Ep #009 | Cracking the Happiness Code with 3 Mind-Blowing Ideas from Dr. Srikumar Rao

You have been living under an illusion your entire life and you're living in that illusion now. And quite possibly you'll die never knowing that you were in an illusion.

I'm here today on the set of the mindvalley show right here in New York with a man who my team jokingly calls Vishen's personal Yoda. In fact, these people I work with created this meme to joke about how much I quote Sri Kumar Rao and what he means to me. He is one of the foremost MBA professors in America. He has lectured at Columbia, Kellogg, London Business School and a variety of other incredible institutions. But what makes Rao so brilliant, what made people line up to get into his classes on personal mastery, is that he doesn't teach regular business. He brings in wisdom from the ages, from spiritual teachers from 2000 years old and integrates this wisdom into modern business curriculums. Now you don't have to be an MBA student, you don't have to be an entrepreneur to gain from this wisdom. Because Rao doesn't believe in just teaching business. He teaches life, happiness, thriving, how to get mastery over how you show up in the world. And today, with my Yoda Sri Kumar Rao, Rao is going to share three new ideas. What I mean by new is he's never shared these ideas on mindvalley before, but three new ideas the that will change the way you view the world and the way you see yourself. So get ready to go on a wild philosophical ride with Professor Sri Kumar Rao. Welcome.

Hello Vishon. Always glad to be on a mindvalley production of any kind.

So Rao, I know you are about to dazzle us with these counterintuitive ways of thinking. First, how are you? I haven't seen you in a while. How have things been going?

Things have been going swimmingly well for me, Vishen, every day is a blast. Each day is better than the day before. And I'm just content to lie back and be and see the days go by.

So before we go in, Rao, tell us about your latest book.

My latest book is Modern Ancient Roots. And I've taken the teachings of some of the world's greatest masters, adapted them into concepts and exercises which are relevant to modern people in a post industrial society. And I encourage my clients to read them. Most of my clients are entrepreneurs, some are senior executives. All of them want to leave an outsized impact on the world. But at the same time they also have an explicit spiritual path, a drive. They know that life isn't all about gathering the biggest toys and the most toys. So how do Those two fit together. That's the particular sandbox in which I play.

But why ancient wisdom? Why is ancient wisdom important to us today?

Ancient wisdom is timeless wisdom. And I say ancient because some of the people who enunciated it, who are best known, lived centuries or even millennia ago. But there are people even today who are every bit as wise. They just aren't as widely known.

Right. Well, what we try to do at Mindvalley is to make these people who are alive today get as widely known as possible, including you. So let's get started with our conversation today. Three powerful ideas to shift your perception of the world and reality.

Let me tell you, Vishen, and I'm gonna pick on you, if I may.

You can pick on me all you want.

Okay? You have been living under an illusion your entire life and you're living in that illusion now. And quite possibly you'll die never knowing that you were in an illusion. Go back to the very first time we met. Do you remember what you told me? You wanted to touch a billion people. Right, right, I remember that. Yes. And many of my clients are entrepreneurs and they want to have companies which are 10 million in revenue, 100 million. A billion dollars.

Yes.

I want to run a billion dollar company. You want to reach a billion people. Wrong. You don't want to reach a billion people. You don't want to run a billion dollar company. You want to have the feeling you will have if you touched a billion people or run a billion dollar company. And even that is not really true. You want to have the feeling you think you will have if you touched a billion people or if you ran a billion dollar company. Now, in your head is a notion which is false. But the falsity of this notion we'll talk about later. And the false notion is the only way I am going to get the feeling that I'm running a billion dollar company is to actually run a billion dollar company. So you strive with might and main to grow your company to a billion dollars. The only way I will get the feeling that I've touched a billion people is to actually touch a billion people. So let me go ahead and see how I can get Mindvalley material more broadly distributed. More people to tune in. What kind of programs can I have for a customer? Get a customer or whatever, how can I go viral? And you expend all your efforts there. But that is not what you are really seeking. What you're really seeking, as I said, is the feeling you think you will have. And it is possible to get that feeling by other means. Getting that feeling by other means is by no means easy. And you might well decide it's a shorter, easier path for me to actually run a billion dollar company and that's fine. But run a billion dollar company knowing fully well that that is not what you are really seeking. What you're really seeking is elsewhere. And you have that thought in your head even as you strive your level best to run a billion dollar company. And as you do that, you will find you get a wonderful sense of non attachment. Not detachment, but non attachment where you're doing what you need to do to, to build and grow a billion dollar company to reach a billion people. But at the same time you're not doing it because of a desperate wanting. When I get this, I'll have this euphoric feeling and I will have arrived, but simply because that is your path in life.

