Episode 101 | Swami Divyananda | Working Without Tension

(1) Episode 101 | Swami Divyananda | Working Without Tension - YouTube
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Transcript:
(00:00) foreign [Music] to gurudev I mean I love hearing him talk about the pieces this is God you know um what's what's your take on this we don't want to go to Pieces okay we want a peaceful mind and the slogan that I love of his is do whatever it takes to retain your peace so it's like bottom line whatever it takes and usually we won't do whatever it takes they get attached to things so how do you help yourself do whatever it takes oh and probably the very worst at that it's that um I think the most important thing is
(00:54) regular meditation because the meditation puts us in touch with the part of us that is truly in peace and then we carry a little bit of that into the day but it's our attachments um it's the attachments I have that keep troubling that he's disturbing that piece it's hard to give them up yeah it seems that like there's this like Foundation of Peace that's always existing right like a sense they say part of the mind is always meditating yeah and then what could happen we can get closer to
(01:31) that area and like be with that that part of ourselves and then we can get further out and attached to these other things is it like a coming and going from this piece that's always in US but I know that the meditation reconnects us gives us a reference point and then that you know gives us like a standard that we can measure our mind against or our actions against yeah I think about priorities and how important that's what I heard gurudev saying is like this is the number one priority and to get clear on that and that was
(02:21) something I realized from for myself it's like for most of my life I have not been clear on what my priorities are you just kind of go and it's this thing one day and that thing another day right and so how beneficial it is to get clear this is the most important thing to me yeah no of course he was adamant about it he said if God himself locked up was and was disturbing your peace you tell him go away God go away God yeah I'm I'm protecting my peacefulness yet all the time we move away from it
(02:56) yeah right it's attached out to him attachments how would you describe what it what attachments are um you know I think it's for I swear you go um I I think our ego gets tethered in attachments the way we see ourselves in the world the things that are important to us the things that we feel are important to others so we lift ourselves in their esteem there's a lot of ways akashic words I can't I can tell you a silly story but it's helped me a lot do you please very silly story it was about a selfish woman
(03:45) the most selfish woman so her whole life went by and she'd only done one good deed and it was very ordinary she'd given away a carrot to a beggar who came to the kitchen door um so when the officers of God went through her record they said oh my this is really bad she was really selfish and they saw that one little thing and they said well we've seen worse and I think we should reward her for that one moment of generosity and they said we'll give her one day and have it okay and to remind her of her
(04:23) good deed will send aviko in the shape of the cat to pick her up so that's it happened the carrot arrived she's waiting with a group of people also um waiting for their designation so she climbs on the carrot pulls it tight but a few other people jump on and as the carrot takes off she's shouting at them and saying hey I'm the one who did the good deed she said this is my carrot get off get off and in her excitement she falls off that's the end of the story and I told that story to Swami ramananda and I and
(05:04) I said to him swamiji I folded Thompson on this laundry today do you think that's worth a day or two and he said yeah sure that should be good for a dancer he said but they'll send a laundry basket instead of a carrot to pick you up right anyway um but that that crazy silly story has influenced me and it made me think maybe I don't have to write a book or become powerful or fix everything with the ashram maybe it's just as important to full Thompson on his laundry and bust somebody's dishes and say a nice word
(05:46) and it it the little story helped me to see how much my mind um is driven by ambition I sell I'm close to 80 years old and I still want to achieve things that are probably appropriate for when I was 30 but somehow my mind has gone to on I should be somebody do something uh it just shows me where attachment has taken root and and the way it troubles me it isn't that I'm obsessed with being somebody but I I stress myself I'm always trying a little bit too hard does that sound familiar yeah do you get the sense that there's like a
(06:35) score being kept for us in terms we keep score that's the thing I'm I'm I'm so certain of the graciousness of God that no matter how foolish we are he like a baby how much we love the baby and all that food all their sillinesses I think God sees us that way but in our mind it was our peer group I think we keep score all the time you know this idea of like Rewards or punishments based on the actions that you do and what what is incentivizing maybe my kindness or right in any direction incentivizing your kindness
(07:15) right is it just for the sake of doing it because there's some impulse that I have and I'm not even going any further than that or am I hoping to you know rack up a lot of good karma so that I'm rewarded I think that's the problem the ego drives us a lot in in wrong directions okay I'll tell you another story so it was San Francisco it's about 1984.
