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About Our Guest- Sundar Kadayam – The Peace Practice
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Sundar Kadayam is an author, mentor, spiritual teacher, and healer.
He was a creative technologist for 34 years, 25 years of which as a tech entrepreneur.
His personal journey into healing and spiritual awakening began in year 2000, and has been shaped by meditations and practices from the traditional system of Reiki, devotional surrender, selfless work, and Self-Inquiry which is a direct path to Self-Realization.
His book, \”Awaken: An Experiential Exploration of Enlightenment\”, is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other booksellers worldwide.
Starting with the first wave of the global pandemic, from late March 2020 he has been leading a live, online, group meditation for free, twice on each weekday, called The Peace Practice, which just recently crossed 150 consecutive weekdays on October 23rd, 2020. The Peace Practice is a simple, yet profound meditation that cultivates the art of resting attention in the silence. Unsurprisingly, regular participants experience increasing calmness, lowering of stress, worries, and fears.
On the website, NoOtherness.com, and its social media channels, he writes articles and poems regularly on Nonduality, awakening to our real nature as No-otherness, and abiding in that realization.
His personal website, SundarKadayam.com outlines his current work, projects and offerings.
You can join The Peace Practice at: NoOtherness.com/the-peace-practice
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Full Podcast Transcription
Sundar Kadayam 00:00
The beauty of all of these things put together is this. That people who are coming on to the peace practicing staying on it every day because it\’s just 15 minutes and some takeaway that you can actually implement in their day. Their day, increasingly get sprinkled with silence. There is no greater grace that people can invite into their lives than a day that is sprinkled with silence all the way through.
Diva Nagula 00:18
Hello everyone and welcome to a another episode of From Doctor to Patient. Today I have Sundar Kadayam. He is an author, mentor, spiritual teacher and healer. He was a creative technologist for 34 years, 25 years of which as a tech entrepreneur, his personal journey into healing and spiritual awakening began around 2000 and has been shaped by meditations and practices from the traditional system of Reiki, devotional surrender, selfless work, and self inquiry which is a direct path to self realization. His book, \”Awaken: an Experiential Exploration of Enlightenment\” is available on Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other booksellers worldwide. Starting with the first wave of a global pandemic from late March 2020, he has been leading a live online group meditation for free twice on each weekday called the peace practice, which just recently crossed 150 consecutive weekdays on October 23 2020. The peace practice is a simple, yet profound meditation that cultivates the art of resting attention in the silence. And surprisingly regular participants experience increasing calmness, lowering stress, worries and fears on the website www.no otherness.com and its social media channels. He writes articles and poems regularly on non-duality, awaken into our real nature as no-otherness and abiding in that realization, his personal website www.sundar.com outlines his current work projects and offerings. You can join the piece practice at www.nootherness.com. Good afternoon and thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?
Sundar Kadayam 04:08
It\’s so wonderful to be with you, I\’m doing well and I hope you\’re doing well too.
Diva Nagula 04:13
I\’m doing fantastic. You have a very interesting story and in terms of how you were a technologist and a tech entrepreneur, and then transitioned into this spiritual awakening, you know, almost 20 years ago. What was the catalyst for this transition?
Sundar Kadayam 04:32
In the year 2000, my dad came down with the second series of strokes that paralyzed from the neck down. And I was in Cincinnati, my dad was in Bangalore, India. My mom called to say that he was diagnosed in ER, comatose, and the doctor indicated he would have maybe just a couple of days to live. This was devastating for me because just two weeks prior to that I was in India with him. And I had this very strong intuition, something bad was coming. And it was very disappointing to receive this call. And I was very heartbroken that night. One thing led to another which put me on a very unexpected journey. The next day, I actually returned to India. And what followed in the roughly seven to eight days, was just miraculous, my dad returned home, and about three years of life extension, which was simply not in the realm of possibility. And those three years introduced me to the system of Reiki. I got into it because my dad was in such deep pain, and there was really no painkiller, or any other drugs that they could give because of his bedridden state. And we were caring for him at home with a full time nurse. So I got into the system of Reiki just to see if I could do something at all to help him. And as it turned out, he actually refused my offer to ever put my hands on him. But while that disappointment lingered in those three years, miracles had started spilling into the rest of my life, spontaneous healings, manifestations, and as an engineer, I had really no framework of grounding, to begin to understand this, and that\’s what kicked off the journey there.
