13.Wellbeing - The Ethical Foundations - Niyama

Delve into the profound wisdom of the five niyamas — purity, contentment, austerity, self-study, and surrender to a higher power — and understand their pivotal role in reaching a sattvic state of being. Learn how these principles not only prepare the mind for meditation but also enhance our quest to connect with our higher self.

Feel the power of discipline and willpower reverberate through your life as we share Swami Vivekananda's insights on 'tapasya' and its life-changing potential. Discover practical methods for building mental fortitude that can be woven into the fabric of everyday life, such as fasting or rising before dawn for meditation. These actions strengthen our resolve and self-confidence, guiding us toward a harmonious mind and a life rooted in truth and morality.

Swamiji helps us recognize the importance of managing our internal energy flow to mitigate restlessness and promote a state of ease. Through this harmonious balance, we achieve a serene state of well-being that radiates from within, setting the stage for a deeper exploration of spirituality and personal growth in our daily lives.

Transcript

Sunil: 0:24

Namaste, I'm Suneel. I'm from the Ramakrishna Vedanta Center of Auckland, new Zealand. How are you, Swamiji?

Swamiji: 0:30

I'm very good, Suneel. Thank you. How are you?

Sunil: 0:32

I'm good. Thanks, it's been very hot lately, or change in New Zealand.

Swamiji: 0:37

Yes, nice weather.

Sunil: 0:39

Yeah Right, let's carry on. In the last few episodes we've talked about the moral and ethical disciplines required in preparation for meditation, and the last episode we talked about the very first element of this, which was yama, which were the donots. In this episode we said we'll be working on niyama, which are the do's; things to do in preparation for a higher spiritual life. Shall we elaborate on that today?

Swamiji: 1:18

Yes, Sunil, we need to just remind our listeners that for meditation to be successful, the mind needs to be prepared, and these ethical and moral disciplines are called the great vows, mahavratas, that a spiritual seeker should make a foundation in their everyday life. When they're at work out in the community, meeting people, there should be a mind full that that same mind would be utilized for meditation and higher spiritual seeking during the spiritual practices. So they have to be very careful that the mind is not disturbed or we do not do anything that makes the mind non-conditional for meditation. That's why these disciplines are there. And we talked about yama, the things that are to the dons. So we talked about ahimsa, non-violence, sattya, always speaking the truth in the hot word indeed. So ahimsa sattya, astya, non-stealing, not taking anything that doesn't belong to oneself, which one has not earned through hard work or earnest work. Ahimsa sattya, astya, brahmacharya, apari graha. Brahmacharya means control of the senses and, in a very specific way, manting celibacy or chastity, because that's a spiritual energy that is transmuted during meditation into a spiritual energy called orgies, and that energy is what? The spiritual capital of a person. And, apari graha, we talked about saying that it is non-receiving of gifts or non-holding of things, because whatever we receive from the, from anyone else, it's not the character of that person. The vibrations of that person affect the mind of the meditator, the recipient, and therefore one has to be very, very particular not to receive things from people whose character, especially, is not very good. In ordinary life many people would not even detect any difference. But as the mind becomes purer and more sensitive, then one will begin to feel these differences, the impact of these type of actions and interactions. So one has to be very, very vigilant in spiritual life. Only then the mind would be prepared nicely for deep meditation.

Swamiji: 4:07

So today we'll talk about the neema, which are again five of them svacha, santosha, tapas, swadhyaya, ishvar pranidhana. In Sanskrit svacha means purity, santosha is contentment, tapas is austerity, swadhyaya is study, study of scriptures, study of our own minds, our own selves. Again, ishvar pranidhana is surrender to that spiritual power that is inside us, at the core of our being, who sort of in whose hands we are all puppets, so to say, and that power operates as we are instruments in that divine power. That is not some being out there in the cloud, the traditional concept of God, it is our own higher self. That means the ego that we feel is a reflection of the divine higher self, which is what we really are. So in this way we are trying to connect ourselves to that higher self. But let's start with socha. Socha is purity, so we are trying to purify the mind. By purifying the mind we mean to increase that element of sattva. A little bit of technical language is there for those who do not know.

