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[MUSIC] Khem Cho, my friend. Khem Cho means hi,
how are you in Gujarati, which is the mother tongue of our guest,
Nipun Mehta. Good to see that you're interested in
watching this optional video of my interview with Nipun. Let me begin by giving
you a little
bit of a background on Nipun. As I mentioned in the last video, he is one of the
most
inspiring human beings I know. Super smart. He's well educated. I think he is go
od looking. He is very articulate. He's the kind of person that I think
could have been very successful at almost anything that he chose to do. In the m
id-1990s after graduating
from Cal Berkeley with a computer science degree, Nipun started working for
Sun Microsystems. But within two years of working there,
Nipun realized that he wasn't finding working for corporate America to be as
meaningful as he found volunteering his services at a hospice and, in general,
helping people in need out. So he resigned from Sun and, along with
a few other like-minded individuals, he started volunteering full time. Eventual
ly he and his like-minded friends
started something called Service space. Service space oversees a bunch of
initiatives all around the world, and they're all aimed at spreading
kindness and wellbeing. With that minimal background,
let me get to my interview with Nipun. As you will see, I start by asking
Nipun how he dared to do something so different from what most of us
are coached and socialized to do. What was he thinking when he decided that
he would give up a conventional life, or a life involving climbing
up the corporate ladder, making a lot of money, in order to pursue
a life of social service and volunteering? >> [LAUGH] It's like how dare I, you
know? [LAUGH]
Well, I think for me, the thing was that it was really
rooted in my personal experience. So I saw that a lot of people around
me were going with the de facto sort of standard that you go out and
you get and you get and you accumulate, and
he who has the most toys wins. That's sort of the narrative underneath
a lot of action and that's the dream that you buy into when you're in college,
and that was the dream that I bought into. But I saw a lot of people. I was real
ly fortunate because
I was in the Silicon Valley and I came out right at the time
of the .com sort of boom. And so I saw all these people
trying to achieve it, and you achieved it in, that was a time
when we were all on steroids. People were achieving things in two
years what it would take a generation to achieve. So you saw a lot of people spi
ke up and
then just crash down. And you saw that journey
not really fulfill them. And they often ended up being depressed,
or they would do these crazy things that wouldn't make them happy or
those around them happy. And so a part of me started questioning. Just seeing al
l that and just being a rational person,
I was like, huh, does that make sense? Or is there another way? I think this is
where I was like, wow,
I don't know if there's another way. Being an immigrant family, you're sort of r
eally cradled
into a certain dream as well. And your job is to get good grades and
then go to a good college and then get a good job and then go start a company an
d then become
a millionaire and all this stuff. Get married and have a car,
have five cars, and have a huge house. And I think for me,
at some point I started questioning that, in my early twenties. And I said, well
, is there another way? And what is that other way? And I started to say, well,
if greed isn't going to do it for you, how about doing its opposite,
which was generosity? What if we just went out and

did something purely for the love of it? We realized that was very liberating. W
e did a lot of projects, but
it wasn't even about the projects. It was how you felt at the end
of doing a small action. It just felt right. And so you're left with thinking,
wow, I want to do this again. It felt so great to be connected, to give, to give
with no strings attached,
like no logo, no prices, no fame, nothing. We didn't want anything. And just tha
t simple act of giving,
you would think that you're actually on the losing end,
because what am I getting in return? But it turns out you actually
get a lot in return. You get a sense of connection,
you know, like you were saying. So I think that, for me, just doing those experi
ments is
what really led me to continue. I think it was Oprah, if I'm not mistaken, once
asked the Dalai Lama, and
she says, what do you know for sure? Very simple question. Dalai Lama says it ta
kes
giving to be happy. Absolutely. I think that's the beauty of it,
is that the size of the act or the impact of the act
almost doesn't matter. It's the space that you're holding. And if you offer from
that space
of genuine just one-way love, right, in effect what happens is
any small act of generosity or any big act of generosity, on the outside
it could be small or big, but what actually happens inside you, is that
whenever you are, you move from me to we. Because you're saying
it's not just about me. Now it's about me and you, so
it becomes a we experience. And when there's that shift from me to we,
