Latest / Inspiration and Transformation / Who Can Become a Sadhu?
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- 0:05Welcome to inspiration and transformation from the banks of the Gunga with Sadvi Bagwati Saraswati
- 0:11and American Sanyasi living at the parmarth Nikitan Ashram in Rishikesh, India. Sadvi
- 0:17is President of the Divine Shakti Foundation, a charitable organization bringing education, vocational
- 0:23training, upliftment and empowerment programs to women and children. Sadvi is also Secretary
- 0:29General of the Global Interfaith Wash Alliance and director of the world famous International Yoga
- 0:35Festival. Joined the musings of an American Sanyasi as Sadvi shares the wisdom and
- 0:40teachings of her Guru, His Holiness Pujiaswami Chinnant Saraswatiji. Welcome everyone to inspiration
- 0:53and transformation from the holy banks of the Sacred Gunga River in the land of
- 1:02Rishikesh, India. Stages of life right Dharma, right path and so we've
- 1:10talked on a couple of different occasions about the four traditional stages that are given
- 1:17to us in the Indian spiritual tradition that our life tends to go through sequentially
- 1:25for most people. First stage being what we call brahmachadiya ashram your student years,
- 1:32your dharma is study. Then Getajstashram your householder years, where your dharma
- 1:40really is to be a husband, a wife, a mother, a father,
- 1:46and to do your do your duties, whether it's taking care of the
- 1:51home, the kids, bringing home the bread, whatever, it may be,
- 1:55taking care of your aging parents, but your dharma is within the household
- 2:01at that time. And then we've got the two stages of moving away from
- 2:09that von prast a sort of slow retreat. The kids are grown, married,
- 2:19taking care of themselves on their own, don't need me now, shifting
- 2:23into a spiritual focus, and then ultimately into the sinias phase of life,
- 2:30which even if you're not a monastic renunciant, as in someone like those of
- 2:38us in Saffron robes who have taken these vows earlier in life, it said
- 2:45that in the latter stages of life, that's where everyone should be before they
- 2:52actually die, in order to prepare yourself for the next age of your soul's
- 3:00journey. So she asks, well, what if I'm not quite in one
- 3:07or the other? Is there space to not have to choose between shad the
- 3:12which means marriage and sad the which is the renunciation. There absolutely is space
- 3:20for that, and interestingly, there's space on both sides, meaning they're space
- 3:25for it in the not yet married stage and there's space for it in the
- 3:31already married stage. There's lots of people I know who are married, some
- 3:43have children, some don't. They are fulfilling their duties of the household happily,
- 3:51with love, with joy, but ultimately, even within that household,
- 3:57they are living in their minds and in their hearts the path of spirituality.
- 4:04They may not be a full monastic celibate, but ultimately their mind and their
- 4:12heart is really focused on their spiritual paths much more than the entanglements and attachments
- 4:21within the family, even though they're acting in the family with love and duty
- 4:26and care. But their their attention, their focus, their consciousness, their
- 4:33mind, their heart are not stuck and mired in the every minute aspect of
- 4:42that, the attachment of that, but rather there they're living a sort of
- 4:47mental seniasiti life, even though the body is in a family. And then
- 4:56of course you have a situation where you say, well, at this stage
- 5:01where I am right now, who knows what tomorrow is going to be like?
- 5:09I want to focus on my spiritual path. I don't yet want to
- 5:15put myself into a situation in which all of my time, all of my
- 5:20energy, all of my focus is going to be accounted for by things of
- 5:28the family. And this is especially true in Indian families, where a simple
- 5:33marriage isn't just a simple arrangement between two people, but it's actually entering into
- 5:42an entire family system and structure with many other people, all of whom have
- 5:49very clear ideas about how you should spend your time and what you should be
- 5:55paying attention to, and what you should do and what should matter to you.
- 6:00And so there's a lot of people who say, you know, I'm
- 6:04not saying I'll never marry. I'm not saying I'm going to become a lifelong
- 6:10renuncient. But for now, I really want to focus on my spiritual path.
