Sankalpa: The Missing Piece in Your Yoga with Medha Bhaskar

What exactly is a sankalpa, and how is it different from an affirmation, intention, or goal? Medha Bhaskar joins me to explore the deeper meaning of sankalpa, how to discover one that truly resonates, and how it can become a guiding direction for our lives.

Episode Highlights:

• Sankalpa’s meaning and place in yoga
• Sankalpa versus affirmations and intentions
• Sankalpa versus manifestation and goals
• Understanding SMART goals
• Discovering a deeper sankalpa
• Having one or multiple sankalpas
• Sharing a sankalpa publicly
• Sankalpa as a personal mantra
• Cultivating the feeling of sankalpa
• Different types of sankalpas
• Personal versus universal sankalpas
• Choosing the right sankalpa focus
• Moving beyond selfish sankalpas
• Measuring sankalpa progress
• Working through disappointment
• Using sankalpa with difficult intentions
• Finding and taking a sankalpa
• Using self-inquiry to discover sankalpa
• Writing, repeating, and wording sankalpa
• Choosing the right sankalpa language
• Using positive sankalpa statements
• Sankalpa as a healing practice
• Spiritual versus personal sankalpas
• Recognizing fear-driven sankalpas
• Do’s and don’ts of sankalpa
• Avoiding control and obsession
• Using universally applicable sankalpas
• Allowing sankalpa to evolve
• Using a single-word sankalpa

Prana & Presence: An Immersive Week of Yoga, Stillness & Soulful Study in Southern Italy

Join our mailing list

Find all the resources mentioned in this episode

Follow Let's Talk Yoga on Instagram

Connect with Aru on Instagram

Subscribe to Aham Yoga on YouTube

Let’s Talk Yoga Podcast on YouTube

Leave us a review and share this podcast with your friends!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to episode 232 of the Let's Talk Yoga podcast. One of my favorite guests is back on the show today, and we dive deep into a specific topic. Now, before I give you all the juicy details of what's in today's episode, I want to take a moment to remind you about a couple of things. Now, there are three specific reminders, actually, let's make that four that I want to share with you. Firstly, our Italy Yoga retreat is September 26th to October 3rd. And believe it or not, most people are signing up now. And we still have a few spots left if you want to be a part of this. It is a week long and it is called Prana and Presence, a giant pause in your life in southern Italy. So if you want to join me and a wonderful group of the Let's Talk Yoga community, then make your way to the podcast description or our show notes and explore all the details. Okay, this is September 26th to October 3rd in Southern Italy. My second update is make sure you are on my mailing list. Once a month, we send out a collection of podcast episodes of the month, the new direction of the YouTube channel and videos that I'm making for yoga teachers and yoga nerds, as well as preview of courses, a call-out of something, downloads, events that are probably in your city, and if I'm teaching there, and a whole bunch of other things. The link to get on that mailing list is in the podcast description. Now, my third update is a few months ago we opened Let's Talk Yoga Podcast Instagram account. Okay, again, that's Let's Talk Yoga Podcast Instagram account. And essentially we realized that there is a lot of noise on my account between my yoga studio updates, my dance studio updates, my own personal life things, my dog, and all the other things about our courses. The podcast was getting a little lost. So we've started a podcast-only Instagram account. Okay. Now I would love for you to go follow the podcast account because last week when I was in Tahoe, Instagram took down that account. And in four hours, they put it back up because they thought it was a bot generated or bot-operated account. Now, last I checked, I am not a bot, and neither is my community manager who helps me with it. So if you could go follow it, comment on it, and at least add a comment every now and then and let and signal to the algorithm that don't take this account down. It is not a bot account, it is in fact our yoga podcast account. That would be very helpful. Okay. And my fourth and final one is a request. Now, thousands of you consume this podcast every week, but only 490 of you have left a rating and a review. It makes such a difference to keep this podcast ad-free, sponsor-free. We pour money into running this week after week. Okay. And for six years, we have been pouring our resources, my resources into it. So please take a moment and rate it, review it. You can do this on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, follow the YouTube channel called Aham Yoga because the podcast drops there, the videos of the podcast drop there. But it's really important that you leave a rating and review so we don't fill this show up with ads and sponsors. Okay, the podcast isn't cheap to produce. So I would really appreciate your help in keeping this the way we have for six years, completely focused on yoga nerdiness. Now, speaking of yoga nerdiness, Medha Bhaskar is back on the podcast today. Now, Medha is no stranger to the Let's Talk Yoga podcast. If you have been a longtime listener, you have seen Medha come on the show a couple of times, and we've had fascinating conversations about many different topics. And today, today's topic was in fact suggested by Medha when we did our previous podcast episode, and we're talking about sankalpa. Now, if you've never heard of sankalpa in yoga, then you are in for a treat. We talk a lot about what is a sankalpa, where does it come from, how do we leverage it as a tool of yoga? Is sankalpa different from affirmation, positive thinking, manifestation? Is sankalpa goal-related? And really understanding the power and presence of sankalpa in your life and how to discover what is your sankalpa. Can you have one? Can you have many? And what are the do's and don'ts of a sankalpa and the process of discovery of a sankalpa and how do you word it and so much more. Okay. So there is a lot that we pack into today's episode, and Medha very patiently answers all my questions about Sankalpa. And I hope that you will find this episode deeply fascinating. Medha has also generously created a download. It's like a worksheet that you can download from letstalk.yoga forward slash listen. This episode's show notes will have a downloadable link where when you click, you get access to her file and you can download that list and use that to find your own sankalpa. And as always, if you have questions, you can reach out to Medha directly. We will link to where you can find Medha on the internet in our show notes and podcast description as well. So you can work through, find your way towards your sankalpa. And I hope that you find this conversation valuable. Here's Medha Bhaskar talking to us about Sankalpa.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

