cows or goats or poultry they have, they all think they’re doing nothing. If you go and ask her ‘what are you doing?’ ‘No, I do nothing.’ So that’s been a big journey for us to make them realize that they’re doing a lot. If they were to stop working, imagine all the women all over the world on one day went on a holiday today. Ok, no work at all. You see the amount of chaos that might be there? So the first thing was a challenge to make them realize that they’re doing great things and can improve it better. Second part was to make men understand too that women were doing such great work. And in the beginning, people would tell women that ‘you’re wasting your time going for a meeting’ for which they came once a month.
So it took some time and there’ve been many individual struggles for many women. And we only have them to overcome that kind of a struggle depending on- I told you the issues are different for each woman. A woman might be in trouble because she has an alcoholic husband who doesn’t earn and doesn’t bring any money home, so how to look after her children? Another woman may have a disabled child and she doesn’t know what to do about that child and where to get some help. Someone may have some health problems. So there’s as many issues as you can think of, and unless we look into them individually and collectively what we can do for that person, change doesn’t come about.
So it’s been a long journey and now many of them have realized how to work together in groups, so those groups are known as women’s groups, we call them (can’t understand), and they have once a month meetings where they think of anything under the sun, whether it’s a social issue, economic issue, political issue, issues of society, anything. National management, even that. What to think about the youth, the children, some of them getting into drugs, alcohol, everything they’ll talk about. So how to participate in local self-governance. So it’s been a long journey but bit by bit- it’s not like a straight graph growth, it’s a spiral growth, and they reach somewhere.
Student: Over the course of your career, what changes have you seen in the status of women, either positive or negative, and what do you think should be the primary focus for the next generation of humanitarians in India?
Dr. Kshama Metre: See both men and women have their own values, so they don’t have to be the same, but we have to recognize the value of each one. Women have an inherent capacity to nurture, so all of us should acknowledge us, be grateful to them for that, nurturing capacity of women. Another capacity that women have is to sacrifice. You find your mother’s sacrifice their sleeps for you when you were born to make sure- and she did it with love, because she cared so much for you. So it was not a kind of real, real sacrifice because she had joy in doing that. And women are actually psychologically stronger than men, although men appear to be more strong. I think it comes from the value of being able to be patient, tolerant, things like that.
So I’m not like a women activist like ‘ok, you have to do things for women and that.’ I’m for the equality and the opportunities and everything else, but diversity is beautiful. So if women have their beauty kept with all the other kind of responsibilities they have, it should be done. But they should not be crushed with the labor of looking after people. It should not be made compulsory for them that you have to do this, you know? And to be bogged down. But to be acknowledged and recognized and respected and rewarded for all that they do. That is the attitude that we should develop towards women, and allow them to be free and make decisions, ok? So that’s the kind of women empowerment I think of that women own things, they have their ownership growing.
But how does one take more ownership when one thing is- when you are the decision maker, when you put some money forward for something. So with ownership, you start seeing women blossoming in many, many ways. So that is the way I would like women’s empowerment to come; through effort and humanity, to go much beyond where we are stuck. We’re too much stuck only in objective sciences. It’s all right, objective science is required for the comfort of everyone. But as much as we focus on the world outside, all human beings must be encouraged to look within, to know themselves much better than they know- that’s not on the basis of just morality. Morality is required for the mind to be quiet, but really explore that what we really are. (can’t understand) with our own identity with the body, mind, and intellect alone. We have some greater potential- each human being has that, and that is the kind of relationship we should have with each other. Then there won’t be any kind of exploitation, and there’s so much exploitation in the world, so much violence in the world that one sees, how much we have destroyed the globe.
So those are many issues we have to face and we have to really become- really enjoy giving. We haven’t understood that giving is the greatest joy, that’s why we make the mistakes we make. Ok, that’s what human beings have to really understand.
