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Stanford PhD: The Instant Spiritual Awakening That Healed Her Trauma (Science Can’t Explain) & How Humanity Wakes Up | Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati - Mayim Bialik's Breakdown | Wave AI Podcast Notes

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Stanford PhD: The Instant Spiritual Awakening That Healed Her Trauma (Science Can’t Explain) & How Humanity Wakes Up | Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati

Mayim Bialik's Breakdown

Tue Feb 24 2026

Summary

Mayim Bialik’s Breakdown
Ep: Stanford PhD: The Instant Spiritual Awakening That Healed Her Trauma (Science Can’t Explain) & How Humanity Wakes Up | Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati
Date: February 24, 2026

Episode Overview

In this episode, Mayim Bialik sits down with Sadhvi Bhagawati Saraswati, a Stanford-educated psychologist turned global spiritual leader, to explore the extraordinary story of Sadhvi’s instantaneous spiritual awakening. Their conversation covers the science-defying moment on the banks of India’s Ganges River that transformed Sadhvi’s trauma and mental health, her decision to renounce her old life, and the implications of “grace” for anyone seeking healing. Together, they unpack the intersections of mental health, neuroscience, and deep spiritual experience, offering listeners a candid look at personal transformation that transcends clinical explanation.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Backstory: Trauma, Science, and Seeking

Mayim introduces Sadhvi’s background as an American, Stanford PhD, and psychology scholar:
“You're trained as a scientist that fundamentally defies all of the laws of science that we've been taught to believe in.” (00:20)
Sadhvi describes a life marked by bulimia, depression, and trauma rooted in childhood sexual abuse and abandonment. She traveled to India with her then-husband, who was on a spiritual quest, despite her skepticism and lack of religious interest. (05:29)

2. The Awakening: On the Banks of the Ganga

Sadhvi describes the moment of spiritual transformation:
“I get down to this river and suddenly I'm gifted with the presence of the divine. A merging and melting of light, of energy, of presence. I realized I am not separate from this divinity. Suddenly the God sized hole had been filled with God.” (00:00)
She reflects that this was a result of keeping her heart open, as promised in a vow on the plane to India, and emphasizes that “grace does not discriminate” (08:11).
Memorable Moment: When asked to explain the experience:
“It was one of those like, ah, you think we are separate things? We are not separate things. We are all one thing. And it is all divinity. … For several days all I could say was, oh my God, it's so beautiful.” (20:39)

3. Transformation of Trauma and Habit

Immediate, profound healing: Sadhvi’s experience eliminated her eating disorder and abandonment issues instantaneously and permanently.
- “I thought, there is no way that I actually have just become free. All of the neurosis, bulimia, depression, the anxiety around this abuse… I spent the first several months trying to retrigger myself.” (01:02; 58:25)
On what it felt like to lose those 'holes' inside:
“In that moment, after this incredible experience on the banks of the Ganga river, that experience of awakening, of transformation, suddenly there were no more holes. The God sized hole had been filled with God… In place of holes was an experience of actually being whole. W H O L E whole...I had become, as you said, much more normal. That had been healed in me.” (33:07)

4. Science vs. Spirituality: Reconciling Worldviews

Mayim frames the challenge for a scientist experiencing the inexplicable:
"You're trained as a scientist...When you say became, like the word became is like a process...You were struck healthy, like you were struck serene. And it stayed.” (33:50)
Sadhvi draws on Hindu and Buddhist analogies:
“When I had that experience...it blew apart my identification...you are none of that. You are inseparable from this pervasive presence of the divine.” (42:18)
Discusses the Vedantic “rope and snake” analogy to explain how a revelation changes the very nature of perception:
“That thing on the floor no longer has the ability to make you afraid…your entire relationship to it has changed forever.” (34:44)

