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Fearless Dharmic Enquiry · Inspiration and Transformation

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Welcome to inspiration and transformation from the banks of the Gunga with Sadvi Bagwati Saraswati,
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an American Sanyasi living at the parmarth Nikitan Ashram in Rishikesh, India.
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Sadvi is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education,
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vocational trainee, upliftment and empowerment programs to women and children. Sadvi is also
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Secretary General of the Global Interfaith Wasash Alliance and director of the world famous International
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Yoga Festival. Joined the musings of an American Sanyasi as Sadvi shares the wisdom
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and teachings of her Guru, His Holiness Pujiaswami Chininant Saraswatiji, welcome everyone to
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inspiration and transformation from the holy banks of the Sacred Gunga River in the land
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of Rishikesh, India. After reading your book, I have some questions about
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deep and honest fearless inquiries from chapter twenty five. What makes a deep and
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honest inquiry dharmak? What is dharma on? How do I witness the short
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fuse of my anger before it blows so in my in my memoir, I
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speak a lot about not just the experiences that I've had that I've been gifted
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with, but the lessons that I learned along the way, the practices.
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And one of those practices is inquiry self inquiry. And I guess I didn't
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remember the exact words I had used in my book, but I guess the
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words were deep and honest, fearless, dharmic inquiry. So deep, honest,
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fearless, and dharmic. What I mean by this is it's really easy
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to move through the world as a victim. A victim either in a really
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big way, like this thing happened to me, this person harmed me,
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abused me, betrayed me, cheated me, or the universe harmed me.
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But it's much more difficult to actually realize what powerful co creators of our own
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lives we are. And I don't mean that to mean that we has somehow
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created the difficult situations of what others did. I don't mean it in that
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way, but I mean that our circumstances today, how I'm moving through the
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world with anxiety, with depression, with loneliness, with frustration, with longing,
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with confusion, with aimlessness, or with peace, with love, with
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joy, with gratitude. I'm I'm a co creator of that. That which
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has happened to me is not the determined of my world. But most of
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us live like it is, like somehow that which happened to us, or
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that which other people are doing around us, is that which is determining how
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we're living. I'm angry because you did this, or I'm miserable because you
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did that. Right, it's the it's the old God. I was having
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such a great day and then you came home. Or I was in such
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a good mood and then you called. So we've got this habit of deferring
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our power onto others. And so what I mean by this deep and honest
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inquiry, fearless inquiry, is what are my other alternatives? What role am
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I playing here? Yeah? Yeah, I know what's happened. I know
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that so and so lied, I know that so and so cheated, I
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know that so and so tweeted something obnoxious about me. I know that this
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happened, and that happened, from the really traumatic to the superficial and the
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whole spectrum. But in my present moment, misery, what's my role?
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One of my favorite quotes is, if you are miserable in a room alone.
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You can be pretty sure you are the costs. And I love that
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because how many of us have sulked in a room by ourselves, convinced that
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it's someone else's fault. But I love that because when you think about it,
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of course, it's true. Here I am alone in a room.
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Who's keeping me from being happy? Who's keeping me from being peaceful? No
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one's doing anything to me, no one's pulling my strings. I'm alone in
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the room. And so that's what I mean by that inquiry. Is here
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I am alone in a room, miserable. Why? And it's not about
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blaming We blame ourselves enough. The last thing we need is to blame ourselves
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more. It's not about making yourself feel bad. It's not about yet another
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way to say I am not good enough. See, I can't even do
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this happiness thing. It's not that it's simple inquiry, but honest inquiry.
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What's my role here? Do I have a choice? Here's what happened in
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the world today. That's peace one. Here's how I am feeling inside of
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me and how I am reacting. That's peace two. Is there only one
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one road from piece one to piece two, only one possibility, or might
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there be an alternative. For example, I used to be really stressed,
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and I found myself kind of on edge a lot of the time, where
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no matter what happened in the world, that was for me a really good
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excuse for why I was stressed. If you said to me, how are
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you, I would have said, oh my god, I'm so stressed because,
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and the because changed minute to minute, moment to moment, it didn't
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matter. But once I realized the actually I had a choice, then everything
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changed. You take a very simple situation. You say, okay, I'm
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driving down the road. Some guy cuts me off in such a way that
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if I had not slammed on my brakes, basically he would have killed me.