Diva Nagula 06:47
That\’s fascinating. And now this is more or less what you\’re trying to promote and spread full time and there\’s so many questions I have for you in regards to the coining of the term otherness or no-otherness, which is very similar to what you describe as duality, non-duality. Why did you use those phrases in that specific manner? versus duality, non duality?
Sundar Kadayam 07:14
Absolutely. The notion of non-duality actually comes from very ancient Indian works, called the Upanishads. And when the British came to India, they, some of them, were keen on exploring these older works, and some Germans as well. Now, what happened in the processes when they came across the term advaita, they translated that as non-duality, because vaita was duality, and advaita was non duality. The trouble that ensues from this translation is that duality and non-duality are seen as philosophy. Right? And for the religious minded, maybe even theology, but it\’s not. What the ancient scripture says is, there is only one reality. And it is one without a second, there\’s no second to it. And this reality is acetates, and it\’s unchanging. So, when you really look at that way of understanding advaita, the reality that is one without a second, it\’s always present and it\’s unchanging, then we really begin to realize that this is a very alive in the moment experiencial finding, it\’s not something that is relegated to knowledge and arguments with the intellect. So I sat with the awakened master about two years ago in India, his name is Nochur Venkataraman. And in the process of listening to some of his talks in person, that\’s when I really had this very clear insight shared by him, that what we mentioned as duality is actually otherness. And therefore, non-duality is actually no-otherness and so we can understand this at another level here. If the scriptures are right, if these ancient scriptures are right, and they are saying that reality is one without a second asset is unchanging. Then why is my present experience characterized by so much change? Whether it\’s experienced in the mind itself, thoughts and feelings always coming and going, no constancy to any effort, or even the experience in the outside world through this body, mind and those experiences have also coming and going nothing is actually study at all. So how can we help these two polar opposites? One, the scripture says, It\’s asset is unchanging one without a second. And my experiential reality says, Oh, no, I cannot find anything I\’m changing, everything is changing. So this actually can precipitate an exploration. If we conditionally accept that the scripture may be right, then we can try to walk into our own direct experience of it. And that\’s what I believe the terms otherness, and non-otherness helps us with. So in my explorations for myself, the realization is that what takes the one and makes it into two in the first place is my sense of being separate. As I live my life as an ordinary person, I feel distinct and different from everything else. See if you can say but there is a oneness. But even in that notion of saying oneness, we feel like I am one with other things, and there are still multiple things, we\’re still not close enough to what is being pointed as no otherness which is one without a second. So the recognition that it is my sense of feeling separate, that causes the first distortion, making one into two, me and everything else, then the me has million experiences, right? Well, what the taoist scriptures would say is that, here, the one becomes the two and two becomes the 10,000 things. And so the mischief maker, is the sense of otherness. So, we all are stuck in this, we all feel like distinct humans having separate experiences. And that\’s what even leads to my own bubble of personal self colliding with other people\’s bubble of personal self. This is where conflicts arise. This is where fear arises, anger arises. And so the core mischief maker being otherness, then how can we actually find out if that otherness is actually real or not? Because if the Scriptures are true, the scripture said there is only one, but because of otherness, we see many. So we need to examine the nature of this otherness. And for a while, it was a bit of a struggle for me, because I had no basis in which to understand how to do that. Then I came across the teachings of this awakened saint, one of the greatest awakened teachers, we can\’t even say is a teacher, he was simply present. His name is Ramana Maharshi. He lived in the early 1900s, through 1950. And his teaching was very simple, since the mischief maker is otherness, the sense of I, explore into that sense of I inquire into that sense of fi by asking the question, Who am I? allowing the answer to arise? But check every answer that arises to this one filter? Is it changing? Or is it unchanging? Because what we are trying to do, the scripture says there is unchanging, our experiences changing, we\’re piercing back through the sense of I by asking, Who am I? And allowing any answer to arise until we touch that answer, which is unchanging? When we do, then we would have had that direct glimpse, direct experience of what you\’re referring to as the term no-otherness or advaita. Now, this is just the baby step in what we can think of as awakening to your real nature. Because you\’ve seen past the veil of this otherness, we\’ve seen pastored to the reality that is no otherness. Now does this mean that this experience of no-otherness will persist and it\’ll become our lasting experience? For some people very rarely, it does so, but for most people, it takes a little bit of time to reacquaint living based on this realization, this realization that my nature is not contained and constrained by what I experienced through my body-mind and through the experience of who I think I am, behind that, ever present, is this notion it\’s undescribable. But we can use a term like no-otherness or non-duality or enlightenment to point to it. And which in turn then leads to this notion that if in the moment you are aware as your original nature, that you are being who you really are, that is enlightenment. Because what does that enlightenment really mean? It literally is being the light that you already are. And what is the point of time? It is freedom, you\’re no longer caught in the up and downs produced by the sense of otherness.