5. Relationship Fallout and Dharma

The effect on her marriage:
- Sadhvi’s husband reacts first with joy, then with distress and resentment when he realizes the change is permanent and not shared:
  “First he thought it was really beautiful. Yes. He had brought me to India…Cut to day three…he didn't realize the permanence or the fullness.” (26:13)
- The experience removes her codependent need for him:
  “When I had that experience, it transformed how I understood myself… I needed to be sure that I was never abandoned…as a child that abandonment had been so traumatic…And so up until that moment, abandonment had been terrifying to me.” (29:58)
Turning Point: She chooses to stay at the ashram rather than follow her husband into the mountains—her first radical assertion of independence:
- “I think that was the first indication that something much more permanent had happened, something much more impactful on not just my life, but our collective lives had happened.” (28:48)
On facing his attempts to undermine her awakening:
“He says it, so you believe it. He said, that's it. He says it, you believe it. … it was the very first time that it had ever occurred to me there was an alternative, that he actually could say something and I might not believe it.” (58:06)

6. Meeting the Guru and Embracing Ashram Life

Sadhvi describes meeting her guru, Swamiji, through a series of mystical, almost comic events:
- Hearing a voice, experiencing literally not being able to walk out of the ashram until she accepted her place there:
  “I walk back in [to Swamiji’s room] and say, I think I'm supposed to stay now. And he says, welcome.” (76:08)
- “It was a love that just pervaded. It was like I had stepped into an ocean and y' all get wet. And everybody who walks into the ocean, you know, gets wet. Not by any merit of their own, but because the ocean is wet.” (70:00)

7. Spiritual Experiences and Science: A New Paradigm

Bridging the gap: Sadhvi talks about the evolving overlap between quantum science and spirituality but stresses their fundamental differences:
“Science is great for everything that can fit in a beaker or be seen with a telescope or microscope. And there is an entire scope of existence out there, including something as basic as love that you cannot measure, but that no one doubts exists.” (76:17)
On Grace and Liberation: The path is “not just to manage our lives, but to be free… all of this suffering is because of false identification.” (42:18)
Discussion of “dharma” as a universal and individual purpose:
- “There is an intelligence in nature… when we are not living our highest truth, there is suffering. So I think that the purpose is twofold. I think the purpose was on the individual level of let me find my purpose. But I also hope that the bigger picture was through that, that my purpose, my dharma, was not just I should stop suffering, not just I should overcome my identification as a survivor of abuse and abandonment… but that actually, through that experience, I should help others.” (80:02)

Notable Quotes & Moments (with Timestamps)

On Spiritual Grace:
“Grace does not discriminate. All it did was open me to be able to have that experience.”
– Sadhvi, (08:11)
On Healing Trauma Instantly:
“Suddenly the God sized hole had been filled with God.”
– Sadhvi, (00:00)
On Scientific Skepticism:
“The only people who heard voices were schizophrenics and Joan of Arc. And I was certainly not Joan of Arc and certainly hoped I was not schizophrenic.”
– Sadhvi, (65:13)
On Attachment and Wholeness:
“I had become, as you said, much more normal. That had been healed in me. It was a matter of, oh, he's just going to go off into the mountains. I'll stay here...It’s all perfect.”
– Sadhvi, (33:07)
On Liberation vs. Management:
“It's a place I think many of us are at, where we use, whether it's the local pharmacy, whatever it may be, but we use something external or our minds or a way of setting up our lives or our relationships to manage our lives, to turn the unmanageable manageable. But… there's a possibility far beyond management… the stage where you are free.”
– Sadhvi, (42:18)

Structural Timeline (Key Timestamps)

00:00-01:41: Sadhvi describes her awakening and transformation
04:17-08:11: Mayim introduces Sadhvi’s story arc and the premise of her spiritual leap
20:04-20:39: Sadhvi explains what the divine experience felt like
26:13-33:07: Conversation on the impact on her marriage and healing of abandonment issues
33:50-42:18: The scientific mind confronting inexplicable healing, Vedanta teachings
46:08-55:34: Encountering her guru, separation from her husband, and relationship outcomes
58:25-63:57: Describes the end of bulimia and trauma patterns, and learning to trust her experience
65:13-76:08: Meeting Swamiji and the mystical obstacle of not being able to leave the ashram
80:02-85:14: Dharma, the intelligence of nature, and serving others through awakening

Tone & Language

The tone is intimate and candid, blending vulnerability, humor, and deep philosophical inquiry. Mayim balances her neuroscience background with open curiosity and warmth, while Sadhvi is contemplative, precise, and shares profound vulnerability.

