 You know, I still had to run my dojo, people were looking up to me and relying on me and I would come in and I'd be like this butterfly floating and not really feeling into what are the needs of other people and not being able to fulfill them. I would be kind of giving half-ass lessons, being all happy about myself. You know, in a way it's almost arrogant, you know, it's almost self-centered. It's all about me feeling good about myself. Hey, travel journey men, women. So I'm sitting here, actually just recorded an episode beforehand and I thought, you know, should I record one more? And this one is one which I kept thinking about and I kept remembering this story and I kept thinking. I felt, I felt this intuitive feeling that I just need to share it, you know, that there's probably going to be something value in it. But there was also a bit of a hesitation in me there before recording it. And I thought, like, should I do it? Should I not? And I said, you know what, let's do it. So I'm going to tell you this story, which is quite a fascinating one, but it's kind of a bit of a chaotic one. Usually I like to tell stories which I kind of have well figured out in my brain and my mind and I told it many times. But this one, now that I think about it back, I probably didn't speak much about this one, maybe a couple of times. And the story is of a time that I actually meditated way too much. And I'll probably actually, now that I think of it, I'll bring up a number of stories related to it, like the times I overdid it, because that's actually kind of my character. I'm an either-all-or-nothing guy. If I do something, I do something 100%, sometimes it works to my favor, sometimes it works against my favor. There's good and bad, so actually that's already a valuable thing to look at, especially if some of you have that same thing. But anyway, so let's focus on meditation and a quick intro to my background to make sure you know that I know what I'm talking about. I started practicing meditation super early. I think I was maybe like 11, 12 years old, maybe 10 when I saw an episode, or that's a loud car. So I saw an episode of Dragon Bowl where a young sangoku was meditating, and I really liked that idea of calming down your mind, being still like the sky. There was a coat there. And actually, at that day, I also had nightmares. I also had really bad nightmares, like, like, niters, I believe, a lot. And somehow, intuitively, I had that sense and feeling that if I will meditate, that will help me overcome that. And it did, actually it did. And it just made me calmer and more composed. Even at a young age like that, 11 years old or so, I kind of felt and realized that it's useful. And also probably to help that, you know, I would say I was always inspired by, or in the past I was inspired by Eastern culture, you know, like figures like Samurai Jack or just Samurai in general. And oftentimes you would see meditation in those, you know, stories, narratives, like how a powerful Samurai or warrior is meditating. And there was always this clue that, you know, meditation will lead you to become more powerful. And so I think all of that kind of drew me in to meditate. And so, long story short, I started meditating early on. And then I kept digging into meditation. And I kept meeting, like, people like Buddhist teachers and, like, at a young age, maybe like 14 or 15, I was really looking for answers. And that's priests and monks and spiritual teachers. And I kept trying to figure out, you know, how meditation works. So I'm pretty sure I will talk more about that in other episodes. And there's some of you asking me about what meditation I practice. And I'm planning to definitely talk about that. How I enter, how I integrate meditation, like no bullshit meditation into my life. The no voodoo meditation. But for some reason I just felt I need to tell this story before I get more technical. So this story actually takes us way forward. And for me living in a spiritual school, martial arts school for years, meditating there a lot. We would do, like, meditation retreats and sometimes meditate, like, for hours and hours. And also eventually I opened out of my own Aikido Slash, you know, martial arts, yoga school, meditation school. So I was constantly teaching people to meditate and I was meditating all the time myself. But there was a significant moment during me running my Aikido school. It was the last years, maybe a couple of years before I closed it. I closed my Aikido school after seven years of running it. So maybe five, six years into it. I think, you know, I kept repeating this, but it's the truth. I always felt inspired to inspire other people. I always wanted to make, like, a positive, powerful impact on other people's lives. And that gave, I realized early enough through exploring and going on my journey that you need to have a lot in yourself. You need to know as much as you can, be as good of a human being as you can be in order to have value in you so you can provide value to others. So you kind of need to excel at how you are in order to give to others. And at that moment I really, I did meditation already for a long time, but at that particular moment I felt like I need to push things. And I got really inspired about Advaita Vedanta. It's something I mentioned in a few episodes but never dug into. Advaita Vedanta means non-dualistic, non-duality, I think. Yeah, so basically it's non-dualistic teaching. That, to give you a quick summary of what that is, it's, in my understanding, the way I understand it, I spend a lot of time investigating and practicing it by Advaita Vedanta. It's the, you're seeking to realize you're not your body. That's kind of one of the parts, but that