How Gita wisdom addresses mental health problems

[Talk at Colorado Boulder University, Denver, USA]

Video:

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, I’ll speak today on the topic of the Bhagavad Gita, which is an ancient yoga book. What is its message and how is it relevant to us? So, how many of you have some familiarity with the Bhagavad Gita? Are any of you studying Hinduism or any Indian literature? Okay, one of you. So, most of you don’t know anything as such about the Bhagavad Gita.
So, I’ll start from the basics. If you consider our quest for knowledge, it’s always cumulative. It’s not innovative.
Even when we make an innovation, that innovation is based on the knowledge that many other people in the past have acquired. So, Albert Einstein said that if I have seen more than others, it is because I am sitting on the shoulder of giants. Newton also said something similar.
Even science, which is considered to be a cutting edge branch of progressive knowledge, it is also cumulative. Yes, some changes happen, but still it’s a cumulative branch of knowledge. And we all can learn from the past.
And especially in today’s world, the Eastern wisdom traditions have something to offer us, which could be very helpful from a practical perspective. The nature of the human vision is that when we focus on one thing, then attention goes off other things. So, if two people are talking with each other and they are completely lost, absorbed in each other, then what is happening around them, that is no longer so easily visible.
They are no longer perceiving that. So, the same happens at a broader meta level, that as our modern and postmodern civilisation has progressed, our attention has gone more and more to the material side of things. And the reason for that was, if we consider the dawn of science in the 16th, 17th centuries, at that time science focused on measurable parameters within the universe.
So, science used the language of mathematics and the measurable parameters were considered objective. So, measurable parameters means length, breadth, width, speed, angular displacement, mass, these are all measurable. Now, they are certainly part of the world that we experience, but much of what is closest to us in our world of experience is not measurable.
Say, if we have some food and the food is delicious, now can we have a tastometer to say how delicious the food is? We could analyse the food for its ingredients and we would want to look at the ingredients before we take the food, if we are health conscious. But the ingredients don’t necessarily tell us how tasty the food is. And that’s why the cook’s expertise comes into the picture.
Even if we have a recipe given, not everybody is able to cook the recipe with the same expertise. So, similarly, when we want to form relationships, we would like to know whether the other person really cares for us or not. And with all our scientific advancement, with all our technological innovations, we don’t have anything like a love-o-metre.
If we want to form a relationship, just place the love-o-metre on the other person’s heart. Is this where this person really loves me? We can’t do that. And these are still very important aspects of our lived experience in life.
So, the modern science and everything that has developed around it focusses a lot on the measurable aspects of life. And we have been tremendously successful in terms of technological development with the internet and telecommunication or aeroplanes and spacecrafts and physical communication. At the same time, this non-measurable aspect has become significantly neglected.
But because the non-measurable aspect also matters, in fact it matters much more, this neglect has had serious consequences. Martin Luther King put his finger on this almost half a century ago when he said that we have guided missiles and misguided men. He said that our scientific power has outrun our spiritual power.
So, the need for understanding ourselves holistically is being recognised by ourselves and our world holistically. That is being recognised by many many thinkers. Einstein is attributed to have said that everything that counts is not countable.
And everything that is countable doesn’t count. Now, the Bhagavad Gita which is a yoga text from ancient India composed thousands of years ago offers us an insightful model for making sense of the non-measurable aspects of our lived experience. The Bhagavad Gita offers us a three level model of the self.
The three level model is, it says our existence as body, mind and soul. So, this three level could be compared to the hardware, the software and the user. So, the body is like the hardware, the mind like the software and the soul is the user.
Now, the mind is the place where desires, emotions, memories, inclinations, various kinds of impressions are stored. And from there our inner world is shaped. That means that two, three of us, three of us may look at the same object.
But we will not have the same experience of that object. If somebody sees a red rose, a person who is an artist may think how can I draw this nicely. A person who is in a romantic relationship, somebody should offer this to me.
Somebody who is a gardener may think how has this grown so nicely, somebody taking care of this. The same stimulus, we respond to it differently based on what is present inside our minds. So, right now for example, say you are looking at me, I am looking at you.
So, the experience that we are having is mediated by our mind. The world out here, say I am in the world out there for you and you are in the world out there for me. So, you are there here and I am here.
So, when I look at you and you look at me, in between this is the mind. And this implies that our experience of life is actually a two-step process. Our experience of any emotion is not a one-step process, it is a two-step process.
