Non-Dual Action, Karma Yoga, and Service as a Path

Every great spiritual tradition teaches about sacred service. Dr. Neil points out that service is structured in consciousness. We can take action and serve others from an ego level, with attachment to the outcome and to our own needs, such as in transactional relationships. We can act and serve at a soul level, with deeper compassion and less attachment, but still within duality. And we can act or serve with a non-dual level of consciousness, in which subject and object disappear in unity and the divine flows through us.

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SPEAKER_00 0:45

Greetings. Today we're going to explore non-dual action and service and karma yoga. So I want to start by saying that all of the great religious traditions have a precept of service, whether it's Judaism's tikkunolam and repairing the world, or Christianity's good works to imitate the life of Christ, or in Buddhism, service and compassion for the Eightfold Path and the Bodhisattva Va. And Tiknad Han's expansion of that into engaged Buddhism for political and social activism. In Hinduism, karma yoga is a path to the divine that purifies the mind and the heart through selfless action. We release the ego's attachment to outcomes, we connect with our own pure awareness or transpersonal center or consciousness, and we act in the flow, in the spontaneous flow of life, giving and receiving in a way that's selfless. So these are paths to realization. We're going to start there with Dr. Neil, and then we're going to describe the result, non-dual action or non-dual service that is the fruit of karma yoga. Okay, so Dr. Neil, where would you like to begin?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

Well, um, talk about service from the ego's perspective. Because it's a path. Service means to give freely for yourself without attachment to the outcome, uh, and um without focusing on the benefits for yourself. Why do all the great traditions uh include service? Why? Because service is a way for the heart to open and the connection with the earth to open uh and reduces narcissism and self-centeredness, uh, and allows one to become part of the whole, part of the object giving. Service can be anywhere, can be to a spouse, uh, and can be to children, can be to friends, uh community, can be to um humanity, can be to the planet, uh, can be even to politics. Uh so service can be to a deity, um, God, Jesus, Buddha. Um and service can be a path that leads us all the way. Um psychotherapy or psychology is another path, service.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

Um I think we see a big example right now of ego, the egoic form of action in the transactional behavior of politicians, in the deal making and the rewards, and so on. And so, what we're offering is a different model for human exchange with a different purpose, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:46

So taking care of oneself and being there for oneself is also a service, so one can be there for one's body, and because the body is really a separate entity from who we are, it had each cell has consciousness, and we can serve the body by eating well, by meditating, by sleeping correctly, um by loving the body. Uh same with emotions. Emotions are real, and one can be present for them and be serving their best outcome, uh, and as well as thoughts. Thoughts could be the real entities. Thought form is what happens when we think about something, and the form actually manifests on the mental plane as an entity. Um, so many, many different ways to serve.

SPEAKER_00 5:59

Yeah, we tend to think of it in subject-object, serving an other, serving something larger, but it's interesting to imagine serving your cells, which in a way is serving your own evolution, because your cells need to be healthy and evolving for your nervous system to carry consciousness, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

And it it allows one to become separate from the cells. In other words, once if one serves the cells in one's body, one differentiates between consciousness of who I am and the activity of service for the body. Um, so it differentiates that.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Um let's talk about service um where we get stuck, because we're starting with the ego. Right. So, where does the ego get stuck in the practice of karma yoga?

SPEAKER_01 7:01

Right. So the dividing of service to the self and other is a mistake. So it's a mistake to serve another and not oneself. We call that codependency in psychology, which means that you're taking care of somebody else instead of yourself, and that eventually leads to dysfunction and illness and burnout, burnout. So uh, so service is not dual in its nature, it needs to flow through one, even on an ego level. So one needs to serve oneself as much as one needs to serve another. So standing up for yourself, standing up for what you believe, standing up for what you your gift is, is part of service.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

So we can get stuck in this egoic kind of serving with a shadow or an unconscious complex that results in burnout. So, for example, resentment. You know, you expect something back, it's all the giving is one way, you end up resentful, you end up um repeating childhood patterns. So we want to move beyond. So that's not really karma yoga, that's not really the practice of um non-dual action or conscious service. So um, and yet in some ways, the soul can evolve through egoic service, yes, it's a path, it's a spiritual path.

SPEAKER_01 8:46

Yeah, it's not an end, it's a process, and it can actually help us reach a higher level. So um, high level being when the ego becomes unimportant, becomes irrelevant to one's behavior. So when one moves into an empty space or a full space where action becomes spontaneous. I guess we call this enlightenment, um, but it's really a basic level of enlightenment.

SPEAKER_00 9:22

Let's call it witnessing.

SPEAKER_01 9:25

There's an action, for example, right now I'm speaking, but there's no volition to it. I'm not the one who's speaking. I my mind is empty, my body is present, and the speech is spontaneous. So it's in service to this podcast, and in service to you on the other side of this podcast. It's not an egoic process.

