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Graham Schweig sits down with Avi Gordon in a conversation that covers the importance of yoga, gratitude, and selflessness in reconnecting with one’s heart and embracing life’s conditioning forces. They discuss the transformative power of yoga in turning inward to confront inner conflicts and suffering, ultimately leading to self-awareness and growth. The role of the guru in guiding and reinforcing inner wisdom is highlighted. The conversation also touches on the significance of choices, trust in the process, and the power of supportive relationships. Self-care and selflessness are explored as interconnected aspects of spiritual practice, promoting both personal well-being and the capacity to serve others. Bio: Dr. Schweig is Distinguished Teaching and Research Faculty at the Center for Dharma Studies of the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley. Schweig earned the master’s degree in religious studies at University of Chicago Divinity School, a master’s of theological studies in history of religions and a master’s of theology in comparative religion from Harvard University Divinity School, and earned his doctorate in comparative religion from Harvard. Schweig joined the faculty of Christopher Newport University (CNU) in the fall of 2000. Prior to coming to CNU, he was a teaching fellow at Harvard University, lecturer at University of North Carolina and Duke University, and while teaching at CNU, he was for two years, Visiting Associate Professor of Sanskrit at the University of Virginia. He has been recognized several times for excellence in teaching, including CNU’s annual Alumni Faculty Award for Teaching and Mentoring (2013), and has delivered over three dozen invited lectures at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC for over fourteen years. He has also given lectures widely in the US and in Europe, and has been invited to be a consultant on doctoral dissertation committees or a doctoral dissertation examiner in the US, Europe, India, and Australia. He has conducted yoga workshops, offered seminars and given lectures around the US and Europe for well over 20 years. In addition to his academic endeavors, Dr. Schweig has been a student of many traditional teachers of yoga, and is recognized by Yoga Alliance at the highest level of E-RYT 500 and YACEP. He has travelled to India thirteen times, once for a year on a Smithsonian Institution funded grant, and has been a practitioner of traditional and heart-centered yoga for over 50 years.

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(1) Episode 103 | Graham Schweig | We Seek the Flow of the Heart - YouTube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xWLetcpS2o

Transcript:
(00:01) foreign so Grandma I want to start by asking you this question what matters to you what matters to me is to see others elevated by the practice of yoga hmm that's what matters to me that's what I that's why I teach that's why I study that's why I write that's why I publish I want to see others fulfilled in human life by the practice of yoga why is that so important to you makes me happy as simple as that it's as simple as that it makes me happy when I see others become happy makes me
(01:04) happy see I have this hypothesis a little bit though we all share the same purpose actually okay well maybe you should educate me as well with that purpose is I don't know it's just a hypothesis okay let's see when you say that it reinforces it because I asked this question a lot and almost always the answer uh is around service yeah so it seems that that's what all of our hearts are are craving is to do something good for the world now how how that manifests and what particular type of good is
(01:34) that's for the individual to decide in your case it's to see people uplifted uh through the practices of yoga yeah well I think the common feature that you're to which you're speaking is everyone has a heart that desires to be released into relation with others and with ultimately the Supreme and it's natural for the heart to flow and it's unnatural for the heart to be hardened and not flowing so I think we seek you know the flow of the heart when we come into this world as little infants we're expecting the
(02:18) flow of the mother's heart to us and we're also as infants just working from the heart with our hearts flowing to the mother now that can be interrupted that can be disappointed later on or early on in life so many things can obstruct the flow of the heart so it's about returning to the Real Purity of heart because it seems that there's a bit of a danger in allowing that to flow that maybe that's what happens right it happens naturally when we're when we're infants and then we get burned that's
(02:57) right and and sure that's right hurt and and so then maybe the reaction is well this is we're questioning is it a good idea to allow the heart of my love to flow anymore yeah well you know that that's what is so beautiful about yoga is that through its various practices and the practices can be you know complex but the essence of the practice is to release the heart to all others and to all beings and ultimately to the Divine so it's a complete practice of the heart ultimately even though it may start with