- 6:16Maybe I want to focus on my education more. Maybe I want to
- 6:23focus on something else in my life that takes me into my heart, into
- 6:29my personal dharma, rather than entering a family system drama or a family system
- 6:38dharma. And that's also okay. I mean, it's definitely not something you
- 6:44want to do once you've taken official vows of renunciation, but you haven't done
- 6:50that, You're not over there and a saffron. Sorry. So we all
- 7:00are on different different stages, different ways, different orders of things. Even
- 7:11I mean, there's a lot of people who spend their early years maybe in
- 7:19some sort of monastic training and a deep spiritual training, and then and you
- 7:25know, a little bit later on, end up actually getting married and having
- 7:28families. I mean, there's lots of stories in the West. A lot
- 7:30of the renowned meditation teachers from the Buddhist traditions spent years in Ostrom's in monasteries,
- 7:45in monastic traditions in their late teens, in their twenties, even into
- 7:50early thirties, and eventually ended up coming back and getting into families. And
- 8:00then, of course you have it the other way as well. You have
- 8:03people who get married, do all of that starting young, and then decide,
- 8:11oh, wait, this isn't what I'm supposed to do for the next
- 8:15fifty years of my life, and they do whatever they need to do of
- 8:20their duty, and then they're on a path of renunciation. And then of
- 8:28course you've got those like I already spoke about, who are sort of into
- 8:37at the same time almost and that's all good. Life isn't black or white.
- 8:46Life is not meant to be lived in compartments. We're not items for
- 8:52sale that we need a label on us. And if you go to a
- 8:56store, you need to know, okay, or a grocery store, right,
- 8:58are these are these Granny Smith apples? Or are these Gala apples?
- 9:03Or are these you know, honey crisp apples? You want to know what
- 9:07kind of apples am I buying? You need a label. If you're buying
- 9:11toothpaste, you want to know what is this? It's this the all natural
- 9:16kind that I want? Or is this, you know, some chemical laden
- 9:22synthetic kind. But we're not for sale. We're not items in a rack
- 9:30or at some sort of you know, garage sale that people are going to
- 9:37come and look over and buy. We don't need labels. Walk your path,
- 9:50and as you walk in, stay very open, stay very receptive.
- 9:58I mean, you obviously want walk it with honesty and integrity, So you're
- 10:03not going to take vows of renunciation and celibacy while you're secretly living a household
- 10:09or life. You want, you want to do whatever you do in full
- 10:13transparency and integrity. But whatever you do is exactly right for you, and
- 10:24it may be this for now, and then it may be something different.
- 10:31And as long as you're clear in you that you are fulfilling your own dharma,
- 10:41your spiritual dharma, your dharma in the world as you see it,
- 10:50that's all that matters. I always, I mean for me, I always,
- 10:54I always say, as long as I'm good with God and I'm good
- 11:01with my Guru, like, that's all that matters. I don't actually have
- 11:07to make sure that every single random person in the society, in the community
- 11:16thinks that I've made the right choice. You'll kill yourself like that. Decide
- 11:24who it is that you need to be good with. For me, it's
- 11:28God and my grew that's it. Decide who you need to be good with,
- 11:37and then stay focused on that. People who seem to have an abundance
- 11:48of time and energy to tell you how to live your life are clearly those
- 11:54who are not actually living theres So you want to be really careful whose advice
- 12:01you follow. A really good rule of thumb is only follow the advice of
- 12:07those who actually are somewhere you want to go. If you're going to ask
- 12:15directions from someone, you want to ask directions from someone who knows the way,
- 12:20who's actually ever reached where you're looking to go. Otherwise, their directions
- 12:28make no sense. So make sure that you're taking guidance from people who are
- 12:41living their lives in ways that when you look at it, you say,
- 12:45oh, yeah, I want some of that. But those who tend to
- 12:52spend their lives telling others how to live are usually not those who themselves are
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- 14:22by RAIN and this station. Welcome back to inspiration and transformation. I'm so
- 14:31glad to have you all back here with me. There's two parts to that.
- 14:37The first part is what I speak about all the time, which is,
- 14:43in order to hold this piece when you go, you have to really
- 14:50make it your own when you're here. It's really easy to be peaceful when
- 14:56you're anywhere other than your day to day grind. So simply not having to
- 15:05go to the office, simply not having long to do lists in and of
- 15:13itself leads to a state of peace and joy. But that's a very superficial
- 15:20level, because the moment you get back it's over. What you want to
- 15:26make sure is that the piece you're experiencing here is deeper than just your lack
- 15:35of having to show up at the office, your lack of a to do
- 15:41list, your lack of people saying I need this, I need this,
- 15:46I need that, and the way to do that. When you're here,
- 15:52it's exactly what you're doing. You want to be coming to arty, you
- 15:56want to be in set Sung, you want to be meditating, you want
- 16:00to be spending your time here going deep. There's a lot to do in
- 16:07Rishakesh. Now it wasn't always like that. They used to be sort of
- 16:11nothing to do here except meditate now and I remember when the very first cyber
- 16:17cafe came up. But now there's so much you could do. I mean,
- 16:22you could spend your days in Rishakesh really busy going from here to here
- 16:29and this and that and seeing this and this adventure and this tourist thing.