Diva Nagula 15:28
Is that the philosophy that\’s behind the peace practice that you created?
Sundar Kadayam 15:34
The realization was that it is it\’s based in two aspects. One is this experiential understanding that behind the mind and the body, there is something unchanging, and that is who I really am. And that comes out of the sense of self inquiry, this process, that then you can experientially arrive at the understanding. But at the same time, if we look at preparatory practices that people undertake, there are they are very, very, so many types of meditations are there. guided meditations, energetic meditations, breath meditations, so many different kinds are there. And I too, have sampled many dozens of these in the course of my own spiritual practice. The understanding came from just these subtle hints that were there in the teachings of these awakened masters as well as these authentic scriptures. They always refer to silence, whether you look at the Old Testament, where the references there, be still and know that I am God. Or if we go all the way to the 1930s 1940s, to the teaching of Ramana Maharshi, his core teaching, even though it is self inquiry, the heart of that self inquiry is be silent. So this was definitely a revelation that if silence is the gateway, if silence is the pathway, to the experience of no- otherness, non-duality, your original nature, then why not have a meditation practice that goes right into that, it may take a little while to cultivate that, because it\’s such an unusual thing in the noisy world, we know where we are flooded with 80,000 thoughts or so per day. But little by little, if you persist with that, what starts off as a preparatory practice of finding relief, finding calmness, being free of stress, and anxiety and worry and so forth, also becomes the way of surrender that is letting go of the grip of otherness, because when you are in silence, this notion of otherness is simply absent there. And based on that understanding and experience, I formulated the peace practice to be very simple. Attention is normally wandering in your mind, and through the mind and the senses in the world. Take that attention and rest it in your heart center. Why the heart center? Again, there are whispers about this in various scriptures and authentic works, where they say the heart, the spiritual heart is the gateway to reality. And that\’s been my experience as well. So then take this wandering attention, learn to rest in the heart center. If attention wanders, gently bring it back to rest in the heart center. That\’s the whole meditation. This is ridiculously simple. But it is as it should be. Because if reality is one, I shouldn\’t be needing to take 10,000 steps to go there. I need to be able to take just one step to go there and then train myself to become adept at it. And that\’s basically ended up being the basis of the peace practice.
Diva Nagula 19:01
It\’s interesting, it\’s very easily said, you know, you take your thoughts of the egoic mind, and just drop it into the heart center and simply said, but the action is quite complex. How long does it take for a person to achieve that? I personally for myself, I\’ve been trying the last two years of trying to understand what it\’s like to be in my heart center. And over this past year, I\’ve learned what it feels like to be in the heart center. But the difficulty is, is from being able to transition from one to the other meaning the mind to the heart at any time. But you know, there\’s things that will influence and irritate and agitate the mind. And sometimes you\’re stuck in there for a very long time. And having that switch turned on to go back into the heart is so useful, and I\’m assuming that this is what the practice is teaches?
