E32: Finding Your Path To Spirituality By Creating A Unique Belief System

In a world filled with countless religions, belief systems, and spiritual practices, it can be overwhelming to find what resonates with you. Join your hosts in this latest episode as they discuss how you can find your own unique belief path to spirituality. 

Your hosts explore the concept of creating a personal belief system that aligns with your values, experiences, and inner truth and share their own experiences in an open and unscripted discussion for you to understand their journey with religion and spirituality. They dive into topics such as the differences and similarities between religion and spirituality, discuss the importance of questioning when developing your belief system, and the meaning and role of God in a spiritual journey.

Your hosts offer practical advice on how to explore and challenge your beliefs to create a foundation that resonates with your inner truth, and in doing so, help you to create your own unique belief system.

Chapters
(0:00) Episode intro

(1:45) Ramadan recap

(2:46) The differences and similarities between religion and spirituality

(8:08) Adeel's journey with religion and spirituality

(12:36) Ant's journey with religion and spirituality

(16:29) The importance of questioning when developing your belief system

(21:03) What does God mean, and does God have any room in a spiritual journey?

(30:51) How to figure out where you are on your journey and create a unique belief system

(37:50) Episode Summary

Resources

• Headspace

Transcript

Adeel  0:10  
Hello, everyone, thank you for tuning in to another episode of calm Talks. My name is a deal, and I'm here alongside my co host, and we are here to help you lead your life of peace and progression, one calm talk at a time. Now, do you ever feel like the traditional religious bats just don't quite fit for you? What is good moral character mean to? Do you struggle to understand your purpose in this world? Today, and and I will cover all these questions. And we're going to have a long discussion, to kind of try to answer some of these to share our perspectives on these given that it's the month of Ramadan, where Muslims will fast for an entire month from sunrise to sunset. That's a month that I also practice fasting, I try to get closer to God closer to religion. And what's ironic is that I wouldn't necessarily call myself a religious person. In fact, a lot of people who are Muslims would maybe look at me and maybe not think I am religious. I don't claim to be either. But that's what we started chatting about. And start discussing, what role does religion play? What role does spirituality play in a person's life? I'm actually really excited about this episode. I think this is gonna be one where I learned a lot about your perspectives about what it means to be spiritual, about a belief system and what that entails. So I'm super excited about this one. And I want to kick it off to you. What does spirituality mean? Well, how would you define spirituality?

Ant  1:45  
Just kind of want to circle back before again to that and just say about Ramadan, we started talking again, offline, like we always do, and understand that you're fasting this month. And firstly, I think that's commendable to anybody that's fasting, I think that's actually so it just sounds really physically taxing on your body. And obviously, mentally, emotionally, scarring then affect you. So first thing is kudos to you. And whoever whoever's doing this, I think it's it's a great act of service to your religion, and obviously to yourself. And, you know, after, you know, learning about this, you're you're practicing this month in doing it this month, you know, we've got into the conversation of how your religious or your spiritual, no, do they overlap? Are they different? What does it mean? What do each mean? So really wanted to just use this time to firstly reflect on being religious? What is it being religious mean? And you know, why this, you know, why do these religious practices, because, for example, now, how that really translates to whether or not you're spiritual? So to answer your question on what is spirituality, for me, I think it's really important to distinguish first the difference in religion and spirituality, so we can kind of clearly see the difference. Because for me, they're not. They don't really overlap as much as someone might think initially. When I think of religion, religion, to me is more a set of prescribed rules. It's telling you how to live your life, with good moral character, for a specified outcome, they want us to know go to the afterlife, to be judged on Judgment Day, whatever it is that you believe. But ultimately, it's effectively a set of guiding principles and how to live your life. So that you can be somebody of good moral character of Good Standing in the community, someone that people will respect, look up to things like that. By the way, I'm not saying these rules are good or bad. I'm just saying that effectively, religion is set of rules, by and large, and talk to us through many things like you know, scriptures, books, holy books, etc. Where spirituality is more about, for me, anyways, how you live your life, despite having no rules. It's more a case of how you lived your life through the experiences that have told you how to behave. And the way you do that is not really a front outcome based approach. Not because I want to get to heaven, but more because I want to make sure today that I was the best version of myself, spiritually, for me is more a case of how you live your life, and how you respond to things. And more specifically to that is living your life in line with things that you prioritize the things that you value. So I hope I kind of like cleared up that difference. And ask you the same question back if that resonates with you. 

