How To Be In The World As a Spiritual Aspirant | Cārya Pada (Tantrik Code of Conduct)
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01/01/24 • 92 min
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As you know, a tantra is often divided into four parts:
1. jñāna-pada, the philosophical transmission,
2. Yoga-pada, the section of esoteric practices like meditation and mantra repetition
3. Kriyā-pada, the manual for pūjā or ritualistic worship
4. Cārya-pada, the section on how to live your life in the world as a practitioner!
Having discussed the first three parts quite extensively it’s now time to turn the next question: “how do we move about in this world as a genuine spiritual aspirant?”
How do we set up boundaries against those who might do us harm in a skillful and yogic way? How are we to make a living? Etc.
What I intend to do tonight is read to you from some sections of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna where the Master offers some very profound cārya-pada-esque instructions for how to be in the world as an aspirant, especially as householders with families and jobs without losing your spiritual momentum and depth of practice!
Here's what we derived:
The Master would say: bhakti shār: Bhakti, devotion, is the essence. The purpose of life is to cultivate love for the Divine. As such, for creating this kind of spiritual intoxication, the following is suggested:
Cārya-Pada (Code of Spiritual Conduct)/ The Ten Commandments of Ramakrishna:
1.Revere everyone, especially all women as the living embodiment of the Divine Mother.
2. Pray to God fervently and constantly with a yearning heart for faith, devotion, knowledge and renunciation.
3. Go into solitude often and think of God.
4. Do you duties but keep your mind on God (through repeating the mantra, chanting/singing God's glories etc. and above all by remembering that the person you are serving is none othert than God, i.e Karma Yoga in the Vivekananda sense.)
5. Love everyone intensely even as you renounce them fully knowing they belong not you but to God. (i.e live in the world like the maidservant in the rich man's house)
6. Practice discrimination. Ask: "did I get from this experience what I wanted? Did this really fulfill me?“ i.e "Education through Experience". The more you think of worldly things, the more you will be attached to them. Shake off impermanent objects from your mind by practicing discrimination.
7. Regularly spend time In holy company (sadhu sangha)
8. When dealing with the "tiger God" (worldly people), "bow from a distance". That is to say, have love and respect for them but do not have further dealings with them. Avoid their company as far as possible.
9. Remember the Mahut God: be practical in worldly dealings.
10. Don't be like the snake: you can hiss to set boundaries and protect yourself without injuring others.
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815
For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM
As you know, a tantra is often divided into four parts:
1. jñāna-pada, the philosophical transmission,
2. Yoga-pada, the section of esoteric practices like meditation and mantra repetition
3. Kriyā-pada, the manual for pūjā or ritualistic worship
4. Cārya-pada, the section on how to live your life in the world as a practitioner!
Having discussed the first three parts quite extensively it’s now time to turn the next question: “how do we move about in this world as a genuine spiritual aspirant?”
How do we set up boundaries against those who might do us harm in a skillful and yogic way? How are we to make a living? Etc.
What I intend to do tonight is read to you from some sections of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna where the Master offers some very profound cārya-pada-esque instructions for how to be in the world as an aspirant, especially as householders with families and jobs without losing your spiritual momentum and depth of practice!
Here's what we derived:
The Master would say: bhakti shār: Bhakti, devotion, is the essence. The purpose of life is to cultivate love for the Divine. As such, for creating this kind of spiritual intoxication, the following is suggested:
Cārya-Pada (Code of Spiritual Conduct)/ The Ten Commandments of Ramakrishna:
1.Revere everyone, especially all women as the living embodiment of the Divine Mother.
2. Pray to God fervently and constantly with a yearning heart for faith, devotion, knowledge and renunciation.
3. Go into solitude often and think of God.
4. Do you duties but keep your mind on God (through repeating the mantra, chanting/singing God's glories etc. and above all by remembering that the person you are serving is none othert than God, i.e Karma Yoga in the Vivekananda sense.)
5. Love everyone intensely even as you renounce them fully knowing they belong not you but to God. (i.e live in the world like the maidservant in the rich man's house)
6. Practice discrimination. Ask: "did I get from this experience what I wanted? Did this really fulfill me?“ i.e "Education through Experience". The more you think of worldly things, the more you will be attached to them. Shake off impermanent objects from your mind by practicing discrimination.
7. Regularly spend time In holy company (sadhu sangha)
8. When dealing with the "tiger God" (worldly people), "bow from a distance". That is to say, have love and respect for them but do not have further dealings with them. Avoid their company as far as possible.
9. Remember the Mahut God: be practical in worldly dealings.
10. Don't be like the snake: you can hiss to set boundaries and protect yourself without injuring others.
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815
For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM
Previous Episode
What is an Avatar?