(03:35) the body you know and it may start with and also um deal with disciplining the mind but ultimately the only thing we can take with us is what's in our hearts when we leave this world it's what's in our hearts so how do we do that I mean obviously you could say all the Yoga practices but if you can sum it up to how I can connect with my heart and live a life with love of yoga yeah how do I do that in yoga we realize how much the universe is embracing us we take that for granted in conditioned life but
(04:17) air we are breathing all right just breathe in just that what to speak of when you peel an orange amazing I mean there's so much that makes us possible with that's effortless on our part so much is embracing us from the universe yoga is about returning the Embrace we return the embrace by allowing our hearts to flow fully and thoroughly and purely to others and to the whole universe yeah just earlier I think you were talking about you know reversing the flow or when the flow is reversed that's right um and I I wondered if the flow is
(05:08) reversed when I do exactly what you're talking about and I would maybe label it with gratitude so as soon as I am grateful for this experience of being alive the flow is reversed or is it is that what happens yeah that's I mean that might be a bit simple um that well first of all there are a few things flowing okay so while the universe is embracing Us in so many ways the conditioned the conditioning forces or the forces of conditioning are also flowing toward us so we each find ourselves in a particular family
(05:51) we find ourselves surrounded in a particular culture with particular education we didn't really design all that you know we just sort of got plopped down into that okay uh you didn't choose your parents and I didn't choose mine I'm really glad that you know they came up with mine that's fine but not everyone feels that way the idea then is that whatever the conditioning even goodness is a conditioning though even even though I had great parents that's still a conditioning it's about complete fulfillment of the
(06:29) self in this life and that goes beyond the goodness and and the harshness of our conditioning and that's very tough to achieve it's not easy to achieve so there is the flow of the heart that gets obstructed but then there's the flow of conditioning forces which would keep us in this conditioned state if we do nothing it is the flow of the heart that will overcome those forces of nature and that will reverse the flow of their impact on this I would even say maybe Embrace those forces of nature the conditioning
(07:12) to see that they have a purpose as well and to even have gratitude for them we were talking about the my relationship with my samskaras that if I look at oh these things that have happened to me and I wish that they didn't and I feel bad about all of them that's one Viewpoint and then I can look at them and say oh like see the perfection in all of it yeah and say wow each of those things had to happen in order for me to be right here right now that's right and so then I have gratitude for them as
(07:39) well yeah well put very well put um patanjali says it uh in his way he says that that suddenly all of those sunscadas those mental impressions of those experiences and and the mind is the repository of all those wishful fearful and painful and pleasurable experiences and but when we practice yoga we take up a serious practice of yoga we are in effect not dissolving those past experiences but we are transforming our relationship with them to where we can be grateful and it's hard to be grateful for Harsh experiences it's hard
(08:21) but there's a place for them and I think that's the genius of patanjali in his psychology of yoga that we reverse the flow of the effects of those things and our relationship with those those song Scars are completely changed transformed him I wonder if it would be as hard as challenging if it was more common for humans to be practicing having gratitude for the challenges themselves like I I wonder does it make it that much more challenging feeling like I'm in this alone that there's I don't really have examples
(09:07) around me of other people who are saying like wow that challenge happened to me that hardship happened to me and I really learned a lot from it yeah that seems very unusual to hear something like that right right well you know in the bhagavad-gita Krishna teaches that we are not alone that's part of the conditioning that we feel like we're in our selves apart from others apart from the universe and you know this is why I like the the word that I sort of make up from the word individual I think we're too busy
(09:49) being in our dividuality when we're really just interdividuals where little tiny specks of the total reality UNS you know unseparable even though we may feel separation but we're actually unseparable um uh totally unisolated but yet we may feel ourselves to be isolated so that's the conditioned state so to remove those obstructions to feel connection with everything is a natural causation for gratitude and not we shouldn't have gratitude artificially like I'm really grateful for that kid that beat me up in the playground back
(10:35) in the day well you know I mean are you really I mean well yeah because I'm working out now so I can be stronger so no kids will will beat me up again well that's see that's action and reaction that's karma we're talking about something that goes beyond Karma well even beyond that it makes me think of the difference between thinking something and experiencing it yeah you know the path from the mind to the heart yes right I can think all sorts of things and that's okay and maybe that's a step in