So, I will give an example and then we will do a thought experiment to illustrate this. Say you are going for a programme and after that there is a dinner, there is a feast over there. And you hear that they are going to have some great deserts after the programme.
And there is something which you like. Would you like to share any desert that you like? Sorry? Which pie, sorry? Key lime. Okay, okay.
I never heard of it. Okay. Key lime pie.
Thank you. Did I pronounce it right or no? Okay. Okay.
So, actually if I travel across the world, one thing that I learn when if nothing else is that there is so much variety in cuisine. Every place has its own distinct cuisines. So, suppose you hear there is a key lime pie.
Okay. So, then you are eagerly waiting for it. And then at the end of it, you come to know that actually there is some logistic mess up and the key lime pie is not there.
Now, what will be the response? Disappointment, yes. Disappointment. May be even stronger could be somebody who is very eager for it.
Anger could be there. Now, suppose that somebody, does key lime pie have sugar in it? Okay. So, then suppose somebody has been just few days before this programme diagnosed with diabetes.
And they love key lime pie. And now, when they are going there, it is going to be extremely difficult for them to resist it. And resist the temptation to see everyone else eating it to not be able to eat it themselves.
It is going to torment for them. And when they come to know, oh there is no key lime pie. What would be their response? Relief, isn’t it? Happiness.
So, what is the implication over here? The absence of the key lime pie is the event. But the experience, some people experienced disappointment and someone else experienced relief. That means the event alone doesn’t determine the experience.
There is something else. That we could say is the context of that experience. And a large part of that context is determined by our perception.
So, another simple way we could observe it is in sports. Say, if two teams are playing and there are fans of both teams. Now, when one team wins, the event is the same.
But depending on which team the fan is identifying with, that fan may either become delighted or that fan may become frustrated. So, this identification with the team is actually present in the mind. So, our experience of life is not determined by what happens in life alone.
It is determined largely, not entirely, largely. What has happened, what is there in the menu, that does matter. What is the result of the team, that does matter.
That is an event that is real. But the way it affects us is shaped not just by that event. It is shaped by our conceptions.
The conceptions are stored in the mind. And this understanding can be very empowering. How empowering? Because if we go back to the way science and technology have progressed with their focus on changing measurable physical parameters of things.
So, science and technology progresses by, say, if the temperature is going to become very cold, then have some heating arrangement. And that heating arrangement will provide us relief. And we can measure, okay, this is the temperature, let us heat the room, raise the room temperature above.
So, we were, so science and technology has given us significant amount of power to control the externals. So, the event is here, the experience is here, and in between is the impression, the conception, you could say. So, the conception shapes our experience of that event.
Now, what science and technology does is, it gives us greater and greater power to change the event itself. Change the event means in the past, if we had to travel, we might walk on foot or we might take a chariot or a horse. But now, we can travel by cars, we can travel by planes, we can increase our ability to travel.
So, science gives us the power to change the external events so that we can have them more according to our will. However, no matter how much power we get, we can’t make everything happen according to our will. And not only not everything, actually, no matter how much power we get, still majority of the things remain beyond our control.
Right now, I came for this programme in India till 2-3 years ago. I come from India. We didn’t use Google Maps much, even though not many people use Google Maps.
So, now with the availability of internet easily and with the availability of Google Maps, I can know how late I am going to be. But I can’t really change that. So, some amount of control comes but not really unlimited control.
It’s a very limited contextualised control. However, because of the progress of science and technology, the conception is developed within us here that we can control things and that we are meant to control things. And the more the conception that we are meant to be controllers, the more is the frustration when we are unable to control.
And this conception that we are meant to be the controllers, when it collides with the reality that we are not controllers, that causes frustration. And this collision of the conception and the reality, this collision is a major cause of one of the biggest health challenges of the 21st century. And that is mental health problems.
People always have had challenges in living in life. But the magnitude of mental health problems that we have in today’s world are far more than what we had in the past. And it’s not possible to reduce a phenomenon that is as widespread today as mental health to any one bad cause.
There can be many different constellations of causes. And in some cases, mental health problems may also be the result of certain imbalances in brain chemicals, certain damage to the neural functioning of the brain. But those are few.
They are real but they are few. Majority of the problems at the level of the mental health happen because of the conceptions that are stored in the mind. So, our conceptions cause frustration.