even goes deeper. You're going to, aiming to perceive that even this reality is kind of not real. That's what most Advaita Vedanta teachers would kind of show. And they would be kind of like Romana Maharshi, probably one of the most famous Advaita Vedanta guys. He was, he got enlightened very early. He was 14, but he was so deep in his kind of Nirvana blissful state that he was sitting at this mountain called Arunachala, like a sacred mountain in the south of India. It's still there, the whole ashram to Romana Maharshi stands there dedicated to him. But back then the ashram wasn't there and he was just sitting there meditating and he was so deep in the non-dual state that apparently this story bugs started making nests in between his thighs, inside his thighs. And they started feasting off of his thighs. They're starting eating it and biting it all the time and he didn't care. He was so deep in that non-dual state and he didn't care about his body because basically that's kind of what Advaita Vedantas are aiming for, is to realize that kind of, and I don't want to misguide you. It's not like the way I perceive it, it's not like a negative negative thing. It's not like nihilistic, I guess, although I don't know that much about nihilism, but basically you're in that state where you want to figure out that this is all just a perception and you don't exist as an individual. So who the fuck cares? It's like, you know, I don't give a fuck. All that matters, I'm just in this blissful state of oneness and nothing really exists, so I might as well just sit here and enjoy the experience, something like that. You know, I'm not being so clear about it, but that's kind of the image. That's the image kind of I developed for years of my training, simplified, hardcore simplified. So he was kind of in that state and he didn't give a fuck about his body, but then people started to recognize that he's a saint, that he's enlightened and they started taking care of him, but apparently based on the story of the parts of his legs where there were scars till the end of his life because of how he didn't care about those bugs. But for the rest of his life, he was like that. His body, he looks a bit like a cripple all the time because from what I understand he would barely move, you know, he would mostly just sit there and sometimes people would ask him questions, he would answer questions, but he didn't care at all about sustaining a life, getting a profession or whatever. He was always in that non-dual state. He wouldn't identify himself as an individual. I guess it would be more identification of the consciousness moving through him. And so if you look at his pictures, he's always cool, chill, kind of fits based out It's hard to say, but the pictures I think are often very beautiful. You see his eyes glittering. He looks like a cool guy actually. But then yeah, he didn't give a fuck about his body. And at that particular life, I always was interested in Advaita Vedanta. I always saw it as a valuable tool to gain, but I was never completely lost in it. But I can honestly remember what exactly made me dive into it like head in. It might have been the fact that I read the book about Ramakrishna, the greatest saint before Ramana Maharshi of the previous century before him, who was also, he wasn't really like a full-on Advaita Vedanta guy, although he did learn Advaita Vedanta from one of the top guys of the day of Advaita Vedanta. He kind of even surpassed him. It's a funny story about that, how it happened, but I don't know if it's going to come up in this episode or not. But he was more, he was like a mix of everything. He wasn't like, he was a devotee of Kali, but he was kind of a mixed bag. But Advaita Vedanta was familiar to him and he didn't like, he didn't, he wasn't concerned about like a regular lifestyle either. He was very much like always being in that blissful state. And I think something about that attracted me. I think I was also believing, how is that Mooji, a Western enlightened guy, who was very popular at the day, became popular. And he was all about kind of being in a blissful state too, like a light version of Advaita Vedanta. Man, I'm giving you a lot of names, but for some reason I feel like telling them. So the lineage actually was the same. So one of the top students of Ramana Maharshi was Papaji, a very well known spiritual teacher. And then Mooji was the student of Papaji. So it was a clear actually at the center of Ramana Maharshi, but he was kind of like more laid back version, more Western version of him. But still, basically Advaita Vedanta. And I was reading that to him too, and I kind of liked his teachings. And I think probably something, it's funny, I usually have a very good memory, but I can't put a point, a finger on why specifically, like what was the main cause of me really diving head in into Advaita Vedanta that period of my life. But my best guess is probably I just came to a conclusion that I need this in order to be more valuable to humanity. I was still an Aikido instructor, and I felt like my ego was getting in the way, I guess. And then if I will become a vessel to life, it's kind of one of the existing ideas of spirituality, is that you need to kind of direct you to disassociate yourself from the identity, to dissolve your ego and to just let life or universe work for you. Like, you know, leave no ego bits and pieces. And I kind of thought, okay, man, if I do this, I will be really useful to humanity. I will provide a lot of value that was always important. I mean, it still is. And as soon as I come to a conclusion that this is going to be good, I usually dive head into it. So before I start telling you how that worked out for me, drink