We Know We Have a Soul – But what is it?

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya.

So, I was asked to speak on (need to check [looks at notes]): We know we have a soul, but what is it? If we look at some dictionary definitions of the word soul—I’ve got a couple written here. The first:

“Your soul is part of you that consists of your mind, character, thoughts, and feelings. Many people believe that your soul continues existing after your body is dead.”

So that was one definition.

Is this [mike] sliding down? I think it is.

Assistant: Sorry, it’s looking a little low.

Acharya das:  Huh? Okay.

Then another definition was the soul as being:

“the spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died; or, the part of a person that is not physical and experiences deep feelings and emotions.”

So of course, I don’t necessarily agree with everything that’s been stated here, and we’ll get into that.

Is this clear? Everybody can hear okay?

So, what they’re putting forward basically is the idea that I have a soul, which is the way most people talk. People talk about, “My soul,” or, “I have a soul.”

But I think it’s very thought provoking to then ask the question, “If you have a soul,” (meaning you possess a soul), “then who exactly are you and what is the soul?” And if we ask that question, very few people can even speak about that subject. It’s just like it’s just a bit too overwhelming, “Oh, I never thought of that. Mmm, now that you put it that way.” Even within many religious institutions if you ask people that are meant to be authoritative to speak continuously on the subject of the soul for five or ten minutes, not very many people can actually do that—and I’m not talking about speculation, but actually speak about it.

So, we know that since the most ancient of times, the question of “Who am I?” is a question that most teachers in different spiritual paths or traditions have endeavoured to explore. The tradition that I’m from is a very ancient Vedic tradition, originating in the area of the subcontinent of India, and actually had a—used, in ancient times, had a very vast influence. In the ancient language that they use (it’s called Sanskrit) and it’s rather interesting because they don’t have a word like we use the word soul. They do speak to a very deep principle or idea. The word that they use in Sanskrit is atma. This word atma, or atman, literally means “the self.”

And that’s just like, “Oh? How does that then relate to what we’ve just been talking about?” Well, I do not have a soul. I am the soul. I am the soul. I am the eternal spiritual being residing within the body. The body is like a covering, or a garment. The mind is also a subtle covering, or subtle garment. And it is due to the presence of the spiritual being that the body becomes animated and appears alive. As soon as that spiritual being leaves, the body’s true nature, which is dead, dead matter, now manifests. So, the fact that your mind can function, and your body appears to be alive is because of the presence of this spiritual energy that is called “the self,” the one who is actually witnessing, the one who is actually experiencing everything.

But in the normal course of life, people are very disconnected from their true spiritual nature, their essence. We become very much caught up in the false idea that the body is the self, the body is who I am. And so, all the labels that people attach to their body—male, female, young, old, different ethnicities, different regional things, short, tall, fat, skinny, whatever—these are all labels that actually describe the body but do not describe me, the eternal spiritual being.

When we speak about the atma, or the spiritual animating principle of the body, many people have an idea, and it’s quite common in some, amongst people, that follow some Christian traditions, for instance, where the soul is kind of like a battery. You know when you’ve got like this, what’s that— Duracell, Eveready? Duracell. You know, they’ve got the bunny, right? And—the energizer bunny, yeah? And he’s got like the batteries and he’s banging the cymbals and moving along. But if you take the batteries out, then it’s kind of like the energizer bunny falls over, and that’s kind of like that’s not doing anything anymore, but when I look at the batteries, the batteries are kind of like, well, they’re pretty useless on their own. But when I put them together, then I have something that’s functioning and kind of—I can value that. In a very similar manner, most people think in terms of a soul or an animating spiritual principle or energy that is within the body; and it is the combination of these things: the body, and the mind, and the soul or the “batteries” that give a person.

Well, in the ancient yoga teachings, in the Vedas, they say, no, that’s absolutely not correct. The spiritual powerhouse of the body, first and foremost, the first and foremost characteristic of the soul is that it is a person. The body is not a person. When the person leaves, what’s left behind, is it a person? It looks like this person I used to know. It looks like my mom, or my dad. It looks like somebody that I loved, and I still feel this—I’m reminded of the person. But actually it’s not the person. This is an empty shell that has been left behind..

They have another Sanskrit word. It is purusha. Purusha literally means “a person” That’s the literal meaning of it—a person. And in many yogic texts it is the soul, the atma, the self, that is addressed as being the person, the purusha.