Now, we may say, is it the conceptions alone? Isn’t the situation frustrating? Yes, the situation is something which is unpalatable. So, this is where the measurable, non-measurable aspect comes in. So, somebody is going to be late for a programme or late to get somewhere.
Now, when we are going to get maybe late, it’s annoying. It’s uncomfortable. But the magnitude of that annoyance, that is not something, I’m going to be 35 minutes late, but I can’t measure how frustrated I’ll be about it, how angry I’ll be about it.
Now, among all of you also, that this programme started late, each of you might be having a different level of annoyance. So, I might just say, I enjoyed the informal socialising a little bit. Some of you worry about it, your time is getting wasted.
So, each of you will have a different experience. So, here, as I said, understanding that happiness is a two-step, not just happiness, distress, all our emotions, experiences are a two-step process that is empowering because we can evaluate our conceptions and check whether those conceptions are right. Right, not in the sense that they’re true or false.
That’s one aspect. But right in the sense, are they working for us or are they working against us? To understand this further, let’s do a simple thought experiment. So, wherever you’re seated, you can sit comfortably and then you can close your eyes.
And with your closed eyes, you can take three deep breaths. One, two, three. Now, with your eyes closed, look at what is in front of you.
Obviously, you can’t see what is physically in front of you. But still, it’s as if there is some kind of inner screen on which you may see different things. You may see a replica of this room.
You may see your home, your car. You may see a friend, a loved one. You may see some movie you may have watched recently.
You may see not just one thing, but maybe many different images coming and going. But whatever it is that you see specifically, even if it is just a dull haze of colours, whatever it is that you see specifically, you see it on some kind of inner screen. Now, as you’re observing that inner screen, try to take a step back and catch sight of who it is that is observing that inner screen.
I repeat, take a step back and try to catch sight of the inner seer, the one who is observing these various images. No matter how many steps you take back, the inner seer steps back with you. What you’re looking for is what you’re looking with.
You are that inner seer. That inner seer, which is you, is the soul. The inner screen is the mind.
You can take one deep breath and then you can open your eyes. So, this inner screen is vital for our experience of life. Normally, this inner screen is meant to act like a window.
So, whatever appears over there, we see it. So, normal perception happens when say, the outer scene, the outer scene, the inner screen and the inner seer, all three are in one line. But sometimes, this inner screen gets misaligned and it starts showing us something entirely different.
Or, that inner screen may distort our perception of the outer scene. So, we could visualise the inner screen to be like a coloured window. So, if we’re wearing red-tinted glasses, everything will appear to be red.
If you’re wearing green-tinted glasses, everything will appear green. So, going back to that earlier example of which… Key lime pie. Key lime pie.
So, going back to the experience, the outer scene, the key lime pie is there. Now, in the inner screen, for most people, there is eagerness. That is the filter over there.
That is the colour of the inner screen. But for some, for somebody who is diabetic, for them there is apprehension. And that inner screen, what is there, the conception there, that is what will filter what is coming from outside, from the outer scene and determine the experience.
And, the spiritual wisdom of the Bhagavad Gita helps us to understand what is present in the inner screen and then to change it as necessary. Ultimately, of course, this spiritual growth is meant not just to change the inner screen, but it is also meant to realise ourselves to be the inner seer. Now, I will conclude with two metaphors and then we can have some discussion if any of you would like to have some reflections.
This I talked about, this is a horizontal way. There is an inner seer, inner screen and outer scene. Now, this same, we could have it in a vertical way.
Vertical means, let’s say, if we consider there are, there is a three level building. There is a ground level, first level, second level. And, we are looking down from the third level downwards.
And when we are looking down, it is not just a straight vision down, there is some kind of net in between. And, we are looking below. Sometimes, when we are looking at something, at that time, say, now, we may use glasses.
So, when we use glasses, most of the times, we don’t even notice that we are using glasses. It is only when the glasses have got some kind of dust on it, oh, this glass is not clear. So, we see through the glasses, we hardly ever see the glasses themselves.
Of course, we do see the glasses because we usually don’t wear the glasses 24 hours a day. So, when we take out, when we put it on, then, we do remember, notice that these glasses are there, they are separate from me. But, if we had some kind of glasses which were strapped on to our faces 24 hours, then, we would quite often forget that those glasses were even there.