Hi everyone, I'm Arundhati, and you've just tuned in to the Let's Talk Yoga Podcast, your ultimate online destination for learning about yoga. Whether you're a seasoned yoga teacher or a curious yoga student, there's something for you here. Let this podcast be your virtual yoga school. We offer insight, inspiration, and loads of action of yoga adopt the way. But first, who am I? I'm an immigrant immigrant yoga teacher, immigrant America, for the past decade. I have my own yoga teacher. I am also a Hollywood Korea, and I've third third yoga community at my studio, as well as a low yoga audience to my course at this podcast. Through this podcast, I intend to create a space to the yoga student and yoga teacher to learn about yoga. Think of this as your online yoga school free teacher training coming to you every week. So grab your cup of chai and let's jump in.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Hi Maeda, welcome back to the Let's Talk Yoga Podcast. Happy to be here as always, Aru. For the first time, you are on our side of the globe, okay, and you're not staying up at midnight to do these conversations. How has your you've been here what almost two months now?

SPEAKER_03 7:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 7:19

Okay, how has your trip been a lifelong holiday? Oh, wonderful. Wonderful. I should let the listeners know that in your long holiday, you skipped coming to Seattle, just letting everybody know that you have said you will be here next time. So we've let it, it's a public secret at this point. And we'll hold you, hold you to it. So many months ago, you and I had agreed to do a conversation about sankalpa. And sankalpa is not a very commonly spoken about topic in the modern yoga world. So, so hopefully, by the end of this conversation, me and the listeners will have more clarity about what is a sankalpa and how to really understand and take this into our lives. So, to kick things off, what is a sankalpa and where does it sit in yoga?

SPEAKER_00 8:18

So, sankalpa is commonly translated as an intent or a resolve that you take. And right now in popular culture, it's mostly associated with Yoganadra. But Sankalpa has always been a very, very strong integral part of yoga from the time you know yoga has been around, right? There are mentions about Sankalpa in the Vedas, in the Upanishads, in Bhagavad Gita. So it is a very ubiquitous idea, and it simply means this it is the ability to channelize your will, to take a direction for your life and an internal an orientation of your internal compass, if I may call it that, right? So a lot of times a sankarpa is basically a statement that you make to yourself, where you're saying, This is what I'm all about, this is where my life is headed, this is where my practice is headed, this is what I hold valuable. So you're talking about very, very big things here, right? About your own value system, about what is important for you, about what truly you seek out of this life. A sankalpa is a statement of that.

SPEAKER_02 9:31

Beautiful. I didn't know it was that old. For me, my sankalpa exposure is only through Yoga Nidra. So when I think of Sankalpa, I think of Yoga Nidra. But that brings me to a question that I have been very keen on asking you. And I've been thinking of this question since you know the past couple of days. So, Sankalpa, how do we differentiate it from an affirmation, an intention? Like we say, right, at the start of Asana class, some people say, set an intention for your practice today. And then there is the whole world of manifestation. So does where does Sankalpa meet these things, or is it very different?

