- I don't feel like I have steady ground of who I am.
- Look at the things you care about and find out what it is.
And sometimes you have to give it up.
So, I've left two religions.
(mellow pensive music)
- I'm Gregory George Gibbs, a resident minister
at the Pasadena Buddhist Temple,
part of (speaks foreign language) Buddhist tradition
that is 800 years old.
- I'm Father Alexei, I'm a Greek Catholic priest.
I'm the ecumenical and inter-religious officer
for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Los Angeles.
And I'm a pastor.
- I am Narayan.
I am a disciple of Paramahansa Yogananda.
I am a yogi, and I am a teacher of Kriya yoga.
Yesterday as I was lying awake at night,
I realized that I was really a shitty kid.
I had no backbone.
Lied, cheated, and had very little regard for people.
I hate this about myself.
How do I become less selfish?
I think that's one of the great challenges that we all face
is self-absorption.
One way out of that kind of feeling of self-hatred,
serve other people.
Find someone or something that you can give to
to expand your sense of self-identity.
- The fact you're asking the question means
you're already working out of it.
The key is to discover that you love people.
Find out who you love,
and outta that love comes the opposite of selfishness,
caring for others.
- The Bible tells us that we were created
in image and likeness of God.
The great challenge is to find that image
and likeness of God in people, and sometimes it's hidden.
But it has to be surfaced.
And that's your responsibility to try to surface that aspect
of God in the other individuals.
- I have a job that pays decent money,
but it all feels too empty for me.
I studied hard to get a job,
and now though I can afford some nice things,
I want to find my true passion or purpose.
Can someone please guide me with this?
Yeah, I really resonate with that.
- You're not alone.
- That fathomless joy that we're looking for
in all those outward experiences
can be found within ourselves.
This is where the sacred science and art of meditation
can be incredibly powerful.
If you can find it within, then you may even come back
to your job with a new sense, a new perspective
that will bring it a sense of purpose, and life,
and energy, and joy.
- You have to find something that you're running towards,
not from, in order to make a real difference in your life.
Maybe you're not quite ready to make that major decision
yet, and that might mean staying with the present job.
I stayed with mine for 15 years.
Priesthood for me is a second career.
I was actually a funeral director.
Although I was making lots of money,
I didn't feel fully satisfied.
I always felt that I was being called to be a priest
and I just kept putting it off.
Didn't come to grips with the real self, if you will.
I applied and I was accepted,
and I had to make that transition within one month.
But I'm very thankful I did it,
because it made all the difference in my life.
But another way of energizing your search for what it is
that you think you really wish to be, would be prayer.
However you define that.
Making some connection in whatever form
that might be with the divine.
- I also, second career,
I became ordained when I was 42, I believe.
I got fired from a variety of jobs.
My usual way of leaving an employment is to get fired.
And I discovered I could study for this.
You know, you could train for ministry in Buddhism
just like you do in other religions.
But some of us find our purpose in our work
and some of us find it in our avocation.
It doesn't matter too much which.
But what we can't tell you is what you care about.
And that's what you have to find out.
Obviously, we care about people.
And when you look at the people you care about,
and ask yourself what do you admire in them,
that will help you to understand what you care about.
- Yeah, you don't have to believe in anything.
I think what Sensei Greg was sharing was beautiful.
That just find out what you like,
what brings you a sense of joy, of happiness.
And just follow that trail of inspiration.
I don't feel like I have steady ground of who I am.
How do you build a strong relationship
with yourself, and not be afraid to stand your ground
and trust in yourself?
It's the age old question, who am I?
And to know who we are,
we have to take that time to inwardly reflect.
But it's not a question that can be answered intellectually.
Paramahansa Yogananda used to say
that when this I shall die, then shall I know who am I?
- I would point you in just the opposite direction.
Instead of worrying about your relationship to yourself,
relationship with other persons, and look at the things
you care about, and find out what it is.
And sometimes you have to give it up.
So, I've left two religions,
I left behind Roman Catholicism.
And I left behind (indistinct) Integral Yoga.
I don't know who I am, except how I discover that
through my spiritual commitments
and through my relationships to others
- From a Catholic point of view,
there would be similarities.
Our challenge would be to discover
how Christ is living in us, how are we interacting
with Christ within us?
And then to be in relationship with others
in a Christ-like way.
- I think we're all saying the same thing
in slightly different ways.
The root of the suffering that we're talking about here
is absorption in the small cell for our ego,
and the way out of that is a remembrance
of our greater self.
That's- - I like that.
- I think that without finding
that reality itself, what's behind reality,
and or reality itself, is sacred, is holy, is good,
I think people are lost.
There are tens of thousands of spiritual traditions
and I hope everyone will find something
that makes them realize there is a sacred,
there is holiness, there is goodness.
And I do have an obligation to respond to it.
- I think it's important to remember, and to discuss,
and to think about the self not in isolation,
but, yes, I have a self, but you have a self,
and you have a self, and everyone has a self.
And it's how we interact all these selves, if you will.
We can have the differences in religious traditions,
differences in religious approaches,
but I agree, I think basically we're saying
much the same thing.
Maybe different approaches to the same reality.
Today was a wonderful experience.
I'm a great believer in inter-religious learning.
- The important thing in religious dialogue
is that we're all the same and we're all different.
We gotta let people be different.
If you have to let people be just like you
in order to accept 'em, it's no good.
- Each one of us is on a journey,
and we're all gonna find our way in our own way.
- Hey, guys, Jason here.
Thank you so much for watching another video.
We hope you enjoyed it.
Again, we make content that's all about humans
and about radical empathy.
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