Swami Tadananda explores the ethical foundation of Yama (Don'ts), where non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, sense control, and non-receiving of gifts aren't just actions, but a state of being that envelops our thoughts, words, and deeds.
As we venture deeper, Swami Taddananda articulates the intrinsic link between ethical living and the potency of our meditation practice, highlighting the nuanced impact of our daily choices that often go unnoticed. Discover the magnetic power of conserving sensory and sexual energy, and learn how integrity in our actions can serve as the key to unlocking a more profound spiritual connection. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for those on the quest for moral clarity and spiritual enlightenment, where each step taken with vigilance brings us closer to the true essence of our being, the Atman.
www.vedanta.nz
Swami Tadananda explores the ethical foundation of Yama (Don'ts), where non-violence, truthfulness, non-stealing, sense control, and non-receiving of gifts aren't just actions, but a state of being that envelops our thoughts, words, and deeds.
As we venture deeper, Swami Taddananda articulates the intrinsic link between ethical living and the potency of our meditation practice, highlighting the nuanced impact of our daily choices that often go unnoticed. Discover the magnetic power of conserving sensory and sexual energy, and learn how integrity in our actions can serve as the key to unlocking a more profound spiritual connection. This episode is a treasure trove of wisdom for those on the quest for moral clarity and spiritual enlightenment, where each step taken with vigilance brings us closer to the true essence of our being, the Atman.
www.vedanta.nz
Welcome to Rhythm, a podcast on being in balance through conversations with the Swami Namaste Rhythm listeners. My name is Sunil. I'm with Swami Taddananda from the Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre of Auckland, new Zealand. How are you, swamiji? I'm good, sunil, thank you. How are you? I'm good, good things. In the last episode, we talked about the benefits of meditation, specifically talked about the three benefits concentration of the mind, development of world power and the power of discrimination, and then we left that episode with a question of what to do outside of meditation. Shall we carry on from there?
Speaker 2:I think so. We should be ready for that, because what happens during the hour of meditation is affected by what happens outside the hour of meditation. So, basically, how we should live our life, discharge our duties and responsibilities so that they are all conducive and enhance our meditation, not countermind that and so for that, as I mentioned very briefly at the end of the last episode, meditation as taught by Maharishi Patanjali is called Astanga Yoga, eight-limbed yoga. First two steps are Yama and Nyama, the downs and the dos. These are the moral and the ethical disciplines. No one has really made very high spiritual progress without paying heed to these In our worldly life. People might not pay much more attention to this. They think these are just things that are there, we can skip over them, and then they wonder why nothing is happening. That is a foundation. If you build your house on a weak foundation, after some time it becomes wobbly, begins to tilt. You need a very rock solid foundation and there these disciplines form the foundation. So what are they? The first are five downs From Yama yeah, yama, ahimsa.
Speaker 2:Non-violence, sathya. Truthfulness or not telling lies. Ahimsa, sathya astya. Non-stealing, not taking anything that does not really belong to you or you have earned it Ahimsa, sathya, astya brahmacharya, practice of control of the senses, aparigraha not receiving gifts. You might say, wow, we are getting so many gifts Christmas in here and there. Should I not receive gifts? We have to be very careful whom you receive it from, and if you can reduce that, it's better. And so let me explain to this. Ahimsa means non violence, non-violence in thoughts, words and deeds. It's not only just physically, not hitting somebody. Indeed, you might hit in word. You can say something to somebody that could cause more pain than the physical part of it. If you're a very sensitive person, small things they hurt you and every time you remember it after five years, it still hurts you. At that time they carry it with them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, Well it is because you have the sensitivity. Others who are not sensitive doesn't make any difference. It's the first time we've done it and in thoughts so that, see, that alertness and sensitivity has to be there. Just to think of something, that of harming somebody is itself living an impression in your own mind. Maybe no harm came to that person because it did not materialize, but the fact that we thought in that way is now living an impression in your mind that is more damaging to the thinker than forget about the person you're thinking about, you see. And so how do you counteract it?
Speaker 2:In all of these things, when a tendency comes to do something which is not prescribed and recommended, then you do what is called Pratipakshabhavara Bring in an opposite idea to counteract it. Okay, so you say this tendency that you get angry and want to hit somebody, or something like that. Then you bring the opposite idea. And what's that idea? That while we and people around are apparently different, different beings physically and intellectually you know personality wise but they're all waves out of that same ocean, yes, and when you bring that idea of that oneness behind the many, then that person is not really so disconnected. Here is the same substance appearing in another form. At the end of the day, we are all connected and interconnected and the welfare of another is going to be affecting us and vice versa. If everyone around is happy and good, I will also be happy and good. See, if everyone around is disturbed, then it will affect me also.