the mind quiets downs. And in that calmness of the mind,
it falls into more of its natural state. I mean, of course,
ultimate stillness would be great. But even if it's still if
you're at point a, and you go to the stiller point of point b,
in that stiller state, to the degree that your mind is calmer is the degree to
which you feel more interconnected. And the more interconnected you are,
the simpler you are, the more satisfaction you have,
the more happy you are. So it seems like a very small act
of kindness, but the greatest impact of that small act of kindness is
not even the ripple that goes out and it creates in the world. Not the awards yo
u might get,
not the attention you might get, not even the feedback that you might
get back in return, but actually what's happening to you there and then in
your own mind, in your own state of being. So the mind calms down, you fall into
an interconnectedness, and you're happier. So it's an incredible, so if you star
t to look at it in that way,
and if I'm different, most people serve the world to say, oh,
look at this person, let me help them. There's this famous quote that says,
if you help, you see life as weak. All right,
it's like this hand-me-down thing. If you fix, you see life as broken. And so mu
ch of development work is oh,
let me go fix it. And there's some good to it, but there's also, on the receivin
g end,
this sense of brokenness. But when you serve, you see life as whole. So when you
're looking at service from
the state of inner transformation, then you start to really have
a very different perspective on it. And if you change for the rest of eternity,
it's going to have its own ripple effect. You may not necessarily be able
to quantify it in terms of how many schools I built in some country
where there's really extreme poverty. That's valuable too. But this is also valu
able because
you're changing yourself, you're changing the eyes through
which you look at the world, and that's creating an incredible ripple out. Your

mind starts to become more natural. So, it's not that, because a lot of
people look at calmness and say, no I actually like the busyness. You go in New
York, there's all this stuff
happening on the streets, and you're like, yeah, that's great. So this is not th
at kind of calmness. This is more that
the mind is more natural. And in its natural state. If you look at, even if you
study all
the different saints across the world, and across time, right, they will all say
it's natural to be compassionate. To be kind. To be generous. To be tolerant. To
be forgiving. Because fundamentally,
we're all interconnected, and all of them get to that in so
many different ways. So for me, I don't know if I would
define it necessarily as a calmness. I think it's a byproduct. But you may actua
lly get to a state where
there's a lot of activity, and you're not necessarily calm in the traditional
sense of the word, but you feel natural. And I think how do you put yourself
in a state of naturalness? And you can try. I think you can wait for research to
figure this out, or you can just try. There's really two choices, right? If you
can be me centered, or
you can be other centered. And you can try being me centered. I have tried it, a
nd I've found, in my limited experience nonetheless,
that it's a bottomless bucket. The more and more you pour into the me,
it's still never satisfied, versus, if you start to go into the we centeredness,
you fall into a natural state. You stop pretending that
you need to do anything. You don't have the weight of the world. You're not in a
rush to get to the next
thing, next thing, next thing, and you have less fear. You're not worried about
how this
thing is going to go away from you. It's just a more natural,
relaxed state of being. And I think it's,
I would just say, experiment. You know what I mean? There are those people who r
eally wait for
science, and that's great. There's a lot of science behind it. I'm aware of a lo
t of it. But, I think for me it's just been,
it's a more natural way of being, and I do think it's natural to be
connected, and to be happy, and to be accepting of all
things that come our way. The basic idea of Karma Kitchen, as you
know, is that you walk into Karma Kitchen and you have a meal, and the check
at the end of your meal reads zero. And it's zero, because someone before you
has paid for you, and you pay forward, for people after you. And so, most people
look at that and
say, wait, you mean you trust people to pay forward? And if, we are self interes
ted,
maximal thing for me kind of animals, then we would just not
leave anything, and we said, yeah, maybe. And then maybe we'll be broke,
and we'll find out. And we found out that actually people pay,
but what is it that makes it work? Can everything work in this way? Probably not
. So if you start to look deeper in to it. Is your Lexus car dealership,
if you say pay what you want, is that going to really work? No, that would be my
guess. But why does Karma Kitchen work? And I think one of the core
things around generosity, around our response of generosity,
when we see other people's generosity, and when we receive generosity,
is the context. All right.
