welcome to the gate at choke rush l this is your time to heal actually embrace nature is healing energy get back in tune with your higher self yoga meditation healing foods living in balance healthy relationships and harnessing the true power off where you are powerful you are welcome to the gate at oprah's show i'm your host chopra today we have sandman has on the show he is a teacher at the art of living in burlington and has been affiliated for eight years we also have on ika sharma on and she's been a member of the institute for the last five years about what inspired you to join the art of living yeah absolutely so i have been associated with the art of living foundation for over eighty years and i have been teaching some of the programs for about you know to have my mom had done what is called the happiness program in foundation which is offered by the foundation you know years ago and just having seen some of the benefits that she received and the increased arrest and meditation and then we have silence retreats while we have some way the creatures the indian holistic health care so we have some techniques which sort of focus on that ok excellent so all geared towards you know a happy and healthy mind we call a holistic form of yoga obviously the west has you know there are different notions of yoga there's beer yoga these days here which is very unfortunate you know we can talk about that in more detail i'm also  i also teach what is the certifying to get myself teaching the new your child program which is really a program over short workshop for parents where they can build meaningful relationship suppose that's the ultimate you know goal of human life of course oh yeah definitely i will definitely go through that and what inspired you to join the art of living center as a practicing member and well i think everyday life right everyday life thro life or do you and it just takes the life out of you i recently on social media i was watching mr rogers fighting for public television funding and he used a lovely line that stuck with me he said what do you do with the mad and you know what do you do when when the mad gets coming to a new country and just life in general like when you made a complete turnaround a complete change and i think you know i mean i'm just being a as an asian indian but i think as asian indians and specially as a naval officer as daughter it's in our d n a to just get up and go so resilience is something that you applaud and i think what happens when you're really resilient and you go through every day life is you don't stop to say but it was a very big change you know yeah and you don't stop to breathe and you don't stop to think technique it's about you know you've got to get up and take it on your chin and just get up and go through every day and you're saying the art of living helps you to sort of find that balance from within and live a healthy life mental or one hundred percent if i'm smiling today and you know not getting angry of course my kids will tell you that i still thank you but the point is i really i look back and see it is possible and i think that it's possible to put yourself in the heart and soul and center of happened where the masters of our own destiny right we me more about what is the actual happiness program how do we actually get here yeah the happiness program as you said it's all about being happy ok and the foundation's been offering this program for quite a number of years the foundation's been around for over thirty seven years happiness program is the mixture of some breathing techniques some inch and yoga breathing techniques and there are some practical wisdom tips there is some late yoga and all of this comes around and you know it helps an individual achieve their full potential it helps them increase mental clarity so you said breathing techniques that actually bring about a different mental state like happiness in the body or does it release endorphins how does that help because i know about those breathing techniques i that we experience the sort of action that we do there's a certain read them of breath associated with that emotion you see so if you're angry you breathe in a certain way isn't it so if you are happy you know you have a we demonstrate a couple of poses if someone comes to you at the art of living and they're angry or they're just coming out of a tragic situation or are even they're depressed and trying to snap out of it so what are couple of breathing techniques that you would do one hands and again i'm just going to demonstrate how i know it if you can't really you know if you get confused you can just do this so we take the middle finger and the forefinger place it in the center of your forehead will take your palm and use that to open and close your eyes mastr to tell me more about the silence program i i believe you did that how many days were you actually completely silence or so i think i did the initial one this was about a little less than three years ago and at that time it was close to four days think we put so much emphasis on words and words where where you basically where were you based when you were silent where you are so that's a great question because the art of living foundation has silence programs where you can actually go away somewhere and do it but there's a lot of emphasis on the fact that whatever you do you are opposing of the every day so it's great to feel wonderful and you know and kind and calm when you're away in the mountains somewhere but how do you really mentally in that in the everyday while used to listen did you do it while you were at home or did you go away was one i didn't the second one i did and i saw a big difference it's very difficult to come back home when you're in silence with little in a dog what solvers thought so after that fourth  silence what were your first words actually in a group of twenty people i was the last person to speak and i was into that so you started crying i did start crying because i i you know you never really alone even when you say that you're alone you're reading a book or watching something on netflix or you know watching a movie or reading something on your phone you never really a loon you know listening to music and you feel the presence of god more with you closely when you