Speaker 1: Pushkin. When people see me on the street, I often
Speaker 1: wonder what they think about me. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: sometimes what they think, because they'll tell me. Simrn Jet
Speaker 1: Singh is an educator and best selling author, but it's
Speaker 1: not his work that prompts some strangers to interact with
Speaker 1: him in public. They see my turban and my beard
Speaker 1: and my brown skin, and the reaction to Simren's physical
Speaker 1: appearance is often very dumb and very racist. The standard,
Speaker 1: especially at this point in my life, is terrorist isis
Speaker 1: Taliban al Qaida. Simmern's beard and turban are outward signs
Speaker 1: of his faith, Simmern's sick and as such, as part
Speaker 1: of a huge global community. Sickism is estimated to be
Speaker 1: the fifth largest religion, with tens of millions of followers,
Speaker 1: both in South Asia, where it was first developed five
Speaker 1: hundred years ago, and now in almost every corner of
Speaker 1: the world. Yet, particularly in America, only a tiny minority
Speaker 1: of people have any idea about six or their beliefs,
Speaker 1: and in the absence of any real knowledge about Sikhisms, teachings,
Speaker 1: and traditions, Simmerens has, many people just reach for stereotypes
Speaker 1: or lazy assumptions. People will see that I'm visibly religious,
Speaker 1: and they'll assume that I'm misogynistic or homophobic or close minded, right,
Speaker 1: like all these other assumptions we have about people who
Speaker 1: are quote unquote hardcore about religion, And I get it.
Speaker 1: I mean, I mean, to be honest, I find myself
Speaker 1: struggling with the same biases about other people who are
Speaker 1: visibly religious. So it's kind of weird to realize that
Speaker 1: the same things that bother me about what people assume
Speaker 1: about me, like, I have those same prejudices inside of
Speaker 1: me too, so I try and notice them whenever they happen.
Speaker 1: But yet it is strange to walk around and know
Speaker 1: that constantly I'm being judged even though people don't even
Speaker 1: know me. So over the next two episodes, we're going
Speaker 1: to get to know Simren, to find out who he
Speaker 1: is and what he's about, and along the way, we'll
Speaker 1: hear the important things that Sickism has had to say
Speaker 1: about happiness over the centuries. In these shows, Simren will
Speaker 1: introduce us to the concepts that are key to his faith,
Speaker 1: things like kindness, gratitude, and radical connectedness. But we'll also
Speaker 1: explore an idea that underpins all the happiness science. We
Speaker 1: discuss on this podcast that merely knowing about this stuff
Speaker 1: doesn't help unless you put it into practice each and
Speaker 1: every chance you get. So welcome back as we explore
Speaker 1: sick teachings on happiness lessons of the Ancients with me
Speaker 1: doctor Laurie Santos. There the first headphones, Nah, big moment
Speaker 1: for me. I just got him last week. Large hair
Speaker 1: and turbans like headphones now are like you know, it's
Speaker 1: like I beat by Drake came out and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I really want to be cool, but so okay, let
Speaker 1: me plug these in. As well as being Executive director
Speaker 1: for the Aspen Institute's Religion and Society program, Simmerin Jeet
Speaker 1: Singh is also the author of The Light We Give,
Speaker 1: How Sick Wisdom Can Transform Your Life. It's a book
Speaker 1: that really opened my eyes to so many aspects of
Speaker 1: sickism that had previously passed me by. The Light We
Speaker 1: Give isn't a book about theology. It's an honest and
Speaker 1: really insightful memoir packed with teachings from the gurus who
Speaker 1: established and developed the sick religion centuries ago, the same
Speaker 1: ones that Simren honors and observes today. In modern day America.