SPEAKER_00 9:55

Yeah, so what is that like in general in your life? How do you experience action and service in the bigger picture of your life in a non-dual way?

SPEAKER_01 10:08

Non-dual in a sense that there's no subject or object or or either no subject or no object of attention. So, for example, this speech that I'm talking about is spontaneous. There's nobody here speaking, it's an empty mind. There's no thought behind this. In fact, there's nobody I'm speaking to right now as well. Nobody's home, nobody's home, yeah. So it's spontaneous.

SPEAKER_00 10:38

I remember when this first started happening to you, you would be moving your hand around and going, it's happening, it's just happening. You had this experience of witnessing the hand moving without doing it yourself.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Correct. So service uh service really needs to go through the developmental stage of ego service. So, in other words, having an activity which one consciously decides on and gives from, in other words, the same as I love Connie and I give to her spontaneously, and that involves her and involves me, and is a growth process. It needs to go through that. If it doesn't go through that process, one can transcend the ego and not be of service to anybody except the unconscious aspects that emerge, which often are very self-centered, narcissistic, unimportant. So there are plenty of people who are awake and not involved because they've never really followed the path of service, they haven't opened their heart, they haven't opened themselves to giving fully, being ethical, to being moral, to be empathic, to being a source of goodness.

SPEAKER_00 12:05

Yeah, they may be in a monastery, maybe they're serving in a small way in the monastery, but their life is not about serving the world, except maybe through their practices on the level of consciousness. So I'm wondering about how you practice this. It seems to me what we're saying is service is structured in consciousness. And we've said that about other things, but it seems so true here. The quality of awareness, of pure consciousness and shadow awareness that we bring to action, any action, whether it's a consciously serving action or not, could be a self-serving action, the quality of consciousness we bring to it determines the nature of the action, right? It's service is structured in consciousness. So to allow the soul to evolve through these stages of service or karma yoga, and then come to this kind of fruition of non-dual action. Can you describe what that's like, what that's been like for you? Because you've been in service for many decades as a psychologist.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Correct. And as a parent, as a parent, as a husband, yeah, as a friend, as a as a community. So all of these are the giving aspects in which I receive. I'll give you a good example. Um, I have a men's group that's been running for 24 years, and twice a year we have a retreat of three days, and I've been the designated person to design the retreat. And what I do for that is I design a retreat with uh exercises for the participants in a men's group to invoke that build more intimacy and closeness and insight, and I include myself in the process. So um I grow through doing it, not just by designing it and presenting it, but because I'm participating at the same time with my own personality, my own soul, my own being, as well as giving to others. So there's no division between the two. And that has evolved over time.

SPEAKER_00 14:45

So and part of what's interesting about that, Neil, is the men in your men's group are not spiritually oriented, and they don't know who you are.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah, the focus has been primarily on what I'd call uh soul, soul growth, compassion, empathy, kindness, caring, peacefulness, sharing, intimacy.

SPEAKER_00 15:12

Those are but the point is that you're transmitting a lot of your life experience without needing to be seen or to be known or to be acknowledged. That's been going on for a long time.

SPEAKER_01 15:26

Correct. So this in in Judaism, the highest form of charity is to do action or to be give without being known as the giver. So when one is invisible, that's the highest form, the most spiritualized form of giving.

SPEAKER_00 15:47

So let's move to the bodhisattva vow, which is kind of well known in spiritual circles. And what that looks like for people these days.

SPEAKER_01 15:59

Well, this the Fanat.

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Um well, there's a vow at either at the soul level that we make when we incarnate, or consciously when we study with the teacher, like the Dalai Lama initiates many, many people into the Bodhisattva vow. Other Rampish do that as well. And the vow is basically to serve humanity, the evolution of consciousness for as long as you can, and to sacrifice your own enlightenment for the sake of humanity, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:37

So, this is one of those vows and exercises that have a hidden purpose. The obvious purpose is what Connie has just said, which is to sacrifice one's own enlightenment or the enlightenment of the world on all beings. But the underlying consciousness of the commitment and behavior is actually to wake oneself up. Because that's the nature of being, of pure awareness, of non-dual consciousness, which is spontaneous giving and spontaneous loving without any kind of limitation in terms of oneself. Or for others, in terms of the soul and the soul sharing and non-dual states. So the the bodhisattva vow is actually um a spiritual path that leads ultimately at the final stages to pure awareness, no separation between subject and object, between me and you, between self-guad. So it's a path, it's a spiritual path, and it takes that form of a vow to serve. So one can actually become enlightened through service.

SPEAKER_00 18:04

Yeah. And we can see the stages of the soul evolving through the stages of service or action in general. And so, what is your experience now of action itself or service in particular?