Swamiji: 5:31

According to our philosophy, vedanta, which is based on Sankhya, the whole universe is made out of three categories of elements, which are called sattva, rajas and tamas. Sattva is that which is full of light, luminous, joyful, pure, transparent feeling of peace and goodness. Asatvic person, asatvic mind, will be full of cheerfulness and vibrant energy. Rajas is where there is tremendous amount of activity, passion, desires, restlessness, difficult to control. So you will see, the minds which are very restless are very difficult to control. Then we will say they are very rajasic. And tamasic is indolence, laziness, procrastination, not stubbornness, very, very opinionated. It is difficult to transform that mind to receive anything. So that is, if you want to give an example, a piece of glass that is dark, which is tinted it doesn't let the light in through.

Swamiji: 6:42

Is tamas A red piece of glass or green piece of glass which imposes its own color on to the incoming light is rajas, and a transparent, clear piece of glass through which light flows without any interruption, without any obstruction, is sattva. So purity of mind, that means to enhance this quality of sattva. So our thoughts, our words, our deeds must be pure. That is why in the scriptures purity is given a lot of emphasis, and even in the Bible Christ says blessed are the pure in heart. For the shell see God. Does it mean some God out in the sky or something? The divine being that dwells in our own heart, at the core of our being, here and now, in everyone, is not known to us.

Swamiji: 7:32

Because this mind is not absolutely pure, it's not transparent, it's got too much of this tamas and rajas in there, and therefore one has to be mindful that we do not increase this tamas and rajas more but reduce that by cultivating purity in thought and word and deed. Otherwise, if in the day we are engaged so many activities and we are not mindful of this, we will undo a lot of good work. That is done during meditation. During meditation, when we focus the mind on the divine energy within us, definitely it purifies our mind, but then we go out in the world and do the exact opposite two steps forward, one step backwards, and then we wonder why we are not making progress. That's why these disciplines are there as the platform for any high spiritual striving or getting, cultivating that peace of mind that we all need through meditation. So that was in very simple language.

Swamiji: 8:38

Very briefly, sautra Santosh is contentment. We all know and we all speak that what we need, our needs, are something and our wants are something. We need very little, but there are so many desires that send us out on this world perceiving things that we don't maybe need spending so much time and effort. And all that and in return we get a lot of trouble. Anxiety, stress. All types of problems come because we do not know what we need and what we want.

Swamiji: 9:16

So, as a person who is seeking for inner peace, inner knowledge, will be very guarded not to give this mind away to the world for some material thing, which is not an essential requirement, but he gives whatever, the minimum that is necessary in the form of duty and responsibility and earning a livelihood, but he is very mindful in the management of his mind, space and time that there is something left for that person, for this spiritual culture. One should not say I don't have time for this meditation. Of course you know everyone has got 24 hours. But if we have too many desires of the world, then those desires will drag the mind outside. So some restraint is necessary. You can't let the wild horses of the senses drag the mind out into the world without any control. One has to pull the reins and control those horses of the senses so that the mind can have some inner peace.

Swamiji: 10:27

So that is Santosh, contentment with whatever has come in your way. Our karma will bring settings to us, what we deserve, either in this life or karma actions from previous life. You might win a jackpot. You might think I'm so lucky, but your previous karma has brought those things to you. So karma is not a sort of a fatalistic type of law. It is as we saw. So you shall reap. Whatever we deserve will come to you without asking, and whatever we do not deserve as a result of our previous karma, previous actions, they will not come to us, no matter how much we run after them, everyone's. If you reflect in your life, you will find that that is so much true. So that is Santosh, because how can the mind become and you can seek inner peace if the mind is full of turbulent desires. So some degree of conscious effort to create some degree of contentment is there. I'm happy with what the world has given me, but I have got some higher things in life and I want to dedicate and commit my time and effort to that. That type of inner somehow striving is necessary. So so just Santosh Tapa.

Swamiji: 11:44

Tapa means. The word Tapa comes from tapas. We all understand. Tapasya, kata hai, tapra hai means heat, and that is so much necessary. Heat is generated, we know, in friction, when we rub two things together or we go against the flow of nature. Okay, if you go, the river is flowing and we go downstream along with that without any effort. That's very easy. But when we make an attempt to rise or swim against the current, then so much effort is necessary. This effort to fight nature, to conquer nature, to control the senses, to control the mind, that is called tapas, and that heat is what purifies the mind. So that's why austerities are called tapasya. Why Then you try to control the demands of the body, the demands of the senses, the while running of the mind in all direction, trying to restrain them. That's pratyahara in meditation, that effort, constant effort, awakens the power that's within.

