Karan Bajaj: The Purpose Driven Life

On this week’s podcast, New York Times Best-selling author and striving Yogi, Karan Bajaj, shares how sabbaticals, vipassana meditation, and living in his dharma has helped him create more power, clarity, and purpose in his life and for millions of readers. The Purpose Driven Life The sad reality is that only one out of every three Americans are now reported to be very happy. It's no surprise that on the wrong road, we can find ourselves feeling disconnected from our passion, discontent with where we are, and craving a shift towards a more purpose driven life. In our journey, we may do many things to find purpose again including changing jobs or in finding temporary satisfactions through "weapons of mass distractions," like alcohol, food, and even the wrong relationships. To find a purpose driven life however, Karan plants the seed of thought that what we may need to do is simply create the time to focus on what we truly desire through yoga, meditation, and sabbaticals. To be able to feel more content with yourself and where you are in life, Karan guides us to the focus of stripping away your emotional materialism. How to Strip Yourself of Emotional Materialism Emotional materialism is defined by Karan as “constantly wanting to become something or someone better.” A person who focuses on emotional materialism is someone who is incessantly looking for growth within jobs, social circles, and experiences in order to become “someone better,” all without ever feeling good about where they are. They believe that once they have become that "better person" or achieved something bigger, only then will they be truly happy.  This however is the exact opposite of how to become content with who we truly are. After we strip ourselves of emotional materialism, we become more selfless. After we become more selfless, we can see ourselves as the best medium for carrying out our work; the magic of contentment is that it doesn’t even matter if that work fails. To a Yogi, the most important thing is that they are a vessel that carries out their work. But how do we begin this process of changing our mindset and not focus on becoming something else, but on who we are right now? How can we truly strip ourselves of emotional materialism and become selfless? Karan suggests three powerful steps: Learn, Reflect, and Meditate. To be content, you must do all three consistently over time. In order to al