The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

The Spiritual Path an Ex-Monk with Dandapani

Dandapani realized at the age of 4 that he wanted be a monk. He saw it as the most efficient path to enlightenment. But it wasn’t until completing an electrical engineering degree and finding his teacher that he joined a monastery, where he decided not to renew his vows after 10 years.

How Dandapani knew at the age of 4 he wanted to be a monk
A formative childhood experience that wouldn’t go away
Finding a deeper purpose and meaning in your life
Why spirituality needs a systematic approach
Discovering the deeper pursuit of your spiritual path
Dealing with the religious beliefs that contradict our own ideals
Why you must spend time with yourself in self reflection
How to build a meditation practice one minute a time
Why we have a finite amount of energy each day
Finding the teachers who were meant to be in your life
Our misperceptions of the people in the “monk business”
A Look at the daily life and routine of a monk
Why Dandapni decided not to renew his vows
The reintegration process that occurs after leaving a monastery

Dandapani is Hindu priest, speaker on self development and entrepreneur.

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Duration:: 1h 5m
Broadcast on:: 19 May 2014
Audio Format:: other

As you probably noticed, this month we're bringing you our "Life of Purpose" series and revisiting some of our most transformative episodes, tune in to explore expert insights and practical strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free "Life of Purpose" ebook. What you have to do is go to unmistakablecreative.com/lifepurpose. I'm Srini Rao, and this is the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where I speak with creative entrepreneurs, artists, and other insanely interesting people to hear their stories, learn about their molding moments, tipping points, and spectacular takeoffs. Expand the way you work and think with Claude by anthropic. Whether brainstorming solo or working with the team, Claude is AI built for you. 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Thanks for taking the time to join us. Oh, thank you, Srini. Glad to be on this show. Yeah. Well, you know, I came across you by way of our mutual friend, Clay Hebert, who seems to be the constant referral source for so many guests who've made their appearances on The Unmistakable Creative, all of who have been absolutely spectacular because Clay apparently still isn't ready to make an appearance here. So you should definitely get in with the show. He's a great guy. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So tell us a bit about yourself, your background, your story, and how that has led you to where you're at in the world and what you're up to today? Yeah, sure. I'm Sri Lankan by Ancestry and I was born in Malaysia, grew up in Australia and wanted to be a monk since I was about four years old. And when I finished high school in Australia, I went into university, did engineering and graduated from engineering school and while I was in engineering school, I actually met my guru and decided I'd be a monk in his monastic order. So when I graduated from engineering school, I left Australia and moved to Hawaii where his monastery was and lived as a monk there for about 10 years. And then five years ago, my vows expired and instead of moving back to Australia, I moved to the mainland US and spent a few months traveling around for a little while and then finally ended up in New York City and made it my home. Wow. Okay. So what's brought me here? Well, not your typical just story by any stretch of the imagination. So I want to go back to what you said about knowing since you were four years old that you wanted to be a monk. I think that that's a very unusual thing for somebody of that age to have that kind of clarity about something so deep, at least, you know, kind of when we see somebody like a monk, at least we have all these perceptions. And I'd love for you to talk about one sort of that awareness at such a young age. And then of course, you know, this is a question that I've asked a lot of people. I think there is something about our childhood that, you know, we have sort of almost this wild-eyed dreams where we have no perceptions of things that are not possible. And so we're free to imagine and I feel like we lose touch with that as we get older. And I'm wondering how you get back in touch with that. Well, to answer your first question about, you know, why I wanted to be a monk when I was four, actually a monk came to my home when I was four years old. I was living in a home in Malaysia and I remember very clearly I came out of the blue. And he appeared at our friend, my mom invited him in a traditional way and, you know, gave him some food and water and some money and things like that. And as soon as I saw him, I said, "That's me." I actually did not know he was a monk, you know, at four years old, did not know what a monk was or what a monk did. But that experience really ingrained itself in my mind very strongly and just wouldn't go away. And I realized very clearly, you know, that was who I was to become or what my life was all about. And so I kept pursuing that and learning about that and that eventually led me to a deeper pursuit of my spiritual path. And the goal really is not about becoming a monk. The goal behind it is about spiritual growth and enlightenment. So being a monk was the quickest, more sufficient way to get to that. Does that make sense? Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And in terms of the other question of losing in touch of our dreams and goals, I think for a lot of people, I find their struggle is because they don't really know what they want in life. And for me, one of the big things that when I work with people is helping figuring out, helping people figure out what their purpose in life is. And once you know what your purpose in life is, you can really devote all your energy to it, achieving that one thing. So it was very clear to me early on in my life what my purpose in life is and what I wanted to pursue, then from then, everything I did was supporting that one purpose and supposed to being distracted all over the place. And I think people have those, have ideas and concepts of what they want to do as a child, but you never really lock it down. You know, don't really have the assistance or help guidance from their parents to lock down exactly what it is they want to do in their lives. And then just get