Conclusion

This episode is a testament to the possibility of deep healing and transformation beyond conventional psychology and medical intervention. It poses vital questions about human suffering, healing, identity, and the intersection of science and spiritual traditions. Sadhvi’s story, grounded in both scholarly insight and the lived, embodied reality of spiritual grace, invites listeners to consider that true wholeness—and liberation from trauma—may lie in places that science cannot yet fully map.

For the continuation of this engrossing story—including how humanity, on a larger scale, might “wake up” and what holds us back from deeper spiritual connection—tune in for Part 2.

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Transcript

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (0:00)

I get down to this river and suddenly I'm gifted with the presence of the divine. A merging and melting of light, of energy, of presence. I realized I am not separate from this divinity. Suddenly the God sized hole had been filled with God.

Mayim Bialik (0:20)

There are certain kinds of spiritual awakenings that can do instantaneously what many of us spend our entire lives trying to conquer. And he Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati is a global spiritual leader. She is an American born graduate of Stanford University. She's got a PhD in psychology. She left behind her life and had an experience in the Ganga river that changed the course of her marriage, her career, her trauma and her entire story. You're trained as a scientist that fundamentally defies all of the laws of science that we've been taught to believe in.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (1:02)

I thought there is no way that I actually have just become free. All of the neurosis, bulimia, depression, the anxiety around this abuse. I spent the first several months trying to retrigger myself. People are looking for spirituality. There is violence, there's war, there's oppression, there's division and fear and destruction. Destruction of our environment. Standing between us and a spiritual awakening is not what we don't have, but what we're holding onto.

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Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (8:11)

What happened, Grace happened really at that moment and now 30 years later, and at every moment between then and now, I've been completely sure that actually that which happened was. There was an opening in me that I was not even aware of, but that the vow I took on the airplane to India, that I was going to keep my heart open, somehow created in me, in the universe, in the connection between me and the universe, a place into which grace flowed. I believe deeply and one of, for me, the Deepest and corest messages of my book is grace does not discriminate. So I don't believe it brought grace or created grace or anything like that. All it did was open me to be able to have that experience. Because as you know from reading it, I was not a religious person. I was not even someone who identified as spiritual. I was a scientist, I was an academic. I wasn't consciously looking for a spiritual experience. But on that airplane to India, on what I thought was just a three month break in my PhD program, I took that vow that I would keep my heart open. And in that vow it made me, I think, willing to see, feel, accept, acknowledge, sit with really the truth of our existence. That experience that I had of being in the presence of the divine is an experience of truth. If you look throughout history at the stories and descriptions of mystics, of yogis, of different religious people, different spiritual people from all of the different religions, that's the central piece is a pervasiveness of an accessibility of the presence of divinity. And whether it's bowing to a tree, whether it's in a place of worship, whether it's any one of, you know, hundreds of different experiences, it's always that experience of this pervasive presence and by some incredible grace I tapped into it. But it is really important to me that the experience was an experience of truth. That it's not like, oh, this was just my experience and it was unique to just me and my journey. But I was granted a window into a truth that has been accessed by countless people of countless traditions and paths for as long as we've got recorded history. But for me, it happened on the banks of the Ganges river in Rishikesh, India, the very first place that we went.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (20:39)