Adeel  4:32  
I think a lot of it does. I mean, I've had I've had my experience of growing up in Pakistan, which is a Muslim country, and I mean, you have a few other religions there like Christianity, Catholicism, Hindus, Sikhs, because it's probably like less than 1% majority of the people are Muslims, like 99% of them. So that's all I knew. That's all I grew up with. There's no emphasis and teaching about other religions and stuff like that. So I will say my base is built around religion. And that's what I understand best. And religion to me, it's just a set of predefined rules, which are based in good and bad. If a person is good for their community go for this society, if they engage in positive and acts towards God, then they're going to be rewarded for that in the hereafter and heaven. But if they engage in any of the vices, they will not only suffer in this life, but in the hereafter. So it's really a pretty predefined rules. With no room for flexibility, there's no room to actually maneuver around them. They're pretty black and white for the most part, which is actually a lot of how I think about life as well, ironically, 

Ant  5:45  
yeah, I think that's kind of where we might differ a little bit. I mean, I think I've said this too, before, I think most of life is in the gray area. I think we've discussed before. And I think we can disagree on that. But without going into that topic in detail, right? What I did want to say is that you mentioned God. And this is where I think spirituality and religion do overlap, not necessarily in God, but in the fact that there's a higher power. Now religion teaches you, most religions do anyways, there's a God, where spirituality is less about there being a figure or something, you know, someone per se, but more that everything is connected, and everything is sharing a similar energy. It's all like metaphysical kind of thing. It's not really placed in an embodied person or something like that. It's more about a higher energy that binds us all together. Both talk about a higher power. One is just God, one is more about energy and your feelings and how you maneuver through life. I think that's where they kind of overlap. 

Adeel  6:52  
I was thinking about defining spirituality. And I mean, I'll admit this, right. It's something that I struggle with, I don't think I know what spirituality is meaning, which is why I'm excited about this episode. If I was to take a pass at it, I would say it's just kind of going with the flow of nature, it's about being it's any person who is moving with the rhythm of the universe, natural rhythm of the universe, I will look at that and say, That's a spiritual person. That's a really loose definition. So I did look one up, and I want to share one, actually, so I'm just gonna pull this out real quick. This is by Christina Bucha, house key, who defined spirituality as the aspect of humanity that refers to the way individuals seek and express meaning and purpose, and the way they experience their connectedness to the moment to self to others, to nature, and to the significant or sacred. I really liked that definition. And that was probably something that I looked at, and I understood spirituality better. 

Ant  7:54  
Yeah, I think that's actually really, really on the money. I think that's kind of when I said, you know, spirituality is more about through your lived experience, how you interact with the world, how you see the world based on, you know, the meaning that you've extracted from what's happened to you, or around you, you know, our kind of want to circle back against something you said, you said that for you, you know, most of your ideologies have been based around religion, because of where you grew up. Understandably, however, you said that such religious people wouldn't call you religious, they would probably say you're more spiritual, can you kind of give us a bit of like, you know, summary here of that journey, I let the listeners know, your journey to where you are now. In Pakistan, when you when you're born, you don't get to choose your religion. And I would say that's probably true for majority of the world anyway, person's religion is based on their parents religion. And you don't really deviate from that at all. One of the things that I felt from a young age was obviously the experience of a Muslim, go into the mosque at a young age fasting, praying, everyone around you as Muslim. That's the only thing you know, you started going to school, you learn a little bit more. I was someone who always question about why I'm supposed to do certain things. Like, oh, I am supposed to pray five times a day, or I'm supposed to fast for 30 days, or I'm supposed to give charity like these are all prescribed in Islam. Why? Why am I supposed to do that? And for some, I would get decent answers. And for the other ones, they were not appropriate answer. They were not acceptable answers, I should say. They were answers like, oh, well, because he's supposed to Oh, because if you don't, you're gonna go to hell. So I questioned religion from a young age and I probably arrived at a point where I completely abandoned it. I remember a confrontation with my father where I told him to that I'm not a Muslim. And I remember he was really calmed and voiced about it, but it was many years later, which mama told me that that really hurt him. I didn't think about the consequences of that point, but I was just being honest. So completely abandon Islam. consider myself an atheist. I will say that from there, I kind of evolved into what's called an agnostic. So it's kind of like a roller coaster journey. And I would say the first time I actually revisited the idea of religion at all, was when my father passed away when I was 24 years old. Now, it was the first moment where I actually sat back and started praying to God, I hadn't prayed to God. And like, since I was like, maybe seven, nine years old. When my father was being rushed to the hospital, I couldn't stop praying to God, I couldn't stop just saying, hey, just please save him. Please save him? Well, I'll turn around. Alternatively, if everything that told me a lot about my base, well, well, my natural instinct is right, because when my back is against the wall, when I'm in desperate need, even though I had denied God and rejected God for a long period of time, now I'm begging him. So that was me kind of getting closer to religion. But to answer your question about why someone else who may view me and not consider me religious, is because I don't follow religion to a tee, I follow my own version, I follow my own path, I follow the things that make sense to me. And that's based on my belief system that's based on my moral compass. It allows me the freedom of thought, to choose what makes sense to me, as opposed to following what belief systems somebody else has said. So that's where I've arrived today is I don't think, um, I mean, religious, and fasting, but as you know, I'm not doing it for religious reasons, necessarily. I'm doing it for reasons of discipline, reasons of testing my own resolve, testing my own mental fortitude, my resilience, which is baked in Islam. But I also have a broader meaning and purpose behind that, 