There’s this amazing thing: Do you know that within two years 98% of all of the matter, the atomic elements, in your body are changed? You are constantly shedding skin. Your hair is growing. We think, wow, the bones they’re very stable. No, they’re not. They’re constantly changing. Constantly all of the elements are being replaced. The brain, the atomic elements that make up the brain are being changed rapidly. The body that you are wearing now, five years ago that wasn’t it. The body that you had on five years ago is not the same body that you have on now. It has the same shape. It has many of the same characteristics and form. But actually, the matter, the material energy that’s making up the body, is constantly changing.

And thoughtful scientists say, therefore, we need to rethink about the reality that our identity is constant. Can you remember when you were a child? You have recollections, reflections of when you were a child. If you go through teenage life, you can remember things that happened during that time; you enter adulthood, and you have recollections of all the things that happened; you go through middle age; then in due course of time, like me, you become quite aged: and it’s the same person that is experiencing this constant change in the body.

And then I adjust my labels. One moment, I’m saying. “Oh, I’m young and healthy,” a few years later, “Oh, I’m middle-aged, and I’ve got these problems,” then later, “Oh, old age, and I need a hip replacement,” or, “I need some major surgery done,” or, “I’ve got some ailments.” We have this very strong tendency to identify with the body as being the self.

And this has become extremely pronounced in this modern time with what they call “selfie.” Yeah, this is the dumbest thing ever. That’s not you.  That’s your body. Why are you calling it your self? And what’s happening is there is this move towards, over the past so many years, more way more than before, of really trying to reinforce the false idea that the body is “me,” and that brings with it a whole host of problems and incredible amounts of difficulty.

So, everybody now develops the idea that, if the body is the self, my lovableness, how lovable I am, how acceptable I am, is related to how the body looks. That is a formula for unbelievable amounts of unhappiness and insecurity, and all of the mental issues, mental health issues that come with that, where people look upon the condition of the body, to award me status and acceptability, desirability, how much of a friend I could be or should be accepted as a friend—all of these things simply tied to this outer shell.

The body is on a trajectory. It’s born, it looks so cute and cuddly and smells so nice, and then it begins to grow, and then the desirability factor sort of changes to more of a sexual kind of nature. Then it even gets a little bit older, and then it’s kind of like what’s your status, what are your abilities and talents that will determine of how acceptable I am. But it doesn’t last.

We’re on this trajectory that cannot keep going up. It plateaus and it descends, all the way down, to crash and burn land. The body’s ultimate destination (and I hope this doesn’t freak people out talking this way) is death. That’s the only reality. The final reality of the body is death. And if I am going to focus my entire life and my values and what I think is important and what I should be chasing after, what I should be pursuing, where I will find my happiness, if I am invested only in concepts connected to the body, I’m sorry, your life will be actually really unhappy. Even if your body is incredibly attractive, very beautiful or handsome, very vigorous or whatever, it can’t last.

And even in that state, everybody’s filled with anxiety, there’s always somebody better. And I still don’t know if I’m acceptable and if I’m completely—are people just interested—

I mean, I had this experience, I grew up—I was actually born in Hamilton. I grew up in Te Aroha, and I can remember as a young teenager, the wild days; and I had a friend, and he had a girlfriend at the time, and we were out in the car being complete hooligans, as most young people are at that point in life, or used to be, and you know, people are drinking and everything. But then she started having this major complaint, and her complaint with her boyfriend is, “You don’t really care about me. You’re only interested in my body.” And that kind of hit me.

And I didn’t have any foundation, because of my upbringing, or training, to process it, but then I’m thinking about it—and I instinctively knew that I was not the body, I was some sort of the spiritual component residing within the body. I kind of got that. And then I was thinking of that, and it just like, oh my God! that was a wonderful moment for that person, if they had have actually followed that thought, that idea, a bit further. The girl was stating that she felt that there was no interest in her, there was just the interest in her body. And that’s just like, oh, this is what we would call the first steps towards spiritual liberation, to become liberated from the false ideas of the body as being the self, and the massive insecurities…

This is a really deep subject, but I’ll make a statement, and I’m prepared to debate it with anyone, any place, any time. Practically all suffering that you will experience in this world will be tied to the misconception of the body as being the self. When a person is able to actually realize their own spiritual identity, and reconnect and live in that understanding, your life utterly changes. The way in which you look at the world, the way in which you look at others, the way in which you look at yourself—all utterly changes. It is extraordinarily transformative.