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Now, that's something that stresses us out, but it also makes most
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of us angry. We want to yell at the other guy. We want
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to flip him off, swear at him out the window, or we swear
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about him to the person next to us in the car. Now, Piece
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one is simply man cut me off. He was driving too fast, driving
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recklessly, cut me off. Piece two is my blood sugars up, my
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pulses up, my blood pressure is up, my face is red. I'm
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fear us. It's going to take me till tomorrow and a lot of chemical
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assistance to calm down. But is peace to the only possible outcome of peace?
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One? And so I started, I started wondering about alternatives. And
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for example, let's say somebody cuts you off and you tell yourself a story
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about it. I love storytelling, and so you say, this guy,
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two minutes before he cut me off, got a phone call from the local
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hospital that his son has just been in an accident and if he wants to
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see his son alive again, he will get to the hospital in less than
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five minutes because his son has about five minutes to live. Now you see
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how the felt sense experience of that moment changes. How suddenly, guess what
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it's not about me? Guess what The man was not insensitive to me,
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trying to harm me. The poor guy was just trying to see his son
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alive. And suddenly, instead of wanting to cuss him out, you want
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to clear the freeway for him. You want to travel behind him to the
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hospital, be there with him. And so when I'm talking about this deep
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inquiry, it's just that it's the simple question, what's my role in how
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I'm feeling in the world. I'm living in my experience of the world.
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And number two, is there an alternative? And that inquiry is what I
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refer to as that deep fearless inquiry because it's it's hard to look at situations
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and say, yeah, I could have done that differently, but I didn't.
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Yeah I could be doing this moment differently, but I'm not. I
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don't actually have to be yelling at you, I don't actually have to be
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sulking, but I am. That's a difficult place to really acknowledge. So
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it's got to be fearless. And the dharmaic component, because the second part
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of the question was what is dharma? So dharma Dharma has been translated in
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so many ways for the sake of this purpose, will translate dharma as the
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right path. There's a general universal right path, honesty, compassion, generosity,
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truthfulness, says universal dharma. But then there's a personal dharma, the
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path we are meant to walk. But dharma's always about fulfilling your role to
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the very best of your ability, whatever role that may be. We go
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through different roles in life. In Indian society, they talk about for ashrams
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of life, each of which is a dharma. So Brahmachadia is the first
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phase we're students, got toast as from or go to. Dharma is your
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householder phase. That's when you marry and you have a job, you acquire
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things, you build things. Then there's von pressed just after the kids are
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grown and you're retired and you're sort of pulling away from things of the world,
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and then sinyas a full withdrawal of that engagement in the world. But
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there are four different dharmas that we go through a different phases of life.
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But we also each have different dharmas in every moment of our life, the
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different critical roles that we play in different relationships. A dharmas a child to
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our parents. The dharma is a parent to our ChIL child, as a
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husband or wife to a husband or wife. But then we also have our
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individual dharma that's separate from our relationships, separate from our phase of life.
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That's really the who are you and why are you here? A question?
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And so that inquiry has to include that question. For me. When I
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came to India twenty six years ago, in the midst of getting a PhD
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in psychology, I was I was an academic. I wasn't a spiritual person.
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I was an American student, a good student, not someone who you
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would have expected to suddenly join an ashram and become a monastic renunciant. But
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the more that I looked inward fearlessly, I realized that that was exactly my
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dharma. As crazy as it seemed at the time to everyone who knew me,
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as unexpected as it was, that was my dharma. And so so
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that's an inquiry that all of us should do. And the truth is,
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you know, you don't have to tell anybody. A lot of us get
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really embarrassed to inquire, because the moment we come face to face with ourselves
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and our egos and our ignorances and our false identifications and desires and years and
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all of that, we feel kind of embarrassed inside. But just remember,
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you don't have to tell anyone. This is just you, nothing to be
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embarrassed about. We're here in our human package. But if you're not honest
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with yourself, you're depriving yourself of the whole reason you're here. So even
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if you're never honest with anybody else, at least be honest with yourself.
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You don't gain anything from lying to yourself, So start that practice of inquiry.
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That's what the chapter meant. And the last part of the question was
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how do I witness the short fuse of my anger before or it blows?
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Yeah, anybody else been there through practice. Do not expect that suddenly you
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are going to channel the ability to do that when you are furious if you've
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never practiced it before. In the same way, if you have no idea
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how to swim, it's very unlikely you're going to learn when you're on a
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boat that's capsized in the middle of the ocean in a storm. You've got
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to learn beforehand. You've got to have a skill ready for those moments of
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life. And this is why we meditate, It's why we develop mindfulness,
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awareness, why we engage ourselves and practice is of expanding our consciousness because then
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we can be aware. Then, rather than suddenly becoming aware as I'm you
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know, hitting somebody or punching my hand through a wall or on my fifth
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of the six pack or whatever it may be. Rather than suddenly becoming conscious
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in that moment, I'm able to see it happen. I'm able to notice
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the trigger. I start to feel it in myself, just ever so slightly.
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We all know that feeling your insides feel like they're boiling and the heat's
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just getting hotter and hotter, and your vision starts to become really narrow.
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We know what that feels like. Develop a practice in which you see how
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far in advance can you recognize it right. It's like if you've ever stood
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on the ocean looking for whales, or looking for ships, or looking to
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recognize something from really really far away. When I was in Iceland in August,
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we went out whale watching, and it's amazing because you stand on the
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deck of the boat, knowing that you should be seeing whales, hoping to
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see whales. Every tiny little shadow black spot in the distance, you think,
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oh, oh, that's a whale, and then you realize it's not.
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But that that focus onto the horizon where you're not waiting for it to
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come up right in front of you and blow. You're trying to see it
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from as far away as you can. And the guides on the boat said,
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don't move your eyes like this. They sugg loosely focus on the horizon.
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It was actually a very interesting technique because it's very similar to open eyed
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meditation, where you're just ever so gently allowing the vision to be there and
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to be expensive, and with that vision focused all the way out as far
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on the horizon as you can, you've got the best chance of seeing the
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whale. And I was thinking, as the guide was saying this, that
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that's exactly how I practice trying to see anger, of just staying as mindful
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as you can all the time, such that the moment that trigger comes,
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that spart comes, you're able to see it. Oh yeah, look it's
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building. Oh look. And then long before your blood pressures through the roof,
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long before your heart is racing and your palms are sweaty, and you've
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got the you know, exact thing you're going to say to this person to
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show them, long before that, you're able just to look at it and
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say, wow, that's so interesting. That made me angry. Huh so
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interesting? Is there an alternative? And when you can see it from that
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far out, there's always an alternative. But you've got a practice in advance.
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So develop a practice of meditation, develop a practice of mindfulness where you're
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simply being aware. Well, we'll end sut Sung to Night with a brief
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meditation but bring this into your into your daily practice. Just be aware,
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be mindful while you're eating, while you're drinking, while you're walking, while
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you're breathing. And if you can bring that mindfulness into your life, then
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you'll notice when the emotions start to build, whether it's anger, fear,
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greed, lust, jealousy, whatever it may be, you're able to see
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it at a distance that's far enough away before it's actually wrapped itself around you.
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And that's what our whole spirit shal practice gives us. It's not that
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we never have emotions, that we're able to see them from such a far
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distance that we're not slaves of that. You're listening to OTRFM, part of
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Rain and this station. Welcome back to inspiration and transformation. I'm so glad
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to have you all back here with me. When is the appropriate time to
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start a spiritual path? Yesterday? If if you're not already on a spirit
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shall pass exactly right here right now. You know, most of us have
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this internal habit that we start things on good days. So if it's a
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big thing, we do you know, New Year's or my birthday, or
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we say, okay, Monday morning, I'm going to start the dilemma with
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that is it's beautiful to have a day. But the dilemma is then if
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on Monday it doesn't happen, or you start Tuesday, you start Monday and
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Tuesday, it's over. Well, then you've got to wait till the next
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Monday to start it again. And that's why I'm all in favor of auspicious
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days and auspicious opportunities when that day happens to be the auspicious day. But
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I'm not in favor of waiting days or weeks or months to start something,
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just for the right moment to arise, the moment that you realize I should
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be on a spiritual path, that's the right moment to start. That is
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the auspicious moment. And of course today we find ourselves on actually such an
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auspicious day. This is the day of Dashada. It's the day of letting
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go of that which keeps us separate from God. You know, in in
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the Christian tradition, there's a sense around and I'm far from a scholar on
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the Christian faith, but there's a sense around the internal aspect of who we
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are being sinfo, a sense that that core of who we are, based
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on our birth lineage is sinfa, and that there's things that we need to
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do in order to attain salvation. Saving. One of the things for me
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that has always touched me so deeply and inspired me so much about Sanathan Dharma
28:56
is that the teaching is actually very different. Teaching says, the core of
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who you are is divine, is pure, as perfect as one with God
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is pure consciousness. But maya kicks in. Illusion, kicks in you overidentify
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with the physical body, with its stories, with its roles, and that
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leads to anger and grudges and lust and greed and jealousy and all of those
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vices pride. But these are not aspects of sinfulness on the inside or evil
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on the inside. There are aspects of simply ignorance that forgot how divine,
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how full, how whole, how complete you are. And so on this
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day of Dashera, you know, we celebrate Laura Rahm killing this demon with
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ten heads representing all of these different aspects of our ego, of our vices,
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right, the anger and the lust and the greed and the pride and
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the envy, And that symbol, as we were talking about on the banks
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of Gana, is actually for all of us. The stories from the scriptures
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are not just beautiful stories of things that happened in history, but it's about
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now. And so if you're looking now to start a spiritual path. It's
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a perfect day. And even if you're on a spiritual path but you're looking
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to go deeper, or you're on a deep spiritual path but you still find
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yourself plagued by any aspect of this, this is the day when the energies
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of the universe aligned to help you let go of all of that. So
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this is the right moment. This is exactly the right moment to begin or
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to deepen your path. And then if, because you're human, tomorrow or
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the day after you find yourself acting not in alignment with your path, well
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that'll be exactly the right moment to begin. Again. You don't have to
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wait till you're sitting back in rishakes back in sud song. The moment you
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realize you've gone off the path, just come back. It's like in that
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very very short, just centering guided meditative experience from the beginning right, our
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minds wander, it's what they do, it's the nature of the mind,
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and we just bring it back wanders again. We bring it back, and
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slowly, slowly, as we practice it actually as a meditation for longer periods
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of time, we become able to be grounded an awareness. Whether the awareness
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is of the breath, the awarenesses of the being, the awarenesses of a
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man, whatever we focus that awareness on, and then ultimately it becomes just
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awareness. And yeah, sometimes the awareness is aware of the breath, and
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sometimes it's aware of a month, that or something else. But we actually
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become anchored just in that awareness. But the practice along the way gives us
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this beautiful technique of just coming back. Just coming back. Don't yell at
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yourself, don't berate yourself, don't criticize yourself, don't tell yourself stories of
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whose fault it is that you got distracted. He came home and slammed the
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door. Told him a thousand times not to slam the door, but he
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did ruined my meditative awareness. We tend to make up stories about things.
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But instead of that, just bring it back. No stories, no judgment,
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no analysis, not where it's gone. Just bring it back, and
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you'll find that that becomes a beautiful technique on your spirit shall past the rest
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of the time as well. Oh, lost your temper, Okay, just
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come back. Got sucked up for a moment into jealousy, Just come back.
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Sucked up for a moment into greed or envied. It's okay. Just
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bring it back. No need to criticize yourself, no need to tell yourself
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a big story about it. Just come back. Just come back. So
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right now is the exact perfect moment to start. And whatever moment you discover
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that you're no longer on it is the exact perfect moment to just come back.
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And we just keep coming back. This is OTRFM, part of the
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Ethical Treatment of Animals seven five seven six two two peta welcome back. This
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is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. That's burden of abundance, right,
36:42
I mean again, something to be so grateful for. We've got so
36:45
many choices. Think about how many people don't have so many choices, whether
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it's a choice of what job to have, a choice of where to live,
37:00
a choice of who to marry or to marry at all, so many
37:07
choices we have. The best way to choose is to develop an awareness of
37:17
who you are, because all of the choices seem almost random until we know
37:25
who we are, right, I mean, I could be this, I
37:30
could be that, I could do this, I could do that, so
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many unlimited And if I don't know who I am, then it becomes almost
37:39
like emi meni minimo, you know, causing up a coin what to do.
37:47
But if we know who we are, if we have the ability to
37:54
connect with our dharma, our right path, you can think of it like
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the dharma of fire is to burn, the dharma of water is to wet.
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So what is your dharma beyond your body, beyond your roles, beyond
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that which the culture and society has told you based on your color, your
38:30
race, your religion, your socioeconomic status. Aside from all that, who
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are you? Really? Meditate on it? It's the age old perennial perfect
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question of path of a right of adanta, path of gyanioa. Who am
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I? Who am I? Who am I? And yes, ultimately eventually
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that answer is going to be an experience of soul. But along the way
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you get some really good clarity who you are, and it may begin by
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who you're not. Okay, I'm not quite the social butterfly that I'm pretending
39:28
to be. Okay, I know that I'm good at math, but I'm
39:31
really not meant to be an engineer. Okay, I know this person really
39:38
likes me, but I just I don't really think that my destiny is with
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him or her. These truths start to arise as you get quiet and go
39:52
within, So just meditate on it and I'll so realize that there isn't really
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a wrong answer, because in many cases, our dharma is not something that
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gets fulfilled or not fulfilled based on our career. A lot of people have
40:20
careers just to put food on the table, support their family. There's nothing
40:23
wrong with that. Maybe you're calling it was to be an artist or a
40:31
musician, but you're not getting paid to do that, and it doesn't look
40:37
like you're going to get paid to do that anytime in the future. So
40:39
you have a job, whatever it may be, as long as it's not
40:45
harming the planet or taking advantage of other people or taking advantage of you.
40:52
You do that, put food on the table, do your art, do
40:57
your music, and your free time. Choose a job that gives you free
41:02
time, So don't worry about what to do as in I have to find
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the perfect job or career. It may be for you, and it is
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for many just really a way of having a house, of having a car,
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of having food on the table, of sending your kids to school,
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and your whole purpose, your dharma, maybe something completely unrelated to your profession,
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but don't don't stop living waiting for it to just fall in your lap
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right here, right now. Make the best choice for right here, right
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now, based on what you know of yourself, and then you walk that
42:07
path for a while, and maybe along that path new doors open because you're
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keeping your heart open, you're keeping your mind open, you're keeping yourself open
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to the signal of the universe, to the sign of the universe telling you,
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ah, go through this door, and then you do, and then
42:31
you discover you're on a completely different path. And then you walk that and
42:37
maybe it turns out that is your ultimate path, or maybe it turns out
42:44
that that was just a stepping stone, or it was just something to get
42:49
you someplace, and then another door opens. So there isn't there isn't an
42:58
equation to know which one to choose. The best way is understanding the self,
43:09
and when you know the self, then what to do starts to become
43:15
a lot more apparent, a lot more clear. And then just start putting
43:20
one foot in front of the other in the way that makes the most sense,
43:25
that's available to you, that's accessible to you, that's in alignment with
43:31
how you understand yourself to day when if I look at my life path,
43:39
the number of different paths that I walked down at different times in my life
43:45
based on what I knew about myself at that time. But then later I
43:51
was able to look and realize, oh, I had no idea, but
43:54
okay, that's all right, because that got me here, or that got
44:00
me to this, and that got me here. So there's no mistaken path
44:10
as long as you are open in it, and you are open to the
44:17
sign the call, the signal of the universe showing you yourself. I'm telling
44:28
you how to move. My favorite example that I always give is the caterpillar,
44:32
right, I mean, it begins its life essentially like a millipede,
44:37
like an earthworm, on the ground, sliming along. But then it gets
44:45
a signal from the universe that says, climb the tree, go out on
44:53
a branch, weave a cocoon, then burst out of the cocoon and fly.
45:00
Now as a caterpillar on the ground looking at the earthworm or the millipede,
45:06
it wasn't thinking I'm so much better than these guys. Just you wait,
45:12
just you wait. I'm going to be I'm going to be that butterfly.
45:16
It doesn't know. I don't think it knows anyway. It's doing its
45:23
thing based on what it knows in that moment. But it's open so that
45:32
when the sign comes, the signal comes, it follows it and thus becomes
45:40
the butterfly. So we move along to the very best of our abilities.
45:47
Open hearts, open mind, anchored, grounded in an ever expanding awareness of
45:55
ourself. We meditate on it, We template on it in eyes closed,
46:04
seated meditation. Also, as we move through the day, is this an
46:07
alignment with me? Who am I? Who am I? And the choice
46:20
as well? They'll emerge. But as long as you are there, whatever
46:30
choice you make, it can turn out to be the right one. This
46:37
is OTRFM, part of the IOM Radio Network. Home Times Magazine is one
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Baldwin with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I grew up loving circuses
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and other traveling animal shows, but it never occurred to me what life might
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be like for the animals. Training wild animals to do things they don't understand
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takes force routine discipline with a hook or whip with a heel of a book
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shows the animal exactly who's the boss. Don't patronize animal acts. Please contact
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People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals seven six two two pet A. Welcome
48:12
back. This is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation So the first part
48:22
is physical health. There's a lot of research showing that the same things that
48:30
keep us healthy in our physical body are actually the same thing that keep our
48:36
brain healthy. Getting enough sleep, drinking enough water, getting exercise. These
48:46
are standard Go to any doctor, any practitioner, anywhere in the world,
48:53
go to doctor Google. I mean, this is not rocket science. Get
49:00
enough sleep, drink enough water, eat healthy food, and get exercise.
49:07
But it turns out that these same things are actually very, very protective of
49:14
our brain. Dehydration as we age is one of the greatest causes of so
49:23
many of the ailments that we actually suffer from as we age that we attribute
49:29
to just age related decline. But if we were properly hydrated, we wouldn't
49:37
have so much decline. We know that exercise brings a lot of oxygen,
49:45
a great flow of oxygen in the body to the brain. There's lots and
49:53
lots of studies showing that people who exercise have a less much lower likelihood of
50:02
losing memory, losing cognition, eating healthy food, getting your vitamins and minerals.
50:13
I mean, the neurons in our brain are made up of the same
50:20
stuff, essentially as the cells of our body. There's also this milin sheath
50:27
over them, but the cells themselves, the neurotransmitters in the cells that the
50:36
brain matter is made up of the same stuff that the rest of our body
50:43
is made up of, and it needs the same vitamins, the same minerals,
50:49
the same nutrients that the rest of our body needs. Yes, there's
50:55
certain superfoods that they say are great for the brain. There's research of certain
51:05
different types of fruit, certain types of nuts, But in general, from
51:09
what I've seen, if you eat a really healthy diet, you're going to
51:15
get all of those vitamins and minerals. You don't have to necessarily go out
51:20
of your way and make sure that you've got, you know, bowls of
51:23
blueberries every day, or if you live somewhere where they grow, great,
51:28
eat them. You know they're wonderful. But there's lots and lots and lots
51:36
of vibrant people living over a hundred in lots of areas of the world where
51:42
they don't grow blueberries. So as long as you're eating a healthy, balanced
51:50
diet, getting vitamins, getting minerals, your body is healthy and your brain
52:00
healthy. Now there's other practices beyond that that our beautiful Indian tradition gives us
52:10
Prania yoga fantastic practices to keep that energy flowing through the body into the brain.
52:24
Meditation, because meditation on just a purely physiologic level, lowers our stress.
52:35
The more stressed we are on a mental level, literally, the more
52:44
stress we give to our body and our brain. And you know, when
52:50
you're stressed, it's very hard to remember anything. That's why so many kids
52:54
end up studying really hard, knowing their material and then failing exact as they
53:00
knew it, but they were so stressed. It's why kids freeze up and
53:06
examles because stress significantly diminishes our ability to think, and so meditation, aside
53:19
from all of the spiritual benefits, it lowers our stress level. They also
53:29
say learning new things, learn a new language, learn new months, learn
53:37
things, pick up a subject that you've never studied before, learn it.
53:45
Is there anything you're interested in that you don't already know about, learn it?
53:51
Basically, staying active in the brain. From all of what I've read,
53:57
all of what I've learned, staying active in the brain is the best
54:01
way to protect it, in the same way that staying active in the body
54:07
is the best way to protect the body. There's also a beautiful ier vedic
54:14
herb called Brumme that they say is really, really really good for the brain.
54:22
I haven't seen any kind of actual scientific studies there. Maybe I just
54:25
haven't seen them, but I've heard, I've heard from a couple of different
54:30
sources that taking the herb brum Me is actually very good for brain protection.
54:37
And I'm sure, I'm sure that someone with a background in iervade or a
54:45
background in homeopathy or a naturalpathy could probably give you very very specific more things
54:53
that you can do. But these are all very very very powerful ways to
55:01
keep the body healthy and the brain healthy. This brings to a close this
55:09
hour of inspiration and transformation. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm
55:17
so glad to be together with you all each week, and I look forward
55:23
to being together again next Thursday, same time on Home Time's Radio. But
56:16
it can't be the bat because beak don't looking. But we can't kind of
56:44
get with it. But I can't be because we like