What is spiritual and What is not

Aum Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya

So, this is part of an ongoing series that I’ve been invited to present here, which is sharing the wisdom of the Bhagavad-gita. And I am asked to talk on different topics, so that people can have the opportunity to hear how this great and eternal transcendental wisdom is applied on a practical sort of level.

So tonight, the topic I was given is: What is spiritual and What is not.

So, in the world there is not a great deal of clarity with people about what actually constitutes that which is truly spiritual. There are kinds of different definitions that people use. They use the word “spirit” or “spiritual” in different ways. People talk about a fighting spirit. We talk about—and it’s just used in so many different ways, which makes it a little bit difficult for people to appreciate.

So, I thought I would just look at some dictionary definitions. So, one definition that’s given, it means, “of, or relating to, or consisting of, or affecting the spirit.” And then, there’s a little note what they mean by the spirit, and they use the word incorporeal, which means not having any material form or material body. And when we are finished the talk, you’ll see this is actually a pretty good definition, although people may understand it in different ways.

But other definitions, “of, or relating to sacred matters.” And this is where things get a little bit tricky because different people may consider different things to be sacred, and the fact that people may think of something as sacred doesn’t necessarily make it truly spiritual.

And then you’ve got another definition, “of or relating to supernatural beings or phenomena.” So, what’s often understood by that, in the Western world at least, the idea of ghosts as being somehow spirits, and they’re called spirits because you can’t see them with your eyes, or you can’t touch them. But from a Vedic perspective, that doesn’t make it spiritual, just makes it extremely subtle, a very subtle form of material energy.

We also have a common idea where people think if they’re in touch with nature, they’re spiritual. And we’ll kind of address that one in a little bit. You also have—in people in the West, when they hear about or they witness indigenous cultures and practices, it’s automatically all categorized as spiritual.

So, I’m just using these examples because it’s kind of like, wow, you’ve got this broad spectrum of what somebody may address as being spiritual or not. And what I’ll share with you tonight, I hope will provide some really sharp clarity on the subject.

I’m going to present the ancient knowledge of the great sages and saints of a bygone era, the Vedic perspective on what is spiritual. And I’m not going to be insistent that this is the only thing that everybody has to embrace, not at all. That would be incredibly arrogant. But it is a very interesting perspective, and you can choose to—you know, consider it and choose whether you will incorporate some of that or that perspective, or not, in your life.

So, as part of the ancient Vedic or yogic definition of that which is spiritual, they speak about this world in which we reside. There are fundamentally only two types of energy that we are going to encounter. We’re talking about broad categories. One of them is the energy known as matter, the material energy. It’s comprised of atoms and atomic particles. And another type of energy that is really classed as being truly spiritual.

So, in the Bhagavad-gita, they speak about the different divisions of this material energy, like they speak about earth—or let me start from, yeah, the bottom: earth, water, fire, air, and what they call ether, or the akash. And that’s actually a really deep subject, and it’s very interesting. But then, following that little discussion on what it constitutes the material energy, it states:

“Yet there is another nature, which is eternal and is transcendental to this manifested and unmanifested matter. It is supreme and is never annihilated. When all in this world is annihilated, that part remains as it is.” [Bhagavad-gītā 8.20]

So, the reference here is, there was what was described—the material energy was described as an inferior energy; and a superior energy, that is comprised of spirit. And one of the characteristics we’ve heard here is that it is never annihilated. It never comes to an end. It is unchanging and perpetual.

In another reference, again after speaking about the material energy and referring to it as an inferior form of energy, it states,

“Besides this inferior energy, O Arjuna, mighty armed Arjuna…”

—just so people are aware, the Bhagavad-gita is a really amazing text. It’s part of a huge compilation, a huge text called the Mahabharata, and it is comprised, it’s just like one chapter, but there are 700 verses. And it is accepted as being more or less the essence of all Vedic or yogic teaching. And it was a conversation between Sri Krishna, who was accepted as a manifestation of Godhead, an incarnation.

5,000 years ago He spoke to a great warrior prince on a battlefield. It was just prior to this monumental battle that was going to take place, and the prince Arjuna had asked, “I want to see the people facing each other.” And Krishna had volunteered to be his chariot driver in this great battle, so He brought him down on a chariot between these two armies. And he looked at the people facing each other, and he became overwhelmed, because there were intimate relatives that were on opposing sides, and this was going to be a great fratricidal war where the loss of life would be unimaginable almost. It was really huge. And so, this prince, his name was Arjuna, and he was a great warrior. So, he is sometimes addressed as this mighty-armed Arjuna.