SPEAKER_00 10:18

On a very uh, like if you zoom out long enough, they're all pretty much similar, but they're vastly different when you start observing it them a little bit more, right? So these positive affirmations or manifesting a particular thing, or you know, they say write it on your board, put it on your mirror, look at it every day, think about it as if every day, create that resonance, and and it will come to you. Very often these things are very sharp-sighted, right? They're about materialistic things or an achievement that you want to make. It it is very tangible. So it's it's almost like a like a smart goal, which is slightly diffused to a larger scale. What's a smart goal? Where it's so this is one of those things that they teach you in in every MBA school, right? Smart goals, like goal, which has S M A R T qualifications. Oh specific, measurable, actionable, time-bound. There's one more living. Yes, yeah, yeah. So that is wonderful because you know, it sort of gives you a like a like a laddering system to understand whether your goal is actually achievable. Are you on your path? You know, can you achieve it at the goal at the time frame that you've set out to do? Now, manifestation and positive affirmations are maybe a little bit more broader than that. Maybe they're not as specific or as time-bound as you know, you would make a smart goal, but they're still very much solid. Right? They are very it's like you manifest maybe a Ferrari or you manifest a chapirangadhan dasana for like the yoga practice, right? Or a handstand. So it is still very much specific, it is still very rational, it is still very much, if you look at how the mind is constructed, it speaks to the lower mind, the rational mind, the mind which has the thoughts and the words and the voice that you hear. Right? But Shankarta is a lot more than that, it speaks to the higher mind, it speaks to the mind that is beyond logic, it speaks to the mind which is emotional, right? And a sankarta primarily works on the way I like to think about it is that it starts, it starts to create an environment in which your life exists, right? Because you see, when you're doing a particular thing and you're focused on a particular task, your mind is very much there doing that. The moment you stop and there is a silence, what does your mind revert to? That noise. Yes, because that's the habit that we have. Now, sankalpa is the kind of practice that you do slowly over a period of time where that environment is what you start culturing, and it is such a beautiful self-fulfilling system because the sankalpa that you take is really something that already excites you. Okay, right? You pick a sankalpa that you feel drawn towards.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 13:27

What if you're a smart goal in a manifesting thing? You know, all of these at some point you start feeling like, okay, do I really have the motivation to do this?

SPEAKER_02 13:37

Right? It could also be a borrowed case. When you see somebody else have something, you're like, maybe I should also want that.

SPEAKER_00 13:47

So, and go ahead. Sorry, even before you get to the next thing, I think an important qualifier here also is that a lot of the smart goals and manifestations and affirmations that we take are very much solid, but they also have a very important effect. It is about gathering and gaining something for yourself. But Sankalpa is really about what do I want to commit to? Where do I want to take my direction, my life's direction towards? Right? And therefore, it is broader, it is bigger, but it is also inherently very calming, it's very grounding.

SPEAKER_02 14:30

There's so much I want to ask you in that just one thing, but I'm gonna try and be organized about this. When I hear you speak about Sankalpa, the the way I'm I'm understanding it is there are these many things you can commit to. These very Chaturanga dandasana and some other thing, and that's very short term, but the true sankalpa or or a deeper sankalpa is it's like a process of discovery of who you are in some form, and and trying to find your way to it. So, how does one find their sankalpa? Right? Because, and can we have many sankalpas? Like, for example, I want to do Chaturangadandasana, I want to also have world peace, I also want to have inner clarity. Can can I have multiple, or should I sit and try to find one that is truly encompassing of many things?

SPEAKER_00 15:36

It always helps to have one while we start with many, right? Because this is a process, it's not possible for us to sit decide to sit down one day and say, okay, I'm today going to figure out my sankalpa and say this is what's valuable to me. And you know, my whole life should just snap into place and fall in order. And I'll get my ducks in my row, and then you know, this is my sankalpay happens, right? Because we're also evolving, we're going through life, our entire thought processes, what we hold valuable, continuously changes on an everyday basis as we experience life. But at the same time, there is always a sense of what is really, really important for me. And if we can sort of sit with ourselves and allow ourselves to discover the true intent behind all the other goals and intents that we have. Because if you actually do that, if you actually go through a reflective process, you see that you start with a goal that's pretty much solid because their minds are very solid. That's the way we've been, and that's not a bad thing, that's needed. But is that what you truly want? You keep going through, is it what I want? Why? Is it what I want? Why? And if you keep doing that long enough, you'll come to a point where the answer satisfies you.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Sounds like you need a lot of willpower and clarity and finding your own discernment in many ways.

SPEAKER_00 17:18

But that's the process, right? I mean, imagine if you are able to actually do this process and articulate to yourself because really not about anybody else. Do you share your sankalpa publicly? It's it's preferable that you keep it to yourself, but there is no need for you not to share. It's not secret. Like I don't mind sharing my sankalpa. My sankalpa is to be free. I want to be free every moment of every day without my own mind blocking experiences of life. Right? That's the sankalpa I take. Some people may take a sankalpa, which is as simple as I want to be happy or I am happy. Or I am healthy in its entire form. So you see, there isn't any solidity to these things. Is it a mantra, like a personal mantra? It it eventually becomes that, right? Because see, this is something that I find exciting. Talking about my sankalpa makes me feel alive, right? This is I know that this is what I want to spend the rest of my life doing. So why would we not go through the process of finding that, right? Because if it if it brings you alive, if it adds meaning to your life, if it gives you a sense of what is valuable and what is not, and that is on a very conscious level you're experiencing and interacting with this, but on a subconscious level, there are a bunch of things that start happening. Because the moment you start deciding your value system based on something that that you have discovered is something that truly speaks to you, then it slowly starts guiding your thoughts, your preferences, your actions, and you start gravitating towards it more too. And this happens even without you having to make that choice. Because all parts of you, the deeper parts of you, even your subconscious and unconscious mind, start saying, Okay, so this is what we're all about, this is what we're trying to achieve, this is what you know, it's like a like a compass, right? Like now you have a path. You may not know exactly what stage you are going to get to, or you may not be able to define it very specifically. If you ask me, do I am I feeling more free now than I did maybe five years ago? I say yes. But if you ask me how will that happen, how did that happen? Can you illustrate it for me or give me anecdotes for it?

