All right, Gurpiari, Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.
How are you?
you do that?
How are you doing?
We haven't seen each other in a week or so.
How are you doing?
I'm doing good.
I'm a bit exhausted, admittedly, from all of the end of the year celebrations going on here.
Like, I've basically been cruising from party to party for the last four days or something like that.
So, I am a bit short on sleep, but I'm good.
How are you doing, sir?
Good, yeah, what do you think about all these end-of-the-year things?
I like him.
know, I actually, like here in Argentina, you know, like people are very friendly and like we make family and friends very easily here.
So it's an opportunity for everyone to get together with the people they love and, you know, eat something, chat, you know, sort of catch up.
I actually find it very pleasant.
And anything in particular caught your interest in the last week or so?
Yeah, that several of my friends and acquaintances broke up long time, like years long, recently.
really?
so, so, you know, that happens a lot.
You know, everybody knows that happens a lot at Christmas time.
And so like, yeah, no, this is a fact.
And everybody knows that, you know, everybody talks with great affection about the hot, like in the United States, Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Christmas family holidays.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And, but the truth is, is that other, not even other people, maybe it's the same people who even who have affection for it, is that people with families often talk about
Christmas and New Year's as actually the most stressful times of the year for them.
And you know, they have family visiting.
and having to take care of family.
But then also, there's a lot of love in these families, but there's also family dynamics, right?
So, you know, stuff can happen.
So there's often stress, and a lot of times, actually, people don't even, even though they pretend they do, they don't actually...
enjoy it as much as people think, not everybody, but it's actually, because there's a lot of stress associated with it and it puts pressure on relationships and people have
expectations of the event and how people should relate to it.
And it brings out all this stuff.
You I think things like Christmas and New Year's are presented as these, these unequivocally happy events, but actually, they trigger a lot of people
people, I think, even get depressed sometimes when the reality doesn't match the expectation.
Yeah, I would say that a lot of people get into a bit of a melancholy mood around these days.
It's happened to me in the past actually.
I had a stretch of a couple years where the holidays would come around.
And for whatever reason, I wasn't very satisfied with my life.
I wasn't happy with one aspect or another.
And I would start thinking like, oh my God, another year where I didn't manage to do this or that.
now the holidays are passing by again.
And you start getting into this sort of weird loop of self-pity in a way.
And it's very comfortable to indulge in that, especially because, and this might sound a bit silly.
But there is also an aspect of rebellion about being grumpy during the holidays, I think, a little bit.
You're not gonna cooperate with the festive cheer.
Right, exactly, yes.
There is a bit of that.
There is something to being a Grinch for a bit.
Well, I think the rebel part of it is...
people real or imagined that people are telling them how they should feel and behave.
And the response is, I'll feel the way I want to.
Don't infringe on my right to feel the way I want to.
You're insisting that I'm happy even though I'm not.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don't cause any waves, just feel happy, look happy, even if you're miserable because it's Christmas, so don't ruin anybody else's day.
So everybody's kind of a little on edge.
It's funny because when we put it like this, it sounds almost a bit uh Orwellian in a sense, know?
Like everyone just sort of enforcing this status quo of uh artificial merriment because it's the season and this is how we are supposed to feel and please don't rock the boat,
don't make a scene, don't talk about politics with your uncle, please just keep to yourself, you know?
That's universal.
And so he's the uncle too.
It's always the uncle.
It's always the uncle, yeah, for some reason.
Yeah, yeah, don't talk to your uncle about politics.
That's a universal rule.
anyhow, so we diverge.
We're talking about Christmas.
Anything in particular came up this week that...
in some way is interesting in itself, but kind of trips over the warrior saint theme.
uh
I got something to share that I think is interesting.
So last night actually, I got together with two very dear friends of mine.
I've known them for like 13 years or something like close to 15.
We were bandmates when we were teenagers and we shared a lot of things.
As I said, they're musicians, very talented guys.
And yesterday we got together for the first time in many, many, many years in the place where we used to have our rehearsals when we were like teens, you know.
And, you know, we just kind of started talking, you know, and sharing a little bit about the passage of time, you know, and we were just kind of tripping a little bit about how
other younger siblings who used to be like tiny little kids like reaching my waist.
