Video 55

55. Bhagavad Gita I Chapter 4 Verses 31-32 I Swami Sarvapriyananda

so in the bhagavad-gita we are studying the fourth chapter of the bhagavad-gita the big question the grand question here was that not only how to become spiritual how to become enlightened how to realize god but how does it impact our lives how do we manifest that spirituality in our day-to-day lives how do you combine your daily life with your spirituality so that is that is the um big question and that synthesis is done by sri krishna he gives that remarkable verse very paradoxical language where he shows us the secret of action seeing action in inaction and inaction in action so that verse shows us the very heart of advaita vedanta as applied to our our karma our work work a day life and that section culminated in the grand vision brahmar panam brahma habi of the experience of brahman everywhere in the midst of all activity it is not that spirituality and our our daily lives are divorced that there is something else called spiritual and something else called secular but it's actually the spiritualization of what we call our secular lives so that's it now after that shri krishna has been giving us a series of spiritual practices 12 and he's been telling us about these spiritual practices in a special way using the language of is the term which means the vedic fire sacrifice the kind of ritual that people at that time were familiar with so sri krishna uses that language and in fact the highest advaithic teaching brahma param ramahabi that was taught in the with the in the format of a yagya no brahman is the offering brahman is the ladle by which you make the offering the fire is brahman he's drawing the picture of a vedic ritual but he does not mean the vedic ritual itself what he means is how do you manifest your non-dual realization in day-to-day life in inactive in the midst of activity [Music] so after that he has given a list of several spiritual practices several disciplines which are preparatory in fact 12 we counted 12 last time including of course the highest one the final one which gives us enlightenment that brahmarpan of that one but all the others also 11 others which are all explained in terms of yagya by drawing the picture of a vedic fire sacrifice but they are practices any religious person any spiritual person is familiar with you know discipline of the body and mind or fasting or pranayama or yoga whatever all kinds of practices now in verse number 30 you know verse number 30 so the last one he's mentioning i think we touched upon this last time the final one of these practices was control of food an important practice what we eat and how much we eat not just the quantity but the quality the nature of the food that we eat so um so he says here niyata they have a discipline about food or what they eat the five pranas the physiological functions of the body the physiological forces which keep this body alive uh the prana apana viana udana saman i'm not going into any of the details it's usually the the people who practice hatha yoga and more so those who know about ayurveda they know much more about these pranas but the basic idea is balancing the pranas so that they are healthy functioning too much eating and eating the wrong things eating at wrong times at any time at all snacking what it does is uh it disturbs these pranas the activities of this pranas it keeps them constantly active and damages their functioning with the consequent bad effects on the health and the health of the body has a direct effect on the mind your body is sick the body is you know you're feeling bloated or if you've got you know acid reflux whatever all kinds of digestive problems and issues immediately there's an effect on the mind and spirituality spiritual practices like prayer or meditation or even you know deep thinking becomes very difficult so regulated food the time when we eat the quantity of food and what we eat these are to be regulated and this is a big subject in itself but you notice i have seen so many spiritual practitioners especially those who practice yoga meditation the path of meditation they have to be very careful about their food so that the body does not disturb the mind i've seen in the monastery so first of all there's a discipline about food in the monastery that whatever is cooked and offered in the monastery that's what you're going to eat you don't have a choice there that's one discipline we have um then you have a choice about the quantity you can your choice is of course there you can choose not to eat that's that's the choice you have uh so there are monks i've seen who um do not they have one meal a day they've met many monks who do not eat at night for example there are one of the disciplines is to become vegetarian in fact in this country i discovered that people go further than the yogis in india there's a whole vegan diet thing which has come which is pretty strict actually so that's one kind of control of the items which you eat then there are i know of much more severe things you know in order to control the taste so it's not so much about health to control the desire for tasty food so they take only very bland food or i had heard of this yogi in the himalayas swami who would get all his the food which he got not too tasty to begin with and then he would wash it all in ganges water so it would be a soggy mess and completely almost palatable and that's what he would eat so that there is absolutely no question of taste involved well anyway don't make a fetish out of it but whatever keeps your body light and healthy whatever promotes um you know likeness of the body and so that the body doesn't remind you that it's there it wants something all the time or it's feeling sick it's pulling the mind down to itself that is a good diet survey pate all of these all of whom all the two the ones who practice all these 12 practices remember it's not that you have to practice these 12 practices there are many many spiritual practices many many religious practices only a few have been mentioned here so it's not that you have to practice all of them if one practices a few of them that's good enough the purpose