Ant  11:46
I was gonna say that you aren't doing it, as you said, for your own meaning for your own purpose for your own goals. But truth be told is that that's also part of the power of Ramadan, learning self discipline. So you can argue you're doing it for religion, but you can argue that you're doing it religiously? You know, it's kind of like a depends how you look at I guess. 

Adeel  12:08  
Yeah, I mean, I would say that I probably didn't have any belief system when I was younger, right. And I'll be honest, like, I'm probably in this in the phase of my life, where I'm figuring that out, or what that is, and I think I have a good sense of it. On the flip side, I think your journey may have been quite different than mine, I think you may have actually arrived at your belief system in a much different manner, and maybe at a different state as well. What is your journey look like? 

Ant  12:36  
I'm from an orthodox family, Greek, Orthodox. So Christian, right. And the Orthodox religion is, you know, it's not like being a Catholic or Protestant or something like that is a really old religion. So there's a lot of things as well, where there's not always a lot of rationale for why you do stuff. Now, my grandma really had a big influence in raising me, as you know. And she is from the village back home, like not from UK, despite the accent, as you know, we're from a from Cyprus. And yeah, she's really religious. So he goes to her house, and there's many icon icons of Mary and Jesus and things like that, and there was a candle lit. So for me, I also grew up with a lot of religion, to be honest. And I also like you questioned it, but not massively. I kind of accepted it. And that's part of my identity. It's very young. What happened with me was that when my father figure had passed away, I will go to church a lot with my grandma, she wouldn't actually go to the church. She's religious, as I'm saying. And only then did I realize when I was young, you know, I'm talking before, like, 14/15 years old, I was going very regularly, as a young, very young man. And by the way, nobody will go, because I remember I grew up in England, not many people that are very religious, especially not in my age, to be going to church, just not very common. You know, I went to the church. And what I realized by going church is that the church gave me something more than a religion. It gave me the ability to be introspective. And it kind of sounds like weird to say it that way. But when you go to these old churches, and by the way, in the UK, we have, we have churches, and they look like old churches from like, back in the day, they built them to look exactly like that. And it's all very, like opulent and it looks like legit when you're seeing like a village back home. And you have them in, in in around London. And they sing hymns in like ancient Greek, or you don't know what they're saying, but I definitely don't know what they're saying. I don't even my grandma knows what they're saying. So, in a weird way, you're going to church, you're being like, sung the songs in these hymns. And if you don't understand you're basically there just to sit. You don't know what's going on. And that turns most people off turns most people away. They're like, why would I go something where I don't know what's going on. People are just like throwing  rose water here and they're just like singing the song and you don't know what's going on, right. But for me, I took this opportunity to learn, I just sit in silence, you know, and kind of drown out the noise, not to say I don't appreciate church. So I'm not trying to be like, discouraging or like slander in any way. But for me, I just use it as a place to just think that the noise, the hymns that will kind of just like disappear in the background, and I will go into my own head into my own thoughts, and understand, why did certain things happen to me to my family around me, like, why? And I did this for a while, I didn't understand the time, I was probably just really grieving a lot. But truth be told that ability to sit and think, really, really helped me get to a level where I'm more spiritual. Because after doing that, for so, so, so long, I came to peace with a lot of things that happened around me. So yeah, for me, the journey was quite different, I kind of grew up very heavily influenced with religion, didn't question it as much. But that natural questioning process came through, you know, some difficult life events, where I came to my own conclusions as to the meaning of my life, the meaning of what had happened to me, to my family, and the things ultimately that are important to me. And spurned from that is how I think I developed a lot of my values and my value system, having the ability to think about it deeply, inwardly.