Imogen Cockrum: Hi. How do you get a community to accept new ideas that bring cultural changes?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Imogen, see every community has many good traditional values to promote them, it also has many ills that creep in through the years, discuss it. And it has many harmless practices that people practice, allow them to go on. All over the world, because of various invasions, even in India because we see from almost a thousand years- India was first invaded by the Mugils and the Muslims for a long time and then came the invasion- the British invasion, so we were colonized. So- and then the new independence and growing through and not knowing enough about our own country’s culture well and the greater narratives of India, there’s a lot more to be done- I can speak for India, so every culture has to undo the wrongs to its own narrative, because those are the cultural values that are not only beneficial for that community, but they’re beneficial for everyone in the world. So you must help those cultural values to be continued. And they bring a lot of joy, cultural values are in many ways- it’s a wide spectrum, you see? It’s the way we think to the way we manifest. And the deeper down realization of what we think we are. So it’s a very wide spectrum so look after the good values, it’s good for everyone in the world and we can share it with each other.
Ward Mailliard: This is consistent with something the Dalai Lama was saying today.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Oh, really?
Ward Mailliard: Absolutely because ultimately all paths lead to the top of the mountain. But he was talking about questioning and not just accepting.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Oh, yes.
Ward Mailliard: And the questioning the narratives to figure out which of the narratives that we will sustain.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Oh, of course. Many narratives may not have some evidence, you have to look for those evidences. And some narratives, if they don’t have it, leave it open for further exploration. And really do good research on many of them before we- it’s just not about narratives, it’s about life. The human beings are the only people- only species that can think. So questioning is important. But questioning not for my egoistic point of view, but questioning to find the truth. To- I’m questioning because I’m trying to reach the truth, that’s why I’m questioning. That’s important.
Student: Hi. So have you ever come across a situation or problem within the communities that you have served that you could not change? And if so, how did you respond to that challenge?
Dr. Kshama Metre: I’m no one to change, ok? And in fact, we can change no one. But we can all lead people through active listening to either come to agreeing with us or disagreeing with us. But when we do that, we should allow enough space if they don’t agree with our viewpoint and allow some space for them to ruminate over it. Because if you and I are speaking things that are real, that are truthful, are speaking with love for the people, for their good, not my own good, their good, not selfishly. And when I’m speaking with anyone, I have no other ulterior motives then their own good, and when we speak we have sweetness in our voice, and very important thing sometimes is to also see whether they have given you the right to correct them, you know what you want to say to them. So all these are a combination of things we work with communities, we understand them and very often, we see that their own insights, their own wisdom, is very good and maybe the right solution will come out of our discussions with them. So that’s why we think we don’t know enough, the community too is very wise, and there is no one solution that fits all. And the more local we go, and the local context we decide things with local solutions at a lower cost with greater sustainability.
So those are the important things, and very often of course it’s very difficult like you said, in the communities, it’s not very easy, it takes a lot of patience. And like anywhere else in the world, there’re all types of people that make up the world. So the community is made up of many types of people. Some are truth, some of it you- and some are there to destroy the thing. One must- if you’re a leader and the community has leaderships, we try to negotiate. We must be able to negotiate with those kind of situations. And I think ultimately, people do realize what is good. It’s only when we are selfish we don’t find the right answers.
Student: So, in an article- or an interview with the UN you said, “as soon as you can provide an opportunity, especially to those who are poor and disabled, I’ve seen that they can do amazing things, we just have to be creative enough to understand what would suit them.” So I’m curious, how do we become aware of what would suit people and see their potential?
Dr. Kshama Metre: There’re many ways, the easiest way is to be meeting them at their own site, where they live. That’s the best way to understand the whole situation around. Like you all were told about India before you came here, you were told about our- you could imagine many things, but it’s only when you came to India that you know what it’s all about. So similarly, when you’re trying to help the poor and the disadvantaged, it’s very important to be in their shoes, and once you’re in their shoes, the empathy is good, then one and one doesn’t become two, it becomes eleven. Ok? So it’s been a great way of doing things, that’s the best way. The other is of course because their you don’t have to do too much talking and understanding and a lot of interview because many things are clear at once. ‘Oh, God, they live like this? This is where they get their water from? He doesn’t have a place to go and relieve himself in the morning? And he can’t even walk?’ Or, ‘we have given him a wheelchair but in that mountain area they cannot operate the wheelchair so it’s been thrown away in a store and plants have grown over it?’ Ok, so it’s only when you go there you know what it is and how to help.
Student: I was wondering who the women are in your life that have inspired you or that you admire.