SPEAKER_02 19:52

I can't tell you. Because it's so nuanced and yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

It's a it it is a personal expression or an experience of life that way.

SPEAKER_02 20:03

When you speak of experience, is it a feeling? Like, do you have to cultivate that feeling?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

It is very much a feeling, and the process of taking a sankalpa is definitely about cultivating it. But I feel more than anything else when you finally feel like you're ready to commit to something, you already feel it on one level and it already excites you. So you don't really start from scratch. You're not saying I want to feel A, B, C, D. You're saying, oh, what are the things that I would already resonate with? What is what is my inner self gravitating towards? This is where the idea of Swadharma also comes in, right? We all have a set of tendencies, a set of predispositions, a set of things that we already hold value. So Sankarta, the way I think about it is like a is like a voluntary discovery and statement of that.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

And it should feel like it's pulling you towards your own Swadharma. It doesn't feel alien to you. Yes. Right? Like for me to do it. It's not external. Correct. Like if I were to try and make, say, I take your example of Ferari, my Sankalpa, it's exactly opposite of many things I believe in. Okay. So to me, what's fascinating Media is because I have always met Sankalpa only in Yoga Nidra. So I have only, I think, struggled with Sankalpa because for me, you only have to you have to go into Yoga Nidra to get to your Sankalpa. And if the listeners don't know Yoga Nidra, maybe another time. Okay, but so I've always kept it in that exclusive Yoga Nidra club. Okay. So while I want us to get to like how how do we find and take our Sankalpa? Like, what is that discovery process? Are there different types of Sankalpa? Because I remember way back sitting, I think, in the Bihar. School of yoga, somewhere, some class. I remember a teacher who said, if you don't know what sankalpa to take, take something for the universe. Okay, take something very general, like you said, right? Like, I am happy. Let all beings be peaceful. Something like that, especially because I learned it in the Yoganitra context. Take something generic. So that brings me to I think the same question I asked a while back, but I'll ask it differently and again. Are there different types of sankalpa? And can I have a personal sankalpa, a universal sankalpa? Can I have a sankalpa for good health for my dog, world peace, my health? Can I have different types of sankalpa all at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 22:53

This is a great question. But just to give you a little bit of a background, I think uh a sankalpa is taken at all times. Right? So, you know, you wake up, take a sankalpa. When you're going to sleep, you take a sankalpa. Okay before a meal, you take a sankalpa. After the meal, you you know offer it to your sankalpace. It is something that you keep finding resonance with. So a lot of times, because a lot of people did not know their own sankalpa, a lot of mantras emerged as a thing that as a ritual that you do to be able to, you know, give a sankalpa to people. Right? Which is why you know in the morning when you wake up, I you you may have practiced this. I know my did when I was younger. My mom would make me wake up and say karagrevasate lakshmi, karamadhesarasati, like mantras that you say even before you put your foot on the on the floor, right? And this is not just in Hinduism, every religion in every part of the world has some something like this, right? They they pray before they eat, they pray, you know, they they thank after the meal. So it is kind of, I think all of us understand this, right? To be able to direct our mind is important. So that's where sankalpa comes in. And if you are going to commit to different sankalpas at different points, it's not a bad thing. It's just that it starts to scatter you. You have your energy, and each time you, it's like digging a well in 10 different places of one meter instead of one place, 10 meters. Understood. Right? So the more you resonate, which is why I told you it's a process where you start looking at these multiple sankalpas and finding the common thread in all of them. Because if you find that common thread, you're taking care of all of the sankalpas. Fair, fair. I'm asking you to be greedy.

SPEAKER_02 24:55

Should the sankalpa be taken from the head or from the heart, or something situational? Where where should we where should that emerge from?

SPEAKER_00 25:10

Definitely not situational, because then this is something that you know it it lasts until that situation lasts.

SPEAKER_02 25:17

So it's very time bound, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:19

It's very time-bound, and a sankalpa is like a forest fire, right? You don't use a forest fire to latch a light a matchstick.