Speaker 1: Reading the book, I was struck by how relevant and
Speaker 1: relatable Sikhism is to all the happiness challenges we face today,
Speaker 1: but also by the fact that Simmeren's religion is a
Speaker 1: total mystery to many of his fellow Americans. It's such
Speaker 1: a bizarre feeling to realize I am a highly visible minority,
Speaker 1: and in this country we are a minority. But in
Speaker 1: this world there is a big population of sex who
Speaker 1: have made all kinds of contributions to global communities, who
Speaker 1: live all over the world, not just in the homeland
Speaker 1: of Punjab and South Asia, but I mean scattered all
Speaker 1: across the world as a diaspora. And so in my
Speaker 1: heart and in my head, I know we're not a
Speaker 1: tiny community. But in other people's perceptions are like, what
Speaker 1: are you like, where do you come from? I know
Speaker 1: nothing about you? And so for the most part, that's
Speaker 1: fine in a lot of cases, right, Like we can
Speaker 1: get by not knowing everything about everyone around us. But
Speaker 1: when that ignorance meets bias or meets stereotype, it can
Speaker 1: be really dangerous. So talk a little bit about Sikhism.
Speaker 1: Give me the kind of introduction to this religion for
Speaker 1: folks who haven't heard much about it. If I had
Speaker 1: to tell you one thing about what it means to
Speaker 1: be a sick, I'd start with my principles, because that,
Speaker 1: to me is like what keeps me within this tradition,
Speaker 1: what I value about it most, and that is, I think,
Speaker 1: in some ways a really simple framework for looking at life,
Speaker 1: but also something that's really practical and transformative, at least
Speaker 1: for me. And so the place to begin in sick
Speaker 1: philosophy is with the first term ongar. It refers to
Speaker 1: the oneness of all creation, of all humanity, and it's
Speaker 1: the basis of so much of what we believe and
Speaker 1: how we try to live, our commitment to non discrimination,
Speaker 1: for example, on the basis of anything right, gender, sexual orientation, religion,
Speaker 1: I mean everyone, the way we talk about it, everyone
Speaker 1: has the same light within them, and so we have
Speaker 1: no place to judge them. I mean, it's it's a
Speaker 1: really great protection in a society where we're constantly falling
Speaker 1: into drafts of hierarchy and supremacy. So that's one, and
Speaker 1: then the idea from there is if you can really
Speaker 1: learn to feel the interconnection within the world, then that
Speaker 1: engender is a feeling of love and that's the promise
Speaker 1: of spirituality at large, not just of sickism. That you know,
Speaker 1: the height of human experience is this feeling of love,
Speaker 1: and you can have that at every moment in your
Speaker 1: life through this broader feeling of interconnection. That to me
Speaker 1: is the second building block of sick teachings. And then
Speaker 1: the third is that when you feel connected and when
Speaker 1: you feel love, then your natural impulse is to show
Speaker 1: up for the people around you, especially when they're suffering,
Speaker 1: and so service and justice become a really cool part
Speaker 1: of how we understand ourselves, but also what it means
Speaker 1: to be spiritual, what it means to be a good person.
Speaker 1: It's not just about cultivating something inside of you, it's
Speaker 1: it's about letting that blossom and then extend out words
Speaker 1: to the people around you so that you care for
Speaker 1: them in the way that you might care for yourself,
Speaker 1: with an understanding that it's all a shared sense of reality.
Speaker 1: At the starting point in psych philosophy is we're all
Speaker 1: in this together. This is one of the reasons I
Speaker 1: was so excited to talk with you for this podcast, right,
Speaker 1: is that if we look at sick philosophy generally attends
Speaker 1: to map on a lot to a lot of the
Speaker 1: principles that we see in the modern happiness science. But
Speaker 1: I think it's a philosophy that's especially useful now, and
Speaker 1: especially useful for someone who has a marginalized identity, because
Speaker 1: you're constantly facing these threats that kind of challenge this
Speaker 1: sense of shared connectedness. Reading your book, I was really
Speaker 1: struck by kind of how some of those moments of
Speaker 1: feeling discriminated against kind of took a fever pitch in
Speaker 1: your life around nine to eleven, you know, So talk
Speaker 1: to me a little bit about the story of what
Speaker 1: nine to eleven was like for you. You know, how
Speaker 1: old were you and sort of what happened to your family. Then. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So I was eighteen years old in two thousand and one.