Dr. Kshama Metre: When you’re little, your immediate surroundings, your mother, your sisters, your friends around. As you grow, a few teachers. As you grow older- for me, I was working in a hospital, my professors, and doctors who worked very hard day and night because we worked in huge hospital that served the very poor. So you saw what tenacity they worked. And there’ve been so many women even in India and abroad that influence your way of thinking. But I wouldn’t say it’s just women, it’s men also. And I don’t have one particular women who has inspired, but I have many people who have inspired me. So it’s difficult to say who exactly it is, I can say my father inspired me greatly. But if you ask me just one person who inspired, and not a woman, it’s my guru Chinmaya. I’ve been inspired greatly by him because that’s the first time I understood how little I knew about myself. So I cannot compare him with anyone. It’s another journey as I told you and it’s a big journey.
Mara Peruzzi: Hi. Through our research we read that you focus a lot of your work on self-help and not charity, so I was wondering what does self-help mean to you and how do you accomplish it?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Mara, yes. I would like to as you what does self-help mean to you?
Mara Peruzzi: Well, I think self-help is just really taking care of yourself and being in-tune with your emotions and your body and not being afraid to just stick to what you believe is best for you.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yeah, so that’s one part of it, to be confident about you, to have a good self-image about you. And be able to see what are my own resources, what are my own interests, what is visible for me to do at this moment, rather than look too far, ok? Because for each one of these is a step up. So self-help is being really able to know where I stand at this very moment, what can I do instead of being helpless, and take a few steps so that every time you take a few steps, you are encouraged within yourself that I can do it. But it doesn’t happen so easily for people who have had very difficult lives and disadvantaged lives. So our role is to be able to facilitate that purpose. Sometimes it may require some interventions from us. It’s like saying that you know, you can give a man a fish to eat when he’s very hungry, but not all the time. But you must teach him how to fish so that he can do it himself or herself. So that’s the kind of facilitations we do. We demand that you also take steps so that we can take some steps with you. But we don’t want to make them depend on us and have a crutch, because we know that they have much better way of getting out of their difficulties than they think today. So that effort, that courage, that confidence, can really be facilitated. So that’s how we work.
Student: Hello, an article on the Chinmaya mission website states, “every organ of the body is part of the whole, goodness can be achieved only when we are established in our oneness with the world.” This concept is so different from the sense of individualism that permeates western culture. Can you speak to what this kind of universal connection means to you?
Dr. Kshama Metre: It’s a very deep question. I’ll try to be- see if I think I’m just a body, mind, and intellect, then it is possible that I can become very individualistic because I keep saying ‘I’m the perceiver, I’m the feeler, I’m the thinker, I’m the doer, I’m this and I’m that.’ So there’s a great chance of being that. As we start expanding ourselves beyond ourselves, it begins with the family, ok? If I began to see for everyone in the family, then I’m expanding my area of universality. If I just stick to ‘this is my place, this is my freedom, this is the way things have to be done.’ Then I’m too much of an individualistic, ok? So if I work for my family, I grow a little more, expand a little more. I start working for a group of people like you, you are like a team together, you grow further. Then you grow for your own community, your own village. You keep expanding your own region, your own nation, your own globe, and then the universe. So then one starts realizing that one’s own being an individual is not such a happy state of being. Being universal comes from the realization that I’m happier being universal than being an individual. Once I know that- because all of us are here in this world to be happy- once I know that it makes me much more happier to do and share things, then you start doing it more and more. Ok, so that’s how you become more universal.
The other thing that happens to us is the higher the goal that you want to reach, or reaching out to people universally, sometimes- like even the family, if you start- if I start from family too and then expand myself, the greater the energy and strength you get to face challenges. And if my goal is the Lord himself, or self-realization or truth itself, then obstructions may come and go, you go beyond yourself. So you have- because- not because of anything else you are a greater person or you’re (can’t understand) very great people, it’s just this realization that the ego is an illusion. So you’re so much happier doing universal- but I don’t want to go to the real base of the answer but I’m trying to touch only the manifested world of our being, which we can each one of us experience it. Each one of us is allowed within ourselves. You don’t need to have confirmation and validation from anyone else, you validate it yourself by living it.
Noah Kaplan: Hi.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Hi.
Noah Kaplan: In discussing teachings of (name), an article through the Chinmaya mission states, “students of our modern times cannot really believe what the reason accepts. This disconnect between belief and what reason tells us is one that I have observed in my own experience.” What do you think causes this?