Adeel  16:29  
You mentioned that, you know, you would ask yourself the question of why, why did certain things happen? Why are you maybe feeling a certain type of way? You also said that, that was maybe natural for you? Is that something that you just knew from a young age? Or is that something you picked up from your father figure, or your mother, 

Ant  16:47  
I mean, I'll definitely attribute the thinking of why to the influence I have in my life, especially as a young person, but also there's something within me that doesn't accept the status quo. I think you and I both relate to this very well, and like you and I both pretty much them characters. And I didn't want to accept that it was it was God's plan, or this is how God wanted it, or whatever it was, that didn't really resonate with me, I didn't want to leave you out to someone else, or to Fortune or to some mystic power. And I think that's how I arrived, someone that's more spiritual. Understand that my place and my time on this planet, you notice, you're basically going through life, through your understanding how you feel, and how you think during these situations, and we're not there lying to you. And this is what really what I gathered that asking that Why, yes, it might have been for someone else that the initial thought process of developing that, but a lot of it's from me, but ultimately, it kind of leads me to be more spiritual, I think, because an ad allows me to understand my position, my flowing through the universe as, as was quoted earlier,

Adeel  17:53  
I think there's a time in place, I think there's, there's definitely some room for at least God in my life, it religion, I do struggle with religious institutions, I must say, I do think that they're primarily based in Dogma. And I refuse to just accept rules and just follow them blindly. Similarly to what you were saying, actually, that I did question a lot of what was being taught to me and if I didn't find suitable answers, then I wouldn't follow it. You mentioned also like we both reject the status quo or question the status quo. It's interesting that how you sort of found a different path within there by finding sort of solace, and salt and peace within the hymns and silence of the church. Whereas for me, it was kind of a bit more rebellion as a response. But we were both thinking sort of similar similarly, to question what was being taught to us. 

Ant  18:50  
I know we have different ones. But ultimately, that's how you arrive at your own belief system. Right? 

Adeel  18:54
I think so. I think that I constantly question things constantly tried to think for myself, I think that it's, I think there's certain things which religion does teach, which are really beneficial, right? Like giving charity, being good to your neighbor, not killing someone. There's some basic things which religion teaches, which there are obvious to many, but they're not obvious to all. And I think that there's some fundamental ethics that religion does teach, which a person can learn in alternative manners. But I think if they're not taught, I would question what society would be without it. And I think we're going to find that out in the next few decades as well how that's going to turn out what I really resonate with the idea of God. I think that's a really powerful concept to me. Because no matter who you are, at some point of your life, you're going to go through struggle, you're going to go through a valley or downstream of events that happens in your life, and by misfortune if you don't have anyone around you that cares about you, you don't have family, you don't have friends, and you have no one. That's a really tough spot to be in. And we see what happens in the US, particularly when people are lonely. And when people have issues with they can't cope with. I think what God provides us, at least the idea of God is that that cannot be taken from you. No one can steal that God from you, you will still have your relationship with God. And even if you have no one, you still have God. We call it God call it higher power higher be whatever that is. I choose to call it God. But is it's all the same. 

Ant  20:35
You know, talking about moving through life, you know, understanding the energy, you're giving out energy you're taking back in and you know, understanding how you're feeling situation and talking about all that stuff. But ultimately, I do believe in God as well. Kind of a convoluted way. But I also think that this higher power, there is not someone, but there is something that binds us all together. For me that is, that is the man upstairs as we would as I would say. 