SPEAKER_03 25:31

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:32

Right? There are so many things in our lives that we can take care of ourselves that we don't need all parts of us to come together to align because you become razor sharp, right? With the sankalpa. You start taking all the energy which is catching to 20,000 places and make it sharp. So obviously, you want your sankal sankalpa to be valuable, that you want something that is that something that that inspires you, that you feel you can get behind.

SPEAKER_02 26:02

Again, that same teacher or that same situation where I learned about Sankalpa, they used to warn us that uh sankalpa should never be something selfish. You know, like it should not be something, I want a million dollars. They didn't say that. I'm saying that. Okay, I want that Ferrari. And they always said they now, now when you speak, I realize what they were trying to say. They were trying to say, dig deeper, go beyond the surface. I'm just realizing why that was placed 15 years ago, you know, like dig deeper. Do you just want to be stuck at, I want that Ferrari? Can you get to more?

SPEAKER_00 26:44

And what happens? Like, this is the flip side we don't think about, right? Because right now, Ferraris or whatever your sank your goals are seem so out of reach. But let's say tomorrow you get a Ferrari, then your entire life at one point comes to a standstill. You've been working, you've been committing everything that you have to this goal. Now you've achieved it. So what happens? You get existential, you start wondering what the point of life really is.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Yeah, yeah. It's the same thing, like for example, you got asana teachers want a full class. But what after you get a full class? Then what? Then what? Okay, no.

SPEAKER_00 27:21

And you have to do this entire process of finding a new goal.

SPEAKER_02 27:25

So I was I was thinking that in your previous when you were talking, is do we keep measuring if the sankalpa is working? Because in our very instant gratification world, right, we want to see like results sooner. So do we keep like I've had that sankalpa for two weeks, and then now I'm disappointed that world peace is not achieved, you know, or something else like that. So do we keep looking for that measuring that success? Or do how do we cope with disappointment?

SPEAKER_00 28:04

See, we are right now in a world where where faith is very hard for every one of us. Yes. So I I feel like I'm also not that person who can who can sort of just very clearly say, oh, you know, it will happen, just believe in it, just you know, hold your horses. I don't believe in that either. But at the same time, if we sort of say, oh, I took a sankalpa for two weeks or two years, or even sometimes ten years, and it has not happened, and therefore the sankalpa is not working, there may be multiple things wrong with it. One could be the wrong sankalpa. Could be the wrong sankalpa, could be something that doesn't excite you really, but you're just thinking it excites you. So maybe you're not really able to see how the sankalpa is actually playing out because you've defined it in a very narrow set of circumstances, and it sort of has a wider ambitious. And again, there is nobody else, there's no outside judgment of selfish, it is just about you and your own assessment of what is selfish and what is not. You start to build an image of yourself rather than your the experience of yourself, right? You start getting more and more egoistic and therefore less connected to reality. Right? And imagine if you're doing it with your rational conscious mind, it's like that iceberg. Have you seen that image where you know the tip of the iceberg is only like maybe 10%?

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Oh, and the rest is in the water, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 30:01

And you can't even see it. So if you're thinking these things and your behavior, rational behavior when you're awake is about you know yourself, that's just 10%. But if you're taking a sankalpa to be that way, you're going deeper into the sub and unconscious minds as well, and it starts to direct even your preferences and your behaviors and your natural state of being towards that. So, do you really want to be selfish? Is something that you have to ask yourself.

SPEAKER_02 30:31

No, and and you said right, lower mind, higher mind, that whole mind should be should be in it. So now this is a silly question, and I'm going to ask you. Can I use, I won't, but can I use sankalpa to wish bad on others? Okay. So say there are some evildoers in this world. Can I take a sankalpa that something ill should happen to them? Will that will that ill turn around and happen to me?

SPEAKER_00 31:04

It absolutely will. But the point really is again, I have a philosophical problem with this. Okay, because even that is so external and so solid that your deeper parts of your mind will not be inspired by that. Yeah, right? So it is better to channelize that by taking action in the real world rather than using your sankalpa. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 31:28

Yeah. No, these are all collections of questions I've heard. Not all the delay. Yeah. So, okay, so let's get to what I would think is the fun part, right? How does one actually take a sankalpa? Do I sit and make a brain dump of, you know, this, this, this, this, and then listen to this conversation a few times and shortlist? Or is there a process? Do I go to a teacher for a sankalpa? Like, how do I actually take a sankalpa?

SPEAKER_00 31:57

A sankalpa is a personal conversation, right? A lot of times you feel like you've arrived at a sankalpa, but then it it starts to uh you start finding more nuances with it. And maybe at some point you say, okay, I need to revisit my sankalpa. But that doesn't happen on an everyday basis. It happens after you've experienced it for a while. So typically, what I recommend to my students when they ask me, how do I find my sankalpa? is I tell them dedicate maybe 30 minutes of your time on a regular basis. Sit down and say, What inspires me? What do I want out of this life? Start wherever you start and keep going through this entire process of why do I want it? Why is it important for me? Is there something more to this?