“Besides this inferior nature, O mighty-armed Arjuna, there is a superior energy of Mine, which are all living entities who are struggling with material nature and are sustaining the universe. – [Bhagavad-gītā 7.5]

And so, we have this really interesting, now, introduction.

The understanding of the ancient teaching was that you are an eternal spiritual being, and you are temporarily residing within this body that you have, and you have adopted the body and its different labels as being who you are. So, if my body is male, I adopt, “I am a male.” If my body is female, I say, “I am a female.” I say I am of this age, I am short, tall, fat, thin, old, young, whatever. I have all of these labels, which I adopt as being me, and yet, at that moment of death, when the living being leaves, and the body remains behind, all those labels are there with the body, and I have left, and I was not any of those labels.

And so, they speak about the material experience as one where the living being, the spiritual being, becomes overwhelmed with so many false conceptions. And therefore, their search for happiness, their search for a home, their search for love, to love and be loved, cannot be satisfied when we are limiting that search only to the nature of the body that I have. Those needs are deep spiritual needs, and we need to be seeking a spiritual source of sustenance to fulfill those needs.

So, in Sanskrit, they don’t have a word like “soul” how it is used in the West. In the Western World, people are kind of a little confused. Most people will say, if they agree about the idea of a soul, most people will say, “I have a soul.” But if I ask the question, “If you have a soul, who exactly are you, and what is this soul that you possess or have?” And if I ask that question, it’s just like, wow, that just blows everything up. Everybody’s like, “Woah, woah, woah!” They don’t know how to answer that, because we think of things in a way that’s actually not—it’s not very clear to us. But we just kind of go with a feeling.

The Sanskrit, which is the ancient language of the Vedas, they use the word atma. This word atma literally translated, means “the self.” So, if you said, “I have a soul,” who is that I and what is that soul you’re possessing? No, the actual statement should be, “I am the soul.” That’s who I am. It’s not something I have. It is truly who I am. This appreciation is the foundation for all that is truly spiritual. This is the foundation.

So, the Bhagavad-gita describes the atma, or the self, as being eternal, unchanging, undying, and personal. And that word personal is a big word. The living being, the spirit soul, is not just an energy, it is ultimately a person. When that spiritual person resides within the body, it lends consciousness, it lends personality, it lends all of these things to the body and the mind, which corrupt it, of course, and we falsely identify with the body so deeply that I say “Yes I’m a male,” or, “I’m a female,” whereas actually that doesn’t reflect what’s really going on in the core of our being.

One of the characteristics of spirit is life. All life originates, or manifests, from spirit. Life doesn’t come from atomic particles. Your body is comprised of all these, massive collection of atomic particles, but that does not explain life. And of course, materialistic scientists they’re trying so hard to create life by manipulating atomic particles and everything, but it’s not even a possibility, because the characteristic of life, this is a symptom of the presence of spirit. When the spiritual essence is there, life manifests.

And so, again in Sanskrit, the word for life, or one of the words for life, is jiva. And so, often the spiritual component—you is referred to as a jiva atma, means the self, which is alive, which has life.

The effects of the presence of that which is spiritual is profound. I mean, it’s astonishing how— Does an ant exhibit life? And the answer is, yes, it’s alive. And we understand the reason it’s alive is because there is this spiritual being present. That spiritual being is non- different than you and I. If you take a blue whale, you have the same spiritual being, an atma, present, but the consciousness, or the life, is spread to a giant body. So, the size of the body is irrelevant. When you have the power of a spiritual being you have life force, which expands throughout the body that the living being is currently occupying.

So, I’ll read another verse from the Bhagavad-gita. It says:

“O son of Bharata, as the sun alone illuminates all the universe, so does the living entity, one within the body, illuminate the entire body by consciousness.” [Bhagavad-gītā 13.34]

And of course, in the yoga system, they describe the mechanics of how this happens, that there are subtle—five principle and five secondary airs, that circulate within the body, and the living being actually sits within the region of the heart, suspended in these five subtle airs that permeate the body. And it is through these subtle airs that the consciousness and life is transferred or shared with the body.

I was going to talk about something: how, in science—I’ll just touch really briefly—they give the characteristics of the material energy and the characteristics of what they would refer to as—(How would they describe it? I’m lost for the term. I’m sorry.)—but, like, a living being. And it is so extraordinary, when you look at it scientifically, how material elements have characteristics and behavior, but when they become influenced by life’s presence, they present characteristics that are completely different—like, one of the characteristics of the material energy, it tends to seek its most simple form, but when a living being is present, the material energy becomes complex, like the body. The way the body is constructed, and how it functions, is just like mind-blowing. And of course, as soon as the living being leaves, that complex organic form, as they would refer to it, now suddenly reverts to its original nature. The body begins to rot and break down; and that’s because the form of the body is not natural for the material energy. It happens because of the presence of a spiritual being from the time of conception, in whatever way that that will occur.