Sundar Kadayam 20:01
That is right, we centered around this core idea. Well, let me clarify just one more thing. When I started my own spiritual journey some 20 years ago, I used to read a lot of things about how it is important to control our thoughts, and how meditation is a way of controlling those thoughts. And a little bit later, I came to this understanding that what is real meditation, real meditation is not doing anything. Real meditation is not trying to control the mind or control it\’s experience. No real meditation is being who you really are. Now, in real meditation is being who you really are. Clearly, that\’s not our steady experience at all, for most of us, right? It is not. But here\’s where I was inspired by this quote from Bruce Lee. And I\’m just going to paraphrase because I don\’t remember the original words. Bruce Lee\’s quote was something to this effect. And not afraid of the person who has practiced 10,000 kicks, afraid of the person who has practiced one kick 10,000 times. So rather than looking for variety in meditation, which I did for about 15 years or so, the realization from this court was, no, that doesn\’t matter. Just take one, keep it simple and repeat. Because it is simple, it will lend itself to being applied right in the throes of your life, not just in your meditation seat. So if I if I taught a meditation practice that was 10 steps of guided meditation, if you\’re sitting in a corporate boardroom meeting, or if you\’re sitting in a design meeting with technology people, how in the hell are you going to be able to use a 10 step meditation go there, it does doesn\’t lend itself to living. But that is where I think something direct like the peace practice becomes supremely useful, because it is just one step. Second thing I would like to clarify with this is the finding that I had, what powers thinking? What powers a thought? What powers the feeling? What powers any experience at all? That is how do we come to know of a thought? How do we come to know of a feeling or how to come how you come to know of any experience at all? Which means there is a knowing quality in us, that allows us to know that this thought came, or that feeling occurred or an external experience occurred. And it turns out, that quality is attention. So this was a profound breakthrough for me, which is to recognize attention is like that power source, which powers the knowing of thoughts or feelings. And I like to give this kind of example, as an analogy. Let\’s say you\’re a nice busy marketplace. Source on both sides of the street, you are on one side of the street looking at a window with some interesting product displayed. On the other side of
the street, there is a clown on roller skates, juggling pumpkins, as he\’s going along. That clown experience will not be yours if you\’re engrossed in looking at what is inside that window. Why? Because your attention is absorbed in looking at the window for you, the clown was not experienced at all to someone else looking at the clown, paying attention to the clown clown would be the experience. So this is very telling is really simple. But it\’s supremely subtle. So if monkey mind is the problem, wandering attention is the cost. Stealing attention is the cure. So I\’m not even fighting with thoughts and feelings and experiences of anger or anything else at all anymore. I\’m just playing with the art of moving my attention. So thoughts may come and go, but if I withdraw attention from it and again I adapted, withdrawing attention from it, then thoughts will wither away because there\’s nothing else to support it. If your attention is not there, but thought cannot stand there. So in this understanding makes it even simpler. So really then the only thing we are doing is gaining mastery over attention. One more little thing here as we try to gain mastery over attention. We do not try to do it a rigidly or harshly or in a very focused or concentrated way because none of those things work. None of those things work. Rather, the experiences that you be gentle. So there is a lead up to this little meditation we call the peace practice every session, what I do is first, ensure that people are physically relaxed. The second step we do is setting aside whatever burdens and to do lists and issues that they may be facing at the moment they are sitting in meditation with me, right, set that aside for a few minutes, all of us are able to do that. Just set us set it aside for a few minutes. Then, open yourself for whatever experience follows. So to put it simply, a relaxed body, an unburdened mind and an open heart opens the gateway to silence, then the rest of the procedure is gentle, gently move attention to rest in the heart center. And if it wanders here and there, gently move it back. This is why we use a gently that way, because the experience tells me that whatever you do gently, you will experience it as being effortless. If you experience it as being effortless for you simple will become easy. And when it\’s simple becomes easy, you can take it anywhere into life in any situation. So you are in another normal situation where somebody has behaved in a bad way that has ticked you off. And there\’s a lot of anger and judgment running. The moment you notice that I am angry, or I\’m being judgmental, and I\’m feeling horrible about this. Rather than trying to fight and clear all of that, withdraw the attention from it, and put it in the heart center. So in order to facilitate this, I add two more elements in the peace practice I start with the story or a poem or a code, giving some worldly reflection, then we go into the meditation portion of it. When I come out of it, I give a one minute takeaway what to do when anger arises, what to do when grief is overwhelming, what to do when stress is so high or fear so high. And then what we are basically doing then is encouraging someone to say, look, this is so simple. Today, you focus on this. Today, all you do is just maybe maybe that day I would say if fear arises or worry arises, here\’s what you do. So that is really a recommendation. A almost like allowing them the opportunity to know that peace is not something just in the meditation seat, you can bring that experience of peace no matter where you are, no matter what your experience is, you just need to get adapted this very simple thing, resting attention on the heart. Right. And that gets better and better the more times in the day you sprinkle it. So the beauty of all of these things put together as this, that people who are coming on to the peace practice and staying on it every day, because it\’s just 15 minutes and some takeaway that you can actually implement in your day. Their day increasingly gets sprinkled with silence. There is no greater grace that people can invite into their lives than a day that is sprinkled with silence all the way through. Even if it is only 30 seconds of silence in 30 minutes. It adds up, there is a new momentum building. And I basically colourfully like to say that you\’re beginning to build a love affair with silence. That\’s what becomes transformative.