All those glasses would shape our perception of what is out there. So, if we consider this like a three-level reality, I talked about in horizontal terms, now in vertical terms. So, if somebody is so caught, they are at a higher level, at the third level, but they are totally caught in looking at what is happening at the first level, that they are not even, their consciousness is so caught in looking down at the first level, that they are not even aware that they are at the third level.
Okay, this has happened here, this has happened here, this has happened here. And, not only that, in between at the second level, there is this layer of glass which is shaping their perception and they are not aware it is shaping their perception. So, then, as they are observing, they may see some people, they may see a flood rising over there, they may see some people fighting over there, there are different kinds of events happening.
And, if there are some violent rioters, people who are on a riot out there, and this person is observing from above, they get unnerved, they get scared, are these people going to attack me now? Now, that is happening at another level. And, this person is actually at another level. But, as long as their consciousness is consumed in that, they can’t perceive the difference.
Whatever is there affects them a lot. Now, if we see somebody charging with a gun, we will be a little concerned, who is this person with a gun, what are they going to do? And then, if we see that person is wearing the uniform of a cop, if we just see somebody with a gun, and that person looks like a criminal or terrorist, then that will cause us fear. But, if we see someone with a gun, and that person looks like a cop, then we will experience relief from fear.
Oh, there is somebody here to protect me. Now, in one sense, the stimulus is the same, person carrying a gun, but the experience is different. So, we are looking from above, the difference is caused by the conception, again.
So, similarly for us, the physical world, which is where most events happen, that is external to us. And, because our consciousness is so caught in the physical world, so we are very strongly affected by whatever happens in the physical world. Now, the events in the physical world do matter, but how much they matter, that depends on how we are processing them.
And that processing happens based on the filter that is there. So, by spiritual growth, spiritual growth happens when we understand spiritual knowledge through discussions like this, by studying or reading wisdom texts like the Bhagavad Gita, our journey towards spiritual knowledge starts growing. And by that, we understand that actually, I am at a higher level.
Whatever happens in the outer world, that doesn’t immediately affect me. It affects me, but not immediately. It is not an immediate threat to me.
As the inner seer, I am always safe, irrespective of whatever happens in the outer world. And, I am at the third level. Whatever is happening is at the first level.
And at the second level is the mind. That is the conceptions present within it. First of all, understanding that we are at the third level of reality as spiritual beings, as souls, that brings security.
And understanding that there is the mind which is at the second level, which is filtering, which is shaping our experience of what is happening at the first level, understanding that brings clarity for us. It brings a sense of potency for us. Whatever is happening over there, how is it affecting me? If I feel angry, now why exactly am I feeling angry? Because this person did like this.
That person did like that, but why is that action producing the emotion of anger within me? That may be because, I expected this person to act like this, but they acted like that. So, it is not just the action that is causing the anger, it is my expectation of the other person. Now, I may ask, okay, what caused the expectation? It could be that I had this expectation because I thought that the other person knew that this is what they were supposed to do.
But maybe they didn’t know they were supposed to do this. Then, okay, this is what happened. This person, I expected them to do this, but I did not clearly inform them.
So, basically, we get a better perspective of reality. The reality may not change, but you get a better perspective of reality, greater clarity about how to deal with situations when we understand that our expectations of those situations are shaping our experience. So, if we look at this model once again, this three level model, there is the physical reality at the level one, the mental reality at level two, the spiritual reality at level three.
Based on this understanding, if we look at two of the major mental health problems that people have today, one of them is depression, the other is anxiety. Now, both of them can in some special situations be clinical problems which require medication. But most of them, most of the times they are not clinical problems, they are perceptual problems.
That means we are perceiving things wrongly. So, when something happens to us, and at that time something bad happens to us, something unwanted, unpleasant happens to us. So, for two people, the same thing may happen.
Say somebody speaks harshly with them, or say somebody is in a relationship and there is a breakup. That’s going to be painful. But the magnitude of the pain will vary.
Some people may just be disheartened for some time, some people may just sink into deep depression because of that. Why the difference? The depression when somebody goes into, because of something unwanted happening, that is, depression happens when, say, we are here, the inner seer is here, the inner screen is here, and the outer scene is here. If the inner screen starts going to the past, and starts connecting the present with the past in a compulsive way.
Oh, you know, this thing went wrong. In the past also this went wrong with me, that went wrong with me, that went wrong, that happened like that, that happened like that, that happened like that. And when we connect with all the bad things that have happened in the past, then that causes depression.