Now they're both adults and they're going to university and like they share in the same table as us.
And I think that's, you know, something else that probably shakes people up about this time of the year is well, the passage of time really, you know.
Like makes you, this time of the year makes you very aware of the passage of time.
It's like just sort of blaring it at you all the time.
And like you said, like just like Christmas, you know, triggers people in this way, as you mentioned.
I also think that this constant awareness of the passage of time, it triggers, well, a lot of, you know, anxieties about the future.
It triggers insecurities that people are holding.
It triggers.
You know, sometimes it like, triggers people into action in other cases, but like it just sort of moves all sorts of things around.
You know what I mean?
So what happened in this case?
Well...
It was good.
You know, like it's always good sharing with my friends.
It always makes me happy.
But it did get me thinking a bit, you know, about, okay, what am I doing to, you know, get my life a bit more together?
You know, what am I doing to sort of go for the goals that I've set for myself?
Because I mean, I'm young, but not a kid anymore either, right?
and uh...
I believe that all the life is not really linear.
It's not like you can do all sorts of things at all sorts of times.
I also think you got to take advantage of the time you have, right?
Because you don't have much of it actually.
It's not very much in the grand scheme of things.
And it just sort of put me into this kind of plan of, okay, next year's coming.
What are the things I want to do?
Don't think about compensating for the things you didn't do this year or whatever.
Just think about what's going to put your year more on track.
I think that is the attitude that we should receive the passage of time with.
We shouldn't take this as this omen of doom when the new year comes around.
But I do think that...
We can sort of, you know, take those emotions that it stares in us and sort of focus them into an actual, you know, well, focus on action, redundancy, but yeah.
I don't know if this makes sense.
Well, yeah, but I'm kind of listening to it from my own experience and my own observation that, you know, obviously many people, whether they talk about it openly or not, kind of
react on some level to a new year.
in kind of take an inventory of what happened in the last 365 days and or take inventory and going where do I want to go with this going forward?
And there's people who give a lot of thought to it.
Some people give almost none, but that's often associated with New Year's.
I think there's often sadness about it rather than anticipation.
and.
And it's interesting, you know, because when I was younger, I thought this whole thing about New Year's resolutions was really helpful.
And I used to, every New Year, I actually sat down.
I personally, I'm sure there's other people too, I sat down and wrote about...
what I want to accomplish in the coming year.
I thought that was would be a helpful thing to keep me on target.
But, like the gymnasiums, everybody signs up in the beginning of January for the gymnasiums.
And that business knows something.
Because I know people who work in that business is that there's a zillion people who are signing up in January.
But by
In the February, 95 % of them.
right?
they make all their money signing people up in the beginning of January.
We know that because I'm kind of a gym rat.
And so I'd go to the gym and me and my buddies would always laugh at all the people coming in.
We knew that every first week in January.
It'd be like 10 times as many people.
But we all knew that almost none of them would stay.
And there's always every year maybe one or two would stay, you know.
And it...
It kind of goes to the, this strategy, know, talking about some of the.
concepts involved with the warrior saint ideal of Guru Gobind Singh.
Something I really relate to is that really the well, it's based on living a very high character, virtuous life, very noble life, which involves many qualities, many, many
virtues, you know, to live the noble life.
But
The one virtue that always kind of appears, you know, when everything is sifted out and it kind of, the cream rises to the top, is that the most common uh virtue that's talked about
is commitment.
people making an effort to get together with family for things like Christmas, people making New Year's resolutions.
They're all kind of in somehow in the family of commitment.
So everybody, even people who are not that committed, kind of realize that that's...
good thing to do, they don't know quite how to go about doing it, even though they can recognize that it's very valuable, you know.
So the people are signing up to be in the gym, so they're committing themselves to getting in shape for the new year, right?
Which lasts usually two weeks.
And so I've had my adventures with commitment in my life, and it's always held like a central place in my life.
walking on the path of Guru Gobind Singh and the path of the Khalsa, really you're trying to improve that virtue in particular.