(07:41) and I I was the director of the center and it was a massive amount of work and one day Garuda was there we were standing right outside the office and I said to him sorry gee if I do my Hatha Yoga in the evenings I don't even go back into the office I'll get nothing done that evening I said so I guess I should give up during evening practice he looked at me he shook his head and he said work done by your intention have intention not intention having tension is basically useless and uh so see that was 40 years ago it
(08:26) was 40 years ago he said I'm still working on it because I my ambitions my ego are always driving me so just about all the time I have tension so I'm basically a useless farming I don't know about that but it is really interesting what drives us right yes and what it does to us yeah and like with inside of myself I sense that there's a little bit of Doubt as to how much I will actually accomplish if I am if you let go if I'm just letting go yeah you know if I'm if it's not that ego that ambition that's driving me if
(09:10) it's just purely for the joy of the act of whatever I'm doing that there's a like a little competition of voices in my head one that's saying just yeah have faith in that you're gonna accomplish accomplish beautiful things and it's going to be natural and the other ones say no if you listen to that other voice you're going to be lazy and you're not going to do anything I we have a lot of socially culturally and that are instilled in us and they drive yeah yeah it's like this this pressure is
(09:43) necessary in order to do something good yeah yep wrong wrong wrong we have to do a complete reset I feel that way too I don't know it's the experience of feeling that pressure for a long time and where it led me that just doesn't feel like the way anymore it's still I'm still attached to it but that that's not it you have to figure it out yeah you have to figure it out I think when we come to understand how precious if you really come to understand how precious peace is and then can make that the foundation and the
(10:22) goal of how our life our daily life plays out and I think we're both self-correct but there's a so much ego ego and everything gets in there I wonder if like honesty can be an amazing tool to help me stay with my peace right because what's happening okay the goal the intention is to be in a state of Peace you know all the time or as often as possible and then whatever happens causes me to not be in a state of peace now if my ego is still driving that and not want to see hey one second here you're not doing what you said you
(11:00) wanted to do um then uh then there's work to do then there's a shift I have to come back to the piece somehow you know yeah so it's the the honesty is like okay can I like the to me the honesty has the ability to um meet the ego and perhaps prevent the ego from riding the ship the honesty is the one to say where are you really at In This Moment you know okay I'm not in a peaceful State now I can choose to remain where I am or make a shift I think Honesty is a good foundation uh and then just building up
(11:49) the practice of honoring the peace more than we would honor um being esteemed by our culture I think it's probably many layers yeah the esteemed by the culture is that's so huge it is it just Steamrollers every other idea because it seems to be like uh to made to have peace be the priority in in your life or even yoga right you have to kind of distance yourself from what's accepted you know Society I mean to even be a Swami right I mean you're operating on a much different plane than the average person fitting
(12:33) into society you would think I'd be free of roughliness you would think so I'm not carried my ego with me right into swamihood can you share a little bit about your story Mike yeah like how you became like a Swami yeah um yeah there was one point my group dad said to me you've been to Swami before and I think that's true because I was living in the Berkeley iyi and that's DIY where koreananda Parma barcel Steve bacon uh Satya greenstone some of the seniors in our organization were all collected
(13:19) there and when the idea of sanyas came uh every single night they sat together together and talked about it but I went to bed I said not for me I'm getting married I never even sat in on their discussions until one day and I got up in the morning I said of course I'll be a Swami that's a no-brainer and I stuck with that so who knows it just came through somehow what happened there I I slept I don't know what happened you're arrested huh I don't know that's why I think that it's true I've been Swami before
(14:03) all of a sudden it just felt appropriate yeah oh yeah when I was very small I wanted to be a priest both of my parents are atheists so see there's some some scars that was loved that was coming through who knows what's your take on the atheism like in terms of like the religious path right like it's a religious path because my father was as dogmatic as any Catholic about his belief system how would you describe what his belief system was you don't want to know he was a little bit ridiculous wow I thought he just