- 16:33And there's nothing wrong with that. But the dilemma is the piece you get
- 16:41tends not to sink in very deeply. Then you really want to make sure
- 16:49that you have enough time in which you just stop and you just allow this
- 17:00place to actually change you. This is a place where for thousands and thousands
- 17:07of years, the saints, the Yogis have come to meditate. It's a
- 17:15place where, if you go back to our scriptures from thousands of years ago.
- 17:21You go back to the Ramaya. Well, Lord ram Lakshman, they
- 17:29came here and did sadden in this area. You go back to the mahabadhit
- 17:36the pond. Those walked up into the Himalias from here, meaning that thousands
- 17:45of years ago, when these scriptures were written, many thousands of years ago,
- 17:53this was already a holy place to which these divine beings were coming.
- 18:08Already it was already the path to heaven. So there's there's a power here
- 18:22that's much more than the number of yoga studios per square kilometer, and you've
- 18:29got to let yourself actually feel it while you're here. So that's the first
- 18:36part. Sit on the banks of Gunga, meditate, spend your time in
- 18:44spiritual programs. I'm not saying don't enjoy the food, don't enjoy things too,
- 18:49no problem, but just make sure that your schedule includes that time to
- 18:56really go deep. And then it's not just like, Okay, it's two
- 19:00pm, this is my go deep time till my next class at three o'clock.
- 19:07Really create space for that to happen. The second piece, though,
- 19:15is the after you go back part, and this is where we realize the
- 19:21power of choice. As you say, yeah, we go back to traffic
- 19:25jams. Okay, well let's let's look at a traffic jam. Okay,
- 19:29just take a traffic jam. Now, there's two ways of thinking about it.
- 19:36Number one, with the perspective of where I think I'm supposed to be.
- 19:42So this traffic jam is not supposed to be happening, because I am
- 19:48supposed to be at the office, at the meeting, at my yoga class,
- 19:53at the airport, at this dinner, at home, and this traffic
- 20:00jam is now an obstacle on my path over which I have zero control.
- 20:10And when we have obstacles over which we have zero control, this is the
- 20:18stuff. Depression is made of life situations that seem out of our control,
- 20:27exactly the opposite of what we want, and there's nothing we can do about.
- 20:32It. Is the stuff that leads to misery. But there's a whole
- 20:37other perspective, which says, here I am, here, I am that's
- 20:45it. Whether I thought I was going to be at home, or I
- 20:49thought I was going to be at a dinner, or I thought I was
- 20:52going to be at the office, clearly I was incorrect because I am not
- 20:57there. And if I was supposed to be there. I would be there,
- 21:03but by virtue of the fact that I am here, I understand I
- 21:08was incorrect in my assumption that I was supposed to be there, and here
- 21:15I am. And that's when you say, well, thank God, because
- 21:22there is this podcast I've been dying to listen to. Thank God, I
- 21:27get to listen to the next chapter in this book I'm listening to. Oh,
- 21:34I can use this time to call that person I haven't connected with in
- 21:38such a long time, and I keep meaning to connect, but it's not
- 21:42going to be a two minute call. I really want to spend some time.
- 21:48This traffic jam's going to take me an hour. Great, Now I
- 21:53can make that call. Or you know what, the universe gave me this
- 22:00traffic jam because I skipped my jeppa practice this morning. I didn't do the
- 22:07chanting that I do every morning, came home late last night, hit the
- 22:12snooze button, skipped my jeppa and you know, I've been feeling kind of
- 22:15badly about it all day, the spiritual equivalent of moving through the day without
- 22:22having brushed my teeth. There's just something off all day long. And now
- 22:29the universe has said, just stop. And now I get to sit here
- 22:34for the next hour and do my jeppa, how wonderful. And the thing
- 22:42about our world is everybody understands traffic. I mean, assume that there is
- 22:48a meeting that they are expecting you at. What are they going to do?