Adeel  21:03  
So here's the question, I'll ask you. You mentioned that you grew up in a religious household when you were young through your grandmother, but you also question a lot of it. And you do believe in God, yet you had somewhat of a spiritual journey. Does God have any room? In a spiritual journey? 

Ant  21:25  
It depends how you look at it. Right? That's a great question. Firstly, but I think the answer is really depends on how you look at it is God, like, someone you're trying to appease? By following religious rules, for example? Or is God just an understanding of your place in this universe? And how you affect the people and the things around you? What is God to really is the question. And for me, God is not someone I'm trying to appease God, for me, when I talk about it. It's more a case of the higher power. It's maybe someone but ultimately, it's about leaving the right imprint on the people around me and the things around me. And I think I'll ask it, same question back. What does it mean to you?

Adeel  22:08  
What Does god mean to me, God, to me is the one that I seek protection from God is the one that I can look towards. And thank is no different than me turning around and just thanking the heavens. It's no different to me. So whether that's me waking up in the morning, and just saying, Thank you, God, for allowing me to wake up another day, because I could not have, whether it's me walking out of the gym, and not having any serious injury where mom didn't break or anything like that. Even saying, God, as I'm walking out of the gym, God gives me that idea, that sort of phenomenon that I can turn to, and express my gratitude to, I can also seek forgiveness, if I made mistakes. It's kind of like voluntary service that I can just always be counting on, that I can trust and confide in. 

Ant  23:05  
That's interesting, because I literally do the same things. I say, thank you every, every day, and I do pray for the health of my, everyone in my circle that I I think we're every day, the people that are here that we would have gone, I pray for, you know, my health, mental health, emotional health, all them things. So I still do that too. For me, it's not necessarily like a person that I'm appeasing or a thing you know that I'm appeasing, it's more that I believe these things will come to me, because I'm also giving them back out into the universe to everyone, like I'm wishing good goodness on other people. And therefore, I think it will do a one eight, you do a full 360 and always be around me, which I think is why I'm blessed to have so many good people in my life. Because I'm always giving out to them. To God is not necessarily someone, it's more that I'm grateful, and wish for our guests at the same time to keep that flow of energy between me and other people. If that makes sense. 

Adeel  24:07  
It does. And to be honest with you, again, like I grew up in, in such a sort of unitary mindset where it's about God religion, you don't question it, you just follow it. That's it. To me, I do believe in an energy. I do believe that there's something out there. And I do believe that it's kind of like the natural flow of the universe. You know, I don't want to disrupt that I don't want to disrupt what is naturally meant to be. And that's kind of me trusting the universe to work its way out as well. For all the shitty things that have happened to me in my lifetime. I've always turned around and said, You know what, I don't know it yet. But it's probably for the best. 

Ant  24:45  
Is that good? Or is that you being a good person as good as you can be? giving as much value as you can to people and then coming back to you in some form. 

Adeel  24:57  
That is me trusting the universe. instead, everything is already in flow. And I'm just a small, small part of the universe. The universe does not revolve around me. The world does not revolve around me. I am a part of the world just as much as it's part of me. So it's everything else is in unison, who am I to question it? There was a story we read about when we were kids in Pakistan, which was about this town which had, which was infested with, like frogs everywhere. And everyone in the community used to always be cursing these frogs. And, you know, they'd say, like, I hope this gets these frogs, you know, they're always causing a mess. They're kind of filthy slimy amphibians. And so, some of the story kind of went, like this guy found, like a way to like, make a wish, and he wished for all the frogs to disappear. And then, you know, all the frog disappeared. Everyone in the in the small towns celebrated, they were like, Oh, my God, all the frogs are gone. What a blessing. Next thing, you know, like all the mosquitoes, all the bugs, all the insects, were everywhere in the town, because the frogs are no longer devouring t hem. And now everyone's regretting that.And now they're wishing for the frogs to be back. They taught this story as a kid, because they were showing that the universe, every single animal insect has a purpose in this universe, we just don't realize it, from the frogs, to the lions, to the giraffes, to the sharks, everything is in harmony. And we must not disrupt it. And that's what I believe in that I'm a part of that universe. I'm no different. Or I have a different to a frog. Maybe the frog prince, you know for

Ant  26:47  
sure girls kissed you but you haven't turned into a prince. Yeah.

