Transcending The Quarter-Life Crisis

From my good friend and fellow monk Gadadhara Pandit Dasa at the Huffington Post

I had never even heard of the term "quarter-life crisis" until my fifth year as the Hindu Chaplain at Columbia University. During a conversation over lunch, a student told me about it, and then towards the end of the school year another student gave me a book called "Quarter Life Crisis: The Unique Challenges of Life in Your Twenties" by Alexandra Robbins and Abby Wilner.

The term is similar to a mid-life crisis, but it refers to the plight of students in school or right out of college trying to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives. When I ask senior students if they know about their plans after they graduate, they give me a consistently similar response: "I have no idea."

It's not just one thing that leads to uncertainty and even panic which is labeled as the quarter-life crisis. It can be a combination of factors. All the facilities and conveniences a college campus provides will no longer be available: on-campus residential housing, eating facilities, medical & counseling facilities, security, and clubs and organizations for students to meet other students.

It can be even more intense if you can't find a job after graduating, or if you find something in your field and realize that you don't want to do this for the rest of your life, and you regret all that time and money spent on something you no longer want to pursue.

Moving back home with one's parents isn't the most attractive option, as it can feel a bit restrictive, and it can make graduates feel like they're regressing. Not everyone is affected by all of these concerns, but even one or two of these concerns can push students to act in extreme ways to resolve their situation. One such example, which I found quite shocking, was in a HuffPost article that describes college women engaging in sexual acts with wealthy older men in exchange for money to pay off their student loans.

The root of the problem is that right from our childhood we've been driven and pushed to achieve material success and social status. The equation we've been memorizing all our life is that material possessions, position, and success equals happiness, but there are so many people who get all of this and still feel empty inside.

We've been running full speed ahead, pedal to the medal, and we never stop to consider what's really going to make me happy. We've almost completely ignored our spiritual needs.

Material things can only give us so much. They can only provide temporary satisfaction for the senses, for the physical body and mind, but they do little for the heart and soul. It's quite amazing that we've hardly ever been seriously encouraged to pursue the needs of the soul, and we may even have been been discouraged to pursue our spiritual needs.

It's no wonder that so many people hit a brick wall at different stages of their life, whether it's in their 40s and 50s or even in their twenties, during the "quarter-life' crisis.

The fifth chapter of the Bhagavad-Gita explains:

One whose happiness is within, who is active and rejoices within, and whose aim is inward is actually the perfect mystic. He is liberated in the Supreme, and ultimately he attains the Supreme.

Just taking care of the needs of the body and ignoring the needs of the soul is like watering the leaves, fruits, and flowers of the tree and forgetting to water the actual root. It's just a matter of time before we come face to face with a quarter or mid-life crisis.

The sooner in life we're able to implement into our lives, on a consistent basis, spiritual practices of meditation and yoga, with the intention of understanding the true nature and needs of our soul, the better chance we have of preventing such a crisis from hitting us in the face. The crisis happens because we lose sight of who we really are, and we can't figure out what we're supposed to do.

The Bhagavad-Gita helped me get through a very difficult time in my own life; which I would call a quarter-life crisis. My family's multi-million dollar business had collapsed causing us to lose our house, cars, and savings. We were left with nothing. I was 21 years old and felt like my life had turned upside down. I had lost all sense of direction and had no idea what my next step would be. This is the first time in my life I started to explore spirituality and considered building a spiritual foundation.

The wisdom of the Gita taught me that material things are temporary, that they come and go like the winter and summer seasons and that I shouldn't be disturbed by their disappearance. I learned that becoming overly attached to material possessions and positions will only lead to frustration, as at some point, they will be taken away by the power of time.

The wisdom of the Gita encouraged me to focus on the more permanent things in life, such as understanding the eternal nature of the soul, and how the purpose of life is to re-establish our lost relationship with God. Once we're en-route to re-establishing that relationship, many other aspects of our life become clearer.