(11:06) the direction right right but to actually to feel it right to experience the sensation of gratitude in the body this is beyond oh yeah that's that's an exalted state that's an exalted state to really be grateful for everything and and also you know on my yoga path what I realized is that I can do it sometimes you know that this is one aspect that I feel is not really talked about um as often as as perhaps it would be good to talk about it that you know we we speak about these things often and I think totality but the truth of of what
(11:48) my inner Guru says is that it's it's always fluctuating it's always fluctuating so it's a it's a aspect of the mind that thinks like oh you know I experienced some samadhi and it's going to be permanent and last and now I've tagged the label on myself as like an enlightened being or something like that but from where uh I'm sitting every moment is an opportunity to practice and it never ends yes beautiful well that that itself that attitude that every moment is an opportunity is approaching
(12:21) a permanent I mean that is what we're supposed to be viewing and seeing ideally it's it's when we see our yoga practice as one thing and then our our existence in the world is another that's problematic you know that's problematic and and look I mean it's surprising how the world can surprise us and wake us up things that might ordinarily condition one person to a yogi will be something that wakes us up more and makes us more attentive look when I first started practicing yoga it was when I was 13 years old I
(12:58) was doing poorly in middle school and my parents said ah let's put them in a private school they were well to do and they could easily do that so they put me in a private school and the Headmaster said well I'm starting summer school soon you might want to get ahead and I said well okay um my I looked at my parents and they said fine you know I said what is the course that I would be taking and he said linguistics now you know most 13 year olds really don't know what Linguistics is and I certainly didn't know
(13:33) and I'm not even sure many adults actually know quite what Linguistics is but I found out soon enough he was going through the structure of languages in the Middle East hittite Egyptian pictographic languages you know Arabic Hebrew and then he went to India and then he started talking about Sanskrit texts and yoga sacred texts and inexplicably so this is in a summer you know kids think summer school this is a drag this Summer's a time for play Summer's a time for just you know freedom from school here I am in summer
(14:13) school right at a new private school and I'm learning about Linguistics which I could care less about but I'm hearing about Sanskrit texts interest inexplicably it just perked my ears up I just said I have to learn about this so I would make a pilgrimage down grew up in Washington DC I'd make a pilgrimage down to back then they were called occult bookstores that would have books on yoga and Eastern religions so I'd spent all day on Saturdays just sitting in the aisle reading books and at the end of the day I would buy one
(14:50) book they were inevitably you know books on yoga and that's how I started but but look how it happened yeah summer school what a drag doing poorly in school I had to go to summer school you know private school now I'm going to summer school but yoga appeared one word for Lotus many words for lotus in Sanskrit but one is pankaja that which is born out of the muck and lotuses are famous for coming out of murky monkey gooey ponds and they they grow out from it and they Blossom the most beautiful flower in the
(15:30) world right from the muckiest murkiest water so that's how yoga showed up in my life out of mundane school education which I could never quite get used to but there it was I was being directed to a life of yoga you know it's beautiful I think about this and you know my my approach to uncomfortable things that happen in my life I I don't feel compelled at this point to go searching for them like the the suffering essentially but what I'm curious about is can I have no interest in searching out the suffering but at the same time
(16:14) really see that there's a good chance that suffering is going to come and that it is an opportunity when it does come and your your story and then the other aspect of it is how things outside of our control and decisions that other people make of such influence on the course of our lives right like this situation of you being at this middle school and your parents decision to send you this other thing and then the decision of this teacher to reach out to you and offer you um a Linguistics and then you in this
(16:49) moment you heard uh you know about Sanskrit and that changed the course of your life right I hear it in in the story so like what do I do with that and for and I think most of us have these situations where in one moment and one one particular day something happened which Alters a trajectory of your life yes and to me the conclusion is like let go to this ride you know I'm not in control here that's right that's beautiful yes exactly that's exactly right we don't control these things it's a it's a Grace