of all of it is means impurity dirt the conditionings of the mind which make it difficult to go ahead in spiritual life the strong pull towards the world um you know desires and jealousies and little bits of anger and irritation and negativities all of which are in the mind and they root us to this material existence those are purified by these spiritual practices um among them one of course is primary which is that one ganayaki we have that brahma param the practice or the insight which allows you to see brahman in every experience especially with in inactive life also you see brahman everywhere that is the highest but all the others whether it is pranayama or fasting or control of the senses or control of food so many things vows observing vows many many and many more which have not been mentioned here japa is a practice japan krishna has not mentioned here but he'll mention in a chapter later on another very wonderful practice repeating the holy name of god so all of these practices by practices of by these various spiritual practices the goal is only one thing it's to purify the mind the goal is to purify the mind which is necessary for making vedanta effective without this vedanta will not be effective then number 31 [Music] this verse number 31 eating of ambrose food after the sacrifice they attained the eternal brahman even this word is not for the non-sacrificing much less the other or best of the gurus arjuna so literally the translation is literal translation the literal meaning is when one performs a vedic ritual the food which is offered is is taken afterwards and that he says that is like nectar a corresponding thing would be in modern hinduism would be prasad so food is offered to the deity whichever form of hinduism you practice and among the offerings in in the ritual the ritualistic worship of the deity is called puja in the puja there are food offerings and obviously the deity doesn't gobble up all the food so the food is all left over and which is distributed among us the devotees and so we enjoy that delicious food so the food that is offered to the deity that is called prasada so those who eat that prasada they they will attain to the highest spirituality that's the literal meaning the food offered in the ritual and the left that which is which is consumed later on with the devotees so those who live on that food they attain to the highest but what does it actually mean it means that those who live a life of moral ethical and religious discipline they will attain the highest how did i get this meaning they that which is pervaded by are purified by yagya that kind of life when you live that kind of life here all these practices all the 12 practices we have mentioned especially the 11 moral ethical practices which are meant to discipline the body and mind to bring it under control to purify it and keep it make it ready for the higher spirituality those who live a life of moral ethical and religious discipline they are fit for enlightenment yanti brahma sanatanam they attain to the eternal brahman they will realize me and they'll be enlightened they will get moksha freedom so here it is often there's a feeling that advaita vedanta is that you have these higher spiritual practices you you study the upanishads and you are told you are brahmana and you think well upon it and maybe you you meditate a little bit and then you are enlightened and that's it that's all that you have to do it's instantaneous almost effortless and you realize me i'm brahmana and the thing is finished done with not so fast it never ever happens that way so the misunderstanding is that advaita vedanta is somehow this almost miraculous very sophisticated very uh rarified spiritual path uh you know the highest a kind of extraordinary magical insight by which all our problems will be solved and you don't need to do anything else no that's a misunderstanding that's a misunderstanding all of the so-called spiritual practices which you find in religion traditional religion the religion which you see in temples and churches and mosques and all they're all very useful for advaita vedanta just says that those are not the ultimate things those prepare you but without that it won't work without the advaithic realization non-dual realization what realization i am brahman the all the other religious practices the rituals the vows the austerities they do not attain their ultimate purpose ultimate purpose is enlightenment but without those other practices this enlightenment cannot be attained just by reading a couple of books and just by attending a couple of classes one won't what will happen is um what you will end up with a feeling of either number one i don't get it what are they talking about i've had this reaction i'm not i have no idea what they're talking about or i have no interest in this it doesn't sound at all interesting why would you spend time with this incomprehensible stuff from some ancient book what's happening here what's happening is the layer of worldly dirt is so much the um you know the world seems the only reality that is money and pleasure seeking and power and glamour and achievement that seems to be the only reality that is i'm reminded of once sri ramakrishna saw some old gentlemen sitting together in the daytime retired from the job this old gentleman sitting and playing cards now nowadays i guess they would be stuck to their screens or something but they're playing cards and sriram krishna says to them my goodness isn't hasn't the time to call on god come yet you're old you're going to die in a few days the life of the world is over for you it's done isn't it isn't it high time that you start calling on god that you take up spiritual practices see it doesn't that interest doesn't come it doesn't even seem to be anything of interesting the world seems interesting the world seems real no matter how full of suffering and misery how many kicks and blows i've got from it it's because of the impurity of the mind or i'm interested but when i come to this i don't understand what is this brahman consciousness mind and enquiry what what is god what's all this going on that's also because a certain adult is a person