More Questions & Answers – Brisbane Australia

Okay, anybody got a question? It’s a really simple process. All that’s needed is some sincerity.

Audience member: Thank you very much. So, lots of opportunities for reflection [Acd: Yeah.] and questions. And one question I would like to ask is, so what does it mean to stop existing and start living? I try to think about my options. And whenever I come home from work, I’m with my family, with the children, with my wife, doing chores. And then maybe there’s some time to spend the rest of the evening, and then there are options like getting on my phone and check my messages, [Acd: Yeah.] and then maybe I do some scrolling, and then I see what’s going on, the sad things that might occur, and then I stick there, and I keep reading the news because there’s a lot of coverage there right now, and a lot of sad things going on, starving children, a war emerging. [Acd: Yeah.]

And then I say, okay, I’m trying to get—start getting depressed here, maybe I should do something else. And then I watch a TV show or a movie. And then I say, “Okay, that’s enough screen now.” I grab a book. I sit down and read something, I don’t know, Atomic habits, or some novel, or some paper that is related to my work, you know. And then I put that down, and then I have a conversation, maybe with my wife.

So the point I try to get is, I don’t really feel like this is really fulfilling, or this is like—and sometimes I just feel bored. I just think about, okay, what can I do with my time? And it’s really difficult. Then there are those rare moments where I feel the connection to myself, to the people around me, to the, how you put it, and I really appreciate the term, the Supreme Soul. [Acd: Yeah.] But these are so rare moments.

I had that a month ago at a retreat where we had these reflection workshops, and I was deeply meditating. And usually I achieve being mindful and just forget about everything, my problems, this and that, and then I really achieved to feel that connection, and I just felt pure love, but that was just a really rare moment in my life. And then I was trying to understand how can I get out of this cycle [Acd: Yeah.] where I sit there and think about my options, and it’s just boring, or it’s just things where I just, two hours later, I tell myself, “What a waste of time?”

Acharya das: So it boils down to the question of purpose, which is the thing that’s missing. (If you want to sit go ahead, it’s fine) How about I share with you another perspective. You have a wife. She is not actually your wife. She’s an eternal spiritual being. And the greatest service and the greatest expression of love that you can share with her is to help her come to realize her eternal spiritual identity, and for her to reconnect also with the Supreme Soul, with God. That’s your duty as a husband to do that.

When married couples see each other, or themselves, as the centre of a marriage there will be much bitterness tasted there; some moments of fleeting happiness but much bitterness. If instead of ourselves or each other as being the centre of that union, if it is something higher, that transcendent reality, that ultimate spiritual perfection, God, the Supreme Soul, as being the centre, and we are focused on serving, then our relationship becomes different. Instead of trying to find happiness and fulfillment in each other, we see each other as fellow pilgrims on a wonderful pilgrimage. And when we see the other stumble, we help them up and offer words of encouragement, and vice versa.

As a parent, you don’t have any higher—these living beings that have appeared in your sphere of influence are not truly your children in the highest sense, they are also eternal spiritual beings, and your greatest responsibility is to provide them with the understanding, learning how to make really good decisions and choices to become independently strong, but to strive for the spiritual perfection—and that is how you serve your children. And in response, they serve the parents as they grow in understanding of what it means to have spiritual duty and purpose.

And that can extend from beyond a family to a whole society, maybe in the beginning to just a few people that are within our sphere of influence. That is just like a little glimpse.

If you want more detail on how that is done, then I will say, talk to my friends here, but I’m just giving you some insight.

You know, your life is out of balance currently, in the sense that it’s primarily focused on that which is material and temporary. At least there has to be some component in our life, significant component, doesn’t have to be even half, but a significant component of spiritual undertaking and focus, so that our life actually begins to become balanced, and we will feel less agitated, our heart will feel more at peace, and that will grow. If we are graced sufficiently, our home can be like a spiritual ashram, not in a weird and superficial sense, but in a very deep and profound and wonderful sense. And that is what we are encouraged to do.