distracted and be all over the place. So you know, you brought up this idea of a deeper purpose in life. And I, you know, it's funny because I think that when we bring people to this show, it seems that they seem to have a very clear sense of what that is for them and where it lies within their story. And I mean, I'm curious, you know, you said, you know, you work with people, you help them find it. I mean, how do we discover it? Is it a journey? I mean, is there a set endpoint where you say, okay, this is it or is it a continual pursuit throughout our lives? I, I think it's a little bit of both. I think there needs to be a systematic approach to it. You know, a lot of people take a very caffery approach as it's a journey and I'm trying to figure out as I go and it's not really a great answer to give for me in my mind. Yeah. Because that doesn't really take you anyway. I think like anything else, if you want to do something, you get a sit down and commit to it and figure out a plan and the system and how to get from me to be. And if you don't have a procedure, then you're not really going to get there. And you started, you said you started this show four years ago, but you had to work out a plan. You can just say, look, you know, what I'm going to have some people come on my show and let's have a conversation for an hour. Right? I mean, you, you had a plan of how am I going to find people? Where am I going to find them? What are we going to talk about? What's the style of this show? So the same way in figuring out the purpose of your life, there needs to be a proceeded. It needs to be a systematic approach. So when I work with people, usually when I work with people on this topic, I work in small groups and we really look at the important aspects of people's life and help them figure out what are the most important things, important people in their lives. And then from there, we kind of narrow down to what and who makes up their life and then go through a process of then figuring out their purpose. So can you, can you expand on what that process looks like, I mean, or is it just very from person to person? I wouldn't vary from person to person, but I think it would be a little bit challenging to describe it over a show, you know, without getting into too much detail of it. Yeah. Okay. So you talked about sort of this deeper pursuit of a spiritual path and that that's a really sort of interesting thread to me. I mean, I'd really love to dive into that and add more depth and talk about kind of, you know, how you saw that unfolding throughout your life and maybe where we can start to see it in our lives. Because like you said, I mean, I think that, you know, we, it's all, you know, the idea of spirituality gets perpetuated almost as sort of new age psycho babble. And it's like, you know, you talked about systematic stuff, but I am very curious, you know, in your own experience throughout your life, you know, seeing the threads for this just deeper pursuit. And of course, you know, not everybody, I think, at least to me, in my mind, you know, searching my search for a deeper pursuit of a spiritual path wouldn't lead me to a monastery or to becoming a monk. So I'm very curious, you know, like one, how you saw those threads throughout your life. And of course, you know, what, what does that mean for those of us who are listening? I would say, you know, yes, I totally agree with you when you say that's virtual, you know, nowadays it comes across like a lot of new age babble, but I think for people, the first thing to do is really put aside everything you've grown up with, all the religious beliefs and training and teachings that you've had from your parents or your religion, put all of those aside and truly ask yourself, what is it that you believe and resonate with? And then you'll start to figure out what's really, really important to you. And I work with a lot of people on topics of spirituality and different things. And one of the big things I find that the biggest hindrance in people's life and their spiritual growth is the teachings and the dogma that they've been ingrained with as they grew up from their different religions. So I grew up a Hindu, for example, and a lot of things that I was taught about Hinduism didn't really resonate with me growing up. It contradicted what I genuinely believe inside. So I researched further and further into it and then finally found a path that really made sense to me, which ended up being a Hindu path, but was going back to more the original teachings of Hinduism where it wasn't something that was man-made or created by man many, many years later. I think so much of spirituality is polluted by people, you know, for the pursuit of money and power and all kinds of things. So I think quite often it's very hard for people to figure out what this spiritual path is when they have so much indoctrination of religious beliefs inside of them. And a lot of those beliefs were just made up by people in religious power over centuries and centuries. So this idea of teaching dogma and indoctrination, I think this extends beyond, you know, our religious beliefs. I think it actually extends into the internal narratives that dictate our lives, you know, in the stories that we tell ourselves. And I'm really, you know, curious, how do we separate ourselves from those stories and those beliefs and, you know, start to change them in a way that serves us? Well, I would say the first step to do something like that is to really take some time out of each day and spend a little time with you, with yourself. You know, most people don't spend any time with themselves at all. Now is to tell people if you really want to know what you want in life, if you want to figure out your purpose in life, you have to spend time with yourself. And spending time with yourself is not going for a walk, it's not going golfing, it's not sitting down reading a book or listening to music. Spending time with yourself is actually finding a space within your home, a designated space and assigning a small period of time, whether it's three minutes or five minutes in the morning in self-reflection and really asking yourself, "What is it that's important in your life? What is it that you want in your life?" And most people don't have this time for self-reflection, they don't put it aside. So for example, if I wanted to get you to know you really well, I'll meet up with you for coffee, spend some time, you know, every week having glass of wine, chit chatting and over a period of time I'd get