may be very smart with other things you know academically smart or smart in the in business or whatever or very clever in worldly dealings but may not at all get what's going on here in this higher spirituality that's also because of the impurity of the mind or none of us here are like that that's because you are here continuously day after day month after month year after year you're pursuing spirituality but in our case what happens is we are interested and we get it also but without sufficient preparation we'll end up with i get what you are saying but it's not working it still still seems to be something philosophical something speculative something intellectual a clever philosophy that's what it seems to be um what about transforming my life what was promised you'll overcome suffering you will attain fulfillment that doesn't seem to be happening so even this is because of lack of preparation so we need these practices that's why it says those who live a life conditioned or life with these disciplines amrita bhujat it's as if they are enjoying nectar they are living a life of amrita means the nectar of the gods so that kind of life and they alone are fit for realizing brahmana or becoming enlightened god realization what about the opposite those who don't practice these things why wouldn't somebody practice spiritual disciplines there are so many reasons not interested or you know why should i practice these disciplines rituals rules rigid things you know my freedom i am free listen this is a new kind of superstition of the modern age it's impacting my freedom i do i am a free person i'll do what i want why should i follow all these rules you know eat this don't eat that i'll eat whatever i want get up at this time why it's too cold it's too early i'll sleep in so this is not freedom this is an unfortunate misunderstanding of the word freedom what is freedom that i decide to get up early in the morning and then do meditation or yoga or whatever and my body obeys me my mind obeys me day after day i can do it is that freedom or i decide to get up early in the morning and then some days it's too cold or some days i don't feel good enough some days i'm not interested some days you know i'm too tired and i don't do it and i don't follow it who is free who is free doing whatever the mind wants me to do is that freedom that seems to be freedom because we are so deeply connected with the mind minds desire i want no not you want you have been deluded hypnotized the wants are pre-programmed in the mind they are bubbling up in the mind i want this i want to see this i want to touch that i want to smell this i want to go there i want to see um you know enjoy this all of these are bubbling up in the mind quite mechanically and we get identified with these movements of the mind and say i want it and if anything frustrates it and if anybody stops me we get angry when desire is frustrated the result is anger in second chapter krishna told us then when desire is blocked it's transformed into anger why because we think it is my desire you are impacting my freedom notice i myself decide i will get up at this time i will follow this diet and i myself am unable to follow it is that freedom that's not freedom it's slavery to the body-mind that um saying king karashiyaki alas by the servant of my servants i have been made a servant who is the who is my servant i am the self my servant is the mind who is the servant of the mind the senses sense organs by the servant of my servants my mind servants are the sense organs by those sense organs i the atman the lord of this entire body mind system i have been made a serpent now i am serving serving the sense organs whatever the sense organs want pleasant sights pleasant tastes present smell touch i'm running around to get that so that is not freedom these disciplines where we consciously restrict the activities of our body mind seeing eating touching talking we restrict it this is gaining control over our body mind system that is freedom so the next line krishna says he criticizes those who do not follow discipline of body and mind i guess those who do not practice again remember here i am repeating this ad nauseam it does not mean the vedic fire sacrifice here just just the ritual it means um the spiritual practices which have been described as yagya those who do not follow these practices these 12 or anything else many other kinds of practices are there those who do not follow some kind of ethical practice even this world they will not succeed in this world they will not be happy in this world what to speak about the other other means it could be heaven after death or it could be enlightenment spiritual realization one will not be happy in this world itself without restraint without discipline nothing can be achieved in this world um daniel goleman he he popularized the term eq emotional intelligence uh he's a harvard trained psychologist very well known uh science writer especially about psychology so you can find you must have read this book many of you emotional intelligence he popularized the term he saw that intelligence measured by iq is not a good predictor of success in the world people it might be a good predictor of success in in school or college with excellent academic grades people go into the world and often are seen to be failures they they stumble and they fail in professional life in their private lives in their families so what is a better predictor of success who can be successful happy in this world so he formulated his idea of conception of emotional intelligence and the first component in that emotional intelligence we mentioned five components the first component is this one um self-regulation the first component is self-regulation the ability to to this is very precisely to postpone gratification i want something right now and i have the ability to say that no let me not go out to that party let me not watch that movie let me do my assignment and then maybe i'll enjoy myself later or let me work hard right now and be frugal and i can earn a lot of money i can enjoy myself more later very worldly goal but even that requires restraint so we know whether it