We don’t run away from this world. There is nothing wrong with this world. It is what it is. It is temporary, it is unfulfilling and all those things, but there are some amazing things here also. We don’t run from it, but we find how to incorporate everything in our life as part of a spiritual journey. And that is what purpose brings. Is that okay?

Don’t be shy. There’s no silly questions or stupid questions. They’re all good. We’ve got a hand up over here if you haven’t seen one.

Audience Member: Hi, you were just talking about spiritual perfection. What is that in your world?

Acharya das: What is spiritual perfection? What’s the last part that you said?

Audience member: You were talking about spiritual perfection, as in all reach to the spiritual perfection. What’s that?

Acharya das: What is that?

Audience member: Yeah, define it.

Acharya das: That is called self-realization and God realization, to realize your true spiritual identity, to realize the highest spiritual truth, and to reconnect with that. That subject is a very deep subject, but the most important component of that connection, or relationship, is the awakening of a profound and ecstatic, transcendental and ecstatic love, where one feels their only desire is to serve and to become pleasing. That’s a little glimpse. Is that enough? Oh, you want more? I wouldn’t be very satisfied with that answer.

Most people—we live in the Western world. The Western world has gone through this really weird, weird, weird phase of, over the last hundred years, the growth of humanist type philosophies where people actually become islands unto themself. You know, they actually call social media, but there’s nothing social about it, it’s anti-social. And it’s like there’s all these trips going on where people are using language simply to manipulate, to try and imply one thing, but actually to mean something else.

And during this phase, people have turned their backs on traditional spirituality and religion, and it’s really not smart. You may not agree with how somebody is practicing something, and it may even be somewhat faulty, but the idea of the—I mean, what—oh are we gonna do this? Might end up in a big fight with somebody.

You know, morality, for instance, not that I’m promoting worldly morality. No, I’m promoting spiritual morality, but worldly morality makes it so that people at least have some ideal of something that is better, that I should be good, that I should be kind, that I should be honest, that I should be truthful, that I should actually care for others. And when the institutions that promoted these things were abandoned, there has been a tendency to abandon.

They still use the language, but now the language is mean. Like, you know, “Oh what? You don’t care about others?” and I say that as a way to cause harm and to smash somebody because I don’t like their political philosophy or whatever. And it just—people are using all of the good language for really shitty and mean ends that’s really tearing society apart.

So, it’s super important that you have some really clear parameters for what’s going to guide your life, what are what are the lines that you will not cross? What is going to guide you towards goodness? But goodness is not enough.

In Sanskrit they talk about three modes of material nature. They call it the three gunas: Tama guna, the mode of ignorance, this is when a person is influenced by this very subtle, pervasive and powerful energy. They become lethargic, they become lazy, they are drawn to intoxication, getting loaded with alcohol or drugs, not being motivated to work or to be responsible, cycling down—just like you see with addiction. That’s the epitome of this energy, the mode of ignorance, tama guna.

Raja guna is the mode of passion. And it is this energy, when people become inspired by it, that they seek to excel. They become top athletes, they become great creators of art or the engineering, they build all these cities, they’re all built on that particular energy.

And then there is a third type of energy, it is called satva, satva guna, where—it is called the mode of goodness, where people are more drawn to get away from the noise and everything, they’re drawn to nature, to more beautiful sounds, to being good, to being kind, all this kind of stuff. But beyond it—this is still categorized as a material condition, but it’s a good platform to begin a spiritual journey, it encourages people that way.

But there is a condition that is called suddha satva, it is transcendental goodness. So we seek not simply to become good, but to become spiritually directed, I’ll use that term, and live a thoroughly spiritual life.

One of the challenges is, in the ancient Vedic and yogic texts, there are going to be many concepts there and things that people in the West have never heard of and—or it’s presented in some weird way by some would-be yogi or whatever. And so there’s a lot of kind of confusion.

