Religion vs Spirituality – Chaitanya Charan on Wisdom of the Sages podcast

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We’re very happy to have him here again, Chaitanya Charan Das He’s a monk from currently he lives in the Govardhaniko village just a couple hours outside of Mumbai but we also know him as the spiritual scientist, he’s a brilliant engineer as well as a brilliant Bhakti Yogi and we always, personally I feel that Chaitanya Charan Prabhu is really one of the best communicators of Bhakti, you know, he’s got a brain that is like very dexterous and he’s in one sense it’s the brain of an engineer but he’s able in so many helpful ways explain Bhakti philosophy, make it practical make it understandable for us so Chaitanya Charan Prabhu welcome back to Wisdom of the Sages Thank you Kausubh for inviting me, delighted to be here with you as far as the expressness of the brain is concerned, I would say that I learn from your podcast a lot about how to you know, how to how to share Bhakti in a very accessible, sensitive as well as consistent way so I’m grateful to be here and to be of some service We’re learning from you actually, but thank you and you know, we were thinking about what’s a good topic to discuss today and I thought, let’s tie it into what we’ve been reading recently in the Bhagavatam, now we’re in the fourth canto of Srimad Bhagavatam and the fourth canto opens up, it gets pretty quick, it gets pretty exciting, you know we were in the third canto, we went through I don’t know, about nine chapters, which are more didactic, it was the teachings of Kapiladeva to Devahuti, just one on one questions and answers going back and forth but as soon as we enter that fourth canto quickly we find ourselves thrown into some very exciting pastimes and stories and right off the bat you have this story about Daksha, very interesting character and I want to speak to you about who Daksha is, but just to briefly share with you where we’re at right now in Bhagavatam, we hear about Daksha and he’s at a, he enters into a, now Daksha for those, you know, I found that a lot of people listen like, some people listen to Wisdom of Sages just like the interview days or just like the questions and answers days, so for people that aren’t following along with us everyday we’re reading in the Bhagavatam on the weekdays Daksha is this very important universal figure he’s very respected he’s known as one of the Prajapatis, which means his universal responsibility is in relation to populating the universe he’s a very he’s seen as a very highly placed, influential religious figure and his mood or his outlook in life you could categorise as very Vedic and very karmic in other words, he was living a life of regulations a life of ritual, a life of religious ritual in a very precise way with the goal of receiving very precise I guess you could say results and so we hear about Daksha, he walks into a public assembly where everyone immediately stands to respect him, but Lord Shiva doesn’t get up Lord Shiva happens to be his son-in-law and he feels very insulted by this, he becomes angry and he begins to speak very harsh words against Lord Shiva as well as cursing Lord Shiva their whole, you know, Lord Shiva’s followers stand up and they fight back and they have their words and curses, and curses and counter curses are going on between the community of Daksha and his religious followers and the community of Lord Shiva who are a very kind of like unusual group of characters who are tamasic in a sense, like some of their qualities wouldn’t appear to be so Vedic or religious, at the same time they have a very sincere kind of attachment or very sincere kind of devotion to Lord Shiva, which is something of substance so fast forward and we find that Shiva’s wife Daksha’s daughter Sati wants to go to a big event at Daksha’s home Shiva warns her that your father doesn’t like me very much and he’s not going to have bad things to say about me and I don’t think you’re going to have a good time and I don’t think it’s a good idea, but if you really want to go you can go.
So she goes Daksha treats her very coldly and she gets up and in a very dramatic way begins to condemn Daksha and condemn his outlook and his consciousness and where he’s at and then she very dramatically commits suicide by like this yogic power to draw the fire out of the body and she in front of everyone commits suicide chaos ensues Daksha has his head cut off and all of his followers have to go to Lord Brahma and say we don’t know what to do now, everything’s a big mess Brahma instructs them, you’ve offended a great personality, just because Lord Shiva looks different it doesn’t mean that he’s not a great, so he’s actually one incredibly deep, important devoted soul you need to go and apologise to him everyone goes to him, they apologise and now we’re at the point where now they’re back with Daksha trying to do this ceremony again and Lord Vishnu appears I’m sorry if that took a while but this is what I would like to start our conversation with Prabhu what is Bhagavatam trying to illustrate here and how can how can it be applied or what is the message that we’re meant to take with this that may be very practical in our current world yeah at one level the stories from the Bhagavatam can seem very very strange the strangeness can be from three different perspectives first is from the perspective of the kind of beings that are there and the kind of abilities they have, like say as you said a person’s head being replaced with a goat’s head something like that so those are things which can sound, seem very strange the forms that people have and the abilities that people have they can also seem strange and the third thing is even sometimes the actions that people do now for example Sati ends her life by self-immolation so the actions can also seem a little strange but underlying all these there are some things which are very common which are not just common, universal that one of the things is that choices characters have to make choices their choices have consequences and those choices are made with some contemplation so the essential point is that we also live in a world where we have to make choices and our choices do have consequences and what can we contemplate by which we can choose wisely so that’s the in terms of the abilities, the actions the attributes, there are differences