The problem is that we get so caught up with all of our material affairs and we wait for something to go wrong before we take action. The recommendation of the Gita is to make sure each day we incorporate some meditation and reflection into our lives. This may very well prevent the "quarter-life" crisis from happening, and at the very least, if it does happen, it can provide us with the coping mechanisms we will need to get through it.

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Hey I Am Finally Published!

Click here to check out Part 1 of my essay "Lifestyle of a Monk in NYC" at the online magazine Tattva.

Parts 2 and 3 to follow soon!

Being A Monk In New York City

From my good friend and fellow monk Gadadhara Pandit Dasa at the Huffington Post

Most people I encounter are quite fascinated by the idea of monks living in Manhattan. I suppose the fascination is quite natural. Most people engaged in monastic life are expected to live away from a busy city. A place that allows for focused meditation and reflection on spiritual life. Wouldn't a busy city like New York, which is seen by many as the height of materialism, seem quite counterproductive to the monastic life?

It all depends on one's purpose. If one is aspiring to focus only on one's own individual meditation and spiritual practice, then a busy city environment can definitely be counterproductive. However, if one is residing in a city for the purpose of helping people, then there's no better place.

Within the Bhakti tradition of Hinduism, the tradition that I have adopted, it is recommended that some monks live in the city because that's where people are most stressed and therefore need the most spiritual guidance. The city is a very intense place where everyone is constantly scrambling from one activity to another, always keeping themselves busy, often times leaving their spiritual pursuits by the wayside.

The Bhakti tradition teaches that making oneself available to assist others helps one develop greater levels of compassion, which is a very important tenet of Hinduism. This tenet applies to monks and laypersons.

The city can actually push one to greater levels of focus in one's meditation. There are so many distractions everywhere and to prevent oneself from getting sucked into the ubiquitous materialism, one really needs to take greater shelter of the meditation and other focusing practices.

For example, when you're driving at high speeds, you need to be more attentive, otherwise the chances of an accident are much greater. I like to compare the city to a high-speed highway which requires a greater level of focus.

Being a monk in New York City can definitely be challenging. I'm more comfortable in a city environment than some of our monks. I was born in Kanpur, which is an extremely busy, industrial city. Then, at the age of about five, we moved to New Delhi, which is also insanely busy. By age seven, I was living in Los Angeles.

When I first moved to New York, I found it to be an exciting place. Because of my conditioning, I like busy places. People, cars, trucks, and other city noises don't really bother me. I do like to get away once in a while, but for the most part, I'm fine with it.

The monastery, located in the Lower East Side, is right on First Avenue, and from the outside, it looks like just another New York brownstone, so one could walk right past it and not notice anything special. We're surrounded by bars, nightclubs, restaurants, tattoo shops, and a variety of eclectic establishments. It's probably one of the busiest areas in Manhattan on Friday and Saturday nights. The action actually starts on Thursday nights and goes until early Sunday morning till about 4:00 a.m.

I know the timings so well because I usually wake up at 4:00 a.m. and can hear the boisterous discussions taking place on the avenue after the bars have closed and flushed out their clients. Once, I even saw a couple of guys with their shirts off, in a total drunken stupor, having a fist fight right in the middle of the street. It's quite a scene out there with people yelling and bottles smashing against the sidewalk.

The natural question arises: What in the world are monks doing in a place like this?!

There's about 15 of us and we all wake up between 4:00 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. Our morning meditation starts at 5:00 a.m. To refresh ourselves from the night's sleep, everyone is required to shower, put on a clean set of robes and then enter the temple room for the meditation and worship. According to the teachings in Hinduism, the mind has the easiest time focusing during the early morning hours. The mind responds to all the stimuli around us -- people, traffic, noises, and activity in general. There's not a whole lot of activity going on at 4:30am. Stilling the mind is close to impossible, but the morning hours do help when you're trying to focus the mind.

Morning Meditation

• • • • • • • • • • • • • • Monks engaged in mantra meditation at 5:00AM.