to know you, right? So the same way if I wanted to get to know myself, I'd have to spend time with myself as well. And when you spend time with yourself, you really get to know you and you understand what your beliefs are, what inherently you resonate with. And that's how you can tell the difference between what resonates with you as your truth as opposed to what's been indoctrinated into you, that you follow in terms of blind belief. So let me ask you a bit more about this, spending time with your self-part because it's funny, right? I think that, you know, it's like you said, there's so much sort of material and literature about there, about meditation and spirituality and all this and we live in this hyper-connected, fast-paced world where, you know, I mean, I've had Sean Acor who's a happiness researcher here. Yes. And I mean, even he said that two-minute meditation, he said, you know, he sets a timer for two minutes and before he knows it, he finds himself back on his computer. And I'm really, you know, having had the experience that you have, I mean, how do we deal with this? I mean, how do we actually learn to spend time with ourselves? Because I think that it can be interpreted as, okay, I feel like I'm doing nothing and I feel unproductive when I'm doing that. And I think it's a lot harder than it sounds to do what you're saying. I'm very curious, how do we actually do this in a way that's effective? The actual spending time with yourself, huh? Yeah. You asked another question in there as well, which was, why should we do this? And to me, the greatest impetus for this is death. You know, when you realize that your life is finite and I don't believe that life is short, I believe life is finite, when you realize that your life is finite, you want to make the most out of it, the one thing that nobody, excuse me, the one thing nobody will ever know is how long they actually here on this planet for, right? You could be 30 years old in pretty good shape, but there's no guarantee that you might live to see a 31st birthday. So once you realize that your time on Earth is finite, you realize that if you do want to live a great life, you need to figure out what it is you want in your life. And that's the only way to live a really full, joyous life by doing the things that you love and by spending the time with people that you love. And in the way to figure that out is to actually spend time with yourself each day so that you can find out what it is that you truly want and what your capabilities are as well. So the way I normally recommend for people to do that is I tell people to designate a space in their home large enough for them to sit either cross-legged on the floor on the chair and their home somewhere, the same way that you have a bathroom in your house to use for bathroom purposes, a kitchen in your house to cook and eat, living room to hang out so there should be a space in your home where you designate for self-reflection. And instead of time every morning, and I suggest for people to get into the routine to do this Monday to Friday and spend one minute every day from Monday to Friday, just one minute a month. And then after doing it consistently for a month, the second month, add another minute. See a lot of people come up to me and say, "Hey, down the pony, I want to learn how to meditate." You know, "I want to sit down 20 minutes a day," and I go like, "Do you even sit down at all?" And they go, "No, it's like there's no way you're going to do 20 minutes." You're going to be able to do 20 minutes for three days and then after that you're going to fizzle out. So start with one minute because everybody can do one minute. And what you're doing is you're training your mind and your body to sit still. Before the process of self-reflection can even take place, you actually need to train the physical body and the mind to sit still. So you sit down for a minute and then you get up and you go, and the next day you do the same thing again, and you build up slowly from there. I have an entrepreneur friend of mine, well, I clear a climb that I coach in Germany, and he's been doing that. And he said to me, "Even right at the start, I can sit for 15 minutes." And I go like, "No, I just want you to sit for one minute and every month, add another minute." And now he's been doing it for about 17, 18 months and he's up to 17, 18 minutes now a day. But it's the consistently building up over a period of time is what creates the process. So once you're able to sit down and have that process going, then it's a question of having, by beginning the early stages, just start by having a dialogue with yourself and asking yourself, "Are you happy? Do you have what you want? What is it that you truly want in your life?" And the process begins from there, and then obviously we can get into more detail of how to go about it in a very systematic way, but those would be the initial steps. Okay. Well, I'd love to dig into more detail. I mean, I do have some more questions, but if we do have more detail to go about it in the systematic way, I'm sure people want to hear about that. So let's do that if it's something we can actually fit into our conversation. Yeah. So I would say, okay, to for your listeners, what I would suggest is create a practice first designate a place in your home, and in this place you don't listen to podcasts, not even to 3D show, you know, any music, nothing at all, it's just you and you alone. Okay. Just as soon as you're doing something else, you're doing something else, you're not spending time with you. So you're sitting down on the floor, cross-legged, and this is your place for self-reflection. On Data Friday, spend one minute each day, do this for one month, the second month, add another minute. I would say in the first 30 seconds of sitting down, breathe deeply, just breathe diaphragmatically for about 30 seconds. When you start to regulate your breath and control your breathing, you start to control the processes of your mind and slow it down in a simplified way, I could say, you start to take control over your mind by controlling your breath. And then the second 30 seconds, what you should do is ask yourself, have a conversation with yourself. And I always tell people the way to go about it is if you met somebody at a party that you really liked and you wanted to get to know them better, what would you do? You set an appointment, a date and a place to meet them again, right? And then when you meet them again, what happens at that conversation, at that