Dr. Kshama Metre: What causes the distance between belief and reason?
Noah Kaplan: Between what we logically see as true, and what we believe is true.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Thinking has its own value, ok? Logic has it’s own value. But logic may not always lead you to the truth. It depends on many other factors. I may use or misuse logic to project something as truth. So there is that risk there. But let us drop that. The intellect can only take you to some limit, it cannot take you to the ultimate truth. But the intellect based on its own knowledge and certain experiences can think of a higher thing. That’s how discoveries are made, that’s how Newton said ‘I got it.’ Ok? Otherwise we would have never known the (can’t understand). So when you follow a discipline very much sincerely, then that simply leads you to the answer, and that time you don’t say ‘I discovered.’ It came to me. You don’t say ‘I discovered,’ you said ‘it came to me.’ It has a great meaning. The faith that I had was the belief that led me to go beyond the logic to find it, and it comes to me, it opens up its own treasures to me. In any field- you look at any field. When we were practicing in the hospital and we were pediatricians working with patients, sometimes we would say to each other ‘my clinical accruement says this is it.’ But if they ask explain it too much logically, I would say ‘no, I can’t, (can’t understand) with the whole picture it appears to me it is this.’ And then suppose the person passed away and there was an autopsy done, you may turn out to be right, but you couldn’t explain why you were thinking it was this. But you had faith- but you had followed certain discipline, it was not without any logic. So when we are diving within ourselves for the greater truth, it’s like pole vaulting. Don’t leave your intelligence and your mind, bring them together, go to the height of the pole, ok? But ultimately you have to drop the pole to take the jump, yeah? So that’s it. So always saying that because I don’t have any logic, do not have any reasoning, it cannot be the truth, may restrict ourselves to discoveries.
Ward Mailliard: So in some ways your talking about the intuitive process that transcends what we know but we don’t know how we know.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yeah. We have a word in our language which doesn’t fit in very well, the closest English word is ‘faith’. Ok? But we use the word shuntha (unsure of spelling). It means a little more than just faith, because I may have faith in something that is restrictive, I may be wrong. But in shuntha we have faith in something which is much higher and more inclusive for everyone, and which is- which has the quality of divinity. You can’t have faith for ‘I have faith to murder you.’ You can’t have that kind of faith, ok? So it will corrupt the whole world, that is not a good faith.
John Dias: Hi. Selfless service is a mutually beneficial act, the giver grows spiritually and the receiver is blessed with the power of transformation. Understanding this, why is it that there is not more selfless service in the world? What obstacles, either internal or external, stand in the way of selfless service?
Dr. Kshama Metre: See, I think I’ll just tell you that you may begin with selfless service without actually realizing the joy of it. You just do it because to do selfless service is good for you, ok? But soon enough, when you’re sincere with your service, you start realizing the fact that you’re the greatest beneficiary of the whole thing, that you’re getting the most out of it. And that’s when you break all of it, and you break the fact that you’re doing selfless service. You stop even saying that it’s selfless service because there’s no such- you’re enjoying yourself so thoroughly. You’re so happy, people give you so much, and then you start realizing the (can’t understand) mostly begins to answer. The (can’t understand) starts giving a lot. So I feel people are not trying enough, the opportunities they get for selfless service. And it should begin at home by being much more concerned about people who are present in your home, for them rather for your own selves. And then of course the world offers you so many more opportunities, but once you’ve got it, it’s like addiction. Ok? It’s just happiness.
Noah Kaplan: So in western society, we’re often taught that it is our discontent that drives us to make positive changes, like the ones you’ve made in your work, yet you stress the important of inner peace. How do we find the motivation to accomplish our goals while maintaining a sense of inner peace?
Dr. Kshama Metre: See, the motivation for people to do what they do may be different for different people. It may not always be dissent, or discontent. So it’s not always stress that leads you to doing something, like what one does. It may be understanding that the Lord has given me many more things that I could do, so why not do it? It may not always be dissent, ok? Because each one of us are at different levels of our own evolution, different levels of our own evolution. And you asked me another question that- how to be peaceful? What was the question? Let me get it right.
Student: How to be motivated- how to maintain your motivation and inner peace at the same time?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Motivation for doing something, and maintaining the peace within yourself? You mean that?
