Ritam - Being in Balance. A Podcast on Wellbeing
Mental wellbeing is an escalating global challenge having serious impact on the quality of life, productivity in workplace etc. Our approach to wellbeing fundamentally depends on our perspective of ourselves. Are we just human beings, not much different from animals or something more? Over thousands of years the Vedic spiritual seekers dived deep within themselves to explore the inner space and they repeatedly verified that we all, without exception, are in essence really spiritual beings having human experiences. Their discoveries form Vedanta philosophy - the 'science of human excellences" - which explain in detail and with much clarity how we have multidimensional physical, mental, emotional and ethical layers of personality covering the fundamental Pure and eternal spiritual being. Along with this, the Vedic seekers developed systematic Yoga techniques to purify our minds and "dis-cover" our true Self.
The Vedantic conception of ourselves and Yogic mind-management techniques offer an alternative approach to address the mental wellbeing challenges. Ramakrishna Vedanta Centre, Auckland has taken up a project to make available these Vedanta-Yoga teachings to empower individuals with the knowledge and skill-sets to better manage their minds, emotions, values etc. to live meaningful, peaceful and productive lives.
Ritam is the Vedic principle responsible for maintaining order, harmony and rhythm both in the macrocosm and the microcosm. Stress, tension, dis-ease etc arise when we lose this balance at different levels of our being and around us. We have limited capacity to influence change outside us but we can definitely integrate our mind to our inner Self to gain greater poise, balance and rhythm in life. Meditation is the art of turning the mind inwards and anchoring it to our eternal, omniscient, blissful and pure Self. The more we are integrated with our inner Self, the greater will be the influence we can cast around us. This is the spiritual way to freedom from the slavery to the eternal world and internal body, senses and mind.
Ritam - Being in Balance is our series of conversations with Swami Tadananda wherein we explore the Vedanta-Yoga teachings and practices to promote our wellbeing.
Ritam - Being in Balance. A Podcast on Wellbeing
34.Wellbeing - Karma Yoga
We visit the foundational principles of Karma Yoga, drawing wisdom from the timeless teachings of the Bhagavad Gita. Learn how the relentless cycle of actions and reactions binds us and discover the path to liberation by embracing non-attached action. Swamiji shares exemplary insights from Sri Krishna’s life, demonstrating how maintaining inner calmness regardless of external turmoil is the true essence of Karma Yoga.
Join us as we explore the practical application of non-attached action in daily life and how it can lead to stability and inner peace. Understand the importance of recognizing collective efforts in success and avoiding self-blame in failure, especially in professional settings. With powerful metaphors and examples, we examine the motivations behind our work and the significance of performing duties without attachment to their outcomes. Reflect on Arjuna's dilemma on the battlefield and learn how balancing professional responsibilities with spiritual practices can lead to a more fulfilling and stress-free life.
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Namaste to the listeners and welcome once again. Namaste Swamiji, namaste Sunil. How are you? I'm good. Thank you. In the last episode, swamiji, we started talking about karma and we touched on a few key points, yes, the first one being the definition of karma. We said how karma encompasses our thoughts, words and deeds. Then we talked about what we are is a result of our past karma. Yes, and what we will be depends on our present karma. Yes, and finally, we talked about the old, pervasive law of karma, where we are cogs in a big machine. So it seems we are helplessly bound in this machine with no way to free ourselves life after life. Yes, I'm pretty sure the listeners are thinking what do we do next? Is there a way out?
Speaker 2:Of course there's a way out, and the divine creates the maze in which we get lost. There's a way out. It's trying to find their way out. It's trying to find their way out. And so first, that quest for freedom must come. If people are just happy with the flow of activity, this is life I come and do various activities, become old and die, and they're happy, they don't have any problem with it, and I'm happy to come back again, hopefully in a better situation and all that type of thing. But I'm happy with this. Such people are not seeking freedom.