SPEAKER_02 32:48

It's a process of elimination. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

Can I, and you know, somebody told me this recently. They said unless you go through at least three rounds of that thought process. And we weren't talking in the context of Shankalpa, you were talking about finding clarity about something else. And you know, that person told me that unless you do that three times, you won't even begin to unearth the first level of clarity. Right? I want this. Why do I want it? Why is it important for me? Is there more to this? Then you go to the next level again. I want this. Why is it important for me? Again, another level. So at least three times. Because the first thing that comes, our minds are very tuned to be reactive, right? Our logical minds continuously keep throwing out things which are instant. Maybe that's not what we really want. Maybe it's in the direction of what we want, but it's not fully what we want. So you take a bit of a breather. Maybe you revisit it another day. But you come back and say, is that really what I want? So you go through that process over and over again. And let's say you are really clueless, you don't know where to begin, and you have no idea. One of the best things that you can do, like your teacher told you earlier, is to resonate with these big broad ideas that are there that we have access to. Right? So for me personally, I really find the Shanti Mantras very, very inspiring. Because just to be able to say, let me have, or you know, I am Purnamada, for example. Purnamada is one of the Shanti mantras, and it says, I came from fullness. Even if you take a fullness out of me, I still remain full. Right? So just to go through all of these, read it, understand it, and see what calls out to you. Not everything will. Yes. And that's good because that's what this is about, just the very personal exploration. Right? So for a lot of Buddhists, there are so many chants that even Buddhists have, right? Not all of them connect with everything. In fact, the teachers also say that you know, you connect with a particular scripture, you go to it. You connect with a particular mantra, you you chant it more. You connect with a particular idea, you start chasing it and try understanding it and see where your sankalpa can emerge from there. And this is not time-bound, it is not something that you need to do immediately. It's not like your life will come to a standstill if you don't have clarity about your sankalpa. It's just that this is a worthwhile pursuit. So you might as well do it slowly, patiently, and until you are satisfied with it.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

I'm processing as you are speaking, right? And I think we have to unlearn some things. Like this is way deeper than that affirmation and positive thinking and you know gratitude journaling. This is not that. Those are great practices, you know. Those are great practices, but this is deeper, this informs your whole life in so many ways. So you you really have to sit with it. So, do you write the sankalpa? Do you keep thinking and saying the sankalpa or a combination of both? And can my sankalpa be a paragraph or should it be, you know, om shanti shanti shantihi, like short? And does language matter?

SPEAKER_00 37:00

It absolutely does. See, we are now trying to access the part of our mind which is beyond words and which is beyond logic. Right? So if you have a multi-step sankarpa, if this happens, then that will happen, and that is what my sankarpa is, then that does not work. Okay. So something as short as a mantra is a great sankarpa. Now, this mantra does not have to be a Sanskrit mantra, it has to be a mantra that you understand. I am at peace, for example. Yeah. In a language that you find most comfortable, and and typically this is like the mother tongue, right? The thing, the language that you grew up around. Because that is the part of you know, before your rational mind and its differences and its biases and its perspectives and its you know, angularities came into being, that was the language you learned. So it does not require too much logic for you to be able to process that language. So taking it in that language makes a lot of sense. Should it be particularly in that language? Yes. Because our minds, the deeper parts of our mind, right? The parts which are beyond words and beyond logic don't really understand anything except feeling.

SPEAKER_03 38:27

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Right? So each of these words that we say, see, like let's say I'm saying I am free as my sankalpa, right? I'm just gonna go back to my sankalpa as an example. For me, it is a very personal statement. Right? At the same time, when I'm saying it, it is creating a reaction within me. It is giving me the sense of what freedom really is about for me. Right? So holding on to that feeling while saying these words and enhancing, resonating with that feeling is the practice of sankar. So if I were to say I am not bound versus I am free, it's like saying I am not unhappy instead of saying I am happy.

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Yeah. So it's a huge difference.

SPEAKER_00 39:27

I will not be sick versus I am healthy. Right? So I feel a lot of these, the moment you hear it and you see it placed in front of you, you know what you're gravitating towards already.

SPEAKER_02 39:39

You know, those examples actually really hit it home. Can we use or should we use sankalpa as a form of healing? Because a lot of times people will probably turn to some of this when they are grieving or they've been through something traumatic or something has just wounded them emotionally. Do you go to this as a healing practice?

SPEAKER_00 40:07

I would always say that this is a practice that transcends all situations. Okay. Right? But a lot of times it's very difficult for us to say that you should not use it in that context because most of us come to yoga when we have pain of some form. True, true, right? But to make your sankalpa about that particular situation, you may have come to it because of a particular thing, maybe grief, maybe confusion, maybe physical pain, maybe maybe heartbreak, whatever. Right? But to make your entire sankalpa about that becomes a little limiting. Understood.