I’ll read a couple of—these are like really, really ancient texts. Some of them were first committed to writing 5,000 years ago. Prior to that, there was a tradition of teachers passing on these ancient texts through an aural tradition, and young people would learn them by heart and be able to recite and repeat them.

So, in one of these ancient texts, it’s called the Mundaka Upanishad, there is a verse that describes that the atma, or the self, is “atomic in size,” meaning a minute spiritual spark, “and can be perceived by perfect intelligence.” What does that mean? Imperfect intelligence is the idea that the body is the self, and then I commit my life to trying so hard to be accepted, to be loved, to find happiness, to find fulfillment, some higher goal, only through the agency of this body, without ever connecting with my deep and true inner self. By the use of intelligence, if one is trained, one can learn to discern and identify and recognize the self, or the spiritual component.

They describe, they go on to describe that:

“This atomic soul is floating in five kinds of air and is situated in the region of the heart, and it spreads its influence all over the body of the embodied living entities. And when the atma is purified from the contamination of these material airs, its spiritual influence is exhibited.”

So, it gets a little bit technical, and we’re not going to get into it, but in the yoga tradition, they understood that there were five types of subtle airs, circulating within the body, and they assist with different types of bodily functions, but the centre of the meeting point of these airs is in the region of the heart, and it is in that region that the atma, the living being, sits, as if floating in these five types of air.

It was understood that the most important thing that you can actually do in your life is to come to realize your actual spiritual identity. This was called self-realization, to realize who you truly are and to connect with your actual spiritual identity, your eternal spiritual identity.

In these ancient teachings, they understood that the person, the spiritual being, the atma, actually has characteristics and nature. If I ask the question, “What sort of drives most people in the world?” What’s driving most people is a search for happiness. Right or not? Everything, almost everything everyone does, whether it’s connected to relationships, whether it’s to eating, whether it’s to moving, whatever, is a search for happiness.

Unfortunately, our lives are not very happy. Or no? We have 1,440 minutes in one day. Of those 1,440 minutes how much of that time am I actually really happy? I’m only going to ask the question. I don’t expect an answer. I know what the answer is. Happiness is very elusive. And we try in so many ways to find happiness. What’s wrong with being sad? What’s wrong with just like being on a bummer? It’s like we’re so adverse to it. I’m not promoting the idea, but I’m going to make a point.

The search for happiness arises from the soul itself, because it is part of the eternal nature of the spiritual being to exist in a state of limitless happiness. That is our heritage. That is our spiritual heritage. That is our spiritual right. This is our spiritual nature. And because that exists, even though we may have lost the plot and completely identified with the body as the self, then I continue, I seek happiness, but I only do it through the agency of the body and of the mind.

And what’s the experience? Even if you get everything that you’re looking for, you experience all the things that you think will make you happy, when the experience is over you are left unfulfilled. It didn’t do it. It didn’t fill me up. It didn’t satisfy me. I had the experience, and it was like, yeah, it was okay, it was fun, and but I’m on to the next thing. Now I have to look for something else.

This is a small example of how the subject that we’re talking about, our identity as a spiritual being, is so important; because your goal in life, your search for happiness, for fulfillment, if we are doing it on the false premise that the body is the self, you can stimulate the body like crazy, you can fill it full of food and drugs and alcohol and experiences, sexual experiences, tongue experiences, all kinds of things, at the end of the day, it’s like, “Naah… it didn’t do it.” And then we think, what? Oh, I know what I have to do, I have to turn up the volume, I got to go harder. Now, I got to get a squeeze of lemon, maybe a bit of Tabasco to—chilli sauce to spice up my life. I’ve got to try things in a more aggressive or a stronger way or—and that’s going to do it. And it’s not, I’m sorry. A person will then spend their entire life chasing something that is impossible to acquire.

You cannot find perfect happiness simply by having sensual experience. I’m not saying we should avoid those things, but we need a perspective. This is not the objective.

Another point really, really important: More than the search for happiness, the thing that really drives most people in their life is the desire for love, to love and to be loved. This is also originating, it comes, from the soul itself. It is part of our eternal nature to exist in a perfect condition of love. That’s why it’s there. I can spend my life in a terrible relationship, or multiple terrible relationships, and I’m still looking. I still want to find the perfect one. We’re always looking for the perfect one. This is actually a spiritual desire that cannot be perfectly fulfilled just with mundane relationships and on the basis of body to body.