but in terms of choices contemplation and consequences there are universals choices, contemplations and consequences so now exactly what the characters contemplate may be different because they are in a particular situation so in one sense if we consider even now in today’s world we have something say we have Star Wars or we have so many Harry Potter now people watch it at one level for the action but in the contemplate ok this character chose like this at this point, this character chose like this at this point and there’s a lot of a lot of thought and analysis, did this character do the right thing or wrong thing, what happened so broadly the Bhagavatam’s purpose is you could say twofold one is the Bhagavatam is spoken to Parikshit Maharaj to help him to remember Krishna so that is the ultimate purpose but how does remembrance of Krishna manifest in the course of events in life, so in one sense this whole past time of Daksha is a past time in which Lord Krishna doesn’t appear much, neither Krishna nor Vishnu appears much, it’s more of Shiva and now Shiva as we know is one of the Devatas within the broad broad Vedic system of administration of the universe, that is one of the most powerful beings in the universe but the idea is overall this past time is illustrating that once we, once our consciousness becomes separated from a transcendental purpose and remembering Krishna is actually the ultimate transcendental purpose remembrance because Krishna is the being who will fulfil our hearts longing for lasting love and lasting life so the Bhagavatam has a vision that we all are meant to mould our life in a way that we are remembering Krishna and through all our activities and when we don’t remember Krishna, there are different degrees of dysfunction, disintegration and even degradation that may result and that’s what we certainly saw in this past time now it’s interesting the whole what set the whole thing off is Daksha felt insulted by the way that Shiva responded or let’s say neglected to respond to him but it becomes revealed that part of the reason or maybe the entire reason why Lord Shiva didn’t stand in that moment and greet him as all others did was because his mind was at that moment deeply absorbed in Lord Vishnu, he was like actually in meditation at that time and so we see one character, Lord Shiva who, he appears let’s say adharmic in a sense or in other words on the surface level, the way he’s dressed appears very dirty he’s wearing a garland of skulls right, he’s covered in ash from an external point of view or from, let’s say from Daksha’s, let’s say more religious background, he might judge that as unworthy or condemnable in some way although he was, his conscious, Shiva’s consciousness was actually exactly where his religion is meant to end up, right, like deeply absorbed in God, whereas Daksha, he’s this person, he’s got all this respect and this position and so on, you know, and he’s living in this very Vedic or religious context and apparently very rigidly you know, very properly but his consciousness seems to be prone to anger a need for prestige ultimately he made so many bad choices that led to the let’s say condemnation by his daughter the suicide of his daughter, the chaos of his whole religious ceremony was disrupted but it seems like it’s pointing us to what in today’s language a lot of people would refer to as say the distinction between religion and spirituality that you have a religious context on one side, you have a spiritual context on the other side and we got to see kind of a juxtaposition of the two. Oh, and I’m afraid that Chaitanya Charan has frozen up as we’re getting to the juicy stuff, so I’m hoping that he’s, oh here we go you’re back, Puru? Can you hear me? Did you hear what I I’m not sure, you heard what I said? No, we lost you for about 30 seconds Well, where I got was I said that it seems like in our modern vernacular we might frame this this this incident in the juxtaposition of the two characters, Daksha and Shiva as the difference between religion in the case of Daksha and spirituality in the case of Shiva Yeah That’s nicely put, I was thinking of the same thing we could call that Shiva is in one sense spiritual but not religious and Daksha is religious but not spiritual Could you help us define those terms because I think it’s very popular for people, you know I forget the statistic, you may even know it, but like from what I understand the there’s a very large percentage of people in western countries that now identify with no religion but identify as being spiritual but what that actually means is not always really well articulated it can be vague True So first thing is that words don’t have fixed meanings the meanings of words also keep changing so 50 years ago, 50-70 years ago when Einstein said that the deeply religious instinct which makes one wonder where did the universe come from, how is the order of the universe coming, so when he was using the word religious, most people would today use the word spiritual so let’s look at first when people say spiritual but not religious in what sense are the words being used that’s not the only sense in which the words are used sometimes when two people use the word in two different senses then there can be a lot of confusion so conflict where there really is none yeah like maybe they’re actually in agreement but they have different ideas of what the terms mean yeah exactly so if we consider when somebody says I’m spiritual but not religious but they have a particular conception of religion in their mind and I read somewhere that people associate religion with three things basically that is ritualism intolerance and you could say institutionalisation bureaucracy basically those three things are that you are made to believe certain things, you are made to do certain things and overall you give up your reasoning your reasoning faculty, your free will your capacity to take responsible decisions so in that sense ritualism dogmatism you could say another word you could use it, this is what I do this is what I believe and this is whom I follow, there is some institutionalisation some hierarchy is there whom I follow and these three are generally considered to be quite unpalatable and there is a reason for that yeah there is a reason for that that all these three have led to people acting in less than exemplary ways to put it mildly so