Suddenly background foreground split, so background stayed. River foreground became this visual experience, but something that touched me on levels so far beyond my eyes and optic nerve and visual centers of the brain, of a presence of divinity, a merging and melting of light, of energy, of presence of existence. It was almost like the molecules of existence in the background. I could still see them as separate things, but in the foreground it was one of those like ah, you think we are separate things? We are not separate things. We are all one thing. And it is all divinity. And it just, it merged together. And I turned my head and the background would change. Now I'm looking at marble steps. Now I'm looking at a telephone pole. Now I'm looking at a family, kids, a tree. Background would change but that foreground stayed the same. Of this melting, merging existence of oneness in energy and light, in presence that was almost like one of those optical illusion things of do you only see the form or can you see the merging of existence? I then at some point turned that vision inward. I do not know what inspired me to do that, but I am so glad I did because I turned that vision inward. And for the first time in 25 years I realized, oh my God, I am not separate from this divinity. I'm not bad, wrong, tainted, dirty, dark, stupid, worthless. All of the things that regardless of how much we succeed externally, so many of us carry inside. And I certainly did. I'm none of those things. I'm one with this divine presence, inseparable from it. And it knocked me to the ground in tears of truth, of coming home. Yeah. And I knew. I knew that's where I was meant to be. I didn't know specifically where, doing what, why. But it didn't matter. For many, many, many, many days the entire rational intellectual part of my brain had gone silent. I was rendered pretty much non verbal. For several days all I could say was, oh my God, it's so beautiful. Oh my God, it's so beautiful. Oh my God, it's so beautiful.

Mayim Bialik (40:07)

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Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (42:18)

Absolutely. And this is why for me, coming from a science background, it's been such a fascinating and exciting journey. Because although in that moment everything that I thought I knew was wiped away because the experience that I had had defied everything that I thought I knew over the years. What's been really interesting as science has developed is to start to see so much of a very interesting overlap now with quantum science and how much it's beginning to overlap with actually what spirituality tells us because you listed a whole bunch of fields that did not have the ability to fix me. They got me to the place where I could manage my life. And that was exactly where I was when I went to India, where. And it's a place I think many of us are at, where we use, whether it's the local pharmacy, whatever it may be, but we use something external or our minds or a way of setting up our lives or our relationships to manage our lives, to turn the unmanageable. Manageable. But we've got. And I know I certainly had a death grip on that management. So you're moving through the world with a death grip on life and everything has to be just so because hey, this is what you need in order to be able to manage it. And I had gotten to that place where I was managing you're white knuckling life. Exactly, exactly. I was managing my food in my meals and my relationships and my school. I was taking 21 units a quarter and getting A's and managing all of that. But no one ever said, hey, you can be free. Like this is not the highest goal. It's certainly better to manage your life than not manage it. But there is a stage, a possibility far beyond management. But all of the different schools of science that you listed can help us manage our life. But where spirituality comes in is it says, follow this path and you will actually be free. Because all of this suffering is because of false identification. I mean, this is kind of core Buddhism and I am most definitely not a Buddhist scholar or expert my in the Hindu Vedic tradition. But there's a lot of overlap. The Buddha of course, was born a Hindu. And the, the core teaching around life is suffering. Why? Because of our false identification and the attachment with that identification. When I had that experience on the banks of the river, it blew apart my identification. I had walked down to the river with a whole host of identities. This is who I am. On a physical level, on a history level, on a personality level, on a neurosis level, on a success and achievement level, on a relational level. And in that moment, it wiped it all away. You are none of that. You are inseparable from this pervasive presence of the divine. And when that got wiped away, what are you gonna grab onto? There's nothing to be attached to. Because the very things I was attached to no longer were me.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (46:27)