That thing I told you earlier, when I was a kid, and my friend’s girlfriend complaining, “Oh, you don’t care about me, you’re only interested in my body,” that’s an amazing thing to say. And it could have been an opportunity that transformed her life. But it didn’t. People quickly get back into the concept of the body is who I am, I want to dress it up, I want to make it look pretty and attractive, thinking that that’s how I will find the perfect person to love me. No! You may have nice relationships, and that’s—that should be like that. But don’t think that this will be the perfection that you seek which is ultimately a deep spiritual desire.

So, I came armed with all kinds of stuff, but I think we’re just about running out of time here.

I’ll just read another verse from an ancient text, the Bhagavat Purana:

“Just as fire which burns and illuminates is different from the firewood which is to be burned to give illumination, so, the seer, or the perceiver within the body, the self-enlightened spirit soul is different from the material body which is to be illuminated by consciousness.”

I’ve got a whole bunch of these, but I won’t read them. You might fall asleep.

What do you think of the subject? Interesting? Very interesting? Actually, there’s nothing more important in your life than to discover who you truly are and to live your time in this body as an enlightened spiritual being relating to others on the same platform. You don’t just look at somebody else as the body. There is a person, an eternal spiritual being who is my brother or sister residing within each body. There is an equality of all living beings. And if I have that vision, I won’t be seeking to exploit someone for my happiness, and then when I decide oh, they’re not making me happy anymore, I discard them like garbage, like trash, which is what happens in the world. Does it not?

People can’t find their way to live in a harmonious and peaceful and pleasant way. I don’t know what the statistics are in New Zealand, but in most of the developed world, more than half—more than half of marriages or committed relationships end, often in a very distasteful way. And it’s like, what! What’s going on there? What’s with that?

The biggest single problem is the lack of spiritual vision to actually see the person that you are taking as a partner, and having the consciousness, “Like me,[pointing from himself to imaginary partner] we are pilgrims on a journey, a journey to find our true spiritual identity, to reconnect with the Supreme Soul, and we should find a way to cooperate and compassionately work to achieve this goal, or this end.” If you do that, it doesn’t matter how much tragedy you are faced with, it doesn’t matter how much struggles and difficulties that you will have (which are normal in life), you can be actually incredibly happy and fulfilled. You can have extraordinarily wonderful spiritual experience. But there is a need to cultivate this understanding.

So, there are two components: One is a cultivation of understanding, spiritual knowledge. It’s necessary to do that, not solely, but it’s necessary. The second thing that’s really important is to engage in activity, or a process, that will purify my consciousness, that will lift me out of this mundane world and this—all this stuff  I’m just carrying around as a great burden. That process is this process of meditation using spiritual sound.

So last Sunday I was talking in at Grey Lynn, and I used the example, just like in the summer when you’re all hot and sweaty, and maybe you’ve been doing some work, or it’s just a really hot day, when you go and step into the ocean, or immerse yourself in a river or a creek, or you go into the shower and turn on the shower,  the refreshing water cleanses away all of the dirt, all of the nasty things. It refreshes and enlivens the body, and the mind feels, “Oh wow!” it’s like you woke up, and you feel pretty good. In a similar manner, this process of using spiritual sound should be a process—meditation is not an activity of the mind. It is something where we immerse ourself in the cooling waters of spiritual truth, spiritual reality, spiritual sound, which is so powerful that it cleanses the heart and the mind of all of the dust and dirty things.

It begins to make it so that the fog lifts. Material life means I’m stumbling around in the fog.  I’m trying different things. It’s kind of like you get up in the middle of the night, and it’s all dark and the curtains are drawn on, and you’re trying to find your way to the bathroom, and you’re in somebody else’s house, and you can’t remember the layout. You’re trying to walk, and suddenly you bang your shins on the coffee table, and you’re bumping into things, and you’re just staggering around in the dark. That’s most people’s lives, believe it or not. This process of spiritual meditation will actually lift that fog, will begin to shine the light of clarity, and you will be able to eventually come to a position of fully experiencing and realizing your eternal spiritual nature and to live in that state that is happiness.

Sound like a good deal, or not? Huh? Yeah. And I promise it’s real. It works. This is not just some philosophical idea. It’s not some throwaway thing. This is real, this is real. And if you embrace this life, this understanding and experience, your life will be wonderful, and your death will be wonderful. It won’t be something to fear, or a cause of great anguish or terrible heartbreak. It can be an extraordinary experience.

