Protect Your Mind Like a Violin
Treat your mind the way a great musician treats a fine violin: keep it protected, and be careful about who gets to pick it up.
Dandapani explains why monks live within walls, that no one is invincible and everyone has a weak moment when someone can affect them. He carries that into a picture of the mind as a fine violin worth protecting and worth guarding access to, including what you put on the internet. He closes on his guru, and why he has nothing he wishes he had said to him.
What this talk covers
- Monks live within walls because they can be impacted by others; if they were invincible they would simply walk the streets, and the walls protect their sanctity so they can have a more profound experience and a more profound life.
- Once you see the mind as the most powerful tool in the world, the thing that created everything you have, you protect it the way a musician cases a fine violin and controls who is allowed to touch it.
- He applies this to what he shares, speaking openly only when he feels a great sense of trust, and being cautious about what he puts on the internet, because not everybody gets to pick up his violin.
- A mystic trains the nervous system and the mind into a fine instrument sensitive enough to pick up subtle energy, the way his brother's trained ear could hear a drum still needing tuning twenty minutes in.
- Asked what he would say to his late guru, he says nothing, because his guru taught him to be completely present through focus, so he never wasted a moment with him.
Not everybody gets to pick up my violin.Dandapani
Questions
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Because they can be impacted by others. He says if monks were invincible they would just walk around on the street, but no matter how good you are there will be a weak moment where someone can affect you, and the walls protect their sanctity.
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No. He shares when he is sitting with someone and feels a great sense of trust, and is cautious about what he puts on the internet, on the principle that not everybody gets to pick up his violin.
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Nothing. Because his guru taught him early to be completely present through focus, he never wasted a moment with him and has no regrets, though he misses him deeply.
Transcript
723 words · 3:40
And then I'll say this to you, there is a reason why monks live within walls. That's that. Because they can be impacted by others. So when you live within walls, you're secure and you're protected.
And if monks were invincible, they'd just be on the street walking around. And they realize no matter how good you are, at some point there'll be a weak moment where someone can impact you. And what they're trying to do is protect their sanctity to have a more profound experience and a profound life. You know, it's like a violin.
I assume I don't play the violin. You know, Yo-Yo Ma has a violin. I'm sure he's putting it in a really nice protective case and throwing it in his trunk in the car.
So once you realize that your mind is a beautiful tool over a fine and the most powerful tool in the world, it created this, everything you have here in your business, you want to protect it.
You look at it as a fine violin. You put it in a case. You want to be careful who touches it. You want to just let your friends, kids,
come and open it and play with it, no. It needs to be handled and only the trained people can touch it. So when I look at my mind and what I share,
if I'm sitting with someone and I feel a great sense of trust with them, then I'll share. Mine, I'm also very cautious about what I put on the internet because not everybody gets
to pick up my violin. Yeah, that's a really cool perspective that actually just gave me power in changing the way I look at things, because the way you articulated that,
we have this violin and not everybody gets to pick it up. No, I've seen people don't let, you know, top musicians don't let people pick up the tennis racket or the instruments, you know. My brother is a really amazing percussionist.
And I remember when I was young, he was tuning one of his drums with a few friends in our home. He'd hit it, he'd tune it, hit it. Twenty minutes later, I'm like, bro, sounded good to me twenty minutes ago.
Why are you doing this? And his year is so trained that he can pick up the subtle things as he tuned it. And the mystic trains his nervous system and his mind to be that fine instrument that's so sensitive to energy around him.
He can manage it, but he also wants to protect it so that, you know, the unnecessary people don't need to have access to it. Yeah, well said. So my last question is your guru had a profound impact on you in your life.
And he passed away. Knowing everything you know today, experiencing everything you've experienced, you go back in time, what's one thing you want to tell him that you hadn't had the chance to? Honestly, nothing.
He taught me the profound experience of being completely present by being able to focus. And I was very fortunate to learn that so quickly early on that I never wasted a moment with him. And I've asked myself that if I'm with him now, is there something I should have said
or would have said? I can't think of one thing. You know, every moment I was with him, I was fully present. And that's why for me, this is what I want to teach.
Because I think how beautiful it is. If you had two hours with someone you truly loved, and I love my guru more than anybody else in the world, you know, my daughter would ask me, do you love him more than you love me?
And I'd ask, for now, why would you waste a second of it? You wouldn't. And when I look at my daughter, I don't want to waste a second of it. The only way I can leverage that is through the ability of being focused so I can be present.
And he taught me that and I was able to do that with him, that I have no regrets. Now I miss him deeply, but nothing I would go back and... It's beautiful. Yeah.
That's really cool. Yeah.