Speaker 2:Yes, they're happy with the world and they reconcile themselves. That this is life. There will be some ups and downs, some good times and bad times, and this is part of the deal. I don't mind the deal, you know. They look back in life and say that was a good life and lived and all that, I don't mind. Come again, this was not bad. So they are not looking for freedom, so they are busy with karma and the law keeps on operating them, recycling them in different bodies, different situations and places. But then it comes to a time in the life of that reincarnating jiva, the traveler, who says enough of it there will be a point in time where the law will just fade up of the same.
Speaker 1:Yeah, back in everything.
Speaker 2:Yes, Because it's more of a repetition. Day in, day out gets boring and then not only boring, it becomes positively painful. Life is when he looks back and he says let me think of five great moments in my life when I was absolutely happy and blissful and joyful that I can say this was worth my life, was worth living. Many people struggle to find those five moments, but if you ask them to tell what were the difficult, painful ones and he said give me two pages.
Speaker 1:I can fill them all.
Speaker 2:So much is there and that and that, in summary, is our life. So, for those who would like to put an end and why would they want to put an end?
Speaker 2:because they know there's something better and higher than what this world is here, the pendulum swings happiness and misery, success and failure, health and disease, life and death. This is the world of duality. There's no peace in here, and when somebody is seeking peace peace in the sense of your state of being it cannot be disturbed. It's not disturbed and you're absolutely serene, tranquil. It's an inner feeling. Okay, but you want that. You know, I want to be in peace. Leave me alone, the world to leave me alone. Don't drag me, don't force me to catch me and take me out and churn me in this world in through duties and responsibilities and whatever is there. I, I have had enough of this world.
Speaker 2:When you get fatigued with life and don't want to come again, on the other hand, you also know there is a state of being much superior to what this world offers. In this world, according to Vedanta, it's a degraded state of existence compared to the higher planes of existence. So some people think, okay, I should go to heaven, that's better than here, as if that is a superior one, and they work for that and they have their own theology and philosophy that you know, some incarnation prophet will come one day and we'll all go to heaven and live with him ever after type of thing. But the Vedanta says there's no heaven and things out there. Whatever is is within. The kingdom of heaven is within, as the Bible is taught. So what is the way out? To these people your question becomes relevant, and to them, the great teachers who come to this world, they show the way. So let's go back to the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is not taught to some monk who is meditating in a mountain cave. You know he would be the ideal candidate to receive the Vedanta, you might say.
Speaker 2:But Vedanta is not that static piety, it's a dynamic spirituality. It is teaching the art of fighting the battle, being in the midst of the world and power and all those things, and maintaining that calmness in the midst of tremendous activity. That is the secret. So you don't want to be away from activity. Anyone can keep calm, quiet in a mountain cave, all right. But we bring out that same man, you know, in the field of action. You know he can't survive there. The real hero is one who can maintain that calmness, absolute calmness, in the midst of intense activity. And that's what shri krishna says. Karma, yoga is that art of having that absolute, unflappable mind around you is tremendous activity. An example Sri Krishna himself is the example of his own teaching. Look hey, kauravas and Pandavas are fighting. Everyone is looking for success in this and that, and here in the midst of it is Sri Krishna, unattached to anything. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:And he's the example of his own teaching. So he says that Samatvam Yoga, uchate Yoga means maintaining an equanimity of mind. Success comes or failure comes, good comes or bad comes. I am not going to swing along with that pendulum. That art of working, where the results of your actions do not decide your mood, your happiness, your joy or your misery, is called karma yoga, as different from just karma. Most of the people do karma only. Karma yoga is taking to the next level of being masters of action, not slaves of action, and that's the whole beautiful philosophy taught by shri krishna in the bhagavad gita.
Speaker 2:I would recommend any young person who goes out every day and work in this world to take this gita as a manual of our everyday living. In there you will find nuggets of gold that can enlighten the person about how they go about doing whatever work they're doing. It doesn't matter. Work is. Everyone has to do work. There's no high work, there's no low work. Each one is great in his own place. The greatness depends on whether you're attached to the results of work or not. Attached to the results of work. That attachment is what binds us.
