Kute Blackson: From India to Inner Peace, When Relationships Become Yoga, & Unlocking Destiny With Surrender

Krati: Once again, thank you so much for being here. I am super excited. People do respond a lot more to the deeper wisdom that you share, but I have to ask, when you started doing this, because you’ve been at this for a while now, in fact, you’ve been doing a version of this your whole life. So I have to ask, when you started identifying yourself as this person who is helping people live a better life to who you are today, anything changed within you, anything you realised about humanity that changed how you approached your life and the world?

Kute: I think it made me more compassionate to people. And it made me more compassionate to the process of what it is to be human. And it made me have compassion to people because I started to see that when you meet someone on the surface and how they look and how they talk and their personality, many people have gone through so much in childhood and gone through so much with their parents and have gone through so many experiences that you will never see or understand just by looking at them. The most beautiful person, the supermodel, the billionaire, you know, we’ve all as humans been through so much. And what I began to feel and see was how resilient we are as human beings, how truly resilient we are. And my respect for the human spirit began to grow. It’s like we are these flowers that blossom and then experiences like childhood abuse, trauma, pain, hurt, abandonment, fear, divorce, just like a cement block, you know, just falls on top of us. And you would think that the flower just stops growing. But the truth is, in many ways, this flower finds its way to just grow. And so here we are as these human beings that have found their way to emerge through the traumas and the pain and the difficulties and the heartbreak.

We’re all doing the best that we know how to do, you know, based on experiences that we’ve gone through. And some of us have been through so much that we shouldn’t be here. We shouldn’t be functioning.

So maybe before I really started working with people, I’d see people and I would judge them. This person’s a jerk. This person’s mean. This person and then when I started to really delve into people’s stories and like, whoa, that person has been beaten every day since they were five. And here they are in front of me. And even though they’re a bit challenging, they’re functioning. You know, wow, this person’s been raped and abused. And yet here they are reaching for the light. And so I just realised everyone is fighting a struggle that perhaps we don’t know about and doing the best that they can do. So I began to give people more, more grace, a bit more grace, you know, a bit more compassion, a bit more understanding, a bit more leeway, a bit more space. And so my respect for the human spirit, compassion definitely grew.

As I started working with people also, I realised that as a coach, as I started out as a coach, as a transformational agent, you cannot take people deeper than you have gone yourself. And so what that did was it really inspired me and forced me and challenged me to double my commitment to my own evolution. Because I realised if I was going to be able to help people at deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper levels, I have to be able to hold the space for people. And I can’t hold the space for someone if I haven’t worked through my own stuff.

I can’t hold the space for someone if I haven’t dealt with my own traumas, with my own insecurities, with my own inadequacies. Because how am I going to help someone that’s like, I’m feeling insecure if I’m insecure? How am I going to help someone if they’re like, I’m afraid of being abandoned, if I’m afraid of being abandoned? And so I saw that if I’m going to be truly effective, I have to really, really heal myself. And so my commitment to my healing just went to another level.

Krati: Yeah, that’s so beautiful. And I agree with you. I think most people will agree with you when you are witness to someone else’s pain, the immensity of it. I think it makes you very appreciative, first of all, of all that you have in your own life. And also it makes you understand that all the ugliness you see in the world, there’s a reason for it. But at the same time, I know that a lot of people struggle with this. I know I struggle with it sometimes. When we are out and about in the world, we carry a degree of optimism with us. When we get out of our homes, we are happy. We’re starting a new day. But then we witness some things.

Like very recently, I shared on the podcast about this incident that happened in a temple where people in India, if you’ve ever been to a temple, you know how crowded they can get. But temples are a place of worship. I go to temples not to meet God, but to be in that energy of belief and hope and adoration and all of that. But an incident happened there when people started pushing and shoving and I’m claustrophobic. But more than my own state, I was very concerned for a child who was yelling for help for his mom. But nobody was helping that kid. To me, it’s been a year since that incident happened. And I’m still very shocked that people were that indifferent to a little kid’s cries for help. So when incidents like that happen, I know it’s something that people struggle with. We want to believe we want to look for the best in everyone around us. We want to carry that optimism and keep it alive even when we’re going through dark periods. But it gets a little difficult when you witness a side of humanity that is so vicious. And we’ve been doing that for the past two, three years. That is what we’ve been seeing more of. At least if you focus on it, that’s what you see more of. How do we get through those moments without losing our own humanity, without like lead with compassion through those moments?

Kute: Hurt people will tend to hurt people and people that are traumatised will have a hard time, may not all, but may have a hard time in being compassionate and extending compassion. And those that are in trauma and scarcity will maybe not embrace and be considerate. And so in so many ways, look, in so many ways, as a humanity, I think we’re doing amazing.

Now people say, oh, humanity, there’s eight billion people on the planet. Eight billion people. And every single person has a childhood with pain, with trauma, with hurt, with their own version of it. And somehow eight billion people are interacting. To me, it’s amazing we’re not all blowing each other up. It’s amazing we’re not all just running around punching each other. It’s amazing that there’s not fights breaking out daily on the street because it’s not. And so life isn’t perfect. Humanity isn’t perfect. But when I look at what we have, like as humans, we go through stuff like that. Like that person that is acting out at the temple. I’m not saying it’s right, but you don’t know. You don’t know what he went through that doesn’t make it OK. You don’t know how much abuse that person’s father gave him every day to the point where maybe now he’s so numb and disconnected from his feelings that he can’t feel anybody and doesn’t give a shit about anyone, doesn’t care about anybody. We don’t know.