Speaker 1: I was a senior in high school. I was living
Speaker 1: in South Texas. I went to a big public school.
Speaker 1: My brother and I were some of the only kids
Speaker 1: who wore turbans in all of South Texas. And I
Speaker 1: remember we heard the rumors, the whispers that an attack
Speaker 1: had happened. We ran to my teachers classroom is Strong,
Speaker 1: our history teacher who we were all close to, and
Speaker 1: while just watched on television, we watched the towers come down,
Speaker 1: and nobody said anything. Very quiet. After about half an hour,
Speaker 1: one of the anchors announced that they had a suspect,
Speaker 1: and they share a name of somebody I'd never heard
Speaker 1: of before, Osama bin Laden, and then they flash an
Speaker 1: image of him on the screen and I look at
Speaker 1: him and my heart just sank because it's another man
Speaker 1: with a turban and a beard and brown skin, very
Speaker 1: much like me. I knew my friends in the room
Speaker 1: with me. I knew them well enough to know they
Speaker 1: weren't going to judge me or associate me with him,
Speaker 1: and I could see them looking at me. What I
Speaker 1: saw in their eyes was a kind of sympathy, like
Speaker 1: an oshit moment, like what is going to happen to you?
Speaker 1: And I wondered the same thing myself. I mean, I
Speaker 1: knew in that moment that my life would never be
Speaker 1: the same, and it hasn't been. I mean, it really
Speaker 1: hasn't been. That That afternoon, my mom came to school early,
Speaker 1: pretty much immediately picked us all up, took us home.
Speaker 1: We locked the doors. I remember that vividly because we
Speaker 1: had never locked the doors growing up in our neighborhood.
Speaker 1: That afternoon, the death threat started first by phone, then
Speaker 1: people driving by So I mean it was a really
Speaker 1: intense moment in my life that raised a lot of
Speaker 1: questions too, write what does it mean to be doubly attacked?
Speaker 1: Right as an American on the one hand and as
Speaker 1: a sick on the other What does it mean when
Speaker 1: other people's perceptions of you turned violent and you don't
Speaker 1: have the luxury to cast them aside or even turn
Speaker 1: the other cheek, and then you have to meet them
Speaker 1: head on? Like what do you do when everything feels
Speaker 1: so dark and difficult? Like where do you find hope?
Speaker 1: What's the light at the end of the tunnel that
Speaker 1: keeps you going? And so it was just a really
Speaker 1: tough period for me that actually, in retrospect, I could
Speaker 1: see that I'm also, as an eighteen year old being
Speaker 1: shaped and formed as I figure out the answers to
Speaker 1: these questions. And it seemed like one of the spots
Speaker 1: you went for hope was actually to go back to
Speaker 1: sick philosophy, right, Like, these these teachings that can be
Speaker 1: powerful from a religious perspective in terms of what they
Speaker 1: cause you to do, but I think can be really
Speaker 1: powerful from a psychological perspective in terms of the kind
Speaker 1: of resilience and the kind of strengths that they give you.
Speaker 1: And so one of the teachings that I know you
Speaker 1: turned to at that time was the sick idea of chardycola.
Speaker 1: You know, so, what's chardi coola and how does it
Speaker 1: kind of help you to get through tough times? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: Jarda vigola is a nice pronunciation, by the way, well done.