Student: Yeah.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Does motivation make some people unhappy? I’m trying to understand the question.
Student: So, inner peace- I guess the feeling is when I think of inner peace, I think of contentment, like I’m ok with what’s around me already, and it’s ok if this is what’s going to happy. But then if I’m ok with everything, how do I find motivation to make changes?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Got it. Ok, you may- see there’s an acceptance of things as they are without action to change it if it is not good enough, that’s not really acceptance. That is like being a little iffy about it because it suits me, it’s my comfort zone, ok? But when I- or you see a situation for which you need to do something and you have the ability by the Lord’s grace to do something about it, it is our duty to jump into it, without getting agitated. Mind has to be told to be kept quiet if it is agitated. Come on, because I’m the boss, mind is not the boss, tell the mind to keep quiet, I have work to do. Ok? Because all of us know the more peaceful we are, the better we can function. So it’s not unnatural to get agitated, but we have to become aware that I’m getting agitated and not being peaceful because I have something to do, so let the mind keep quiet. And still if the mind doesn’t keep quiet, and it’s still very agitated, take some time out. Breathe deeply. Sit quietly. Reflect. Try to get sense from high above. Then work ahead. Peace is (can’t understand), we have not understood it, we are covered with too many things, so the more we try to be what we really are, it can be reached effortlessly. Beginning- as a beginner, there are lots of efforts to be made. But once we know certain techniques to apply, we start applying it. And the best technique to know is that the mind can be my friend, but the mind can also be my enemy. So let the mind know that, I want you to be my friend, not my enemy. And once the mind knows you are aware and alert, it’ll stop playing its tricks. It’s only when we allow it, it does play the trick.
Student: So, I wanted to know what working with impoverished villagers has taught you about human nature.
Dr. Kshama Metre: What empowering the villagers has taught me for myself? I’m very grateful to them. They’ve taught me many, many things. One is their patience, especially women, their tolerance, their fortitude, in all difficult situations, and still being able to be happy and marry in times when it is required with very little. Sometimes you find the people who are very rich, who find it very difficult to give. And sometimes you find a very poor person so willing to share. So they don’t have much but they’re very willing to share it. So you learn a lot, you learn from their hardships, you learn from the way they do their own work at home, and how it is possible to be happy with very little. You begin to learn a lot. All the time we are learning from everyone in the world. Not only from the people whom we empower, but I’m learning with you all at this very moment, you learn a lot all the time. Everyone is your teacher. Someone who’s good to you, someone who’s rude to you, both are teachers. They teach you something about yourself, not about themselves, of what I am feeling and thinking, they’re teaching me. If someone is rude to me and I get upset, it tells me more about myself than that person.
Student: How do you think we can take the principles behind self-help organizations and apply them to other institutions such as businesses or governments?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Such as businesses?
Student: Businesses or governments.
Ward Mailliard: So you’re saying take the principles by which self-help organizations operate, could those principles be translated into businesses and governments.
Student: Yes.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yeah. I think we mutually share a lot with each other. Businesses teaches us, and self-help teaches us a lot more. Self-help is also about being self-reliant, ok? So being less dependent on someone else to do something. So there’re many situations in government and businesses where we make excuses. Like this cannot be done because of this. Self-help is about finding solutions, not only finding problems. And it is applicable everywhere, there’s no place where there’s no problems. But if I’m working with the principle of self-help, that means I have confidence about it, I’m looking into ways in which it can be solved, I do it for myself, then I have practiced enough to be able to help others to find their self-help areas of working. And self-help is very good in a group too. Not only for say macro-credit that we hear about self-help groups, but there’re groups of alcoholic anonymous that helps each other, there’re people like you, students together, sitting together. He likes math, and she doesn’t like it, she can’t get it, so he decides ‘ok,’ John says to Lillian, ‘it’s fine, it’s all about helping each other. I’ll make math so easy for you, you’ll start loving it the way I love it.’ Ok? And that’s it. And Lillian has certain other things that is her own talent that she can teach. So self-help is not only about my help to myself, it’s also about helping each other. Because most of the time it also operates within groups. So when you said about businesses, businesses are teams and groups and management teams and everyone else. It’s about helping oneself and helping each other to find the solutions, and we do much better when we work- because some of us have certain things that complement the other. We’re always complementing each other. We may not be good in everything but when we complement each other it’s very helpful. That’s why we call them self-help groups.