meeting? You have a conversation, right? In the same way you would have a conversation with that person by asking them about themselves, where they're from, how are they feeling, what are their dreams, what do they want in life, have that same conversation with yourself, truly get to know you. And once you start having that dialogue with you, you'll start to see all the good things about yourself and all the not so good things about yourself. And what I would recommend people to do is start making a list of those things, actually physically write them down on a piece of paper. And once you start writing them down on a piece of paper, you get, becomes very clear to you, what are the areas in your life you need to work on, and what are the areas of your life you need to pursue, and from the things that you want to pursue, you can then harness them or combine them to simplify them to the most important things in life. I think that the most important thing people can realize that is life is fine, that there's only a limited amount of time that you're here on this planet, and you can't do everything. So what you need to do is figure out what are the most important things that you want to do in life. And the other thing that's also important to realize is that there's only a finite amount of energy that you have each day, and that finite amount of energy then needs to be invested into people and things that truly matter to you. So that time of self-reflection is really for you to start beginning the process of figuring out who and what is important in your life. And then you take that finite amount of energy that you have each day and invest it into those people and those things. And when you pull energy into something, those things grow. Okay, awesome. So one other question around this, and then I want to shift gears a little bit. So you've worked with people, and they've done this process. I mean, what have they seen as the byproducts in their lives? Because I think that's going to be one of the questions that immediately comes up. I mean, have you seen sort of positive changes, and what have they been for people? Yes, I definitely have seen positive changes in people's life. The changes usually result in pretty drastic changes, I should say, streaming. People have gone all the way to-- here's one example. I worked with an entrepreneur in Australia, New Zealand area, and he has two daughters. And he has about three businesses that he really focus on and that he owns and he works with to grow. And he's really driven to grow his businesses. With this whole process, that life is finite and trying to figure out what and who's important in your life and all those things. And by the time we finish going through that whole coaching process, he's spending so much more time now with his children, with his daughters, because he just realizes that they may not be around forever or he may not be around forever. And we always take the people who would love for granted. We always take those things and those people that are important to us and we shut them at the bottom when we think that life is infinite, that we have infinite amount of time on this planet. Our pride is completely shift. You know, I work primarily most of the people that I work with entrepreneurs, so these people own companies. And I always say to them, if you went to your company today and you told all your employees that all the projects we're working on today have no deadlines, you can finish them whenever you want, what would get done? All of them will always answer nothing, nothing would get done. So the same way when you realize that you have infinite amount of time on this planet, your pride is shift. You take everything and everyone that's important and you put them at the bottom and those things and people that are not important, you put them on top. So what are the changes I've seen in people is that they've re-evaluated their priorities in life and have created a very clear, systematic process of how to live their life day to day. And that's the goal is really to create a sustainable lifestyle, you know, and a lifestyle that supports who and what's important to you. So let's shift gears a bit and let's talk about your story. It's interesting because the path is such a strange one to me, you realize at four years old that you want to be a monk, but somehow you end up in engineering school, which doesn't seem like that's not, you know, at least for people who may not know anything about monks. But I don't imagine in my mind, I would think, okay, here's a guy who went to engineering school. Like, I wouldn't imagine any of my friends from Berkeley who I went to school with telling me that, hey, you know, I've decided to become a monk with one exception. And you know, we've always said, he'll either start a cult or become the next Steve Jobs. Probably both. But it's a sort of interesting path. So I'm really curious, you know, I mean, what is your, you know, what your experience in university is like that leads to the conclusion and, you know, meeting a guru that, you know, sends you into a monastery. I mean, what goes on in your life and what is happening at that point in your story in your life that leads you down that path? Well, I always wanted to be monks. Well, since ever since I was about four years old or so, and so that was always my goal. But what I really wanted was to find a teacher that could train me. And I met many wonderful teachers along the way. And they all said wonderful uplifting things, but I found that a lot of what they said was not practically applicable in my everyday life. So I kept searching for a teacher. And I didn't meet my teacher till I was from my second year of engineering school. And it was one of many teachers that I met and, or many teachers that were traveling that I met. I met him and heard what he had to say, I was really impressed because for the first time I met somebody who shared with me a different perspective of spirituality, a different perspective of sharing tools that were practical, that were simple, that were applicable in my life. And he was a monk. And he had a monastery in Hawaii. And I said, you know what, I'll join his monastery and be a monk in his order. So unfortunately, he did not want me to leave my engineering degree. So I had to go through another course in a few more years of engineering school. And as soon as I knew I passed my last exam, I didn't even wait for my graduation. I jumped on a plane and flew to Hawaii to join us in an Aztec order. So I obviously would have become a monk much sooner had I met my teacher sooner. I just happened to meet him when I was in engineering school, that's all. Sparks something uncommon this holiday with just the right gift from uncommon goods. 