Speaker 1: It's it has it has a letter in there that
Speaker 1: most most Americans have never heard before. Jarda kola is
Speaker 1: basically this idea of everlasting optimism, of staying in high
Speaker 1: spirits regardless of what's happening around you. You know, in
Speaker 1: some ways, we could talk about this in a really
Speaker 1: superficial way, you know, we have we have a big
Speaker 1: conversation culturally right now around toxic positivity. You just sugarcoat
Speaker 1: anything that comes your way and just say it's fine
Speaker 1: and or your actual feelings or the difficulty that's brought
Speaker 1: to you. And Jodie Nikola strikes me to something that's different,
Speaker 1: or at least the way that I've understood it and
Speaker 1: tried to apply it. And it's basically this approach that
Speaker 1: enables you to recognize the complexity of life at the
Speaker 1: same time and also reinstill agency. And I'll sort of
Speaker 1: talk through that. Basically, the idea and sick philosophy is
Speaker 1: that difficulty is real, challenges are real. It's okay to
Speaker 1: acknowledge them and to feel the pain, and at the
Speaker 1: same time, it's possible to find hope within that, to
Speaker 1: find goodness within that. And so in this moment when
Speaker 1: I'm eighteen years old and the terrorist attacks happen, and
Speaker 1: as I've described, it feels really different. I mean, we're
Speaker 1: getting death threats, We're watching TV and seeing our country
Speaker 1: falling apart. It really feels like there's no hope. And
Speaker 1: after a few days, my dad said something to me like,
Speaker 1: aren't we so fortunate? And I look at him like
Speaker 1: he's lost his mind, right, Like in what world is
Speaker 1: there's something to feel fortunate about? And he goes on
Speaker 1: to say, well, you know, we're so lucky that your
Speaker 1: neighbors have been coming by to give us food, that
Speaker 1: your teachers and your teammates have been checking in to
Speaker 1: see if you're okay. I mean, aren't we so lucky
Speaker 1: to have all these people around us? But as in
Speaker 1: eighteen year old i'm thinking about it, I'm like, wow, Like,
Speaker 1: here's a situation in which I've been so engrossed by
Speaker 1: the difficulty and inappropriately right, It's not like I'm wishing
Speaker 1: that I hadn't paid attention to the hardship, But somehow,
Speaker 1: because I was so focused on that, I was missing
Speaker 1: all the other things that were true. And the truth
Speaker 1: of the experience was as I started to open my
Speaker 1: eyes to that, I started to see the light around me.
Speaker 1: I started to see the goodness around me, like I
Speaker 1: started to feel hope and love around me, and recognizing
Speaker 1: in that moment, as in eighteen year old, in these
Speaker 1: difficult moments, we actually have a choice. And it doesn't
Speaker 1: feel natural, it doesn't feel intuitive, but but like to
Speaker 1: step back and say, okay, I'm going to take a
Speaker 1: second and just notice around me, what is the good?
Speaker 1: What are the people doing that can reinstill hope in
Speaker 1: me that I don't get so lost in my own
Speaker 1: darkness or victimization or whatever it is that happens in
Speaker 1: that moment. And here Simron's centuries old sick faith reflects
Speaker 1: the latest science on things like toxic positivity. Too often
Speaker 1: we think the path to happiness involves ignoring our negative emotions,
Speaker 1: but the scientific evidence shows that we probably be better
Speaker 1: off if we can find ways to accept the bad
Speaker 1: reality out there, and maybe even as Simmern's father did,
Speaker 1: search for things to be grateful for in the face
Speaker 1: of bleak events. After the Break, we'll take this idea
Speaker 1: a step further as we explore how sickism links all
Speaker 1: things good and bad together, and how this concept of
Speaker 1: oneness can allow us to both weather hardships and reach
Speaker 1: out to the people around us, no matter what their
Speaker 1: faith or background. That's all to come when the Happiness
Speaker 1: lab returns in a moment. Like many of the other
Speaker 1: religions you may be more familiar with, sickism teaches that
Speaker 1: there is a single God and everything springs from this
Speaker 1: single source. But reading Simernji Singh's book The Light we
Speaker 1: Give How Sick Wisdom can Transform your life, it's clear
Speaker 1: that his concept of oneness isn't an abstract or theological detail.