SPEAKER_02 40:49

So come as a whole, don't come as a fragment of something. Okay. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 40:55

Because you're already not being able to see that you're gonna outgrow a circumstance then.

SPEAKER_02 41:03

One more question for you. Should my sankalpa be spiritual? Not all. Or can it be now I you know I'm child free, but or can it be let my children be safe and loved or something like that?

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Okay, so it's now my turn to ask you a question back. Okay. What do you mean by spiritual? What do you because I think that we we all misunderstand no very I I really appreciate that.

SPEAKER_02 41:33

So for me, spiritual is something that is beyond me, something that benefits beyond my life, my world, my my family, my people, my house, my bank account, my dog. So a little beyond that, something that has a positive impact on community or environment, or something, something beyond me. That for me is as of that is spiritual, like uplifting something beyond me, something I'm not related to or don't have a personal investment in. Okay, and not attached to and okay, wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 42:12

So, in that context, even then, you see, there is a huge amount of logic in that statement because you're saying this is me and this is outside me. Okay, right, that is the kind of evaluation to do, yes, right? So our minds don't understand that on that level. Okay, so at that point, very often it is really about because even if you take a sankalpa which is saying I am healthy or I am happy, this idea of me and the world don't exist. So my life and the the set of feelings that I've I choose to feel on a regular basis is not restricted to me, it's just it it expands to the whole world too. Yeah, I hope that answers it.

SPEAKER_02 43:12

That is a good thing to think about, and it reminded me of something I have done in the past. I have taken sankalpas out of fear. I'll give you an example. And my mom had a lot of health problems, okay? Lungs that failed her, three rounds of like very aggressive cancer that came back. And essentially it was a choice. You treat the cancer or you treat the lung disease. And the cancer medication was going to speed up the lung deterioration. But if you did not treat the cancer, either way, it was the end of her life. So for a long time as a younger person, I had developed fear. Fear that I have that cancer gene in me, which I still at some level do have. Okay, as a fear. So my sankalpa for For a while, I am healthy. I am healthy. I am healthy. And I am healthy for the my whole life. Like I'm healthy for my whole life. But it it always felt tense on the inside. It didn't feel like you're freeing. It felt more trapped. And over time I let it go. I was like, you know, I'm clinging. I'm clinging to life. I'm clinging to certain things. And I did that work of what am I clinging to? But that was a fear-derived sankalpa. And now I'm like, eh, whatever it is, it's whatever it is. I mean, that's my sankalpa, but I let that go of I am healthy, I am healthy. Because I was constantly, every time I said that, I was renewing my fear of not being healthy, if that makes sense. Absolutely. So it was good exactly what the opposite of what you said. You know, or you've been saying. Yes. So are there any other do's and don'ts of sankalpa that we need to know?

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Just a little bit of a uh you know recap about what you were saying. If you feel an inner resistance, that's most likely not your sankalpa. Right? And you feel it. It's it's as clear as day. If you are trying to force yourself to do something, that is not your sankalpa. If it comes naturally to you, if you feel like you are gravitating towards it, it feels magnetic, it feels like, oh my god, I'm excited to do this. Chances are that is your sankalpa. Right? So this is supposed to feel easy. Yes, everything against what we define as a practice in our heads right now.

SPEAKER_02 45:38

Right? To me, that's the biggest learning from this conversation. The fact that it should excite you, energize you. You want to look forward to it. Because now when I look back, all my sankalpas, which have expired, by the way, you know, none of them stuck. They have all been either fear-driven or you know, some sort of lack. Okay. And all the things that I'm not supposed to do in so many ways. And when I didn't know what to say, I would ask for world peace, you know, because I'm like, might as well ask for something for everybody. So to me, that the fact that it has to light something within you that and you feel drawn to it. Not every time I would see that I am healthy sankalpa, I would just be more scared of not being healthy. So I think that's, and I would just will myself to keep saying it and not really looking at anything else. So to me, that is very, very important. The I have one more question.

SPEAKER_00 46:40

But like I want to tell you that this is exactly how the process of Sankalpa unfolds, or finding a sankalpa unfolds. Because you start with something that you you think is the most accessible thing. It is important for you, right? And it is a very valid sankalpa that you took. The fear was a very important part of your thought process. But it sort of also revealed to you where the work should happen. So, by definition, even though you may call it expired, didn't it sort of put you on the path to finding your true Sankarpa? And didn't it lead you to a path where you actually did the work? True. So in that sense, it did work.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

It did, it did because I've gone from I am healthy, I am healthy to recognizing the underlying fear. Fear of what? Fear of clinging to life, Abhinivesha, which which you know, if the yoga nerds will understand Abhinivesha, and also recognizing what was I scared of? Like what am I clinging to here materialistically or with people and reaching a certain conclusion in my mind and heart about that? And now I no longer cling to that. So so you're right. You're right. The the thing I want to ask you is can Sankalpa become a form of control, obsession, where I'm now using it to suck the joy out of my life. Absolutely. How do we navigate around that?