You know, that doesn’t make it OK. But like the fact that they can even function and even think to go to a temple after being so and not give up on God, after being so abandoned and abused as a child is in and of itself amazing. You know, and so whenever I see people acting out in ways that are like, oh, my God, what are they doing? I know that they’re hurt. I know that they’re in some pain and not that it’s right. But I can guarantee that if they’re in pain and they’re acting out, me reacting and sort of being in judgment of them and bashing them will definitely not resolve the cycle, the vicious cycle of abuse and pain. You know, and so we have to remember that people are fighting a battle that many of us will never know. And the truth is, if I was abused and beaten every day by my father and etc, etc. I may likely be acting in strange ways, you know, not that you can’t overcome that, not that that condones you, not that we shouldn’t endeavour to break the cycle. But I think when we can see through the eyes of compassion, when we can see that person that is being that jerk, you know, through the eyes of compassion, then we can start also contributing to the healing.

But we don’t contribute to the healing when someone is acting out and they were like, ah, that person. Now we’re sort of adding to the cycle. And so that’s one thing I would say, you know, to give humanity the benefit of the doubt.

And, you know, I remember a simple, I mean, this wasn’t like your experience, but I remember I was in Cambodia many, many years ago and I had a guide. And this guy was the meanest, harshest woman. I had like she was I’m not going to use the words I thought in my mind. OK, but she was one of those. And I thought, what a you know what? And I was in constant judgment of the whole toll that she’s giving me. And I was like going crazy. And then she took me to the the place where, you know, in Cambodia, there was genocide. She took me to the place where like tens of hundreds of thousands of Cambodians were like brought to die and massacre like a camp, you know. And and and she was telling me the story of the genocide, millions of Cambodians. And I said, well, how long ago did it happen? I think it was 30 years. And I realised she was probably around that age, you know. And I asked her, well, where were you? And she said, well, I was around eight years old and they came from my parents and they took my pet. They took me away from my parents and they made us march the children much up north. And they took my parents to this camp where they were supposed to be killed. And she started telling me the story. And I thought, oh, my God, can you like can I imagine an eight being taken from my parents? Being forced to change, to march up. And I thought and I mean, she went through much more horrific things as well. But I thought the fact that she can function. OK, she’s mean. OK, she’s a lot of things. But the fact that she can function and not want to just kill somebody. Yeah, it’s in and of itself a miracle. It’s a miracle.

And so. I veer on the side talk about optimism that we’re doing pretty damn well. We’re doing pretty good as a humanity, and it’s far from perfect, you know, and look I learned something when I was in India, I’ve been into it.

I’ve been to India 35 times. India is which part of India are you in?

Krati: I’m in North India, Punjab.

Kute: India is like my mother. India is like my home. You know, I would always joke and say I have a Ghanaian passport, but an Indian soul. And because for me, India, India gave me life. India gave me back to myself. India killed me and resurrected me. She was like the mother that birthed me to who I am, you know, and I have a relationship with India because for me, India is not just a geography. India is not just a place. India is not just the temples. India is a frequency. India is a vibration. India is a state of being. And for me, being in India, somehow when I would travel the first few days I was in India, I hated India because of the crowds and the craziness.

I’m like, there’s nothing freaking spiritual about this. Like there’s poor people everywhere. I’m in Delhi, right? And there’s rickshaws flying and everyone’s pushing me. I’m getting on the train like what’s holy? People are pushing me off the train. I’m like, get me out of this mad place. Right. That’s what I thought until India just broke me down. And when I relaxed and I let go, I allowed her to teach me. She began to show me behind the veil behind the physical veil of the India that you see with your physical eyes. And she began to show me the real India that is the invisible essence that you can’t see with the visible eyes, but is the teaching that she is. And it changed my life.

And one of the things I saw in India when I was in India, I was like, well, there shouldn’t be this craziness. Shouldn’t be this poverty. Shouldn’t be this. Shouldn’t be that. Shouldn’t be this. The temple shouldn’t be that way. You know, I went to the one of the temples. What’s it called? Balalji temple, I think.

Krati: Balaji Temple,

Kute: Yes. It’s one of the most crowded. Oh, my God. I was lined up from 5 a.m. and pushing and shouldn’t be this way. I was constantly shouldn’t be this way. Shouldn’t be this dirty. Should be like this. And what I understood in my time in India and India taught me this is that we live that there is no Utopia in the 3D world. We live in the world of relativity. We live in a three dimensional realm of duality. That this world is not the realm of infinite bliss, transcendental, you know, ecstasy, constant ecstasy.

This is the realm of duality. Up down plus interdependent polaric opposites. That is the nature of life. Up down, left, right, good, bad, positive, negative, light, dark, fat. You know, rich poor, you know, here I am in India by Ambani’s house. Next moment I’m looking at like the leper who has no money like this and Ambani’s house is like what’s going on. It’s the polarity of life.