Boy, that guy is really serious! [Laughter] Is this okay? Is this what you are expecting, or not?  Yeah? Nobody upset that they’re here tonight, huh? I only present it one way, sorry. I’m not into the fluffy stuff. Because it’s important, your happiness that you deserve. Your spiritual realization, the experience of the connection with the Supreme Soul and to come to experience the reality of your identity is so liberating, and you all deserve it. This is your eternal nature. The body that you have on, that’s not your eternal nature, that’s something temporary. And if you lose the plot, and that’s your whole world, it’s going to come crashing down around your ears. Sorry, that’s true.

Okay. Too much? Too long?

Someone speaking:  If it’s okay, I thought we’d take a couple of questions. [ACD: Sure] around 15 minutes or so, and able to be doing dinner for around. [ACD: Okay] So, leave a Q and A and kirtan. I just wondered are you guys, is everybody warm enough?  I just want… [ACD: is this too drafty for anybody] [indistinct conversation…] ACD: He’s from England. [someone:  how you doing? indistinct conversation]

Acharya das: So does anybody—let me say this before I ask—And I always tell people this” there’s no such thing as a silly question, there’s no such thing as a dumb question. In such important matters, any query that you have, anything that sort of like you’re unsure of or unclear about that can help in an understanding is a good thing. And you will find, if you have a question, you’ll find that at least half the people in the room will have been thinking the same thing. So don’t be shy. And some people may struggle a little bit with, “Mmm, I think I have a question, but I don’t know how to express it.” That’s okay, we can work on that together if there’s something you want to ask. So, we can figure out and clarify the question if need be.

So, there we go, up to you guys. Any questions?

Audience: I have one.

Acharya das: Yeah?

Audience: So it’s quite a long time I  may [indistinct] the concept of having a body wasn’t something that I was allowed to have, and also the concept of self was also something wasn’t allowed to have, and so probably recently I’ve come to really, not understand, but I’ve started to comprehend who I am. But then what happened is as I started to do that, and now I’m just starting to work on connecting back into my body, what’s happened is almost the self has looked at the body and gone, “Oh so what if—” and because of that, I’m struggling to—and you’re right, I’m struggling to love myself because of my body, and I’m trying really hard to separate the two, whilst I’m also on a journey to connect back into it.

Acharya das:  Yeah. So, you’re very fortunate. You’re not alone. It’s amazing how many people sort of have those experiences, but then either sort of like push it away or close off to it cuz it’s a bit too scary, and they just want to get back into their, what they call their life. So, it’s fortunate to have those thoughts and experiences.

If you travel on this path, it will change your life, and things can’t be the same again. [Laughter] But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. It is now a question of learning, or having a healthier perspective. We should not fall back into that illusion of the body as the self and then try to pursue, through relationships and experiences, this is where you’re going to find perfection. No, you can’t find—there is no perfection, there are just experiences. Some of them are more sad, some of them are more happy but they’re just experiences I’m going through, and I actually feel, in my heart of hearts, that I am not really touched by those experiences. They’re happening almost—it’s to my body and mind but they’re not touching me, and that’s not bad. But what we need to do is grow and develop a better appreciation of our eternal spiritual nature.

So, I’ll give you one example. This can be in relation to a partner in life, but maybe more to do with children, because children are dear to us. Everybody experiences that there’s nothing—am I going to say this?  Something I advise people, try to be present, in your life, try to be present at as many births and as many deaths as you can. It will enrich your life. It’s an extraordinary thing. I delivered some of my own children, and it’s just like, it’s just, it’s miraculous how this whole thing happens. But then I tend to identify very deeply with this person as being almost like part of me, and I naturally develop a very deep sense of affection, and everything. And then sometimes people, when they start walking on a spiritual path, and they begin to discover that actually this body is not me, I’m an eternal spiritual being, they feel a little alienated from those around them, and they begin to struggle a little bit with, “How should I be relating?”

The way you should be relating is with a newfound love, that this person who is also—this person is actually not my child. The body is the child of my body, but that person is not my child. And I am fortunate to have the opportunity to not only raise them in a dignified and wonderful way so that they can grow to be wonderful people, but to share with them real spiritual understanding and help them with what is the most important thing that they will face; and that is, your life will come to an end, will come to this experience of what’s called death. How you live in this lifetime and what will happen to you beyond that experience is now actually a responsibility, first and foremost, of a parent to teach their child, to help them grow as strong spiritual individuals that are compassionate and kind and want to give and not just take.