So what you're saying is that the goal that we think we are chasing, and for me it is to get our valuation to unicorn status. That is true. Me right now, and for many other people it might be to get their first million in revenue, or to hit 100 million in revenue, or to even strike it out on their own and no longer be a salaried employee, but to be earning passive income. So no matter where, where you are, what you're saying is the goal that you're chasing is an illusion.

Yes.

There's a goal behind the goal.

Yes.

And the goal is what will I experience, what will I feel when I get to that goal? And even then, that is the illusion. Because what you think you will experience and what you will feel is not, are very different. Two very, very, very different things.

And let me point something out to you, something that everybody can relate to. How often have you seen a highly attractive person of this same sex or opposite sex, depending on your predilection, and you thought, gee, I'd really like to be married to that person. And then look at the statistics of, let's say, top fashion models and their marriages and how long they last.

Right.

We are all living under the illusion I want to be married to this person. Because when I'm married to this person, I got an expectation of what will happen. And then you think your reactions will be somewhat. And they never play out. We are all living under the illusion in all things.

And it's a double illusion. I can relate. When I was working here in New York maybe 17, 18 years ago, I wanted to quit my job and have my own company. And so I did. I quit My job. I started my own company. And I thought, life is going to be good. But I didn't realize that my illusions were nothing more than illusions. When I quit my job and started my own company, all of a sudden I lost my visa and I had to leave New York City because I couldn't stay in the US I stupidly. Because I was a kid, I didn't realize that all of a sudden I went through periods where I was broke, broke. And I was wondering how I could pay rent the next month. All of a sudden I was lonely because I no longer had the benefit of working from an office with friends around me. I was living at home in a crappy apartment, working from home. I never expected any of that. And it took me years to figure all of that stuff out. So I appreciate what you're saying, and I've been there. And I think this is a really good, good insight for many people listening. But the question is, if we understand this idea well, what then? How does this help us? This just makes life seem a little bit more miserable, doesn't it?

No, no, I contest that very strongly. That is a misunderstanding when you understand that what you are seeking is not what you are really seeking. I have a story which I have narrated before mindvalley audiences, but it's a beautiful story, so I'm going to tell it to you again.

Let's share it.

There was a man in faultless evening clothes searching under a street lamp. And a jogger ran past. And then he circled back and said, you seem troubled. Is something the matter? And the man in evening clothes said, I dropped my car keys. So the jogger says, no problem, I'll help you find it. And he bends down and scours the ground and feels around. And after a few minutes he says, I've searched this area pretty thoroughly. There are no car keys here. Where did you drop them? And the man in faultless evening clothes says, I dropped them over there. And the jogger is understandably annoyed, and he says, well, why are you searching for it here if you dropped it there? And the man says, well, it's dark there and it's light here, so I thought I'd search here. And everybody laughs, and you recognize that it's a joke. But that's what we're all doing in real life. What we're searching is a sense of fullness. That's what we're searching for, the sense that we are complete, that there is incandescent joy in our life. We think, I'm going to get there if I get a better job, get a bigger house, marry a more beautiful partner, have more brilliant kids. It's no different from dropping your car keys here and searching for it there. Because here is a fundamental truth, vision. You cannot solve an internal problem with external action. And that's what every one of us doing. Let me get a good degree, because then I can get a good job and progress and make more money. Let me quit my job so I can become an entrepreneur and my own boss. Everything that is driving us is our attempt to reshape the universe into what we would like it to be. And you can never beat the universe, because even if you do shape it to the way you would like it to be, that's not what you were really looking for. And you discover that afterwards. But it's like one of those never ending treadmills you're always on that never recognizing that your original mistake was in thinking you want this when you really wanted something else altogether. And many people live and die their entire life is in this illusion. That is what Thoreau meant when he said the mass of men live lives of quiet desperation. That is so true.

And so even chasing these ideas of what we think success means is a desperate act.

Yes.

What should we be doing then?

What we should be doing is recognizing that this is the dilemma that we're stuck in. And then act, but act knowing that we are acting because that's where life, the universe, has placed us. And not out of the thought that out of this action will come something which will fulfill me.