He says to me one day, early days, he picks up a pen and he says to me, you are not this pen. And yeah, I laughed like I'm a PhD student. I mean, there's a lot in the world I don't know, but I do know that I'm not the pen. And he looks at me quite seriously and he says, you laugh because you know you're not the pen, but you still identify as that physical body, as the history, as where it's come from, as what's happened to it. Even though I was no longer suffering, there was still a sense it had come back. After those first few days of just melting and merging into the energy of existence, a sense of me had reformed. And he said, you still identify as that. And he said, there will come a time when you will laugh in the same way when I tell you you are not that body, you are not that history, as you do when I now tell you you're not the pen. And that's the. The core teaching of the spiritual philosophy. You know, one of the most core mantras, prayers that we chant says, oh, God, or divine source, cosmic intelligence, lead us from the darkness of ignorance and illusion, the falsehood of thinking that we are this physical body that is born, that changes, that dies. And in that darkness of ignorance and falsehood, we suffer, and we bring suffering to others. Lead us from that to the light of truth in which we re remember that we are that which is never born and never dies. And I know that sounds really far out and kind of hard to grasp a way of thinking about it is, even just in this life, if you go back to the first moment that you can remember saying, I, me or mine. Most of us were around two. It's why we say terrible twos, is it's when we start, the ego starts to have that sense of me, my I. It's also when we learn no and we learn, you know, the difference. I am this autonomous, being separate. Then you fast forward to kind of your teenage years, and you think about sometime during your teenage years when you identified I, me, mine. What did that mean to you? Where were you? Fast forward to a moment in your 20s and you can go decade by decade coming back to, what did I, me, mine mean to you at that time? Who was I? Who was me? What was mine? And you can go through all the decades of your life and what you realize is what I understood as I, me, mine has changed dramatically from the time I was 2 or 3, then 11, 12, up till 54. It's changed dramatically. But the idea, the inner felt sense of I has stayed constant. There's never been a break in it. I'm just as able to go back and feel I, me, mine, even though it meant something totally different. That consistency, that thread that weaves through all the changes of the body, of the roles of the relationships, that's that sense of I. But we believe that it isn't just in one incarnation, in one changing body, but that it actually stays life after life.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (58:25)

Well, you know, when you said how difficult it would be for you to digest if this had happened to you, it was like that for me. After I had that first experience and then after Swamiji sent me into the river to give up all of the anger and all of the pain that I had about the childhood sexual abuse, about the abandonment, and to really forgive after that, I thought, there is no way that what just happened just happened. And I did something that maybe you will be one of the few people to whom this doesn't sound crazy, which is. I looked for it. I thought, there is no way that I actually have just become free of all of the neurosis, all of the bulimia, all of the depression, all of the anxiety around this abuse, around this abandonment. It must still be there somewhere. And I spent, I spent the first several months trying to re trigger myself because the bulimia went away immediately. I literally. And I was someone who. I know you've read the book, but listeners have not probably. I was not a weekend bulimic. It was not, oh, I ate too much at a party on Friday night or Wednesday night. I'm going to throw it up so that I don't gain weight. I was in and out of hospitals with tubes and IVs because I was throwing up 20 times a day. I was super, super sick. My doctor had said, this is going to kill you, literally. So this, it was not a joke. I was not a half hearted bulimic. And it disappeared. I went from being someone who, as I said, was managing white knuckling meals, food I was physically getting okay, but mentally still completely wrapped up with it. I went from that to sitting in a row on the floor cross legged with young beautiful boys, studying the Vedas, chanting and singing and clapping as our food is served to us out of metal buckets with big ladles that you have no idea what it is until it lands on your plate. And the rule is you have to finish everything on your plate. I had never had a rule like that. My mother was anorexic and so we did not have a clean plate club in the house. And the idea of you must eat what's on your plate was brand new to me. And yet I had no problem with it. Sat in this row with these beautiful people clapping, singing, food is dumped on my plate. I'm eating whatever is served. And it literally went away. So fast forwarding back, was he able to tap into that? He was able to tap into the. The pattern of thought that said, I must be wrong. I am the broken one. And I was actually on such a weird level, so glad to have him now finally explain that what I thought had happened hadn't happened. So I bring it in to Swamiji and I say, he has now explained to me why this was not really a spiritual experience and I have wasted your time and I need to leave from here and go to meet him. And Swamiji looks at me and he says, he says it, so you believe it. He said, that's it. He says it, you believe it. And it was the very first time that it had ever occurred to me there was an alternative, that he actually could say something and I might not believe it, that he actually might not be the authority or expert on my life or my experiences, but I had never actually thought about that. And so Swamiji says, months of deep, powerful, real experiences of God and one bitter husband is going to make you doubt all of that. I exhaled and laughed and realized, of course, how I had gotten caught up in the illusion, in the drama, in the story, in the ease of giving away my power to someone who was all too happy to be the expert of me. Also.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (65:13)