So, having this understanding about what is material and what is spiritual—is it okay up to this point? It’s kind of clear, yeah? Not too complicated or anything?

So, if we understand what is spirit, then it’s sort of like, okay, well, how do we now refer to that which is, or how do we talk about, that which is spiritual?

I had made reference earlier to—it’s a very common idea that people have, that nature is spiritual, how people will say, “I’m a very spiritual being cos I’m really into nature.” The problem is nature is material energy. It is material energy. So it’s sort of like, okay, if I’m into nature, is that actually spiritual? So, it’s a bit complex, but we’ll try and explain.

The material creation is described as being—it’s complex, and it’s amazing, but there are three very subtle modes of energy that permeate the entire material creation. One of them is called the mode, the operational mode of goodness; another one is of passion; another one is of ignorance.

When people are influenced by the mode of ignorance, they will manifest a tendency towards sleep, intoxication, and just losing the plot, just like totally! It’s like, the night after a wild party, and even towards the end of the party, it’s just like it’s permeated by the mode of ignorance—everybody’s just either loaded or collapsed or it’s just a big hazy mess, and nobody’s very motivated to do anything.

The mode of passion, when people become influenced by it, they generally strive for excellence. So, like high-performance athletes, or people that aspire to create, they’re very artistic temperament, and they get really locked into creating things, or to excel in some way or other. And it’s like, the cities are filled with this energy. The cities are built on what’s called the mode of passion.

The mode of goodness inspires a person to peacefulness and tranquility, and wanting to get away from all the noise and the hustle and the bustle. And natural environments, nature, have that effect on us. They have the effect on us where we want to step back and take a breath and not be chasing all the craziness and caught up with all the madness, and to think of something greater than myself, something bigger, something more wonderful—that is the effect that nature has. But nature, in and of itself, is not spiritual. This was the understanding taught in the Vedas.

So, it affects—material nature can really affect our consciousness.

So, if we understand what is spiritual, and what is material, the quest, the journey, the desire to know, to ask the question, “Who am I? Why am I here? What’s this all for? How can I find true and lasting happiness?” these types of thoughts are actually part of a genuine spiritual quest. And when a person asks those kind of questions of themself, or of God, or of some spiritual teacher or something, they themselves are accepting a position of humility. There is the appreciation that I don’t actually know, but I really want to know. I feel that it’s important. And this direction of thinking and of inquiring and of searching is a spiritual direction.

Many people, though, in this world, they will perhaps accept the idea of God or some higher spiritual reality or some higher spiritual energy, but when they think of it, and when they relate to it, it’s often to get something: “Help me with this.” “Please save…” somebody that’s suffering or in danger. “Please help me with the money problem.” My husband’s driving me crazy. What do I do? I need help.” We ask for things from that which is spiritual, but we are seeking material solutions to things. And so, from the Vedic perspective, this was not considered purely spiritual. It may be some focus in the right direction, but in and of itself is not truly spiritual, because our concern is for things of this world.

Let me just say, we are not promoting the idea that one should be turning their back on this world, trying to ignore it, trying to run away, go to an ashram, or a monastery, or a cave, and shrink away from the world. That is not necessarily a spiritual pursuit.

There is an understanding that we are eternal spiritual beings, and I must now seek a path in my life where I take responsibility for my life. I take responsibility for things that I have taken on, in the form of committed relationships, family, children. I have a duty here that may not be purely spiritual, but it is a duty. And accepting duty, and performing duty can help me rise to a spiritual platform. Instead of seeking happiness and fulfillment, and purpose in this world, I look for it in a spiritual direction. But I accept my situation for what it is, and I do the right thing, I do the responsible thing, I do the caring thing. Part of the nature of spiritual growth is to appreciate that there’s no quick fix. We’ve got ourself in this situation.

I often mention, I’ve—we used to run a lot of programs in prison. I was talking last night, and I was mentioning that one of the first things we’d ask, when you get in a room with 10 or 15 of these guys, and they’re all hardcore: hardcore! And you ask them, “How many of you actually had a plan that was going to make it so that, at this day and this time, you are going to find yourself here? Was this anybody’s plan?” And of course, everybody looks around, and they laugh. It’s kind of ridiculous. Nobody would make a plan to be in prison. That would be stupid. So, then I ask, “Well, if it’s not your plan, you obviously had other plans, and instead of that working out, you’re here. Doesn’t that tell you that somewhere, somehow, you’ve lost control of your life, you’ve been overtaken by things, you’ve chosen a course of action that produces this result? It’s not like it just happened to you. You began to make a series of decisions about what you’re going to do in your life. And you may have speculated or thought ‘Oh if I do this, it’s going to be a fantastic outcome, I’m going to get what I want,’ but that might be just wishful thinking.”

