When we face much worldly anxiety how can we practice spirituality?

Podcast

Transcript

This is an AI-generated transcript and may contain some errors.
So, if as students, we have anxiety about our job, about our future careers, in such a situation, how can we adopt the spiritual principles for tapping our inner power? Actually, the Bhagavad Gita is an eminently practical book. It has spoken to Arjuna, who was a warrior.
And the point of the Gita is that Arjuna was very much engaged in this world. At the same time, he let himself be guided by spiritual wisdom. So, we shouldn’t see the spiritual and the material as competitive.
They are complementary. They both go together. They complete each other.
The spiritual does not replace the material, nor can the material replace the spiritual. Success in one area of life does not compensate for failure in another area. Say, for example, somebody becomes very successful in their profession, rising to stupendous heights at astonishing pace in, say, the corporate hierarchy.
But, if their family life is in shambles, their kids have fallen prey to bad habits, their spouses have divorced them, then, no matter how much they succeed in their professional life, their success in professional life cannot compensate for their failure in family life, personal life. So, these are both important and both need time. So, just as they are two distinct aspects of life, similarly, material and spiritual, they are two distinct aspects of life.
So, it is not that because of spiritual life, we’ll have to give up our material life, or not for the material life, we have to give up spiritual life. Rather, both need to go together. Because we have both aspects to our being.
And, that’s from the long-term perspective. So, we may achieve a lot at a material level by succeeding in our careers, by getting good jobs, good positions, lots of money. But, satisfaction will elude us.
In the yoga text, there are two words. There is nishreyas and there is abhyudaya. In English, they can be roughly translated as achievement and fulfillment.
So, often we are led to believe that achievement will bring fulfillment. If I do this, then I’ll become fulfilled. Actually, achievement, it’s natural.
We are young, we are ambitious, we want to have achievement. But, fulfillment has to come from within. Fulfillment does not come from without.
What we do without, what we achieve without, if it is a part of a purposeful life that we are living, it is that purposeful dedication to some cause bigger than ourselves, that will bring fulfillment. Otherwise, the achievement will bring some gratification. But afterwards, again, there will be lack of fulfillment.
You want more and more and more and there will never be any satisfaction. That is assuming that we are successful in our achievements. But, that’s now a guarantee.
As I say, even if you win the rat race, you still remain a rat. Nothing essentially changes. I achieve one thing and I want another and I want another.
So, for me as a student, my dream was always to be the topper. I was always among the toppers. I was second, third, joint, first.
But I was never the first. That was my lifelong dream. And when I finally gave my GRE, I got 2350 at that time or 2400.
Not only I was first in my college, I was first in the history of my college. I was first in the whole university. I thought, now I have achieved.
I was elated for some time. After that, I realized that just looking at the mark sheet doesn’t give any real pleasure. It’s only when other people come and congratulate you, then you feel happy.
You feel validated. But then, a couple of my friends forgot to congratulate me. No malice on their part, but they just forgot.
Assume that everyone knew about it. And when I was with them, I was thinking, why are you not congratulating me? At that time, somehow, say by some higher grace, second time, second or third time this happened, as if I saw myself from above, I felt, come on, what are you doing? I thought that topping in GRE would make me happy. But here, I have not become happy.
I have become more dependent for my happiness on others. If they congratulate me, then I am happy. If they don’t, I am not happy.
So I could crack another exam in future. I could do something more in future. But how will that solve this problem? I will always be dependent on others for my happiness.
So is there some way to fulfillment that does not depend on externals? That was what really made me explore spiritual wisdom. So the point is not that we shouldn’t pursue achievements. The point is that achievement does not bring fulfillment.
So even if we succeed in our careers to the best of our abilities, still, that alone will not bring fulfillment. And further, along with that, what if we don’t succeed? There is stress, there is depression, there is negativity that comes. And when that comes along, at that time, our spiritual side will shelter us.
In our material life, so much anxiety, so much unpredictability that comes up and that can tremendously agitate us. The more things change, the more we need to hold on to things that don’t change. It’s like if we are in an ocean and the waves are going up and down, up and down, up and down.
We will be tossed up and down by the waves. But if we are in a boat and the boat is anchored, then the extent of the shaking will be much lesser. Like that in this world, it’s like an ocean.
It’s going to be ups and downs, ups and downs, ups and downs. Sometimes we’ll meet with success, sometimes failure, sometimes honor, sometimes dishonor. Sometimes friendship, sometimes hatred.
All these will come in our life. If we are like a small person in that ocean, we’ll just be tossed up and down, tossed up and down. But our spiritual practices, cultivating spiritual knowledge is like entering into a boat.
api chetasi pāpebhya sarvebhya prākṛtamaḥ sarvam jñāna-plavenaiva vrajīnaṁ santarśase jñāna-plava. In the Bhagavad Gita, in the 4th chapter, 37th verse, Krishna says that spiritual knowledge is like a boat which helps us to cross over this ocean. And our personal spiritual practices, they are the anchor.
So even for coping with the anxieties that come because of our wanting to pursue a career, we’ll be able to deal with those anxieties better and we can focus more on constructive things if we are spiritual. I gave a seminar in Harvard. The topic was that transform anxiety into intensity by spirituality.
The same situation which I am in, if tomorrow I have an important interview, I start thinking, what if I fail? What if I don’t clear? What will happen to my career? The more we think about things that are not in our control, we disempower ourselves. And the materialistic mind will always think, this can go wrong, that can go wrong, that can go wrong. Whenever faced with any problem, the materialistic mind starts showing us a free horror movie.
And in that horror movie, we are not the spectators, we are the victims. But if we are spiritually grounded, understand, okay, there are things which are not in my control, but there are things in my control. Okay, tomorrow is the interview, I have 12 hours now, out of which 6 hours is what I can actually invest in preparing.
And now I have 1 hour right now. After that I have to do something else. So let me focus for this 1 hour on studying.
So the same situation which can cause anxiety if our focus is on things which are not in our control, the same situation can bring intensity if we focus on that which is in our control. And this capacity to shift our focus from somewhere where it is going by default to somewhere where we want it to go, that is our inner power. Intellectually to understand, you tell somebody, why are you worrying so much? That doesn’t help so much.
Because worry has become like a program in their mind. And even if they don’t want to worry, they will keep worrying. So yes, helping people is not just telling them don’t worry, we have to actually help them by helping to increase their inner power, to change the direction of their thoughts.
So our spiritual practices actually help us to regulate our inner world. And when we regulate our inner world, then we can direct our thoughts where they should be going. So even specific anxieties, we can deal better if we are having a spiritual substratum to our consciousness.
With that spiritual foundation, we will be able to direct our focus to that which is in our control and bring intensity. Instead of letting our consciousness go towards that which is not in our control and subjecting ourselves to anxiety. Does that answer the question? Thank you.