SPEAKER_00 48:10

Absolutely. This is a again a very great question because, in terms of the practice by itself, if your sankalpa starts to feel that way, you will instantly feel an inner reaction, right? You will instantly feel a kind of shrinking because you're now creating a kind of a standard that you don't live up to. But a sankalpa is not a standard. A sankalpa is a direction with which you want to move your life towards. Right? It is not a place you arrive at, it is the direction that you are steering the ship of your life towards. So I think it is very important to sort of say, as you take your sankalpa, now you can do that at the beginning of class, at the end of class, or you can do that as soon as you wake up. You can do that, you know, when you're just sitting down for meditation, you can do that in Yoganidra. You can do that practically whenever you feel like it comes to your mind, you sit down and reinforce it. That is the practice of taking a sankalpa. Right? So I think it's worth asking how much more of myself can I commit to the sankalpa rather than thinking about what the sankalpa is giving me. Understood. Yeah, how much more do I put into this?

SPEAKER_02 49:35

Understood. Yeah, yeah. I like that. Like how what am I putting into it versus what is it giving me? What is it giving me? Yeah, no, that is that is beautiful. Now, as as we wind down here, okay, can you share with us, especially the listeners, right? If we don't have a sankalpa already and it's gonna take it, it's a process. Are there some universally applicable sankalpas that we can take while we work through the process of finding our own?

SPEAKER_00 50:07

Absolutely. So, one of the things that you can start with are the Mahakavyas from the Upanishads. You know, you have those Tatamasi and Ahambrah Mahasmi, and you know, all of those, you know, you can start with those. Or you can just start by saying, if I become quiet and I say, I've now understood what a sankalpa really is. If I become quiet, what does my heart tell me about what I find valuable? And start there and be okay for your life to teach you that your sankalpa is evolving, that some things are not okay. It's just that don't be impatient with it. Don't say every day I'm gonna take on your sankalpa. That's not normal.

SPEAKER_02 50:54

I was just thinking like sankalpas should be singular. Try and keep sankalpa singular, like you said, bring everything, find the common thread that connects everything.

SPEAKER_00 51:06

So the moment you get to a point where you feel like, oh, this is not satisfying all of me when I take the sankalpa, it's not really, you know, it's not feeling right. Then you know it's time to go deeper. Maybe the depth of your mind has changed, maybe your value system has gotten more rooted. And that's not a bad thing at that point to change your sankalpa, then, right?

SPEAKER_02 51:34

That was supposed to be my last question, okay? But I have to ask you one more. Okay, I was like, that's what we're gonna end on. But I'm gonna ask you one more because it just came to came to mind because we said singular. Can Sankalpa be just one word? Can I just be like peace? Peace. Is that enough? Or is it necessary for me to say I am peace? Or I am peace enough. Peace is enough, one of those.

SPEAKER_00 52:00

It is enough if you can resonate with it, right? If it is a personal thing, if you feel like this is something that I can connect to, because that see, it's not just the concept of what is important, right? It is about how am I connecting or relating to that concept.

SPEAKER_04 52:18

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

So if that naturally comes to your mind when you say that word, that's great. Okay, but if it doesn't, then you add the I am understood dash.

SPEAKER_02 52:28

Okay, okay, wonderful. This is very helpful, Medha. Thank you. Thank you for bringing so much clarity. I can still ask you 10 other questions about Yoga Nidra and Sankalpa and advantage of doing it in that state versus in the waking state and so many other places to go, but but another time. Okay, thank you for being here. I know this will not be your last appearance on the podcast. I hope that you have a wonderful time. You have a couple of weeks left? I have a couple of days left. Oh, days, days left, yeah, and that when you come back, you will make a pit stop at Redmond in your on your next trip. Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 53:10

That's on top of my listaro. And just to make this a little bit easy, I can put together a bunch of questions that you know people can maybe a worksheet that you know you can download and and maybe I hope that helps you in the process of figuring out a sankalpa.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

It will. I we I I know I would very much appreciate it, and the listeners will too. So, whenever you have that ready, we'll put it in the show notes and people can download it, work through their sankalpa, and then if they have questions, they can find their way to you through the internet.

SPEAKER_00 53:45

I would be happy. I'm always very excited to hear about people's sankalpa journeys. So thank you so much. It was a fantastic conversation, as usual. I think I love learning out about yoga with you. It is always fun, and this was good.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

Thank you. Thank you, Mita. Thank you so much for listening. I hope to see you in Italy or on our email list. Until then, take care. Bye bye.