some coffee, too, actually. Let's check the microphone before bastard motorcycles disturbed my audio. All good. So, that's what I did. Funny enough also to use an important point to mention, at that day I was still married. I'm divorced now, but I was still married to my partner. We were having bumps and bruises in our relationship, but no wonder. I mean, we got divorced, but on certain levels she was supportive of it to me, which we always appreciated. She gave me the space to explore. Sometimes, yeah, it's a long story, worth another video, but so she gave me kind of the space to explore. Or maybe, now that I look back, I think, could it be that we were actually separating already, like we were kind of on and off and living on, living separately. Could be that. I'm kind of mixing in. You know, it's actually funny, too. I think part of the reason I'm mixing this up is because that's something I'm going to talk about right now is I spend so much time being in that zero state, which I call the zero state, and it's something I will bring up later as well. A very important key concept in meditation for me in my practice. The zero state is basically a complete state of peacefulness, of rest, where you're completely disengaging from your story. And your story, I mean, your job, your career, your relationship, your finances, even your name, your age, you completely disassociate from everything. You're just in the state of this moment. And kind of because it's an important part of the story, I'll give you a bit of a glimpse of what that is so you could feel into it. So basically, if you look at this moment, your name doesn't exist in this moment without the past and the future, basically the past. You know, you were given that name and you came to a decision that this is your name. You know, initially kids are like, they're growing around and they speak about themselves in third person. And then the parents are like, no, this is you. Your name is Rokas, and then they start to refer themselves. Rokas wants to pee. And they're like, no, I am Rokas. And you know, and go through that process and then you decide, okay, I am Rokas. But you inherit that. And it's a valuable tool. I'm not saying, you know, disassociate yourself from that. But in the zero state, if you let go of the past in that moment consciously, you just leave the past be, your name pretty much doesn't exist to a degree. Your problems don't exist. And this is a very interesting question actually to ask yourself. It's a question I would sometimes bring up to my meditation students or yoga students. I'll ask you this as well. So in this moment, what could identify and tell me a problem which exists and without a relationship to past or future. So I'll repeat it again. Identify a problem which exists in your life, which is not related to the past or the future. So let you think for a moment, drink some coffee. Probably you're having a hard time finding one. There are a few you could name like, oh, my knee hurts, it's cold. But usually all problems will be, oh no, tomorrow I will need to pay my taxes. Or even like, today I will need to pay your taxes. But today is later. You know, right now in this moment, it's an idea that you need to pay your taxes. Actually, you're not like, if you disassociate from the future, taxes don't exist. I'm not saying don't pay taxes. That's not the message. It's just kind of the perspective, your relationship to it. That if you're completely in this moment, then the past and the future don't really function. And even like if you're saying I'm cold, cold, the degree is a sensation. The problem is that you will get sick, you know, or you will feel uncomfortable later, the more colder you get. But if you're focused on just this moment, even cold is not a problem or even pain is not a problem. The pain is the problem, pain is just an sensation. The problem it becomes the more you think about the future and how your life is going to suck if you're going to be constantly in pain. So you do something about it. But basically my message is in this moment, if you release the story, pretty much problems don't exist. Barely anything exists. But consciousness, perception still exists. You hear things, you feel things. And actually it's an interesting moment is that if you let yourself dive into that and let go of the past and the future, which I'm kind of doing myself right now, and you become connected to this moment, aware of this moment, because otherwise we're constantly in our head projecting the future, guessing what's going to happen, trying to understand what happened before. And that's kind of a burden. It always stimulates us. But if you let go of that, there's very little that stimulates you. It's just light sensations, you know, like sounds and experience. And if you let yourself go into that kind of a sense of peace and restfulness comes up, actually a sense of happiness. I will make a different episode about that, but actually that's like when I was pursuing of trying to understand what happiness is, that was my answer. Happiness is usually in being in this moment. Long story, I'll cover it later. But hopefully now you're trying to start to see what I'm talking about, and that is what I call the zero state. I usually point out two more states. I might cover them more in different episodes. But let's focus on the zero state, right? So, Ramana Maharshi, Ramakrishna were all about the zero state. Muji as well, to a degree. I mean, sometimes maybe they would expand out of it to be more accessible to Westerners because we're all about the second state. The state of two where we're creating and establishing and, you know, overcoming stuff, which is an important state as well. But at