Adeel  26:52  
That's what I choose to believe. I should say that I'm a part of this as much as the insects, the frogs, lions, and I'm in harmony with nature.

Ant  27:01  
To me, that sounds like a very spiritual way of looking at things. So I'm going to ask you, would you say you're religious or spiritual, or somewhere in between? 

Adeel  27:11
I think my base and my foundation is religious. I think that's what I revert to, when things aren't going super well. I've never described myself as spiritual. So I struggle with that. But it is true that I probably am more spiritual than I realize, I think maybe I'll admit this, maybe I haven't paid enough attention to this aspect of my life. But truth is that I probably do a lot of practices, which one would consider spiritual. So I think I would probably land at somewhere in between 

Ant  27:40
practices such as what?

Adeel  27:41  
Well, I meditate every morning, I use this app called Headspace. We'll link it on in the show notes as well. It's definitely a great app. And it is worth it for anyone who's trying to develop a meditation practice. Beyond that, praying, I think that's spiritual to me, praying to God, but I don't pray in the conventional way that I will pray five times a day, which Muslims are supposed to, I'll pray in my own way, where I have a conversation with God. I also think that me, part of my spiritual practice is me. journaling and being introspective about myself, trying to understand myself and my purpose on this planet, so that I can provide value to others. And I will say, I probably haven't talked about this much. But there have been certain psychedelic experiences that I've had with substances, which have also given me some more clarity, as to my own nature. And into my part in this world. One of the recent experiences that I had was that I literally looked at my own hands, and I said that, oh, anything that I've done to harm anyone else, physically, I should never do that again. And it was kind of melancholic. And it is always sad for me to kind of look at my own hand and say, Oh, I have done things which maybe I would regret, you know, again, like things that I would have got into a fight and stuff like that. And now I have the clarity to say, You know what, I don't need to engage in any violence, it kind of made me feel more peaceful within myself and say that, okay, next time, you're in a situation where you feel like you need to get violent or need to protect yourself, you're better off walking away. You don't need to engage in that. And I would say that, would I have had the same realization without any substance? Probably not, not to that level that was so deep where I looked at my hand and saw it dissolve in front of my eyes. But I don't know if that answered your question. But those are few different things that pop up in my head. 

Ant  27:43  
You're kind of in the mix between the two. And I'll say the same for myself. To be honest, I also had a routine in being religious growing up, but I now am grown. Mauger And anyways, it's more case of assessing life through my own values. The way I look at life now is, do I want to do this? Or do that or behave this way, behave that way? And does that align with who I am, who I want to be? What I'm trying to achieve? This is the way I think about things now. Not necessarily spiritual in that regard, but I do think it takes a lot of introspection to understand what that really means to you in all these situations in life. So yeah, maybe my default is a basis in religion but there is also a heavy heavy heavy element of do I really wanna act and behave in this way, and does it fit the harmony I am trying to give out in the world?

Adeel  30:51
It sounds like you know from a young age you have always kept your base, you have always kept your core belief system and some of the pillars of that are based in religion. Not everyone has that same journey. Some could have actually abandoned religion completely at a young age. I almost did. What advice would you give to someone who has abandoned religion altogether?

Ant  31:15
I think if you abandon religion, you know firstly it's not to say that is good or bad or whatever, it's never my place to say. However what you do with regards to abandoning religion or even following religion in that case, this answer is for both cases. My default piece of thinking would be to query things to like the nth degree. For example, let's say you are someone who abandoned religion because you think God doesn't exist or because you are here to satisfy your own pleasures or you're here to just get money or whatever it is feeling. Well, I would say to you is why, why is that what you are doing with your life? Why is your life revolving around succumbing to your vices and indulging in all your pleasures, like in my example. Let's say you are someone who is religious, really religious, like you you know pray 5 times a day like you just said. Why is that important to you? And when really really dig down deep enough, and you find your key motivations for these things and you are happy with these things then great, keep doing that. But if you're not, stop, reassess and pivot to the thing that is actually gonna make you the best version of who you wanna be. And I think that is when you are more spiritual. When you are doing things with the rationale and the real understanding of why you are doing. That allows you to move through the universe and through your own life with your own version of balance. For me that means being calm, being peaceful, not like being overly up and down with my emotions, not allowing that energy into my life, leading a very very stable life. I don't do anything outlandish, I don't go like clubbing that much or anything like that you know me. You know I am very much erm kind of routine kinda guy I mean I have lots of friends like I have a lot of people come visit me as you know but nothing is like crazy it's all kind of like let's go enjoy this tea or whatever it is right