The present bad thing that has happened, it is bad. But when we associate that with all the past bad things and then think, this is the way my life is going to be. Think my future is going to be more of this.
That is when we get depression. So it is not just the event that is depressing, it is the experience that is depressing. And the experience is caused not just by the event, but by the conception which we have.
Oh, this went wrong, that means things are meant to go wrong in my life. And that causes depression. Similarly, anxiety.
Anxiety happens when there is some uncertainty for us. But along with that uncertainty, in one particular situation, we associate that with many future uncertainties. Oh, this may go wrong, that may go wrong, that may go wrong.
And the more we think about the future possibilities of what all may go wrong, the more we get affected by anxiety. So thus, if we gain spiritual knowledge, then material knowledge may be able to change, material means scientific knowledge, may be able to change the events in the outer world. Sometimes it is possible.
Many times it is not possible to change the events. We can’t change people’s behaviours. We can’t change much the way the nature is going to act.
We have limited power to change the events outside of us. But still if we grow spiritually, then firstly we can get security by understanding that we do not belong to physical reality. We, as the inner spheres, exist at a higher level of reality.
That can bring us security. And secondly, by understanding those events are being filtered by our mind, we can evaluate whether the conceptions there are affecting our experience, negatively or positively. And then we can revise those conceptions accordingly.
Life determines our problems, but we determine the size of those problems. Life determines the problems means life determines the events that happen at the physical level of reality. But it is our conceptions, which are present in the mind, that determine the size of the problems.
So, in an age of scientific progress, wherein we have wedded almost all our hopes for happiness on our increased capacity to control the externals, we can by this analysis understand that that capacity alone cannot give us happiness. That may change things in the external world, but that is also to a finite extent. And the changes in the external world alone don’t determine our happiness or distress.
By spirituality, we can change our conceptions and not just conceptions of things around us, but change our own self-conception by understanding that we belong to this higher level of reality. So, in the various spiritual traditions of the world, there are different practises that are recommended. So, there is meditation, there is prayer, there is mantra chanting, there is deep breathing.
All these are processes which are meant to ultimately help us raise our consciousness from level 1 to level 2 to level 3. And the process of mantra chanting is something that we practise in our tradition. It is a part of the bhakti yoga tradition. The word yoga is associated with physical exercises for shaping our body.
But yoga has a much deeper meaning to it. And bhakti yoga is the yoga of love. Bhakti is love directed towards the divine.
So, bhakti yoga is the teaching of the Bhagavad Gita, the conclusive message of the Bhagavad Gita. And bhakti yoga centres on directing the emotion of devotion towards the divine. So, in this three level reality, the level 1 is physical, level 2 is mental, level 3 is spiritual, actually at the level 3 also exists the supreme spiritual reality.
And that supreme spiritual reality doesn’t exist only at level 3. That supreme spiritual reality can also manifest at level 2. It also manifests at level 1. What does it mean manifest? If we go to a place that is very spiritually serene, say it might be a temple, a church, a meditation centre, there we can feel the vibes are somewhat different over it. That is because there by long practise of the seekers, of the devout, the divine has manifested at the physical level to some extent. And divine can also manifest at the level of the mind.
That means when we carry divine thoughts with us, when we hear spiritual wisdom and internalise it, remember it, then we can have that divine presence in our mind. And ultimately, the process of bhakti yoga is a process of devotional connection between we who are finite consciousness and the divine is infinite consciousness. So the link between finite consciousness and infinite consciousness, that is the link of devotion.
And when that link is established, then the two primary benefits of spiritual knowledge, one is security by understanding our own spiritual self-conception and clarity by evaluating our mental conceptions, both of these come much faster. Because that connection, there may be agitation in the external world, there may be agitation even in the mind because of that. But if we connect at the spiritual level, that gives us calmness.
And that calmness gives us perspective once again. So by the assimilation of spiritual knowledge and by the practise of bhakti yoga, of spiritually connecting with the divine, we can empower ourselves internally. So that even if we can’t change the events that we encounter in our life, we can change our experience of those events.
And thereby we can become more peaceful, more joyful, more purposeful in our lives. Peace, joy and purpose, all these are the gifts of spiritual practise. Peace comes when we are not so agitated by externals.
Joy comes when we understand that we are secure eternally in the connection, the supreme spiritual reality. And purpose comes when we understand what is it that we are meant to do in our life, what is it we are meant to contribute, what is in our control, what is not in our control. So the peace, joy and purpose can empower us in our life journey if we internalise spiritual knowledge through spiritual practise.