But the goal is to become—to reconnect with our true and eternal spiritual identity and nature, to experience that and to be living and true to that, and to reconnect with the Supreme Soul in the most extraordinary and wonderful way. And in that journey, as one attains those things which are considered spiritual gifts, it’s not because we become great that we deserve them, but that we become very humble and very submissive to a higher spiritual truth, to God, to—we can use different words. And because of that submissiveness of heart and surrender, one becomes graced with revelation, with spiritual vision and understanding and experience, which is the far-out part, they experience that reality.

Good enough for now? It’s a start. There’s more, I promise you, heaps more. But if we stray too far, it’ll just create so many more questions than can be answered. I promise I want nothing from you other than you sincerely consider to cultivate a personal practice to take this journey.

It’s not about teams. It’s not about joining anything. It’s personal, and it’s individual. But to seek the association of others who are like-minded souls on the same journey is good. It gives us encouragement. And we see in the transformation of others, we see, wow, this is real. It’s not just that I’m feeling good about it. I can see the change that it’s having in others’ lives. That’s encouraging.

Audience member: First of all, thank you for all your wisdom you’re sharing with us. I was just wondering, if we are these eternal spiritual beings, and if I see myself as the soul that goes over into different forms, I’m wondering if that soul always stays as one, or is it possible [Acd: Always?] like, can it split? [Acd: No.] Is it possible?

Acharya das: No.

Audience member: All right.

Acharya das: It is immutable. It doesn’t transform. It cannot be cut into pieces. It cannot be dissolved. It is eternally the same.

Audience member: All right, thank you.

Acharya das: Did you have something else in mind that was behind that question? You may be thinking about some situation or something.

Audience member: Yes, I am actually. But without going into detail, I wonder, this feeling of some part is missing, [Acd: of?] of some part is missing in [Acd: Yeah.] that whole. I wonder if that part can be somewhere else or in someone else or if it is really the reconnection to the source.

Acharya das: The missing is not that something has become divided, and the piece is gone, it’s just I’ve become blind to it. I’m not cognizant, I’m not aware, I’m not connected or feeling connected to that. Just like the average person is often so absorbed in the body, seeing it as the self, that there’s zero awareness that this body is not me. I mean, we’ve become utterly convinced that the body is me, and that is a tragedy. And this is one of the things—

You know, I’m so upset at the word “selfie.” Number one, you’ve got to be psychotic to take so many pictures of your body. I mean 10 years ago, if you did that people would look at you like you were weird—or it was 15 years ago—before they had smartphones, people just had cameras. Imagine if I see someone here, and I ask them, “Could you take a picture of me please?” and then he takes a picture. And then I get [posing other side of face] “One more, one more, can you, one more?” and then he gives the camera back to me, starting to feel uncomfortable. Then I go, “Oh, could you take a picture of me, please?” And then someone else, “Can you take…

Sometimes people take like 30, 40 pictures before they decide which one they want to post, only because they want to give a false image that this is me, and I’m beautiful and perfect, and aren’t you just jealous, and don’t you want to love me also? It’s like, what the hell is going on there? And the biggest most stupid thing is that body is not you. It’s just bones and flesh and blood.

You know, as soon as a person leaves their body—okay, a little diversion. I recommend that you should try and be present at as many births and as many deaths as you can. It will enrich your life to see a new body coming into the world and to see, to be with someone and to assist them in the time when that they are going to leave that body. And when you witness somebody leaving their body, instantly there is this massive transformation. You could feel attraction to that body and want to embrace it and hold it. As soon as the person leaves it becomes like contaminated. You don’t really want to hang out with it. You don’t want to put it in bed and sleep with it, even if it was your husband or wife, or your mother or father. That would be creepy and weird, and everybody feels it.