when people say I’m not religious, I’m spiritual I don’t want to be dogmatic, I don’t want to be ritualistic and I definitely don’t want to be like simply a mere mouthpiece for somebody else to speak through me, I’m not a puppet in somebody else’s hands so that sense is definitely valid, if you see the Bhagavad Gita at its end states that Vimrishayita dashesh keno yathechi siddha kuru, Krishna says deliberate deeply and then you do as you desire so Krishna is not calling upon Arjuna for simply obedience, in one sense Krishna within the Bhagavata’s vision is God, although he is God he doesn’t draw upon his Godhood to demand obedience, if that’s what he had wanted then he could have just completed the Bhagavad Gita in six words I am God, obey me fight and that could have been the entire Gita but he doesn’t do that so the idea is the Bhagavad Gita itself is a book of deliberation so that aspect of being dogmatic or irrational, the Bhagavad Gita does not support that then another thing that the Bhagavad Gita says in the last verses one of its concluding verses so that can be actually said to be a call to give up religiosity that ritualism specifically give up all rituals give up all ritualistic ideas of what you should be doing and do the things that will help you come closer to me that will help you evolve spiritually so that you come closer to me so in that sense this apprehension of either dogmatism or ritualism which is there with respect to religion the Bhagavad Gita’s approach is far different from that so when somebody says I want to be spiritual what they generally mean is they are open to some higher experiences they want some meaning and purpose in their life they want to they want to you could say gain certain level of self mastery rise above the emotions and the drives that otherwise normally control us be more forgiving be more composed so these are the broad associations with the word spiritual that’s my understanding you can also elaborate on your experiences about what spiritual but not religious means when people use it in that sense well yeah there are a few things that I think of you know that what I think people are getting at when they’re discussing the difference between the two and one would be that religion seems to be focused on differences and judgement it’s pointing out differences here are the sinners and here are the followers of God whereas spirituality seems to be focused more on the commonality in all living beings spirituality is you know generated or lives in that space where we’re kind of recognising the oneness and there’s more of a mood of acceptance than judgement another thing I think of is when it comes to regulations and rules and so on religion is I think what we see in Daksha is it’s almost like the regulation is and I would say this is a shallow understanding of religion but we’re speaking in kind of like generalities or stereotypes right now but the stereotype of religion is that the regulation itself is practically like if you follow the regulation you are successful at religion whereas with spirituality the value of the regulation is in relation to the transformation that the regulation is meant to facilitate and if you actually transform and become like the things that you mentioned more forgiving, more kind, more deeply contemplative, more internally connected to God if you achieve that state then actually the regulation itself can be neglected you know because you’ve already achieved the goal of the regulation so commonly the religious person is thinking I follow all these regulations but they may have had no transformation whatsoever and then a third I was just thinking you know it seems that religion is very focused on salvation the idea that I’ve committed sin or even I’m sinful by nature right I was created in sin and I’m seeking salvation I’m seeking relief from the consequences of that sin therefore I do my regulations therefore I follow these certain rules therefore I profess my faith whereas spirituality it more begins with the idea that by nature I’m not sinful by nature I’m actually pure and what I want to do is revive that purity and get back to that so it seems that one it seems to have a darker kind of tone to it you know you’re sinful you better bow down now otherwise you’re condemned to the results of your sin and the other one is like no you are a bright beautiful divine light and somehow you’re out of touch with that you need to recover that you know those are some thoughts in my mind about the difference between the two yeah that’s a very important actually rules I was recently at an interfaith conference and there was a Christian pastor speaking they had done some survey among the youth what is your conception of a priest as one youth from some university of America he said a priest is someone who is constantly worried that someone somewhere is having some fun right that’s so great so often the rules are seen to be meant to deprive us of all the enjoyable things of life now that is not the purpose at all but regulation does seem to evoke rules and regulations do this don’t do this they do seem to evoke that kind of response and religions are quite often associated with that and now to some extent to take go to the other side now the rules themselves are not inherently restrictive or undesirable to do anything we need rules even if you want to play sports if you want somebody else to play cricket or tennis if nobody follows rules then there will be no game if so in that sense rules themselves are not bad but the problem comes when somebody is told to follow the rules without being told the purpose of the rules so why should you hit the ball like this and not like that in football or in cricket or in any other sports what is the point of it all so over the years many times many of the religions of the world have focused more on more on just adherence to the rules with a call for faith if you do this then one day you will attain salvation one day you will get liberated you will be saved but how exactly for how following that particular rule leads to an evolution of consciousness it leads to a transformation that is not so much described so in one sense if you could say that rules they are like the fences on a road regulation is meant to help us go on a particular road but if I don’t see the road if I don’t have the light to see what road I am going along then