(17:25) it's a Grace that these things happen you know and then when now going back to something you said earlier sometimes we compartmentalize yoga like it's part of our lives and then I go to work or I take care of the children whatever okay or the parents or whatever well you know it's a as we practice yoga our yogic depth of field if I can use a photographic term phrase our yogic depth of field gets deeper and broader it starts off narrower but as we practice it gets deeper and it goes broader I call that the yogic depth of
(18:03) field our and in the field the word for field in Sanskrit Israel and in the bhagavad-gita that word is used in the 13th and 14th chapters that what is our field of awareness our sphere of awareness and how much of that do we engage yoga and so that's the yogic depth of field and and so we heard a tape last night of Sri gurudeva talking about the yamas and the nemas and those those are all about the depth of field how much do we enter the our depth of field with kindness and loving compassion and with complete
(18:44) non-violence at even subtle levels ahimsa being the first of the yamas and then Satya and then then astaya and so on how much can we be purified of our interactions with people and just allow the heart again the heart to flow so these five yamas are designed to allow the heart to flow to others yeah and the neomas are allowing us to develop the purity of heart within so what the wars that happened on the outside are because of the wars that happen on the inside all wars begin on the inside and then they get acted out
(19:25) on the outside that's why we have trouble in this world we're the inner struggle you know the the yoga invites this inquiry Within right and it seems that it or what I'm what I'll ask you is why do you think it's so challenging um to turn inward for a person right yes it seems almost like a way of life to be focused completely on the external yes is it is it fear I'm afraid to to to Really look at the thing that I control I don't control much if anything but my inner world would make a lot more sense to me to
(20:15) focus on than all these things out completely obviously outside of my control yeah yes the outward gaze gets very distracted by the things of the world there are a lot of distractions that the the hearing gets distracted you know one's in a workshop some practitioners ask me how do I deal with the mess of the world it's so it's so I just carry it around with me all the time yeah I said I bet you uh I bet you watch and hear the news yeah they said yes in fact sometimes they can't even I have to even get
(20:59) different sources of news and I said look the bhagavad-gita gave us the model of conflict and misery and suffering in the first chapter as far as I'm concerned the same thing's happening over and over but just different players in different forms the Gita says there will always be suffering in this world not to to to to to to disregard it not to diminish it no not at all but the the irony is by by being so disturbed by it you can't really fully address it you have to be able to go within to be able to perceive more accurately what is
(21:43) happening on the outside they're commensurate so to the extent that I can go deep within myself is to the extent that I can actually deal with what's happening outside myself and that's why Krishna says to Arjuna after he after Arjuna dumps the troubled contents of his heart his shattered heart unto Argent and Krishna he says Krishna says be a yogi go Within he's saddled with an irresolvable ethical dilemma at the start of the Gita which propels him to go within there's no way to solve this dilemma whether to
(22:20) fight or not to fight there's no way to solve this on an external outside ethical dilemma the only way to solve this for him is to go inside because all Wars all struggles all conflicts start on the inside and then perhaps what's realized when I go inside is how important humility is and how real humility is because if I'm making assessments about the state of the world yeah the condition of the world right there I see that's ego big time right like what do do I do I really think I'm in a position
(23:02) to be qualified to make uh an assessment of the state of the world I mean it's just just even look at that yeah how much that's out of my league as a human being like I success state of the world is ridiculous to think that I could do that right but you could read the first chapter of the Gita and say okay here it is pretty much you know in a nutshell state of the world's messy it's just it's designed to be messy it's designed to bewilder us yeah and to to encourage us to go deep within
(23:37) because the inward division the inward Vision the inward gaze first allows us to contend with what is conflictual within ourselves because if we don't know what's conflictual inside of ourselves then we can't conquer it you know you can't control you can't conquer something that you're not aware of in the first place you have to first become aware of it and then you have the option the opportunity to do something about it so the the inward gaze is about seeing the conflictual energies within ourselves
(24:16) within the sun various and events of our lives and so on our histories and then with the practice of yoga we can begin to reverse their effects on us that's the idea does that take courage to go inside and honestly look and be aware what's happening oh I think it takes a great deal of Courage it's the most frightening thing for humans to do is to look at the war Within it's much easier to create Wars on the outside as a way of avoiding the war on the inside is that what my heart really wants like