So you have to create a very powerful context. Now, if you had a buffet line,
and go out and you say, well, everyone take whatever food you want,
and eat whatever you want, take care of your own table, and
then leave some money over there. It's not going to be Karma Kitchen, it's not g
oing to trigger a response of
generosity, of compassion, of connection. None of that. But if you walk in, and
you see that,

oh, it's a volunteer run restaurant. So the person who's at the door, it doesn't
feel like someone is
trying to manipulate you in some way. It's like a volunteer saying, look,
I could be at home watching TV, but instead I'm here. And then, they explain it
with,
there's just this effusive smile, and you feel that they explain the idea,
and you're just like, wow. Some people break down
in tears just there. And then they come in, and
they start to see, wow, the whole place is all volunteer run. There's a guy in t
he back doing dishes. There's somebody plating. There's somebody serving your ta
bles,
and cleaning your tables. And all of them have volunteered. And they're voluntee
ring just to
give me this experience, right? And then you sit down. You have a meal. When you
sit on this table, underneath the
table, there's a positive quote, right? So it starts to get you
thinking in that way. So now you're in a different
frame of reference, but now there's this nice quote. On the side you see that, o
h,
there's a kindness table. This is where people have left all
kinds of goodies just for other guests. On your table might be a note that
somebody, who came before you on that table, left for you, and
then you write for somebody after you. In between, especially if you have kids,
you're waiting for your meal, and the server comes,
and they bust out a smile deck. A smile deck, is a deck of cards
with a kindness idea on each card. Right?
And it's like a fun little game. You shuffle up the cards. You pick a card. And
you have to go out and
do that act of kindness. >> [LAUGH]
>> And kids love it, right? And it's the kind of thing, where
you'll hear it, and you'll say, well, what's the big deal? But when it actually
happens, and in the
process of actually taking that card and saying, wow, now am I going to do it? Y
our brain starts to release very
different kind of chemicals, and you feel very different, right? And then in bet
ween all of this,
you may take a look at the restaurant, and you're like, wow,
no one is paying for their own self. And that just kind of fills you up. And the
n you get your check. And the check clearly explains,
that look these were the costs. But really what is such a meal worth? We're not
going to give you
a suggested donation price, because we don't know
what it's worth to you. Only you know. Right? And when you trust them, in such a
way,
it again evokes a very different feeling. So you put all of these things togethe
r. And in between, you might have had
somebody sing a happy birthday song. You might have had your server come in,
and they're a volunteer. So they're just connecting with you. And they might tel
l you a story,
that might move you. Or they might leave you
something on your table. Or a guest might have come in, and
they would bring a bouquet of flowers. This happens a lot. Right?
They would bring a bouquet of flowers, and we would say, well, this is for
Karma Kitchen volunteers, they would just give it to us. And we would say well,
Karma Kitchen is everybody's, so let's open up the bouquet, and
let's give it to random guests. Right? And so when you get it it's not
like a promotional material, that you're trying to spin something. Literally,it'
s like someone
who came before you, their cup of gratitude overflowed, they brought in these fl
owers, they gave

it to us, and we're just distributing it. And you're welcome to then pay it forw
ard,
and spread the ripple of love in the world. And this is unrelated to your
whole meal all together. So when you have that kind of thing, or
someone singing happy birthday, and then someone says, oh I can sing it in Spani
sh,
and someone's like I can sing it in Tamil. It just creates this whole ambiance,
and you're just like wow, this is real. Right? A part of you just clicks. And if
you can create
such a strong context, then I think this generosity,
as reframing, is very regenerative. Right? It's not like,
if I have to sell you Coca-Cola, you're going to get tired of drinking it. So I
have to keep on advertising, and
bringing all these different actors and actresses in front of you, to tell you w
ait a second,
it's cool to keep on going on. Right? Versus, like,
this thing is supported by nature. Like there's no one trying
to spin anything but it's just that inevitably you have
a propensity towards a greater connection and that propensity
is what is going to propel. You're going to receive a generous act and
you're going to pay it forward because your cup of gratitude is
going to to overflow. How people pay it forward,
how much they pay it forward, that's going to be very dependent on so
many different factors. Our thinking was in aggregate,
it would work out, and it has. What you said is very legitimate. Right?