in college or in a job or in a family it's the person who is who has personal discipline who has certain core values and follows them systematically that person is usually more successful so the first component of emotional intelligence is self-regulation the ability to postpone gratification and i give a talk about this a long time back i think nearly 10 years back in iit kanpur uh i showed that cute video you'll find it on on youtube the marshmallow test the marshmallow test for little kids is very famous psychology experiment conducted by walter michel in the 1960s i think at yale probably or some other ivy league university he he selected he got some little kids four year olds and the experiment was the psychologist will offer the four-year-old boy or girl a marshmallow so when i talked about this in india i didn't even know what a marshmallow was i'd never seen a marshmallow so i just thought it's like an indian sweet or something then after coming to the united states i saw what a marshmallow is so the psychologist offers that kid a marshmallow do you want it and the kid obviously says yes and then the experimenter says look i'll um i'm going out i've got some work i'll come back in a few minutes if you don't eat the marshmallow if it's still there i'll give you one more then you can have two marshmallows do you want two instead of just the one you can have the one right now if you eat it now i won't give you the second one but if you don't eat it and wait for me i'll give you the second one you can eat two marshmallows there do you want two marshmallows and every kid said yes that's the interesting thing they all said yes we want to then the condition is just wait for a few minutes remember these are four year olds so waiting for 10 minutes is also an eternity for them and so they left they were under observation and later in this very famous psychologist zimbardo philip zimbardo he repeated the whole experiment so what you find on youtube is the video recording of the the new experiment the repeated experiment not walter michelle's old one i don't think those were video recorded in the new experiment if you look at it the marshmallow test zimbardo marshmallow test you will see they are being secretly video recorded the children and you can see the kids some of them are looking out towards the door when will he come back and some are looking greedily at the plate the marshmallow some some can't resist it the moment the psychologist leaves the room some pick it up and eat it or some resist it for some time they look around and then it's too much then they eat it but there are others who resist it resist the temptation to eat the marshmallow and they wait until the psychologist comes back and then they get a second marshmallow now what walter michelle did was uh he kept track of these kids the ones who were able to wait who all of them said we will wait but once we were able to wait the ones who are not able to wait and he didn't tell them anything of course 14 years later he went back to them and so these kids were 18 years they were just going out of school into college and he he went through their school records he talked to the parents to the teachers to their friends and he found amazing extraordinarily significant differences between the two groups he found those who were able to restrain themselves at the age of four in the simple experiment did it better across the board better at academics better in sports but better in anything that required effort better and you know extracurricular activities like music and things like that in they worked better in teams they were better liked the other kids were seen as more impulsive less reliable irresponsible this is just in school but you can already see that this the difference between the two groups one group is set on the track to succeed better i mean more likely to succeed in life anyhow the whole idea is the ability to restrain my oneself to restrain one's body and mind body mind and senses is a formula for success in this world as shri krishna says why only forget spirituality forget god realization this world itself you one cannot enjoy one cannot be successful unless one has a disciplined ethical and moral life what to speak of spirituality then number 32 [Music] thus various sacrifices are prescribed by the vedas know all these to be born of action knowing thus you will be free so he summarizes the whole whole section a1 in this manner which manner what has just been said a whole list of various kinds of practices 12 actually bahubita many and indeed many more than what have just been mentioned every religion has so many of these practices often they are understood as this is religion god has said you do this observe observe this bow now put on this kind of dress go to church or temple or mosque or synagogue at this time recite these things so a kind of discipline across life you will notice one common thing in all of them they are all meant to bring to to circumscribe our activities in the world i want to eat everything no these are the things you can eat these are the ones you cannot eat and at special times you know for example now there is this thing leading up to christmas so there are uh special activities and and restrictions and vows at each stage every religion has this christianity has it judaism has the most of it maximum i think islam has it hinduism has an extraordinary variety so has buddhism jainism is very very strict so all of these these are meant for something somebody asked me once young man he said look it's confusing which is a holy day muslims say friday and christians say sunday and the jews say saturday and the hindus say just about every other day which is a holy day it's all contradictory probably it's all wrong no you are mistaking the point of it it's not that one particular day is more holy than the others you are supposed to be immersed in god consciousness all the time you know brahma panam brahma that is not possible simply not possible for most of us at this point so mark of a certain time a particular day in the week as a holy day where you did dedicatedly sometime exclusively to spiritual practice prayer