You're trying to become a more more committed person because there's some faith there that if I really master this virtue, that this will...
open up the gates, you know, sort of speak to heaven.
know, this is that everything can be accomplished directly or indirectly by mastering the virtue of commitment.
So at the new year, everybody kind of kind of knows that that's a really good thing to do is to commit in the beginning of the year.
But the question is, is it if all these people are committing in the beginning of the year, why is it that they basically
97 % of them actually within two weeks have already forgotten what they've committed to, let alone actually accomplish it.
You know, so they said, I'm going to do this, but they basically abandoned that pretty quickly.
Yeah, not everybody, but most people.
So it's not like they don't see value in being a committed.
living a committed life, like having New Year's resolutions and planning I'm going to do this.
So even on a very pragmatic level, they see value in this.
OK, but it lands up that they're only able to kind of hold on to that for a couple of weeks.
Or I'm doing a wedding and in every wedding everybody on paper, you know, theoretically thinks I'm...
I'm signing on for the long haul.
I'm gonna commit to this relationship for life.
And I'm having this event to basically publicly state this, that this is something that is an honorable goal, that that's a good goal to commit your life to make a life with another
person.
And you're gonna keep that.
But we know that the divorce rate's probably at least 50%.
So at least half the people have not, without assigning blame, at least half those people weren't able to complete that commitment, even in some cases for very long.
And so it would seem to me that...
The intention, I think, is sincere, but the strategy's not too good.
And they actually don't know how to do it.
uh
I think it's largely a matter of strategy.
Yeah, I do.
yeah, that it's a matter of strategy, the ability to actually complete the intention, not just with commitment, but with anything.
So in other words, you want something to happen, right?
And the question is, at the end,
I mean, so you want something to happen at this point in time, right?
And now we're like 50 years later, whatever it is.
And the question is, did it happen?
So, I really wanted to be rich, but you know, I'm, I'm poor.
How did that happen?
I wanted to be this.
I wanted to be that.
I wanted to be with this person and whatever.
So
At the beginning of the year, I'm writing down, this is what I want to do this year.
But then it's a year later, if I actually looked at this piece of paper, I actually didn't accomplish any of the things that I said that I was going to do.
So without feeling bad about myself, how is it that I decided that I was going to accomplish this in this year?
And within weeks or maybe days of making that intention to myself or to other people, I basically abandoned it.
And I would say that it has to do with the strategy of being successfully committed.
That nobody taught any...
People are telling people that commitment
is a valuable tool, right?
But they don't actually teach people how to be committed because they're not committed themselves.
So there's not that many people, like for instance, in my lifetime, it's actually been rare that I have met a person that I have perceived has been super committed.
Okay.
And
has achieved that.
And it's the thing that I'm the most ambitious to be, is to be a person of commitment.
I actually personally want to master that virtue.
And I'll do anything in my life to give myself the opportunity to master the virtue of commitment.
So for me, it's very conscious, it's a very conscious decision.
and intention.
it's not just that, okay, I'm committing to own a factory in the next year, whatever.
It's like I'm actually more interested in the commitment itself than the goal.
You know, so the end result, because assuming that I achieve what I put my mind to and my energy to, then it's not like
That's the end of my life.
I'm still on the planet, so I'm going to commit to something else.
So my life is nothing but a series of commitments.
That's all my life is.
I'm committing to this, I achieve that, I commit to that.
And uh there's a flow to this that all of these things are actually going in a certain collective direction.
So I understand that people decide in the beginning of the year what they're going to put their energy to, but
Nobody's actually told them how to do that, how to actually be, how to, what are the tools of being committed?
And so these new year's resolutions actually in general, they may work for some people, but they generally don't is because all that they are, are kind of a well-intentioned,
self talk, but
they really don't know still how to do it.
Okay, so there's things they have to do.
They don't know the building blocks of what's actually involved.
so, so that is, and then, you know, I think that some of the people who are disappointed and a little depressed at the end of the year,
they are subconsciously disappointed about where their life is at.
And the year kind of marks it here.
I'm at the end of another year and I'm still not where I want to be in life.
OK, so I'm going I'm going to make a resolution that this year is going to be different.