So, it’s sort of like, yeah, when you first have the experience of feeling a little different from your body, then it may raise questions about how should I be relating. But there is actually a wonderful spiritually founded way that you should be relating, and the nature of the relationship; it’s not one of forcing; it is one of firm guidance, but great love. Even if they fall over, even if they, their life goes to crap, and they make horrible decisions, nonetheless, that relationship I have, I need to be mindful of and always show to the those who are closest to me great compassion and a willingness to embrace and to help set them on a right path.

If I can do that with those closest to me, it becomes easy for me to do that with others when I begin to discover, oh, I’m actually related and connected to all living beings. They are all my brothers and sisters. I have a higher responsibility to those who are closest to me that comes with the territory of being like a parent or a relative or something, but actually my love and compassion and concern should overflow to all.

So, it’s actually a wonderful journey. It’s not a journey of turning your back on the world and everything. It’s actually finding a spiritual—developing a spiritual perspective, and making your life a spiritually directed life. Yeah? Cool or what?

I mean we’re just touching on these things. And unfortunately, we don’t live in a society that has a profound spiritual underpinning, and so our parents have often never taught us anything like this.

So, I used to run a lot of programs in prison, and one of the things I get from the guys, it’s like, “Where were you 30 years ago?” And it’s kind of like well, it’s never too late. But you hear, “My parents never taught.” When I tell people, look, you don’t have to become a slave to anger. Just because that emotion arises in your mind for whatever reason, you don’t have to be a slave to that. That doesn’t have to drive your response to things. Even when you’re experiencing that, there’s actually different responses available, and you should choose the one that’s going to produce the best outcome for you, because the one that produces the best outcome for you will produce the best outcome for them as well.

Audience speaking: But in order to understand what that best outcome is, [indistinct…] surely you must have fundamental understanding of yourself?

ACD:  —your spiritual identity. Yeah. I mean, we would do mindfulness meditations and things, and give—and they would go out and practice this stuff in the yard, in their dealings. I mean that environment is unbelievably hellish. It’s just an ocean of testosterone and angst, and, “Argh, argh, argh” [angry barking sound] And it’s sort of like—and they start trying this stuff. And then you ask them after about three or four weeks into the course, “Why do you keep coming back?” And the answer is “Cos it works.” They actually try it, and they do it.

And so, there are many things that we can learn, and we have to learn. But one of the reasons that you don’t have to be a slave to your passions and your emotions is because that’s not you. That’s taking place within your mind and body, but you are the spiritual being. When you take your hands off the steering wheel, and you’re just letting the road determine where everything’s going, that’s a formula to crash and burn. You need to be the one directing your life; and to direct your life you need to be in control of your passions your emotions, your mind. You need to be making good decisions, because good decisions mean good actions that have good outcomes.

When you make bad decisions, you end up in in jail or wherever. Your life is miserable, and you’re so unhappy and it’s kind of like, well, do you think you had any contribution to this? And I don’t mean that in a negative way. This is a very positive idea. What could I have done differently? What should I have known?

I mean the most, one of the most unfortunate things you hear in marriages and relationships: “If I knew you were like this, I wouldn’t have married you.” It’s like, oh my God, how dumb is that, why didn’t you know? It’s your job to know. Why did you just let your heart tell you what to do? It’s not your heart. Why did you just surrender your mind and emotions and just go on this thing? Your job—This is your life.  What happens to you, and what’s going to happen in the future is determined by your own actions, how you deal with things, what decisions you make.

And the most incredibly powerful part of that is when you recognize that I’m actually an eternal spiritual being.  I don’t have to just follow all the dictates of my mind. I don’t have to follow all the urges of my body. I don’t. I can step back and decide, “Is this in my interest or not?” This is what living a spiritual life means.

This is just scratching the surface, by the way. Real spiritual life is extraordinary. It’s wonderful, and it’s empowering. And it doesn’t matter how much unhappiness you’ve had and how much difficulty you’ve had in your life, it’s all about where to from here, from this moment forward. It is my job to begin to take charge of my life, to make good decisions, to get right training, to hear things that are influential, and to engage in a process like a of meditation that transforms me, that lifts a fog and makes it so I can see things with more clarity.

Audience: Excuse me, it seems that your eternal entity is in conflict with your own mind, but yet you say [indistinct]

ACD: Yeah, yeah. Okay, well, the mind is not you. It is described in the Vedas that you actually have two bodies; a gross physical body, that’s very obvious, but something that’s not as obvious; what they call the mind and the intelligence and the false ego, the false concept of self, is considered a covering of the soul.