Ward Mailliard: Who is not the self, right? So I’m curious, you’ve heard a lot of very important ideas, and one of the reasons I like to come and sit with Didi is because she reminds me of what’s important. So I’m curious about what you’ve heard that’s struck you as important so far. Go ahead.
Student: I really liked what you said about leading people through active listening because through my own personal experience I think some of the best leaders and teachers I’ve ever had have all had that in common in that they tend to listen to their students. By doing that they can really help their students or whoever their leading have a really great experience. So I really liked what you said about that.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yeah because you know in active listening, the two of us together, find a solution which we didn’t know before we started.
Student: I loved everything you said, but I especially- I was struck by pretty much you said about what self-help means to you and what it means to communities. I love that you pointed out that an individual’s mind can be their own friend or their own enemy, and I think that’s really- that’s something that a lot of people can work on- including myself- wanting to be friends with my own mind. So I love that.
Dr. Kshama Metre: That’s very nice.
Ward Mailliard: Can you say something about why that has meaning for you?
Student: I just I think- I think as a young person, I am struggling- a lot of us are struggling- to figure out what we want to do, who we want to become, I very often think about who I want to become. And often times when you think that way, you can develop doubt, and doubt is something that can hover over the mind for a long time, and that would make an enemy of your mind. And doubt is something that I want to get rid of for sure, and be my friend to my mind.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yeah, it’s a good thing that you said so. Sometimes it also helps when the mind is like that, to seek help from someone how is much more mature and calmer than you because it helps you to find your own solution. Not their solution, but your solution. It’s like a reflecting bowl. And Kaili.
Kaili Sullens: For me, what really stuck out is when you say that genders have different values but are equal in importance. I thought that was really cool just because I think often today, people are trying to lump both genders in the same category, and almost treating them like they’re the same and they need to you know have the same importance. But I do feel like they’re very different, and we need to recognize different values that come out of each one so we can all come together. So I really like that.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Actually, they’re very complementary. They’re very, very complementary. And they can even exchange roles.
Priyanka Bharghavan: I really loved your pole vaulting analogy about logic.
Priyanka Bharghavan: I’ve never heard about that before and that’s actually something I was thinking about. I often struggle with finding the relationship between intuition and logic, so like if I’m in a situation where I feel like a logical path but I feel something different like what you were saying, I think I like to know what’s coming next, I like to know the logic part of it, and sometimes just having the feeling by itself makes me a little bit uncomfortable. So I really liked the analogy thing that it’s ok to let go of the mind and the logic and trust your gut.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Good, Priyanka.
Student: I really liked when you said giving is the greatest joy. Because rather than just someone thinking about themselves, they’re giving to the community and they’re also benefiting off of it. So that’s a great concept to me.
Dr. Kshama Metre: And we can all try out and find it out.
Student: Yeah.
Dr. Kshama Metre: It’s a great experiment within ourselves.
Anika Compoginis: I really liked when you said that you can give a man a fish once in a while when he really needs it, but not all the time, you must teach him to fish. And in America at least we’ve all heard the saying ‘you can give a man a fish to eat for one day, but teaching him to fish is better.’ But I hadn’t heard the part about when he really needs it. It’s so important to help people when they’re really in crisis, but doing things for them is not really helping them. They need to be self-sufficient.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yes, you need to help them to become self-sufficient.
Anika Compoginis: Exactly. Help them overcome their own obstacles, but don’t do it for them, and that’s very, very important.
Dr. Kshama Metre: So you’ve got it right, Anika.
Anika Compoginis: Thank you.
Sage Turner: Something that really struck me was when you were talking about you know putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and that perspective really enhances your capacity for empathy. And I just really agree with that, that’s how I think, it’s a great way to solve conflict in your life. You know seeing everyone’s perspective really changes a lot and that one and one isn’t two, but it is eleven. That really struck me, I don’t know why, but thank you.
Mara Peruzzi: Well I liked a lot of what you were talking about, but when you were answering my question about self-help, I really liked what you said about being in the moment and don’t look too far because you can kind of get caught up in that. And I tend to do that, it’s like really hard for me to be in the present, I really like to think about where I’m going next, but it is really important to be in the present. And to know where you stand but don’t be helpless as well, just stand your ground and find that confidence too.