So I’ll summarise. I spoke today about the message of the Bhagavad Gita and how it is relevant today. I spoke broadly in three parts.
First I talked about science and technology and its capacity to make our life better by changing physical things. So science focusses on measurable parameters and tries to change them through technological advancement. But the more we focus on the measurable, the more we neglect that which is not measurable.
But our experience of life is shaped not just by the measurable physical things out there, but also by something immeasurable. Experience of events itself is immeasurable. And that is shaped by something apart from the events itself.
It’s our conception of the events. Then I talked about the three-level model of the self, body, mind and soul, which is like the hardware, software and user. And I explained based on that how happiness or distress are not just a one-step event, it’s a two-step event.
So if there is a desert which is not there in a feast, then it may cause annoyance to some, but it may cause relief to some based on the conception that is there. But if a sports match goes in a particular way, a particular team wins, who delights and who laments, that is shaped by the conception. So we did the thought experiment of the inner seer and the inner screen.
The inner screen is the mind, the inner seer is the soul. And then we made this vertical, this three-level of reality. And we always exist as the inner seer at level three.
But we are caught by getting absorbed in the events that are happening at level one. But if we gain spiritual knowledge, then firstly we will get security by understanding that these events don’t threaten me immediately. I am always secure in my position at level one, at level three.
And secondly, we get clarity because we understand that at level two there is a glass, there is a filter, which is shaping my experience of what is happening at level three. At level one, sorry. So life determines our problems, but we determine their size by the conceptions that are present within us.
And then I concluded by talking about various spiritual practises are meant to raise our consciousness upwards to level three. And the process of Bhakti Yoga helps us raise our consciousness upwards not just by our intellectual or analytical effort, but by a devotional connection. That that infinite consciousness, that supreme reality, who exists eternally at the third level, when we connect with that divine, whether it is through the physical manifestation of the divine or whether it is through the mental manifestation, that is thoughts of the divine, then by that we can experience that we are spiritual and that spiritual connection can make us peaceful, joyful and purposeful.
Thank you very much. So are there any questions or comments? Yes, please. I really appreciate your talk.
As a spiritual practitioner who touched on this, I don’t know if it’s an expectation of how fast one should be making progress or if you feel that connection, or if it’s just a matter of different levels of conditioning. I practised in seeing life through the spiritual lens of the body of Gita, but there is still this disconnect, and you kind of did it in part of your talk, where I feel like I’m not experiencing it emotionally. A lot of times I know where I should be or I have this idea of where I should be, but I have to talk myself down or talk myself to that place.
Let’s say somebody gets off centre or upset or feeling anything that we consider a negative feeling, I don’t know, I just keep waiting for this level of experience where I’m feeling love all the time or I’m feeling happy all the time or joyful or blissful or whatever, and that’s not my daily experience. I certainly have had glimpses, but I don’t know. It’s just practising to actually get to that place where you’re connected.
You don’t have to intellectually talk yourself to that place. I’m sorry, I don’t feel like I said that very well. I’ll rephrase your question.
Even when we practise some spiritual process, still we don’t get that spiritual connection. And is it because, why does that happen? Is it that we know certain things, but still we don’t experience it and we don’t experience peace, joy or any happiness, peace and joy regularly, intermittently we may experience it. There are, I would say, three broad things in this.
First is that happiness is very paradoxical. John Stuart Milley said that, ask yourself the question, are you happy? And from that moment, you stop being happy. Why is that? Because as soon as you start asking, am I happy? At a subconscious level, we have associated happiness with certain things.
Oh, if I’m meant to be happy, then this sort of thing should not be happening with me. Or even if we don’t think about these sort of things, we may even think, oh, for me to be happy, these kind of thoughts should not be coming with me. I’m having these kind of thoughts, I’m not happy.
So actually speaking, happiness is best perceived as a byproduct, never as a product. If we look back at our own lives, which are the happiest moments of our life? They are rarely the moments when we were most concerned about happiness. They are the moments when we were most concerned about doing something positive.
We’re absorbed in something. But then, that time I was so happy. That is so good.
So it’s like, if you want to, if some person is very elusive, as soon as we look at them, they notice we’re looking at them and they go away from there. So the only way we can, if they are a little shy or elusive, the only way we can look at them is a side glance. So happiness is like that.