Speaker 1:So managers or CEOs that are out there in everyday living, those managers that are able to keep calm when a disaster strikes. They're the ones that really clearly show these qualities. Yes, they're the one you want to.
Speaker 2:That's the one you want to have in your team, one who is able to not get ruffled and lose his balance and starts panicking and, you know, creates, adds to the commotion that's already there. That guy is useless. Actually, he's worse. He creates the confusion and makes it more confounded. On the other hand, you'll find some people are there in the team and that's the one you have to look out for in crisis situation who are able to maintain that balance, you know, and quickly come back and grasp the whole thing and say, hey, let's do this, not reacting, you know, but reacting, finding being part of the solution. Because why did that? That solution come to them? Because the mind is not lashed into the turmoil. Now they could maintain that balance and now they have a perspective of things.
Speaker 2:Hey, we can tweak this here and we can set that this is the right way out, see, and those are the ones, are the ones you'd like to have with you in in any way, you know, among your friends, at workplace, everywhere, because they're able to maintain that balance, yes, that balance and that poise and that focus, it's easier and, as a concept, is easy to understand, but in actual situation, when things happen when things happen. You are not applying. Hey, I have to read this in the bhagavad gita and I've heard it from there that I should maintain calm. But you know your mind is already.
Speaker 1:You're not in control that's right, it's already gone. Right, it's gone, you know, because you haven't, you're not training yourself yes, yes, because you don't train to be in disaster every day, do you?
Speaker 2:no, it only happens but every disaster or every situation can be your training situation. You don't have to be in a real activity happening, just like you know. You have your rehearsals, fire drills and all those things, okay. So when the actual thing happens, you are ready for it because you have trained yourself for that. So you'll find in your life, everywhere, something is there trying to unsettle you, okay, and you say I'm going to use each one of these activities or situations, pleasant or unpleasant, as an opportunity for me to develop my equanimity and balance. That would be the utility of, or the purpose of, engaging with their work.
Speaker 2:So you set yourself I'm going to go out there, I'm going to engage in activity. There will be results of activity good and bad, success and failure. For example, you might do some work and your boss comes and praises you and so you did a wonderful work. And then you puff off like a frog and say I feel so good about yourself. And then somebody comes and criticizes you and you feel miserable, deflated and like that. Okay, so the whole day is gone, whole day is gone. And therefore that one that guy is swinging with a pendulum yes, but if you said I'm going to go to work, of course I'll get paid, yes, and all the things will happen there. But I'm going to use that work as an opportunity for my training, yeah, as an opportunity for my training, spiritual training In each of these little ones. I'm going to try to maintain that witness detached, unaffected poise and balance and people will say, hey, you have done a wonderful work.
Speaker 2:I remind myself I'm only a manager. There are so many people underneath me, they have work, actually the credit belongs to them, so you pass it, pass it on, pass it on. And when difficulties come, things don't work out. You say I'm just only one variable in a big equation. So many other factors determine, you know, and therefore, just as I cannot, I should not take credit for everyone. I should not take credit for everyone. I should not blame myself, beat myself and make myself miserable. You know I have failed, I let everyone down, type of thing. It's a very, very complex machine and I'm part of a wheel in that machine. I'm controlled. I'm controlling something. I'll do my whole activity.
Speaker 1:In detachment there's no only way you can keep yourself balanced.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's a non-attached action.
Speaker 1:Otherwise, if you're attached to it, you'll always have that high and low.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it is our attachment to things that is the cause of our misery and happiness. We want happiness, but you cannot have happiness only. You cannot have light without darkness. You will have to have both. Okay, sooner or later we will understand that. But we are not here to look for happiness, we are looking for peace. So the pendulum is swinging and so long, imagine there's a string with a bob and a pendulum swinging and you are an ant sitting on the bob, so you're swinging along with it. Okay, for a while it's fun, but afterwards it gets a bit dizzy and you don't like the swinging. So long you stay on the bob or the ball, you'll swing.
