How spiritual life & material life can be complementary | Studio108 | London | Chaitanya Charan

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
The topic of, you know, how our spiritual and material lives can be complementary, how both can go together.
So, my name is Chaitanya. And as I mentioned in the introduction, I have been, I have been trying to live as a monk for the last thirty or so years. And I’ve been, for the last ten or more years, I’ve been travelling across the world and trying to understand how spirituality relates with our daily lives.
So, I’ll write and draw some things when I speak over here. And we’ll have some time for questions at the end. So, before we start, let’s do a quick relaxing and centering exercise.
Wherever you’re seated, you can just try to be as comfortable as possible. Relax yourself, maybe notice any part of your body that is in a little tension, squeeze and release it so that you can be more calm. And we’ll take three deep breaths and then we’ll chant the syllable Om and we’ll draw it out long, Om, like that.
And then we will begin the talk. So, let’s take three deep breaths. One, two, three.
Together once. Let’s do this two more times. Take three deep breaths.
And as you’re breathing in and breathing out, just experience the breath as it comes in, as it goes out. How this air, which we’re not even conscious of, is what enables us to be alive and conscious at all times. Let’s take three deep breaths.
One, two, three. Together, Om. Om.
One last time. This time as we breathe in and breathe out, try to scan your face, your eyes, your forehead. That’s often the place where much of the stress and the tension in our body resides.
So, wherever you notice it, squeeze it. Squeeze your eyes and release them. Squeeze your forehead and release it as you breathe in and breathe out.
Let’s take three deep breaths. One, two, three. One last time together.
Om. Om. You can take two gentle breaths and then slowly open your eyes.
Is there a way to turn this on? Is anyone familiar with this iPad? Sorry about this. So, thank you. But at the most, all of you come for this spiritual talk over here.
And when I travel across the world, lots of people I find are very open and interested in growing spiritually. But one of the biggest challenges that we face in trying to be spiritual is what is called as time scarcity or even time poverty. We all feel that we have too many things to do and too little time in which to do the things.
How many of you feel that you don’t have enough time for what you want to do in life? Is it? All of us feel it at some time or the other. So, we have so many things to do. Some things which we want to do and many things which we have to do.
Even if we don’t want to do them. That’s just how life is. We have certain obligations, certain things which we have to do.
So, sometimes I have so many things to do and spirituality seems like another to do in an already busy and over-scheduled life. So, when it seems like that, it seems okay, this is going to burden me even more. So, that is what I’ll discuss.
A fundamental conception about spirituality that one way to look at it is that it is another to do in our life. And there is some truth to that. But while this is true, a more holistic understanding is that spirituality actually is not just another to do, it is another way to do.
Spirituality equips us to live our entire life in another way with a deeper perspective. So, what does this another way to do mean? That is what I’ll try to discuss today. What this means is that, another way to understand this is, if this is my day and from morning to night I have so many activities and all these to do’s I have, in this one of them is spirituality.
So, I have to find time to do spirituality. And yes, that’s one way to look at it. But another way is, our spirituality is something which underlies everything that we do.
It informs and transforms our way of living so that everything that we do becomes transformed. So, that is what I’ll talk about today. And I’ll talk about this using this particular acronym MAP.
I’ll talk about three things that spirituality provides us which makes it into another way to do everything we do in our life. Whether it is our relationships, whether it is our profession, whether it is our hobbies, whatever else that we do in our life, spirituality can underlie and unify it all. So, the first M is meaning.
The most fundamental gift that spirituality offers us is it provides a deeper meaning for our life. And just a couple of weeks ago, I gave a talk online for Salesforce, online for their faith force initiative. And the talk over there was about the role of spirituality in an age of AI.
And a lot of good question answers in that talk. And one of the things that came up is that science has advanced enormously in today’s world. And the way we see it is through technology.
But essentially, science is the study of matter. And when science is applied as technology, it gives us means to do things. Means are tools.
So, right now, through AI, we can get information from anywhere in the world and not just information, organised information. We can get so many things done faster than what we were doing earlier. So, it provides us means.
It is the study of matter so that we can process matter and get things done. The spirituality, in contrast, is the study of what matters. It is not the study of matter.
It is the study of what matters. What is really important in life? What is it that will bring meaning to our life? So, technology provides us means. Spirituality provides us meaning.
It helps us to discover for ourselves what is meaningful in our life. So, we all need means for living. We all need food.
We all need money. We all need a certain level of social acceptance and respectability. All these are important.
These are means. But what are these meant for? What will bring meaning to our life? That is what spirituality explores. And it doesn’t just explore.
After exploring, it empowers us to find deeper meaning in our life. And the foundation for that deeper meaning comes from understanding that there is a deeper core to us. That we are, our existence is three-level.
We are three-level beings. We have our body. We have our mind and beyond that we have our soul.