And the reason you feel it is because that is an empty shell. The actual nature of the body is now manifest to you, and the person has gone. They’ve left. When the person resides within the body the body seems to manifest personality and is attractive and all of these things, but that’s just on loan.

And everybody is just—have become so materialistic. The foundation of materialism is the idea that I am material, meaning this body is me, I am male, I am female, I am old, I am young, I am attractive, I’m very plain or ugly, I am crippled, I am healthy, all of these things. That’s not you. None of those things are you, that’s the body. So, this illusion that everybody is caught in is the foundation for, not some or most, all unhappiness, all pain and all suffering directly arises from this massive illusion and ignorance that the body is the self.

We don’t have a hate on for the body. The body is an amazing thing. It should be treated almost like a temple, something sacred. It’s really important. Okay.

Audience member: May I ask two questions?

Acharya das: I don’t know. We’ll find out. You can try.

Audience member: Okay, the first question, I’ll start with a lighter one. I have been going really deep in trying to understand—

Acharya das: See, dipa and light, they are… [Audience member: Okay…] No, I’m sorry, I’m sorry. In Sanskrit, dipa is the little lamp with a light, so she’s going dipa, so… Sorry.

Audience member: I have been trying to illuminate [laughter] myself with trying to understand the Bhagavad-gita and Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras. But I think going to the source, I read the same sentence over and over, it just goes over my head. And I’ve read it so many times, I don’t understand it, so I’ve tried to find easier versions of it. But if I’m really honest with you, I’ve found some of the reels to be very informative in the way that they explain certain verses of the Bhagavad-gita. Because like coming from a Hindu background, my parents were very religious and they were never able to—well, they answered some questions, but most of the questions they could not answer about why we do it.

Acharya dasi: It is good enough for my father, it is good enough for you. Bas. [meaning enough]

Audience member: And that’s why I never did it. But as I’m deepening my yoga practice, I’m actually finding myself going back to the religious practices because I understand it. So obviously tonight was like, I really, really enjoyed the wisdom that you shared, and it’s really made me look at my own perspective of things. But how can I continue this journey? Because on social media you have to scroll through a lot of crap to actually find something that’s useful. Is there any recommendations that you would make on how I can go deeper and understand or connect with the spirituality deeper?

Acharya das: These guys can share some resources on the internet that might be helpful. I also have a website with maybe there’s about 400 videos there. One of the series I did, I call it the Bhagavad-gita Chalisa, we have taken 40 verses from the Bhagavad-gita to try and explain what are the principal and most important messages which are often lost or overlooked or misunderstood.

I worked for a while on a translation of Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra. See the problem is the form of writing known as sutra is not understandable by, not just common people, by most people, because it’s not written like a sentence. And it’s not a manual, a how-to. What they are is very brief and pithy, super concise statements. And I mean, in Sanskrit, the way some of the pandits used to speak about sutra writing, and how much they would be prepared to sacrifice if they could just cut one more word out of the—but the problem is it makes it incomprehendable to most people. But you are meant to learn it, and under the guidance of guru, where you are developing a practice, and then the recitation of Sutra would remind you of the deeper teaching. So you can take one word that’s filled with deeper meaning.

And you will find that the majority of people that have attempted to translate Patanjali’s work, they are all, practically, from the school of Adi Shankara who only presents one perspective of what is the full Vedic truth. For instance, he says ultimately everything is Brahman. That’s all there is. Nothing else is real. But in the Bhagavat Purana, it describes that that supreme substance is manifest as Brahman, Paramatma, and Bhagavan, and it is a much more comprehensive appreciation of ultimate truth and reality. So when you read the Yoga Sutra from the perspective of Shankaracharya and his followers, they cannot explain, or they will misinterpret.

I mean there is one shloka, the 24th shloka and the first pada:

isvara-pranidhana-dva

He has just finished speaking about the highest experience of samadhi, asamprajñata samādhi, and when you hear about it and how almost impossible it is to attain, he then makes this verse which means by complete submission to Isvara. When they use va, there—it normally means, in most usage, it means also. But in other Sanskrit uses, it can be emphatic, meaning like only, although usually they use other terms for that.