You cannot have a full glance at happiness anytime. As soon as you try to glance, a full glance at happiness, happiness disappears. But happiness can only be side glanced.
That means that rather than pursuing happiness, we pursue a purposeful cause, a valuable cause, and that will give happiness as a byproduct. Now applying this to our spiritual advancement, to our spiritual growth. So this analysis that happiness is a byproduct, it applies for every walk of life.
If somebody is an artist, say I am a writer, that’s one of my main services. So when I am writing, at that time if I consider, am I happy? I will not be able to write and I will not be happy also. Because I will feel this sentence has not come out right.
This is not the right word. Get this right. This is not coming right.
But at the end of it, once I have written something valuable, even something that is good, I feel I am so absorbed in it. For me when I write something, one, two hours that I am writing, I easily forget the whole world, get absorbed in it. So when we are absorbed in some purposeful cause, that absorption itself is satisfaction.
So this applies to anything, even if it is not directly spiritual. Sports players, when they do workouts, when they are practising, that is not really enjoyable. It is exhausting.
But if we see the, if we look at our life, most of the best experiences of life, when we go through them, they are exhausting. While we are going through them, they are exhausting. But later on, they turn out to be exhilarating.
So that is why happiness is best pursued as a by-product of engagement in something purposeful. Secondly, if we apply this dynamic to our spiritual growth also, rather than thinking that, oh, I am not feeling peaceful, I am not feeling joyful, we can instead focus on, am I spiritually connected? Am I striving to be spiritually connected? Okay, I am not feeling peaceful, I am not feeling joyful. Okay, what am I doing to connect myself? In spiritual life, there are many practises which are more, they are meant to be at the spiritual level, but we often do them at the physical level.
So, for example, mantra chanting. Mantra chanting can be done just as a verbal utterance without any investment of consciousness. Then it won’t lead to much experience.
So, what am I doing to connect myself with spiritual reality? Rather than whether I am experiencing spiritual happiness or not, if I focus on what am I doing to connect myself with spiritual reality? If we shift our focus to that, okay, yeah, I can do this better, I can do this better. And we do this not in a dissatisfied or discontented sense, just in an objective sense, like an observer, like a clinical observer. Okay, this is what has not been done, let me do it this way.
And again, that focus on connection, on connection through contribution. Okay, what can I do right now? What can I do right now to be spiritual? What can I do right now to help someone else to become spiritual? That connection through contribution, focus on that rather than the experience that will result from that. Then the experience will automatically come as a result.
And third point is what you raised about expectations. In general, expectations, they can affect all walks of our life. So, sometimes our expectations of spiritual life may stop us from growing in spiritual life.
Because we think the spiritual journey should be like this. But when I talk about these three levels, level one, level two, level three, at a level of a conceptual model, it seems very simple. But for each one of us, each level could be huge.
So, in level one, I might be way, way down somewhere. And I have to raise my consciousness to that. In level two, the level of the thickness of the glass that is distorting my perception, that may be variable.
And for somebody, reworking their conception may be very easy. For somebody, it may be very difficult. Actually, for everyone, it is difficult.
But the areas where it is difficult may be different for different people. So, because of that, with respect to spiritual life, it is best to focus more on our application to spiritual life rather than our expectation from spiritual life. Because again, our expectation is shaped by maybe something that we read somewhere, maybe something that others are experiencing.
And actually, it is not even that others are experiencing it. It may well be that we are thinking that others are experiencing it. So, everybody on the spiritual journey has their joys and has their struggles.
But one of the greatest causes of unhappiness is our belief that everyone else has happiness. So, this doesn’t mean that we wish we want everyone else to be distressed and everyone else should be going out with a heavy, long face and a scowl or a frown or a morose face. It is not like that.
But everybody has their struggles. So, rather than having an unrealistic expectation of how our spiritual life should be, if you just understand spiritual growth and spiritual journey, spiritual life, it is just a matter of experience. The experience, not that we seek the experience, but we seek the connection and the experience will come.
And even if we have a long, long journey to go right now, at our level where we are, if we seek for a connection, we will have an experience that is fulfilling at our level. But it is only when we compare our experience with someone else’s experience. They must be experiencing that.
Oh, I am not experiencing it. But there is no need to do that. All of us are individuals and we are on an individual spiritual journey.
So, best focus on putting aside the expectation and just focus on the application. So helpful. Thank you.