- 22:53Say, leave your car and walk? I mean really, what is
- 23:00anybody going to say to you? Abandon the car, get on a bus,
- 23:07fly What do you mean you don't have a flying car? People understand.
- 23:15Yeah, it happens sometimes totally out of your control. But it's all
- 23:22about our mindset. And so the key to holding that charge is changing your
- 23:30mindset. How many situations of the day make you feel like your stock and
- 23:37how many options do you have? So, for example, let's say you
- 23:42got stuck in traffic day after day and you decided, forget it, I'm
- 23:47going to take the subway from now on. At least it runs by a
- 23:49reliable time schedule. Now you're on the subway and rush hour and you're jammed
- 23:56up against two hundred other people and you can barely breathe. Okay, So
- 24:03again, one part of you may be, oh, I hate this,
- 24:07this is horrible, and this guy smells and why this? But another alternative
- 24:14is wow, I had forgotten that actually we are one. I had forgotten
- 24:25that there actually is no place I end, and the rest of the world
- 24:30begins. Thanks God for jamming this person right up against me so that I
- 24:37would remember that, because actually there's no place I end, and she begins,
- 24:44Thanks for the reminder. Thanks for reminding me that actually we're all one,
- 24:52and this overcrowded suboaycar is just a physical manifestation of the multi celled organism
- 25:07the humanity is. Thanks for the reminder. Thanks for the opportunity to be
- 25:15in such close contact with humanity. So it's all about how you think,
- 25:26So the mindset shift is key. And also just make sure that you create
- 25:33what we call a sunga your community. You know the words set sung sung
- 25:41is the association of the community of set this truth. So we typically define
- 25:49it as in the presence of truth, but it can also be used to
- 25:56talk about right association. Are you associating with truth? And so take care
- 26:08of your set sung when you go back. Who is your sunga? Who's
- 26:15your association meaning who do you hang out with? Who's your community? And
- 26:25is it a community of truth or is it a community focused on you know,
- 26:36getting as drunk as you possibly can choose your sunga very wisely, because
- 26:45that's going to be what your mind is focused on. If I'm surrounded by
- 26:48ten people and all they're talking about is the clothes they're buying, how much
- 26:57they cost, what's in style, how things look, what accentuates different parts
- 27:03of the body, and one person is saying, god, you know,
- 27:07I my waist isn't thin enough, and another person saying my hips are too
- 27:11big, and another person saying my bust is too small, and someone saying
- 27:17mine is too big. No matter, no matter how strong my spiritual grounding,
- 27:22maybe stick me with those people for long enough, and slowly, slowly,
- 27:33slowly, your own mind starts going, huh, yeah, how am
- 27:36I too it over here? It's just it's the energetic power of association,
- 27:47and so be really careful now. You can't choose your next door cubicle,
- 27:56or your next door office, or your next door neighbor. These are things
- 27:59most the out of your control. But you can choose who you go for
- 28:03lunch with. You can choose who you spend your coffee breaks with. You
- 28:10can choose who you hang out with after work, who you hang out with
- 28:12over the weekends. And you can certainly choose the level of socializing you do
- 28:22with the person in the next cubicle or the next office or the house next
- 28:26to you, based on how similar their priorities are to yours. Make a
- 28:34really concerted, deliberate effort to surround yourself as much as you can with those
- 28:45who are in alignment with what you want, and you may find new things.
- 28:53You may say, well, God, you know in my other life,
- 28:56I don't have that, Well, that's really exciting. Find a new
- 29:02songa find people who sing kuritan once a week or twice a week. Find
- 29:11people who are getting together to meditate, Find people who are getting together to
- 29:15read passages from different scriptures and discuss them. And if people aren't, create
- 29:22a group. I was just in Singapore a few weeks ago for a big
- 29:30conference, and while I was there, I had dinner at the home of
- 29:34the daughter of some very close devotees from many, many years. And their
- 29:41daughter now lives in Singapore, and she's young and newly married with young kids,
- 29:48and she's formed a group with a bunch of her other young friends who
- 29:53are mothers. They're all of different religions and they get together. I think
- 29:59it's one a week, and they share passages prayers from each of their different
- 30:06religions, and they discuss what that means and what that means for their lives.
- 30:12And these are young, hip, twenty something year old women creating a
- 30:19sana in the midst of their other, you know, sophisticated metropolitan society.