what is the point of following any regulation at all so this is where maybe I could elaborate a little bit on spirituality what we mean more from the Gita’s perspective you want to so no that sounds really great so in my understanding the word spirituality can refer to three things the most common thing which people refer to is a state of mind an emotion oh I feel very spiritual I feel very calm I feel very contented I feel very relaxed that’s the idea of spirituality at peace or peace connected whole now that’s definitely one part of spirituality but there is some lot more to it the way the Bhagavad Gita explains it spirituality is not just a state of mind it is also a level of reality it’s a level of reality there is the body which is physical which is one level of reality and there is the soul which is spiritual that is another level of reality so that’s the second aspect from the Bhagavad Gita’s perspective that is the fundamental differentiation what is material is that which is temporary na sato vidyate bhavo na bhavo vidyate sata that everything material is temporary and we long for things that are enduring and that’s why in one sense the human search for security it may be through our security it may be through our physical health through our bank balance through various social arrangements the search for security is ultimately a search for spirituality and a search for spirituality is not in a vague sense it is a search for spiritual reality so that is there is a level of reality which is spiritual and when one gets to that level of spiritual reality then naturally one experiences the state of mind which we call as spiritual so in much of contemporary parlance spirituality is seen as a state of mind as a state of emotions state of mind but how do you get that state of mind that state of mind is actually connected with a level of reality and then a third aspect of spirituality is the process to get to that level of reality so for example yoga, meditation, prayer mantra chanting these are all spiritual what do we mean by that that means they are pathways or processes for getting to that level of reality and so if we can compare say a metaphor of a mountain so somebody is at the bottom of a mountain and they get a glimpse of the peak of the mountain maybe it’s a very there is a lot of clouds over there there is a thick cover of green of greenery because of which they don’t see the peak of the mountain but the peak of the mountain is extremely beautiful when they get a glimpse of that peak it’s one of the most uplifting sights they have ever had so getting that occasional sight of some that higher reality that is like the spiritual state of mind that leads to what we call as spiritual experiences so I may be at the bottom of the mountain but from there I might occasionally get a glimpse of the peak of the mountain so I experience oh it was such a spiritual experience for me so that’s wonderful if somebody has a spiritual experience like that at the same time I am still right now at the bottom of the mountain and I have not yet got to the top of the mountain that’s why I may have a very profound spiritual experience today and tomorrow I may just go back to relapse to my normal way of living which has very little spiritual in it so that’s why if I am at the bottom of the mountain and I have a glimpse that there is the top of the mountain it is extraordinarily beautiful then I need a path to get to the top of the mountain I need a path so spirituality can refer to these three things there is the top of the mountain is a particular level of reality that is the spiritual reality then second is the glimpse of that spiritual reality that is the spiritual state of mind or spiritual experience and third is the pathway to get to that reality the pathway to get to that reality so reality, state of mind and pathway so all these three are what people what we can say broadly refer to spirituality now what has happened in it’s not just in contemporary world what you can say in Dakshash times that sometimes people follow a particular path which is actually meant to take me to the top of the mountain but I follow that path for some other purposes maybe I am in a society where doing those religious activities gives me a sense of prestige gives me a sense of respect and I am actually going up that path but I am not going all the way up the path I am just going a little bit up how much higher than everyone else I am and I am proud of that so in one sense I am going up but I am not looking up I am looking down I am looking down to see how much lower than me everyone else is so that could be somebody is following a path that can take them up but they are themselves they are not actually really going up their consciousness is still down so that’s what happens when sometimes people who are following something religious they end up with a holier than thou attitude that I am better than you are what you said about acceptance versus judgement the judgmentality is a very strong characteristic of people who are religious but not spiritual because if I am really spiritual I may be high up and I may be much higher up than everyone else but my vision will be how much higher up there is to go for me and that will bring humility if I look up to the distance that I have to go what awaits me in the future that brings humility but if I use my practises whatever I am practising to look down at others then that brings judgmentality that brings condemnation that brings an overall attitude of we could say discrimination in a negative sense and that’s very unhealthy I was in Texas and I think I mentioned this in one of my earlier podcasts I saw one poster a car bumper that person had written that Oh God, please save me from your preachers from your followers so the idea is the preachers have a holier than thou attitude I don’t want anything to do with such people so if I am on that path but I am looking down then that is something which is ritualistic so Daksha if you go back to our past time, Daksha was looking he was not looking up, it was a religious gathering where a sacrifice was to be performed a ceremony was there a yajna was to be performed over there, but for him that yajna it didn’t have so much of a spiritual import as a social import that yajna was not to direct one’s consciousness towards the divine the yajna was I am performing such an elaborate