(14:46) said he believed in science all his science reveals the truth interesting so what does that mean that essentially anything that can be proved yeah or isn't there so much that we can't prove what do you do with it you know his mind is very very narrow but uh he was born in 1904 yeah okay 120 years ago and that was not a bit uncommon for that for that generation no so this path of sinyas and you said that you're you still have the attachments and yes and the ego and all that but do you feel that it has helped you at least
(15:29) move in the direction that you oh incredibly absolutely incredibly I can't tell you I hope this audience out here thinks about would you like to be a Swami it's the greatest help in the world just wearing this cloth means guys don't flirt with me and that's important just as a starting point and then being in a community of other swamis they uh you know we're we're um very interesting group a lot of different personality types the monastery has nine swamis in it now and there's another five who live nearby but
(16:11) each and everyone exemplifies something amazing and the examples are always there we're able to Apple with amazing examples uh and that that's true that's a tremendous Force and and the fact of being a Swami having these vowels we take every single day just you know there's certain mantras and vows that we recite to ourselves daily and um I have the power of that some of some of our mantras are Sanskrit it's a recitation we make in the shower and things like that and as a there is no doubt of what an extraordinary tools they are
(16:59) to shape us constantly shaping this it's very subtle it's a very powerful what do you think is the key to having a successful relationship like whether it's you know any kind of healthy relationship between with someone else yeah but you're asking a very deep question it seems like this is like the hardest thing to me that's why I'm kind of like to have like you know sustained a long period of time you know healthy relationship dealing with all the ups and downs and twists and turns and all of that it's
(17:34) challenging right I think in a way we kind of underestimated how challenging it is that's right I'm so glad to be a Swami I would have failed as a wife I'm just telling you now I have the highest respect for everybody of the household about um yeah I think humility honesty service [Music] um seeing the other person in their best light yeah I I can share one trick that I've used when I have a relationship that's gone South I'll write a list of their best qualities and then recite it to myself daily and it protects the relationship
(18:25) just a little trick that is right it's like again the working with the mind yeah what am I focusing on yeah right that's right if he's focusing on the negative qualities that relationship is finished that if you make the choice just been a few minutes a day focusing on their their virtues their positive qualities it it create it creates like a protective shield it's a it's a pretty amazing practice yeah it seems that there's like the assessment of the individual and themselves and the quality that they
(19:02) have and then there's also the circumstances of events that are happening between you you know it's right that's right and where I have trouble sometimes is in in regard to being right right like especially in regard to this like assessing of what what happened right you know so I'm not like labeling the person but all of a sudden I get righteous about what happened and how I felt that it wasn't you know the right thing and and and so I see the benefit in letting go of like you know do you
(19:42) want to be writer do you want to be in a relationship it could be a question but it's so ingrained this you know being right and whatever it whatever viewpoint um I I just I wonder about like genuinely letting that go The Need to Be Right seems to be like one of the deepest practices there is God bless you I think I think the thing is to know the price you pay fun yeah for holding on or for pushing your points um and I'm sure in every circumstance it's a different price but that's you know having having Harmony having
(20:33) friendships that's so precious in this room and as we give that more importance I think will be better able to let go of being right um taking the humble path and I think having conversations communication how to be essential too to be able to work through these things right to find that areas where you see differently well look at your little girl I think sometimes we all act like four-year-olds I'm sure you're always compassionate with her and helpful to her and if this 70 year old in front of you is acting four years old you have to
(21:20) manifest the relationship you have for your little girl you could think of it that way yeah well The Compassion is such a tool no yeah I think your little girl is probably training you maybe yeah no doubt there's no doubt that she is training me but this is compassion too uh as a powerful tool to use in a relationship with other people is that something that you try to practice tapping into I do I I have certain things if somebody's really irritating me I just aren't a mental recitation of I love you I love
(21:59) you I love you I love you yeah if uh if they're still irritating me I imagined that I put a Garland around their neck if um sometimes I try to attune to that person's mother and um see that person Through The Eyes of the mother who understands their inner being sometimes I pray because I I feel certain that the Lord has complete access to my hidden mind and this person's hidden mind and I pray that the Lord just puts in my mouth the right words so the hidden part of that person might be a drastic communicated group I mean