In one of the ancient texts, it describes that the mind can be one’s greatest friend or one’s greatest enemy. When the mind is the one that’s in control and dictating how you’re going to do things, the emotions and all the stuff that you’re going through, it means you’ve given up control of the vehicle, you’re not the one at the steering wheel.

So, there’s a very deep science about the nature of the relationship between the living being, the soul, the spiritual being, and the coverings, like the mind, for instance, and the gross physical body, and the desires. So, it’s important to understand there is a huge distinction, that the mind is not me, and I can be, I can be having a battle with my mind.

I mean all you’ve got to do is try to concentrate on something, and your mind’s always being pulled away by things, and you’re trying to bring it back and finish something. Or somebody has said something really bad or done something really bad, now your mind’s off on that thing, and you’re trying to control it and bring it back. It’s like we’re constantly doing battle with the mind. And the reason is, the reason why we’re having that experience is because the mind is not us. If we were the mind, we wouldn’t be trying to control it. We wouldn’t be trying to remember; we wouldn’t be trying to focus. The fact that we’re having that experience clearly indicates that the mind is not us.

When we fall into this state of being oblivious to our actual spiritual nature, when we are embracing the idea of the body as the self, then it is the body and the mind that’s driving the bus. And we are like the passenger, just getting dragged down the road.

Does that clarify things for you? It’s an interesting idea, and if you actually pursue it in a thoughtful way and with spiritual practice—it’s difficult to understand how transformative that can be in your life, in your relationships, how you are living. Was that okay?

Audience: Yeah, sometimes you can be so despairing, and yet when you sort of look at it from outside that despair is superficial. It’s, that actually, it’s just you, it’s just your mind, it’s not you. It’s just what’s happening to you.

Acharya das: I think one of the saddest things that’s going on is the abandonment of old culture and many of the wisdom that came with things. For instance, when I was a kid, I learned “Sticks and stones may break your bones, but names will never hurt you,” and now the focus has become “Oh, they said something bad to you! Oh, you’ll be okay. Do you want some mental health support or something coz somebody treated you badly?” It’s like, oh come on! This is the pathway to enormous unhappiness. And older folks in the room, we were exposed to different things. We were exposed to things that have been handed down for hundreds and even thousands of years. In recent times culture has taken another direction.

There is another experiment going on, but it’s not having a good result.

Despair.

I hesitate to say this, but I think it’s important and helpful. The more self-centred we become, the more susceptible we are to tremendous depression, despair, all of these things. In a state of deep depression, there’s only one person there: You. You don’t recognize anyone else or anything else. And so, I advise people, if they have a friend that’s really going through a depressive episode, go around their place, drag them out of bed. Say, “Come on. Don’t even have to bother taking a shower. Put some shorts on and a t-shirt. We’re going for a walk.” And just walking, or just interacting with others, it takes you out of that world where it’s only you. And it’s not even the real you, it’s the false you. It’s the mind and the emotions. It’s not the eternal spiritual being.

One of the guys I was working with in Pare [High security prison] was—he got so depressed about the nature of his crime, which was so heinous, that he contemplated suicide, and he made up his mind that’s what he was going to do, there was no other way around it. This was after even long time in jail. And he found a place where he was going to do it where there were no cameras, and how he was going to do it, he had it all organized. And then on the day he was about to do it, he went to commit suicide, and there was already someone there attempting to do it themself. And when he saw the person, and he saw how—the state that they were in, it touched his heart and he said, “Mate, what are you doing? You don’t have to do this.” He was going to do it himself, but when he was confronted with somebody else in a deeply suffering state, he actually talked them down, brought them back to the cell and sort of spent time with them helping him.

So, then I asked him, “So, what about you, did you go back and finish the job yourself?” And he goes “No.” And he’d never thought about it. And I said, you know what changed for you at that moment? You stopped thinking only about your false concept, even, of self, and you actually saw somebody else suffering, and you stepped away from your own unhappiness to try and help someone. And that changed you, on the spot it transformed you, and you did something really good. Because when anybody does that, you cannot imagine the suffering that their families and things go through.

But when we get into a state of self-centredness where it’s all about “me,” we are very susceptible to either becoming really abusive or potentially really depressive. And just like you say, even if things are going really bad for you, you can step out and look at things in a broader way and make that that adjustment.

So, thank you for raising that.

Audience: Can I say something?

Acharya das: Yeah sure.

Audience:  I have to disagree with you about what you said about the sticks and stones thing because I—

Acharya das: about?