Shouldn’t be this way, but it is. And so what I saw was this physical realm is not heaven. This physical realm is not. Perfect. It’s the realm of limitation and the realm of imperfection. And I couldn’t accept it. But as I began to accept it, because India just kept showing me and the more I resisted, the more I would suffer. The more I resisted, the more I suffered. The more I resisted, the more I suffered. Until I just gave up on like, OK, this is what it is. And so when you understand that we live in a world of interdependent polaric opposites, that’s the nature of life. Plus minus yin yang plus plus minus is the is the physics is the Dow. You know, it’s the Dow. Then it frees you up. To stop resisting this domain for what it is.

And to me, that’s the freedom to realise like, they’re not meant to be perfect human beings. There’s always going to be that you’re in the temple and someone is pushing you’re in. You know, it’s just the paradox of life. And I think the more you can accept that, then you stop seeking for perfection out here. There’s never going to be perfection out here. And what I saw in India was no perfection. But that doesn’t mean it’s not perfect. And then I saw the perfection that is India in the chaos and in the, you know, the cows roaming the streets and in the confusion of it all. And it was like, it’s perfect. You know, there’s a beauty. There’s a beauty that is not manicured. That is real. There’s a beauty that’s not like one, two, three, four, five, six. It’s just like this. And that there’s a beauty in that imperfection. If you step back and just look at it, you know, and so I stopped looking. We have to stop looking for that perfection in the world, that perfection from human beings. No human is perfect. No husband, wife is perfect. No personality is perfect. But then you will realise that the true dimension of heaven, of utopia, of bliss is within us. That transcendental nature of our being that is perfect. That’s at that level. We are all perfect. The play of the personality is not. But at that level, we are all perfect. This play of consciousness that is like not perfect. And so I think that doesn’t take away pain.

I think, the more we can embrace it as it is, there’s going to be people that steal my shoes at the temple. I went to the temple one day. I’m all like, oh, come on. My freaking Nikes are gone. What the hell? Like, you know, it’s like life.

You know, it’s just life. And then some Indian guy comes and says, it’s a blessing.

It’s a blessing from God. Your karma has been taken. I’m like, to hell with karma. I want my Nikes.

And then it’s like, OK, this is this is life. Yeah. This is life. Plus minus, you know, plus minus. Everything to me is a dancing Shiva. It’s just how it is. And so we have to find that that that source of freedom inside. And I think when we know that, then we can we can see what is, but we can see to the essence of that person that in a moment is acting a certain way, but they forgot who they are. So they’re acting out that way. They just forgot who they are, you know. And so you forgetting who they are, me forgetting who they are doesn’t help them remember who they are.

You know, and the truth is, we all act in strange ways sometimes, because if you believed what that person believed in that temple, right, if you believed what they believed, you would act how they acted.

Krati: Yeah, absolutely.

Kute: But you might say, but I don’t believe what they believe. Exactly. Which is why you don’t act how they acted. But if you believed what they believe, you would act how they acted. The person that killed George Floyd, a little controversial. I felt such compassion for the guy in a strange way. I felt compassion for George Floyd, but I felt compassion for the guy, the police guy that killed him. I’m like, what would you need to believe to kill someone based on race? And you would have to really believe some kind of messed up stuff and you’d have to be in such pain. And I’m like, on some level, what would you have to believe to do that? And if you believe that that strongly, then on some level, you couldn’t help yourself. Because if you really believe that you can’t help yourself. So on some level, on some level, everybody’s innocent because they’re being run by their beliefs. They’re being run. And so on some level, they don’t really have control because those beliefs are controlling them. How sad is it? You know, how sad? How like, wow, you know, they’re like a child that can’t that can’t control themselves. That doesn’t make it right. That doesn’t mean they shouldn’t go to prison. That doesn’t mean we don’t have to hold them accountable. But to have no awareness and control over what you believe such that your unconscious beliefs are running you is slavery. And now they’re just the slaves. So they’re pushing and the shoving and the kid, whatever. Like, wow, they don’t have control, you know. And so when you can under at least for me, when I see that, I just think, wow, what would this person have to believe? They’ve got to believe some and they’re so limited in that. And so I try. I’m not saying I always succeed, but I try to have compassion, you know.

Like a little baby, they can’t help but poop their pants. They can’t help it. You know, it’s not their fault. They’re not doing it to you or when they’re screaming. I don’t know if you had a little newborn, but they’re like, ahhhh, and you think, why are they doing this? They’re not doing it to you. They’re just being what they’re being in this moment. You know, and so when we’re stuck in pain and trauma and belief systems, people can’t help it. That doesn’t mean it’s OK. That doesn’t mean we can’t do something. It doesn’t mean we can’t set boundaries. But I think we can develop a different relationship of those people so that there’s a bit more space, you know.

Krati: Yeah, that’s very true. Something my mom always says that if there were more bad people than there were good, and if the bad ones only had bad in them, the world would implode. So you have to kind of remember that.

Kute: Yes. The world, your mother’s what? The world is physics. The yin and yang, the balance would be off.