Diva Nagula 29:07
Absolutely. And it\’s well said, and can you talk a little bit more, if you can about the practice itself? Is it using a mantra, what is the attention focused on is really saying, you divert the attention and place it into your heart center and you remove yourself from the thoughts, but naturally, meditation, there\’s various meditations, there are some that, like transcendental meditation, where it\’s okay to have these thoughts processes in your mind, and you just and you come back. And then when you realize that these thoughts are going out of control, you come back to your mantra. There\’s other meditations where you don\’t want these dots in a calm that ruins your your meditation because you\’re you\’re supposed to try and be focused on a specific mantra or object or whatever. Tell us about the peace practice. And the way it\’s set up as a meditation.
Sundar Kadayam 30:03
Now, this is wonderful what you\’re pointing out, right? That is the variety of meditation practices that are out there. Ones that use just observation of breath, or the application of a mantra. These are all wonderful practices. What I\’ve strived to do with the peace practice is to even make it simpler, no reliance on anything other than attention and silence. So when we say move attention to rest in the heart center, there is really no discernible activity occurring there. That discernible activity that people sometimes feel is the mind become active in a visualization exercise, which they are tuned to doing, perhaps because of the practices that they\’ve done before. This is even simpler. So what is the attention being placed on? Really, it\’s nothing. And that is as it should be? Because what is there as content in silence? Nothing. It\’s no-thing-ness, nothingness. And, yeah, initially, it\’s a bit strange if you come from another practice, and here we are almost doing nothing. That is the point. Because the closer you get to doing nothing, you\’re getting closer to being rather than doing. And real meditation is being as you really are. So we are not using any other aids at all just attention rested in heart and noticing if it is wandering just rest it back in heart. And because of that simplicity, little by little proficiency in this can be gained quickly. proficiency eventually leads to mastery. And that mastery by which I mean that this experience of silence that you experience in your heart center with attention rested in it can be brought into all of your daily activities.
Diva Nagula 32:18
You also talk about there are profound benefits are unlocked when practicing the peace practice. And what what specific benefits are unlocked? And and what kind of successful ingredients of life that are unleashed from this practice.
Sundar Kadayam 33:31
This is another wonderful question. So at the very first level, if you will, initially, people are used to being stressed and anxious and fearful and angry and all of these normal human experiences. You get into the peace practice, apply it every day, just that 15 minutes plus whatever minute or two or three years, you\’re able to tack on to it in the course of your life. What occurs is that you get calmer, you get less stressed, you get less fearful, less angry. And this itself is a big breakthrough. Because I know from your own life experience, stress is a killer. And stress is so hard to overcome. And this fortunately is actually so simple. It just requires some consistency in your practice so that it becomes familiar to you. That\’s the first level. The second level of benefits are very, very practical for life itself. One of the things if you take a look at decision making. When it comes to easy decisions, our intellect has answers and we can apply those decisions and then act on them and carry on with life. But what if it is a complicated decision? Right, the career path you\’re choosing or the next job between two jobs you need to take or a relationship. This becomes complicated. Right? You need clarity. Only through having clarity you can make a good decision. Now how to see that how to get that clarity. Normally, if we are relying heavily only on our intellect and our mind, there is a natural limitation that comes with it because our mind has beliefs and expectations and biases and prejudices and so forth. By definition, such an apparatus cannot create clarity. But there is a place inside us and it just happens to be so that it is silence, which is already the source of clarity. So in a metaphor, I would like to say that silence is like this still water of a lake. That still water of the lake is capable of reflecting whatever objects are around it with pristine clarity. A perturbed mind, on the other hand, is like a lake whose surface is just chopping because of moving winds and so forth. So when we get adapted, being silent, clarity gets unleashed. So when we need to make a big decision, my recommendation is always to go spend five to 10 minutes pursuing the peace practice that is rest attention in silence, the answer already exists in the heart. The spiritual heart has all the answers you\’re looking for, because the spiritual heart is the home of wisdom. The intellect is the home of knowledge. The real wisdom exists in silence. So clarity and wisdom get unleashed in life. Now you can easily imagine the practical benefit of being able to make clear decisions from the wisdom that already exists inside. In a similar way, compassion and courage and creativity and so forth all exists there, too. Let\’s