Yeah, we've jumped all around the plot, which is actually fun and beautiful because the journey, although it has a plot, is so much more than the plot. So it's fun to jump around. But yes. So on a plot sequence, I come to Rishikesh, have this incredible experience of transformation and awakening on the banks of the Ganga. First day that we got there, about a week later, I finally met Swamiji, who would become my guru. For the first week, I was going down. We were staying in a hotel and I was going down to the river every day, having these incredible experiences. During that week, I had walked through Parmarth Nikita as just a pathway to get back to the hotel we were staying in and had heard a voice, hence the reference, that said, you must stay here. And in my entire sphere of reference, the only people who heard voices were schizophrenics and Joan of Arc. And I was certainly not Joan of Arc and certainly hoped I was not schizophrenic. And so I ignored it and I kept walking and I heard it again, And I looked around me and there was no one. And it did not sound like an inner voice. It sounded to me like someone from outside had spoken. And I look around and no one. And I was just about to ignore it for the second time when I remembered the vow I had taken on the airplane to keep my heart open. And the other side of the vow was if I couldn't keep my heart open that I was going to go back to California, that even though I had not registered for this semester of my PhD program, I could still easily start to get practicum units. I could start to put together my research and dissertation. There was a lot of work I could do that was meaningful. And so I had created this situation by this vow in which either I had to keep my heart open or I had to get back to Delhi and get on a flight to San Francisco. Because I've always been very tough with myself, especially around truth. And I don't let myself off the hook around truth. And so there was no way that I was going to pretend I hadn't taken the vow, pretend that I forgot about the vow, pretend that I hadn't heard the voice. And so when I heard it the second time and remembered the vow, I thought, all right, well, I don't want to go back to America. And I looked up and I saw a sign that said office. And I went in and said, I want to stay. I obviously did not tell them I've heard a voice. And they said that I needed to meet the president. Parmarth Nikathon now is one of the largest interfaith, international religious centers of India. We have a thousand rooms. We are, you know, the place that when King Charles, then Prince Charles, lands in India, that he comes to first with Camilla. It's. It's a very, very internationally renowned place, but it's very traditional. And 30 years ago, it was super traditional. It was founded in 1942, and it's a very old traditional lineage. And at that time, you could not be a random foreign girl who just, I mean, walks in and says, hey, I want a room like a white girl from America. Exactly, Exactly. So you needed permission, and nobody there was going to grant me permission. And they said I needed permission from the president, and he was currently out. And so I said, well, when is he coming back? And they said, maybe tomorrow. Which, not knowing Indian culture the way that I now do could be two months. Now I know that. Now I know that. Now I know that. It really meant. I actually don't have any idea, but I'm gonna say something that sounds good and hopefully you'll be happy hearing it and then you'll go away. I actually thought it meant maybe tomorrow.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (70:00)

Well, you guys are gonna fit in perfectly in India then. So I Came back the next day and I said, is he back? And they said, maybe tomorrow. And this went on for many days. And finally he came. And in my mind I had pictured President, a guy in a suit and tie with a briefcase who was going to judge my exactly the merits of my worthiness in some way, right? And it had never occurred to me that he was this incredible spiritual master. And so when I get brought in to see him, expecting to see a man in a tie at a desk, and instead I see this saffron robe, clad, extraordinary being of light, sitting on the floor at the front of a room surrounded by lots and lots and lots of people, it was most definitely not the scene I had been expecting. And immediately though, I felt this incredible presence of love. But of love that was not centered. It was not the oh, I saw you across a crowded room type of love. It was a love that just pervaded. It was like I had stepped into an ocean and y' all get wet. And everybody who walks into the ocean, you know, gets wet. Not by any merit of their own, but because the ocean is wet. And I walked in and I could just feel this presence of love. And finally we get to go up and meet him and I explain that I want to stay. I also don't tell him I've heard a voice and he says, welcome home. He says, I am going to be here for the next week and then I'm going to be leaving to go out of town again. But he said, don't worry, I'll tell them to give you a room. You're always welcome. This is home. And I walk out still thinking I was going to go off to the mountains with my husband. And I get right into the middle of the ashram where we have this hand pump that's the central pathway of the ashram. And I'm just about to turn to go out toward the hotel and my feet literally get stuck to the ground of the ashram. And I look down and I feel like I've stepped in crazy glue or quicksand or chewing gum or something and there's nothing. And I'm barefoot, so I would feel it if there were. Nothing is there. But I can't pick up my feet. And I then think, oh my God, I've contracted some awful disease. Like one of those vaccinations I got didn't work and I've got polio or I've got tetanus or I've got some awful disease. And then I realized, eh, diseases probably don't come on like this, I had no pain. It wasn't that I had lost feeling. I just couldn't pick them up. And I then think, all right, maybe they've just fallen asleep. I was sitting on the ground. I'm not used to sitting on the ground.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (76:17)