Speaker 2:So that idea of oneness, the spiritual oneness behind the whole universe, which is the Vedanta-Advaita idea, when you bring in that idea, then you automatically will see that anger will go out. Hey, that's harming myself only in that particular form. That person is not really somebody else, it's just another being out of the same ocean. So I harm myself in that way. If I want to be like the ocean, then I'm self-harming in another way, type of thing.
Speaker 2:So when that idea comes in, immediately a restraint will come from within, like, hey, I should not do that because you understand it is counterproductive to me, right? Okay, your own self-interest is not served in that way. So a him-sa is there Satya. Satya is truthfulness, not telling lies, not only verbal type of things. That means Sri Ramakrishna would say man muk ek kora, whatever is in your mind and whatever you speak, there has to be harmony in that rhythm, balance. Okay, there should not be any hypocrisy, a disconnect, where you feel something in your own heart and you say something else because it's not politically correct. Or you might say something that might be people might not like, even though it's true. Okay, but you are trying to just please everyone and telling a lie becomes a means to do that.
Speaker 1:Yes, what if people? What if it's a white lie? You know people are saying things or they don't even hurt others White lies and lie black or white.
Speaker 2:Okay, so just to give you an idea how delicate and important it is, because in all spiritual traditions, toothfulness is one of the disciplines where a Hindu, muslim, christian Okay, if you are not honest with yourself, you'll not be honest with anything in life. Life becomes fake constantly and that becomes a reality for many people and at some point they are not able to even discriminate the truth from the lie that they have told many times and then are convinced that the falsehood is true. And you have called this fake news and you have all these people who have just become like that. They can't discern the difference. Anyway, just to give you a taste of a feel of how important it is.
Speaker 2:So this is an incident in the life of Swami Brahmānanda, who was the spiritual child of Sri Ramakrishna, one of the great swamis, the first president of the Ramakrishna mission. When he was a little boy, he used to come to Sri Ramakrishna and spend time around there. Sri Ramakrishna looked upon him as his son, only spiritual son. So one day Sri Ramakrishna woke up in the morning and looked at him and said hey, what did you do? I see there's a cloud of darkness covering your mind, you've done something wrong. And the boy scratched his head and said, trying to think he didn't do any harm to anyone, any type of something serious like that. Then Sri Ramakrishna asked him did you tell a lie to anyone? So he thinks hard and says not really. But only yesterday, while I was telling something to my friends in a joke, like many people do, there was somebody like this you just make it up, you know. And he said you've sent harmless white light, I think you know. And Sri Ramakrishna said oh no, no, you should not even do that, never do this.
Speaker 2:Now, if you had a spiritual teacher like that who could see the effect of somebody saying telling a white lie on the mind of that person. He asks a cloud of ignorance and hides that inner light which is the light of the atman, the light of bliss and knowledge and things which is shining there. It has covered that. A simple, white, harmless lie, according to that Boy I also forgot, but he didn't have the perception and discrimination to notice the effect himself. A spiritual teacher like that could pick it up and point it and guide him not to do that.
Speaker 2:Then you say ask yourself, why are you already alive in the lives of people when they're not aware of this type of don't have that type of deep understanding and alertness, sensitivity. How many lies people tell casually throughout the day, how many times they deliberately tell it, how many more they tell to defend it? And all that, and what's the impact of all those things? Layer after layer after layer of ignorance is being cast on that light, which is that. And then, in the darkness, we make a mistake, we flumble, we stumble, we fall. We know those things are there. So you see how harmful it is to tell a lie. Alright, and therefore, when we have that deep understanding, that itself will become a check and balance. You say, I might tell a lie, I might get something material, you know, social, whatever is there, but at the end of the day, at the cost of my own soul, my own spiritual development. And you say, in a hour of meditation, I'm trying very hard to discover the.
Speaker 2:Atman, and then the day I have said all this, done all these things and just undone all the good effect there. That's why this type of deep clarity, understanding is necessary. And then one is vigilant. Otherwise you take one step towards East and take five steps towards the West and you don't take any progress. So that's the second one. First is non-violence, non-harming, non-stealing, not taking anything that you don't own, that doesn't belong to you or you did not deserve. It could be something like, hey, you go to work and your boss pays you for 40 hours of work. And if you say, hey, I did not really do my 40 hours of work sincerely, okay, I dodged here, I took some time here and this and that, but when the pay time came, I want my 40 hours, okay. Well, anything that you did not deserve in your receiving gets classified in that category also. So when you think very sincerely, then that alertness is there, that you know. Vigilant and watchful. Alright, ahimsa, satya, astya Brahmacharya. Normally, in a limited sense, it means chastity, okay.