But usually that's not enough.
You know, they still don't have a strategy.
Right.
Yeah, no, no, no, no, no.
part of being a cult suffer instance is that we understand from the person who put this way of life out, Guru Gobind Singh, is that there is actually a way to train yourself.
You know, it's not like, you know, it's not a matter of belief.
is a real difference is that unlike
some other religions and I'm not criticizing any other religions.
I'm just kind of making a philosophical statement is that it's not a matter of faith.
It's just not a matter of faith.
It's just not a matter of like, I believe something.
So everything is going to be okay.
And, the Chinese, when you're in China, the Chinese talk about that as magical thinking and it's not hard.
Yeah.
The term magical thinking, which is
not hard to argue with that some of this stuff is magical thinking.
Okay.
It's not like I don't have faith in God and things like that because I do, you know, but there's this thought that if I just believe something that everything is magically going
to be, but it's, I think it's more nuanced than that because I think that's in a very, a very necessary piece.
I'm not denying that, but you kind of have to train yourself
to be a certain caliber of person.
And so...
On this path, we're taught how to train ourselves to be successful, meaning that we're going to accomplish what we want to do.
We don't have to be sad because we're actually going to accomplish it and we are not going to have any excuses, not to ourselves or other people, because we're actually going to
come through.
So it's not like a resolution.
I was talking to somebody the other day and they were quite overweight.
So they're telling me that they made a New Year's resolution to lose all this weight.
So I said, how many years have you made that resolution?
And they're going, I make that resolution every year.
I said, but you're still overweight.
Right, bit harsh, I gotta say.
Uh, yeah, but, with nothing but a smile on my face and love in my heart, actually, I just, I'm not, I'm not saying it critically.
I'm not saying it condescendingly, right?
I'm just stating something kindly with a smile on my face and shrugging my shoulders.
And really what I'm saying is, I feel you, but your strategy is not working.
Right.
And basically the proof is in your belt size, right?
That it doesn't mean you're a bad human being.
It just means that your strategy is every year promising to yourself something and getting increasingly frustrated because, but you keep doing the same thing and you haven't lost
anything.
Okay.
So I'm not saying you shouldn't lose weight.
I'm just saying that
The strategy of making a New Year's resolution has proven to be empty because you're still heavy, too heavy.
All right.
So they asked me an interesting question because they actually weren't upset at me because they could see that I'm not coming from a place of criticism.
I'm coming from a place of, and I'm not even coming from a place of sympathy.
Okay.
I'm just coming from a place of humor.
and irony, okay?
And we're people.
So yeah, yeah, it doesn't mean that they're a bad person.
It doesn't mean that they're, I mean, it just like, you know, I see your strategy and your strategy's not working.
So if plan A's not working, how about going to plan B, right?
So the person was kind of acknowledged that what I was saying was true because they could see there was no
animosity behind my comments, but they're going, then what should I do?
I said, that's an easy one.
Just lose the weight.
And they're going, well, I don't know how.
I'm going, yes, you do.
Of course you do.
Eat less.
You know, this reminds me of this...
It was a post on Twitter or something like that, I believe.
It was a conversation between, I think it was a mother and her child.
And the kid said something like, when I grow up, I want to be an astronaut, a paleontologist, and I don't know, a scientist or something like that.
And the mom goes, well you gotta study a lot for that.
And she goes, yeah but it's just three things.
you know and it's like as you say sometimes it's like it's just the thing it's simple you know know you know where it goes it's just you're beating around the bush
you know, you, I think that you just mentioned knowingly or unknowingly one of the foundational principles of how to actually be a committed person that people don't pay
enough attention to.
And of course we're around a lot of people.
who their energy and their attention is so dispersed.
And there's a time for that if you want to just get.
comparative information so you can make a choice.
But at some point, a committed person chooses one thing.
one person, one career, one, you know, they're not distracted.
So you can have various interests as a committed person, as I do, but all those interests have to serve your singular purpose.
So you can have all this, but everything's got to be going in the same direction.
Very few people have mastered that.
In fact, people who tend to have all these interests
tend to be very frustrated, unsuccessful people because their mind is going in all these different directions.