meditation concentrate on god not on the world so the muslims do it on friday the christians do it on sunday the jews observe the shabbat and saturday is holy especially so for observances the shaivites in hinduism monday is the day of shiva tuesday is the day of the divine mother so is saturday and so on it's not that one is particularly one is right and the other is wrong rather when you take up a particular system there will be certain prescriptions and all of those prescriptions are good they help to bring about this discipline of body and mind leading to purification of body and mind leading to qualification for non-dual enlightenment many many forms not only in vedanta i mean in hinduism or but also in every religion here brahman means veda it does not mean the ultimate reality it means veda one of the meanings of brahman is actually beta so in brahman brahman literally means in the mouth of brahman what it means is in the texts of the vedas many such prescriptions are there you can take it in a more general sense not just the vedas in the scriptures in other hindu scriptures in other scriptures of all religions you will notice the common form of all of those practices is a kind of restriction i have no particular diet i can eat anything and everything no here is your particular diet but if you are following if you are a muslim this is your diet for a buddhist or something i have no particular routine every day is a new day for me today i can get up at 4am tomorrow i can get up at 10 a.m no you have to rise before sunrise so this is a kind of restriction and if you do not understand the meaning of these restrictions and there are many many such restrictions all of these disciplines are kind of restriction on our activity we do not understand it will rebel against it why the why is it it is a conscious decision to bring my body and mind my life under control that's why karma john with detans are one all of them are part of karma yoga all of them accept that brahmar panam brahmavi the rest are all activities dealing with the world the body and the mind where we bring some some order and discipline into our daily life as a preparation for spirituality the brahmana brahmavi that that one 24th verse that's not a karma that's a spiritual insight the realization that it is brahman the whole whatever i experience is brahman whatever i do is brahman the people around me are the absolute reality i am brahman and we are one divine reality this is an insight so that's not an action but everything else is an action karma john with the sarvan it also means these have because these are actions these have to be performed it's not enough to read about them i've memorized all the different kinds of yagyas mentioned by krishna so no good nothing at all will have become of it unless we do a little bit of it this is where swami vivekananda said an ounce of practice is worth 20 tons of tall talk an ounce of practice is worth 20 tons of tall talk so all of this including say for example yoga patanjali yoga you have to do it it's not enough to read the yoga sutras it's not enough to read multiple commentaries on the yoga sutras you have actually got to sit down and lock your body in asana and then concentrate your mind in a particular way breathe in a particular way and so all those things have to be done here also the 12 practices among them the 11 ones the preparatory ones they have to be done again not all of them whatever suits you why are there so many okay why are there so many this is an insight that comes very peculiarly indian insight otherwise what happens in the middle eastern religions is there are these practices because god said so or our prophet said so our founder of the religion said so and that's it these are holy and you have to deserve commandments that's one way of doing it the other way is to see that these are particular disciplines which help me so there can be many of them they can all be alternative but you must have a set why so many because we are varied some of us can do some of these disciplines some of us cannot some can fast and that helps them to concentrate on god some if they're fast they all only think of food when i'm going to eat again some are very talkative by nature a vow of silence will be useful for them some hardly speak so the vow of silence doesn't do much make much difference to them so of all of these practices some are suitable for us some are of special benefit to us at some point in our life that's why you have a variety of practices they all must help us in getting control of the body mind and senses and purifying the mind and then even knowing these you will be freed you will attain moksha knowing these means practicing these gaining fitness for vedanta and by getting the vedantic realization alhambra maasmi you will get moksha notice one thing you must have noticed already throughout the month that i am putting a vedantic overlay on the original text of the gita the advaithic over the non-dual interpretation so mostly what i'm saying is a non-dualistic interpretation if you hear the same gita taught from i'll say a vaishnava acharya from a dualist perspective so the spin will be little different it's a good exercise to see the original text and then look at it through the lens of a particular school so i am talking not from a strictly non-dualist school because i bring in insights from other other teachers also for example sometimes i bring in insights from swami ram sukdashi who was a vishisht advaitan qualified modest then oh there's so much activity on the chat let me quickly look at the chat and we'll go to the next verse praveer basu says like karma yoga here also for the youngest looks like the motive of the yankee is important absolutely in fact these yagyas are karma yoga it's an interesting insight the karma yoga is meant for purifying the mind preparation for gyana yoga again in the classical structure of shankaracharya shankaracharya says karma yoga then upasana bhakti and dhyana and then yoga and karma yoga purifies it makes you ready these are all actually karma this is another way of looking of describing karma yoga praveed basu says this seems to have connection