just create videos one example to illustrate what I\’m saying. Often again, in my profession, I often needed that flow of creativity, because we\’re trying to design new things, we\’re trying to come up with new ways to solve problems. And so where does creativity lie? And the clue is, in the expression out of the box thinking. Out of the box thinking, which means… what is the box? The box is the bubble of your own ego self, which is where all your beliefs, expectations, prejudices, weaknesses, self criticism, every damn thing, experience good and bad. It\’s all in this bubble. That\’s the box, inside the box are limited creativity is there, that creativity is engendered by the movement of intellect. If you\’re really good in working your intellect, you can get some creativity, but what is outside the box. So that means what is outside of this ego bubble? Silence. So when we again, cultivate silence, and we go deeper into that, that is, it\’s becomes easier and easier for us to get 30 seconds, one minute, two minutes of silence. That is the home of creativity because that is an unburdened space, it\’s unconstrained by limited knowledge or prejudices. It has no limitation at all there. So all creativity, lies in silence too. So as I unless I played with it, and got to my own understanding of it. It was so stunning that one practice, resting attention, and silence has the potential to unleash all of these practical benefits in life. And that includes peace and love and happiness, courage and strength and so forth. And I just was asking myself, who wouldn\’t really want that? Because this is all we\’re trying to have success in life. But our rooting is in our limited sense of self within our mind space. But what if we could root in silence? It\’s not an abandonment of the world. It is a beautiful way of engaging with the world from the fullness of who you are, rather than the limitation of who you think you are.
Diva Nagula 39:15
Very profound, indeed. And I would imagine that this, as you mentioned, that the peace
practice also helps cultivates surrender through this process?
Sundar Kadayam 39:25
Yeah, that\’s a wonderful thing. Also for me again, because I had some devotional practices at the very beginning stages of my journey, and I still do. But, in the case of a devotional practice. For me surrender is a concept I hear not only in eastern scriptures, but also in western scriptures. The notion of surrender in a devotional context exists. For that I will always have a deity or a visualization of some sort to which I will have my devotional surrender, prayer, and so forth. For the longest time I did not understand what this why surrender seem to be so different than meditation, particularly simple meditation like the peace practice. And then it dawned on me one day, that the art of resting attention and silence is surrender. Why? So surrender means to let your little self go, your sense of little self otherness, go. And where can it actually go most easily? When attention is rested in silence, your sense of little self is not there at all. And that just is profound. Because what you\’re doing through this one, practice initially, be relieved out of fear and anger and stress and so forth, then unleashed creativity, compassion, clarity, wisdom, strength, and so forth. But keep going deeper, keep going deeper, keep being consistent with it spread the silence throughout the day, what is occurring is, every second, your attention is rested in silence, you\’re in surrender. If start with it starts with five minutes a day, and it expands out to 30 minutes a day. You are in a state of surrender. And in devotional terms, what that implies is, all of us want for those who are devotional inclined, they can understand the notion of grace. That\’s what they asked for, from the divine through prayer. But what realistically is occurring is when attention is rested in silence and silence is this unchanging, unlimited, unbounded source of all these bountiful blessings. It is also the source of grace, it is the same one thing, silence is a source of grace to by surrendering your little sense of self and silence, you are then cultivating this moment of grace in your life, it brings your life back into harmony with the flow of life itself. And there\’s just one more little detail here that is just simply profound. There is only one direct path to enlightenment. And I\’m going to correct myself in a moment. But this one direct path to enlightenment is radical surrender, completely letting go of the little self that you think you are, because who you really are, exist before this bubble. And that\’s exactly what we are doing with the peace practice going back to what is before the bubble, which is silence. cultivated deep enough, this is the direct path to self realization. Now, since this also will take a long time, there is another direct path, which leads you to surrender in a way that clarifies your association of who you think you are with otherness which is self inquiry, when we go into the inquiry of who am I, that inquiry goes directly into that experience that is before the bubble. You know, in a way we can say self inquiry reveals to you who you are by putting you in that radically surrendered state. Right? So in that sense, if you see the peace practice continuum, starting with simple benefits to the ultimate benefit, you can\’t even call it a benefit. It\’s really freedom. It\’s just the realization that I am not bounded. I am not what is in the bubble.