So, this three-level understanding of the self is what we get through spirituality. And this is something like the body is like the hardware, the mind is like the software, the soul is like the user. So, at the level of body, we can get various pleasures.
At the level of mind, we can get, satisfy our curiosity by learning a lot of things. But it is at the level of the soul that we seek deep and lasting meaning. And spirituality tells us that this search for meaning is innate to us.
All living beings struggle to live. And, you know, evolution talks about survival value. And survival value is important.
But for us humans, we don’t just seek things that have survival value. We also seek things that bring value to survival. Not just how to live, but why to live.
That search for meaning is what spirituality provides us. And this, once we get that sense of meaning, then all the activities that we do in our life, they get permeated with that sense of meaning. Right now, for each one of us, we might get some meaning from our job if we like it.
If we don’t like our job, then it’s just something we do to earn money and to pay our bills. And then we are bored or frustrated and we think, what is the real value of what I am doing? Does it make any difference? Sometimes we have some relationships that are meaningful for us. Sometimes some relationships are just so superficial that we feel it’s a burden being in this relationship.
So, we all are searching for meaning in different ways. And yes, various activities can have their own meaning. And it’s valuable to find that meaning.
But is there a deeper, more unifying meaning that lies at the core of our being? So, that is what spirituality provides us. So, the idea is that we at our core are spiritual beings as soul. And then, as souls, we have different roles.
So, a role could be based on our gender, it could be based on our nationality, it could be based on our profession, it could be based on our age, it could be based on our income level, it could be based on our relationship status. And through each of these, we try to find some meaning. So, yes, I have, I have, I have got this degree, I won this award, I have got this recognition and that gives us some sense of value.
But the problem is, the meaning that we find at this level is fickle. If somebody finds meaning in their professional success, somebody’s athlete, they are very good at athletics, tomorrow they might have a career-ending injury. And then, where does that mean for them? Somebody may be very proud of their intelligence.
Not proud in this unnecessary way. But that’s what, okay, I am a smart person. But maybe tomorrow they get a brain injury.
And they are not that astute anymore. Then what happens? So, when we seek meaning only in our particular roles, then that meaning is fickle. So, what the yoga tradition, the Bhagavata explains is that our sense of meaning comes at a fundamental level for other souls.
And this, when I understand, I am a soul, I am playing various roles and each of my roles can give me some meaning. But beyond that, I am a spiritual being. I, at my core, am indestructible.
And there is an enduring meaning that I can find. That brings us to the next step. So, what was the acronym I was discussing? Map, yes.
So, M was meaning. Now, the second thing is affirmativeness. That sometimes when we seek meaning in something, say, nowadays there is lot of concern about, say, the environment.
And we may want to do something to protect the environment. But when we see, there is so much apathy towards it, there is so much trashing, trash being persecuted, there is so much degradation happening, we may start feeling very hopeless or bitter. And this unfortunately I have seen happening among many people who have some zeal for becoming an activist or being a volunteer, wanting to make a difference.
When we find that I want to make a difference but I am not able to make a difference. When people are not valuing what I am doing. What I am doing is not having an impact.
Then, rather than our search for making a difference, bringing some positivity into our life, it starts bringing more negativity. And that can be very unfortunate. Sometimes we feel this is righteous rage but even that righteous rage becomes more rage than righteousness.
And then it leads to a sense of, as I said, bitterness. It’s not a pleasant way to live. So, broadly, if we lack meaning in our life, if there is no meaning, then there is no sense of direction to our life.
But we may have some meaning. This is what I want to do. But if we don’t have this affirmativeness, then that can also be another problem.
So, how does spirituality bring affirmativeness to us? It explains that we are not alone in trying to make a difference in the world. Each one of us is a spark of the divine. We are all parts of a reality far bigger than ourselves.
And not only are we parts, each one of us is a part of a reality bigger than ourselves. And we will always be a part. The Gita uses the word sanatana, that we may all be parts of certain things in this world.
We may be part of a very successful startup, we may be part of a music group, we may be part of a welfare organisation. And sometimes we may get disillusioned, sometimes our value may be diminished in that particular role, we may be dismissed and we may lose that particular role. But we are inalienable parts of a higher reality.
And when we are working to make a difference, it is not just we alone who are trying to make a difference. You know, especially when we do spiritual practises, like we were having the kirtan right now, like we are doing the deep breathing and mantra chanting. And by such practises, we experience a calmness, a stillness, a joy that transcends our immediate circumstances.
It ushers us into a bigger presence. We feel that calmness and sometimes even that sweetness because we are being reminded of a higher presence that we are a part of. In the Bhakti Yuga tradition that higher presence is known by the name Krishna.
So what this means practically is that if we consider from a mountain, a river is flowing towards the ocean. So now each one of us is like a small trickle. Now for a trickle to get all the way to the ocean is quite difficult.