Dr. Kshama Metre: That’s good. If we can understand that living in the present is so good for us, because the future has not yet come, so don’t have any anxiety about it, and the past is dead and gone. So it’s actually only the moment that we live. So you’ve got it, very deep.
Mara Peruzzi: Thank you.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Thank you, Mara.
Noah Kaplan: There was a lot of stuff, there’s- yeah, I have tons of notes on all of that. And everything that everybody said, pretty much I’ve resonated with. Yeah and just so many great things about the limitations of logic, I loved the answer that you have to the question I had about inner peace. And what you were talking about intuition, that also really struck me, the pole vaulting analogy. And if I’m allowed to do this, are there any ways that we can develop that intuition? Do you have any tips for how to do that?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Intuition is actually a higher knowledge that lights all knowledge. In the light of that knowledge that lights everything, which is your own true self, which we also call the absolute truth, or the Lord himself. You know we call different things. So to develop that kind of within ourselves, we have to be learn to become witnesses of our own thoughts and emotions. Now what does a witness do? Like suppose I’m a witness of an accident, I’m not affected by the accident, but I’ve observed the accident. It doesn’t touch me, but I’ve seen it. So once we become aware of our motive- we are not aware of things around us, we are not very aware of things within us. So start being quiet enough to watch your own thoughts and emotions, and know that I’m not them. I know that I’m not them. They are my thoughts and emotions, like the pen is not me, it’s my pen, I’m writing with the pen. So I use the pen, but the pen is not me. I am absolutely the blissful being that I am. In Sanskrit we have three words of who we are: it’s called (speaking Sanskrit); ‘I am existence, knowledge, blissfulness.’ So once we start diving within that aspect of that dimension of ourselves, and become more witness to what is happening outside me and my thoughts and emotions, sometimes happy, sometimes sad, sometimes jealous, sometimes angry, sometimes thinking this is right because the intellect makes the decision, ‘this is right’ and ‘this is wrong.’ Just be quiet, keep a distance like a witness, let it settle, and that settling is actually recognizing the peacefulness peace within you that you really are, which Jesus said, ‘the peace that passes all understanding.’ That’s what we are.
Student: Thank you.
Dr. Kshama Metre: You’re already peace. Only we have to realize it.
John Dias: So thank you for that, I really liked what you said. For me, I really resonated with what you were saying that everything begins with the family, and I like that a lot because my family owns a business in my town and through connecting with my family and the business, I’ve met so many more people that I never would’ve met. And I’m so grateful for that. And going deeper into that has allowed me to gain more knowledge about what’s going on around me, and it’s connected me to a lot of people. So I think it’s really valuable to understand that and be gracious to my family. And so thank you for-
Dr. Kshama Metre: Thank you, John.
John Dias: Thank you.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yes, Lillian.
Lillian Wayne: I liked when you said to ask yourself ‘what can I do?’ instead of being helpless. I think a lot of times we just resort to helplessness and we just put our hands up and we give up and we just say ‘there’s nothing I can do,’ but I think there’s- from what you said- there’s so much more we can do, like so much more than just being helpless, and I think that’s important.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Thank you, Lillian.
Ward Mailliard: And Lillian, what do you think holds you back? Because obviously that was important to you. Do you think about what holds you back?
Lillian Wayne: I don’t know. My mom always tells me not to be the victim. And I think a lot of times like that’s kind of the same thing, just not just like holding back and just saying there’s nothing else I can do, you know-
Ward Mailliard: So being- a little bit risk-adverse, right?
Lillian Wayne: Yeah.
Ward Mailliard: Taking the risk. Yeah, so then the question then might be what is the cost of making a mistake, in your mind? Could be.
Lillian Wayne: Yeah.
Student: Kind of what Rinchen Khando was talking about yesterday, about like when you- (can’t hear)- when something causes you suffering, like analyzing it and understanding why that happened, and especially when somebody does something to you, you feel sorry for them for thinking that was- afflicting emotion was a good choice in that situation and just like- yeah I don’t know, just understanding where that suffering is coming from and with that you’re able to let it go and move on, and not hold on to it and let it drag you down. I think that that’s really important.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Because that other person has a problem, it’s not you. So we should not be affected by someone else’s – we should be compassionate towards them.