Sunil: 13:04

Giving a simple example, Could you call this as discipline? Is it self-discipline?

Swamiji: 13:09

Yes, of course self-discipline is there, definitely is there, but it's a conscious effort to know the good that comes out of the discipline. And that's why we're doing it, because it won't be a very pleasant experience. It's hard work, swimming against the current, so to say. But that is the only way to awaken that power within. And I was just going to tell the example of going to the gymnasium. So you take a dumbbell, the natural direction, the gravity, it will pull us towards downwards, but we try to lift it up repeatedly and it's hard and it's painful, the muscles get fatigued and as you do that exercise you become very so and all that. But we know, our knowledge tells us that, look, if we keep on doing that, that will bring about a change in us. Nothing will happen to the dumbbell. But subjectively in my body, I'm giving a signal that I need greater strength. The arms do not know that you are lifting a piece of metal or really doing something out in the field to a new livelihood. It understands that I have to respond by increasing more muscle fibers and all that. And if you keep on doing it, the response is that in terms of building of muscle and you becoming stronger. So if somebody did not do that tapasaya of lifting that exercise, doing the exercises, the inner strength would not, the muscles would not develop, the strength will not manifest. So likewise apply the same principle why tapasaya has to be done. Potentially, everything is within us, but we need that exercise to manifest that power within. And when we understand the logic of it, then we do deliberately, even though it might not be very pleasant in the beginning, but the end result is very good. We are very strong, we are very resilient. So when you talk about mental well-being and everyone complains, okay, we are not so strong, we are not so resilient, then here you can see very clearly why is it that we have not developed the resilience? Because we have not gone through those exercises. Life was very easy, parents provided everything and we didn't have to do anything, and so that backbone hasn't developed. Really, while if life throws difficult challenges in our way and we are forced to do these things because when is born in a not in a very affluent family or parents understand these things, then that mental stamina, that mental fiver, that strength is developed. There is no other way. Exercise is only the only way.

Swamiji: 15:54

It's very interesting that in one of our lectures of Swami Vivekananda. I was very surprised when I read that first time. I think it's in the practical Vedanta, lecture number four. He says more than truth itself, we need the exercise. So I said why Everyone needs a truth, why is it okay about exercise? Because Swami ji understand that only a strong person can be honest and truthful and do anything. And if we are not strong, if we are weak, then all these wonderful ideals can be in front of us, we'll never be able to practice it. So he understood that it's those exercises will make us strong and only then such a person would be able to live a life of high morality and ethics and have a mind that is very disciplined and controlled and focused and can aspire for something deeper, higher within themselves. So that's very, very important Understand the pastya in this way and then voluntarily build in some degree of the pastya in our everyday life.

Swamiji: 16:57

This is a discipline. My body is trying to not cooperate. My senses are not trying to cooperate. I'm going to impose some discipline on them, not just for the sake of trying to control the senses. No, there's a higher purpose Through this. Of course, the senses will begin to come under control, but my willpower will develop and that strong will power is what I want and therefore this exercise is what I am going to do.

Swamiji: 17:24

It could be as simple as every day. You know, fortnight leave, on Yaka Dasi day, I will fast. That's the type of the Pasha. At certain time your hunger will come and say at 10 o'clock, I am hungry, give me something. So there is a tussle between the body and the mind. The mind has made a resolve I am not going to eat till sunset or just have water for the whole day, whichever way people want to do. But the body has been habituated to be fed three times a day, maybe more. So who is going to win? If you can maintain that or override the demands of the body, that will develop. That will lead to the development of will power that eventually you will say look, I am the master of the body, I am not a slave to the body. Your self-confidence grows and you are in a power awakens.

Swamiji: 18:23

But if one succumbs by 2 o'clock, 3 o'clock, if you feel very hungry and you just went and had something to eat, then the net result is that you will feel oh, I could not do that. I feel not elevated out of that experience, but defeated. Self-defeated why? Because your will power did not persist till the end to execute what you had planned to do, which was too fast. So you see, there are simple exercises that can be there. You will put some discipline. I will get up at 5 o'clock in the morning to meditate. It is cold and this and that.