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Go to linkedin.com/results to claim your credit. That's linkedin.com/results. Terms and conditions apply. Linked in. The place to be. So, let me ask you this, you talked about knowing this since you were four years old. What was the rest of your childhood like? What kinds of childhood influences did you have that kept sort of keeping you on this path? Were there things throughout your childhood that just kept revealing themselves to you that said this is what I meant to do, even beyond sort of knowing at that age of four? Not really. My mom was very spiritual, so that was very helpful to have that constant influence in my life. That's her. I don't think anybody else. It was just really me realizing that, you know, I remember when I was six, seven years old, it became very clear to me that so many things in life, almost everything in life, is not permanent. You know, I would have this very strong experience of non-permanent, so for example, my cousin would have a birthday party and would all get the car. My mom and dad would drive us to the house for the birthday party. As we were going there, I was very excited. We went to the party. We played. We had a great time with my cousins and family. And then it would end, and I would get in the car, and we'd all drive back. And I'd always be looking out the window thinking to myself, "That's life." Everything's created, exists for a while, and then goes away. Where's the permanence? You know, where's the constant in life? You know, I was six, seven years old, and I go, you know, "Excuse my friends, this is BS." You know? This is an absolute waste of time. Where's the constant? There needs to be something more permanent than just this experience. And then I found school an absolute waste of time, because I learned nothing that I felt that was useful to my own personal growth. I was acquiring knowledge that I felt didn't really help me as an individual person. So I spent a lot of time more in self-reflection, meditation, learning about spirituality in any way that I could, but obviously there was no systematic process to it. You know? So I did the best that I could till I finally met my teacher. But the one thing that was very clear in my mind was that I was not going to give this up for anything or anyone, and the other thing was that I was very clear too, that was not going to compromise on my beliefs and what I wanted to pursue. So you know, I would only become a monk if I met a teacher that was really serious and clear about his teachings and had a systematic process in training somebody, and very few people actually had that. So I just didn't want to go join the monastery for the sake of being a monk. You said very early on in the show, you know, Srini, you said people look at monks and have all these perceptions. It doesn't mean that somebody shaves his head and has beads and robes that his spiritual are holy. You know, I know a lot of unholy monks having been in the monk business for so long. Okay, let's talk about that. Let's actually talk about that. I love how you call it the monk business. That's really funny because I've never thought about it that way. But yeah, I mean, that's absolutely my perception is exactly what you thought. What you just said. My perception, even now I'm no longer a Hindu monk, I'm more a Hindu priest, and it's very hard to tell the difference between a monk and a priest, a Hindu monk and a priest, by the way, they dress because they dress pretty similarly. So I see how people look at me nowadays and they look at me when I'm dressed up in my full outfit, so to speak, and they look at me that I'm holier than doubt, you know, that I can levitate and walk through walls and I must have attained enlightenment just because of what I'm wearing, and that's not the case. I'm still me, you know. So a lot of people have perceptions on how monks and spiritual people are because of the way they walk and talk and dress, but I think it's the actions and how they live their lives is what really tells, you know, a good monk from a not so good monk. So you said that, you know, you've met some unholy monks, I have to ask, you know, morbid curiosity, I mean, what kinds of unholy things have you witnessed and what you, you know, affectionately referred to as the monk business, and then I actually want to talk about your time in the monastery. I don't even know if you want this on your show, I actually do. Everything and anything you can possibly imagine. Wow. How's that? So we're talking anything that basically would be considered hedonism. Define hedonism for me. Would I find a monk in a Las Vegas casino gambling or in a Las Vegas strip club? You probably would. I don't know for sure, but that would be the tip of the iceberg. That's nothing to me considered that's just very, very light on the scale of horrible things. Wow. That is really, yeah, I mean, you're right that absolutely is not at all how I would perceive, you know, a monk. Do you find that people change as a byproduct of becoming a monk? Like, does that aspect change or do you find people well down, you know, down the path of, you know, this spiritual path, still having these kinds of behaviors and being unholy? I would say both, Srini, you know, some people get on the path with clear intentions of, you know, living a deeply spiritual life, their intentions were great and good. But as they proceed down the spiritual path and the spiritual ego grows, you know, a lot of people tend to them for help and all kinds of things and they get distracted, so to speak. I always believe very strongly that the religious business or the spiritual business is the most powerful business you can be in, you know, the amount of people that you can influence will reach into the millions into the billions of people, much more than politics or anything else. So people get distracted in all paths, all different stages of the path. And some people willingly go into that with that intention, knowing that with that power behind them are the power of God that they can influence many people for their own negative purposes. And it's interesting, you know, people in the finance world will know the good finance people and the not so good finance people, right? And once you're in the business, you just kind