God is inscrutable and mysterious for the most part. What then to say of the Incarnation, that is, the appearance of God as a specific person in history?! Perhaps the mystery of the Avatar, the Incarnation of God is one of the deepest mysteries of religion and it is by no means unique to Christianity. Long before the Christ, we find in the Bhagavad Gita the following, which represents the first articulation of the notion of Divine Incarnations by Sri Krishna, one of the first Incarnations to leave us with a teaching:
यदा यदा हि धर्मस्य ग्लानिर्भवति भारत |
अभ्युत्थानमधर्मस्य तदात्मानं सृजाम्यहम् || 7||
yadā yadā hi dharmasya glānir bhavati bhārata
abhyutthānam adharmasya tadātmānaṁ sṛijāmyaham
Whenever there is a disturbance in Dharma, and an increase in Adharma, I incarnate on this Earth, O Arjuna!
The idea here is that if an Incarnation comes to teach us the right way, then the Incarnation most likely most come more than once and give us the teaching in different ways each time suited to that particular culture with its unique needs and problems.
Naturally, since Hindus are already familiar with Rama and Krishna as Incarnations, it's easy for them to accept Buddha and Jesus as Incarnations too. But hang on a moment. What makes an Incarnation an Incarnation? What stops a person from, in their very valid guru bhakti (devotion to their personal teacher), attributing "avatar-hood" to their respective teachers if indeed there are many avatars?
In this lecture, we attempt to triangulate on the profound mystery of the Avatar from a non-dual point of view. How can a truly non-dual philosophy which holds that God is Consciousness (i.e You) and as such is non-different from the world accommodate an Avatar doctrine? In the course of doing that , we take a tour down the annals of history to pick out a few key teachings from a few avatars to implement in our own spiritual lives. The central thrust of this lecture is that the most important thing about an Avatar is not necessarily the avatar but the message!
Merry Christmas!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815
For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM
Next Episode
A Prayer to the Goddess | The Four Hymns of the Candi In Sanskrit and Translation
Today on Sārada Devī Jayanti, the auspicious emergence of Holy Mother, I'd like to offer this recitation of the four hymns of the Candi at your feet, you who are Mā embodied. Before each hymn is chanted in Sanskrit and translation, we make a few preliminary remarks about the hymn to contextualize it in the wider narrative of the Candi or Devi Māhātmyam. These hymns are very powerful. They are charged with unimaginable mantric force! To even listen to them is to affect a profound transformation of our entire being. I pray you will feel the power and poetry of these mantras and be absorbed in the ecstasy of devotion to Mother who is in truth your very own essence.
I can't help thinking that is the most wonderful way to start the year. There could not be a better subject to start the year of podcasting off with than this! Jai Mā
Mā Sārada is the total embodiment of the creative energy, śakti, inseperable from non-dual consciousness, śiva. The same snake when wriggling and moving about and hissing is called śakti and when it is still it is called śiva. It is one and the same snake, one and the same reality, and she is That!
She is the Divine Mother of the Universe in every sense of that word. All that Sri Ramakrishna is able to do, she does through him for she is the inseparable power of Ramakrishna, as heat is the inseparable power of fire. I consider her worship the very highest worship! And the most exalted form of that worship is to worship her in the temples of every being, sentient and insentient in this world, as Swami Vivekananda taught. To worship Mā as she is embodied as other people...ah, there is no finer worship than that. But aside from the exalted and refined form of worshipping the Vishvarūpa of Mā in everyone as everyone, the can also do the equally exalted and refined form of worship of Mā in the image as per the injunctions of the Tantras.
I pray to Mā Sarada Devī that She may, through her unconditional grace and limitless mercy, deepen our absorption in worship both inside and outside the temple. May her living presence imbue the image and may that same presence reveal itself in everyone, everywhere! May we feel her in every circumstance and situation in life!
Mā, our play is done! We want to come home and play our heads upon thy lap! Take us in. Remove all our worldly cravings that keep us running about in Thy maya. In vain do we wander thy three worldly! O sorceress and confounder of the universe, by your magic alone is all this play going on! Thou art the one who holds the keys to both liberated and bondage! Therefore, be thou gracious and grant us pure love for thee! May I drink deeply from the cup of thy love’s wine that I may come to regard this entire universe and all that live in it as verily my own, as indeed it is.
Jai Mā!
PS: Although I typically use the Swami Jagadishwaranandaji translations in our talks, in this one I use the Devadatta Kali translation from his excellent book, "In Praise of the Goddess."
PSS: We chanted this after a formal worship of Holy Mother and Mā Kālī which you can watch on our Patreon here https://patreon.com/yogawithnish?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815
For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM
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