Speaker 2:Practice of control of the sexual energy. In a broader sense, control of all the senses, okay. Why is that big fuss made about that? You know. So we said in the last episode we talked about, that the body and the mind is only a channel through which there is a flow of energy. Yes, and that energy starts the depth of our being, flows through the itchha and gyana and kriya, and all that and any sense activity, physical activity, is a source of dissipation of energy. Yes, okay, so we might. When you have excessive enjoyment also, you feel tired after Alright, and when you constantly dissipate this energy, then there's not much left for you to do anything higher with that. Okay, so the outward flow of energy through the senses is to be curtailed, minimized, reduced as much as possible, and that bundle of energy is there then is to be sublimated. Just holding that much there is not point. It has to be transformed into something.
Speaker 2:Let me give an example. The river is flowing down the mountain. All the water eventually goes into the ocean. Nothing much happens out of it. But you build a dam, okay. Building a dam and holding the dam, having all the strength to restrain the pressure that is being built, is not easy, okay, and that's where this tapasya comes, sadhana comes, okay. But once the water has been built up, that's also just so much potential water energy. It requires some technology, like a turbine or something, hydro, that will convert that energy into electrical energy. Yes, okay, so that's where the sadhana part comes. Japan meditation actually harnesses and transforms we call it, sublimates that energy into another form of higher energy, and that is called ojas. That energy then rises along the spinal cord and goes and gets stored in the brain. Okay, and the more of that energy a person has, that's where that magnetic personality of that person comes, right, okay?
Speaker 1:and so, as a person, that's the sharpening of the buddhi would happen, would help.
Speaker 2:No, this is the powerhouse energy. So that's like, how much energy, how much area you light up around you? It's just a little bit small bulk than you just see in a small space. You've got a powerful light. Then you can illuminate a huge area around it, but where's that energy coming from? So the battery is actually the energy for the battery.
Speaker 1:Yes, how you?
Speaker 2:charge that, so that energy, if you don't control it, dissipate it out, it becomes an old, drained old man. But you harness it, sublimate it, channelize it that becomes a huge, powerful force. And actually all those people in the world who had really some serious influence and left a mark, inspired people or they will, were so strong that many followed the leaders in any field, had something, a little bit more of that energy. And those who are the real world movers, you know, whose influence goes beyond, long beyond the physical form has disappeared the Buddhhas and the Christs they actually had that particular energy. They harness that and the more person has that the better. Actually, that is what makes really things happen.
Speaker 2:So if at work in your office you've got a CEO, okay, he's a meditator, he's an upright person, he knows the science of this and he has more of that, he will be more successful. People will listen to him, just charmed by that force around him. There's no argument or no differences. You know he'll align the thoughts and ideas to his thinking and people will follow without any issue. But if you don't have that, well, then everyone has got his own idea, will knock you around like a billet ball type of thing. So the secret, even if a leadership is there that comes to Brahmacharya Right A parigraha non-receiving of gifts, non-holding up of things, what you don't need, you should not have. And also it means you have to be careful about what you receive from whom. The character of the person from whom you receive influence affects the substance he gives to you and what you receive and consume Will receive that subtle energy of that particular person. So wicked person. If he gives you something he might say he's a gift or something I hear, some food and all that. He's not just giving that apple to eat. Along with that comes loaded energy, so much energy, and that energy will work in your mind. Okay, and that's why in spiritual life and those who are very, very sensitive of it are very, very careful what to receive from home.
Speaker 2:Yes, so when you understand this whole perspective of looking at things as an energy, bodies manage materialized energy. Mind is thoughts and ideas, emotions. That is energy and deep inside is it and we are. Everyone is a bundle of energy. We are radiating that energy outside in terms of thoughts, ideas and things, and we are also Trans receiving it, also your old receivers and transmit artist of that energy Ideas, thoughts, whether we write a book, give a talk, sing a song, do some acting, some expression is there, and Some people who are powerful will influence more.
Speaker 2:Those who are weaker will get influenced by others More, and so what is your situation? You know, if you're influenced, that means you are being controlled by others, and the more powerful you are, then you are insulated from the others. Negative, and you are Doing something good for this also. So try to now conceptualize a human being not as only a physical person, mostly as a mind, at least bundle of ideas, thoughts, and that has got a particular characteristic, yes, particular spin, a particular energy and amplitude, and how much influence is passing around. And on the other side and Deeper than that, is this pure energy, that is the hotman soul.