This principle applies to us. Wherever we are in our life right now, it is the result of choices that we made, actions that we took, and we’re experiencing the consequences. And quite often, there’s a big dollop of sadness or unhappiness in our current situation. Most people are not living a life that is really filled with happiness and freedom, and it’s kind of like everybody’s struggling in so many different ways.

When a person undertakes this spiritual journey, a journey of spiritual discovery, to come to realize who I truly am and to reconnect with my source, that supreme spiritual reality, or God. Once I have actually begun to seriously engage, then a lot of things begin to fall into place. I recognize, I am where I am, I’m dealing with all the stuff that I need to deal with. Some of it may be the result of really bad decisions in the past. But actually, I can spiritualize my life by choosing a course, a course that brings me to the point where it is revealed to me my actual spiritual identity, who I truly am, who I truly am, the person, spiritual being residing within this body, and what is my natural and eternal connection with any higher spiritual reality, or God.

When I choose that course, and I see my situation, and I see my connections to people in this world, I will have a sense of both compassion and responsibility, that I can live what may seem to others to be a very mundane life, meaning, I am just getting on with things. But internally, I am driven to seek a higher spiritual truth and reality, to experience it and live it. And not only that, to the best of my ability, to share it with those close to me, children especially. We have a duty of care to children, to give them some spiritual understanding, to give them tools to make really good choices in life, to help them see things with clarity. And in doing that, a person can come to live a deeply spiritual life, even though to others looking at it may seem just like everything else.

So, leading a spiritual life is not just about the externals. It’s about what’s going on internally. You hear all of these horror stories of cult kinds of things, or fake teachers or gurus or whatever, who everybody thought, oh, they were great spiritual people. And then later it comes out that they were stealing money, they were having sexual relationships with so many people that were following them, that they were exploiting and utilizing. But it was kind of like on the outside, oh, they look like holy men. They’ve got the robes on, they’ve got the right look, they’ve got the right kind of jargon that they use and everything. Spirituality is not determined by external things. It is determined by your state of consciousness, where your heart is at, and what is driving your decision-making and your actions.

So, if we understand, we can embrace these principles, then we can learn to apply them. I mean, one of the things—I was talking with James earlier—one of the things that often comes up, and I know from my own experience, like when I was about 17 years old, when I discovered drugs, I thought, “Oh my God, this is really spiritual.” And I would engage in using hallucinogenic and stuff, thinking that it’s really spiritual. And again, no, it’s not. You cannot induce real spiritual experience by something that is material. You must be utilizing that which is spiritual. And so just because you’re having an experience that is unlike anything that you’ve ever conceived of or thought of, it doesn’t make it spiritual. It just makes it really, really far out.

And the problem is, I, for myself, when I was a young guy experimenting with these things, and I was doing ashtanga yoga at the same time, and I would sometimes fast and try to take some drugs and then try and do some breathing and kundalini yoga, and had some really cosmic experience. But it doesn’t change you. It doesn’t give you realization. It probably tells you that, hey, there’s more going on to in this world than you had imagined before or experienced, but that doesn’t make it spiritual.

Spiritual means that I will come to realize my true spiritual identity as an eternal spiritual being residing within this body, that I will reconnect with the Supreme Soul, or God, in a deep and profound experience of love in a very personal and intimate way. And this will really begin to guide my life, guide my relationships, guide how I am acting, and how I am thinking, and how I am behaving. So that’s what really constitutes true spirituality.

What do you guys think? Most of us are not very educated in true spirituality. People’s—particularly in the Western World, their exposure to, even religion, is often not a real deeply spiritual experience. There may be elements of it that is spiritual. But like I mentioned before, there can be—it’s all about what it is, what is your motivation, what is driving you? That really is a manifestation of your state of consciousness.

And I’ll give you an example that I often mention. In this world, part of that material consciousness, is that I see myself at the center of everything. I, in my language, I talk about my partner, or my husband, my wife, my children, my parents, my siblings, my friends, my job, my town, my country, my racial identity, my, my, my—I see myself at the center of everything. That way of seeing things is not spiritual. This is considered a very materialistic influence.