So if we know that the goal that we think we want is really a feeling that we are chasing, I'm guessing that's it, right? Correct. It's not having a million dollar business, it's the feeling of having a million dollar business. But even then we are guessing what the feelings are and the unconscious.

We're thinking that the feeling will be there.

And there's unexpected feelings.

But here is the even deeper point. We're not really looking for a feeling. We think we're looking for a feeling, but we're not looking for a feeling.

What are we looking for?

And let me tell you why. Because the moment you say this is the feeling I want to have, you're introducing duality. There is me and there is something else which will make me feel a particular manner. And in reality there is only one. There is no me to experience something else. We are all one. That is what all the wisdom traditions teach us. That is the kingdom of heaven, that is Nirvana, that is Brahman, that is Atma Gyana, the knowledge. Not the knowledge, the.

Being.

Because this is where words start to break down. Because when I say knowledge, that automatically implies duality. There is me, and I have to know something. What I have to know is not me. When you get to that stage, you can only be. You cannot know, you cannot experience. You can only be. That is where words break down. That is why in the ultimate analysis, all the great masters taught by silence.

So help me out here. So I understand the idea that I'm chasing a feeling, right? I'm chasing a feeling. So when I set a goal to have a massive company, what I'm really seeking is the feeling of freedom, correct? The feeling of freedom to be able to live anywhere in the world. I want the freedom to be able to afford my ideal home, to never have to worry about money. But also I'm seeking the feeling of fulfillment. Fulfillment that I've made my parents proud, that I'm proud of the life I've created, that I've been a good role model for my son. So those are the feelings. But now what you're saying is those feelings themselves are an illusion.

Correct? Because what you want, the feeling that your parents are going to be proud of you, or the feeling you think you will have when you say, oh, my parents are proud of me. So what you should be doing instead is recognizing you have these feelings. There's nothing you can do about that. Even if you try to say, I don't want to have it, you won't succeed. But you can be aware of the fact that you have these feelings. And you can also be intellectually aware that this is an illusion, that it is not going to get you what you're really seeking. You can hold that thought in your head even as you do what you're now doing. Striving desperately. Not desperately, but striving hard, working in order to accomplish all of that. But as you continue to work, as you continue to try to accomplish all of these visions that you have, these goals that you have set, you know that that is not what you really seek. Just holding the thought in your head.

So what you're saying is, detach from the goal.

Yes.

Do not. Do not be focused on the goal. Cause you're not chasing the goal firstly, you're chasing the feeling. And even then you're chasing the feelings that you think you're going to get. So the point of it is a pointless game. But if you understand that it's a pointless game, then what you can do is you can start working towards Those feelings immediately. You don't have to build a business to feel that you're successful. You can feel that right now. And then what you're also saying is, understand it's a game and don't get too attached to the goal. Because if you're attached to the goal, if you fail, that will really hit you.

Hit you big time. But if you enjoy the journey, you cannot give it up. You can't say, I'm not going to be attached to it. Right. So what do you do? The more you keep this thought in your head that this is an illusion I'm chasing, gradually detachment will come by itself.

I see.

Non attachment, rather than detachment will come by itself. You cannot will it. You cannot chase non attachment any more than you can chase detachment. Just let it come into your life. And the way it'll come into your life is if you have this thought in your mind, but then you outwardly continue doing what you've always been doing. But internally there is a shift. And that shift will become more pronounced with time.

Right, right. And I see that. Because if we don't understand this, we will constantly be chasing bigger and bigger goals. The person who's watching this is not going to be satisfied. When they hit their first hundred thousand in sales, they'll then set a goal for a million. Then they'll set a goal for 10 million. Then 100 million. It doesn't end. A billion. 10 billion, 100 billion. It doesn't end.

It doesn't end.

And they'll constantly be chasing the horizon, never catching up to it. But if you can understand that it's all a game and that, yes, have those goals, grow your company. But understand it's the feeling and know that you can embrace those feelings right now. You can have the feeling of freedom right now, the feeling of fulfillment. Right now.

You are right now.

You've mastered the game.

Yes, absolutely. Yes.

I like that. Thank you for shedding light on the double illusion of the game. Now let's go on.

I think we're all stuck in the West. West, West. Overwhelming majority of us are stuck in that.

Yeah. The double illusion of the game. Are you stuck in the double illusion of the game? Now let's go on to the second idea.

Raoul, the second idea has to do with happiness, vision. Are you happy?

I think I am.

I'm glad you prefaced it by saying you think you are. Many people suggest.