Speaker 1:Would you say the? You know, we talked about it in the last episode. We talked about the whirlpools of energy positive and negative energies, would you say, because every person has this Lots of positive and lots of negative, negative, not different, different levels for different people Would you say the sum total of that, if someone's gone higher, lots of positive and and some negative, and the net number is slightly still positive?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's called the character of the person. That's the nature of the person, the sub-power of the person, the natural disposition of the person, right? So when we read Swami Vivekananda's karma yoga is a beautiful book people should read and he talks about karma action. Action doesn't mean the physical action. Thoughts, words and deeds they all leave an impression. These are called some scars. That means they tweak and create a little eddy current in the mind and they all will sort of add up. Okay, all the positives will add up in yeah, and all the negatives will also end up and net result you say if it's good, then you say, hey, that's a good person, right, you know? And that person's natural behavior will be like that predictable he's always kind, he's always honest, he's always good. Because he had been seeing that behavior pattern through all the time. Yes, and that's his nature. But it did not happen overnight, because he was doing like that for this long time. It has become his nature, that's his character.
Speaker 2:It's character, yeah, so yeah so Swami Vivekananda says character is formed through repeated habits. Keep on doing something again and again and again, naturally it becomes something very natural for you. And he says repeated habits can reform character.
Speaker 1:Okay so someone's, let's say, a bad character. Up to now, up to you, don't know him. And then what? He's now started doing things in a very Yama and Nehma, all those things. He started doing it very disciplined. He's moving the right direction, he's moving the right. So a lot of positive werewolves have been created.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might not be immediately strong enough to overpower all the negative ones, so you should not expect something overnight. But, yes, give yourself that time severe. At some point the balance will tilt it in the other direction. This is very, very powerful to understand as parents and teachers, because, you see, sometimes we have this behavior patterns that we will see around children, yes, and we just head on to that. If we do this, then you know time up or some punishment or this, and that you're not really helping that person. Okay, he's just now blocked for the time being. Or a criminal, he's just locked up in the prison for some long, so long.
Speaker 2:When he comes back, the mind hasn't changed, but he might be influenced by all that negative energy around him there because of the bundle of criminals there now, unless he's locked up and you do this conscious effort to change the mind, then only we are trying to help that person.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes. And therefore, while he's there in that controlled environment, if he's given this information, knowledge, but not only that, he's, it becomes in action, like, okay, teach him basic meditation, what else is doing locked up in there? Okay, until he discovers something happening. But after three, five years he'll come or change men Something, but something positive happened. If you don't do that, then just you know, postponing another incident and putting him back again there. But that's prisoners, children also. Little things are there.
Speaker 2:If you do not know parenting properly in that sense, then we just they say those, they keep on doing some things and then they become a habit and before sometime they don't listen to you, they become teenagers and then they carry on in their life. You see, other times parents unknowingly might promote wrong habits by wrong, you know, undesirable examples they set or things they give to them to use. So it's a very, very important topic to understand how character is formed, how character is reformed, how thoughts, words and deeds influence what we are. That's what we saw, so we become, and eventually it comes back to us. So we talked about the Yama, so that's all the five.
Speaker 2:So, basically, these are the don'ts and the reason. They try to prevent the outflow of the energy in the negative direction in the external world. Okay, so you're arresting that energy, all right. And the other next five is called Niyama the do's Okay, because you just don't want to insulate and block it. You want to.
Speaker 1:So it's five and five. Is it Five and five? Yeah, yeah. So it's very similar to the Ten Kumamsa, satya Astya.
Speaker 2:Brahmacharya, Swadhyaya, Brahmacharya. No, it's called Svaja, Santoshatapa, Swadhyaya Ishwar, Ishwar Pranidhana. Svaja is purity, Santoshaya is contentment. Svaja, Santoshatapa austerity, fire, heat. Swadhyaya, study notebooks. Studying your own mind yourself, Ishwar Pranidhana, you understand that behind this mind is a source of a power. Behind the wave is the ocean, and the ocean should learn to live in that appropriate relationship that there's a controller and it is controlled. It doesn't exist by itself type of thing. So the Jivatma has got a source, Paramatma, and that how to be a good instrument and a good conduit of that beautiful, positive energy that's behind there, to let us flow, and that's why I read that need a pure mind so that that pure energy flows unaltered.
Speaker 1:You can take that up in another episode Excellent, alright, so I mean, do you thank you for your time? It was very good today we learned about Yama and in the next episode we'll learn about Niyama. Thank you, thank you. Thank you for listening, being in balance rhythm. For more information, please visit wwwvidantanz.