to sahaja yogis absolutely absolutely the whole purpose of all these yagyas all these practices is to make us fit for vedantic illumination what is fitness the fitness defined fitness possession of the four qualities the fourfold qualities for vedantic seeker viveka the discernment between the eternal non-eternal vairagya dispassion for the non-eternal the six treasures so it's a little bit of cheating the six have been packed into one so there are total of nine qualifications the six treasures and the last one would be intense desire for freedom those will arise when we have such a lifestyle this is this interesting thing i have no particular desire i'm interested in spirituality but i don't have that intense desire for um god realization am i leading a disciplined ethical moral life regular in my spiritual practices then that intense desire for enlightenment will come in time so that arises from these practices again not just these 12 it could be many others whatever it is so what am i doing right now something has to be done some set of spiritual practices so in our order for example uh we uh there's there's a mantra diksha initiation into a mantra there's an ishta devata who's given guru gives you that teaches you how to meditate so two times or three times a day we sit down and we drop the world meditate on the ishta devata repeat the mantra as much as we can that's our upasa now meditative practice but then there are um all the work in our day-to-day life in the in the our religious activities and our so-called secular activities we all do it as karma yoga trying to see that it is the worship of sri ramakrishna on our ishta devatha we practice the fundamental moral values truth and non-violence and self-control and so on this is a set of practices and this leads to southern chatushra licentiousness versus freedom yes so freedom is actually freedom from waywardness is not to do what you feel like doing is freedom yes when you feel like doing uh good things like meditation and study and all that is good one should do that but one when it is not part of your program you have made up your mind that i'm a spiritual seeker and the impulses which are arising in my mind are not part of that at all they are not taking me towards god then the ability to not do that to stop myself from doing things which will take me away from god and the ability to do things which will take me towards god even if there's no particular desire arising for that in the mind this is true freedom eric from a well-known psychoanalyst distinguishes freedom from and freedom to correct freedom from certain things and the freedom to do certain things instead of austerity is discipline and moderation acceptable gabriel is asking absolutely in fact discipline moderation is the right austerity that was bhagavan buddha's insight the too much intensity of fasting and a very austere and minimal lifestyle maybe in the long run not very good for spiritual life remember spiritual quest is a marathon it will take years and decades and decades most our life may be lifetimes it's not a sprint if you exhaust yourself in tremendous austerities for a few weeks or months and then health is damaged mind you know so it it affects the mind and it will ultimately damage our spiritual life moderation and discipline is the right right austerity that is it's actually much much better to be moderate and disciplined throughout lifetime rather than intensively practicing something or the other on a whim i remember at one time i was living in the mountains in a very often setup you know like begging for my food and living in a a log cabin 10 000 feet high in the himalayas after a month or two of that i was very happy but when i came back to one of our ashrams also in the himalayas one of our monks saw me and he said you look so haggard i mean that's not the exact translation in bengali said babe how do i translate it it means you know when there's a storm and the birds after that you'll see their feathers are ruffled they look sort of disheveled so it's like a storm blown crow okay that's a translation a storm blown a storm reference crow after the fierce storm uh the crows if you see they've lost some of their feathers their fellows are all ask you and they look sort of stoned so he says you look like that it's it's because of overdoing things it's much better to live for example in the ashram for 50 60 years following the routine of the ashram then for suddenly scooting off to the mountains and living on a glacier or something for six weeks that might be an adventure but that's not spiritually mature i remember are very good one of the monks whom i really really respected very much as maybe one of the few i i feel have are and spiritually enlightened i have seen in my lifetime so this swami swami maksha dhanandiji he passed away several years ago ram maharaja he was a wonderful swami extraordinarily learned saintly a beautiful monk he when i was a novice i went to the novices training center in our main monastery so i went to bow down to him and i was in dressed in white as a novice brahmacari he asked me so what are you here for i said i'm going into training it's a two-year intensive training course and there the routine the schedule is very strictly mapped out there are i counted 26 bells in 24 hours so the first bell it starts with 3 40 am getting up and there is no mercy you have to get up then somebody will politely ring a bell in your ear till you do get up at 3 40 am and then 26 bells throughout the day the most hated one being at 10 30 in the night which tells you to go to sleep especially if you go for those who are already asleep that's not a nice belt to hear so it's a very intense routine now there are two kinds of reactions of the novices we all come with great in the enthusiasm into it some want to do much more you know we will become enlightened like the buddha so i have got these two years of intensive spiritual practice definitely i'm going to be enlightened by the end of the two years i'm going to see god or become get moksha or something like that and they tend to overdo things more than what is required and there's the opposite reaction there