FIND THE PEACE WHICH IS ALWAYS WITHIN YOU FREE VEDANTA ONLINE COURSE TUESDAYS AT 7 PM A PRODUCTION BY SATSANGA ONLINE COLLABORATE PLACE YOUR BRAND HERE Good evening, everyone! Welcome to our 4th class. In today's class, we'll discuss more topics on the Vedic tradition.
Our idea here is to cover many subjects which underpin Yoga and Vedanta, and I suggest that those who are watching for the first time, who are joining the course now, that you watch the previous videos. They're all available on YouTube. There is a link on our website to them: on satsanga online webpage, there is a link for enrolling, receiving material and such things.
It's important to watch those, since what we're saying now has a context. We are not talking about isolated subjects anymore. Well, classes will get increasingly more challenging.
Yes, because the topics will stir deeper in us. So, at this point in the study, it's key to have clarity. Clarity about what?
About the social indoctrinations established around us, and how such indoctrinations impose restrictions to our lives. All social indoctrinations are based on names: an indoctrination stems from a name, which usually represents a judgment: represents a group, a formula. So, if you think about it and contemplate a soccer match between Brazil and Argentina and see people hitting each other during the match, where does such violence come from?
Violence is there, implicit: people are violent all by themselves, but how does violence get externalized? How do people connect to this violent energy and hit each other? They can only do so because of the names "Brazilian" and "Argentinean".
It's as if, behind the names that divide people in groups, classes, lifestyles, yoga groups, spiritual paths, dividing people was relevant. While we are in a spiritual inquiry, names may even help: we can buy shirts with sayings such as "Yoga of well-being", with a drawing of a flower, everyone wears the same shirt, and, as a group, people have the strength to move on, and some may even overcome drinking due to that! We can't say names are useless: of course they aren't!
Feeling like you belong to a group is useful. But there is a limit to that. We can't make progress in a spiritual tradition if attached to names, we just can't.
Do you know why? Because there is no boundary between Argentina and Brazil. If you go over there, you won't see a line on the ground.
Separation exists only in people's minds. And, because I call one "Argentinean", I feel entitled to beat him on a soccer stadium. This is ridiculous, see?
Ridiculous. This is a side of our humanity that we bear, as we bear thousands of other concepts about ourselves, about others, how others must be, how Yoga must be! Every now and then I get e-mails from people who say: "Yoga must be taught for free".
Ok, right. Where did you take this from, that Yoga must be taught for free? Why is money a negative thing that can't be mixed with Yoga?
We learned, somehow, to demonize money, as if it brought about pain and suffering, but money also fosters science, progress and health, among many things. If I have an internal pressure that separates spirituality from money, this means I have an indoctrination in my mind. Do you know why?
Because this knowledge is a ritual. Vedanta, Yoga and any knowledge are rituals. And, in rituals, one must give something.
As in palm reading: it's an energy interchange. Money is not foreign: it's a representation of my effort, my work, it's a way of showing respect for others, showing that I value their work. The idea that it would be nice that knowledge were available for free is very positive, and all teachers would like that.
But food should then also be available for free, education, traveling from one place to another, hotels should be for free, so many things should! By putting those two things apart, money and Yoga, one creates an unsustainable Yoga. You'll have Yoga teachers charging low fees that won't allow them to live their lives happily.
Rest assured this is not right. Shiva, there, in heaven, whatever one's belief may be, won't be happy! He won't say: "Congratulations to him for his charitable work!
" No! People depend on having their work valued so they can change as people. So, it is important that one is able to offer services, may it be Yoga, medical services, teaching services, in a way that people value it.
And if the person can't afford it, one may find other ways to study, it's not about it. But I need to rid my mind of simple concepts such as this one, of money as something profane that doesn't mix with spirituality. "Thus, to be spiritual, I must abandon my life, my family and go to an empty cave where all will be taught for free!
" This is a fantasy. Spirituality won't be uncovered from inside a cave. And I'll tell you more: people who have a problem with money, for instance, sort themselves out through money, not apart from it.