ceremony just see how prosperous I am, how pious I am and when that was his vision what happened was, if I am doing something to gain respect from others then if I see people are not respecting me then it becomes unbearable why am I doing this how dare somebody not respect me how dare somebody not respect me what’s the point to all this yeah exactly so he was religious in the sense that he was doing this fire sacrifice but he was not spiritual he was not thinking of the ultimate purpose of the fire sacrifice on the other hand, Lord Shiva he was there, now he was not religious in the sense that he was not dressed appropriately for that particular occasion he didn’t follow the external etiquette of offering respects to Daksha when he came but it was not it was not you could say the not what you earlier said about not following a particular regulation it was not because it was not because he was ignorant or disrespectful it was just he was transcendental he was at a higher level of consciousness, that’s why I said he was spiritual but not religious whereas Daksha was religious but not spiritual ok, now this is very interesting, now you’ve just described in one sense we could understand these two terms as synonymous but what we’re doing is we’re speaking about them we’re creating the distinction between them that is commonly held, we’re trying to articulate it and show how they could be understood different, right which is fine and I think yes, yes regarding the synonymous and difference I forgot to mention one thing generally when I talk about spiritual meaning three things, the state of mind the level of reality and the process to attain that level of reality or attain that state of mind, so generally that process is what is called as religion but many people if they don’t know there is a higher level of reality to be attained then what happens is they just do the religion without the spirituality so we could say that they haven’t seen the peak of the mountain but maybe they have no genuine spiritual experience but they have a fear of the consequences of their sin yes so they take up the process yes, that’s true they have, now even religion itself is not necessarily a bad thing at some level some level of fear of accountability or fear or accountability that is good in one sense but if you consider in terms of any relationship say a parent-child relationship the children should have a healthy fear of their parents but at the same time the relationship cannot always stay at that level of fear it has to evolve to higher levels if it doesn’t then it becomes problematic if fear is the basic denominator for the relationship then eventually once a person when the child grows up and feels that now I have my autonomy, I have my own independence then that relationship rather than evolving, it devolves it leads to rebellion, it leads to rejection and that’s what quite often happens when people follow religion out of that fear, if I don’t do this some bad things will happen to me eventually they start feeling that ok, there are so many people who are not doing what I am doing here not bad things are not happening to them or I did so many things and still something bad happened to me so that level of fear is not, it’s a it’s a very preliminary level of practise and Srila Prabhupada if we consider the way he presents the Bhagavatam, in the 5th canto there are quite vivid descriptions of the, we will come to the 5th canto later the descriptions of the consequences of our actions but Prabhupada practically never spoke in those terms if you do this you will go to this particular hellish condition or that particular hellish condition his focus was more on we are spiritual beings and we are meant for something higher than temporary pleasures so the approach was not, you could say fear driven, but more of intelligence or philosophy centred there is meant we are meant for something higher in life then why settle for something lower so that would be the second platform you are describing let’s understand reality yes, let’s understand reality right, perfect so so another so if I spirituality if I consider spirituality like a big circle within that there is the philosophy aspect and there is the religion aspect, they are like two circles within that spiritual circle or you could say that these are two circles which overlap with the spirituality circle, now religion can extend outside the spirituality circle also where somebody may be religious but not spiritual and philosophy can also extend outside the spirituality circle where somebody may come up with some philosophy, but that has nothing to do with any ultimate reality in the sense that I call it as not philosophy but foolosophy foolosophy means the sophistry of fools the false logic of fools there was one philosopher he said that life is meaningless, life is meaningless and miserable therefore the only philosophical question worth asking is whether to commit suicide today or tomorrow that is such a tragic way of looking at life so that’s not very helpful, but broadly so spirituality is like a circle and you could say philosophy and religion are two circles within them so you just clarified something you said there are three aspects to spirituality, one is the spiritual consciousness, which is the top of the mountain and which is the goal and then the second one is you could say now you are kind of characterising as the philosophy, the understanding of reality and then the third one was the path the rituals, the practises the regulations, etc. that you follow to move towards that ultimate top of the mountain, to the goal to the spiritual consciousness what you are pointing out is that and what Bhagavatam points out Bhagavatam will begin by saying all of the regulations that you practise if they are not leading to remembrance of Krishna which is the spiritual experience then they are a waste of time and similarly one’s philosophy if also not engaged for that purpose is also a misuse of it and so what Bhagavatam is trying to do is align all three, understand what the spiritual goal is understand what reality is so that everything becomes clear to you and take the practises that are laid out, the quote unquote religious practises and engage them for no other purpose but for achieving that goal and if you get too caught up if you have very dim if you have a very if you have a very if you don’t have a clear picture of that spiritual goal or what spiritual experience is and sometimes we get glimpses of that and sometimes it’s spoken to us but if you don’t have that clear in the mind then it’s likely that you get too caught up in just the ritual, if you don’t have also an exemplar, right, like someone who is deeply spiritual, it is easy to get caught up on that level of the ritual, of the religious, of the process, the process means everything but it’s not even moving in the direction of the goal yeah, it’s beautifully put if you connect this understanding the nature of reality is the purpose of philosophy and then outlining the path to get to that higher level of reality that is you could say essentially religion religion means to bind us to connect us, to link us with the ultimate reality now the journey is a journey of consciousness so what is it the bottom of the mountain and what is meant to get to the top of the mountain is our consciousness so now it is a consciousness which experiences and within the consciousness there can be many different experiences we have in fact we can say at every moment we are experiencing something, some experiences are relatively more memorable many are very easily forgettable but beyond whatever experiences we have there is the experiencer and the experiencer can rise to a higher level of reality so at one level spirituality is such that anybody can experience the spiritual anywhere, I mean right at the bottom of the mountain but sometimes because of some reason I might just get a glimpse of the top of the mountain so if you look at the history of spiritual people across the world sometimes when they are in the midst of great distress they are in the middle of some even doing some depraved actions at that time suddenly they have an awakening sometimes some people can have an awakening in a more sanctified more of a spiritual kind of place but you get a glimpse so the experience is wonderful whenever we have it but for that experience to become regular there has to be the journey of consciousness and so if we consider the nectar of devotion, the Bhakti Sahab at Sindhu it doesn’t talk so much about spiritual experiences as spiritual states spiritual states so experience is something which can come and go but a state is relatively more steady so if I am at the bottom of the mountain I can get some glimpse of the top but if my consciousness has journeyed upward then the vision of the top becomes much steadier so we want to go toward that spiritual state of consciousness that’s so interesting yeah I was trying to think I think most people that are using these terms there is a gradation of their understanding of even what they are trying to say sometimes their own experience can be a little bit hard to articulate or even understand like for instance I think a lot of times when people that identify as spiritual when they speak about spirituality or their own spiritual experience often it will have to do with the connection to nature for instance yesterday where I am staying there is a river a very beautiful river nearby and a quiet spot and I just went there, I went there alone and I dove into the river and I spent time there and I am looking up the river and I see there is a waterfall like a small waterfall that the river is coming and I can see the mountains in the background where the river is originating and you know I think people when they find themselves particularly alone in nature they can begin to feel their daily experience of responsibilities and pressures and anxieties and so on is set aside and in that moment they begin to think about God or they begin to think about their own let’s say maybe their own mortality or they begin to look at their life from a new perspective and they begin to feel, maybe they come in contact with an animal and they look at that animal and they feel a certain sense of communion with that animal and so on and I believe that in one sense we can say this is valid spiritual, quote unquote spiritual experience that their consciousness is momentarily awakening to spiritual reality beyond their daily grind but as you were saying now to reach that state and deeper states of that, like you know that is where spiritual practise is meant to take us.
In the Gita there is a concept called Vibhuti in fact the whole 10th chapter is called as Vibhuti now Vibhuti, Bhuti means existence or manifestation Vibhuti means a special existence or special manifestation. So the way I explain Vibhuti is the one above the many manifests as the one among the many The one above the many manifests as the one among the many manifests as the one among the many so that could be in that nature we could say if you see a river a mountain, a rainbow these are one among many things existing within this world but when we perceive them we experience something beyond we are not just when we see the beauty of a mountain see the beauty of a rainbow we are not just perceiving that particular structure we are experiencing something higher through it so it is the experience of the divine so this can apply to various things it can Krishna says actually I am adventure and I am victory so when some people have these living on the edge kind of sports, bungee jumping from a mountain top or from a plane the thrill that they are experiencing is actually an experience of God so the Gita tells us that our deepest experiences are actually our experiences of Krishna whatever is the deepest experience we have that is our experience of Krishna however we may not realise that we are experiencing Krishna this is something special this is something extraordinary but what is it one of my main services is writing so I was reading about the celebrated writers of the last century and among the top 10 writers almost everyone ended up with severe depression 7-8 of them committed suicide and I read a little bit about what exactly happened and one of the authors she wrote that I just cannot I cannot bear living with the thought that my best is behind me not ahead of me now what she meant by that was that actually when somebody is creative, somebody is writing something and they really write something well, at that time it’s not just their writing it’s almost like they connect with some source of ideas and energy from above which works through them and that’s how they have been able to write something which becomes a classic and then next time when they try to write it they are just not able to do it because that higher reality that is manifesting through them it’s no longer manifesting and then it becomes unbearable I was this good a musician I was this good a writer now I am not able to do that just not able to do that so that experience of in professional circles we use the word flow I am in a flow now so that’s a state of peak performance so that is also actually experience of the divine experience of the spiritual the point is that we all experience something higher during various courses of life suppose somebody is watching a cricket match or any sports match or maybe somebody is even watching a TV show and somebody is acting very well over there then they are captivated by that so anything special that draws our attention the bhagavata says that is the manifestation of the divine right recognise it the challenge however is that although everything attractive comes from the divine everything attractive may not take us towards the divine so essentially yeah somebody can have spiritual experiences by through any means practically but will those means steadily take me towards the spiritual level of reality that is the key question so these extraordinary experiences we all have at various times and when we have those experiences what do we do after that we need to then we need to explore what is the way I can I can progress towards getting those experiences on a regular basis right so in other words Bhagavad Gita is saying that there is such a thing as a very deep constant state of spiritual consciousness and you may have experiences in this world that are temporary glimpses of something glorious that gives you some access to experiencing that momentarily for some point of time but the value of that is meant to inspire one to follow the path to the steady like Krishna used words like where you are always connected to that spiritual source always connected yes that’s true like if I go close to nature if I see a beautiful mountain one day I may have like a flow of thoughts which are very uplifting but the next day I go in front of the mountain I feel nothing over there it’s ok, I am there, what is the big deal about it so what is happening you could say that the object is not the source of the experience the object is the stimulus for the experience right and the source is it’s one small manifestation of the source but it’s not the source itself yeah it is when our consciousness becomes more elevated, more attuned then we can perceive the spiritual at various places so what happens is when somebody is religious so going back to our theme of spiritual but not religious if somebody is too caught in being religious only then they think that even if they have an understanding of the spiritual they think that the spiritual will manifest only through XYZ ways, ABC ways that only when you go to a temple and pray to god that’s when you experience something spiritual if you go close to nature, what you are experiencing that is just mundane, that is just something mundane feel good, well no that can also be spiritual so when you say religious but not spiritual what happens is we reduce spirituality to certain predefined rituals or predefined dogmas and that is unhealthy on the other hand if somebody says I am spiritual but not religious and in that sense they reject all religion completely then what happens is they reduce spirituality only to a set of experiences which are highly inconsistent and unpredictable, non-replicable I sometimes get it, for many times I don’t get it so that’s why there is no transformative process so that’s why in one sense if you consider Krishna consciousness it is, you could say it is spiritual and religious however it is first spiritual and then religious because Krishna begins I am sorry, go ahead because Krishna begins with analysing the nature of reality, first he says that our essential core is non-material our identity transcends our biology and our psychology both, we exist different from our bodies, even different from our mind and our emotions, so he begins with the spiritual aspect of reality and then he talks about a pathway so in one sense to be transformed, to rise to the top of the mountain, we need to be both spiritual and religious religious doesn’t mean simply following certain rituals but adhering to a particular path, having a certain kind of discipline by which we can rise up the mountain yeah, I love that you know, and of course Bhagwatam is again, is starting right there by saying your religion, your regulations and so on they become meaningless if they are not leading to the goal of that path they have no value then, but you know yeah it’s a very strong phrase it’s just a waste of time it’s a complete waste of time it’s actually even stronger it’s not just a waste of time, it’s almost like a it’s a wasted labour shrama is actually not just time it’s effort shrama is effort, but it’s just a wasted effort wasted labour actually going toward the top of the mountain yeah, but I also appreciate what you said, because we spent and I think maybe the amongst people in quote unquote spiritual circles, we may spend a lot of time condemning the shallow religious thought that’s not leading to that but it’s also prudent for us to consider you know, for any person that considers themselves to be spiritual and not religious is my aversion towards quote unquote religion, you know, is it really because I’m getting to the essence and I’m trying to rid myself of all the cultural baggage that comes with religion, all the guilt and all the repression and meaningless ritual and so on, or is that, you know aversion to religion, does it stem from my aversion to regulating myself you know, like do I actually not have the self-discipline and therefore I’ve kind of rationalised that by saying I’m religious and not spiritual, which I think is a very real phenomenon too true, what happens is that at one level disciplining ourselves in any way is painful the Bhagavad Gita says that that which tastes like poison in the beginning will taste like nectar in the end but most of us the nectar seems to be too far away and the poison seems to be too much right now so we say why should I have any kind of discipline and saying that I’m spiritual but not religious can lead to a rejection of any form of self-discipline any form