PNTV - The Great Work of Your Life by Stephen Cope

You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson. More wisdom in less time. Hi, this is Brian. Welcome back to Philosopher's Notes tv. Today, another great book, the great work of your life. The Great work of your Life by Stephen Cope. Subtitle A guide for the journey to your true calling. Stephen Cope is the head of the center for Extraordinary Living, awesome center name at Kripalu. He's been doing an integration of Eastern spiritual thought in Western philosophy and psychology for decades. And this book is really about bringing the Bhagavad Gita to life. The Bhagavad Gita, classic Hindu spiritual text, cornerstone of the yogic tradition, has Arjuna, the greatest warrior of his era, being counseled by Krishna, his divine charioteer. And Arjuna is struggling, he's actually prone, laying down on his chariot, can't get himself to go to war. Lots of drama going on in the scene. And Krishna advises him on how to live his Dharma. Philosophers know a bunch of big ideas. We're going to look at a handful of my favorites. We'll just go straight into Dharma. So, Dharma, this is what Krishna is advising Arjuna about in the Bhagavad Gita. And Stephen helps us bring that to life in our modern lives. And then he shares stories of extraordinary people who have discovered and most fully lived their Dharma. Everyone from Walt Whitman and Henry David Thoreau to Susan B. Anthony, Harriet Tubman and Gandhi. Extraordinary array of individuals whose stories he uses to help us understand how we can discover and live our sacred calling. So Dharma, the word Dharma, Sanskrit, is impossible to translate into one English word as a direct translation. And he shares a number of different facets of the concept of Dharma. The basic idea in terms of this book is basically your vocation, your sacred duty, your calling. What are you here to do? It also means kind of the essence of who you are, the truth of your being, that part of you that makes you you, that's your Dharma. And the book is all about understanding how to do four things. The four pillars of Dharma. One, you need to discover it. You got to know it, right? What is your Dharma? There's a gift. The yogic tradition says that we all have a unique vocation. We all have a seed of potential, a gift that we've been giving. And our duty is to bring that to life. We need to discover what that is. We don't need to create it, we need to discover it. Two, we need to go all in. Once you figure out what it is, you need to give your entire life to it. It's unbelievably inspiring how he talks about these individuals, including poet Robert Frost, who we'll talk about a little bit more, who dedicated their entire lives to their Dharma. They structured all the conditions of their lives so that they could most fully give themselves. They went all in. Then you need to let go of results, right? The Bhagavad Gita is the kind of textbook, the manual for process over results, systems over results, right? Let go of outcomes and focus on doing your best day in and day out. Let go of the fruits of your labor is how Krishna puts it. And then you connect with God. You turn your entire life over to God. Those are the four steps of Dharma, the four pillars of a life of action. Karma Yoga, as Stephen Koch describes it in this book describing discover it, go all in, let go of the results, let go of the fruits of your labor, and then give your life to God. Super inspiring. That's how the book is organized. Those four sections, that's Dharma. Second big idea here is we need to decide. When you've discovered what your ultimate calling is, what your sacred duty is, you need to go all in. And one of the things you need to do is you need to decide. That comes from the Latin words which means the Latin word which has two parts to it, to cut de cadere or something like that. To cut is what decide literally means. So when you decide to go all in on anything in your life, you cut off other options. Now that's really challenging to do because that requires a level of courage. You can't hedge your bets. You're all in. You cut something, which means you said no to a lot of other things. If you're saying yes to anything in particular. In the note, I talk about deciding and cutting things off on a macro level, kind of a big picture level, and on a micro level. So on a macro level, you need to decide what you're going to commit your life force to, your soul force, as Steven describes it, as Gandhi described it. Right. For me, that meant I needed to cut off the version of me that was an administrative entrepreneur, administrative CEO, helping a bunch of other people get their wisdom out. I cut that off and I focused all of my energy on being a teacher. That's the macro level. On a micro level, we need to say no to all the distractions that get in the way, right? So there's a ton of projects we can pursue on the top level, the macro side, and then there's a ton of distractions on the day to day nuts and bolts side. Of things we need to get good at deciding, cutting off the things that don't fit into our life in our pursuit of living a life of dharma. Second, Big Idea is tied to the third. He shares stories about Robert Frost, the great American poet who knew at a relatively young age that he wanted to commit his life to poetry. Of course, people around him were like, good luck with that. He was all in, though. And he created the conditions for his life to flourish as a poet. He bought a farm, and he basically became a poet farmer. And he did some teaching as well. Then he realized he needed to cut the teaching out and focus exclusively on his poetry. And then he moved his family to London because he knew he needed to create those conditions to work intensely. He created the conditions in his life such that his dharma could flourish. Right. So again, our dharma is kind of the seed, the gift, capital T, capital G. The gift is how Stephen describes it, that seed of potential. And our job is not to create that. We don't need to play God. Our job is to cultivate it and to create the conditions through which that seed can come to its potential, can actualize, can come to fruition. So how are your conditions of your life? Have you created them in such a manner that you can flourish? He shares a ton of other amazing stories. Beethoven and how he created his life, knew when his energy was best, and that's when he did his work. And then he created everything else in his life such that his dharma could flourish. Powerful stuff. How can you optimize your conditions? Fourth Big Idea is a fun one. Elephants. So the final chapter in the book is focused on Gandhi. Each of the chapters focuses on a