(22:47) those are systems I try to use that I'm in a difficult conversation and it's all it's true right it's like letting go of the need to blame all right that's it's part of needing to be right yeah yep that's all of it instead of like it's almost in a way the most obvious and simple answer is that there are reasons why this person is behaving the way that they are something has happened to them in their life that is exactly you know it caused this so it may be completely invisible to us yeah
(23:26) and yet there's something that's very real for them yeah how about compassion for ourselves first and foremost yeah okay so why have compassion for myself why do that well you won't get anywhere by beating yourself up so how many silly mistakes if you'd uh watched gurudev in the early years you would sometimes give us a lot of responsibility for which we had no uh experience or the right attributes to handle it well but he would he would accept and support over and over and over and over over so we had I mean if he could have that
(24:26) compassion we should also we're a work in progress could you share a little bit about you know the support in particular that you felt from him oh oh my god well a lot of it um a lot of it it's just in his eyes and smiles his presence he was um deeply compassionate understood our our inner being there were times he addressed me and spoke to me in the very same words my mother would have used for instance he always knew what was the inside and could talk to that not just whatever was the outer circumstance
(25:17) he um in La that's the first time I had an administrative position 73 Los Angeles our Center so we [Music] um yeah he made me director fired me a year later reinstated me a year later fired me a year later reinstated me a year later and then I stayed okay so you fired me three times but he reinstated me again and when I went to him you know with situations to solve he would he would also listen he would always listen carefully and and he would make himself available to guide me pretty incredible right how has your relationship with him
(26:19) changed since he left the body if it has still very much the same uh I'm I still miss him really terribly um but I uh you know I feel like yoga feels such a miracle I think he's here and everywhere in this property he's here and he's helping us uh so it isn't it isn't as though I feel he's gone but I just wish I could see his Jeep or see his face or have the Delight um an interaction with them again but that's all right it's okay yeah he took Avi he took years and years and years to
(27:11) to from him remember 50 years ago when my friend jagadishwarya he had given him a molar to bless and he blessed them all about he said what are you gonna do when I'm not here can you imagine that and then like I would say 10 years 12 years before he passed he said I'm staying in my body for the new people should you people stop bothering me so much okay you can talk to each other and get the guidance you need he said and it's all there in the books he said I'm staying in my body just for the new
(27:51) people and uh similarly he stepped back from being director he uh he used to be founder director but he changed his status I'm just the founder now I'm not going to be the director so you guys administrate the organization if you need to you could call me and I'll try to guide you but basically you need to take charge and when the subordinates have problems they come to you not to me but what happened is one of our Swami's felt that the administration wasn't solving a problem so she went to good
(28:30) enough and he scolded her he said look I've laid out the rules you don't let the administration handled this it she persisted persisted persisted he finally said I can't hear you and they said I'm dead and gone and then he hung up on her see so uh and then in his last year of life he told us he made sure that every senior member knew he's leaving his body okay you did it with me in a phone call he said I won't be there this winter and like in my mind the rest of the sentence come clear came clearly
(29:14) because I won't be in my body when Richard comes and sure enough you passed away that August um so yeah he made sure each one of us knew and that's he was compassionate uh he was personal he wasn't just the perfected soul out there he carried about the person of each of us and in related with all our unique qualities and aspects it's a personal level that seems to be like the most powerful and also obvious when we consider how larger changes has made me think about these big ideas of impacting large groups of people or
(30:10) whatever but ultimately it's on the individual level change houses yeah it's personal you shared um the other day about the teaching of um putting garlands around the the signpost right right which uh was very powerful to me when I when I hear him talking about that and then hearing you talk about that because it feels so right to me but I'm curious maybe you can like clarify a little bit around this because you know the the the devotional Guru path seems like there's so much of that like even with with him like so much focus on