that day I made a mistake of disregarding the state of two, and I started to associate it as bad. And I started to feel like it's all about zero state and one state. The state of one is where you're engaging, you're acting, but your engagement is very, and very light. Let's say you're washing dishes and all your attention is in the dish washing. You know, you're kind of acting in this moment. So, I would kind of allow myself a bit of that, but I was all about the zero state. So, I would try to, like even daily, like in very regular situations, I would always try to focus my mind. Not on the story, I would kind of try to ditch the story entirely, forget my story, my personal story, and fully focus only on this moment, all the time. It was a constant effort, a constant training, a constant kind of point of focus. And I would meditate as much as I can, like every chance I would get, I would meditate. And I'm waiting, and I still do this practice a bit, subject for another video, but let's say I'm, you know, waiting for someone who's late, I don't wait. I sit there and I just either meditate in the state of one, just, you know, feeling into what's happening. Or I completely shut off and just, you know, let the moment absorb you. But then I would do it all the time. So, you know, I'm making food, food is cooking, I'm not waiting for food, I'm going into a state of zero. You know, I didn't watch TV, I didn't use my computer, I was in the state of zero. So I would do it all the time, I was meditating all the time, and then I made this kind of a journey for myself per se. I decided to shut myself off for a full weekend from Friday afternoon till Monday afternoon. I shut off Wi-Fi, I shut off my electricity, like I shut off everything. Mobile phone, I announced to everyone that I will not be accessible during this time. And I decided to not use any electricity at all and pretty much not use anything and just to completely be in the state of zero as much as I can and go out of it as little as I can. So just go to the bathroom, maybe read some spiritual books, and make some food when I have to. And I also even shut down clocks and watches so I wouldn't know the time. And I was always in that state, so I was really like, for a few weeks I was really heavily into it. And now the key moment of the subject, the lesson I learned, well let me first of all tell you it was a disaster. And I'll tell you why and I think it happens to all of the people who focus too much on the state of zero and who want to be too spiritual. The thing is, when you're in the state of zero, problems don't exist for you, right? Kind of like how I try to bring you into that practice of the state of zero right now. Forgetting about the past, forgetting about the future. Problems don't really exist in that moment. But it doesn't mean your problems disappear in the greater scheme of society. Your problems do not disappear for your wife, or your husband, or your children. You know, your taxes don't go away. You can kind of just try to swim through and be on the current, on the wave and kind of pass through in that zero state and expect everything to work itself out. And sometimes it does, but still I think eventually I came to a conclusion that it's not fair. Because when I was practicing that state, and with my now ex-wife, she would come to me and she would bring me up some problems. She's like, oh look, Brokus, you didn't do this. I'd be like, I'd be so much deep in my zero state that I was like, what's the problem? Why are you upset about this? It's like, why are you wasting your energy? And the thing is, she would get really frustrated, and to some degree it sounds cool. Now it sounds like, oh, he's so spiritual, and he doesn't have problems. It's awesome, I wish I wouldn't have problems like that. But my final conclusion is disrespectful. You cannot really conduct a good relationship like that. And a relationship for me is, whole life is a mix of conflict and peace. I think that's why you need to balance, that was my main lesson. You need to balance the state of zero and the state of one and two. That's the crucial way of, that's my main way of how I practice and proceed meditation these days. It's a balance of all things. And if you disregard the two in one, yeah, you can be that guru guy, you know, sitting there smiling and being happy for yourself. But then, you can't expect, first of all, you can't expect everyone else to go down that same rabbit hole with you. Life is still continuing and there's a lot of shit happening in the world. Like, you know, if we dig down deep, you know, not that I'm capable of tackling that yet myself, but you know, there's sex trafficking. And there are people who are addicted to drugs and then they are, you know, there's war, there's famish and famine. You know, there are, there are violent crimes around. There are men who are beating their wives and there are children who are being abused, let alone, you know, talk about sexually. There's a lot of injustice. And then I'm in that peaceful state and that's kind of the philosophy of Advaita Vananda. It's like, oh, it's all a dream. Fuck it. Don't care. But then how do you tell that to a child, you know, who's being molested at the moment? Do you come to him and say, oh, your problem does not exist? And there is a chance that, you know, there are stories like where prisoners get enlightened. You know, they realize that prison is just an idea and they forget their crime and so on and so forth. And it can kind of maybe help a person yield to a degree from past trauma in this way. But at the same time, I think it's unfair. I just personally think it's unfair. It's unfair to take your state of peacefulness, your non-existence