different great human being. Gandhi brought the Bhagavad Gita everywhere. It was his primary manual for how to live. And he is, as Stephen says, almost certainly the greatest demonstration of the Bhagavad Gita ever. Extraordinary human being, of course. But he talks about the fact, Stephen does that when Gandhi was young, he was a really terrified kid. He was actually quite unsuccessful and just afraid of everything when he was younger. And one of the women who helped take care of him when he was a kid, her name was Ramba, told him, look, you got to think of how a wise elephant trainer works with an elephant. Your mind is out of control. She basically said to Gandhi, and think of an elephant. When an elephant is being trained, before it's being trained, it goes into the marketplace, it goes into the world, and it's just. It's everywhere. The trunk is going nuts, and it's Grabbing bananas and it's grabbing coconuts, and it's distracted and out of control. She said, just like your mind. But a smart elephant trainer gives an elephant a stick of bamboo, big chalk, right? A stick of bamboo. And the elephant wraps its trunk around that stick of bamboo. And then you take the elephant through the marketplace, and he says, it's as calm as a prince, right? It's calm, so centered, grounded, serene, can cruise through. It's not distracted by the bananas and by the coconuts and everything else. So she was using that story. Rhomba was for Gandhi, in the context of a mantra. A mantra is literally a tool of the mind. Gandhi's mantra was Rama. He would say Rama, Rama, Rama all the time, which is obviously the name of a Hindu God, Rama. So we need to focus our minds. We. We can do that via a mantra that we repeat to ourselves. It centers our mind, but just in general, we need to have a stick of bamboo that we can put through our consciousness in the form of a mantra or form of goals. What a masterpiece day looks like. We have to decide what a great day looks like for us. And then when we walk through the market, we're not grabbing bananas and grabbing coconuts. We're not getting distracted via Twitter or Facebook or email or every other distraction that comes our way. We. We're focused. We have our mind grounded on something and focused on something that matters to us. Really cool idea. Think of elephant trainers. When you think of your focus and training your mind, fifth big idea is reducing you to zero. This was Gandhi's big thing. And this is the fourth idea here. As we move through discovering our dharma, going all in, and then letting go of results, we give our lives to God. Gandhi described it as reducing himself to zero. He says something magical happens when you're able to get out of the way, basically, to let God take over and to let God shine through. This is the idea of entheos, the root of enthusiasm, God within. Reducing ourselves to zero such that God can be fully present. Super cool idea. In the note, I talk about the fact that we need to make a note about the fact that if you want to let go and reduce yourself to zero, first you need to have extraordinary discipline to control this little version of yourself. If you want to move beyond the small egoic self, right. And let go of that, first, you need to have hold of it. A lot of people don't realize this fact, but if you can't get yourself to floss your teeth or meditate consistently or eat well and reduce sugar Good luck letting go of your ego. It's impossible. It's nearly impossible to do that in general. And it's particularly impossible if you haven't cultivated a deep level of self mastery leading up to that part of the process. Gandhi was one of the most disciplined human beings on the planet. What he did to control himself and to get in control of his mind and of his thoughts and behaviors is extraordinary. And that allowed him to reduce himself to zero, give his life to God in the most powerful way. So if you're serious about that from a spiritual perspective, get serious about the little things. Develop your fundamentals. Develop your core practices that allow you to be a healthy human being, such that you can actualize and then move beyond that and transcend yourself. Which is how Abraham Maslow described it. His hierarchy of needs started at the basic level, moved up, had self actualization. But that wasn't the end. After you self actualized, you self transcended. You reduced yourself to zero, and you gave your life to something bigger than yourself. So there you go, really quick look at this great book. I think you'll enjoy it in general. If you're into yoga in particular and you're looking to discover your purpose, I put this almost on a must read level. It's awesome. Steven did a great job reducing yourself to zero. Remember the elephants. Give yourself something to focus on. Mantra. Clear targets. What you want to do next. You don't get distracted by the bananas and coconuts of life. Create the optimal conditions for your dharma to flourish. Decide. Say no to the things that don't matter. And remember your dharma is that part of you that makes you you. Your vocation in life, your calling, your sacred duty. Let's get out and honor that and give ourselves most fully to the world. I hope you enjoyed and I look forward to sharing more soon. Have an awesome day. See you. Hi, this is Brian. I hope you enjoyed that Philosopher's Notes TV episode. If so, I think you'll enjoy everything else we offer at BrianJohnson. Me. Two basic things. One, our free newsletter. It's called the Optimizer. Over 50,000 people start their day with it and they tell us it's pretty awesome. And two, our Optimal Living membership program. This is where I put all my best stuff. Ten bucks a month for a ton of wisdom. Two primary things in there, philosopher's notes plus optimal living 101 classes. When you sign up, you'll get instant access to 250 philosopher's notes, which are basically six page PDFs and 20 minute MP3s where I capture my favorite big ideas from great books. The PNTV episodes are kind of a mini version of all that goodness. You'll also get instant access to all my optimal living classes. This is where I take all the ideas we cover in the Philosopher's Notes and boil it down to the most practical stuff you can apply today. Classes include Confidence 101, Getting Stuff Done 101, Relationships 101, Habits 101, etcetera, etcetera. You'll also get access to what we call micro classes that I think you'll love. We aim to astonish, and we're blessed to have thousands of members telling us we're helping them change their lives and that this is the best 10 bucks they invest in themselves every month. Go to BrianJohnson ME membership to learn more. Thanks for your support and have an awesome day.