(24:54) is that is that what what the heart is really calling for us to do look pay attention see what's happening so that you can learn yeah the conditioned heart yes the conditioned art says you don't need to deal with this let's just take it out on the world you know fight with this one fight with that one you know um uh there are all kinds of excuses the hurt heart and notice the phonetic similarity between the words hurt and heart right the heart is so easily it's so fragile it's so easily hurt
(25:28) and those things have to be addressed and then the real flow of the heart outward into the world becomes something very beautiful and very powerful really powerful this is why I think gratitude is uh such a key and it almost feels like uh armor in in doing this work because if I genuinely am grateful for this experience that I'm having okay and even if it ends right now in this moment I I still say wow I've experienced so much in my life yeah you know from that place it's much easier to look and investigate
(26:09) and and see because what do I I'm not afraid of losing anything yes but but again we can't artificially be um gracious about things and have gratitude about things that still are painful so we we have to we we can know maybe objectively and theoretically yes I know this probably somewhere fits in with for my betterment but but but be grateful when you really can be you know don't be artificial anything to force it on yourself right I don't think is is a wise thing but but just as a focus of practice that if a
(26:54) meditation to connect with the sense of of gratitude in this moment for this moment right now and so that it starts to you know the seed is watered and watered and watered right it has to always be genuine yeah the the forceful thing I wonder that too about the relationship with the teacher yeah right like a teacher um is sharing a lot of information right right and the teacher it could really I love my teacher you know and I have allegiance to the teacher right and therefore am I just accepting all the information and just saying I can you
(27:34) know lay this out like uh like a rule book or something like that like a game plan and I'm just gonna follow the steps tell me I'm in totally in your hands you tell me step one two three four five six right I'm I'm gonna do it I wonder if that works that if instead it's it always have to has to be direct experience that my teacher can say something in one moment and that resonates completely with my heart and I say yes thank you for reinforcing what the integer that you were talking about
(28:05) the outer girl and the internet so this is a way to talk about that I think so the outer Guru reinforces what the inner Guru says and then then then I know okay that's like an answer that I found because that's right the outer Guru reinforces what the inner Guru now but sometimes the outer Guru it's not I don't have that direct experience of of the interview and then what what do I do because have I formed an allegiance to the outer Guru and therefore I should take everything that the outer Guru says
(28:34) and implement it into my life or am I opening up to this uh this path of direct experience that I always have to be the one deciding whether or not I I receive or not right well okay so the inner Guru is where we all need to go but the external group is the one who helps us hear what the true inner Guru is saying as apart from uh the conditioning that the conditioned turnings the tapes you know that keep coming up because sometimes we'll think that the the tapes are the inner Guru when they're not yeah yeah that's the problem
(29:22) so the guru that's the reason we have an external group if the external Guru is truly pure in uh the the the teachings offered and the guidance offered then we will grow a relationship with the inner Guru and that becomes I mean that's a wonderful part of the process and as we as we do that then Guru becomes a much larger and larger and larger much broader reality for us as it did right even during the conversation between Arjuna and Krishna and the Gita so you can watch this relationship between Arjuna and Krishna grow between student
(30:00) and and uh teacher shisha and Guru so that's one of the most powerful and revealing things about the yoga process you can have the yoga Sutra and study it for eons but without the guru you really you know can go astray it's it's necessary to have a teacher necessary now we cannot we all have many teachers in life in our lives but for spiritual life we generally lock onto a a couple or a few teachers that really Elevate us and teach us how to get in touch with the inner Guru because that's the goal that's the goal the inner Guru
(30:46) yeah it seems that there's no way of avoiding this discrimination that goes on Within Myself between is it my conditioning that's driving me right now or is it the inner Guru right and that's discernment the the the the the better word is discernment because that's the booty the the booty is the faculty of discernment and so the external Guru fortifies that fortifies that faculty of discernment and like I like what you said earlier you know you sign up with a guru you know you sign up for kind of a
