Santosh Nambiar (Jannar), a biotech executive, best-selling author, and registered mindfulness teacher, shares his journey from a small town in Kerala to founding a biotech firm in Australia, Award winning author and mindfulness teacher.
In discussing his latest book, The Art of Conscious Balance, with Prof. Shiv Sethi, Jannar shares insights on navigating chaos, achieving a fulfilling life, and elevating from mere survival to full flourishing.
“It is in the nature of the mind to wander—into the past and future. However, it is in our innate nature to observe this wandering mind. Most often, we forget this. Hence, we struggle.”
Excerpts
First, congratulations on winning the Panorama Golden Book Award 2024 for your book, The Art of Conscious Balance. It’s a privilege to explore your extraordinary life journey.
What is meant by ‘The Art of Conscious Balance,’ and how can it positively impact my life and the lives of others on a daily basis?
Our mind, or ‘Intellect,’ consists of learned and experienced memories, useful only for survival. However, by tapping into the unlimited ‘Intelligence,’ we can elevate our lives from mere survival to thriving and flourishing.
If you feel stuck despite doing everything right, you may be relying too much on limited ‘Intellect’. To truly thrive, tap into the unlimited ‘Intelligence’. While intellect helps with survival and daily tasks, intelligence allows you to flourish. Think of intellect as a flickering candle and intelligence as bright sunlight. Balancing these two, which I call ‘The Art of Conscious Balance’, is key.
Think of your life as a hybrid engine in an eco-friendly car. These engines switch modes for optimal performance—electric for torque, combustion for high speed—ensuring efficiency. Similarly, mastering the ‘Art of Conscious Balance’ in life means knowing when to rely on your ‘Intellect’ and when to let ‘Universal Intelligence’ lead. It might seem complex, but it’s quite simple in practice.
How can you bring this Conscious Balance in life?
It comes down to awareness, self-awareness, and mindfulness. These all highlight the same idea. Often, we don’t realize our limited intellect is interfering and holding us back. We need to be more mindful of how our intellect affects our lives and limits our potential.
What do you really mean by awareness?
The AWARENESS I’m talking about is total awareness – 360-degree AWARENESS, not just the kind we usually think of, like knowing math or physics. It’s about being completely AWARE of everything happening inside you and around you. It’s about being fully mindful.
Imagine your mind as a dark room full of rats, representing your thoughts. When you turn on a flashlight (awareness), the rats (mind chatter) hide, creating peace. Switch off the flashlight, and the rats become active again. The flashlight is your AWARENESS; the rats are your mind or intellect.
How can one bring this self – awareness or how can one be mindful of the intellect (mind)?
People use various techniques to become more mindful, as I discuss in my book, “The Art of Conscious Balance.” Any method that helps you notice when your mind interferes with your life will work. Just being aware of your thoughts and how your mind behaves is enough. Simply observe your mind as if it’s not part of you, like looking at your glasses instead of through them.