They don't want to have to give any of their interests up.
But that is actually incorrect thinking because nobody is suggesting they have to give up even one of them.
Even if they want to.
about, like, sorry to interrupt you there, but it's about integrating them all rather than just giving them up.
Which is a very calc way of looking at things.
That's what that's what it is that you're you're focused on what you know you need to do what you were sent here to do and you could take all these things and they can serve you
accomplishing what you were sent here in life to do.
Or it could that kind of thinking can be used to lose weight.
It's just kind of like my objective is to lose weight and I can mobilize anything that I know about towards that end.
But at the end of the day, you, to be a committed person, you have to merge yourself with the achievement itself.
Meaning if you decide to lose weight,
It's already done.
It's already done because you're not actually going to accept any other out.
Right.
It's a way of thinking.
So if you doubt it even a little, if you let doubt come in, then you're undermining your objective.
Cause that's all that doubt does.
If you decide that this is what I am going to accomplish, whatever that is, then you have to train yourself as a warrior saint in this case.
That's like being a warrior saint is you have to train yourself that whatever comes out of your mouth, will come to be because you said it.
So if I say, I'm gonna lose 20 pounds, you can consider that done because I said it.
And there is no way in my life
that I am not going to do what I say.
And it has nothing to do with losing weight.
It has to do with the fact that I honor my own word so much to myself that I'm not willing to disrespect myself.
If I said it, it's my responsibility to the sacredness of that word that I'm actually going to accomplish this.
Very few people think this way.
Just making a resolution, I'm going to lose so many pounds, doesn't mean anything.
What means something is if I actually say it, it has to happen.
I do want to bring something into this.
It's not a counter argument per se, but it's just like an observation about how these things interact.
Because you can very much set your mind to something and be absolutely 100 % focused and decided on doing that.
And then some life circumstance can come upon you and either derail or outright prevent you from doing the thing.
And you know, like, I wonder about, you know, what's the warrior saint take on this?
You know, like when some like just this massive obstacle just comes and, you know, blocks the railroads, so to speak.
Well, I'm really glad you brought that up because...
In the end, what I'm suggesting here is that to be a master of this virtue of commitment, that you realize that it has many angles to itself.
Okay.
And so when I was talking about, I'm saying it.
So my intention is that there's no way it's not going to happen.
Okay, that's one necessary aspect of it.
But there are other aspects to it and to totally master this virtue.
You have to see things on many different levels and how they interact.
Okay, and even sometimes how things could be opposite things that happen at the same time, which is what people refer to as paradox.
that things are paradoxical.
How could it be this and this because these things seem to be opposite.
But you have this mastered at such a level that you understand the different aspects.
You understand the paradoxes.
You understand this from every angle because you've mastered every angle of this virtue.
So you bring up a really important point because these things do work together.
So let's say
that I am committed to an objective, all right?
But.
It's not just that I'm going to make it happen.
Part of being a committed person, is that if you're by nature or by achievement, a very committed human being, you need the ability of not only finishing what you started,
you have to have the ability to commit to the right thing.
Okay?
So I could be committed, let's say I love that woman, I'm gonna marry that woman, nothing is gonna stop me from marrying that woman.
Okay?
I can't imagine living without her and I'm gonna do whatever I can do to marry that woman.
That's what a committed person...
would say, but a really committed person would only commit to that woman if they understood that that was the right commitment to make, not the wrong commitment.
So in the end, lot of these commitments don't work out because God's protecting us.
That
Actually, I'm very committed, but I'm not committing to the conscious thing.
I'm being led by my desires.
So in other words, there's another part of me that is not sufficiently developed.
So I'm very much into accomplishing what I put my mind to, but there's other aspects of my being that are less developed and they're causing me.
to not see things clearly.
So even though I have the ability to finish the job, my actual reason for pursuing it is full.
And so that's not in the end going to work out.
That's not going to work out because it's good that it doesn't work out even because it's not meant to be.
You may be heartbroken, but it's not meant to be.
so commitment is like a state of mind.