Speaker 1:You can't avoid it.
Speaker 2:But if you're a smart ant and you say, let me climb along the string and it starts, the further it goes up and he says the swinging, the experience of the swinging, becomes less. The world is still swinging in the same way, but for that particular person, because you have relocated yourself slightly higher, your swinging becomes less. And you discover that the higher I go, the less the swinging becomes. And if you reach the top, where the string is tied, you see the swinging has stopped for you, but it's swinging for everyone else. Karma Yoga is trying to is the art of finding that center within us, where it's that perfect poise and balance is there, While all around is that tremendous world of activity. It's like a wheel that is spinning, like a bicycle wheel. You put on the floor and spin it around. The further you go along away from the center along the radius, the angular speed becomes more yeah, right. And the closer you come to the center, it becomes less and less. And at the center you are absolutely still. So does the world stop for you?
Speaker 1:no for you. Oh, just for me. Yes, your world has stopped. But for others?
Speaker 2:it's going depends on we experience the world, depending where we are, where our mind is, and so karma yoga is that art of moving closer to the center. Okay, yeah, okay, so that's.
Speaker 1:And so karma yoga, is that art of moving closer?
Speaker 2:to the center.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, okay.
Speaker 2:So that's the theory on the theory of it, but what is it?
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's the actual practice for me on a daily basis?
Speaker 2:Yes, so you set your goal, that your purpose of going to work. When you set out, drive out.
Speaker 1:Okay, it's what you say.
Speaker 2:And you say, hey, of course I want to get paid at the end of the day for the hours I'm going to put. That's going to come. But is that all that? You're working? No, I said okay, I have some job satisfaction. I'm not simply sitting here. If your father was very rich and he gave that same money in your bank account every day, would you feel that? No, I want to have some meaning and purpose in my life I'm making a difference in somebody's life. I'm productive. I'm contributing to the society.
Speaker 2:And I'm not just a guy living on a dole.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I'm working out that gives me my self-value and esteem also and self-respect. Yes, self-respect and all that. So I go out and and I earn it. The money that I get, I earn it. So that's why I engage. It's not like somebody has just promoted me. I earned it myself you know and therefore you good feel good about it, so that could be your motivation for going to work what else could be?
Speaker 2:some people might say I want to rise up in the rank and, you know, be the general manager or something like that. So you have a desire for some position, fame, recognition, some reward. All those type of things are there again. They're all part of the machine. You know, you might get it, you might not get it. So your happiness and misery will depend on the success and failure in different people, work for different reasons, or combination of all these things. But a karma yogi would go out to work and he says I will go out to work because I'm in this situation where I have a family and children. I have to feed them.
Speaker 1:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I have to work. It's not my choice, and why did I end up in this situation? Well, that's how my previous life karma has brought me in here. So I'm trying to work that out, but I'm going to be careful not to create new karma karma happens anyway karma happens anyway. But but my attachment to the karma is what is binding me okay so then he non-attached action.
Speaker 2:I will do all the activities, but without any attachment to the results of the action. Okay, so results will come, but you don't appropriate it to yourself. Mm-hmm, what do?
Speaker 1:you do who do you give it to?
Speaker 2:Who do you give it to? You know, okay, in many ways, suppose you get a nice reward. You're a general manager of a company You've done very nicely. You get a reward because of Underfield. But you say, hey, I had some ideas, I gave some instructions. At the end of the day, my subordinates and my colleagues and the people on the ground floor, they actually did the work. Let me pass this to them. Actually, in all honesty, they are the ones, literally, would you do that? Okay, no, it's mine. You know, my promotion was there. If it doesn't come, they say, why didn't it come to me?