Audience: Sticks and stones may break your bones because [Acd: Yeah] [indistinct] because I kind of grew up with that as well, and I got bullied like all through school, and it was horrible. I hated school, and the teachers never really did anything. So, I have to say that I think it’s quite good that they are taking bullying seriously because it’s a major cause of suicide. It makes kids’ lives miserable.

Acharya das: No, I completely accept that. So, I think I’m not advertising that bullying should be tolerated and is okay. It’s actually a sign of—it’s so sad when somebody can bully someone to tears and—I mean, I was very touched by an experience like that, seeing it happen to somebody else when I was a kid.  So I’m not advising that, but what I am saying is, within those words, we shouldn’t think of them superficially, but there is a message of a need to build resilience, [Audience member: Yeah] there’s absolutely.

And if we just think—if we take it the wrong way that it’s advertising that you should just put up with all the crap that somebody’s going to afflict on you, then that’s not really the meaning. Although people may tend to think of it, or even want to use it that way, and what is really needed is resilience. And that resilience will manifest in the greatest way with real spiritual understanding. Is that okay?

Audience member: Yeah, yeah [indistinct]

Acharya das: And anybody’s free to disagree, and I’m not promoting the idea there’s only one way of seeing things and understanding. I’m just sharing some of my experience. There are eternal spiritual truth, and we may understand them in different ways and apply them in different ways.

Okay, are we good? Are we—

Audience: I’ve got a last question. [Acd: Yeah sure] Are you still okay?

Acharya das: I’m fine. I could be here all night.

Facilitator: Is everybody, okay? Last one though.

Audience: Sorry, last one,

Facilitator: I’ve got, I’ve actually got a pen and paper here if anyone has more burning questions, you can write them down; we’ll address them later.

Acharya das: And before you ask the question, I’ll just, so you know, I feel very privileged in my life to have had the opportunity to meet and learn from wonderful teachers who have really changed my life, and so my attempt to repay their kindness is to try and share the things that we’ve learned.

And so, there’s a lot of resourcesI have online, that if you want to poke around and go through. There’s a few hundred videos on different subjects, many of them related to personal issues in life that you might find helpful. So just throw that one out there.

Yeah.

Audience: So, the whole idea of the soul is to go back to the spiritual world, there is no cycle of birth or death [ACD: No…? There’s no what?] There’s no cycle of birth or death in spiritual world? [Acd: Oh, no, no.] So, for instance, if you get another body and then how will you liberate yourself from that body like…

ACD: Okay. So, just so people know, of course, different culture and background, and different perspective. So in the ancient Vedic teachings, they do embrace the understanding of what people will commonly call reincarnation, which is actually more accurately what they call transmigration of the soul.

So, you will see, for instance, not—people are not born with equal opportunity, with equal bodily strength or beauty or intelligence or—everybody gets a different hand. Somebody may be even born in a very wealthy family, but they are born with some congenital defect, and they confined to a wheelchair and unable to function very well throughout their life. So, there’s—when you look at it, it’s kind of like, oh my gods! there are all these different things going on.

So, the understanding that was put forward is, depending upon how we live our life in this world, the accumulation of bad actions and good actions, they don’t cancel each other out. We are held to account. This is called karma. Karma literally means action; and for every action, there is a karma phalam, which means a fruit of that action, and sometimes those fruits will be bitter, sometimes they will be sweet. And this is just big picture here.

So, it is said that when a person reaches the end of their life, if they are still overwhelmed and controlled by material desire, then they will take another birth, and that cycle, process, will continue and go on while a person still has material desires. When a person has become free from all material desires and is living a spiritual life, then they are said to be in a condition of being liberated, and they are able to enter into a spiritual dimension, and a world of spiritual experience, purely spiritual experience.

So, the question is about that. And the understanding is that the thing that binds you to repeated births and deaths is fundamentally self-centered and material desire; when that no longer exists, there is nothing that binds the living being to the material world. Is that okay?

That might have been a bit different for some people.

So with that, thank you so very much for affording me the opportunity to speak with you.  I really, really appreciate being able to share some of these things. And we will just chant a little.

So, I will chant this mantra Aum Hari Aum.  So, the transcendental sound, Aum, is said to represent the highest spiritual truth, the ultimate spiritual reality, God, however people might conceive or think of this. The word Hari, it means the one who relieves the great burdens of our heart. And so, when we chant these mantras, they actually produce wonderful effects that are very uplifting and purifying.

So, I’ll sing the mantra twice, and then if you are inclined you can join in.