It's a state of being that you're going to finish what you start that you're going to do what you say, but
If you're not sufficiently developed as a person, your choices are going to be, as they say in Spanish, chueca.
That, which means crooked, means crooked.
So you're very passionate and you're throwing everything into accomplishing something, but the object of your energy is not well placed.
In fact, in some cases, it is self-destructive.
And so to really be like the highest model of commitment, you would also have to have the wisdom to commit to the proper thing because we know you can accomplish it, you know?
And so for instance, we know in the world there are people who are very successful and have
actually accomplished what they put their mind to.
But what they put their mind to was actually destructive to other human beings and to themselves.
So they had the ability, yeah, well, we know, we don't even have to talk about politics here because we can easily.
yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Right, right, right, but generally speaking, politics would be a good area to describe people who nobody can deny that they've actually achieved something that only could be
achieved with like absolute commitment to that goal, okay?
But it'll land up that even if they get what they want, they're gonna be of great harm to themselves and to others.
Okay, so I consider that to be a committed person, but only in one aspect of what it is to be committed.
Because a truly committed person actually makes the correct choices about what to be committed to.
Because it's dangerous to have the ability to achieve whatever you put your mind to if you put your mind to destructive things.
You know, this is a very rich point you're bringing here.
And in fact, I want to bring something from a little bit back in the conversation because I think like we can sort of integrate this.
Earlier, you were talking about, you know, these cases of people like this dispersed interests and how the ideal thing is not to give them up or to switch them out for other
things.
but to find a way to integrate them into a single thing.
And I think that is actually, and I'm sorry if I'm like just repeating something you said, but that actually facilitates commitment, you know, because I'm going to give you a
personal example, if I may here.
Like I started teaching some several years ago, teaching English.
started when I was 18 years old and I got the opportunity to do it at the institute where I studied English myself.
And the thing about the job is that it got me the chance to bring together a lot of things that I am already into.
Like, I love talking with people.
love, you know, discussing several different areas of knowledge.
You know it, we talk about all sorts of things here.
I love reading.
I love literature.
ah I love music.
I love the arts.
You know, I did a bit of theater as well, you know, so.
like teaching gave me a sort of opportunity to take all of these sort of disparate areas and interests and bring them together into a single thing through which I make a living
and also provide something of value to other people as well.
And that has actually made it very easy to be committed to the idea of being a teacher.
you know, because it just like,
it just everything fits together very well and the end result is good so I would
a great point.
That's a great.
Now I'm only interrupting because I, I'm afraid of going over that.
Right.
Because I think that you bring up a brilliant point that people don't understand is that in the end, it's hard to give what's necessary for a very big commitment, unless it's very
important for you.
and it's healthy and make you happy.
The bigger the goal that you're aiming for by definition will require more commitment if it's very easily achievable goal.
and it's not worth much.
then it doesn't require that much commitment.
But if it's a very big goal that has huge implications that will be very challenging and there's many obstacles, it'll require more commitment because you're facing more
obstacles.
But if the end game
is so nutritive to your existence, you'll be willing to do it.
So we know from personal experience that the
The bigger the goal, usually the more obstacles, the more obstacles, the more commitment, the more grit, the more...
tenacity it will require.
more willpower, willpower is needed because the obstacle, the enemy is more more fierce.
The bigger the goal is more to really apply yourself to, you know?
So it's much less likely that people are going to be willing to sacrifice greatly for something that's not that of that much reward to their soul.
you'll hear people say they have somebody's got commitment issues.
OK.
You'll hear that at least in English.
have, oh, they have issues with commitment.
That's why they're not married.
They've got commitment issues.
Or the person doesn't, they're not a committed, you don't trust them.
They're not a committed person.
Okay, you hear that?
Yeah, but I've realized that neither of those things are true, that they don't exist, that they're just imaginary.
There's no such thing as an uncommitted person.
There's no person on the planet who has commitment issues, that it's totally imagined.
It doesn't exist.
what lacks is...
what do people value?
So in other words, I know this.
I've learned this, a very good example is that I know people who, the thing they get the most enjoyment in in life is going out drinking with their friends.