Who has an issue with family will sort oneself out with it: the solution lies where the problem lies. There is no such concept of separation between a spiritual world, labeled differently from the material world, and the latter as opposed and separated from the spiritual world. This paradigm that spirituality and materiality are opposed is nothing but a fantasy we bear, conveniently: our life is full of hardships, we struggle with relationships, and, so, it's easier to believe that spirituality requires dropping this whole mess and go somewhere devoid of all this.
But the truth is that, if you go to a cave high up on the Himalayas, you'll see that everyone you tried to leave in Brazil have actually joined you. You'll soon be talking to walls, swearing at the stray dog who moved in with you, complaining about the food, as you did of the price of the Yoga classes, that people don't acknowledge. .
. Because so is the mind. The human mind goes with you wherever you go.
I need a tool to grant me a certain mental flexibility so as to drop concepts which are actually what imprison me. All such concepts are based on words, such as "Argentinean", such as "criminal", such as "Yogi", or concepts such as this one, that a woman, interestingly, or at least it used to be so, here, in Brazil, a woman must know how to cook. Who came up with this?
What if she dislikes cooking? "No, she must know how to cook and like it! " So, if she dislikes it, what can she do?
Kill herself? Because she was born and she hates cooking. What now?
! What will be of all this? So, there is a certain need to be capable of seeing oneself beyond the labels that society imposes on us.
When we think about spirituality, such labels represent virtually every group we join while on the path, the quest for knowledge. One must have enough objectivity so that I never end up starting a sentence like this: "For 25 years I've been doing this and that meditation. .
. " And do you know why? Such pressure is unnecessary.
There are over 200 people in this class, and each one of us took a completely different path. We're getting here, now, to listen about a reality, and obviously what must be said won't fit harmonically within all because, if it were so, it would be pointless for me to be here: a Vedanta teacher doesn't speak of known things, he usually says difficult things which necessarily clash with my thoughts. If Yoga has bent one's body but not one's mind, when this moment arrives, what happens is that all rigid things break.
And the ego freaks out. It says: "How dare you say such things about meditation? !
" Well, meditation is an activity which hasn't been invented by any of those groups. Meditation has been there since the dawn of creation, and what is meditation? An action.
Every action creates results. What is the mystique behind a certain meditation, a label? One must be able to objectively see what things can grant me and what they can't.
Whether I root for Flamengo or Palmeiras, whether I'm Brazilian or Argentinean, whether I take part in this or that group, when talking about knowledge, no groups play any part. When the topic is knowledge, one must be able to abstain from all one's baggage and contemplate what is being said with a certain plasticity, which will allow me to say: "Ok, is what I'm being told true or not? " Let me tell you something interesting.
Take notice. What is the difference between having your eyes open or closed? What is the difference?
Let us imagine. We're looking at each other, through screens and cameras. I have my eyes open and I'm not doing anything, I'm just looking at you.
Will my life change? No, right? Why would it?
My eyes are open and staring. No changes. Right.
Now, imagine I'll close my eyes and won't think of anything, facing forward. Why would that change anything? The concept of meditation as a solution to a problem is flawed.
How does your eyes' state matter? If meditation means to close one's eyes, meditation is nothing. Take notice.
If meditation is closing one's eyes and thinking of nothing, what's the difference if the eyes are open? It can't be that. If meditation exists at all, it can't be about that.
Then, one may say: "No, I'll do this meditation and, if I do it, I'll reach pure bliss. " "Fine. For how long you'll have to meditate for that?
Yes, because the results will probably match the time invested: for 15 minutes, you'll have a different result than for a year. For absolute happiness, how long will it take? If there is a concept for pure bliss, saying that one can reach it by meditating is illogical.
It makes no sense. Meditation is an action, every action is limited by time, and every action has a corresponding result. Thus, necessarily, whatever is gained through meditation goes away with time.
It's only logical. However, this is not always presented in this way. Maybe one has been told that meditation was the ultimate solution, and maybe it will be very helpful to us in our journey.
But, now, stop and think. Let's be pragmatic: no action can originate an endless result, since it is limited by time and effort. How will you sit to meditate?
Padmasana? Bhadrasana? Which one works best?
Maybe padmasana: it's harder. Things must be proportional: so is causality and effect. Are you following?
And if meditation won't originate pure bliss, does it mean it's pointless? No way! Meditation is key!