Speaker 1: It's central to how he lives his everyday life. It
Speaker 1: own car as six call. It is an idea that
Speaker 1: joins absolutely everything together. One of the teachings in sick
Speaker 1: philosophy that ties in here to Ikonkar is that if
Speaker 1: you can really get to a place where you at
Speaker 1: least start to see the divinity, the oneness, the interconnection
Speaker 1: in everything that's around you, then there's not a value
Speaker 1: judgment on whatever it is that you encounter. Right And
Speaker 1: I'm not here spiritually yet, although I've inched closer and
Speaker 1: I feel the impact on it in terms of how
Speaker 1: I experience this world. If you can get to a
Speaker 1: place where you're not constantly seeing the world and your
Speaker 1: life through the lens of good and bad, right Like,
Speaker 1: I have this difficult thing that's happening at work. Let's say,
Speaker 1: and I come home and I'm like, oh, that was
Speaker 1: a terrible day today sucked. Like, of course, your experience
Speaker 1: of that day is going to be rough, and that's
Speaker 1: how most of us operate day to day. I mean
Speaker 1: me too. But what sick philosophy offers is what if
Speaker 1: you can own the pain of that day, but also
Speaker 1: through this practice of gratitude and through this perspective of oneness, say, oh,
Speaker 1: I'm not sugarcoating it, I'm not dismissing the pain, but
Speaker 1: I can see the goodness and all of it and
Speaker 1: live with equanimity. Right Like, see this thing that keeps
Speaker 1: me in balance all the time. And then so that
Speaker 1: the idea is you can taste the sweetness of life.
Speaker 1: That's the word we use in our tradition. It's mitas sweetness.
Speaker 1: You can taste the sweetness of life even when you're
Speaker 1: in the midst of pain. And that's yeah, that's such
Speaker 1: a powerful thing. And I think there was also a
Speaker 1: really interesting like sick teacher who talked about this. You
Speaker 1: told a story about grew R. John who was using
Speaker 1: this idea of sweetness in the miss of something really terrible.
Speaker 1: I'm just wondering if you'd share that story. This is
Speaker 1: like one of those stories that for me felt so
Speaker 1: far fetched most of my life, at least as a
Speaker 1: kid growing up. The short version of the story is
Speaker 1: he is imprisoned, as many religious leaders and prophets are,
Speaker 1: he ends up being imprisoned by the state, and their
Speaker 1: intention is to either have him take back what he
Speaker 1: said or to have him executed, and as part of
Speaker 1: the path towards that decision point, they torture him. And
Speaker 1: as he's being tortured, he is singing this composition, these
Speaker 1: lines that say dada kia metanage which means God, whatever
Speaker 1: you do that feels sweet to me. And again, like
Speaker 1: to go back to it's what we were saying before,
Speaker 1: like it's it's at least in my read of the tradition.
Speaker 1: It's not to say that he didn't feel pain. Of
Speaker 1: course he did, right, I mean, at least in my
Speaker 1: view of it. He's human. But there's a difference between
Speaker 1: pain and suffering, right, he wasn't suffering in that moment. Like,
Speaker 1: the pain was there, the hardship was there. I mean,
Speaker 1: not an ideal position for any human being, but even then,
Speaker 1: his experience of it was through sweetness. And you know,
Speaker 1: going going back to your question about ikon Gar, like
Speaker 1: how does this idea of oneness sort of tie into
Speaker 1: this experience? And I think, you know, part of what
Speaker 1: I understand from sick philosophy is that if we can
Speaker 1: move beyond the binaries that so often dictate our lives, Right,
Speaker 1: a truly wise person, as we learn in our tradition,
Speaker 1: is someone who sees gold and iron as ali right there,
Speaker 1: the same thing. There's there's no evaluation difference. That truly
Speaker 1: wise person is someone who sees the humanity in a
Speaker 1: friend and in a stranger, and the teaching is actually
Speaker 1: we can get to a point where we don't see
Speaker 1: strangers anymore at all. Right, everyone is familiar in a sense,
Speaker 1: and I think it's that experience of the oneness that
Speaker 1: has enabled me, in the context of really intense racism,
Speaker 1: to be able to find the humanity in people who
Speaker 1: don't see my humanity right Like, they think I'm the
Speaker 1: worst person in the world, and they'd rather not be here,
Speaker 1: and they tell me to go back to my own
Speaker 1: country or whatever, And of course it annoys me, and
Speaker 1: of course I wish they didn't see me that way,
Speaker 1: but I don't have to be in a place where
Speaker 1: I am reflecting that anger and ugliness back to them.