That's a fact.
very committed to going out to the bar with their friends.
every Friday night you can find them in the bar and they're actually committed to being in the bar with their friends drinking because that's where they get their pleasure and
there's nothing that's going to keep them from not being in the bar on Friday.
Right, it is a commitment.
I'm just using this as an example is that it's not, it's not just that people aren't committed.
It's that like what you said is that there's not clarity what they're willing to sacrifice for, what they're willing to basically defer their pleasure for.
So what is it that they're committing to?
Okay.
So
and how to achieve them because it's pretty easy just to go to the bar every Friday night.
That doesn't take a lot of commitment.
Okay.
But if they're deciding that they don't have a job and they actually want to own a bar and they want the bar to be the most successful bar in that city, okay, that takes a lot more
commitment.
Okay.
There's a lot more obstacles than that than just going every Friday night.
to the bar.
So people are committed in certain ways to certain things, but to really commit yourself to something that's a very big goal, which will ask a lot of you.
If you're a master of commitment, you know the price you're going to have to pay.
You're conscious, you know, if you're a very committed person, you always know what the price is.
Okay, and you don't make that promise unless you're willing to pay that price.
But you know that before you even make the purchase, you know, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to commit to this.
It's a very high goal, very high goal.
I know what the price is.
I know what I may lose.
I may lose things that are precious to me, but I'm going to make that purchase.
I'm going to
by that, I'm going to do whatever I have to do to get that.
So it's got to be worth it to me to sacrifice that much for that object.
Right.
And so in the end of a person is a very conscious person and is sufficiently evolved as a human being.
They would also by implication.
understand the value to them of something that they would sacrifice something for.
it basically good for their body?
Is it good for their emotions?
Is it good for their soul?
Okay, a person's not conscious, the average person, let's say, let's say they're very committed, far as making just money, okay, which is fine.
I'm not making a value judgment, but let's say they're only conscious, they want to get money,
and they want as much money as they can.
And they're willing to break the law even to do it if they have to.
All right?
Because they, from some experience in their life, they have this hope or belief that when they reach that goal, when they've accumulated so much of these financial resources, that
they're going to feel a type of euphoria.
that's worth their efforts.
That the money will give them a certain euphoria, okay?
And that they value the euphoria of feeling whatever that feels like, that they're willing to pay whatever price, even if it means selling their soul to the devil, as they say, to
get it, because they want that euphoria.
So people are committed to things, but they're not always the right things.
I guess going back to your original challenging question, which was a good one, is that you're implicating the question of not just the ability of a person to accomplish
something, which is the common knowledge of commitment, but I am suggesting a much deeper definition of commitment.
including many aspects that we haven't even talked about, but one of the key aspects is the ability of a committed person to commit to the right things that are going to be
healthy to their being, their health, their spiritual well-being, their psychological well-being, and also will be a benefit to those around them.
So that's part of the equation.
thought, I was just going to say we're talking about, you know, in synthesis applying discernment to commit.
Even more than that, that it's all part of the same thing.
That that's part of commitment.
Part of commitment is naturally committing to things that are worth committing to.
Right.
But that involves integration.
Maybe you're right using the word applying discernment, again, getting back to a word used before, it really involves integration.
That if you're a very committed person, you're aware of how other virtues interplay with the virtue of commitment.
So that's at your disposal.
You realize that that commitment, raw commitment by itself is actually dangerous.
It's out and out dangerous because you have the ability.
It's like amoral.
It's like you're talking about amoral, not immoral, not bad, amoral that basically
you're applying your ability to have that level of willpower.
Okay.
And you could apply that to something that is very helpful to you and everyone around you.
Or you can apply that same willpower to something that could destroy other people's lives and your own life.
it into, you know what, like it's always bringing films to mind, but have you seen Scarface with Al Pacino?
Yes.
I think Starface is an excellent example of a story of a protagonist with absolutely incredible willpower applied to the worst possible thing that he could apply that
willpower to because the guy gets everything he wants.
He gets everything, you know.
But it destroys him completely and his family and he brings nothing but ruin to everything around himself.
But he got everything he wanted.
Well, you know, it's interesting that it is a good place for us to end today because I think there's going to be many future conversations that land us in the commitment
stadium, so to speak, because that's where we play the game, you know.