Because I know if I said I'm happy, you're gonna poke holes in that many people.

If you ask them, are you happy? You'll say, oh yeah, of course I'm happy. But we set a very low bar vision when we say we're happy. What we're really saying is there's nothing immediately bothering me. All my needs are taken care of. I have a bed to sleep in, a roof over my head, food to eat. My company is doing well. I'm going to take it public. Good things are happening in my personal life and yeah, life is fine. So yes, I'm happy. That's a very, very, very low bar. Go back to the very, very first time that you fell in love. Remember how your world was then. Everything outside had this brilliant rainbow hue. The sun was radiant. Heavenly music seemed to waft from the air. There was a spring in your step. There was such overwhelming joy which came out of you and wrapped itself around everything in your life. The telephone ringing was like Beethoven. That is a faint whiff of what true joy is. In India we have a term for it. We call it ananda. Ananda is mistranslated as happiness, contentment, joy. No, ananda is something very much deeper. It's such a massive feeling of well being that you can't describe it. It's as if you were floating through the air, touching down gently to make contact with the earth and then floating up again. There is a heavenly scent, a marvelous fragrance, Great music around you everywhere. You're joyously floating, hardly touching ground at all. That is happiness.

Is there a word for ananda in the English language? No, it's the closest word. The word simply doesn't exist. Ananda is beyond happiness. It's almost ecstasy.

Yes, that is what is meant by divine ecstasy.

Give me an example of ananda. Is ananda something that you live in or is ananda bursis of absolute happiness?

This is the mind blowing idea. You are ananda. In India we say that everybody is sachidananda. Existence, consciousness, bliss. The ananda is translated as bliss, which I guess better than joy. That is your real nature. That is who you really are. And the reason that you are not experiencing it is because you've been very busy bottling it up. In other words, as I have explained in other talks, some of which I've given at Mindvalley, you have spent your entire life learning to be unhappy. And the way you learn to be unhappy is there is a particular model that you believe very strongly. And that model is flat out false. That model is, if this happens, then I will be happy. If I get a great deal of money, I can go to exotic places on vacation and I can be happy if I am in a relationship. If I find a partner, I can have great sex, and then I can be happy always. If this happens, I will be happy. If my company had $10 million in revenue, I'll be happy. No, no, I made a mistake. If it had $100 million, I'll be happy. No, I was still in error. I got to get to a billion before I'll be happy. We're always modifying our situation, saying, if this happens, then I will be happy. And no matter how many times in your own life you've seen that something you desperately want, it comes to you and you're thrilled for a day, a week. And then it simply becomes part of the background of your life, and you move on. And now you need something else. But the model is there. If this happens, I will be happy. If I get married, I will be happy. I now recognize I married the wrong person, so I have to extricate myself from it with as little damage as possible. Marry the right person, and then I'll be happy. We always think we put the wrong thing on the if side of the equation. We never examine the equation itself because it is the equation that is faulty. When we recognize that it is the equation that is faulty, not the mistake of putting the wrong thing on one side of the equation, but the equation itself is faulty. Once we clearly recognize that, then we can start dropping it. And as we start dropping it, the happiness, joy, Ananda, that is bottled up inside us will come out because we don't need things to be in a particular manner in order for us to be happy. And let me give you an example of that. One of the people who's had a profound influence on my life is Father Anthony Di Mello. He was a Jesuit priest. He passed away a couple of decades ago. But I really believe he was an enlightened being, and he really understood life and our journey in life. And he said, one of the happiest persons I knew was a pedicap driver in Calcutta. Now there are pedicabs in Calcutta. And pedicabs are a little bit like rickshaw, except there is no mechanism. There's a human being who pulls, and people sit in the pedicab, and the pedicab driver takes them to their destination. Very, very wondrous work, particularly if you have to take a fat tourist up a steep hill and barely made any money to survive. And he had tuberculosis, so he was dying, and he was so poor, he had actually sold his body. There were people who go around and Pay you money. So when you die, they take your body and then they sell it to hospitals and medical schools for dissection purposes.

Wow.

So he had actually sold his body. So that was the state he was in. And father demello said, and he was one of the happiest, most fulfilled individuals I have ever ran across. So the illusion we have, how was.

This petty cap tribal living in Ananda despite not having anything?