Adeel  33:29
Much more calm

Ant  33:32
Yeah so, ultimately the point here is that I have developed this understanding of the way I wanna be by asking why. I've always looked to understand what I am looking for in life and how to continue living life in that way because for me that is where I feel most at peace, that is where I feel most in control, in my best flow, that is when I give my best energy to the people around me by being very very present with how I feel, how my emotions are and to do that I basically need to be in a state of balance. So that's all encapsulated there. Does that make sense?

Adeel  34:12
It does yeah. I think that is the single most important thing that matters to me when it comes to anyone on the journey because to each person listening, this is your individual journey and there is no right or wrong answer. What's right or wrong is only what makes you happy. If it causes you chaos within, it is going to be a detriment to your own peace and to your own progression so you want to make sure it works for you. Whether you believe in something or you believe in nothing, question that you really must ask yourself is if you really are happy. As long as you're happy, truly happy within yourself that'll work for you

Ant  34:55
So our two pieces of advice for you are, number 1 really is to understand the why. Go deep, understand yourself, understand the motivation for the things you are doing. And secondly, once you understand that motivation, does it make you happy? Does it fulil you? Adeel, would you give any tips to people on how to go about asking these question. Any practical ways on how to do it?

Adeel  35:20
I think the most practical way a person can go about things is that actually sitting down by themselves and either self reflecting or journaling. Those would be the most beneficial experiences for you to sit down with your own thoughts with no distraction, no cell phone, no television, nothing of that sort and to actually write down what you are thinking about. And what does that make you feel? What is the reason you think this way? Where does it stem from? Is this your problem or is this someone else's problem? If you get angry at someone, whose problem is it, whose fault is it? Does it even matter whose fault is it? Actually ask yourself those deeper questions to know more about yourself, to owe it to yourself. You actually don't need to understand everyone in this world and they don't need to understand you. But you do have an imperative to understand yourself the best you can because that's the best you can do for everyone around you. I'll ask you the same question as well. What advice would you give?

Ant  36:31
You know I was about to say to you that I actually agree with you to sit alone and ask yourself them deeper questions. For me, I did that in the church so people can go to church to pray or to ask for forgiveness or something like that, which is fine you know you can do that too. For me, on reflection, I used to sit there just to ask why. And I did that for a long time. You can argue that that was some sort of meditative state, you can argue that, but ultimately it was literally just a lot of introspection for quite a long time to get to the peace, to make peace with a lot of things that happened around me. So that would be my first thing I would say. I think journalling is also a great thing to do. Another thing to do is talk. That sounds really underrated, especially where we live as well in New York but actually communicating with someone, a trusted person, about your true true motivations and your true desires and opening up and being vulnerable and getting someone else or asking someone else to listen to that, using that as a tool to reflect on yourself is really important. So you can also lean on your friends and family, and your trusted people to help you in this journey of being religious, of being spiritual, or being something in between.

Adeel  37:50
I think that was a pretty healthy discussion over there yeah. But I think it's time to close out the episode. For anyone listening in, I think the key takeaway over here is that your path to spirituality, to religion, to any belief system you have, you must take the ownership of that and you must create your own path, create your own system. Anyone else in this world can come give their advice, share their own experiences and their own perspectives for you, but no one will know you like you know yourself, and you ow it to yourself to make sure that you have all the ins and outs about your character, about your personality, about you life figured out with such clarity that you can create a system that works best for you. And as always, stay calm.

Adeel  38:50
Thank you for listening to another episode of calm talks. And just as a reminder, if you liked what you heard, don't forget to subscribe and leave a review.

Ant  38:57
You can also find us in Instagram at calm talks and join our mailing list at calm talks dot com

Adeel  39:03
And as always, stay calm