OK, let’s take it like this. Gandhi, right? It’s fair to say Mahatma Gandhi, great soul in his own way, right? Maybe some people love him. Some people hate him. I happen to be quite inspired by Gandhi’s life. I don’t know the details. But if there were no British oppressing, would there have been a Gandhi? If there was no Judas, would there have been a Jesus? If there was no poor and sick, would there have been a Mother Teresa? If there was no apartheid, there would be no Mandela. And so then you see that the interdependent, polaric, opposite nature of life, you know, is there’s no life. There’s no death. There’s no death. There’s no life.

And so, yes, the moment that everybody becomes eight billion people are now Mukesh Ambani business, the world would implode.

Krati: That’s so true. It’s so beautiful. This was it was something like that guide because the temple that I was in is in Varanasi. Varanasi is one of the most magical cities in India.

Kute: I love Varanasi. The golden the golden temple is there.

Krati: The Kashi Vishwanath temple.

Kute: I think that might be the one I’m speaking about. It’s in the middle. It’s in the center.

Krati: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes, yes. It’s in the centre and it’s super famous. It was my birthday and I always go to temples on my birthdays looking for, you know, and it’s always been a consistently awesome experience for me. I feel uplifted. I feel amazing. I always cry, but it’s always in a good way. But this guide said this one thing to me that actually adds to the point that you just made. Later, I recounted the incident to him and I was like, I was so looking forward to this trip because that was my first time in Varanasi. And Varanasi is steeped in magic and mysticism. And he’s like, you had a very, very successful trip. You don’t quite see it yet, but it changed you. I was thinking of everything that had happened. I realized that people don’t just bring hope to temples. They bring a lot of desperation. They bring so much pain that makes them so desperate to, you know, get to the top of the queue.

Kute: To connect to God.

Krati: And you just have to sit with it. I think we all try to be very selective in the experiences that we let in and how we show up in the world. But you have to sit with the desperation to get to the hope.

Kute:  Yeah. And every experience is blessing you and teaching you. You know, yes. And even that even that moment may be more transformational for your psyche. 100%. Than having gone there and having a lovely moment and then going on and kind of like forgetting about it. Because now you’re still talking about it. Now you’re still remembering it’s gonna, it’s working you. You know, it’s working you.

Krati: I think it was like, despite the fact that I had done years and years of volunteer work before that, sat across the table from rape victims, abuse victims. I think I never quite understood how much desperation and fear can dominate your life. Because when you’re volunteering, you kind of expect all of that pain to be there. But I wasn’t expecting it in the temple. And I was like, this is life for some people. Some people have never been touched by any kind of magic. And it was a Shiv temple. And Shiv ji is known for the sheer amount of love that he has for all of his devotees. Regardless of how they choose to worship him, regardless of how horribly they may be living their lives, not how horrible they are.

His biggest worshiper is Ravan, the guy who caused the whole Ramayan to happen, the whole war to happen. So you kind of, it was something like what you said, it’s so beautiful that you, it was the most transformational, one of the most transformational experiences, as you said. It changed me more than any good experience could. But it also made me very sensitive to this idea that we can do that when we’re standing in a crowd and we’re not personally involved with any of the people. We can remember that they have a background, that they have a story that’s leading them into acting the way they’re acting. But it’s very different when it’s personal relationships. When you are being, like today we talk so much about gaslighting, we talk so much about intentional abuse and how it keeps happening even after therapy, which is very difficult to forgive.

Then I would love to ask you, how do, like you want to bring compassion, but you also want to hold the people accountable. How do you do that? Letting love lead in a personal relationship? When is it okay to walk away?

Kute: I like that. I really enjoy your questions. You’re bringing some very interesting human personal questions.

Okay, I think we have to understand first, you know, love does not mean abuse. And loving people unconditionally does not mean tolerating someone’s abusiveness. But what we have to realise, I think when we talk about relationships, is you will attract to you. And this is maybe not what people will want to hear. Right. But it’s important to hear if you want to shift out of the cycle that you’re talking about.

You will attract to you a person that reflects to you or is a mirror manifestation of yourself. You will tend to attract to you people that reflect to you aspects of yourself that you most need to heal, embrace, make peace with, integrate, let go of, you know, karmically resolve. You will tend to attract to you people that mirror to you aspects of yourself. So in a sense, there is no relationship out there. It looks like there is a relationship out there in the person that you manifested, in the person that you attracted to you but that person is kind of a projection of an aspect of your own consciousness that you pull into you, that you pull into your reality. And so you are in relationship with yourself. You are in relationship with an aspect of yourself in the form of the person that you attracted to you. And so if you want to shift the dynamic, you have to be willing to take responsibility and ask yourself, who and what am I attracting? And do I like what I see in the mirror?

Because relationship is feedback and relationship is a mirror. And if I don’t like what I see, you can keep pointing the finger. Well, they did this and they did that and they cheated on me and they abused me and they did that and maybe it’s all true. I’m not saying it’s not true. But if you stay stuck in that pointing the finger, you won’t shift the dynamic and so rather than pointing the finger, ask yourself, what are they reflecting? What are they mirroring to me? They cheated on me. Why did I even attract this person, this dynamic? And how do I cheat on myself? They’re not committed to me. What does that show me about myself?