of know who your, I wouldn't say, competitors, but the other people in the business. So I just happen to be in the monk world and I just met a lot of monks and other religious people and spiritual people and you see the ones that are very true to what they believe and very noble and have integrity and others that don't. And it's not hard to see once you hit it for such a long time. Wow. But this exists everywhere, right? Sure. Not limited to the monk world. It's in business, it's in families, it's in everything. Yeah, no doubt. Well, you know what, there's, you know, something else that you brought up. You just said, and I think this will make a perfect setup to talk about your time in the monastery. I mean, you brought up the stages of the path, and I really would love to talk in more depth about the stages of the path and kind of what it looked like for you and your time in the monastery. Because, you know, I think, you know, first we have our perceptions of monks, which clearly are off based on everything you're telling me. And I'm guessing that- And I don't mean to put it out there. No, no, not at all. I mean, I'm very glad because it's revealing and this is what I like about the stories like this is that they are shedding light on something that we don't normally see. And I'm curious. I mean, is the time in a monastery, I mean, what are the, we must have misperceptions about that too. So I'm very curious about, you know, your time there and we know what you refer to as the stages of the path. Yes. And just to quickly go back on what we were talking about, just to wrap up that topic, I would just say also just for your listeners, the way to really, you know, when identifying a monk is just to really look at a person's actions and how they live their lives, you know, more than what they say or what they put out there. It's really in how they live their lives and who they surround themselves with. And I think that's a real key indicator of what a person is like. You know, I remember asking my guru one day, I, we were traveling somewhere, we went to a big event and there was a very famous guru that was also at that event who I had known since I was a childhood. I've known off. I've never met him, but read many great things about him. But when we met that event, something just didn't feel right about him. And I was a little bit strange with how I was reacting. So that night I asked my guru, I said, I asked my guru, a very simple question, I asked him, how do you tell the difference between a good guru and a not so good guru? I don't want to say bad guru, you know, not so good guru. And he said, he got really wise answer. He said, by looking at the people that surround him, the immediate people that surround him, the people that immediately surround him are people that you want to be with, you want to spend time with, they are lifting to you, then the teacher must be that way too. But the people that surround him immediately, not people you want to spend time with, people that you feel very uncomfortable with, then something is not right. And I thought that was a really wise, wise answer. And I've always used that as a, as a measuring stick. Wow. So, because there's so many people out there selling all kinds of stuff, right? And it's so easy to get caught up in these things, when you're in a pot in your life or place in your life where you're really seeking for spirituality or meaning to life or something like that. And everybody goes through that. So it's so easy then to just get sold into a program or a path or this or that. That one should really test one's teacher before one takes him or her own as a teacher. I love that. So going back to the path, the spiritual path, in Hinduism, since I'm a Hindu, I can only tell from my perspective of it, there are two paths, there's one path for the monks and there's one path for the householder, and for the householder means someone who's married and has a family. So the monk path is quite different and the householder path has four stages. The first 24 years of your life is the stage of learning and growing, which is 0 to 24 years old. And then from 24 to 48, it's the part of creating a family and establishing yourself as well in terms of business or work, financially, family and things like that. And then 48 to 72 is the stage of an elder in the community. So you've had 48 years of learning and experience of raising a family and work in business. And then from 48 to 72, you spend that time in giving back to the community. You share your experiences, your knowledge and you help people along the way. 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In our tradition, the goal was always self-realization or enlightenment, and that was our pursuit. And then we were trained in the monastery and how to work towards that. So, let's talk more about this idea of self-realization and enlightenment. Because I think the search for enlightenment is what we're all searching for, isn't it? We're always thinking that that's the answer to all our prayers. The answer to all our problems is, "Okay, I want to become this enlightened person." Yes, everybody is training. Maybe, I don't know. The people I talked to, I guess I talked to a lot of, I jokingly say I talked to a lot of hippies. That's great to see it. You know, a lot of the people on this show, really, a large part of their journey is a spiritual path. I mean, if we look at sort of the threads, I mean, it's funny because I can find commonalities between you and our friend, Joe Loya, who robbed 30 banks. When you went to a monastery, he went to prison, but still there's a similarity there. And if you ask him, he will talk about spirituality. So, you know, a couple of things around that, you talked about sort of the search for enlightenment. What does your time in a monastery look like? I mean, what do you do on a day-to-day basis and what does this search for enlightenment look like? And he talked to me about those 10 years. Well, my guru had a very different approach than most people, which is what I really loved about him. You know, he looked at the whole day and everything you do throughout the day as it acts towards reaching, towards enlightenment. So he brought all the tools and teachings into one's everyday life. So in the monastery, we all woke up at different times in the morning. I usually woke up at 4am, between 4 and 4.15 in the morning. But we all, all the monks had to be in the temple by 5.30 in the morning. So from 5.30 to 6am, we were at a religious ceremony in the