(30:51) him and I wonders is that us doing this you know looking at him more than the teachings itself it's very a very interesting question Navi uh so back to yoga is a very honorable path within the integral yoga system and he did not block those who have had that quality and chose to walk that way um but is one of six paths so he you know I think in honor of those who in respect for those he made himself available but he was adamant that the body itself was not worthy of worship and there was one time it was seated
(31:44) like this there's always like this and it was some it was either giant to your group ornament there were 500 young people there and each one was coming up to offer flowers and there's a pile of flowers that almost up to his knees he was reading a book usually he would be so gracious you would look to each person meet their eyes smile Pat them on the shoulder no this day he was paying no attention to the festivities the flowers the devotion he just sat there and read a book so I'm just saying he could manifest either side of him
(32:32) yeah I just wonder about distraction you know and that was what this teaching is really about in some ways and you you mentioned our society pressures norms and uh what I get the I get the sense that we can get really focused on the the hero the individual hero whoever it is if it's Jesus or George Washington or whoever that we love we maybe have the the tendency to obsess about this particular hero um and I wonder if like the next level is what um like Han says is uh the the next Buddha is the Sangha which
(33:23) these these people really what they can be for us is to inspire us to see that within and to keep on doing our own work you know instead of instead of kind of just taking all my time and just saying oh like I love you the most more than anyone else you're you're amazing all my time doing that is time that I could really spend on like nurturing cultivating that same inner Guru Within Myself yeah I think people it is I think a very delicate path to serve as a guru uh and also to deflect of the Adoration that we laid on him or
(34:08) the projections we had for him he had this R1 statement which I think summarizes it he said this person is a mirror he said whatever you see here if you can see it in me you have it in you okay I'm just here to show you what you have um and it yeah he would it would often say I'm not a scholar I hardly ever read today uh but I'm here to serve you wouldn't he tried not to let us put him up on pedestal he would say show your devotion show your love and devotion by being regular in your practice you bring out the light in you
(35:08) the most amazing part of living here is seeing the impact and the that relationship that people have spent time with him how much they value it and I mean just this whole place being built right it never would have been built if he didn't Kindle that that flame that spark in each individual person to have that passion to build yogaville oh it's true it wasn't I mean he had the shape and name of a man but he was somehow force of nature he was a very extraordinary song and he accomplished so much yeah and thoughts on last week I only
(35:56) touched on some of his accomplishments so this ecology the sagittarianism he's the patron of the Arts he was a supporter of the years he were working for the U.N interface Harmony uh also the medical Fields the interdisciplinary clinics that he set up education his system of Education it just goes on and on um so how could one person be a Pioneer in so many areas seven or eight different areas I know how is that possible so I don't I don't think we can think of him that he had a human form he was and intention
(36:43) of some divinenessence something Beyond where we can understand I guess my question is is there value in trying to understand I think I think we get little just little glimpses of what's there and and we've learned how to access it what it takes to access it and so just cultivating that that he said when he says I am a mirror he said don't strive for the Praises of the mirror strive to become that which you see yeah he was a great Guru and you've met many yeah I didn't find any to compare no this is I think the way he presented
(37:42) the teachings is very very pure because he did deflect so much of the honor and praise that we have done him it kept sending it back find it in yourself find it in yourself I think the the point that you're making about how many different areas he impacted on is is one to read to really pay attention to maybe like how is that possible yeah right um to me the answer that comes is a being who's able to tap into just universal truth of probably through his meditation practice what I would guess getting to the space of of real Oneness
(38:25) where his personality and identity is not there and then all of a sudden the truth comes in yeah you can trust it I think it's something just like that capacity to to subjugate himself or subordinate himself to something that was on a Divine level that's it that's the humility right I think it's uh yeah the willingness to yeah the willingness to do the work to free himself the ego so that he could become a tool of something Divine I think I think and then there's not even the The Taking of credit yeah
(39:12) thanks so much for sharing with me today this is so much fun on me thank you so much so we close with the prayer foreign [Music] the entire universe filled peace and joy love and life [Music] thanks for listening if you've enjoyed this content and think others might as well please feel free to share and subscribe