But for those of us who have been over educated, it's our default mechanism. I'm going to figure this out. There must be a rational, scientific explanation to this, because if not, it doesn't exist. We live within the confines of if it can be measured, if it's got a size, a weight, an area, a volume, if you can see it under a microscope or in a telescope, if you can cook it in a crucible on a Bunsen burner, it exists. And if not, then it doesn't. So my intellectual, educated brain was trying to sort this thing out rather than just surrender to it. Which, of course, is what spirituality teaches us, is science is great for everything that can fit in a beaker or be seen with a telescope or microscope. And there is an entire scope of existence out there, including something as basic as love that you cannot measure, but that no one doubts exists. And what spirituality helps us learn, and what it took me a while to learn is these are the moments where you just surrender, because there is no figuring it out. The mind cannot work beyond the mind. And if you're having an experience of heart, of spirit, of soul, the mind cannot do it. The mind only can function in something that is separate from it. If you can hold something at an arm's length, a checkbook, a balance sheet, a map, a list of pros and cons, another human being who I'm going to objectify on the basis of looks or gender or what they're wearing, mind can do that, but the mind cannot do self. And those are moments where it requires surrender. So still in my brain at that moment, I realize, okay, well, so the only possible explanation remaining is that I'm supposed to walk forward, back in the direction I just came from. And of course, I could easily. So I walk back into Swamiji's room, and all of, you know, maybe five, six minutes have passed since I walked out, telling him that we were gonna go off to the mountains and I would come when we got back, even though he wasn't going to be there. And I walk back in and say, I think I'm supposed to stay now. And he says, welcome. So that's the chronology of it.

Sadvi Bhagawati Saraswati (81:32)

No, it's a sign. It's a signal. There is a. I'm not saying that, you know, in the cerebral cortex of the seed, it makes a decision. But there is an intelligence through which it all operates. And in some species, it's going to arise as just a chemical signal. Maybe it's a sign. Maybe. Who knows? I have no idea how the caterpillar knows. When to get up off the ground and climb the tree. But it knows. And that is the same divine intelligence that I think of as that which gave me the voice that said, you must stay here. The experience of not being able to walk out of the ashram. All of these experiences were to push me toward walking my Dharma, my purpose. And we all come onto Earth with dharma with a purpose. And those purposes on what you could consider universal. Dharma is all the same. Every single one of us is here with the highest purpose. Being to realize experientially the truth of who we are. To wake up out of the illusion, out of the narrative, out of the story of my drama, my history, my body, my relationships, my bank account, into the truth of soul, spirit, consciousness, whatever word we use. But then we all also have individual dharmas. And this is where you have so many situations where parents or teachers or culture tries to make musicians be business people. And no matter what a good business person they may be, they are miserable. Or I see it so frequently in Indian families, tries to, you know, turn so many people into doctors or engineers who want to be artists or want to be musicians or want to be kindergarten teachers or gardeners or whatever. When we are not living our highest truth, there is suffering. So I think that the purpose is twofold. I think the purpose was on the individual level of let me find my purpose. But I also hope that the bigger picture was through that, that my purpose, my dharma, was not just I should stop suffering, not just I should overcome my identification as a survivor of abuse and abandonment, as someone who was depressed and addicted to, but that actually, through that experience, I should help others. And that's been the exquisiteness and the incredible joy of going from someone who just had her own healing to actually being able to be someone who shares and who offers and who can teach tools and techniques and ways of coming into presence that enable others to be healed. Because my journey, my dharma, was to go literally from Hollywood to the Himalayas. But you don't have to take that journey.