But I'll end this talking about your thought.
as we've done, basically, this is about New Year.
Basically, this is where you had brought up New Year's resolutions and
And so you can see that it connects to the base of what we're foundation.
It still goes back to commitment is that I have known people in the mafia.
Okay.
I know people in all walks of life.
I'm very outgoing person.
So I landed up tripping over just about anything and including I I've known people in the mafia and what I've been and I was surprised back then but now I'm not surprised now is
that
And I think some of the people in the mafia were even surprised in how much they admired me.
Because I actually got a lot of positive feedback from people in the mafia, people looking up to me, right?
Because they viewed me as being a really committed person.
which is a good trade for a mafioso.
Right, but they had, and I think that's true, although they may have had a more limited view of what that word means than I do, but we were in agreement with at least one
important aspect of it, and that is that you're gonna do what you say you're gonna do.
and that you are who you say you are, and there's no misunderstanding about that, and you will sacrifice, you're ready, willing, and able to sacrifice your own well-being, even
your life, for whatever you're trying to achieve, and you understand what the cost is.
They could see that in this way, I thought very much like they did, and that I was a very...
actually a very good role model for what they basically would teach in their own troops.
Wow, right.
okay, but it's kind of a curiosity that I doing this in a very different way than they're doing it.
And even they could recognize that, but they had some grudging respect for this because they couldn't deny it.
And likewise, I admired that part of them that they were displaying that
I could see that in a way, I could trust them in a way that I couldn't trust other people.
even though their objectives were different.
So I have a little more of a nuanced view of that.
So it's not just that they're good or bad people.
It's just kind of like, to me, they're actually, to get as far as they got to in their chosen line of work, they had to actually be very committed people.
And some of them actually are very religious, oddly enough.
It's my understanding that a lot of guys go to church on Sunday.
That's right.
And to other people, it's very confusing, but it's not confusing to them because they basically value respect, honor, commitment, the things that we're talking about within
religion.
So they actually see religion as confirming the human characteristics they value.
And so this very much dovetails into your concern back in the conversation about really kind of inferring.
can be very committed, but what if you're committed to the wrong things?
So I would say that I would agree that the people that we're talking about right now are actually virtuous in some way, but there's something lacking there that
makes it very hard for them to understand that the things that they are committed to are not healthy for them personally or the people around them.
so I would say that what we're really aiming for is a certain type of conscious and refined sense of commitment, not just raw commitment, you know?
And, and so this whole thing, when we talk about the Khalsa ideal is that commitment's a very big thing, but it's really, in addition to that, it's kind of the
intersection of many high human qualities that all work together.
Right?
Right.
takes a tremendous amount of commitment to actually live commitment.
it's like it's like a double injection of commitment.
It's like you're committed to be committed.
You're committed.
You're committed to master.
You're committed to be a master of commitment.
And if you're a man of truly a master of commitment, then you are called so you're you're
you're a saint in the truest example.
And you have all these qualities.
And that is a wrap.
That's a wrap.
Okay, so we land up here.
Listen, there's so many things for us to talk about.
And I'm glad we talked about this at the end of the year because it's a good conversation revolving around really like the theme of resolutions, New Year's resolutions.
and suggesting that they're okay, what's even better is actually doing something about it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, there we go!
Yeah, because you know,
person who's really committed doesn't have to make any formal new year's resolution.
They actually make a resolution every time they wake up in the morning.
You know, it's no such thing as a new year's resolution.
the first thing you have to do every day when you wake up is to remind yourself who you are.
you girl.
if you don't, if that's not the first thing you do in the morning, then you can kiss that day goodbye.
Because you probably not be you that day, you'll probably be somebody else.
But if the first thing you do in the morning is to remind yourself who you are, what you're about, what you're committed to, which is all the same thing in the end of the day,
that's probably going to be a very good day.
Challenging, but productive.
Anyhow, hey have a great new year.
Yeah, for sure sir.
You too have a very happy new year.
Send my congratulations to your wife as well and we're going to be talking in a few days.
Okay, love you very much.
Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh.