Karma Philosophy for a Brighter Future (five-part series)VID 20241110 161524

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
Hard, but in which case it helped me in my life, that was hard to answer. Because I was thinking about, okay, that was my boundaries. And it helped me to show myself not that vulnerable, like I did before, before I set the boundaries.
But does it help me? Does it help me in my life? Or is it just I created a wall around me, not to show when I’m feeling hurt or. Okay, yeah. So, you know what I mean? I set the boundary, but what I should have done is that maybe I could have given one or two examples of answers to the question, then it could have become easier.
Okay. So, you could just share what you’ve written, you’ve written something, or whatever you wrote about a boundary, a boundary that you had in your life. It is a little difficult to decide whether it was beneficial or not.
No, I don’t want to share that. Okay, sure. Yes, please.
For me, a boundary I set is to, for example, practise meditation four times a week and be doing my asanas in the yoga mat five times a week. And the boundary is like the time frame, I do that. And it’s really helpful because it allows me to be more present in my body and more connected.
So yeah, it’s been really helpful. And I see it as a boundary in the time frame, I dedicate to the practise. So, dedicating a certain amount of time to do a particular activity.
Yeah, meaning as in, for example, it’s time I’m not using to scroll on my phone or to be like with friends. So, the boundary, it’s more coming from letting go other activities and through the commitment to a practise. I don’t know if it’s the right interpretation or the intention of the question, but this is what I journal about.
Good, thank you. That’s very much in the right direction. Thank you.
So, the creating certain, blocking out certain amount of time for certain activities that ensures that that activity is not left at the mercy of our mind. That okay, when whenever I feel like doing it, I will do it. And then if I don’t feel like doing it, I’ll never do it only.
So, then we cannot be steady in things. So, that’s very helpful. The Gita says one of the characteristics of the mind is that it is steadily unsteady.
That means chanchalatva asthiram. That what it says is that it is unsteady, but it is steadily unsteady. What it means is that today it will be unsteady, tomorrow it will be unsteady, day after tomorrow it will be unsteady.
And if we leave things at the mind itself, then we will not be able to commit ourselves to any meaningful or valuable activity. Thank you. Perfect.
Anything else? Yeah. Boundary that I’ve set is not to harm anyone while exploring my pleasures like senses, pleasures through my senses. So, that’s the only boundary that I have set in my life.
So, it has helped me of figuring out what is right and wrong. That was the biggest question. So, whenever I make sure I experience any pleasures for any five senses, I make sure I’m not harming anyone.
That’s a good way. Because it’s in a world where morality can often become, different people have different moral standards. This is a basic level we can have.
I don’t want to hurt others, I don’t want to harm others. Thank you. Yes, please.
Because I am very close to them. We need some boundary. Yeah, this should be boundary.
So, the boundary that I also made myself and the boundaries, sometimes you see some boundaries also like with the parents, parenting and all, your parents and society also teach you the surroundings and environment. So, what I like, the value that I received and spiritual boundaries helped me to cultivate a better life. Even in the past, I started having some bad habits, but positive impression and sanskaras helped me to set positive boundaries and to excel deep into my spiritual journey.
Thank you. Yes, we all develop some habits from childhood. We at that time, we just do it because our parents tell us to do it.
But as we grow up, then we start realising the value. Thank you. Yes, please.
So, I set boundaries with the society or the place where I was living. I wanted to find some answers, really go deeper. And they were like not encouraging or like pulling me back that it’s like a wastage of time that why you want to go there.
So, I had to create a boundary physically to stay away from those people who are dragging me away from my search. And then so that I can spend time here in the search of those answers and spend more time with the sangha or the people who are really going deeper. So, it was that boundary, physical boundary with those people or with those older connections.
Yes, that’s a very important boundary for you to specify the spirituality which applies to anything that if we overvalue the people who devalue us or who devalue what is valuable for us. So, if say this spiritual journey is valuable for us and if there are people who devalue that and there will be. Most people in the world are not going to be spiritualists.
It is not that we have to completely reject them, but we certainly can’t overvalue them. So, if we overvalue people who devalue us, then we will never be able to do anything of value. Whatever we want to do in our life, there will be people who will devalue that.
And so, these are basically these boundaries. Don’t overvalue the people who devalue us and learn to value the people who value us. So, if you want to grow spiritually, spiritually minded people’s association is very important.
So, when that is there, then our aspirations, our healthy, the healthy impression that we are trying to cultivate, they will grow deeper. Otherwise, we will not be able to repeat them sufficiently. We can talk about Abhyasana and Vairagya.
So, if I am surrounded by people who are repeatedly visiting Bollywood.com and if I go to Bhagavad Gita.com, they will say, why are you wasting your time? You may start thinking, okay, you know, better let me go there only and we will not go to Bhagavad Gita.com. So, association is very important in terms of boundaries. So, I would say this would fall in the accountability. Accountability can be, we are accountable ourselves, we also have people who hold us accountable.
And if people do not help us in that, then we need to create a little bit of boundary for them. Thank you. Yes, please.
So, the boundary that has helped me in my life is to discover the Yama Niyama because I have grown up in a family that gives me a lot of freedom and I never felt any strong boundaries coming from my parents. They were just giving me general advices how to drive my life, but it was up to me to follow or not. And to discover the Yama Niyama has really set up a frame of value in my life that I can follow in a systematic way and that has been so much helpful in my spiritual growth.
I am not saying that I follow 100%, but at least I have a track and I know that I can follow those points and if I follow them, it will help me to become a better version of myself. Excellent, yes. Yama Niyama is a good example of certain prescriptions, proscriptions, do’s and don’ts.
And broadly, I could say this is generalisation, but not absolutization. Indian or Eastern parenting gives a lot of boundaries. The Western parenting does not give so many boundaries.
Everything has pros and cons. Many Indian kids feel suffocated. We have a term called helicopter parenting.
Parent is like a helicopter constantly above the head of the child, watching what are you doing. But in many ways, we discovering the value of boundaries ourselves is very empowering. When somebody else puts boundaries on us, that feels restrictive.
That feels like imposing on us. Thank you. Yes.
So, would anyone else like to share? We will move ahead to the last part. Thank you. Now, I will try to do a recap of where we are right now.
We started by talking about how there is a mind inside us which impels our behaviours to act in particular ways. So, we want to observe what are the impressions in the mind. So, first step is we cannot just get rid of the impressions.
So, while the impressions are there, how can we regulate ourselves? That is by creating boundaries. But what is more important, what is more sustainable is we change the impressions inside us. So, many times we may resolve, I will do this particular thing, I will not do this particular thing.
But we may make a new resolution and we stick to it for some time and then it just collapses. The reason that happens, we often say, oh, I just don’t have any power. But it’s not just that.
Say, suppose somebody’s hand had a fracture. Now, if the hand is fractured, I tell them, come on, just use your willpower, lift up the suitcase. No amount of willpower is going to help a person with a fractured hand to lift a suitcase.
So, at that time, there are basically two steps involved in recovering. First is don’t move the hand. That is put it in a sling or put in the cast and let it rest so that it will heal.
So, motion has to be stopped at that time. However, if we just keep the hand in the cast forever, instead of recovering, the hand will atrophy. So, after some time, maybe three, two weeks, three weeks, four weeks, depending on the severity of the fracture, the same doctor will tell, okay, now start moving the hand.
Say, make up your mind. First you told me don’t move, now you tell me move. Yeah, now it’s a different stage.
And then at that time, the movement may be, okay, you have to do exercise, just move your hand up and down. It’s an exercise. You know, I used to pump iron in a gym now.
This is not an exercise, just moving the hand up and down. No, this is the exercise for you at this point. Just do this exercise in the morning 10 times, afternoon 10 times, evening 10 times.
Just move your hand up and down. When they do this, gradually the hand will start recovering. And then the normal fitness will come.
So, what applies to physical injury also applies to the samskaras in the mind. Suppose, say, somebody has claustrophobia, very afraid of close places, they just can’t get into elevator. And now, if we tell them, say some, okay, you know, what can you do? I can’t get into an elevator.
I’m afraid of elevator. Okay, if you can’t get in the elevator, that’s okay. If you have to go for work, climb up the stairs.
So, initially, after the trauma for some time, keeping a distance from whatever has caused the trauma is required. Because when the injury is too fresh in the mind, when the impression is too much alive in the mind, an exposure to that will trigger a very strong response. You remember, I started by saying, samskara means disproportionate response, small stimulus, large response.
So, initially, protection is required. Somebody had PTSD, okay, they are taken to a protected environment where there are no sudden loud sounds. Okay, let’s say, but a person can’t live in a bubble like that, a safe bubble for the rest of their lives.
And then what is the next step? There is just like gently start moving your hand. So, like that, regulated and regular exposure to the negative stimuli, to the traumatising stimuli. So, okay, that elevator is about 15 feet away from you.
Can you go 10 feet closer than 5 feet or can you be 10 feet away from the elevator? Yeah, I think I can do that. Can you go 5 more feet? No, that’s okay. You go till there.
Okay, then the next day, can you go one feet more ahead? Yes. Next day, can you go one more feet ahead? See, what are we doing over here? The samskaras themselves are not rational. We can rationally try to understand how samskaras work.
But the samskaras are almost like an automatic linking of stimulus with experience. That a loud sound, how? We form exclusion. That’s how it has been linked in the mind.
So, what we need to do is de-link the two. That, so, oh, you know, if I go into elevator, I don’t want to close space. I don’t know, I’ll get suffocated.
I may die. What if the lift breaks and this happens and I’m trapped all alone? So many fears coming. So, what we need to do is by regular and regulated exposure.
It has to be regulated. You can’t just suddenly take the person into the elevator. Okay, can you go one feet close to the elevator? Can you enter into the elevator? Okay, don’t close the door.
Okay, when you close the door, but enter into the elevator. Then what happens? You enter into the elevator. You start realising within the impressions of the mind, there is that fear.
Okay, what is going to happen? The whole world is going to crash. I’m going to die. Catastrophe will happen.
But then by repeated experience, when we see that the catastrophe has not happened, that’s how the fear goes away. Say somebody has hydrophobia. They’re afraid of water.
Then you tell them go and swim. Hey, are you crazy? I don’t want to swim. Okay, can you go near the banks? What if somebody pushes me? We’re all here, friend.
Nobody’s going to push you over. Okay, can you go a little closer? Okay, can you bend down and put your hand in the water? Okay, can you put your feet in the water? Gradually. So regular and regulated exposure.
So the idea is, boundaries are initially, there is a phase of protection, where we keep a distance away. But after that, there is a phase of exposure. By which what happens is, the impressions that are there in the mind, we are now creating fresh impressions.
The previous impression was, oh, water means drowning, or closed spaces means suffocation. But now, we create fresh impressions. So this can be two distinct things.
One is, we have certain desires, which take control of us. And we don’t want to be controlled by those desires. The other is, we have certain fears, which take control of us.
We don’t want to be controlled by those fears. Both come from the samskaras in the mind. And the way to change the samskaras is by abhyas and vairagya.
Abhyas is setting bonds, and vairagya is setting boundaries. So bonds means regular and regulated exposure. Do the same thing again and again, in a moderate way.
And by that, we change the impression in the mind. So like I said, visit bhagavadgita.com repeatedly. Gradually, the browser history of the browser will change.
So this applies to any behaviour. This is basically, rather than giving up a habit, what we are doing is, we are taking up a healthy habit. It’s like, say, there’s a small child who is being terrorised by some bully.
And the child says, okay, you know, I’m going to, from tomorrow, I’m going to go to the gym, and I’ll beat up the bully. Well, that’s going to take some time. In the meanwhile, if that child develops a friendship with some other person also is very well built, then what will happen is, this person can protect them from the bully.
So like that, when we have some unhealthy samskaras, when we have some unhealthy habits, which come from there, they could be behavioural habits, emotional habits. Rather than trying to fight against those habits, we focus on creating healthy habits. And let the healthy habit fight against the unhealthy habit.
Don’t fight against the bully. Fight to build a friendship with someone who can fight against the bully. Fight means work, not fight.
But put an effort to build a friendship. So, vairagya is about setting boundaries. And that’s important.
But along with that, bonds are okay, we build healthy habits. So, for example, if somebody spends too much time on social media, scrolling on the phone, and say, I don’t, I won’t do this. Okay, but what am I going to do? You know, maybe I, when I do some deep breathing, I feel calm, when I chant some mantras, I feel good.
And I hear some spiritual music, and I sing some kirtans or hear some kirtan, that helps me feel good. So, what we need to do is just do this healthy habit repeatedly. So, we create a bond.
Here I am using the word bond in the sense that we do something repeatedly, so that that creates an impression within us. So, we create a bond. And that bond helps us change the impressions within us.
And I’ll make two last two more points. And then we will have further question answers. That this applies at one level for any unhealthy habit that we can replace with a healthy habit.
So, at the same time, spiritual habits have a special potency that is not there in other habits. So, for example, you know, somebody has a habit of watching a lot of TV. And they decide, okay, I’ll go for a walk, I’ll go to a park, I’ll look at nature.
And maybe I’ll have some friends with whom I will go and we can run. So, that’s replacing a more healthy habit with a more unhealthy habit. That’s nice.
But this change is only at the level of the mind. In the mind, there was an unhealthy impression. Now I’m creating a healthy impression.
And this itself is good. But if there are three levels of reality, there is the physical, mental and spiritual. So, what are we doing? We are using the physical level to create a new impression in the mental level.
Remember earlier, I talked about the outside in the approach. The outside in the approach is build, do another habit or do something repeatedly, by which a fresh impression is created. That’s good.
No doubt. But spiritual habits, what they do is, at one level, it seems like we are doing the same activity again. Say, we are doing some yoga practise, we are chanting some mantras, we were doing some praying, we do certain practises.
And they can also seem to be repetition of the same activity. They are, but they are more. What they are going to do is, these activities also awaken the soul.
So, it is not just from outside the impressions are being created, but from inside the soul is being activated. The soul has natural attraction towards the spiritual reality. That is currently covered.
So, when that becomes activated, then the change that happens in the mind is much faster. This is what you can call as purification. Purification is that when the soul becomes activated, the impressions within the mind get rapidly transformed.
So, for example, when we do kirtan, we are not just repeating a sound. Now, music is extremely popular all over the world. And every culture has songs that become popular and people repeat those songs.
And those create certain impressions. Some songs could be more inducing violence and sensuality. Some songs could inspire more higher values, some love for country, love for family, love for service, caring for others, whatever.
There could be different kinds of songs. But when we sing spiritual songs, when we do mantra kirtan, then we are activating the spiritual reality. And that is an inside out approach to changing the impressions.
An inside out approach means that the soul which is dormant becomes active. And then the impressions that were there at the level of the mind, which were shaping our behaviour, their influence decreases substantially. This is where rituals comprise a vital part of spiritual traditions.
Often the word ritual is used in a negative sense, iris opportunistic. But rituals are basically time-honoured practises that tap the power of repetition in transforming the mind’s impressions. I repeat this, repetition is what transforms the mind’s impressions.
Like bhagavadgita.com, just repeatedly go there. So, repetition transforms the mind’s impressions. So, now which kind of repetitions can very effectively and rapidly transform the mind’s impressions? Those practises over centuries, over millennia, have been consolidated by sages and they become what is called as rituals.
Now, of course, there could be many ritualistic things that are not necessarily spiritual, but there are time-honoured practises. So, mantra chanting, kirtan, pranayam, uttering Om, these are praying, these are practises that create new impressions in our mind. But they are not just creating new impressions from outside in, they are actually from inside out, they are activating, awakening the soul.
And that’s why there is an importance given in spiritual traditions to sadhana. Sadhana is where we take a certain set of practises and do them regularly and repeatedly. Again, the same point I talked about for negative emotions, like regular and regulated exposure.
We keep doing that, this will create new impressions in us. And we will find that, say, if somebody has anger issues or somebody has fear issues, anxiety issues, at one level we can rationally try to approach and, okay, you know, don’t catastrophise things like I talked about earlier in the morning. Contextualise things will be okay.
And that is important. But if we start mantra chanting, if we start doing musical meditation, devotional meditation, for example, we’ll find that this, although it doesn’t seem to be directly related with that, this will actually change our capacity to deal with those impressions much more effectively. We’ll find that some craving, some addictive desire, it will just decrease almost magically.
What was earlier an irresistible craving now becomes, okay, it becomes manageable, it becomes bearable, it becomes irresistible, without even putting a strong conflict, putting a strong effort to fight against it. The same problem which earlier would have shattered us, it, okay, it concerns me, but it doesn’t terrify me now. Let’s see how we can deal with it.
So, we will see this transformation happening through spiritual practises. So, when we repeatedly do spiritual practises, then those create impressions within us. And those impressions are very empowering.
So, the last point I’ll talk about is these bonds, the spiritual impressions that you want to form, how can we make them most effective? And generally, the way to do this is that when we are doing a spiritual activity, we want to make our mind fit, like we do yoga to become physically fit, we also want to make our mind fit. So, fit, F-I-T is an acronym, it’s frequency, intensity, and time duration. So, frequency refers to how frequently do we do a spiritual practise? Do I do it every day? Do I do it once in two, three days? Do I do it once a week? Do I do it once a month? How frequently do we do it? Like, if you are going to visit bhagwanta.com and you want that to come as auto-complete, how frequently are you going there? So, frequency.
But the computer and its browser are just mechanical devices. There, the browser will just see how often we have visited, that’s all. But with respect to our mind, it is also intensity.
Intensity means how much are we involved in it? So, if somebody is doing some mantra chanting, but while their mouth is uttering the mantra, they are looking at their phone, then what is going to happen? Their consciousness is not there. The interest, the intensity, the involvement is not there. So, the impression that we form will be minimal.
And if the new impression is not strongly formed, then the old impression will not be overwritten. So, intensity. That’s why the bhava, the emotion, the devotion, the way we engage ourselves.
How much do we try to focus? How much do we try to get involved? Intensity creates an impression. And now intensity, I’ll circle back to this point when we’ll do one last journey exercise. That is, the 30 is time duration.
It’s how often we do it, but also how long we do it. If you meditate for five minutes, that’s also good. If you meditate for 15 minutes, that’s even better.
The more we do an activity, the more the impression is created. It’s like, say, you could be comfortable on various parts of the world. You could be learning yoga in whichever part of the world you are in.
And you would learn and grow. But if you come to a place like Rishikesh, which is the world yoga capital, here it becomes a much more immersive experience. There it might be okay, you go to the yoga studio once a week, or every day you go for 15 minutes, half an hour, one hour, how do you work out? But here, you’re coming for one week, two weeks, one month.
So, the time duration becomes much more. It becomes a much more immersive experience. That’s why in spiritual traditions, there are festivals, there are festive occasions.
Like earlier, I talked about boundaries. One of the boundaries I spoke about was time. So, if we can devote more time, now we can’t necessarily spend our entire life in this, but some phases of our life, some days in our life, some times in our life, the more time duration that we can give, the deeper the impression will become, and the faster the transformation will occur.
So, frequency, intensity, and time duration. And in this way, we all can create healthier impressions and transform ourselves much faster. In the bhakti tradition, we invoke the power of the divine, that it is not just the soul that gets activated, but also the divine, the grace of the divine is sought.
So, the soul has great power, but the divine has ultimate power. And when we seek the grace of the divine, that can become like the ultimate game changer in bringing about inner transformation. So, I will summarise what I discussed just now.
So, I talked about three main points again. First, started by when we are dealing with impressions, we want to change the impression with a two-step process. Like a fracture, there is first stop the motion, then gradual motion.
So, similarly, boundaries and bonds. So, claustrophobia first, avoid elevator. PTSD first, avoid violence.
But after that, regular and regulated exposure. So, similarly, whatever it is that we want to change, boundaries create a space where we are not agitated, where the impressions cannot act out and influence us. But then, bonds are what create new impressions.
And how do the bonds work? That was the second point I discussed that the mind is impressionable. When we repeat an activity, then that creates new impressions. So, rather than fighting against the unhealthy impressions, like a small kid trying to fight against a bully, a small kid focusses on befriending someone who can fight against the bully.
So, rather than fighting against the negative impressions, we focus on creating positive impressions. And those positive impressions will deal with the negative impressions. Rather than when anger or fear or desire hits us, no, I won’t do this, I won’t do this, I won’t do this, focus on building healthy habits.
And those healthy habits will help us fight against unhealthy habits. So, this is the outside-in approach, wherein we change the impressions in the mind by creating healthier alternatives. The last part was the inside-out approach, where any healthy habit can change the mind.
But when there are spiritual habits, then it is not just outside-in changing of the impressions of the mind, it is also inside-out, because the soul gets awakened. And then from there, as the soul’s natural attraction towards the spiritual becomes activated, the impressions within us get changed much faster. And that’s where rituals are there in spiritual traditions to tap the power of repetition through time-honoured practises.
And we can maximise the benefit of such spiritual practises by using the FIT acronym, Frequency, Intensity and Time Duration. So, in this way, each one of us can use spirituality as a tool to transform ourselves. So, I would like to do one exercise now.
We have some time. One journaling session. You can go down also if you want.
We’ll come back in about 10 to 15 minutes. And then we’ll have a Q&A session or a review session of the journaling. So, remember I talked about in an earlier session that when we are caught in the mind, we can either go down or we can go up.
We can go down to the level of the body or we can go up to the level of the soul. So, this will be a two-part journaling exercise. So, you can go down close to the Ganga and write five sensory experiences of what you’re experiencing.
It could be five sounds. It could be one sound, two sights, two fragrances. Just this experience that we are having over here, describe it in your own words.
So, for example, I’m sitting on this rock and while it is not as comfortable as sitting on a chair, it makes me feel transported to an old age where sages would sit like this. Or as we are seeing the greenery around us, we are feeling reminded maybe in childhood we went to a forest or a park. So, basically what we are trying to do is, you know FIT acronym, create more intensity.
Intensity can come from emotion but intensity can also come from attention, consciously given attention. So, try to have this experience to make it more immersive. So, five sensory impressions.
It could be what you see, what you hear, what you touch, what you smell, whatever it is. So, write five sensory impressions of the experience you have at the Ganga. The second part is that think of any one spiritual habit that you would like to develop.
And if you consider the acronym FIT, what could you do to accelerate the formation of new impressions? So, for example, if you meditate, if you participate in kirtans, so what could you do? Could you do it more frequently? Could you increase your intensity while doing it? Could you increase the time duration while doing it? So, consider a spiritual habit and see how you could use any of these three FIT to create or to change your impressions faster. Is the question clear? If it is not clear like the previous questions, I am sorry about that. But are the questions clear for everyone? So, the five, yeah, no? Which was the first part or second part? Second.
So, for example, in the Bhakti tradition, the current month is called Kartik. It is considered a very sacred month. So, in this month, we often make resolutions.
We regularly do spiritual practises, but we may recite some special prayers every day. We may chant some extra mantras. We may read some sacred texts.
So, it could be more in quantity. We will do something more prayerfully. So, think of some spiritual habit which you have found helpful, which you feel that can transform you and how you could use it to create impression strongly.
Could you increase the frequency which you do it? Could you increase the intensity with which you do it? Could you put more time into doing it? So, this does not have to be something which you have to do, but there are many spiritual practises. And if a spiritual practise has benefited you, you feel it helps you to change your mind, helps you to become more positive and more healed and whole internally, then how could you accelerate that? Is it clear? So, if you can answer both questions, that’s wonderful. If you can answer even one of the questions, that’s also good.
If you want to sit here and do it, that’s fine. If you want to go down and come back also, that’s fine. Abhyasa is creating bonds.
Vairagya is creating boundaries. So, detachment.