It may get to it, it may not get to it. But when that small trickle of water, it becomes a part of a larger river. Then it gets a force by which it can get to the ocean.
So each one of us at one level is like a river, at another level each one of us is like a trickle which is a part of a larger river. So what spirituality tells us is just like the river has an ultimate purpose of reaching the ocean. But till it reaches the ocean and it goes along the way, it can provide life sustaining water to so many life forms on its banks.
Like that through our life journey, it is not just we are a small drop of water or a small trickle of water somehow struggling to survive and thrive. Through our flow of life, each one of us can contribute in the world. And when we understand that we can be a part of a larger flow, the flow this is where spirituality gives us a deeper sense of affirmativeness through a sense of community.
We can try to practise spirituality alone and it’s possible but it’s quite difficult. But when we experience a sense of community, then that brings a deeper level of positivity. So not all of us, as I said, meaning means we all want to make a difference.
But sometimes we may wonder, am I actually making a difference? Is what I am doing, does it count? Does it matter? Does anyone even value what I am doing? But there is a smaller level. Even if we can’t make a difference, we can make a contribution toward making a difference. So one drop or one trickle may not make much difference.
But when that trickle becomes a part of a river, then it can definitely make a difference. So each one of us, not just conceptually that we are a part of a divine reality, but practically we can join with a like-minded community of spiritually minded people and together our lives can have much greater significance and impact. So that sense of affirmativeness that comes from spirituality, not just as an individual practise, but as a community practise, that has few parallels.
I was just in Scotland and I was talking with some couple of people over there who had come to our spiritual centre. They were telling me that before they came to the centre, they were quite depressed. They attempted even to end their lives a couple of times.
And they had taken a lot of heavy medication to try to avoid depression. And it helped at a basic analgesic level, pain medication level. But when they started coming to the spiritual community over there, started participating in kirtan, started doing some voluntary work, started participating in spiritual activities, it was almost as if that ball of gloom that was there over their life, it was like, one person told me, it was like a shadow on me.
But that shadow on me, the shadow was causing darkness. But that shadow was not just causing darkness, that shadow was like also a burden on my head. Just crushing me.
But it just, I felt as if that shadow and that burden just disappeared. And we find that affirmativeness, it just, it’s something that has to be experienced. And when I came in, some of you may notice that I need clutches for walking.
So when I was one, I was staying in a small town in India, and my mother took me to a nearby clinic to get a polio vaccine. Now the polio vaccine is one of the most reliable vaccines and polio is almost removed from the world. But somehow because of the cold chain storage issues, the vaccine was kept in the fridge where there was a power outage the previous night.
And the temperature of the fridge increased, the germs in the vaccine multiplied and neither the attendant nor the physician noticed that. So when I was given the vaccine, instead of preventing polio, it ended up causing polio. And I don’t remember any of that.
I was one, I was just learning to take my few first steps and I fell down and I could never walk normally thereafter. But my first recollection of that is, when I was about two and a half or three, and a distant relative had come to our home and she was consoling my mother saying, it’s so sad that your son has got polio. And I remember my mother’s voice, very calm, clear, confident.
She said, whatever he lacks physically, he will be provided intellectually. I don’t know why my mother said that, whether she observed some ability in me or whatever. But somehow that stayed in my life.
And I did find that I had some intellectual gifts. I could remember things well. I could analyse and articulate things clearly.
And I was able to find that direction for my life. So this river, sometimes when this river is flowing, it may experience an unsurpassable blockage. And if we have a material conception of life, this is what my life is meant to be, then we may feel that if I can’t do this, what is the value of my life? But what our spirituality tells us is that there are many ways to find meaning in our life.
That one door may be closed, but that doesn’t mean our life itself is closed. That we, when we understand that we are a part of a reality bigger than ourselves, that means that my vision is a finite vision. And in my finite vision, things may seem to be negative.
But my finite vision is not the final vision. That there is more to life and more to reality than what I can perceive. And therefore, let me be open minded.
So when we have our spiritual practises, irrespective of what else is going wrong in our life, we’ll find that we can experience a sense of contentment, a sense of enrichment, a sense of positivity just through our spiritual practises. So in that sense, spirituality is another to-do. But this another to-do brings a positive energy that can permeate and animate our entire life.
And that brings me to the last part. What is the acronym again? MAPS. I talk about meaning, affirmativeness, and then last is power.
If nothing else, spirituality is about inner empowerment. Nowadays, there’s a lot of talk about empowerment. You know, we want to end any kind of discrimination.
We want women’s empowerment. We want any kind of people who are underserved, underprivileged. We want them to be empowered.
And that’s good. At the same time, the most enduring and transformative empowerment is what comes from within. What do I mean by empowerment from within? That for most of us, even when we have some sense of meaning, even when we have some sense of positivity, yes, this is what I want to do.