of regulation as repression so one way I differentiate between regulation and repression is that regulation means if you consider a flow of water if you have a channel by which the water is directed toward a particular path and repression means the water is just kept in a centre, kept in one kept in a particular place without any any direction at all so it’s like don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this, don’t do this don’t do this what am I to do what is the direction what is the direction that’s a great analogy we’re running out of time but I just thought maybe just to get your thoughts on this because hearing this conversation, you’ve really clarified some things for me very nicely today, I appreciate it I’m thinking that when we look at Bhagavad Gita and we look at Bhagavatam the two, let’s say most fundamental bhakti shastras, the two most important texts that delineate what is bhakti, what is bhakti practise, how to understand bhakti how to practise bhakti it seems to me like you could you could characterise the purpose of these books as distinguishing as the encouragement to transcend religiosity and take it to the spiritual level, that’s where Gita starts and it seems like that’s where they both start and in one sense, not only do they start there but they begin and end there it almost seems like the central purpose to them you know, Arjuna, he gives religious arguments at the beginning of the Bhagavad Gita and then Krishna’s response to them in the second chapter right up to the end beginning of the second chapter he’s saying, if you’re just concerned with you’re afraid of getting sinful reactions you’re afraid of bad karma you’re afraid of bad reactions and you live your life pursuing good reactions and avoiding bad reactions then you never achieve samadhi you never achieve a deep sense of spiritual experience you know you never achieve anything deeply spiritual and then it goes then the Gita will go great lengths to give, you know, Arjuna in one sense, in the second chapter tell me, what does the spiritual person look like? you know, like, how do they act? how do they behave? how do they walk? how do they sit? and then we begin to hear spiritual qualities even-mindedness under all different circumstances, etc, etc and Bhagavatam, same thing as we’re saying, like, you know, it’s setting out to kind of reject, you know we’re hearing about daksha here, we’re going to hear about daksha again you know, where again he kind of, like, offends a deeply spiritual person with his religious seeing his religious duties as as superior, more important but in one sense, it’s almost as if all the stories in Bhagavatam are illustrating this point from different angles yes, definitely in one sense if you consider the Bhagavatam the Bhagavatam is talking about it’s spoken to the king Parikshit and Parikshit is actually a very religious king he respects the sages, he’s himself following the, he’s not only following but he’s ensuring that religious virtue is maintained in society he disciplines the dark age of, the personified age of Kali who is trying to spread his religion but even after all that what happens to him is he’s cursed he’s cursed to die in seven days so in one sense if somebody is only religious without being spiritual you do good, you’ll get good you do bad, you’ll get bad that’s broadly the religious worldview but that religious worldview eventually leads to frustration because in the world we can say that whether we do good or whether we do bad ultimately everybody has to grow old everybody has to get deceased, everybody has to die and if we look if our religious worldview leads us to expect fairness in the world we will end up with frustration so what happens is when he’s cursed in that way he could very well have asked I was so virtuous, I was so religious I was doing all my duties so well but he didn’t get frustrated he saw that curse where he was to die in seven days as an opportunity to rise to the spiritual level of consciousness where he put aside so even if religion doesn’t make one dogmatic, even if religion doesn’t make one judgemental, even if religion doesn’t make one irrational but even then religion alone cannot really equip us to face life’s challenges this is one of the key reasons why people lose faith I did so much for my religion, for my God and still why are so many sufferings coming in my life Arjuna at the beginning of the Gita is right there as well Arjuna I was going to talk about that also that he was actually he had an ethical dilemma he’s a good person should I fight to maintain the kingdom, should I fight against my relatives, what should I do he was torn between two duties the duty of protecting his citizens from a ruler who was an aggressor, exploiter and duty of protecting his dynasty because that exploiter was a member of his dynasty so what does he do at that time so ultimately just a religious world view it has its value but life’s frustrations will eventually bring us to a place where even our religion will not be adequate and that’s where if the spiritual dimension is there then we can rise toward higher consciousness otherwise we can’t we will end up frustrated so he said that there is or as Baba Temo say we won’t achieve Atma Supersity the complete satisfaction there is, to talk about salvation there is release from distress and there is relief amid distress so we could say the ultimate purpose is that we want to release from distress that is the state of attaining the top of the mountain but if somebody is expecting that my religious practises in this world I’ll get released from distress that’s not going to happen but if my religious practises can help me raise my consciousness raise my consciousness above my situations by circumstances then we can experience relief even amid the distress the distress is there but our consciousness rises above, like at the bottom of the mountain there is a flood, there is a famine there is a volcano but if my consciousness is risen above then I am not affected by that so that’s why yes religious practise is important but the most important thing is understanding the spiritual and pursuing the spiritual Prabhu you have as always been very helpful and enlightening and illuminating to us thank you for joining us again we plan on bringing you back many many times but it’s been a pleasure having you here today thank you so much