I've never heard of a Vedanta master who isn't a meditation teacher, as well. Meditation is key. What we must dissociate from it is the concept that it can generate an endless result, the final solution for one's problem: it's not.
Think about it. The solution has to have the nature of one's final state. Do you see it?
If you want, for instance, to be a great soccer player. What will you practice? Scoring goals!
Free kicks, crossing the ball, scoring by heading the ball, you'll be training amid your final purpose. The ultimate training must match the ultimate stage in all crafts. What do you want with yoga?
To stretch your back? Bend backwards and forwards? Fine, go practice asanas, you see?
Now, do you want to live in peace with your family? Asanas won't help. Definitively, at least.
Relatively, they do help. Meditation won't help you to reach plenitude. Why?
One cannot meditate endlessly! It doesn't belong to the final state. So, if one wants, at his final moment in his spiritual journey, to live in harmony with everyone, to be free to desire, to live, to have a family, to do whatever, but in a free manner, the path one must follow towards such freedom must be a free path, not one filled with restrictions.
This must be understood. A free person cannot be forged in a prison. A free person is crafted amid freedom.
Such freedom isn't only physical, anymore, but also mental. Thus, we enter this world: a doctor slaps a baby's butt and that's it, it has started! We enter this world filled with paradigms and are locked in a mental prison.
The spiritual paths represent, in air quotes, positive prisons. Ways through which we connect to a mindset we already have so as to remove us from certain thought loops. Instead of associating with people who'll just idle all day long, we associate to people who work and become workers.
Instead of associating to people who can't expose their feelings, we associate to people who do so easily, and, thus, we acquire this skill. We make such associations so as to gain maturity. But a time comes in which we don't want to associate.
Our truth isn't an association! We are all essentially and necessarily different. So, one needs to be able to break with all labels imposed on oneself which make up one's identity.
I must be able to say: "I'm not a Vedanta teacher. I'm not a father, a son, a friend. Fundamentally, I'm not, though I may even have those roles.
" For many years, we may have followed certain paths, you know, but detachment must be there for one to look at all that and say: "All of this blessed me, but I can now look at it objectively and say that they're merely names and forms. " Yet another name, yet another form. In the end, this whole spiritual apparatus serves whom?
Yourself! Regardless of the name "Buddhism", "Hinduism", "meditation", "yoga", it serves you, and you are one single person. If you want to practice yoga, do it your way.
The inquiry is not about connecting to something, no: the inquiry is about releasing mental attachments so as to see that one doesn't belong to any groups. Do you know how it is done within the Vedic tradition? I'm not wearing it, now, but we use ashes.
There is this nice ritual in which we smear our hands with ash and put it on our foreheads. Do you know what we say while applying it, curiously? One makes a sankalpa stating: "I don't belong to any groups.
I belong to the group of the righteous. " All the righteous speaking of truth belong to my group. But if the person isn't righteous, regardless of nationality, of practicing meditation or yoga, she's not from my group.
Because my group is mankind, all of us who are here watching this course, see? Who doesn't want to be treated well? Who doesn't cherish non-violence, being respected?
If all of us share such values, why do we argue? Where do misunderstandings stem from? Which is quite ridiculous within the universe of yoga: so many people studying this and that yoga, and quarrelling over different designations of it, and most start with om and end in shavaasana, see?
! "Why are you two fighting? " "Because my Yoga is the authentic one!
" "What? Authentic? What are you talking about?
" What is an authentic yoga? It's certainly not about names. For sure.
You are one single person. How can you divide, shred, make up judgments and think I'm better than others for belonging to a group? This can't be.
For the sake of spirituality, the sooner this is over, the fastest we overcome all this. So, it's no longer necessary for us to place ourselves in conflict with others. We're studying, and my truth is the same one you seek.
Why can't we talk about it, and, if I do things you dislike, tell me about them, let us not fight. Maybe you'll help me move on, regardless if I'm a teacher, a student, Brazilian, Indian. .
. The sooner we release our minds from all such concepts, the faster our journey is. However, indoctrinations did play a role in our lives.