Our morning services move through a variety of moods and flavors. We start with the more grave mantra meditation and after an hour, we move into a very devotional practice of song and devotional dance. We sing different songs glorifying the previous teachers and God. The use of traditional Indian instruments such as cartals (cymbals) and a double-sided Bengali drum allow the sessions to become quite rhythmic and ecstatic. The beautiful melodies enable one to pour their heart into the prayers being sung while all the monks move back and forth and side to side and eventually dance in a circle. It's an incredibly powerful, devotional, and spiritual way to start the morning. It's easily more energizing than a double espresso and the experience stays with you the entire day.

The monks rotate lecturing from Hindu scripture elucidating the philosophy and explaining how it can be applied into our daily lives. During the lecture part of the morning program, some of the other monks are taking notes on the class, while others are cutting up vegetables for the day's cooking and some are stringing garlands of fresh flowers to be offered on the altar.

Whenever anyone hears about the morning service, a common question arises "how often do you guys do this?" and I tell them "everyday -- seven days a week." The look on most people's face is priceless when they hear my answer. It's anything but boring. There's quite a bit going on and the three hours, from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m., flies by. Of course, if you haven't had a good night's rest, it can get kind of rough at times. After the morning program and before breakfast at 9:00 a.m., some monks will continue to do additional meditation, while others will do some yoga, and some may even take a quick nap.

The morning meditation and prayer service is our food for the soul. It gives us the much needed nourishment we need to handle the madness of the city and it gives us the spiritual strength we need for our various activities -- teaching, counseling, lecturing, cooking, cleaning, and going out to engage with the local population.

Being a monk in New York isn't easy by any means, however, if the principle of service to humanity is adhered to, it can be very satisfying and even blissful. Due to length constraints, I am only able to describe the first five hours of our day. In a future piece, I will go into further details of our monastic life, which will reveal more about the inner workings of the monastery and some of the challenges the monks face, individually and collectively.

Follow Gadadhara Pandit Dasa on Twitter: www.twitter.com/nycpandit

Celebrating Another's Success: An Antidote To Envy

The latest article from my good friend, fellow monk, and Bhakti Center (Manhattan) president and CEO Ramnath Subramanian (Rasanath Dasa) on the Huffington Post

"Always remember that envy gives the strength to excel!" These were my aunt's parting remarks during the summer of 1986, as I boarded a train back to my hometown just before the start of a new school year. Even as a third grader, those words left a lasting impact on my consciousness.

Year after year, the medals piled up and the accolades filled several folders -- one of the main driving forces behind it all was that one statement my aunt made. It gave me the strength to compete with the best and either equal or excel them. But along with it also came subtle, powerful and deeply imprinted "side-effects" that I only recently recognized were disempowering and distortive to my reality.

Envy is a universal experience. It pervades our culture -- from schools to corporations to family life -- but is rarely addressed openly or easily recognized. Rather, it masks itself under different, more palatable terms such as "competitive spirit" or "drive".

In plain terms, it is best defined as an emotion that occurs when a person lacks another person's perceived superior quality, achievement, or possession and desires to possess it, wishes that the other lacked it, or both.

Psychologists have suggested that envy can be classified into two types -- malicious and benign. They claim that benign envy can be used as a positive motivational force in achieving one's goals. However, there is a fine line between the two and often we quickly and unconsciously degenerate into the shadow side. In such situations, it can be easy to forgo everything -- even close relationships -- to acquire what we obsess over.

Dr. Richard Smith, a professor of psychology at the University of Kentucky, states that much of the recent economic crisis may well have been fueled by runaway envy, as financiers competed to avoid the shame of being a "mere" millionaire.

The Bhagavata Purana, one of India's classics on yoga and spiritual wisdom, describes envy or dvesha as the older brother of hatred or krodha. It states that envy corrodes all virtues -- a poisonous venom that dries out all gratitude, love and compassion, so that others' misfortune and downfall can taste like honey.

In 2005, while I was a student at Cornell University's business school, my friend and classmate Vishal and I applied for a covetous position at a large investment bank. We were both excited about the prospect and exchanged ideas and information on our individual applications. Eventually, we both got selected to the final round of interviews.

Slowly, our mutual sharing and joy started to disappear. I started avoiding his phone calls. In class, we played subtle mind games. We would talk about the various deals in the financial markets simply to prove that each knew more than the other.