Speaker 1: To me, it's it's only really been possible through this
Speaker 1: teaching of radical oneness and interconnectedness. But of course, you know,
Speaker 1: even with the teaching of radical oneness, it's really hard
Speaker 1: to put that into practice, you know, especially if you're
Speaker 1: like your actual humanity is being attacked in some cases.
Speaker 1: But I think this is a spot where sick wisdom
Speaker 1: is also really helpful, because it's not just a bunch
Speaker 1: of teachings about things like radical oneness and chartique law
Speaker 1: and things like that. There's also a really emphasis on
Speaker 1: how specifically you can put these things into practice. So
Speaker 1: talk about this idea, Vidia, I said, it m this
Speaker 1: idea of knowledge. Yeah, it's it's it's so cool that
Speaker 1: you bring this up because in our daily prayers. I
Speaker 1: have two young daughters and we're teaching them every morning
Speaker 1: as we walk to school, we practice the morning prayers
Speaker 1: and they're learning them and then we talk through what
Speaker 1: they mean. And one of the one of the teachings
Speaker 1: today that we were just talking about. So it's it's
Speaker 1: a really timely question is about exactly this question. And Grunani,
Speaker 1: the founder of the Sick tradition, is critiquing scholars and knowledge.
Speaker 1: And you know, for me, as a historian and the scholar,
Speaker 1: it's kind of a slap in the face anytime I
Speaker 1: think about it. But he's he's saying, like, you you
Speaker 1: can read as many books as you want, you could
Speaker 1: read boatloads of books, you could collect all the knowledge
Speaker 1: in the world. If you don't put that knowledge into practice,
Speaker 1: if you don't use that to to advance your own
Speaker 1: life or to serve other people, than who cares, right,
Speaker 1: it doesn't it doesn't really make a difference. And so
Speaker 1: his point really is that knowledge is not the path
Speaker 1: to liberation, and really what takes you there is wisdom.
Speaker 1: That's the Juck position, right, John is the term that
Speaker 1: we use. And so it's really interesting to me, as
Speaker 1: I'm raising these kids and collecting my information and knowledge
Speaker 1: as a scholar, to recognize that, you know, it has
Speaker 1: limited purpose if we're not thinking about how to leverage
Speaker 1: it for our own growth and for justice within the world.
Speaker 1: And so this mirror is exactly a fallacy in the
Speaker 1: psychological literature that's known as the Gi Joe fallacy. The
Speaker 1: fallacy didn't go back as far as Greu Nanak, but
Speaker 1: it went back to the eighties and Gijoe the cartoon.