Swamiji: 19:00

Now, who is going to win? Is the body going to dictate or your mind is going to win? And that is Sathapasya. It is about control of food. It is about control of speech. Whatever you do not think is good for you, you make a small sankalpa resolution. I am not going to do this and I am going to do it with. Give some solid thought to it. Do not make very strong high resolutions that you cannot keep and then you feel bad about it. Do it in manageable bites, so to say.

Swamiji: 19:28

But understand, there is some degree of the Paseya, is constantly there, and that is all about trying to manifest that power within ourselves. Because this mind, which has had a free reign all these days, you are giving it whatever it wants, taking it wherever it wants, enjoying everything. Now it is like a spoiled child and not succumbing to discipline. Gradually, you have to bring it around and explain it to it. So when the understanding is there, if it is a little child, he does not understand, but if he is a grown up teenager, you can sit down and have a conversation with him and say, hey, this is good, this is why this discipline is there for you and all that. And when you understand, he will cooperate. Okay, so like that, we have to befriend our mind. Explain all these things with the knowledge and then you will find your mind itself will become your friend. Understand it's good for me and I will want what is good for me. So I will cooperate. I will do this, let's do it together, and afterwards it feels so good about you, you feel so good about yourselves. I set that up and I could do it. So nice.

Swamiji: 20:33

And that awakening of the self-esteem and self-respect and your capacity to manifest that power. This is what spirituality is about. We take the help of all external temples, rituals, ceremonies, gods and all that, but the real God is sleeping inside us and this tapasya is necessary to awaken it. And that's why, in all spiritual traditions, saints and sages would deliberately take intense tapasya and it might look from externally you know it's some physical exercise only, but really it is about disciplining, training, the mind and the will power. So it's a very interesting topic, but here we just touch that a little bit.

Sunil: 21:15

So it's quite good, swariji, because it's quite relevant in today's day and age when, for example, we've just had New Year's, january first, and there's a lot of resolutions that are made this time of the year, whether to control your drinking or eating or exercising, and they probably last a few weeks and, yeah, after a few weeks. You know, all of those resolutions are the window when people are not able to have the strong will power, that self discipline tapasya right, as you said, and it just goes up and you can see it all the time.

Swamiji: 21:55

So I think we have to be very, very logical about it. For example, if somebody might start going to the gymnasium, okay, and he says I'm going to lift 100 kgs, okay, now that is not a very practical thing. And of course, if he tries a little bit, you know he will not succeed and then he will give up and he'll lose all his confidence. You know, every time you say I made the resolution last year, I couldn't keep it, I'll do it again, but I know I might not succeed because of my previous family, the mind becomes a self-defeating thing. You don't require an external enemy for this, so, but if you say I know there's a process of doing it and it has to be done, you know, step by step by step, with great perseverance and all those things, and it's possible. So that's common sense is there. When it comes to doing physical exercises, you have that same common sense in your discipline. So when you make those resolutions done, if you make some very difficult, far-fetched ones then and are not able to keep that, then the mind loses that confidence in oneself to be able to do it. So do small things which is manageable and doable, and gradually you'll find that the strength becomes, rises, increases, and one is able to undertake more challenging resolutions. Anyway, so that is so. These are the dos, okay, so, socha purity, always be mindful what you are taking in, just like we're very mindful about the food that we eat. We don't want to take any food that is bad, that spoiled, knowing that it will, you know, make you sick. Likewise, ahara means food. Normally we mean ahara, but ahara means anything that is taken inside and it's taken through the eyes, the ears, nose, all the senses, and they are all going and being consumed and stored in your mind. What you see, what you see, what you hear, they're all there. And we have to have that exercise, that same type of alertness and carefulness about these things that we are consuming, whether it's coming from people around you, the Internet or all those sources that are there. Ah, we could really pollute our mind by taking all these type of things. And then you'll wonder why is my mind like that, why the mind is so sick or weak, out of control or feeling so bad about itself? Because, without any discrimination, without any control, we have been consuming anything and everything from anyone and everyone and made the mind into a dustbin, and now it stinks. So again, one has to be very, very vigilant. So that was like purity, okay. So soja Santoshya, contentment, tapa. We have talked about the purpose of austerity. It's to awaken the strength, the mental strength, the moral strength, the ethical strength. These are all the foundations on which the spiritual thing will be built, swadhyaya.