But—so he’s fundamentally saying that the highest spiritual attainment is possible by complete submission, complete surrender to Isvara. And then he goes on to describe who is Isvara, describes characteristics. But if you see the interpretations of followers in the lineage of Shankaracharya, that’s highly problematic, and so they have to lend all kinds of interpretation to it.

So the issue is to find someone that is genuinely an authority, and to learn. Just by reading a book, it doesn’t bless you with the capacity to understand, and more, to realize what is there. Why? Because we have all these filters, all this contamination of consciousness, and so every time we read and look at things, even if it is the most pure transcendental truth, it will be all filtered through our consciousness. But when one finds a true transcendentalist, they can reveal what is the actual meaning. And that revelation is not intellectual, it also requires that a person be undertaking a process of purification and surrender so that they can be gifted with true understanding and realization.

There are only two paths, broadly speaking. One is called the aroha-pantha, the ascending path. It is like one who is trying to climb Mount Everest, and I have to be expert, I have to have all training, and high altitude training, and learn how to use crampons, and snow and—And it’s just like a huge feat, and you have to be heroic. Not like today with what they’re doing with all the tourism there, it’s—you know, for people that actually do it without the sherpas doing everything for them. They can’t do it, right? It’s ridiculous.

But that’s okay if the mountain is not sentient. What if I went to a base camp, set up with the idea that tomorrow we’re going to start moving towards camp 1? And then when I unzip my tent and look out in the morning, it’s moved 40 kilometres away. And so then I get all my stuff, and I spend the whole day going that 40 kilometres, and now I’m there again. And I zip up my tent and go to sleep, and I open. Then in the morning I look, and it’s moved somewhere else.

This is a little bit of a silly example, but the point I’m making, it’s not just by your strength that you can climb something that is unconscious and not sentient and impersonal. We’re dealing with the highest transcendent reality.

So apart from this path, which is almost never successful, and if it is, it is still only by the grace of God that they can attain some realization, not because of their effort alone… The other path is known as the avaroha-pantha, and it is the descending process, where one becomes so humble of heart and becomes so surrendered that we can say God approaches them, rather than them trying to reach Him. And who can stop that? No one. Right? And that’s the meaning of that line of Patanjali, isvara-pranidhana-dva, that by complete surrender to Isvara, one can attain, be gifted with the highest spiritual realization and experience.

How about that? Something a bit different?

Audience member: Lots to think about, but that’s actually led me to my next question.

Acharya das:  Okay. Oh, we got another question.

Audience member: So, because I’m on this deep journey, and so I’ve had—

Acharya das: Fortunately, the flame hasn’t gone out. That dipa is still going.

Audience member: No, no, no, the flame’s burning very, very bright at the moment.

So, in my previous career, like what I started off as a dentist, and then I’m like managing multiple—

Acharya das: Career or kriya, career?

Audience member: Career…did I say it right?

Acharya das: Okay, no, again making a joke: kriya.

Audience member: Oh, kriya!

Acharya das: Okay, sorry. You’ll get used to me after a while. Kriya in Sanskrit means like spiritual action so I’m making a joke, when she says career, kriya.

Audience member: I would actually like to go full-time into kriya. So [Acd: Yeah] I’ve left all my other careers that felt purposeless. I just literally decided one day enough is enough. I still haven’t told my dad that I’ve now gone completely into the yoga path, [Acd: Yeah] because I don’t want to risk him getting a heart attack. But I found that I just want to go deeper and deeper into this, and now I’m teaching other people, and that’s helping me pay my bills but I don’t—I’m trying to understand what purpose is because, right now my heart [Acd: Yeah] is so full, and like I’m single, and I feel so whole. I’ve never felt this whole ever before. And I had to go down to the lowest point in my life to find this, and climb myself—

Acharya das: Hole as in like a hole [mimes a hole]

Audience member: Yeah, that hole.