How I feel about my own value, how I feel about my own worth, how I feel about my own commitment to myself. They’re abusive in their words. How do I, how am I abusive to my own self? So we attract people to show us aspects of ourselves so that we can heal, shift, transform, let go, make peace, integrate and resolve our own karma, so to speak. And so you’ll tend to attract people that are a vibrational match and you will tend to attract people that your soul and their soul have certain lessons to learn in this lifetime, i.e. karma. Some people might say, well, I didn’t attract someone that was maybe in the case of certain societies in India, like it was an arranged marriage. Well, maybe at that level, it wasn’t your conscious, intentional sort of attraction, but maybe it was karmic energy that your soul and their soul drew each other into relationship in order to learn and grow and evolve.

Because if you understand that first and foremost, you’re a soul. You’re a soul. You’re not just this body. This body is temporary. You’re a soul and you’re a soul and you incarnate into this human experience in order to learn to grow and evolve. And maybe this is not your first time in this human evolution incarnation. Maybe there’s been other lifetimes in this human incarnation and evolution. So now you’ve graduated from another classroom. Now you’re in this classroom as this body, as this personality, in this character, in this human incarnation. And if life is a classroom, then everything is your curriculum. Everyone is your teacher. And if we start seeing ourselves as souls first, when we see ourselves as souls first and foremost, then we have a different understanding of life and relationship. The purpose of life is evolution. And everyone is your teacher. That person that breaks your heart, that person that abuses, that person that betrays doesn’t make it right, doesn’t mean you don’t hold them accountable, but they’re your teacher. And when you go through that way, then you start looking for the evolutionary soul learning opportunity. What is my soul seeking to learn in this dynamic? What is my soul seeking to learn in this marriage? What is my soul seeking to learn in this relationship? And you start focusing on shifting and healing yourself and doing the inner work, the spiritual work, so that you can shift that and or do the work necessary so that you can resolve the karma for why you have been brought into each other’s relationship. Because many times relationship is karma, you know, it’s karma from this lifetime.

But from this lifetime, as in you have not dealt with your childhood wounds. And as a result, you are now pulling into you a partner that reflects to you some unresolved issues from your childhood, giving you the opportunity to heal that. Or there’s certain things that might be unresolved from past life that your soul is now seeking to draw certain people into resolve those things so that you can complete that karma, you know, and that lesson. And so I think when we look at life and relationship from that standpoint, we can go through it differently.

What is a lesson? What is a lesson? What is the mirror? What is the lesson? What is the karma? What is the assignment? Relationships are kind of assignment. And when you focus on learning that you will either transform your relationship and the other person will shift. You will leave a transform your relationship within yourself with the other person and it will give you a different way of relating to the other person. Or you will leave a transform in such a way where your vibration would shift so much that you evolve in different, you know, directions in life, i.e. separate, divorce, you know, you move into a different energy.

So when you know it’s time to move on, I would just say that if you understand that the purpose of relationship is, you know, not especially in the Western culture is a bit different in Indian culture. But in the Western cultures, like the purpose of relationship is like entertainment, you know, is fun. It’s just, you know, movies and cookies like the purpose of relationship is evolution, the evolution of your soul, learning the lessons for why your soul and their soul came together and evolving. And so that means stuff will come up, issues will come up, challenges will come up. So when those challenges come up, if you understand the purpose of relationship, it’s not an issue if you both understand the purpose for where you’ve come together, you know, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, karmically, so that you can support each other as soulmates to work through the issues that come up so that you can both free yourself and evolve into greater levels of awakening and enlightenment, you know, and self-realisation. And so when you have either learned the lessons for why you and that person have come together, and you’re now no longer growing, and or one person is no longer committed to serving your soul, like I’m no longer committed to serving your soul. And that’s it. Even if you stay together, you’re not even in a relationship, you know, and so you know that you may be the relationship is complete if you’re both no longer growing and both no longer committed to growing in relationship.

That’s one key. Or yes, one person is being abusive and has no is not willing to heal, transform, grow and change their behaviour. And you’ve done the inner work, you’ve given them an opportunity and they still don’t shift. And now it’s compromising your value, your respect, your self-worth. If this continues, it may be time to move on, especially if you’ve given them an opportunity.

Krati: Okay, that’s very helpful. I think that’s very beautiful that being first of all, self-focused when we encounter all of this resistance and struggle and looking for what we can learn and how we can evolve and also going into relationships with the objective to evolve not to seek out only the good moments. Again, it’s the same thing. You know, we are always looking for the good stuff and only the good stuff.

Kute: Relationship is about evolution. It’s about growth. And sometimes it can be challenging. Sometimes real love, real love will tend to bring up your unresolved stuff from childhood. Real love will tend to even bring up the unresolved patterns of generations and past lives and karma. Real love will bring it up for you to see and for you to work through potentially with your partner. And I think that things can be worked through with your partner if you’re both committed. You’re both devoted and you’re both willing. That’s when relationship becomes yoga. Relationship becomes a spiritual practice, you know, in and of itself. And I think that’s the evolutionary potential of soulmates committing to a person to say, I will grow with you and evolve with you and we will evolve together in this lifetime.