But we all will find that there is something inside us that seems to work against us. Now, we want to do something and we do it for some time. But after that, something from inside seems to sabotage us.
If not sabotage us, at least divert us. So, because of that, all of us function way below our potentials. In the yoga tradition, this is sometimes called the monkey mind.
That when we try to focus on one thing, we are able to focus for some time, but then we just lose focus. And then we get distracted. So, we might put in energy of 100 in one direction, but there is an energy of 70 or 80 in the opposite direction.
And what we end up with is 20. We are not able to do much. Sometimes it can even happen that we are putting an energy of 100 and the opposite energy is 500.
So, whatever we try to do, it’s like one step forward and 10 steps backward. And when this happens, sometimes we have a tendency to blame others for the lack of success in our life, for things not working out. While that is bad, it’s just as bad, if not more, to start blaming ourselves and beating ourselves up.
So, one of the key insights that spirituality offers us is that there is a war within us. But it is not a war with us. Either I can say that somebody else is the bad guy, somebody else is the villain in my life and I am the victim.
Or I may think that I am the villain in my life and I am destroying myself. The Bhagavad Gita says neither of these is true. Yes, there could be people out there who are troubling us and there are forces inside us that are troubling us.
But we are not that darkness inside us. That we are the divine light that exists beyond the darkness. And by our spiritual practises, so there are two unhealthy extremes.
One is that we blame others or we beat ourselves. So, lot of people nowadays suffer from issues of self-doubt, low self-esteem, inferiority complex, some self-loathing. Neither of these are very healthy.
So, in between we understand that there is a battle within. Of course, there is a battle without also. There are forces inside and there are forces outside that I have to fight against.
But no matter what forces I have to fight against, there is a core to me which is always positive. So, what our spiritual practises do, when we engage in spiritual practises, what will happen by our spirituality is that the core, the soul that is there within us, the soul awakens. The soul awakens and becomes stronger.
This inner darkness which is there within us, that is our monkey mind, it’s destructive, it’s distractedness, its capacity to subvert and sabotage us, it starts increasing. This is called inner cleansing or purification. So, when this happens, then the result of spiritual practises that our spiritual sides become stronger and the negative side is sabotaging us, it starts becoming smaller and smaller.
And then we will find that in the same time we will be able to do so much more. If we are reading, we will be able to get into a zone and read and understand. If we are talking with people, if we are not distracted and agitated by our mind, we will be able to connect so much more deeply with others.
And we will be able to experience and live life at a much deeper, at a more fruitful level. So, that empowerment comes when the inner opposition within us decreases. Those self-sabotaging forces could be anger, it could be hopelessness, it could be addictive cravings, it could be traumatic pains from our past.
All these are wounds inside us. But our spiritual practises can heal and strengthen us. And by that we will find that each one of us can access a reservoir of power inside us that we did not know we had.
And so, in that sense, yes, spirituality does require time. Coming to spiritual programme like this, doing some mantra chanting on a regular basis, reading some wisdom text, that requires time. So, in that sense, it’s another to-do.
But this is another to-do which will actually empower us in all our other to-do’s. And in that sense, it is another way to do. So, I’ll summarise what I discussed today.
I talked about how spirituality works in our life. So, I talked about fundamentally, spirituality is not just another to-do, it is another way to do. I guess I don’t have another way to write my handwriting right now.
Another way to do. I talked about three main things. What are the three things? M was meaning.
We talked about how we all want, we don’t just want means to live, we want meaning. Science is the study of matter and technology provides us means based on the study of matter. Spirituality is the study of what matters.
And spirituality provides us a deeper sense of meaning for our life. That beyond the roles that I play, I may have many different roles that I play and they all bring some meaning in my life. But under the roles is my core being, my soul.
And that is the place where I can have lasting meaning. The meaning was the first thing. Second was affirmativeness.
So, I was discussing the acronym MAP. So, affirmativeness that comes to us through the understanding that we are not just alone struggling to create meaning. Each one of us is a part of a larger flow.
We all can be trickles in that river and we all, spiritually we are parts of a divine reality. And when we function in the world, we can find a like-minded community. And meaning means we want to make a difference.
But if we can’t make a difference, we can still make a contribution toward making a difference. And our each drop of water, a trickle of water may not be significant, but the actions that we do over a period of time, they have an incremental effect. And the last was power.
So, quite often for us, we want to go in one direction, but there is something inside us which seems to sabotage us or at least undermine us. So, through our spiritual practises, our soul becomes awakened and the monkey mind within us becomes weakened. So, as our soul becomes stronger and the distracting mind becomes weaker, then whatever we do, in the same time that we do it, we will be able to do it better.
Whether it is connecting with people, whether it is learning new things, whether it is getting our work done. And in that way, spirituality will transform everything that we do and help us to have a deeper and richer life. Thank you very much.
Hare Krishna.