And Ananda was an internal state that you occupy. And I'm going to tell you another story which will bring this down. There is a wonderful book. It's a spiritual classic called the way of a pilgrimage. Nobody knows who the pilgrim was. He was Russian. He roamed around Siberia in the late 19th century. The only thing he had was a torn woolen coat and a copy of the bible. So if you're roaming around Siberia in a torn woolen coat, you're not in a particularly good place. He had a dislocated shoulder and no doctor to heal him. So he lived with the pain. But despite all of that, he was in a state of such exaltation that you can only marvel. His manuscript was discovered in the early 20th century, translated, and instantly became a classic. And he talks about how there was such joy in his life that nothing, but nothing mattered. He said he walked 40, 50 miles a day. And he said, if there was pain in my foot, I prayed harder, and soon the pain disappeared. If I was hungry, I redoubled my effort, and soon the hunger vanished. And there was such unutterable joy in my life that I could not imagine how anyone could be happier. I was not even walking. I was floating. And that description is so vivid that just reading that takes the reader to a different level. That is Ananda. That is divine fervor.

What can we do to tap into Ananda?

The first thing you can do is recognize that what we see is happiness. It's a faint, faint, faint reflection of what true bliss is and what is possible. And the second thing is recognize that all of our endeavors which we think will bring us happiness will not we continue doing it? I'm not saying that you're going to stop doing it, but you continue doing it knowing that that is not the solution. And the more you continue doing things, the more you continue working. But you do do it, because that is your path in life. That is where the universe has placed you. But that is not what you are really seeking. The more you will find that in slow, slow, slow spurts, Ananda starts to appear in your life. You wake up in the Morning and you are happy. You're not happy because something has happened. You're not happy because something is going to happen. You're not happy because you're going to do something. You're just happy. When such moments come into your life, recognize them, acknowledge them, salute them and be grateful to them. And the more you do that consistently as a practice, the more such occasions will come into your life. And very soon you will be well on your journey to being encased in this deep rooted feeling. I am okay. I will always be okay. I cannot not be okay. That is where you should live. Period.

Isn't Ananda more than just being okay though? Isn't Ananda ecstasy?

This is where words start breaking down. Because when you're in true Ananda, there is no you. When all the mystics like Mirabai is a perfect example of a woman who lived completely in Ananda. She had merged into Krishna. There was no Mira bhai. She had completely relinquished all identification with the body, mind, intellect complex that others said. This is Mirabai when Ramana Maharshi, the famous Indian sage who's had a tremendous influence in me. In fact, he's had more impact on me than any other being. He had a realization experience when he was 16. And at that time he completely, completely disidentified with the body, mind, intellect complex. Later on he'd simply say, they called this Ramana pointing at his body because he had no identification with it. Then you are Ananda. But as I said, that is where words start breaking down.

Beautiful. Thank you, Srikamara. So that idea is really intriguing. What you're saying is we can go beyond happiness to Ananda. And Ananda is irrespective of our circumstance. We could be the poor rickshaw driver in India who had to sell your body to survive. We could be the pilgrim, the Russian pilgrim with a dislocated shoulder. But you could still be in Ananda.

Absolutely. Yes.

Happiness is something that is irrespective of our circumstance. And you said the way to get there is to truly reflect on and be grateful and celebrate those sparks of happiness, those sparks of joy or ecstasy that we feel. And the more we celebrate those, the more this becomes our default state and the more this tends to happen in our life.

Exactly right.

Thank you. I appreciate that idea. Let's go on to the third lesson. The third and final lesson for today.

The third lesson seems contradictory. These days gratitude is in. Everybody talks about you should feel grateful. There are consultants who tell you you have to be grateful. Each one has his own techniques. What are three things that happened today or yesterday for you know, would you look in your life and feel grateful? The vast overwhelming majority of persons will not admit it because you know, you can't attack motherhood and apple pie. And gratitude is getting into that same category. But it doesn't do anything for me. You know, I have my gratitude practice but it's a practice and I feel a little bit better. But it certainly doesn't unleash any great joy or well being or mental stability in me. Appreciation, gratitude, by the way is a big part of my course creativity and personal mastery. It's there in the quest for Mindvalley and people say hey this, it's really a wonderful quest. You know, it's the highest rated quest in Mindvalley and they say it's transformed my life. But some of them say appreciation, gratitude, am I doing something wrong? Because it's not getting. You're not doing something wrong but you're not getting the full benefit out of it that you should. And here is why. Vishen the vast overwhelming majority of us, certainly including myself at definitely including you, we are type A individuals who live in our heads. Let me repeat that because it's very important. You are a type A individual who lives in your head.