It's that how will I respond to this? Will I respond with gratitude? All right i
t's like wow,
someone before me did this and I have a chance to pay it forward? And there is a
gratitude
that emerges in many people. But, like you said,
there's also a sense of guilt. A lot of people will say, oh wait
a second, yeah I kind of, yeah all right, I kind of should and I'm going to go a
nd
okay fine you know I'll do that. Or it can even be more complex than
that because, if you're in a peer group then it's like okay if everyone is leavi
ng
at 20 I don't want to leave at ten. And then you know and then it can
create that kind of setting, right? But I think that if you look
at the whole supply chain, if you want to call it that, right. [LAUGH] If you lo
ok at the whole
process of what actually happens, our purpose is not to tell you
whether you go in gratitude or guilt. But, our purpose is actually to
help you just ask the question, which is one step before that. Is that we actual
ly want to confuse
you with that very question. Cause if we're out there to get money,
there's so many different ways to do that. You can even start to benchmark
it at a certain price. You can say but
we don't even have a suggested price. The reason why we don't have a suggested
price is because we want people to ask this question. Which is that if something
is
offered to you without a price, how much is its value? Which is to say, what is
something
worth without a price tag? And we have to have,
you cannot turn everything into a market. You can have a market economy, but rea
lly it's not a good
idea to have a market society. Society has to have things
that don't have a price tag. And so here we are sensitizing people. To learn to
navigate their own terrain. Whatever's in them is
going to come out right? And which is to say is it going to be
positive or is it going to be negative? Or how do I handle it with other people?

How do I process a whole community
that's behaving in this way, right? How do I process receiving
from volunteers? In our house, we run these awaken circles,
which now run all over the world as well, but 17 years ago my parents and
I, actually my mom, another friend, and I, we sat down and
we said we're going to sit in silence for an hour and
we're going to open up the door. If anyone else wants to come,
they can come in. And second hour, we would have dinner in
silence, because my mom was thinking, you know this was 17 years ago,
she's like I gotta feed you Nippon So, anyone else who comes, I'll feed them too
. And then in the third hour, sorry,
in the second hour we would do a circle of sharing and in the third hour,
my mom would feed everyone. And over the years,
tens of thousands of people have come. And, forget it, there's no price,
there's no donation box. And you would be surprised, Raj,
a lot people would come in not a lot, but there are people who,
I met this one particular guy, met him in a different city
in southern California. And he was like, man, what your parents
are doing is amazing, and he kind of knows that there's like 65 people that come
every week, and that's our limit, and there's like wait list, and
everyone feels elated and all this. But he's, so I said oh, you go? I travel so
sometimes I can't make it,
I thought maybe I haven't seen him. And he's like yeah, I've been there once. An
d I was very confused. I was like,
wow if you're raving about this, how come you've just gone once, right? And he s
aid, I couldn't go a second time. And I said, well, what do you mean? It's open.
Anyone can go. You just have to RSVP. And he's like, yeah, but,
there was no donation box. And I was just uncomfortable having
a meal without paying for it. Right. And what is that, right? As a culture,
what is that kind of a response to say I don't want to take anything from somebo
dy,
because I haven't paid them back? You're so
entrenched in the transaction mindset that you feel like you
need to pay everyone back. That you feel, and
that's a very arrogant position to be in. That you feel that you have
the capacity to pay everyone back. Because if you break it down,
think of our moms. How in the world are we going to pay back nine months of a gi
ft
that starts our life? But that was asked at one point. Someone says, talking abo
ut parents. Buddha says you can have
your mom on one shoulder and dad on the other should and
you can, ever since you were born. Well hypothetically speaking you take
care of every single one of their desires till they die. You would still be unab
le
to fulfill their debt. And this is the Buddha talking about this. So it's we are
to think
that we can pay back for everything, is sort of
a mentality that we have created. But how can we start to
undo some of that and realize that, look,
our life start with a gift. And then it incumbent on us,
since we can't pay back, what can we do? We can learn the art of receiving it, a
nd
once we learn the art of receiving it, a part of that process is to allow your
gratitude to overflow and pay it forward. >> Thanks for
watching my interview with Nippon. I hope that you found it useful, and
I also hope that it helped you gain greater clarity on many of the concepts
that we discussed this week. With that, let me say à  vjo to you,
which is bye bye in Gujarati for now. Please don't forget to watch the next
video in which we're going to be measuring your happiness levels for
the second time in this course. [MUSIC]

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