Swamiji: 25:04

Swadhyaya means study. Technically it means study of the scriptures. What are the scriptures? The scriptures are teachings and recordings of experiences from people who have gone in this journey ahead of us and will learn something from them. Just like scientists discover wonderful things, and they write them down and we learn them in our textbooks, we don't have to go and make those discoveries ourselves. So they are our teachers in our school In the spiritual field, those people who have gone and discovered some of those truths. They share that with us and these are our scriptures in the form of the Gita and the Upanishads and the Vedas and Bible, where we learn and have some at least intellectual understanding of the goal and the journey and the disciplines. So somebody is giving us a map and a compass and pointing out some destination for us to walk that. So those map and compass are definitely very helpful if we want to reach some destination.

Swamiji: 26:13

So Swadhyaya is about regular study of the scriptures, and if the mind is not very is trained in the beginning, then you will not be able to grasp it. For example, if you take some university level physics books and give to somebody to read and he will read that, but he said, I don't get this so easily in the first reading itself. You have to read and think and study and build up those concepts and after some time, through a discipline of four or five years of university study as a physicist or scientist, then read the scriptures and so much knowledge comes to us. So likewise, reading the scriptures doesn't mean you just take any book and start reading and think that immediately you'll be able to grasp all the senses, all the, whatever the content is there. One has to prepare the mind through some systematic regress discipline to extract the knowledge or the wisdom which has been embedded with the help of that text or drawing, so analogies of pictures or Sanskrit slokas by the author of that book. And so it requires a little bit of fine, penetrating intellect, calmness of mind to manifest that knowledge that is in there in the scriptures.

Swamiji: 27:36

But it also means studying your own mind. That is even more important. We are so observant of things outside there. But it's a great science and experience when you begin to study and observe your own mind, to understand that I am not the mind, I'm actually an observer of the mind, which is called the Buddha, and I'm, in a disinterested way, can observe the different types of thoughts that are coming and going. I don't immediately attach myself to them and say I'm happy or I'm not happy or this. I just say there's an unhappy thought there, this unhappy, happy thought there. Both of them will disappear. Let me not just get carried away by them. Let me be an observer. You'll find thoughts only linger for a moment. It's only when we jump on our self-board and begin to ride on that we are carried away by that, by that wave of energy. But if we can just hold ourselves back, you'll find that energy will flow past.

Swamiji: 28:46

You might see an example like somebody is trying to, for example, teach somebody, bully somebody who says something that can really upset. Now, if you get caught in that reaction, with that feeling, then you become angry. You can react in a very powerful way. Or one has developed some restraint and say, okay, I'm getting angry but I'm not going to flow with that, I'm just going to check myself and after some time you find that idea has that person as whatever, that turmoil that was building up in the mind, that fades away and you have saved yourself from some catastrophe where you could have said something that would have hurt somebody. You've done something that you could have heard somebody in yourself in the longer and also yeah.

Swamiji: 29:34

So that is Swadhyaya, regular, daily, something to read. And the best time to read is when after your meditation, because that's the best mind you have in the 24 hours when you have meditated. It's nice and calm, it's very, very serene and that mind can then shine on some high spiritual thinking. So people normally keep some scripture like the gospel of Shri Ram, krishna or the Bhagavad Gita and say let me read a page of this and you'll get more out of that at that time. Then, when you're all stressed out and busy or tired, then your mind is not so focused and sharp and all that.

Swamiji: 30:18

So that is called Swadhyaya and the last one is called Ishwar Pranidhana. Ishwar concept is that supreme being the ocean out of which all the waves have come, and we are the waves Some are big, some are small manifesting the power of the ocean in different degrees, but no wave exists without the ocean. So deep inside us is that universal consciousness which is manifesting within us as the consciousness that we experience, as the ego, and that energy then flows through the mind and activates our thoughts and emotions and feelings, and then it flows through the body where the physical actions begin to happen. So the ultimate source of that consciousness and that energy is what we call God, but it's not the traditional, the old idea of God as some being living in some higher place, as an external to us. This is our own higher self, just as the ocean is the higher universal aspect of the wave, which is the limited thing, and since the power and energy and everything comes from that source, there has to be a relationship and acknowledgement where it is coming from. If the ego appropriates everything to itself and says I am the doer, I am the enjoyer, success is mine, failure is mine, then that is not that type of thinking and understanding is not based on the highest spiritual knowledge. The saints and sages and all these great spiritual masters realize that this limited ego is like the wave, but behind that is the ocean and one has to develop a proper understanding in relationship.