are a few lazy souls or take it easy kind of source they try to do less than what is required anyway so when i bowed down to this monk moksha dan anderjee and i said i have come here for two years of trading he said oh training center wonderful follow the bell that's enough in bengali he said go on gantastranga follow the bell that's enough you see the the schedule has been mapped out for an intense spiritual life just do that don't be spiritually ambitious don't be lazy that is discipline and moderation rick has given us this marshmallow test and the youtube link also i think is that the link yes that's the link you're right do see it if you have if you are interested in the marshmallow test it's very cute fanindra says i have i read one interpretation of the marshmallow test which said it is equally about distracting yourself from temptation as it was self-control will power very close to your weak practice of pratipak thinking of opposing thoughts when bothered by negative thoughts absolutely if you see the kids some of the kids who were able to resist the marshmallow you will see they play little games they occupy themselves with this or that naturally it's not that they are devising a strategy it's just the way they did it and they were successful now this shows a crucial secret about our minds our minds can think about only one thing at a time simple secret but it's a very powerful thing to know our minds can think only one thing at a time and use this for changing your life introduce what you want the mind to think of and let the mind stay there you might say easier said than done no we will devise strategies for it so i want to think about say i want to think about god then just don't say think about god because any other distraction the mind will run there do it in such a way the shrine where you think about god let there be music bhajan or some soulful music playing the posture you have taken a bath and you so make all the preparations so that the mind is conditioned to think about god it will do that so here it is said pratipaksha bhavana yogic practice think of the opposite because the mind can think only one thing negative thoughts come replace it with a positive thought because the mind will think of only one thing it can hold on to that one only and it'll again you see again go back to the negative thought maybe depression or anger again replace it every moment you have a choice of introducing a positive thing every moment we have the choice of making a decision what to think about what to say and what to do this is a very good insight panindra says is it accurate accurate to say yagya can be understood as karma done with the attitude of tiago correct so it means i am offering this to the deity now mama not mine so our professor randam chakravarti he stresses this aspect very much good deal of spirituality is basically this this me and mine give that up and so all spiritual practices they push towards that giving up this me and mine the whole of the yagya in one of the definitions of the vedic was offering up the materials it could be that ghee or anything else or one's own wealth or whatever it is you're offering it up to the deity so that is the essence of the yagya correct and karma yoga is basically abstracted from the concept of yagya rekha kalikar what would you recommend a spiritual routine for us to follow i wouldn't recommend a particular spiritual routine for you to follow but you must only think i recommend is you must have a routine one swami said it very nicely some young people asked him so tell us what to do he said in hindi i will translate noon term start with the smallest and practice the easiest if we our main problem is we become very ambitious i'm used to getting up at nine o'clock as i'll get up at four four a.m i'll fail i'm very miserly about my money i'll make huge donations i'll fail or if i force myself to do it i'll become miserable start with the smallest and practice the easiest then you can upgrade push it up slowly the smallest and the easiest is something that the mind will say yes i have i can't do it the mind cannot give any excuse there if i'm used to getting up at eight o'clock get up at 7 45 it can be done it's not so difficult at all so that way it'll have every aspect of your life is there some aspect of ritualistic worship is there some aspect of service in your life is there some aspect of scriptural study is there some aspect of meditation in your life plus all the other aspects of your life when do i get up what do i eat do i exercise all of these things should also be there routine you know i remember this swami he has passed on now he was one of our teachers in when we were novices the most extraordinary routine i've seen i wouldn't recommend that that's i found it a little mechanical but extraordinary he never had a moment to spare from early morning till late in the night everything was measured by the clock minute to minute and like that for 50 60 years of his life he's meant to get up this is when to take a bath this is when to study this went to go to the temple for about 50 years he never left the gate of balurmat exactly at this time where he will be that spot is not i mean you can know this is the time for his walk this is the time wherein in the room this is the time that he will be in the classroom this is the time he'll be in the temple this is the time he'll be in the dining room nowhere else you'll find him for half a century incredible i saw it with my own eyes i found it a bit too much after many decades in that swamis i i heard a story that many after many decades some people from his purva ashram his relatives from before before he became a monk they had come from his native land so the office of the monastery they said please call that swami somebody has come to meet him the swami couldn't come to meet these people who had come from a distant place he couldn't come because he couldn't find any time in his routine just to come and meet them you might think that's crazy but no that's actually true and it's actually it's the glory of his routine it the routine is meant to make him do only things which are related to his to god