- 30:32So it may not exist already created. Invite people over to sing here at
- 30:37them, Invite people over to watch that song and then talk about it.
- 30:45Invite people over to meditate. We've got that power to create it, because
- 30:55the truth is, if you've noticed that it doesn't exist, you're wanting it.
- 31:00I guarantee you're not the only one. I guarantee people aren't going to
- 31:06say, what are you crazy something spiritual? Oh, come on, let's
- 31:08just go get drunk. There will be people who will say, oh,
- 31:14thank God, thank God, I've been wanting something like this so much.
- 31:22And you may start with three, four people. It doesn't have to be
- 31:25thirty people, as long as you've got a couple people, even two.
- 31:33I would say one, but sometimes one is busy, Say we're not at
- 31:37least two people in case one is busy, who you can spend time with,
- 31:45and then slowly slowly you'll attract others. So see what's already there,
- 31:52see what you can do, and then create it. I'm sure that even
- 32:00in our community here, the physical community here, the online community here,
- 32:08that there are going to be people from where you are. Where are you
- 32:14from from France? Okay, So that's not the end of the world.
- 32:22I would about. We've got a lot of people from France who come to
- 32:23Satsang and who watch it online and who are really interested in connecting in a
- 32:30French community. So you'll find it and create it. Yeah, and until
- 32:42then, just remember you've got your community here. Also, even if we're
- 32:46not physically together, we're together. But create something where you live. It'll
- 32:53make all the difference for you. This is o t RFM, part of
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- 34:32This is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation. Why are humans attracted by
- 34:45maya means illusion and not by devotion? Well, I wouldn't say that,
- 34:54Yeah, We're definitely attracted by maya, for sure, but we're also attracted
- 35:02by devotion Maya. Maya is that that energy of illusion that wraps itself like
- 35:15a veil around us and convinces us that we are this body, and therefore
- 35:27that all that matters is the body should enjoy pleasures, that we are our
- 35:38role in society, that we are our bank accounts, that we are our
- 35:44possessions. Therefore, we should spend all of our time and energy accumulating more
- 35:52and more money so we can have more and more possessions, and more and
- 35:57more power, and higher and higher levels of social status. Maya pulls us
- 36:07outward, away from our hearts, away from our souls, away from truth,
- 36:15into all that glitters, essentially, and therefore maya leads to to suffering,
- 36:28because when I think that I am this body, and I think that
- 36:35I am its role, and I think that I am its possessions and its
- 36:39power and its relationships, and well, then there's never enough. Then I
- 36:46need more power, I need more money. Why does this guy have more
- 36:50than I do? Why does she have more than I do? Why this?
- 36:55Why that it's not fair? Then there's greed, there's lust, there's
- 37:00competition, there's feelings of inadequacy. So maya leads to suffering, and it's
- 37:08definitely a fact of life. It's there, it's sticky, it's the ever
- 37:20present lure away from our spiritual practice. But the power of devotion is also
- 37:30very strong. And I wouldn't say we're attracted by maya but not devotion.
- 37:37We are attracted by devotion. We love devotion, We love to love.
- 37:45It's why, you know, with no advertising, many hundreds to many thousands
- 37:54of people show up at Gunga Art the every night. It's why people flood
- 38:00temples, It's why people all over the world, or sitting in front of
- 38:08some beautiful image of the divine, or sitting not in front of an image,
- 38:16because to them the divine is formless. But nonetheless their eyes are closed
- 38:22and they're in prayer and love. So there is what we call a shakti
- 38:30of bukti, which is that power of devotion, and it absolutely pulls us.
- 38:37It's why, for example, whether you understand Sanskrit or Hindi or not,
- 38:45the art they feel so good. It's why, whether you are a
- 38:50Hindu or not, people love going to cure them. They love going to
- 38:55devotional chanting. Whether you actually really worship Krishna or Ram or Hanuman or Doorga,
- 39:05it doesn't matter. I remember Pujaswa me Jani several years ago. We're
- 39:09in San Paolo, Brazil, at this huge event with fifteen thousand people in
- 39:17a big park. It was a Yoga for Peace event, big park of
- 39:22San Paolo. You've got, you know, fifteen thousand Catholics mostly chanting and
- 39:32singing in ecstasy with ju tal with Krishna Das. Now, they weren't turning
- 39:45people into Hindus. It wasn't that these people now were going home and you
- 39:51know, actually worshiping in the Hindu tradition. But there's something about the power
- 40:00of devotion, of love for God that feels so beautiful that it's going to
- 40:07draw thousands and thousands and thousands of people to come and to chant and to
- 40:14sing and to pray and to love and to be together, even if it's
- 40:21a completely different religion. That's Buck, the Kishakti or the power of Buck,
- 40:28the the power of love. So yes, Maya has a power.