I often use the example, when people engage in kindness, when you actually do something for someone else without any expectation of—and particularly when it’s spontaneous: you see somebody in difficulty—I often use the example of like some woman with all the groceries and the kids, and she’s trying to open the car, and you just go over and say, “Let me help you with that,” and just open the boot of the car, or open the door, what’s needed. And people get a little startled, “Oh, thank you very much.” It’s unexpected to have people show kindness. We don’t expect it. But when you do it, even if it’s very simple, you immediately have a feeling that you’ve done something good, good for others and good for yourself. You have a feeling of some joy, some quiet happiness that you’ve done something good. Right?

The reason you have that feeling is because that’s actually close to the nature of the spirit soul. Our deep spiritual nature is to love, and out of that love, to serve; and when we live that way, it makes it so a person becomes profoundly peaceful, very tolerant, can accept so many things, and is joyful in spite of enormous hardship and difficulty. They can be cheerful and happy when they have that attitude. The attitude of seeing myself as the most important thing in life, and trying to fulfill the desires of my body and my mind, and just seeking to take, to take. I have this idea that happiness is out there. I’ve got to find it, whether it’s money, drugs, a car, an experience, a relationship, I’ve got to get it and dominate it. I have to get it and pull it in close to me. And if I can do that, I will feel happiness. And it’s not true, absolutely not true. Our deeper spiritual nature is to give and to share. The material consciousness is to take in a desperate attempt to find peace and happiness and love and fulfillment. We do it from this position of taking.

So, understanding the distinction between what is spiritual and what is material is really profound. And while it’s a very simple idea (Right? It’s not complicated?), the idea of what we’re sharing, it’s not complicated, but it’s challenging, and it’s absolutely life-altering. And so, we really encourage people to choose the spiritual path.

The foundation of the spiritual path is to seek self-realization and God realization. Self-realization means to discover your true spiritual identity, and then to reconnect with your origin, with your source, so that you feel whole, you feel complete. All of the want, all of the emptiness goes away. And the primary means to do that, in this age and time in which we live, is the process of meditation using spiritual sound. Meditation is not an activity of the mind. Many people wrongly think meditation is a mental activity. Your mind is a form of material energy. It’s not spiritual. It’s one of the coverings of the spirit soul.

Meditation means to be exposed to, to bathe in transcendence, to be in the proximity of that which is spiritual, or transcendental, so that you can experience a purification of the heart and the mind. You can truly begin to have a spiritual experience.

I also use the example, it’s like, here in Hamilton, you get a lot of fog in the winter, and on a really foggy day, you look out the window, and you can’t even see the car. You can’t see the fruit tree in the yard. It’s just thick fog. But when the sun comes up, even though you can’t see it, the power of the sun is that the sunshine will begin to burn off the fog. The fog begins to dissipate, and gradually you get to see things, and it becomes very clear. Eventually all the fog is gone, and you see with great clarity.

Material consciousness means we’re in the fog. How many times do we do something, choose something, thinking this will bring me great happiness, and just the opposite happens? A good example I always use is like, marriage. Everybody gets into a relationship with this big hope, “Aaah, aah, aah! This is it. It’s going to be amazing. Aaah, aah, aah! It’s wonderful. I’m going to be perfectly happy.” And then, 6 months later, everybody’s throwing things at each other, and shouting, and it degrades, and quite often collapses. And people separate with great bitterness in their hearts. And it’s kind of like what, how could you think this was going to be perfection? They talk about it in the Bhagavad-gita, that which in the beginning tastes like nectar and later becomes like poison. They describe this as happiness in the mode of passion, when we’re driven by materialistic ideas, we’re not seeing things with clarity.

This process of meditation using spiritual sound will transform you. Even if all you do is a little bit of chanting every day, your life will gradually and permanently change. If you seriously adopt a meditation habit, it will change your life, it will change the nature of your relationships, it will change your focus, it will change how you are experiencing everything, and you will find true happiness and a life that is filled with meaning. That’s the promise. Okay?

So, what I’d like to do is, we’ll chant a little bit. I’ll probably use the same mantra that Kunti did, the Mahamantra. [Responding to audience member] Yeah, can I—I’ll just say this, and what I would suggest we do that, then after that, if you have questions, we’ll do the Q&A thing. Yeah? And any question that you have, feel free to ask. I don’t take offense at anything. So, feel free to ask anything, even if you may think it’s quite challenging. You might be surprised that there is a nice answer for everything. Is that okay?

You want to play as well? Yeah.

I’ll chant the Mahamantra, the Hare Krishna mantra; partway through it, I might do a couple of Haribol Nitai Gaur’s. If I do it, I’ll just do it once, and you can respond.