Krati: That’s amazing. And I think it’s not just relationships. In fact, like people when they become entrepreneurs, it’s such an unknown area. No matter how many business courses you’ve done, it’s such an adventure when you go down that path. And it’s going to 100% throw challenges your way that are going to require you to really suspend all of these ideas that you came into it with and operate with the new knowledge that is on offer. So I think, yeah, it’s true for all of all of these things. But there’s something and I know you talk a lot about surrender. What I’ve learned is that when you are in your darkest period, this is something that’s very true for me. I’m religious. I have a lot of faith. I think surrender is a huge part of it. And when you can have a degree of surrender, whatever that means to all, you know, individuals, I think the path becomes a little bit easier because you can’t be a part of it. It’s easier because, well, I’ll let you talk about that.

Kute: Yeah, you know, I think that surrender was the most powerful thing that we can do. I think that surrender was the key to the next level of our lives and the real secret to manifestation. I think surrender was the password to freedom. If you look at all the great ones, Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi, Mother Teresa, Mandela, Martin Luther King, I mean, Ramana Maharishi, you know, Yogananda, Vivekananda. I mean, we could just go down the list, Ramakrishna. I mean, all the great sages in India. Mohammed Ali in his own way, you know, Bruce Lee. At some point, they all surrendered themselves in different ways, but they all surrendered themselves to the divine, to life, to God, to their soul, to that purpose that was bigger than them. And in that surrender, they transcended their human limitation.

They transcended their human limitation and they tapped into another dimension of life and the universe and life was able to live through them and move through them and express through them. And so I think that in our culture, we have this idea that surrender was weak and surrender was passive and surrender is giving up and surrender is, you know, waving the white flag and surrender means sitting there doing nothing. Surrender means, you know, you’re going to get left behind. You’re going to be abused. You’re going to be a victim. You’re going to be taken advantage of. You won’t manifest your goals. I’m saying, no, what if you surrender, then you got more? You got more than you could imagine. You got more than you could have planned. You got more than you could have made up with the limitation of your mind’s logic more. And so yes, surrender is a letting go of control. I would even say the illusion of control, that we’re in control even in the first place, you know, it’s when we stop trying to force and manipulate life to fit our idea of how we think it should be and who we think we should be. So that we can be available and open to the divine grace and unfolding that is existence and that is life.

It’s when we take the limitations off of life and allow life to lead us in this intelligence, you know, life is like a river. Life is like a river. It flows. When I went to the to the Ganges, I went to Rishikesh. Then from Rishikesh, I went up to the Himalayas. I went up to Gangotri and Gamukh because I wanted to go and see the source of the Ganges. I wanted to see where Mother Ganges flows. I wanted to see the very beginning point of where the Ganges began to flow. And when I went there, I saw the Ganges flowing as one river from a little drop. It began and that made me see that humanity. We all begin from the same source, from the same consciousness. And humanity is one river that is unfolding, one river that is unfolding, one river that is unfolding into from a drop of consciousness to the multiplicity of the Ganges. The multiplicity of existence and form as this humanity that is life. And we are all like waves in this river of life, you know. And so I think that part of surrender is to let go of the illusion, the ego’s illusion that we are separate little waves. I’m a wave here and you’re a wave there. No, it’s like, OK, it appears like you’re a wave.

But then I remember every day I would sit on the banks of the Ganges. I would go for a run. I was the only guy running in Rishikesh. And then I would do yoga on the banks. And then I would take a dip every day for a month. I would jump into the Ganges and I would sit and watch the ocean, the river. And I would see one wave, one little wave would crash into another wave. And I think, where does one wave begin and one wave end? Where does one aspect of the river begin? Is it separate? It all flows. So you could say part of surrender on a deeper spiritual level is giving up the illusion, the ego’s illusion of separateness. So that we realize that we are just one. You know, to me, that is love, the inherent realisation of our nature, that we are one. That is love and surrendering to our true identity as consciousness, as divine. You know, to me, that’s when the magic happens and that’s when life flows. Life uses us. God uses us in ways that our limited ego cannot even imagine. And that’s when miracles happen. When I look at the great ones, Yogananda, Ramana Maharishi, Nisargadatta Maharaj, the reason miracles happen around these people is because they were no longer.

They were no longer. They had completely surrendered themselves to the river that is life. And life was flowing through them and life was using them and life was manifesting through them. And that’s, I think, the surrender, the invitation of surrender in this human incarnation that we are all being, you know, invited to in some way.

Krati: It’s so beautiful. I think it’s for me, I always like when I pray now, I no longer ask for things. I always say I always let God because I always wonder if there is a larger mission here more than building a successful business and more than just having nice relationships. Maybe there’s a larger mission for me. And if I keep asking for the things that I’m asking for, because God is so kind, he’ll be like, OK, she’s very attached to this. Let her have this. We’ll give the mission to someone else. And that scares me. I want the mission. I want to be used as an instrument for good. But I have to say, this is something, this is knowledge that can transform your life. But it is also not knowledge that can be accessible to someone who is very sort of very much a slave to their ego right now. Like if you were talking to someone who’s all about the cars, the mansion, the fancy lifestyle, nothing wrong with that. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. But if they’re also facing a lot of struggle in their life, then for them, I want to ask you, like, how can you operate from that place? Is it even possible to find surrender if you’re operating from that place? And if you’re operating from that place, how do you walk this path?