- 40:32It is sticky. It blinds us. People talk about the veil of Maya
- 40:43and it is it clouds our eyes. But for me. I've noticed it's
- 40:50it's a sticky veil. Because when I think of a veil, I think
- 40:52of something that could very easily be blown away by the wind, Like just
- 40:57a little bit of breeze comes and the veil would be gone. Whereas maya
- 41:01sticks Maya you have to actually quite consciously and deliberately work to free yourself from
- 41:14but you can't. Every moment you spend in meditation is a moment you're free
- 41:21of maya. Every moment that you spend connected to your true self is a
- 41:29moment you've broken free of maya. Every moment you spend in soul to soul
- 41:35connection with another being is a moment you've broken free of Maya. So we
- 41:43break through a lot. When we become mindless and unconscious, Maya gets sticky
- 41:52again. And this is why actually devotion is such a beautiful, beautiful antidote
- 42:00to it, because when you're in love, maya doesn't stick. It's like
- 42:08that that love of devotion is somehow greasy, you know, it's like covering
- 42:15yourself with ghee or something that actually keeps the veil of maya from sticking on
- 42:22you. And it doesn't matter what your religion is It doesn't matter how you
- 42:29conceive of the divine, but just to find love in your heart, whether
- 42:37you say for God, whether you say for creation, whether you say for
- 42:43certain manifestations of creation. You're a grandmother, you're a loved one, your
- 42:49tree, a sunset, the stars in the sky, gunga. But just
- 42:57that experience of real love that transcends what you want from someone, that transcends
- 43:06the sensory pleasure or ego gratification that you might get from them. That's actually
- 43:15a love of that, that divine essence in them. That's devotion, and
- 43:24so we're definitely attracted to that. It's it's a magnet. We just have
- 43:31to let ourselves go there rather than get wrapped up in Maya's sticky rail.
- 43:43This is OTRFM, part of the Iom Radio Network. Home Times Magazine is
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- 44:22improve yourself and keep your life going. I'm Lisa Kaye and my Between Heaven
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- 44:38Earth Radio is conscious living for your soul every Wednesday at four pm Eastern Time.
- 44:47Like Baldwin, with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. I grew
- 44:52up loving circuses and other traveling animal shows, but it never occurred to me
- 44:55what life might be like for the animals. Training wild animals to do things
- 45:00they don't understand takes force routine discipline with a hook or whip with the heel
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- 45:10Please contact People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals seven five seven six two
- 45:15two pet A Welcome back. This is Sadvi Bagavati Saraswati with inspiration and transformation.
- 45:29So this idea that your life flashes before your eyes right when you die.
- 45:37Interestingly, This is an idea that transcends religions. I've heard people from
- 45:45every walk of life, every religion, every culture, every country. Usually,
- 45:51our ideas about death tend to be very culturally and religiously related. This
- 45:57is what I've heard everywhere. I think that the reason it would be true,
- 46:06if it is true at least according to our Vedic understanding of life and
- 46:15death, is that my next birth is going to be based upon the fruits
- 46:25of the karma. Means the results of the actions of what I have done
- 46:34in this birth and in my past births. Some of my actions their results
- 46:38happen immediately. As I always say, it's like a bar fight. Right
- 46:45I hit you, you hit me right back. We go home with black
- 46:49eyes. But our karmic relationship is over. We don't have to carry it
- 46:54into our next birth, but a lot of the action that we do actually
- 47:02bear fruit later in this life or even in next life. And so to
- 47:10give us an awareness of why we're going where we're going, I could imagine
- 47:20it would be helpful to see and to suddenly understand. Ah okay. I
- 47:29also think that it might make our life sort of understandable as the thread that
- 47:38it is because each life is just a thread in a tapestry of creation.