were in silence for those four to say i feel the presence of me for the first time i was like hi lo you know and i was petrified of meeting me because in forty two years i had never met me i had never met me and i often yes and i really really really taught that if i had one like me imagine spending the next at least thirty years of my life with me and i don't like i was the first kind of face to face conversation or confrontation you had with yourself in the most people have not done that you hide from themselves the high from other people but the reason why they hide from other people is because they can't face that dishonesty within their own selves yes which is house i said i really need to move out of the house the first time i'm doing it and i knew you know have to be relaxing at me and have to be rode in disbelief and i said i love doesn't matter as long as you believe in yourself right you know you seem like a pioneer in self improvement so that yeah so so i ground it grounds you i think it's nice to have a date with yourself i think we where so many hats during our life we forget who we really are more than a momma more than a professional i'm more than a person lot more then this person sitting here and you know doing this interview there are so many facets of me so many sides of me that i haven't even met and if i do not spend time with me like really with me without my distractions imagine going to i don't know meeting me where you want to have books kno used in this program you really come out fully charged and ready to take on that it's not like you know you look fresh and amazing and the program is offered sometimes three days four days some of the retreats in the u s and canada even have ten  joy so let's say you're reading a book like you said if you start hearing nice music some very your mind will automatically go and shift to you know careers that music coming from ok so using some poverty for sounds we get deep space within ourselves and which is really where all the joy is and you really feel connected with yourself and everyone everyone around you ok so is that related to a lot attachment where you kind of sit and you forced it's a very sort of relaxed technique and how important is it to do the nonjudgmental meditation you just spoke of want to kind of be the nonjudgmental observer and everything in your life because you know i was reading something that it's if you can observe your right so you should have a discipline first of all as you have to retrain your mind to on learned all the coping mechanism the book had as a child and you have to be disciplined about it i mean it's not like oh well i don't have really time right now let me just you know move this to you know  no it's not about that it's about being disciplined you know twenty minutes in the morning twenty minutes in the evening and you know just have that respect for the practice it's all about and it will pay you back i've seen the remarkable rewards of meditati it so we have to get out go there live and we have to actually do the work absolutely beauty example right now i know you mentioned that i like one of your quotes you said that meditation is a super power super one of the world's super powers can you elaborate more on that well i think you said it right you said that you were a different person before and after meditation and i i cannot believe that it took me so many years of life so many decades to learn that there is something to be said to calm yourself when there is a turn what is that comforting to most people because most people feel uncomfortable when you say well you're not in control anymore so should that be a sobering and a happy thought it does so ran her happy thought if you have a community around you that believes it too right or what about if you have a you know a higher power that you believe in if so how do you actually begin to meditate now you know obviously everyone here has but let's just say for some of the viewers who are new to this or are abuse and mental torment like you said they're in the middle of all those heavy thoughts and they are out of turn the you know pull the plug yes how can they actually start maybe they have started what i am their closet how can they start right but the point and that's the reason i'm saying this because what happens is everyone things what's there to meditate you just close your eyes and you meditate i would say there's more to it than that just like you would go and get an it i can meditate in a cab in a plane in my belly in the middle of a crowded street so how do people get to that point what's a first step for them to get to that well if you're part of the art of living program you first have to go through the happiness program because what's going to happen is unless you're given a skill set you know i'm a community around it like if i didn't have the art of living community some is just one of the teachers in the neighborhood but i cannot tell you the how many times on a sunday i have called up teacher and mentor to guide him throughout the years you might get distracted or give up and they put you back on track i think it's just a matter of sitting down and like really like you said coming to meet yourself and the thoughts of facing the thoughts in your head and just observing them it's and i willing to let still probably on the post to step up we're still learning as long as we're breathing we're learning a good exactly so i do they can close my eyes and just meditate and when i first started doing it it was so funny because my husband would go up to me and say i meditat of yoga is it straining the top aides right how do you do that i mean first you get into the physical postures there's a certain discipline associated with doing the postures of the yoga then there is some visit them and then obviously there is the meditation aspect so yoga is really to train your mind it's not for physical not for weight loss so you like it happens the weight loss happens but it's really a really it's really connecting in finding a healthy balance between the mind your body and your soul right so so that once you once you do the yoga and our foundation offers a particular brand of fuel go to there's a school called the school if you will go and what they offer there is a this integrated