Diva Nagula 43:59
It\’s very profound, indeed I am most curious of your thoughts. You were mentioning a teacher Ramana Maharishi, who has also taught many folks including Ram Das. And Ram Das was also a big proponent of the utilization of substances that expand the consciousness, specifically, psychedelic substances. I\’m curious as your thoughts on that, because in the psychedelic space, you often let go of your ego self endure what\’s called an ego death, and experience the oneness, and is through this state of expanded consciousness that this occurs and through a substance that\’s extrinsic, not intrinsic. And my question is, I\’m just curious as your thoughts to this movement that we\’re seeing, you know, over the last few years psychedelic movement, and you know, there\’s two ways an individual can experience this aspect of oneness through meditation, you know, such as the peace practice, another avenue through psychedelic substances, the end results the same. So I\’m just curious as to as to your contrast and comparative thoughts around these two?
Sundar Kadayam 45:10
excellent question again, how I have come to understand it is like this, if real meditation is being who you really are, real meditation would imply, resting your attention and that which is unchanging. Right. And that is silence itself, silence itself never changes our experience of silence changes. So, it\’s very direct in that sense. Now, we should contrast this, which is self realization, I am whatever that is, I am is unchanging. Now, contrast this with experiences that are generated in body mind which are performed, yeah, these are, we call these elevated states or ecstatic states of blissful states, they can be induced by external aids, whether it is a psychedelic product, or it is, through some profound, tantric practice, we can, we can go there. But what happens after we have that experience, it goes away the experiences sustained for a period of time, while that psychedelic, or that practice is active and then it goes away. And then what it does is it causes us to need to go back one more whether it\’s done with through ayahuasca or any other ancient compounds that have been used, you have to go back again. And then again, what you\’re doing is you\’re leaning more into experiences in the body-mind that are heightened. See, that means that all these experiences are still occurring in the bubble of your little self. Except if you had more or less, let\’s say, x level of experience in the body mind before now, these compounds and practices can heighten that. See, but even those heightened experiences are happening inside the bubble that is not self realization. Self Realization is realizing that there is no bubble, that my association with littleness comes from believing I am the body mind. But my reality exists prior to that. And in that existence of that reality prior to that, the after glow of having that direct experience may be heightened. And that may happen inside the bubble. But that is just the afterglow of self realization, self realization itself does not precipitate experiences in the body mind. So as a result, if I were to look for what is the reliable, direct, unfailing, authentic way to true self, be silent. Direct path. And as we\’ve talked about, all these tangible benefits along the way. But that\’s what it what it unleashes. I\’m not sure if I have understood. I have answered your question, right, though.
Diva Nagula 48:40
No, it wasn\’t really a question. I was just curious and of your opinion, on that aspect. And that movement that we\’re seeing so readily today, and specifically with the peace practice and with you in general, if people want to learn more about you and want to partake in your meditations, can you talk to us about how they can find you and how often you\’re doing these live meditations?
Sundar Kadayam 49:06
Yes. The best practices available every week day live at 7am and 10am. Eastern time, it is free. It is online. It\’s conducted through zoom. I lead these practices myself, and it\’s only 15 minutes. And like we mentioned before, there are takeaways you can take in the day if you\’re diligent with your practice, you can apply those learnings of the day in your life itself. And you can find the peace practice on my main website, www.nootherness.com. As far as the rest of the projects and work that I\’m doing, I did publish a book called Awaken: an Experiential Exploration of Enlightenment. That is based on this method of Ramana Maharshi called self inquiry in the book Awaken I offer guidance on how to conduct that self inquiry in the form of a dialogue between an awakened master and a keen and eager student who is interested in waking up. That book is available as well. And my main personal website, www.Sundar.com contains all these unfolding projects that are coming along, and there are many, many of them flowing at the moment. And I hope to be able to get them out to people for them to be able to use and benefit in their lives. And anybody interested I\’ll openly welcome you to join us in the peace practice. It is simple, tangible, and it can be life changing.
Diva Nagula 50:41
Thank you, Sundra for sharing. And thank you so much for also sharing your wisdom and knowledge and being on this podcast.
Sundar Kadayam 50:48
Thank you so much. I appreciate this opportunity. And I have to say this before going, I read up about your life experience and your background. And I am moved. And I have deep gratitude and respect for what you\’re sharing out with people. And seeing your own experience just allows me to anchor more in my own humility. I appreciate that a lot.
Diva Nagula 51:21
Thank you very much. I appreciate those kind words.
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