Swamiji: 32:09

What is a relationship. The ocean is the higher self and the wave is the lower self. The ocean can exist without any of the waves, but not vice versa. And that mindfulness and that awareness just not it's not like I'm surrendering my will to you and that I know I am being it is about accessing that energy in a more profound way, so that this body-mind ego that we possess becomes a more suitable instrument through which that energy of the ocean, or the divine energy, can flow. That's the most wonderful way to work. Otherwise it's just flowing in little driblets. Okay, why? Because this ego is what is blocking.

Swamiji: 32:56

Ego is like a high resistance in a vaya. The resistance is more. Very little current flows through. But as the resistance becomes less, that means we become less ecotistic. We begin to surrender ourselves to the higher being. Ultimately, we become that universal being and become ecotistic Into the ocean, the more it will begin to manifest the power of the ocean. And when it is totally integrated, that is the power we see in the great incarnations like Christ and Buddha, who shake the world and move the world.

Swamiji: 33:42

So we have covered today the Niyama Socha, santoshan, Tapa, swadhyaya, ishwar, pranidhana Purity in thought, word and it, contentment regarding material things, discontent about our spiritual life. Okay, that means I still have to do so much more, but material things I require very little, and that's I'm happy with that. Tapa, we have explained the significance and the meaning and the power and the utility of discipline, austerity in there. Swadhyaya, keep on looking at the map, keep on checking yourself with the compass, keep on working on the journey and also studying the mind itself, what is happening inside. That's even more powerful and important. It's like, at the end of the day, reflect how did the day go, what was the mind like, what you should have done, what you should not have done.

Swamiji: 34:40

That type of introspection and reflection is very, very important in spiritual life and ultimately, like I said, we are all waves in the universal ocean. That ocean is our higher self. That is the reality. Waves appear and disappear. They're transitory in this life. If we can discover our oneness with that ocean, that is the ultimate. That's where ultimate freedom, peace, knowledge, bliss, beauty, purity, goodness, strength all that we seek is within us. Meditation is the technique by which we turn the mind around and learn how to integrate it, connect it with our own higher self. And these 10 disciplines that we talked about Yama and Niyama are the foundations. If they're not done, the mind will not cooperate about going inwards, it will continue to get dragged outwards. So I hope that explains a little bit about these two disciplines and we can bring them again when we talk about the meditation practices why mind is not getting focused or controlled or is so vagrant, and we can relate to these disciplines, how they can empower us have greater concentration and control of the mind. Excellent, thank you, samajit.

Sunil: 36:04

That's been great. So we've covered both Yama and Niyama, the don'ts and the do's. What do you think is going to be next for us? Well, the first two disciplines that we talked about so in the way meditation is taught.

Swamiji: 36:20

The first two are the moral and ethical disciplines To be practiced anytime, every time, anywhere, everywhere. Then the next two disciplines are more physical, which are Asana. Asana means to be able to sit in a comfortable position, steady, comfortable position for some time 10 minutes, 15 minutes, half an hour, one hour, whatever. But some comfortable posture has to be developed. If you are in countries like India and used to sitting on the floor, then such people will be able to sit comfortably for a long time on the floor. Others in the West they, might not be able to do that, so they can sit in the chair or something something higher. But the two requirements are one must be comfortable and the posture should be steady, keeping the back, neck and head in a relaxed position. And the third, fourth, is called Pranayama.

Swamiji: 37:24

We can discuss that in the next class. It is about the control of the energy that flows in our body, because everything is about that beautiful flow of that energy. When that's disturbed, the mind is restless and everything is out of order. We are not at ease. That is called dis-ease. And when that beautiful flow is there within, then everything is nice In us, outside us, around us and we talked about this principle of rhythm, which is why we have called this talk. It's about developing that wonderful rhythm and balance of that energy within ourselves and around us. So we can take that as a topic for our next discussion.

Sunil: 38:10

Excellent. Thank you, Samaji.

Swamiji: 38:13

Welcome.