Kute: If you have so much attachment to all of these goals, then that’s the fear. You see, the fear is if I surrender, I’m not going to have it. You might, you might not. You know, Gandhi was a lawyer. A prestigious lawyer kind of, you know, doing his thing. He could have held on to being a lawyer. We would never know the man. We would never have heard of the man. Should he have just made a bit of money as a lawyer? But there came a point where he surrendered and said, OK, I can no longer contain what my soul is seeking to become. The great soul, I surrender. Look what happened. Look what happened. Now, that’s his path, right? That’s his path. Look what happened for him. It’s bigger than him. Could not have even planned that to the point where decades later, we’re still talking about Gandhi. But I don’t know that millionaire, you know, in Mumbai, I’m not I don’t even know who he is, you know, but Gandhi, we’re still talking about.

And so what I can say is when you surrender, I can’t promise exactly what will happen. What I can promise is it will be better than you can imagine. It will be better than you can imagine. It will be beyond your ego’s capacity to imagine your life. That’s what I can say. But most of us never experienced that magic because we’re like, well, I kind of want that. But I’m going to hold. Let me hold on to what I have until I get some reassurance. But it doesn’t work that way. I want the magic, but I’m not going to let go of this job that I hate until God gives me the job that I want. But you’re not going to get the job that you truly want. If you’re because there’s no space because you’re holding on to the job that you hate.

I’ll stay in this relationship with this, you know, person that kind of fits the checks and things. But I know this is not really my soulmate, but I’ll stay until God brings me my soulmate. Then I’ll leave. So we hold on to what’s not aligned, wondering why we’re not manifesting the big love. I’m not really in love with it. If you want big love, you’ve got to let go big. You’ve got to surrender big because the next level of your life requires the next level of you. And the next level of you requires that you let go of everything that is no longer alive. But what we tend to do as human beings because we are egos and identify with our egos is we tend to hold on to that which is not aligned out of fear, familiarity, self comfort, self preservation. The ego’s job is to protect you from getting hurt. And the ego’s job is to reinforce its existence. So the ego always wants to be in control because it thinks if I am in control and I’m the one making it happen and I am the doer, then I must be real and I must exist. So I got to like do everything. And so if you surrender, it will be beyond what you can imagine.

What is beyond what you can imagine? I don’t know, because you can’t imagine what’s beyond right now. And that’s what makes it magical. But it will be better. We have this fear that if I surrender, I’m going to be homeless and I’m going to be broke and I’m going to be not necessarily unlikely, you know, like probably not. You know, and so, yes, it’s the ego that does resist surrender. It’s because for surrender, the ego feels like a death and the ego wants to be a doer. And so I think when we can let go and say, OK, I’m going to trust. Now, let me be clear. That doesn’t mean, oh, surrender, just sit there and do nothing.

It means rather than asking, what do I want? I, I, me, limited, I, ego, I, what do I want? It means asking a different question, because you might get what you thought you wanted. Then you realize what I thought I wanted is not what I really wanted. I have the car. Not making me happy. I have the house. Not making me happy. Nothing wrong with it, by the way. I love a happy, great house. But you get what you thought you wanted only to realize that what you thought you want is not what you really wanted. It’s just what you thought you wanted based on who you thought you were. But we don’t really ask who am I? Who am I? Who is the I that is wanting?

So the question I would invite you to sit with is what is it that life is seeking to express through me? What is God seeking to manifest through me? What is the divine intelligence seeking to create through me and open to that and feel that, sense that so you can catch that vision? And then you can then you can give 100 percent. Then you can go into action. Then you can go to work. Then you can build a company. You can build a company, but a company that is built on your soul alignment, not just what your parents wanted you to do. Then you can follow the path that you feel you’re meant to do, not just what society expects of you. Now you’re in flow. Now you’re in harmony with nature. That might mean you work 24-7 to build that business that can make an impact without attachment. Right. But now you’re in flow. You’re in harmony with nature. And nature will tend to support what is in harmony with itself.

Krati: Do you ever struggle with this? Do you have all of this knowledge of all of these experiences, but do you still have days of struggle?

Kute: I think more and more, honestly, it’s been a process. It’s been a process. But I would say more and more, I see the grace of God in my life flowing. And just the more I let go, the more it tends to flow. You know, maybe there’s moments. But I would say now, like I tell people, the deeper I go, the more I surrender, the less choice I feel I have, the freer I feel.

And so my prayer these days is, I ask for the highest good to be done. You know?

Krati: It’s beautiful. Well, you know, you shared Gandhi’s example. I feel compelled here to mention that there, like any other freedom struggle, there are a lot of unsung heroes. So there were men and women who nobody remembers. But they were also all of these people. They were highly educated. The people that we know about, they were very well qualified. They could have gone for a job, but they chose to fight. Nobody remembers them now. But despite that, they served a larger purpose. I’m just saying that. I’m just saying that because maybe you’re being called to walk a path that will lead you to obscurity, but you will be serving your purpose. And you will be reveling in the magic that comes with it. So I would not want that to be something that holds people back. People will not always remember you, but you would have felt that magic. You would have felt touched by the hands of God, you know, because it’s a very hard path to walk. And there’s so much I encounter a lot of struggle on it. I’m probably not where you are right now. There’s a journey there before I get to that place. But it’s something that creates more moments of magic than being constantly looking to, you know, let me score this many clients. Let me buy this thing and let me make my life look this way. Yeah. So I just wanted to mention that.