(31:20) curriculum or a or a a speaking speaking professorially you know with your syllabus yeah you know it's not like you can take a course with the professor and say you know I think I'll just go off and and do these other studies and hope to get credit for it wait a second there's a there's a contract in a way and you you sign up to to take shelter of a guru and to take that fully then you benefit the most from that if you Veer off here and there you're not going to benefit as much but you still will benefit if you just
(31:55) ignore the teacher completely and just do whatever you think is best well then you're dealing your teacher is your sanskaras so you see there's a balance and invariably the sunskars do get activated and I see this with my spiritual students that sometimes those you know come up and they insist that that's what you know they should be um you know moving toward and I say okay but be aware that there is this other option and you know deliberate and let me know what you want to do so it's this this is tricky stuff
(32:34) choices choice making that's right I think is that's right what it's really all about every moment I have a choice to make decisions yes yeah the the the best thing that I found for making decision is this belief this knowing that whatever decision is made is the right decision on the ultimate level what my experience of of what's happened to that is that that belief has freed me opened me up to being more relaxed and being relaxed is a key to try it doesn't mean that I could always make the the right because in those
(33:13) moments they still they grab me they control me I'm stressed about it you know um but the practice is is is is is to remember yeah that you know this is this is this is beyond me even if I you know make this decision that was out of fear or something then again that was a part of the it happened yeah so it was supposed to happen because it happened otherwise it wouldn't have happened okay okay and then on the other hand there's the guru who says don't do this because this will cause trouble this will cause
(33:44) you trouble and distraction from the spiritual process so Guru comes along and says yes you know the guru can Embrace everything that you're going through the things that you may need to go through the things that are unavoidable but at the same time Guru could say but you could take this higher Road and actually conquer more by doing this and that's the power of heart and mind working together in yoga with the external group and then that becomes a natural practice uh later on in the mature levels of of
(34:21) yoga practice so it is it's it's a tricky thing on the one hand Guru doesn't want to be a dictator yeah and that but Guru doesn't want to be completely passive oh you want to jump off the building that's fine okay we can learn from that you know and you'll come back in the next life and you know you'll die and then you know we'll come back in the next life and we'll pick up from there I mean all of it's good in one sense right yeah but then you see the guru says no I care about you I want
(34:52) to see you elevated now I want to see you successful in this life completely fulfill the very purpose for which you came here do this now the the guru says as the yoga Sutra says in the beginning now it opens up now yeah so there's the now yeah yeah the real power here I think is in our relationships and how supportive they can be so that for many of us all we need is that one person that really sees us that believes us right now that's beautiful yes I think that that's the relationship that we can be for each other is just to
(35:37) see them I believe in you that's right you know that happened to me recently with someone's just support me was like Wow and I saw I was just that one little bit of support meant so much yes thank you oh yeah that's see but that's true teacher yeah even if it comes in the form of a friend or or or a relative whatever but Guru is the one person who should know you and embrace all of you even more than anybody and that's that's liberation I wanted to ask you about relationship with words in silence you
(36:17) have a very uh deep relationship with words Linguistics and all of that yes and I have a four-year-old daughter and uh the other day we're we're at the pool and there's lots of kids around parents and there's so much noise yeah I can imagine in life in general and I remember my own childhood there were so much noise it was very rare for me to have the gift of Silence and I'm really thinking about this and I'm like wow are we depriving Children of the gift of of Silence the more it's it's nurtured within me I'm
(36:57) just like wow I love words and it was actually in becoming an author that I started to understand the limitation of words and fall in love with it's weird I know I don't know if you've had this experience too but diving so much into the art of language and words allowed me to see the limitations of it more and become really curious about what his right relationship with words that words can be this amazing thing that we can communicate with each other we can have conversations it serves a role at the