temple, and then from 6am to 7am, we meditated together as a group. And most people are quite surprised that we only meditated one hour a day. Most people think that monks meditate all day long. And that's something that I get all the time. And my teacher believed in quality as opposed to quantity. One hour of really good, solid meditation is better than 8 hours of just sitting there complaining about how much Jini is hurting. And then from 7 to 7.30, we all exercise. We had to exercise half an hour a day, all the months. And then we had breakfast. And then the monastery was divided. The monks were divided into five groups. And when I was living there, we had about somewhere close to about 26 monks. And we had five different departments in the monastery. One department, oh, by the way, I should also say that every person that came to the monastery to be a monk who got a set of robes, a set of beads, and a MacBook Pro laptop to work. And that was the standard issue for monks. And we were all actually trained how to use them. That can work pretty savvy on it. And so at 8 o'clock, we would all go into our different departments. One group of monks looked after the publishing so they did desktop publishing. They worked on InDesign, in Photoshop, in Illustrator, and it produced a quarterly magazine called Hinduism Today. And I still believe the monastery has the largest website in the state of Hawaii. So in the months, we learned a program in HTML and CSS and JavaScript. And we built websites where we put all the teachings online. The monastery also blogged, we're probably one of the first bloggers in the world, started blogging in the early, in the mid-1990s, I believe. And then one group of monks took care of the finance. They looked after the endowments, the investments, paying the bills. Another group of monks looked after the cows, the property, the land, the buildings. Everybody went off into the different areas. And while we performed our tasks during the day, we used all our training and tools in everything that we did. So we learned to concentrate. When we were sweeping the sidewalks, when we were working on our max, we learned how to focus and do one thing at a time. So a whole day was training us, or rather I should say, preparing us for that one hour of meditation. So then when we actually sat down to meditate, we had 20, 30 hours of training, so to speak, of preparation. And then that one hour was extremely intense, whereas a lot of people take a different approach to meditation, and they say, "I'm going to sit down for five minutes and meditate." And then the rest of the day, "I'm going to be Zen." It doesn't work that way. I always ask people, "What are you doing in the remaining 23 hours and 55 minutes?" That to me is more important. When people come up to me, because I'm all dressed up like a monk and stuff, so people like to come up and tell me, "Oh, you know, I meditate 10 minutes a day," I'll go like, "That's wonderful. What do you do in the remaining 23 hours and 50 minutes?" Because that's what shapes who you are. And so for the monastery, a lot of our training was taking the tools that we learned and implementing it into everything that we do throughout the day in preparation for us to meditate. And then during the meditation, we would meditate very deeply and went through a systematic process to go deeper, deeper within ourselves. Wow. So this is, I love this. This has actually been probably the most hilarious and funny part of our conversation because I mean, I love how you mentioned, you know, standard issue or robes, beads and a Macbook probe. Because now I'm thinking, "Wow." So it runs like a normal business does. It totally does. It totally that we, you know, monks wanted to buy something like you needed to get another mouse because I was died or something where to submit a purchase order. Yeah, no, it was really a lack of business. Our guru was probably one of the most amazing entrepreneurs I've ever met in my life. He just happened to be a monk. Wow. Yeah. So let's talk about this. I'm curious, you know, I mean, you left after 10 years. One, I'm curious, are there, are there people who don't make it or don't hack it like they come there and they're like, "Okay, you know what, this is just not for me. I'm out of here." Like what is, you know, and of course, like what does that end up looking like? And then I want to talk about your decision not to renew your vows and we'll start wrapping things up. Okay. So the monastery is quite tough. You know, obviously, when you join the monastery, it's a very traditional Hindu monastery. So only men under vows could live in there. So you're living, you're celibate, don't hide. And that usually kills people and so most people don't even want to, you know, people come to try out and usually stay six months and then leave. And in the first year, you're not even a monk, you come as a trainee, right? And most people don't make it past that. And I would say anybody staying past one or two years or three years usually will stay a long time and if they leave after that, they have a very clear reason for leaving. So that's the answer to the first question. The second one, "So our vows last in periods of two years and every two years to renew them." And so after 10 years, I decided not to renew my vows and I decided to leave. So I mean, what made you feel that, okay, I'm at a point now where I don't want to renew my vows. Like, was there something that just you said, okay, there's more of life to explore or like, I mean, what makes you decide that that's it, I'm done? Really, my teacher died three years after I joined the monastery. And so I stayed for seven more years and after he died, I felt things changed a little bit. But in a bad way, I felt that the monastery was going in a slightly different direction than where I wanted to go, I'd initially come in with. And I felt that gap was getting bigger and bigger as time went on. So, you know, I stayed for seven more years and I felt we were just going in slightly different directions. And so I decided to leave at that point, wasn't quite fully aligned with what I wanted, which was fine, but it was just wasn't for me anymore. On that note, let me ask you one other question about the transition, you know, we had a friend here by the name of Meg Warden, who spent two years in a federal prison for selling ecstasy. And one of the things that she talked about was how coming out of prison was actually much harder than going in because there's an entire process of reintegration