Mahakatha's Meditation Mantras

If you've been listening to this podcast for a while now, then you

know about the favorite person. My favorite person in the

whole world, the man I've loved the most.

He was the first and the best

storyteller in my life. He was the

earliest source of inspiration and wisdom and chance

and mythological mystique and magic.

It was my grandfather, and I'm bringing him up again

today because the older I get, the more

perspective I have on our relationship and the more

discoveries I make about how deep our relationship really

was and how much of him I carry within me.

So I bring him to you in this episode

because he taught me the way to soften

the toughest people, to get through

to the most challenging individuals,

to make them listen, to soften their edges,

and to make meaningful human

connections. But before I tell you about any of that

and introduce you to today's mantra, let me brag about my

grandfather just a little bit. Stay with me. My

grandfather was two people. One

of them was a living, walking

treasure of knowledge and wisdom. Wisdom that found

its roots in ancient scriptures and mythology.

I loved listening to him narrate

anecdotes and describe events from the epics

in such detail, almost as if he was a witness to

them. This person would lose track of

time. This person would immerse himself in

a story. This person would paint pictures and

bring tears to the eyes and make you laugh till your

belly hurts. This person could tell a story like he

had all the time in the world, and you were the only

person the story was written for. But

he was also this other person. When he was

not narrating or discussing these things

with me or with anyone else. He was

mostly an old man. He was a man

who felt awfully tired and weak.

He was a man whose back hurt and feet hurt.

And this other grandpa was very

quiet. He would mostly withdraw into his

room and switch on the television and not really watch anything.

This other person was someone who would sit

quietly and worry and

overthink. This other grandpa was

angry too, at a lot of things and a few

people, but mostly annoyed at his

own growing limitations and restrictions on

his body and his mind and his life. This other person

existed too, and I loved

this other grandpa as well. But

this version of him didn't stand a chance when

you asked him a random detail about some mythological

character from some story in an epic written

thousands of years ago. Then suddenly

his eyes would shine, his back

would straighten, his voice would roar and enrapture

and captivate you, and he would rise

and become a part of his story. He would cry

when he uttered the words of gods. He

would laugh at his own witty lines and interpretations

that would completely crack me up. And

he would always have one more story to

tell. Now, I would take notes from him, from

his narrations from time to time, and he would even give me some of his

old treasured books every now and then.

But then one day, and I will never forget that day,

this larger than life version of my grandpa

said to me, there is so much I have to

share, my dear, but all of it,

all of it will get destroyed with me, won't

it? It's all going to go away. I'm

going to go away and it all goes away with me.

No matter how much I try to share, no matter how much I try to

write or to give away, the rest of it is

still going to be destroyed with me.

And that hurt. That really hurt.

Here was a man who wanted to give everything away.

Most of all, he wanted to give away his time and everything

he had learned. He wanted for someone to sit and

listen as he recollected and shared everything he had

learned from his mother, from his father, his

earliest teachers, things that he had carefully stored in

his mind since he was a child,

things he wanted to pass on before his memory wore

thin and created holes in his preserved treasure.

Before he forgot his favorite chants and his favorite

stories. Before he forgot who he was.

In that fragment of his mind,

that small fragment of his mind that I

did manage to scoop into my little mind and carry

with me that small sliver of

preserved treasure of wisdom and learnings and

experience and curiosities that

is my biggest inheritance from him.

We're never going to have any new photos together.

We're never going to laugh about so many new things. And we may not

sit under a tree discussing a powerful scene from the

scriptures or laugh at a silly joke until our jaws

and bellies ache. But I can summon his

voice in my head anytime I want to. I can

ask him for guidance. I can ask myself, what would grandpa

do? What would he say? How proud would he

be? And there will always be an answer.

And so, by accessing this inner

vault within him that he kept open for

me to scoop out from, I created

a connection with him that defied time.

I created a connection with him that gave me more

access to this first version of my

grandpa who brought him to the forefront.

That lively, childlike,

young, vibrant, energetic, yet

soft version of my grandpa, even when I knew

that a colder, quieter, more withdrawn version of

him existed, too. Just by wanting to

access this vault that was buried deep inside

him, just by asking him about it

and listening to everything he was willing to give me,

I found a way to preserve a connection

with my grandfather beyond time.

Now, I know not all of us have had this kind of a relationship

with our grandparents or even our parents. I know there are people

in our lives, our families, or even at work that we

don't like to talk to anymore. Perhaps they appear too

cold or unwelcoming, but even

they carry that vault of things they want to give

away before they go away.

Even they fear having to leave this

existence with a full bag on their backs.

And if you can become the years that they crave

for, if you can give them the time that they

crave for and the empathy they want, it can be

the greatest way to humanize them, to

soften their edges, to get them to leave their

outer versions, their harsher versions, and

be who they really are with you,

and be who they never got to be with

anyone else and tell you things they never get to tell

others enough. You don't have to be really close to

them to ask and talk and share and open

up. You just have to be human.

And if you allow yourself to be naturally curious

about the stories and the lessons and experiences

of other people, then no matter who they are

to the outside world, no matter who they are

to everybody else, you will have

managed to activate, to summon up

a softer, more lively, more willing and a

warmer version of them. And they will remember you

for being someone who cared enough to open up their

inner world when the rest of the world had thought

of them as a closed book. This is a beautiful

way of developing connections that are

meaningful not just with the people you love and are close

to, but even with the most difficult people in your life

right now. And to help you

cultivate this natural curiosity and

kindness and empathy that allows you to create

meaningful, lasting connections. I bring you

a very special mantra today. And that

mantras is the Sarvesham Swastir

Bhavatu mantra. This is an ancient

chant that is a universal prayer to

activate wellbeing, kindness, joy

and abundance within every soul that

exists in the world around us. Through this

chant, we pray that everyone, no

matter what they're going through, no matter what

their past, and no matter what future they

stand to face, we pray for them to experience

peace and health and prosperity

in their lives. When you practice this

mantra every day, before you enter a challenging

situation or before you are about to deal with

a person who usually ticks you off or a person with

whom you have a particularly strained relationship.

Then, with the help of this mantra, you

cultivate the kindness, the empathy

and the compassion necessary to see

them without their faults and to access a

version of them that is pure and positive.

And so if you'd like to give this mantras a

try, and if you would like to build longer, more

meaningful connections in your life, at work, at home,

among friends, then I encourage you to avail this

mantra right now. There is a 30% discount available

for you if you use the link in the description of this

episode. Avail this mantra.

Use it to practice this intention of

becoming a better listener and developing more empathy

and patience and forgiveness and curiosity

towards the people in your life. May this mantras

help you see the light in every human

being that you come across. With that

in mind, my dear listener, this is me,

Preeti, thanking the universe yet again for a

wonderful grandfather and wishing only joy

and happiness upon you and your loved ones.

I will see you again in the next episode. Until then,

stay blessed.