Ward Mailliard: That’s what she was saying, yeah. On the subject of intuition, one is that what I notice is happening in this circle with you is that what strikes them as important, what touches them, is when you give language to what they already know inside, and it touches them
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yes, you’ve got it.
Ward Mailliard: It validates their own intuition. So that’s one observation. The second observation I have about intuition is that school tends to kill intuition because there are right answers and there are wrong answers, and there are consequences for wrong answers. If the teacher could try to understand how the student makes sense to themselves, they might learn something from the student.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yes.
Ward Mailliard: What I notice about intuitives is that they often don’t know why they think what they think, or how they got there. So the intuitive knows, but they’re not sure that they know. The quick processors use reasoning and they can give their reasons. So the quick processors tend to speak, the intuitives tend to be silent. They don’t practice bringing their ideas into language and so sometimes people don’t think their smart because the ability to speak takes practice. And so I loved hearing you say that the intuition is the highest intelligence, and often that is a greater power speaking through you which is when you let go of the pole and you go over the bar, because I think we need to honor intuition in the young.
Dr. Kshama Metre: Yes, you really rightly said that we teachers don’t allow- kill the creativity in the children. Like A is only for apple. A can be for anything else.
Dr. Kshama Metre: So it’s been very good meeting you all, you all encourage me you know? You awoke in me the answers that you received. I don’t know what I’m going to say to you. So all the answers, like he said, are intuition within you. You awoke it in me, so I gave you some answers. So the credit goes to all of you.
Ward Mailliard: So I want to ask you a question before we end because the thing that is always remarkable to me is where your answers come from, because I think they don’t come from some logical construct, but they do get evoked. Can you say something about your practice that helps you have the depth and the confidence to speak to us in this way?
Dr. Kshama Metre: Anything that upsets me, or is likely to upset me, or is challenging me in many ways, it’s out of my comfort zone as you would say, I try to think and repeat what we call (can’t understand). I don’t know whether you’ve heard of (can’t understand). It’s a- we have an inner connection with something in us which we call the Lord, the divine, or- you have numerous names for that. So for you it could be Lord Jesus, ok? So for me, we have a name for it, my own (can’t understand). Someone whom I relate to. So I do that mantra jump and then all the other things in the mind that are erupting and disturbing, settle down, because that itself reminds me of my own strength and divinity and everything else. So it settles down. The more equipped to then face the situation- because like you said, peace. Unless we are peaceful within, we can’t do much outside. Especially the greater the challenge, the greater the peace is required within me to do the right actions. So that is how we practice to get out of our situation, but nothing like meditation. This I said is in between the situations. But the kind of energy that we get in meditation is very deep. I think every child should be taught how to meditate. Not only adults or when we grow old.
And I’ll just give you a little incident to make you know why I say it. When I had been here for some time, I’d gone home into Delhi, and that time my niece was- she’s now a little older than you maybe, she’s much older than you now of course, she’s already working. So I had gone and had a bath, a nice good bath, I’d washed my hair and everything and I came out. And my niece said to me- she was two and a half, three- ‘Auntie, you had a bath with soap and water?’ I said, ‘yeah I showered, we had nice shampoo and everything else.’ She said, ‘but did you have a mind bath? You had only a body bath, but did you have a mind bath?’ I said to her, ‘what is a mind bath?’ I knew it, but I wanted to know how does a child talk about it. So she said to me, ‘sit in front of me, sit quietly, and sit you know with your back straight and close your eyes and be silent for five minutes. That’s a mind bath.’ So I told her, ‘oh, where did you learn this?’ ‘My nursery teacher. When we go to school every day’- she was in a school called Step by Step- and she said, ‘our teacher tells us to sit down, sit quietly, sit straight, and be just silent for five minutes. It’s a mind bath. You’ve had a bath at home but that was a body bath, we’re now going to have a body bath. And at night before you go to sleep, you need not have a body bath if you don’t want, but you should have a mind bath.’ Ok, so imagine a little child being given that gift. And that is one very big gift sent to all of us which we don’t give ourselves that privilege. We should give ourselves that privilege, we owe it to ourselves. So you asked meditation, meditation is very important.
So thank you so much.