of problems, and just throw it on others and expect others to become enlightened as well. I don't think the world is supposed to work that way. I think conflict is beautiful. I think part of life's, part of life's interest is the journey, is, you know, overcoming obstacles and overcoming challenges and solving problems. The problem is, if you're too much in the state of too, if you're always in the state of too and you're not able to turn off and you're not able to be in the state of zero sometimes, then yes, you're fucked. And most people are fucked. And sometimes I slip and each of you mind myself, broke us, you're too much in the state of too, come on man, chill a bit. Because then happiness and joy and appreciation is in the state of zero. It's really difficult to appreciate things and be happy in the state of too because the state of too is all about problems. It's all about, fuck, there's so much wrong and you can do something about this, but then, and you can be useful in it, but then you're also burning yourself out and you're not also enjoying life and you're not recharging yourself to keep on going. So it's important that you recharge. But I think people are, you know, people are too divided and people are too focused on one or the other, I was definitely. There were moments where I was too focused on the two and I burnt myself out and I wasn't so much useful anymore because I was too burnt out. And then I was for too long in the state of zero and then I would be fucked because, you know, I still had to run my dojo, people were looking up to me and relying on me and I would come in and I'd be like this butterfly floating and not really feeling into what are the needs of other people and not being able to fulfill them. I would be kind of giving half lessons, being all happy about myself. You know, in a way it's kind of almost arrogant, you know, it's almost self-centered. It's all about me feeling good about myself. Fuck that. It's fucked up. And that's kind of what I realized at that moment. I think maybe my relationship problems started to kind of get to me and I started asking myself, I saw my ex-wife suffering from me being, you know, this spiritual douchebag, you know, all without problems, all enlightened and happy. And part of me was kind of starting to bug me and say to me like, dude, she's suffering, you know. And who the fuck cares that you're in this blissful state and you're happy but it doesn't make her problems go away. And again, you could be a spiritual douchebag and say, oh no, you know, it's her, you know, she, through this hardship she will become enlightened and she will see you're happy, so happy, she's gonna let go of problems, but again, I think it's unfair. I feel free to have a different opinion, but I've been in this spiritual shit world for a long time, really devoted. And I'm not in a blissful state all the time now, especially these days when I'm starting this new journey and I really want to have great impact on the world, like positive impact. Sometimes I allow myself to stay in the state of two for longer and I do burn myself out sometimes, then I catch myself and I'm like, oh, focus, chill, you know, add some state of zero practice in your life, but at the same time I'm very happy and that happiness is different. It's not just blissful, yes, the world is amazing and everything is great, but it's a mix, it's a mix of I'm so happy, I'm so happy about facing this challenge. I'm so happy that I'm looking back at these difficult experiences and traumas in a way and kind of revisiting them and selling them and sharing them and, you know, I'm very happy when I get some comments who appreciate these stories and I feel like, okay, I am doing my purpose bit by bit. You know, sometimes I do get down and get demotivated by the challenges if they're too big at certain moments and you're not, I'm not like super happy, I'm like, it's all blissful, peace, man. But then I recover and then I stop and I appreciate and I'm like, holy crap, this is amazing. I have a wonderful girlfriend, wonderful dog, weather is beautiful, coffee is good, I have a chance to contribute to this world. You know, we have so much to be honest, you know, we have electricity, we have food, most of us do. Not everyone, but that's the point. Not everyone has everything. Not everyone has as much as we do. And if we are privileged to have it all, it doesn't mean, you know, we should forget others. If we're enlightened, it doesn't mean we should expect others to get enlightened. I think that's kind of the point of Buddha. It's hard to go to the Thama, the first Buddha, where, you know, he got enlightened and he was given the opportunity, the chance to become a bodhisattva, which in my understanding means he could have stayed in the blissful state and just fucked it all, be an Advaita Vedanta, or he could choose and he became a bodhisattva, a person who's enlightened but still goes around and helps others. But let's make it more simple. Let's not, you know, talk big about enlightenment. Let's just say, you know, be happy with your own life but then accept that others are suffering and go out there and do something about it and enjoy your life once in a while but also solve problems. That's the main message. That's the goal of the journey of this channel is to inspire more people to live that way. Because I think that's an awesome way to live. I think some people will enjoy living like that. Sometimes stopping and appreciating your life and sometimes saying, fuck this, I need to do something about this and not wait for everyone to become enlightened and just pretend that enlightenment is the ultimate solution. I don't think it is. I think the balance is the point.