Kute:  We mistakenly have this idea that objects are the source of our happiness. The car. If I get this Ferrari, I’m going to be happy. I’ll be happy because I’ll have status. I’ll be happy because the people in my neighbourhood will look at me now and I’ll be valuable and I’ll be worthy. And I’m going to be happy when I get this. When I built that big mansion, I’m going to be happy. Nothing wrong with the mansion. I love Ferraris. I love Ferraris, but we mistakenly have this illusion that objects are the source of our happiness and they’re not. See, we think, ego thinks, when I attain this object, get the Ferrari. I get the Mercedes. I’m so happy for a moment. And then it’s just another car. Yes. I’ll need another, a bigger Ferrari and a bigger Mercedes and a bigger Lamborghini and a bigger house. But now we’re all feeling good until we go and I see Mukesh Ambani’s house is like, wow, this is a huge house. Now I want that house. I could have a bigger house than Mukesh Ambani. And then what? And so it never ends. It never ends. And so we mistakenly think that objects are the source of our happiness and it’s not.

What happens, the mechanism that happens is when you attain an object, you think you feel happy. But what actually happens is the ego that is searching ceases to seek. The seeking stops. It’s a cessation of activity and seeking. In that cessation of activity and seeking, there is a relaxation. And what happens is the happiness that was always there is revealed. Now we think it’s because of the object that made us happy. But what’s happened is we stopped searching and so we stopped and we relaxed and the happiness that’s been there all along came to the surface. But we’re looking at the Lamborghini that made us happy. It’s not the happiness is what we are. It’s our nature. And so we have to go within all the great yogis have said it all the great mystics like it’s within you. Jesus, the kingdom of heaven is within you. And so we have to look inside. At some point, you might attain what you thought you wanted. And then you reach a point of dissatisfaction. It’s like, wow, is this it? Is there more? It’s just another car. It’s just another handbag. It’s just another pair of Nikes. And then what?

Krati: I think one added incentive to it is if if you’ve ever read Bhagavad Gita, if you follow the teachings, you don’t just surrender the goals. You also said that the pain, the struggle, the all the, you know, the price of being human, all of that. And then you give all of that also into the care of God. So if you are facing a lot of pain for me, I always would pray for things like that. I would pray for things like, OK, give me all of this money so I can buy stuff for my parents like they’ve taken care of me. Let me now take care of them. So I would always feel like a sense of justification for doing that. And a lot of people do do that, especially people who have young kids. But then I was like, OK, that I’m operating on this assumption that if I can buy all of this stuff, it’s going to make my parents happy. My parents, they already have like they always say we have everything we need. We don’t really whatever we want, we can buy for ourselves. So I would always think that maybe this is just a justification.

It’s very hard, you know, to move from this path to that path, especially when that path is so different from what is conventionally accepted, what society dictates. Because there is just there are no guardrails now. There is no sense of safety there but also the possibility is so much more immense than what you have if you were walking this one path that is set out for every single person. And I know you’ve been on that journey. You made a massive, massive change in your life. You went from this to this and completely like fall, followed a path that was so unknown to you. But it led you to where you are today, to changing millions and millions of lives, which I don’t even know what that feels like. That has to have a magic on its own. So I have to ask you when you were walking down that path, I bet there were moments where you were like, am I doing the right thing? Is this how it’s supposed to feel? Because there are, like you said, that there is there is still going to be struggle. There’s still going to be moments of reckoning that are going to be painful and hard. How do we get past those moments? How do we recognize that this is the path we are walking? Are there any assumptions operating there? Or do we just go from one day to another?

Kute: You just do your best. Put one step in front of the next. That’s it. You can’t not be on your path. You’re always on the right path, even when you think you’re on the wrong path. You cannot be. The path you’re on is the path you’re meant to be on. And how do we know? Because it’s the path you’re on. So I just tell people, put one step in front of the next, show up sincerely and do your best. That’s all you can do.

Krati: Right. OK, that’s beautiful. Now, you said you had something to share. So I would love to know if there’s anything happening that the audience can join and learn more from you.

Kute: Sure, sure, sure. I would just invite everyone to check out the book, The Magic of Surrender. It’s available on Amazon and on audio as well. Twice a year, I do a very special event to Bali. This December, December, 2023 is the final event I’m going to do. The last 11 years, I’ve done a 12 day experiential seminar training to Bali. It’s called Boundless Bliss, the Bali Breakthrough Experience. I’ve done it for 11 years. I’ve done 21 of these events. And so if you’re someone you feel a calling to make a difference on the planet, you feel a readiness to transform yourself. You feel a readiness to heal. You’re tired of reading the books, but you’re ready for a breakthrough. You’re ready to heal, to let go, to uncondition yourself, to connect to your true essence. And to share your gifts with the world. Join us this December the 5th through the 16th. And this is the last Boundless Bliss Bali event that I’ll do. And you can find out more on the website.