Speaker 2:It's very hard Because deep inside we have the desire for that result. More of it know when it comes. It makes us happy if it doesn't come. So why didn't I get a promotion? Why didn't I get an increment? I worked so hard in this year. I played a very important role in the success of the project.
Speaker 2:All this so that's when you that's how you get caught attachment to the result in whichever way, and there are subtle ways. You might think I am very much detached in all those things. But oh my God, you get into the field of work and results come and very few are there who are able to maintain that balance. So that's where this vigilance is necessary, that vigilance understanding, watching your own mind. What are you going out for? So we asked why are you going out for? These are the various reasons one are you going out for. So we asked why are you going out for? These are the various reasons one can be going out for. But a person who says I want to get out of this wheel, the cycle, but I can't suddenly stop the machine, but I'm not going to put more, I'm not going to keep on stepping on the accelerator? Okay, putting more fuel in the engine? Okay, I'm going to at least reduce that part of it. Okay, not creating more karma. That will keep on binding me.
Speaker 2:I will do karma, but it will be more like working out whatever was from the past so if you had lots of debits previously, you need to get some credits yeah, it's like your car is running, you disengage the gear and so it will roll on as long as momentum, as far as its momentum carries, but you're not adding pressure force into it. Okay, that would be the method. What is the disengagement of the gear? That is called non-attached action right action. The wheels are running, but you as a driver have become disengaged from that not adding to it as an example.
Speaker 2:So what would that be your approach? So well, you will say first I'm going to go and work and I'm going to have that internal vigilance and alertness that I would not attach myself to either of the results, good and bad. And you watch yourself, and you don't have to have a big result to test yourself. It could be small things.
Speaker 1:But won't, swamiji, if you don't have an attachment, won't people listeners will be thinking? Won't the passion?
Speaker 2:die Passion would not be there. Yeah, why?
Speaker 1:would I achieve for excellence when just doing merit is?
Speaker 2:good enough. It might seem like that and Swami Vivekananda beautifully explains there. I would recommend you to read that in more depth. Apparently people think like that that if we have that passion and the fire and the drive and the work comes out better. But you will find that really the best workers are the ones who are calm and detached because the tremendous amount of energy that, let us say, the two people.
Speaker 2:One is very fired up, very passionate and energized and excited about it. You know, rouse him and he's able to do it. But the next moment, if you don't provide that fuel, you know he is totally disheartened and cannot be moved, type of thing also. All right, that's one thing. So constantly you need to motivate that time them and it could be tempting them with this carrot, oh, or the stick. The boss has to be behind them all the time. This reward or something, bonus or something is there. You see they're not working nicely for the sake of work because it is those type of people. But the best worker is one who doesn't require those things. He's calm and steady, he comes and does. He said I want that guy to. We have to choose between the two. The reason the problem is that the amount of energy that is dissipated by that so-called passionate guy is wasted in that being passionate rather than being channelized into that work, into the work. Okay, all right.
Speaker 1:Or it could be that, because it's not consistent, the performance or the quality of the job.
Speaker 2:It'll oscillate, oscillates, yes.
Speaker 2:Sometimes it's a good job, sometimes bad job, sometimes good, but you don't ever get a consistent level Study right, yeah, but even in terms of productivity, the guy, he wastes so much of that, that excitement and that passion is an expenditure of energy. Okay, that means imagine in his mind space he's got some energy. So much is there just for the sake of being that passionate about it. It's not going to the desired result that is there. So at the end of the day it's the calm man. You know, the calmer we are, the better we are there. Look out always, for such people are there.
Speaker 2:The calmer we are, that means they have more time to give that mental energy to the work in front of them than to create that self-rousing type of thing you know, priming themselves and priming others around type of thing. That part is all done, motivated deeply inside, but quietly, without looking for any result, without looking for any result, without looking for any recognition. You know they are the ones who do this. So what is? Is it that none not looking for any result? Well, they're not looking for a result in the worldly sense certificate, recognition, praise, increment, all that, but. But they have a result. It's a spiritual result. The goal they are using karma is for liberation.