Speaker 1: So if you remember the cartoon, and the cartoon had
Speaker 1: this famous public service announcement at the end where gis
Speaker 1: Joe says, you know, now you know, and knowing is
Speaker 1: half the battle. I don't know if you're a child
Speaker 1: of the eighties like me. You're a little bit younger
Speaker 1: than me, so maybe you do. Yeah, I am Gijoe
Speaker 1: is a thing in South Texas, I imagine, but yeah,
Speaker 1: but this is this idea that we think, right like,
Speaker 1: knowing is half the battle, but the cognitive science work
Speaker 1: suggests that that's not the case. Knowing is not half
Speaker 1: the battle. You can know all these principles about what
Speaker 1: you should do to be happy, you know, do your
Speaker 1: gratitude list, meditate, whatever it is, But unless you actually
Speaker 1: do that stuff, unless you put it into practice, that
Speaker 1: knowledge isn't really changing anything about how you feel and
Speaker 1: the well being that you experience. And so I love
Speaker 1: that you know, sick tradition was kind of on top
Speaker 1: of this really early on, but also that they have
Speaker 1: lots of practices that help you with this. And I
Speaker 1: think one of the things I find so fascinating is
Speaker 1: that just the act of what you wear can be
Speaker 1: a reminder to put these things into practice, just the
Speaker 1: act of kind of wearing your turban. I know you
Speaker 1: had a story in the book about realizing, you know,
Speaker 1: that wearing your turban is a time when you really
Speaker 1: need to be putting these springs into practice. I'm thinking
Speaker 1: specifically of the story with your mom and the incident
Speaker 1: in the store. Oh my god, I hate that story.
Speaker 1: I will tell it, but I will also tell you
Speaker 1: that until I wrote this book, I'd never told anyone
Speaker 1: because I felt so much shame around it. And you
Speaker 1: know it's it's kind of one of these moments in life,
Speaker 1: and we all have them in our own ways where
Speaker 1: we sort of connect the dots between how we're living
Speaker 1: versus how we want to be living and what it
Speaker 1: really means to be aware of our own hip hop
Speaker 1: percy or imperfection and to want to do better. But
Speaker 1: the embarrassing story, which I understand is not like the
Speaker 1: worst thing in the world ever, but it's for whatever reason,
Speaker 1: I feel guilty about it still. I'm at the grocery
Speaker 1: store with my mom and where at the cash register,
Speaker 1: and you know how they have those candies set up
Speaker 1: at the front. I'm probably like ten twelve years old,
Speaker 1: and when she's not looking, I grab I grab a
Speaker 1: chocolate bar, a Snickers bar to put them up. And
Speaker 1: I one of the funny things about it is I
Speaker 1: don't even really like Snickers. Like I didn't even like
Speaker 1: it then, I don't like it now. It's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, the temptation is there, you give in, and
Speaker 1: I gave in, and my mom taught me trying to
Speaker 1: put it in my pocket, and you know, I'm mortified.
Speaker 1: We don't say anything. She's shocked, Like I come from
Speaker 1: a family of four boys, Like, she probably saw a
Speaker 1: lot of stuff that most parents never want to see.
Speaker 1: But this was not the type of thing that any
Speaker 1: of us had really dealt with. So she's horrified. She
Speaker 1: doesn't say anything. I don't say anything. She pays for it.
Speaker 1: We go don't talk for like, we go home so awkward,
Speaker 1: and eventually I go to her room to apologize, and
Speaker 1: she started to get into this really unexpected territory for me,
Speaker 1: Like I thought I was going to yell at me
Speaker 1: or around me, or whatever our punishments were, and instead
Speaker 1: she starts getting into this conversation about my turban, and
Speaker 1: she's like, do you know why you wear a turban?
Speaker 1: And you know, I didn't know what she wanted to
Speaker 1: hear them moments didn't. I didn't really answer her and
Speaker 1: was going to give her this space to say what
Speaker 1: she needed to. And she started to talk about this tradition,
Speaker 1: this memory in our tradition that I hadn't really heard before,
Speaker 1: at least I hadn't thought about it in this way,
Speaker 1: about how, in short, the decision to start wearing turbans
Speaker 1: had to do with a moment in which the sick
Speaker 1: community did not stand up for their values and hold
Speaker 1: themselves accountable to them, and the leader at the time
Speaker 1: basically said, we are never going to be in that
Speaker 1: kind of position again. We are not going to be
Speaker 1: able to hide from who we are and who we
Speaker 1: say we are. And so from now going forward, people
Speaker 1: are going to know us. And so you're going to
Speaker 1: start wearing these turbans. And so for me, this was
Speaker 1: an unexpected direction of the conversation. It was a tradition
Speaker 1: and a memory that I hadn't really thought of before.