Thank you. So, any other questions or comments? Maybe some of you could speak something which you found relevant, something which you feel you will, anything which you felt spoke to you in any situation that you are facing. You are talking about mental health issues, which I have been working on a lot.
The concept of mala, that sense of I don’t belong, I am not good enough. And it just really resonated with that translation of that to this. My understanding from yoga was that those things are what cause a lot of that distress in our lives.
Yes. You know, like that expectation, oh, they are happy, so why am I not happy? That sense of comparison to other people. So, just linking that.
And that is something I have always appreciated about the yogas, that it can translate into everyone’s life, not just the other students. Yeah. But to speak about mental health, and I have been to other lectures where they have talked about the Gita as like a user’s manual for the mind.
So, I just have that solidified a little more. Yeah. Thank you.
It’s a nice way of putting it, a user’s manual for the mind. It’s of course, I would say user’s manual for the mind and the soul. But for us, we don’t perceive the soul immediately.
For us, what affects us much more is the mind. And we need the mind and the body, both are tools for us for functioning. For the body, we have a lot of guidance of how to maintain health, how to function in the world.
But we don’t need a user’s manual for the mind. Thank you. Anyone else? What is your name? Tara.
So, you are a Hatha Yoga teacher. I just went there, so I am not teaching anything. Okay.
So, how did you come to know about this programme? I was messaging you earlier. I joined the Facebook group. Thank you.
Would you like to speak something? Anything that you liked? Okay. Oh, okay. Yeah.
Thank you. Yes. It’s a striking experience.
There are certain moments when we see the lens. If we understand that we have seen the lens. Okay, I have a lens which is like this and this person has a lens like this.
Those moments can be moments of great insight. Sometimes people behave in a particular way and we just label them. How do they act like this? But then if sometime we are just objective enough, non-judgemental enough to understand the lens within them, then our whole perspective changes.
So, it’s a useful model for our own self-analysis as well as our relationships to understand, to make better sense of why people function the way they do and how best we can connect with them. Thank you. Yes.
Yeah. It’s beautifully put. One of the messages of the Bhagavad Gita is about surrender.
And generally we think of surrender as loss of control. Surrender. Oh, that means it’s like two armies are fighting and one army says surrender.
It is the white flag. We surrender and that means we lose control. However, the way Bhakti Yoga talks about surrender, it is not just about letting go.
It is about letting go of some things so that we can hold on to some other things. And that’s why surrender is more of focused on catching hold of certain things by which automatically let go of other things. So, often in many spiritual or self-help books you will hear talk about live in the present.
Don’t go to the past, don’t go to the future. It’s true. But how do we do that? We live in the present but we can’t live for the present.
We have to live for a purpose that goes beyond the present, that goes beyond the past, that a purpose that is bigger than ourselves. If we live for the present, then at the present moment, okay, just watching TV seems very pleasurable for me. Just playing the sports seems very pleasurable.
Yes, those can be done as recreational activities. But they cannot be our life’s driving purpose. They cannot be what we spend our entire life on.
So, when we see that surrender is not just about letting go of things. It is more of catching hold of the thing that connects us with the divine. Then what happens? That catching hold can be done only in the present.
So, we live in the present. But we are not living for the present. We are living for establishing a spiritual connection with the divine and that is a connection that transcends past, present and future.
It is a connection whose benefit can last for us for eternity. So, therefore, the more we focus on connecting with the divine in the present moment, the more we will be able to see the past. Okay, this is what has happened.
There is learning from the past and there is lamenting about the past. So, in lamenting about the past, we are just passively observing or passively just letting past stimuli hit us. This happened, that happened, that happened, that happened.
And the more those past stimuli hit us in our memory, the more we feel disheartened, the more we feel de-energised. That is lamenting. But in learning, I said that we are clearly aware that I am at level 3 and I am consciously choosing to direct my vision towards the past.
I am secure where I am. That sense of security is not there. When I am caught in level 1 and then I try to look at the past, then what happens, those events keep hitting.
Because I am at the same level, so I keep feeling the impact of those events. And then the more I think about the bad things that have happened in the past, the more I get overwhelmed. But if by our spiritual practise, we have situated ourselves in level 3, then when we consciously look back, we can look back and learn from it.
Okay, this is what has happened. I could have done it this way at that time. I can learn this from this.
And then we can move on in our life. So, thank you very much for your time and participation.