Yoga Wisdom with Acharya das Acharya das

This is a continuation of the previous talk and is the Q&A portion which you might find interesting.

This talk was delivered in Brisbane, Australia. We explore the pivotal role forgiveness plays in our own peace and happiness. There was a full-house both here and when we covered the same topic 2 nights later on the Gold Coast which shows how many of us need this.

All the great spiritual wisdom-traditions of the world glorify forgiveness as being indispensable for authentic spiritual growth and living a happy peaceful life. So what exactly does that mean and how do we do that?

One of the verses I quoted is from an ancient yogic text which goes:

The duty of a wise person is to cultivate the quality of forgiveness, which is illuminating like the sun. The Supreme Soul (Hari) is pleased with those who are forgiving. - Srimad Bhagavatam

The talk is a bit longer than usual but there was so much interest and so many questions we broke the talk into 2 parts. Check out Part 2 for the Q&A portion.

Text-book definitions of social anxiety disorder include “Individuals with social anxiety disorder fear negative evaluations from other people.” One of the significant characteristics is an overwhelming fear of humiliation.

While social anxiety may be more common or pronounced now, it is not something new. Around 400 B.C. Hippocrates described the condition stating that such a person “dare not come in company for fear he should be misused, disgraced, overshoot himself in gesture or speeches, or be sick; he thinks every man observes him."

So it could be categorized as extreme self-consciousness.

We don’t want to get into discussing a diagnosis or treatment of this condition but provide another perspective that can be extremely helpful in dealing with such experiences.

The commonly held idea is that our physical bodies and states of mind are our identities – who we actually are. This paradigm is contested by the ancient Yogic teachings which teach that you are neither the body nor the mind (including your feelings and emotions). You are an eternal spiritual being residing temporarily within the physical body and covered by the material mind.

Spiritual cultivation (mindfulness and meditation) means the growth in appreciating my spiritual being or identity. This state brings tremendous resilience, stability, and balance to our lives.

These are some excerpts from Vedic texts referencing the balance and resilient nature of someone progressing on this spiritual path. “one who is equiposed in honor and dishonor” Bhagavad-gita 12.18-19

“… even-mindedness amid pleasant and unpleasant events…” Bhagavad-gita 13.8-12

“ … who is wise and holds praise and blame to be the same; who is unchanged in honor and dishonor, who treats friend and foe alike….” Bhagavad-gita 14.22-25

For him who has conquered the mind, the mind is the best of friends; but for one who has failed to do so, his mind will remain the greatest enemy. Bhagavad-gita 6.6

Many people think they possess a soul – we refer to “my soul.” But if that’s the case, then who are you (the one possessing the soul) and what exactly is the soul?

One dictionary definition is – “The spiritual part of a person that some people believe continues to exist in some form after their body has died, or the part of a person that is not physical and experiences deep feelings and emotions.”

This of course is speculative and lacks the clarity offered by Yogic wisdom. The ancient Sanskrit word for what people refer to as the ‘soul’ is very revealing. It is “ātma” which literally means the ‘self’. In this understanding you do not have a soul, you are the soul.

An internet safety organization in the UK warns that school children are using AI image generators to create indecent fake images of classmates. Another article was headlined - Kids who use social media are more prone to making dangerous decisions. It was about a study of 1.4 million adolescents between the ages of 10 and 19 from 1997 to 2022 and found that frequent or daily social media usage increased the probability of alcohol consumption by 48 percent, drug use by 28 percent, and tobacco use by 85 percent, compared to those who used social media infrequently or not on a daily basis.

While many will rightly say “We need more safeguards!”, this overlooks the glaring failure in modern society to appreciate the great need for a personal moral compass. It is about external controls vs internal controls, or Can I do it? vs. Should I do it?

This is one of the talks from my recent visit to the USA – it is in Austin, Texas.

Many people do not have a very clear concept of what is material and what is spiritual which is the subject I was asked to speak on at an Austin Kirtan event.