Speaker 1: And then my mom goes, yeah, so maybe if you
Speaker 1: can't handle that, like maybe you should stop wearing a turban.
Speaker 1: And I was like, oh shit. My whole life she's
Speaker 1: been like, don't listen to people when they tell you
Speaker 1: to take it off or to stop wearing it, right, Like,
Speaker 1: don't give into that. And all of a sudden she's like,
Speaker 1: maybe you don't actually deserve to wear one. And that
Speaker 1: how hard that hit me? That statement in the context
Speaker 1: of what she was trying to say, like really lifted
Speaker 1: up for me that maybe there was more to this
Speaker 1: cloth that I wrapped on my head and then hey,
Speaker 1: I belong to this tradition or my family lives in
Speaker 1: this way or whatever. It meant to me up until
Speaker 1: that point. Like all of a sudden, now it became
Speaker 1: a public announcement, like every time I walked out the
Speaker 1: door of my house, these are my values. This is
Speaker 1: what you can hold me to, This is what you
Speaker 1: can expect of me, and to me. It's a challenge,
Speaker 1: and I still feel like this every day when I
Speaker 1: walk out the door. It's a challenge to live by
Speaker 1: what I say I will, and then to move beyond
Speaker 1: that gap between the aspiration and the actual daily behaviors.
Speaker 1: At the start of this episode, we heard that Simran's
Speaker 1: turban is a sign of difference that, along with his
Speaker 1: beard and brown skin, has marked him as an outsider,
Speaker 1: which has subjected him to lots of vile, racist abuse. Sadly,
Speaker 1: has turban's true moral and historic significance is utterly lost
Speaker 1: on his abusers. Publicly affirming our beliefs and intentions is
Speaker 1: an important way to ingrain good habits. Simran's turban is
Speaker 1: an outward sign that he intends to live by sick
Speaker 1: teachings and research shows that this is a good strategy.
Speaker 1: We're more likely to live up to our values and
Speaker 1: moral aspirations if we like Simrin somehow make them public.
Speaker 1: That might involve signing a pledge, or putting up a sign,
Speaker 1: getting a bumper sticker, or even wearing a T shirt.
Speaker 1: It sounds cheesy, but the science shows that acts like
Speaker 1: these can serve to remind us and others that we're
Speaker 1: aiming to adopt and maintain particular habits and behaviors. But
Speaker 1: it's worth noting that making all these habits and behavior
Speaker 1: changes isn't easy. The evidence suggests that all of us
Speaker 1: can find happiness by living the kinder, more connected life
Speaker 1: that's celebrated by sickism, but it is a challenge that
Speaker 1: requires constant work. So in the second of this two parter,
Speaker 1: we'll talk to Symrin about how he tries to incorporate
Speaker 1: the wisdom of sick gurus into each and every day,
Speaker 1: even if that means compassionately confronting the very people who
Speaker 1: abuse him. Yeah. I go to him and he's like, sorry, sorry,
Speaker 1: I was just kidding. He must have been terrified. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1: This was like a combination of teacher mode and dad mode.
Speaker 1: So be sure to come back next time for more
Speaker 1: happiness lessons of the Ancients with me, Doctor Laurie Santos,
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab is co written by Ryan Dilley and
Speaker 1: is produced by Ryan Dilley, Courtney Guerino and Britney Brown.
Speaker 1: The show was mastered by Evan Viola and our original
Speaker 1: music was composed by Zachary Silver. Special thanks to Greta Kone,
Speaker 1: Eric Sandler, Carl Migliori, Nicole Morano, Morgan Ratner, Jacob Weisberg,
Speaker 1: my agent, Van Davis, and the rest of the Pushkin team.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries
Speaker 1: and by me, doctor Laurie Santos.