that occurs. And I'm really curious, in your own experience, as somebody who spent that much time in a monastery, what does the reintegration experience into a normal life looked like for you? And what are the challenges that have come with it? I mean, what are the things that you didn't expect, you know, and what does it look like today when you look back at all of this? So, I've never been to prisons, I don't know, but I would say the difference here, I can only imagine and assume that in the monastery, you get trained with so many different tools and you really get to know yourself. So when you actually come out, you're much more, you're completely different person, I should say, than when you went in. You're so much more trained to work with yourself and to work with life than when you first went in. So you're coming out with an advantage as opposed to disadvantage. And so, for long-serving monks, there's a severance package. And when I left the monastery, because when I went in, I literally could not take anything with me. I had to give away all my money, all my belongings, my clothes, everything, so I literally had nothing. So when I left, I had my two sets of robes, my beads, they gave me a MacBook Pro to use and a thousand dollars cash and that's all I had with me. And they normally buy you a ticket, so back home and my home was in Western Australia and Perth. And instead of flying me home to Australia, I said, "You know, just fly me to Los Angeles." It was the closest part of entry from Kauai in Hawaii. So I flew to LA and checked into a backpacker hostel, ruined with six gym and backpackers and the next day I went out and bought pants and a t-shirt, got an email address, opened a bank account, and just basic things that everybody has. And one of my goals was that I do not want to borrow money from anyone, from family or anybody, and I just said, "I'm going to take everything that I've learned, put it into practice and create the life that I want to create." So that's where I started, started by going out and buying pair of pantries. And so that has led you now to doing, it sounds to me, the work that you do is really like a spiritual coach for entrepreneurs, is the sense that I'm getting. Yes, I help. I primarily work with entrepreneurs and I help them to get to know themselves and understand themselves better. I always tell them that they are the greatest tool that they have. Wow. And entrepreneurs are always really interested in finding the next great tool, right, the next great software, the next great technique or something, and I always tell them the greatest tool that they have is right there in the mirror, and they just don't know how to use it. I give you an example for me, you know, I love taking photographs and I love playing with Photoshop and Adobe Lightroom and stuff, and I remember when Lightroom first came out and I downloaded the software and I put my photos and then started playing with it. And after three hours, I got absolutely nowhere. So I went on linda.com, downloaded the tutorial and watched it for seven hours on how to use Lightroom. And after that, I became so much more efficient of Lightroom because I know actually how to use the software now, and I can do so much more with it. So the same way I always tell entrepreneurs, if you really spent the time to get to know yourself, you would be amazed what you would discover your capabilities are that you just don't know not aware of, and that's what I helped them discover, helped them to discover them themselves, and the better you know yourself, the more you can do with it. It's like the more you know Photoshop, the more you can do with it, right? Yeah. Yeah. So the same way, the more you know yourself, the more you can do with you. I love that. I think it just makes a really fitting sort of closing to our conversation. So I want to ask you one final question, which I've closed all our interviews with for quite some time now, because our show is called The Unmistakable Creative, and we live in one of the noisiest times in history. And the question for me is, what in your mind makes somebody or something or somebody's story unmistakable? That's a very good question. I would say how authentic a person is, and to me that's the most important thing, you know, when I meet someone is that they remain authentic to who they are, they're not pretending to be something that they are not, and I when I hear a story from someone that's authentic and it's really who they are and what they're all about, then to me that makes it extremely special. That's that kind of answer your question? Yeah. No, definitely. Well done with my, I have to say, I am really, really happy Clay referred you to us as a guest because this has been a very, very eye opening and insightful conversation. I mean, I've learned so much talking to you and I'm thinking, okay, it's nine o'clock. You know what I need to go do now is go spend a minute reflecting. You spend a minute reflecting, you've got to designate a place in your home. Yeah, definitely. I mean, this has been such a insightful eye opening look and just entertaining and just a lot of fun. I really appreciate you taking the time to come and join us and share your story and your insights with our listeners here at The Unmistakable Creative. Oh, you're most welcome, Ashrenee, and thank you. I feel very honored as well to be among so many of your special guests to be on your show. So thank you for thinking of me inviting me. Awesome. And for those of you guys listening, we'll wrap the show with that. You've been listening to The Unmistakable Creative Podcast. 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How Dandapani knew at the age of 4 he wanted to be a monk
A formative childhood experience that wouldn’t go away
Finding a deeper purpose and meaning in your life
Why spirituality needs a systematic approach
Discovering the deeper pursuit of your spiritual path
Dealing with the religious beliefs that contradict our own ideals
Why you must spend time with yourself in self reflection
How to build a meditation practice one minute a time
Why we have a finite amount of energy each day
Finding the teachers who were meant to be in your life
Our misperceptions of the people in the “monk business”
A Look at the daily life and routine of a monk
Why Dandapni decided not to renew his vows
The reintegration process that occurs after leaving a monastery

Dandapani is Hindu priest, speaker on self development and entrepreneur.

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