Acharya das: Okay. Joking.

Audience member: But now I’m the other whole. [Acd: Yeah] So is this what purpose is or does it mean that?

Acharya das: This is purpose, but again we should not misunderstand. In Bhagavad-gita, how does Bhagavad-gita begin? What is Arjuna’s situation? He is looking at his family members, and suddenly he is overwhelmed with the thought that, like his grandfather (right?) Bhisma deva, he was going to have to fight him in battle, and he felt him to be worshipable; and the idea of how could we do this, and how can we kill our kinsmen? And there were millions of people that were going to die in this battle, and what was it for?

And he suggested that he should abandon everything and basically become a sannyasi and go to the mountains. And Krishna laughed at him, but took pity upon him, and said that is a materialistic perspective. It’s a little bit more deeper than that. And he taught him how he could attain the highest perfection by actually acting as a warrior on that battlefield. And the distinction was, now it wasn’t about me. I’m not doing this for me. It’s got nothing to do with me. I’m doing it because it is my duty and because I am being asked to do this by Krishna.

And so the problem is not the work, the problem is why we are doing the work. Running away from the world can help to some degree, to a limited degree, but then can also end up causing more problem. We need to—the first mantra of the Isha Upanishad,

īśāvāsyam idam sarvaṁ

It goes that everything animate and inanimate that is within the material creation is the property of the Supreme, that one should not lay claim to anything, knowing well to whom it belongs. One is entitled to accept what is allocated for in your life and on your journey, but one should not be the proprietor or owner of that. And one should utilize all the material energy in the service of God and God’s children. So the problem is not the world, the problem is how we are seeing the world.

So the word is yukta vairagya, Vairagya, when people think it means to give something up—but how can you give it up if you don’t own it? You don’t even own your body. That’s not your property. You will be forced to leave it. You can’t bring it with you. It has been temporarily assigned to you, but it is not yours. But we, in our corruption, we claim the body as our own, as who we are, and we seek to enjoy with it and to exploit others and to exploit resources, to try and use it as the centre of fulfillment and satisfaction and happiness and pleasure. That is a corruption.

If I see everything as God’s property, and I am a caretaker, then I become very gentle in my dealing with everything and everyone. I see everything differently.

So Arjuna’s problem was not what he thought. It was not to try to renounce something that you can’t renounce. You’re not the owner of it. You are not the owner of it. So this yukta vairagya means to utilize everything in the service of God and not to lay claim to any of it. That is the actual principle. Big subject, but a little idea.

[Audience member indecipherable] Yeah. [Audience member indecipherable] What does? Social. You know the word society? Okay. The word society, it means people that live together. You know sanga?  Aah. We’re stuck. Yeah. Maybe my pronunciation is pretty lousy. It means like that. Like association. Like a family is like a small society. And then with all the other relatives, that becomes a bigger society. Then if that takes up all the other people in the village, that’s another bigger society. Then the village is part of a state and all the people in there are part of a bigger society. You get the idea? Yeah.

Okay. We’re done.

Jayadharma das: Thank you very much Acharya Das. Acharya Das is, you know, he’s always traveling. He’s—don’t be offended—he’s not a young man, and he does a lot of travel [Acharya das: It’s very true. My time is very limited.]—lot of traveling and a lot of speaking, and we’re very, very grateful for you to come to Brisbane Acharya das. So thank you very much.

Acharya das: I have the extraordinary fortune of having in my life two great transcendental personalities who have taught and guided me. And I have a great responsibility to repay my debt to them, and I repay that debt by trying to share the gifts that they have given me. And so you actually provide me a great service that I am indebted for, by making it so I can speak and try to share some of these things, so I am very indebted to all of you. Thank you.