Special Episode: Reflections on 2021 and what to look forward to in 2022!

Hello and welcome to another episode of The Bearded Mystic Podcast and I'm your host, Rahul N Singh. Thank you for joining today to either listen or watch this podcast episode. Today we're going to be discussing my reflections of 2021 and what the plans are for 2022. With that note, I like to wish you all a very happy new year. Before I do talk about my reflections of 2021. I do want to mention that the bearded mystic podcast does have a Patreon page. The benefits of joining this patron page, as I've mentioned before, is that we get to keep the podcast ad free, sponsor free. That way you don't need to listen to those ads that come up on podcasts. The second thing is there is a community on there. There's livestreams, there's blog posts, there's extra episodes of the podcast. There's even a loyalty scheme where you be able to get merchandise for free, if you join one of the community tiers in the Patreon page. So do take a look at that? If you'd like to give me a gift for Christmas, that's obviously gone, but for the new year, do sign up to my Patreon page? That would be awesome and the gift will be very much appreciated. Now we'll begin with my reflections of 2021. So first thing, the most important thing for me is that I've been able to start the podcast and it's been my biggest achievement of 2021. I find that the podcast has enabled me to learn more, to ponder upon the deeper aspects of life. I find that the podcast encourages me to learn more from other people and also gain a deeper understanding of the topics I want to discuss. For example, when I've been doing the episodes on the Bhagavad Gita, I feel that the podcast has allowed me to go into it a bit more deeper and to think about it a bit more. Whilst when you're reading something, you may not contemplate as much, but when you want to share something, you do have to get new insight and you look for those insights. So I do find that that has been remarkable for me? I have really enjoyed doing the podcast. It was an idea that stemmed from me joining TikTok, and I was thinking of, well, how can I have content to put up on TikTok? Podcasting was the one option I really wanted to go towards. I've been thinking about podcasting since 2019 and pondered about it in 2020. Then in 2021, I decided to do it. Prior to that, I did take a break from social media, a total break for a good couple of months. If I didn't take that break, I wouldn't have taken the step to do the podcasting. Sometimes we make decisions in life like me leaving social media only for it to reappear, but in a more mindful and more educational, learning atmosphere rather than checking what people are doing. Like I mentioned before, I've made a TikTok account and I've reached a thousand followers on there and that's been amazing in the space of literally four or five months. I didn't imagine that I would get that many followers to be honest because I find that what I do podcasting about is very niche. You know it's Advaita Vedanta, it's non-duality and I was thinking so much about whether people will understand it, especially gen Z or millennials, but I find that they make the bulk of my audience and they definitely do understand it. And this gives me a lot of hope for the future, because it's also showing me that I can do more and that there is a desire for more content. Yes. I would say that making that TikTok account was also one of the best things I've done. Yes, there are things on TikTok I don't like, and that's with every social media, but out of all the social media platforms I'm on, I have really enjoyed TikTok. I've made friends that I really respect. I really honor, I learn so much from them and I hope that I can continue to have that relationship with them. I've created a great community based on that and I recognize some of these people when I go live on there and they ask very good questions. In fact, some of the questions that have been asked on these lives have been incredibly insightful in terms of how much they grasp the message of what I give. I've also done this thing where I have debated people or discussed their religions. That's been interesting. Those would be my most popular ones. And then because of all this, because of doing the podcast and TikTok, I've also felt that my spirituality has deepened in terms of understanding, it's got a lot deeper and I'm looking always for deeper understanding. I'm not looking for the surface level content anymore. I find that maybe my content has kind of shown that, has mirrored that in some ways. I have wanted to and achieved a level of understand that I'm proud of right now, I feel that I'm on the right path, towards achieving what I want to achieve in terms of spirituality like liberation and Moksha while I'm alive. So I hope I can continue to do that and attain more spiritual wisdom, learn more from my own self and also learn from other people. Also in 2021, there's been some tough times. I've had this issue with eczema and that stopped some of my podcasting. As you know, there were some weeks when I wasn't able to podcast, I still haven't been completely cured from it. Um, right now we're still making sure that we prevent an outbreak from occurring. These past few months have been really good. I haven't had any major outbreaks. I can still sometimes my hands tingling and they don't itch but it's improving and I'm getting better and I find that just being connected spiritually helps as well. I also started the gym this year. I've always had a bit of an aversion from joining a gym but I've really enjoyed it so far. It's only been