As the interview day approached, I started to lose sleep -- not because of the interview, but the possibility that Vishal would get the job and I wouldn't. Deep inside I feared that he was smarter than I was. Yet, I could not admit that to myself. To compensate I sat up all night practicing my interview questions to make sure I would ace them.

As fate would have it, Vishal got the offer and I did not. The pain of reality could not have been more bitter. As email congratulations flowed for Vishal, I could feel my heart pounding in rage and hatred. While having lunch at the atrium, I saw a relaxed Vishal happily chatting with friends. I interpreted that as him showing off and instinctively convinced myself that he was simply happy at my misery.

That evening as I sat with a few friends studying for a finance exam, I started to talk about how Vishal had deliberately not helped me with certain interview questions. Unconsciously, I began to assassinate his character. There were things about his past that he had shared with me in confidence that I started to make public. I felt "satisfied".

As I walked back home, I felt that I had lost something deep inside. I tried to distract myself by watching a movie, but the feeling only got heavier. As I explored it further, I realized what had happened. It was hard to accept at first, but denying it felt like a bigger burden.

I realized that envy is the most unfortunate aspect of human nature. Not only is the envious person rendered unhappy by his or her envy, but they also wish to inflict misfortune on others. Envy makes it hard to appreciate all of the good things we have receiving in the moment, because the one who envies is too busy worrying about how he or she is perceived. I resolved to put an end to this.

The next day, I approached Vishal and openly expressed my feelings to him. Tears filled my eyes as I sincerely apologized for my behavior. I told him that I truly felt that he was the better candidate to receive the offer. I felt the pain of the honest appreciation pass through every pore of my body.

To my surprise, Vishal was touched, which further humbled and embarrassed me. For the first time, I was able to appreciate his softhearted and forgiving nature. I felt grateful to have my friend back again.

The next day, I hosted a dinner at my house for Vishal and a few friends to celebrate his accomplishment. As I personally cooked and served everyone, I felt renewed, invigorated and cured of a chronic disease. I felt free.

That evening I understood the true purport of yet another statement from the Bhagavata Purana which states that envy is nothing but appreciation that is corrupted by a strong obsession to exclusively possess what we value. Envy results from a deep-seated desire to be the lord and master of all that we survey. It is the strongest weapon of the ego in its relentless pursuit for self-aggrandizement.

If we can strip away the desire to possess and control what we appreciate or value in others, we can experience the true beauty of the traits, recognizing that God and nature have given them to a particular individual for its best possible use.

Celebrating the success of another helps us recognize the qualifications of the individual who has been given certain gifts, and it helps us to be inspired by his or her qualities. Such celebration is the perfect antidote to the poison of envy.

The Humble Musings Of The Manhattan Monk 7/7/11

The desert which I must cross is the desert of the vacant spaces of my mind, of my heart, void of all feelings, of the truth of your own heart.

In this desert are the scorpions whose sting I refuse to take, yet what else can I do if I must walk this path? Their is no mundane antidote to their poison. The only cure is the nectar stored within my own heart-space. I must access the storehouse of this nectar, by care and love and service, to keep in a pouch with me as I walk along these hot sands

**
The balance of respect...

On one side, my personality which needs the social touch, who longs for the heart-to-heart, freely giving in time and space, exposed and vulnerable and ready to heal.

On the other side, the silent one, learning the art of finding the treasure within, who needs relief from the extraneous noise and demands, needs a recharge of the batteries, who is free to meditate on the flowing waters in the woods everywhere.

If I disrespect one side, the other atrophies. This balance of respect insures mutual growth, reinforcing through each others' best qualities and gifts. Each side, when healthy and whole, knows exactly when to lend a hand to the other, to pick them out of their latent mirages.

**
I pray for the end to my creature comforts, but I understand their is a certain quality of madness that can come by pulling the plug too quickly. If I tear down my castle too quickly, without finding true comfort in the communal quarters of loving souls and our relationships, I will have no provisions for the walk into the desert.