realization to spirituality and to prevent him from doing anything else and it worked some of us physical like practices certainly um physical exercise to keep the body fit is important for uh spiritual life but do this at the beginning at the end of that exercise offered to god in fact all hatha yoga practices are connected to spirituality some people rick say some people who accomplished a lot like bill gates and elon musk structured their days very carefully yes i found the routines of the top ceos there was an article of one thing i noticed they all got up very early for 4 very monastic in their approach of course the first thing they did was start answering emails from 4 30 a.m but very early they took care of their health they always had a lot of energy so they ate lightly and the and exercised and they structured women put a lot of investment into structuring every moment of their day also i was impressed by gentleman warren buffet warren buffett he reads 500 pages a day it seems top investor and the one of the quotes i read was that all of you can become all of you can do that this is the secret to my uh success is that i spend bulk of my time reading and says all of you can do that i also know that all of you will not most of you will not do it so is routine this compulsory thing not necessarily there will come a time when a person has got what is called a complete devotion to god completely fallen in love with god no need for a routine for that person when a person has god is real for that person there's no chance of that person doing anything else except being centered in god that that person doesn't need a routine there is a story about routine it's good to end with the other side of the story um swami vivekananda when he set up the monastery in in balur he established a strict routine and the bell the bell which rules the details till today from early in the morning till late in the night he established that and he said all the monks have to follow this and he immediately saw swami advocate another of the direct disciples of sri ramakrishna who was a radical monk in his own right you know like completely god absorbed he is walking out of the monastery so vivekananda went to catch him where are you going brother he said all these rules you have started i can't abide by them so i'm i'm leaving your monastery then swami vivekananda embraced him and said this is not for you this is for the young people are going to come they need this kind of this protection of these practices you don't need it you you just stay here that's enough um so sri ramakrishna has to say that it is like a fence when you have plant a sapling you put a fence around it otherwise cows and goats will come and eat the sapling but when it grows up he says into a banyan tree a big banyan tree if the fence is not needed anymore and you can tie he says you can tie an elephant to it nothing will happen to the tree so the routine is like the fence put around the sapling of spirituality to begin with gabriel has her hand up yes just something hello i can hear you just something mundane that happened to me that the other day how your lectures are seeping into my daily life uh remember just a few weeks ago you told us the story about the novice who was walking with the swami and the other novices through a garden and he stopped to smell his flower yeah and the swami lectured him so a few days later i got flowers from my friend in kabul and she works for you and she has rockets flying and bombs and she still spent the time sending me beautiful flowers and i was so happy and so touched and i smelled the flowers and then i remembered your story and i was so frustrated and angry at that moment because it totally took the joy away because i thought oh these flowers so beautiful and it smells so nice and every time i had them for a week in the room every time i smelled the flowers and i enjoyed them and i closed my eyes i thought of your story and it's like now i can't even enjoy the smell of the flowers and i won't become enlightened no no don't worry about it smell the flowers that's my advice to you don't worry about that your story of the monk was so vivid then i was like oh my god yeah it's a principle not to be guided by the senses that's all but if you deliberately hear the flowers my friend from kabul has sent them with so much feeling for me of course i'll smell them and say it's very nicely beautiful that's it yeah okay what is the role of entertainment or leisure in this routine prabhupada is saying it's there actually shri krishna will say it later on yukta hara vihara not only balanced food and diet but also balanced entertainment vr means entertainment you go for a walk and you read a book um you watch something wholesome that is also part of of a balance keeping your mind you know relaxed and happy yeah but if all day one is watching tv serial then then it's a problem i remember i remember when i became a monk so in the library in the monastery i found this whole set of pg woodhouse i don't know how many some of you may have read them so i used to love that it's it's very british humor but the language is really good you can learn good english by reading that now i like that and then i found the whole set in the in the library there i asked from the monks can i read it i'm i'm a novice so can i read pg buddha's and he immediately said in bengali he said ha ha yes go and read it don't worry about these things then he said but if i catch you reading pg buddha all day long then there's something seriously wrong yeah for relaxation definitely why not um but relaxation also there are different levels to it i remember this monk who is a great scholar of vedanta and one day in the library and he's always immersed in reading shankara's commentaries so one day in the library in belarum i saw he was reading the encyclopedia britannica one volume and he looked so embarrassed that i had caught him reading the encyclopedia britannica and he said oh just just for leisure just for to relax just to relax so his relaxation is reading the encyclopedia returning so what is leisure it also depends on the person very good we'll stop here oms [Music] be