SPEAKER_01 18:24

Well, if I'm in a state of awareness of my own being or awareness of pure awareness, pure consciousness. So I'm not doing anything, I'm not moving this hand. This hand is moving itself. I'm not speaking. Speech is spontaneous and coming out of the mouth. So the the source of it is emptiness or fullness or divinity, depending on which angle you face, you take it from. So, in that sense, service knows no boundaries, it's not for this body, mind, soul, or for the universe, it's it's for all of it, and it's uh spontaneous and it's universal. It's a Batmidal song because God is watching us. Oh, yeah, uh, that's the sort of the title of the song, God is watching us from a distance, and I would I would twist that a little and say, God is doing us from a distance, so the activity of the divine is to actually be the source of all action, whether on every level.

SPEAKER_00 19:43

So, because your experience now is that you are everything, correct, and everything is happening spontaneously, the idea of service kind of moves into another dimension.

SPEAKER_01 19:59

Yes, one does not serve, one just rests in pure consciousness, rests in the divine will, uh, releases oneself to being a channel for the divinity to manifest. One identifies with that divinity and is a part of it.

SPEAKER_00 20:19

And so it's kind of a non-doing.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

It's doing with our attachment to outcome, it's doing with our originating the doing, it's doing that's cosmic. Cosmic being that every second something emerges, and every second something dissolves, and it's of benefit to the universe, to the cosmos. And it may be very small in appearance, so it might be a movement of the hand, uh, and it may be enormous, maybe saving a planet or doing something fabulous, but it doesn't, it doesn't uh differentiate every piece part of the whole that moves.

SPEAKER_00 21:11

So for people who see themselves as karma yogis who are caregivers or social activists or environmentalists or healers who see themselves in service, what advice do you give for making their life, the circumstances of their life, into a practice?

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Well, it's it's an ego practice initially, so ego in the sense that I'm a separate person doing the giving, doing the service, and doing it fully with one's and openly, and forgive the other for whatever they've done to you, and whatever you perceive they might have done to you, and give yourself totally to service for whatever is your object. So, you know, so for example, I give myself totally in service to you.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

He practices saying yes.

SPEAKER_01 22:16

I practice saying yes. Uh, and it doesn't really matter what the object is, it's a matter of giving totally and spontaneously and not excluding oneself in the process. So including the the, when I say oneself, I'm talking about the ego self. So choose a path. For me, socket therapy was a path, marriage was a path, and raising children was a path. Serving community was a path. These are all very important parts. Even meditation was a path. For a long time I meditated in order to have the world become a better place.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

So anything at all can be a form of devotion and service. Any object can be an object of devotion. Any action can be one of service because it's structured in consciousness.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

Correct. And at some point, the object becomes the subject. In other words, at some point when you're loving and giving and serving that the object, you identify one yourself in the object, and that becomes uh non-dualistic. So you're you're you're identified with your sense of separateness and identify with your connection with the object. And you are in the object, and you are in the subject.

SPEAKER_00 23:49

Yeah, you've been talking about how you're experiencing duality and non-duality together now.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

Yeah, so the first part of the journey is to transcend the ego and then to expand consciousness into universal. So we have subtle senses that allow us to experience the uh the cosmos, the galaxy, the universe, the subtle planes of where people go when they die or when they incarnate. So these are all within oneself. It's part of the expansion of consciousness, and then at some point that consciousness of the object becomes joined.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

In other words, one object becomes subject.

SPEAKER_01 24:38

Yeah, it's like in love of God. The God takes over the self or the universe takes over the self.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Mystical union.

SPEAKER_01 24:49

Mystical union. So, and then giving is natural. In other words, one gives to oneself in whatever form it takes.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

Oh, you're giving to yourself. One of my teachers said love is always directed to the self because the object becomes the self.

SPEAKER_01 25:06

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 25:07

So that's non-dual giving or service.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

Right. And and there are subtle, more more and more subtle planes if one continues. In other words, there's such a thing as non-duality, but there are things that are beyond non-duality. For example, one can be unique, one can be non-dual and unique at the same time. Because non-duality implies everything's the same, but there are states beyond non-duality.

SPEAKER_00 25:38

Okay, so we're gonna return to that subject because that's kind of your growing edge. But for now, is there anything more to say about non-dual action?

SPEAKER_01 25:48

Yeah, as long as we follow the levels, start off as an ego and give to others and make sure you include yourself, move on to a soul level where one is giving because that's a natural loving, empathic, caring process, and one includes whatever the ego is in that, and whatever the body is in that, and then move on to being and pure consciousness, and so that giving becomes spontaneous and does not need to be defined. Uh, it's important not to skip the soul stage. As I said, there are many people who are awake, but they're not loving or in service or in giving, and that's because they haven't developed the moral and the service part of their consciousness.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Yeah, so if service is a missing step, we have a different result, a different quality of awakening.

SPEAKER_01 26:54

That's great.

SPEAKER_00 26:56

Okay, thank you. Thank you, Dr. Neil. Thank you, everybody.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

Thank you, Dr. Connie.

SPEAKER_00 27:02

Bye bye. Bye bye.