If you don't know the truth, you waste all your life trying to solve the wrong problem

And I realized first that I know almost nothing about my mind

I have no control of my mind on a very deep level because you can never be happy

If you don't know the truth about your life

Throughout history the problem is people are very good at solving problems, but they tend to solve the wrong problems

Like they spend very little time deciding what problem we need to solve

Like 5% of the effort goes on choosing the problem

Then 95% of the effort goes in solving the problem we focus on

And then we realize, oh, we actually solved the wrong problem

We actually solved the wrong problem and it just creates new problems down the road that we now need to solve

And then we do it again

And, you know, wisdom often comes from silence, from taking time, from slowing down

Let's really understand the situation before we rush to make a decision

And, you know, it starts on the individual level

That so many people, for instance, think, oh, my main problem in life is that I don't have enough money

And then they spend the next 50 years making lots of money

And even if they succeed, they wake up at a certain point and say, oops, I think I chose the wrong problem

I think it wasn't, yeah, I need some money, but it wasn't my main problem in life

You've often said clarity is power

And I think your superpower is your ability to kind of stand at 10,000 feet

Look down on humanity and the planet

And identify what's most important in these macro trends

How you cultivate that clarity through meditation

And your, you know, very kind of like profound practice of mindfulness

We go throughout our life and we take in a lot of junk, whether we like it or not

It fills our mind

And I meditate two hours every day, so I can tell you there is a lot of junk in there

A lot of hate and fear and greed that I picked up over the years

So I began when I was doing my PhD in Oxford

A friend recommended that I go on a meditation retreat

Or a Vipassana meditation

And for a year, he kind of nagged me to go on a meditation

And I said, no, this is kind of mystical mumbo-jumbo, I don't want to

And eventually I went

And it was amazing because it was the most remote thing for mysticism that I could imagine

Because it was a 10-day retreat

And on the very first evening of the retreat, the teacher, S. N. Goenka

The only instruction he gave

He didn't tell me to kind of visualize some goddess or do this, nothing

He said, what is really happening right now?

Bring your attention to your nostrils, to your nose

And just feel whether the breath is going in or whether the breath is going out

That's the only exercise

Like a pure observation of reality

What amazed me was my inability to do it

Like I would bring my attention to the nose and try to feel, is it going in, is it going out?

And after about 5 seconds, some thought, some memory, some fantasy would arise in the mind

And would just hijack my attention

And for the next 2 or 3 minutes, I would be rolling in this fantasy or memory

Until I realized, hey, I actually need to observe my breath

And I would come back to the breath

Again, 5 seconds, maybe 10 seconds, I would be able to

Oh, now it's coming in, it's coming in

Oh, now it's going out, it's going out

And again, some memory would come and hijack me

And I realized first that I know almost nothing about my mind

I have no control of my mind

And my mind is just like this factory that constantly produces

Fantasies and illusions and delusions that come between me and reality

Like if I can't observe the breath going in and out of my nostrils

Because some fantasy comes up

What hope do I have of understanding AI or understanding the conflict in the Middle East?

Obviously, your ability to think clearly and write so articulately about these ideas

Is very much a product of this practice

Absolutely, I mean, without the practice, I would not be able to write such books

For the last 24 years, I have this daily exercise

I devote 2 hours every day to just what is really happening right now

I sit with closed eyes and just try and focus

Let go of all the mind-made stories

And feel what is happening to the breath

What is happening to my body

The reality of the present moment

I also go for a long meditation retreat, usually every year

Of between 30 days and 60 days of meditation

Because again, one of the things you realize

There is so much noise in the mind

That just to calm it down to the level that you can really start meditating seriously

It takes 3 or 4 days of continuous meditation

Just so much noise

So long retreats, they enable to have this really deep observation of reality

Which is impossible

Most of life we spend like detached from reality

Humans are really interested in knowing the truth

About ourselves, about our lives, about the world

On a very deep level, because you can never be happy

If you don't know the truth about your life

Because you will not know what are the sources of misery

Again, you will focus on your life

If you don't know the truth, you waste all your life

Trying to solve the wrong problems

Information isn't truth

Truth is a costly, rare and precious thing

It is the foundation of knowledge and wisdom

So if you never try meditation, absolutely try it out

And give it a real chance

It's not like you go for a few hours and it doesn't work

Okay, give it up

Give it a real chance

But if you want to build a good society

And you want to build a good personal life

You must have a strong basis in the truth

And it's difficult

Because most information is not the truth

And invest in it

It's worthwhile to have a practice

Whatever it is

That gets you connected with reality

That gets you connected with the truth www.mooji.org

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