a couple of weeks, but it's a great achievement of mine. I mean, getting over the fear and anxiety in it. It's good to work on the body, keeping it healthy because with a healthy body, there is a healthy mind and with a healthy mind, it can then lead to a healthy spirituality. And this is what it's all about. . Those would be my reflections of 2021. What am I looking forward to in 2022. Let's begin with that, so obviously there's more podcasts episodes that will be released this year. There's a lot more to look forward to. I'm thinking about doing something a bit different as it's a weekly podcast, what I want to do is the last Sunday of every month, we will do something different. So we'll continue on with the thoughts on the Bhagavad Gita and then the last Sunday of the month, we will do a particular topic, we'll do a deep dive into something and you can let me know what you want me to discuss. Those last Sundays, if you have a particular topic in mind, that's related to Hinduism or to spirituality, I'm more than happy to include them and discuss it. So we'll have three or four weeks of Bhagavad Gita, and then the last Sunday of the month will be any topic of our choice that's something to look forward to. There's going to be more focus on my Patreon page, as you listened to me in the very beginning of this podcast, I do want to reemphasize that joining the Patrion community. One that helps me with the day-to-day costs of running the podcast, the Patreon page will help me to get better equipment that makes the listening experience and the watching experience much better. There will be more focused on the Patreon content. The other thing that I'm going to be doing is working on an ebook. Right now that will be free for those that joined my Patreon page. You do have to look at their tier in which the free ebook is there. But this will be an ongoing document. Basically on my understanding of Advaita Vedanta and the vision of my path that I described in my last episode on what is the modern approach to it? I talked about, there's a traditional school of Advaita and there is the Neo-advaita school. And I find that I am somewhere in between and I need to kind of formulate what that framework looks like. This will be one thing I'll be working on, maybe it'll come out in the last quarter of the year, maybe even before that. I will be looking to have more guests on the podcast. If you know anyone that you want to be featured on this podcast, as a guest, let them know about it, let them know about podcast and tell them you would like them to be a guest on my podcast. And let me know who they are and I can try and get in contact with them. I will have people on who I've interacted with on TikTok, on Instagram. I will have them join me on the conversation. There will be times I will be a guest on another podcast. I have got one lined up to be recorded in January. I am looking forward to this conversation. It's with an amazing podcast that I follow, that I listen to regularly. The person who runs this podcast is a friend of mine. I won't say much more, but it's one to look forward to because I feel that I will be discussing my vision for Advaita Vedanta and my vision for the future, my vision for that third or middle pathway for Advaita Vedanta in that podcast. There's going to be more original content on TikTok. I find that I do rehash a lot of my content from the podcast, but what I'm going to be doing more of is do more original content. So trying to up my game there, trying to create more of that community there. There's going to be more of me tweeting a bit more. Sometimes I find that have ideas that come up in my mind or thoughts I want to share, and I don't note them down anymore. So I think Twitter is going to be my place where it's going to be my notebook. If you don't follow me on Twitter, I would say, start doing so. And what I will do, I will rehash those on Instagram stories, of the tweets that I post. That's all I want to discuss on the vision for 2022 and my reflections of 2021. There's a lot to think about, a lot to be grateful for. I'm so happy to have each one of you follow this podcast, listen, or watch this podcast, the comments that I've received from some of you, you know, I've been on TikTok lives and I've had people reach out to me on Instagram, DM-ing me and telling me how they view my podcast and how much it's helped them. It, it really is heartwarming and I'm really humbled by it. I never thought I had anything special to share. I really, I still don't think have anything special to share, but I guess everything that you see, it's all within your own self. And, before I tear up and get emotional. I just want to say thank you so much. And I really, really love and respect each and every one of you. Thank you so much for listening to this podcast for supporting this podcast. I never thought I'd achieve as much as I have done so far. I know it's nothing in terms of like, when you can pay to Joe Rogan or Russell brand or the Conspirituality podcast or Decoding the Gurus or Free Your Inner Guru. Just want to say, thank you so much to each and every one of you that have supported the podcast. The other thing I wanted to mention, do write a review for this podcast, if you do write a review, I am going to be sharing these reviews in my podcast episodes. Write a review and you'll be featured on the podcast. Subscribe to my social media channels. Take care and look after yourselves. And I wish you all a very, very happy new year, may this new year bring you spiritual joy wisdom and enlightenment. Take care everyone. Aum Shanti Shanti, Shanti. Aum peace, peace, peace Namaste.