In order for us to grow up as persons, to survive, we had to navigate through indoctrinations. We learned how to belong to our families, how to be a child in our home, how to be the spouse of a given person, how to work in a certain group, etc. And, often, indoctrinations are not protection tools: they may be, and, if so, no one complains about them.
But, often, indoctrinations are but tools for control. A tool for controlling people, and of the worst kind: even in the absence of the controller, we feel controlled. Once a mother screams with a child younger than three, she may even speak softly to the child when he's 20 and he'll feel controlled, did you know that?
Because, within his mental structure, a relationship involving pressure was built, pressure between two people. The Yoga we're looking for, initially, has to prepare our body. It must be capable of granting us a healthy body, so that energy may flow and we may open up emotionally.
But, at a second stage, when we want to delve into self-knowledge, we'll want Yoga to bend not our bodies, but our minds, our ego. Whenever one feels special because of our spiritual quest, remember this, since it was how I learned: the line is moving in the wrong direction. See?
I joke about this for it happened to me: when I used to practice yoga, we competed for the longest "om": at the end of the class, seeing who chanted for longer. Who chanted the longest om actually lost instead of winning! The purpose of yoga is to drop competitivity, not to chant the longest om!
From the physical standpoint, we may even think that those with more flexibility are ahead in the field of yoga, but it's not true! Those who have more respect for their bodies are ahead; those who attend class and don't compete are ahead within yoga: it's a totally different movement. So, it's necessary, in our spiritual quest, to create such an awareness and transform our inquiry, since, if we have such an approach, no yoga style will be harmful: your teacher will help you deal with your ego, help you deal with your own judgments, which is what matters, even more than being able to do complex poses.
This is totally irrelevant to one's happiness. Imagine: one is able to put both feet back here, looking like a flipped turtle laying on the ground, and then you ask this person: "Hey, can I say something? " -"Sure.
" -"Well, see, your girlfriend. . .
" -"What about her? " -"She's dating that other guy. " The person will freak out and break his spine!
He'll be stuck forever in that posture! One couldn't say it, it's himsa, violence, giving one bad news while standing in a difficult pose. What will the person do?
This is our current situation: we join in full of positive vibes of health and physical comfort. But, when we desire to enter the path of self-knowledge, we must take a turn: "Ok, I'm dealing with my physical body and mind, but, now, I want to handle my personality, my individuality. Then, everything that has helped me so far will no longer help me to move on.
So, creating labels about myself, which is the topic of today's class, the power of labels and indoctrinations, is a great obstacle, as with indoctrinations. This is an invitation for us to observe ourselves free from labels, free from the labels we created within our own spiritual path, which protected us. This is not a tradition composed by, how is it, again?
Special people, who have studied and gained divine light, and are now passing it on, special person to special person. No: this is a tradition of average people, who are mere students. Everyone is a student.
Every teacher is a student. The better the student is, the better the teacher becomes. Ownership of knowledge doesn't matter, nor which lineage of Vedanta you are teaching: Vedanta has no lineages, it comes from Shiva!
sadaa shiva samaarambham, "Starting from Shiva", what is it with lineages, see? This has to do with labels, and again we label: label vedanta, yoga, the mantras we chant. .
. no! To which family does peace belong, this peace that you're looking for in your heart?
The spontaneity with which you want to smile at your wife, even after 20 years of fighting? To which family does this smile belong? It doesn't belong to Iyengar's group or whatever other group.
It'd make no sense! This peace belongs to you, and, if it does, you must be able to drop all this: you don't belong to any group! All such groups try to help me find the simple and happy person I am, which is my ultimate goal.
If my path generates friction, it's leading me the wrong way. I must be able to find a way to navigate this world of yoga and spirituality in a way that everything helps instead of creating conflicts with those around me. So, this is the subject of our first class, and, in today's second session, we'll talk about how to establish non-conflictual relationships, which is key in relationships.
How can I avoid distancing in my contacts with others? Yes, because, sometimes we think such distancing is inevitable between two human beings: "if something serious happens, we'll never speak again". "If I give her bad news, she won't like me or speak to me.
" But such distancing is actually not caused by the facts themselves, but by a detachment from an internal honesty, an emotional honesty. Some Yoga teachers present this very wisely in their classes. This will be the subject of our second session.
Let me chant our mantra for us to wrap up for now.