Speaker 1:And that's not harmful.
Speaker 2:Okay, mukti freedom. How do I get out of this machine? I want to find a way out of this maze of this world, and the secret is not to avoid the work If it becomes difficult, which what shri arjuna was trying to do. It became too hot. He was before that looking forward to this war. He was, you know, marshalling the army and he's a great general. And so when the last moment comes, and then suddenly in his mind a little bit of confusion came and he tried to justify that with some nice philosophy I don't want to kill my relatives and this and that, and I want to take off.
Speaker 2:So Sri Krishna says no, no, no, my friend, that fleeing away from your duty is not, it doesn't befit a warrior like you. You have a reputation, people will laugh at you, but he says I will teach you a method to do this, discharge this duty, without getting affected by the outcome of this war and what happens in there. And that's what Karma Yoga is about. Each one and everyone has got their own battle of life, in which all these difficult decisions and choices and bloodshed and things will happen. And if you do not know the art of working, if you just knew karma, then you will end up going into the battlefield like Abhimanyu, finding your way to enter in there but not knowing how to get out of it.
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, our education system, whatever society, teaches us, they give us only what a human you learned. It teaches us to get into the world, which is go to kindergarten, primary school, secondary school, get a degree, get a job and those things and start working, but it doesn't teach you how to get out of it, isn't it? That's an incomplete knowledge and that's why people suffer. That's why the Vedanta needs to be taught. So imagine if you had an education system where teachers, while they taught you the art of going out and being a professional and expert in whatever field you want to do, they also taught you how to keep yourself detached from it so you could go Really powerful right, that would be really powerful for the people that are doing a lot of good work out there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then, without carrying all the burden on their shoulders and coming home and you know, feeling stressed and not actually.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that part of that knowledge is missing, how important that is, and it is there for thousands of years in the scriptures. It's not about all about god realization, having some vision and of some deity or something. It's about living your life. Thousands of years in the scriptures. It's not all about God realization, having some vision of some deity or something. It's about living your life every day. These are the basic principles and they need to be taught also, so there's a whole science of it. If this is not practical, then what else is practical?
Speaker 1:It's very, very powerful. It definitely changes. Hopefully it will change the listeners.
Speaker 2:At least they can go to the Gita and take up the scriptures and study them and try to find something that will show more light in the path. So that idea of non-attachment, what it is and how we cultivate that, I think is something we can discuss a little bit more, Because the natural mind is like a woman he goes in there and gets caught in there. The world is like a jackfruit you put your finger and you get stuck to it. You know how do you try to extricate yourself. You know, and you try to sometimes end up getting yourself more bound into it. It's like a thorny bush. You know you're walking past and your shirt or something gets a few thorns stuck to it and you turn around and before you know you're totally caught in that jungle. The world is like that. From which direction, how it comes. So there's an art and science of working. Karma yoga is that. It's like tell the duck it can go into the water, but it can come out and shake the water off.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, it's like a boat in the water, but the water is not in the boat. No, okay, how about that? He went out to the work, did whatever, came back and just shrugged everything off mentally. Yeah, not getting it with you, you know, to home after work hours, bring it home.
Speaker 2:Yeah, comes out in your family if it's a bad day how powerful would that be, you know, and for your own mental well-being. So stress, anxiety, tension yes, and you're carrying that burden 24 hours in your mind. You know everything. If we are not taught that art of working, then we suffer and you're carrying that burden 24 hours in your mind. You know everything. If we are not taught that art of working, then we suffer. It's not that the knowledge is not there, it's just that we're not making that little effort to access that. So we hope to share this. How does that attachment happen and how to detach? That could be a subject for discussion.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much. We can definitely pick that up in our next episode.
Speaker 2:Thank you for that.