- 47:47I mean, each of our threads are interwoven. We've got these these karmic
- 47:53journeys and karmic threads where each of us is interwoven with each other, interwoven
- 48:01with our circumstances and situations, and some of it makes no sense at all
- 48:08why we're living it. I get questions all the time why people who are
- 48:17really beautiful and honest and caring and generous have these bad things happened to them?
- 48:25And these people who are crooks, liars and steelers and cheats seem to
- 48:32succeed these things that make no sense while we're living them. I think that
- 48:38suddenly, if as we died, we were able to see not just our
- 48:45actions but the whole, the way that our thread wove into the tapestry of
- 48:52creation, that that would be really beautiful. And again, I can't tell
- 48:59you that this actually happens or not, but should it happen, I think
- 49:05that would be really beautifully kind of the universe to offer us that that view
- 49:12from a distance of oh, yeah, this is how this thread of your
- 49:16life that is just coming to an end wove so beautifully into the tapestry of
- 49:24all of creation, and here's where that thread's going to pick up in the
- 49:36next life as a new thread through the same tapestry of creation. So that,
- 49:46for me would be why we would see it. But what's even more
- 49:52important than that is can you see it while you're living it? I mean,
- 49:59don't don't wait for the flash of an eye. Oh this is what
- 50:04my life was about, because unfortunately at that moment, there isn't anything else
- 50:08you can do about it, neither what it was like nor where you're going.
- 50:16It's just information for information sake. The real question is can you see
- 50:22it while you're living it? Can we open our eyes while we're living to
- 50:30actually see the way that our thread is weaving into the tapestry, to actually
- 50:40see the actions we are performing as we perform them, so that we don't
- 50:50find ourselves victims of our own actions, victims of the fruits of our own
- 50:57karma, but that we become very conscious co creators of our life, of
- 51:06our world. So don't worry about what you're going to see for a very
- 51:13very brief moment, possibly when you die. Focus on what you can see
- 51:20while you are alive. Open your eyes, open your third eye, meditate
- 51:30on the third eye. Open that third eye so you really can see the
- 51:37truth. And then what you see at the end of your life may or
- 51:43may not be there, but that's all right because you will have already seen.
- 51:46You'll know where you're going. And as far as the Guru, yeah,
- 51:53the Guru comes, but it's it's not a one waste means. The
- 52:02Guru is there, but we have to be open. You know. I
- 52:07think about it like water flowing out of a top. But if we are
- 52:14a metaphoric bucket and our bucket is upside down, we're not going to benefit
- 52:21from the beautiful water flowing out of the top. But a lot of us
- 52:25are in that state where we are this upside down bucket and we're we're praying,
- 52:32and we're wondering, where's Grace, where's the Guru? And it's there.
- 52:39Grace is there. The Guru is there in your life, maybe already,
- 52:45but our our bucket is upside down. And so this is why we
- 52:52do sod nuts, why we introspect, that's why we work on being conscious
- 52:59and mind so that we can turn that bucket right side up and actually accept
- 53:08an absorb, and see and therefore benefit from that flow of wisdom and grace,
- 53:17that presence of the gurdu. And when you say how do we know,
- 53:27you'll know in your heart. The mind likes to shop. That's what
- 53:32we're trained to do. So the mind is used to sort of sizing people
- 53:37up, and sadly we do it even with gurus. And you get a
- 53:40lot of people these days sort of goo shopping. Well, this one can
- 53:45do this, and this one can do this, and this one is.
- 53:52You're not going to find a guru or gu shopping. All that's going to
- 53:57do is keep you out of your heart, so you don't actually feel the
- 54:00presence of the guru. Instead, get out of the head, get into
- 54:08the heart and feel is there a light that I feel in me? And
- 54:20this is an important distinction. The light that the Guru shines isn't a light
- 54:27on the guru himself or herself. It's not look at me, aren't I
- 54:31so great? You should be my disciple? The Guru is the one who
- 54:38shines the light on us. And so it's not about getting caught up in
- 54:46charisma or a show of light. It's about actually the presence of the one
- 54:57in whose presence you experience the light of you that suddenly, for the first
- 55:07time, you're able to see and feel you, the light of you,
- 55:19and that's the group. This brings to a close, this hour of inspiration
- 55:28and transformation. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm so glad to
- 55:36be together with you all each week, and I look forward to being together
- 55:40again next Thursday, same time on Home Time's radio. But they would be
- 56:37don't because I don't be Okay, don't be when ok what was been?
- 57:02But I couldn't be out alre