(37:28) same time the the Mind exhausts itself and what is what is the appropriate balance of time between engaging with thoughts and words and and just being in the nothing being in the silence oh boy do you have another hour I know you've got five minutes but okay uh quick responses would be that words that don't are not really grounded in spiritual potency are going to keep us bound bound to this world bound to the forces of this world but words that are grounded in with sacred Force and that could be you know Sutra text
(38:14) that could be uh poetic verse philosophical verse that could be prose of different kinds philosophical you know or pros and so on um that can lift us up so at the very end of the vedanta Sutra one of the most thick philosophical and hermeneutical texts that you can read in the uh panoply of Indian ancient Indian literature the last Sutra is so dramatic it says it repeats the phrase and that means there is no turning or returning to this world this temporal World an account of shabda sound sound is what can liberate us and sound
(39:10) is what can bind us which sound do we want sound is powerful getting back to that Workshop where the student was saying I'm so worried about the world I said the problem is that you're hearing so much chaos in the world you're going to be part of it I said I also don't believe in being in a cave and not knowing what's going on I have I spend one minute with the world's condition every day one minute and I read it I don't hear it I don't see it just read and basically all I want to
(39:52) know is if there's going to be you know an atomic Holocaust so I might want to pack you know do you know might want to go into meditation a little bit more that day or whatever and if the world's just still in its typical struggles well you know that's unfortunate I want to know a little bit who's struggling with what what's happening so at least when I get him in front of my university class I don't sound like a complete uninformed idiot right okay but one minute with the world um and don't don't don't do it through
(40:23) sound keep the sound for precious things like Om Shanti Shanti Shanti you know um [Music] that's the sound you want to flood our minds and hearts with otherwise you're being bound to a world of misery okay finally because I got to ask this question now that that you talk about this is what do you think of of this idea of viewing ourselves as our own kind of safe Keepers in a way like looking at myself in the third person right like my number one job in the world is to take care of me you're a number one job is to take
(41:18) care of you because I wonder from this perspective will lead to a place that place that you're just kind of talking about where I ask myself like what does avi need now what is the best thing for him I have to take care of him it's like the the inner Guru and the self is is focused on care of the the person Ally at my stage of things I take care of me just enough so I can take care of others yeah but I okay I will also question this though too is that when I take care of others is that a part of taking care
(41:59) of myself because back to what we talked about in terms of like the service of my in my heart and that's what I believe is that like it is not separated like when I'm practicing Karma Yoga um that is a part of taking I need that yeah that is also a part of self-care yeah to practice karma is one thing but when Karma becomes yoga yes that's another thing when I am acting selflessly in relation to others as uh I heard during the reading uh from uh SRI gurudev the other day during lunch that if we are giving with expect
(42:34) expectation of return then that's not pure giving um but pure giving out of the fullness of the heart is when we are practicing the flow of the heart it's such an interesting balance here yeah that that that that that happens right because the purity of giving without expectations there's that and then there's also an awareness if I'm paying attention that when I do that when I give with no expectations that there's something in me that receives in that and I'm not trying to uh if I'm really paying
(43:13) attention being aware I'm just trying to notice this is what's happening right so I'm not trying to avoid that that reality so can I can I kind of hold that and walk that that type okay you know giving just completely just for the sake of get but then I notice something is received when I do that that's okay and actually that's what makes me believe in God the most that it that it's okay because it doesn't have to be that way but nature is set up that way right that giving we receive something back
(43:42) if I am able if I'm at a stage where I'm able to worship at the altar of your heart that gives so much to you and I get so much from your heart back at that level there's only everything to celebrate there's nothing to worry about it is perfect worshiping in the altar of others hearts because divine presence is there and your heart is the other Yaman the indwelling divine presence the paramatman and the inner Guru Guru is is there so if I'm if I'm worshiping at the altar of your heart of course I'm going to get so
(44:29) much I'm going to be flooded with so much sweetness so yes at that level yes but you know if I you know give you a piece of paper I might wanna I hope you give me a pad of paperback you know forget about that thank you so much what an honor yeah thank you honors all mine yeah thanks for listening if you've enjoyed this content and think others might as well please feel free to share and subscribe

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