S1: Ep 17: Prakriti and Perusa - Bridging Spirit and Earth

In this episode I talk about the notions of prakriti (nature, all materials things) and perusa (the soul) - key ideas in yoga and spirituality. 

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Hey! I'm Rachel! I am a qualified Holistic Life Coach and Mind Body Practitioner, Embodiment Coach, Yoga 500hrs (plus lots more extra yoga quals). I'm also an award winning content creator and have 20 years' experience in digital. I'm a mum of 3 kids and I live in the Peak District - oh and I have ADHD and I am sober. My passion is helping midlife women turn meltdown into magic!

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Transcript

Rachel Brady's video recording-1: 0:01

Conscious but Grounded is a podcast about spirituality, high vibe living in the real world. I ask questions like, how do we connect to the magic? The spirit, the source, the universe, but with our feet firmly planted on the ground. How do we show up in a conscious way and harness that to make big, paradigm busting change in the day to day of our lives? I'm Rachel Brady, mum of three, yoga teacher and embodiment coach. This is the place where I'll be reflecting and exploring big, deep questions, all with a pinch of self deprecation, a few proper lols, and a lot of real life. Join me.

0:43

Hello and welcome back to Conscious, but Grounded. So, I'm in the car, I dunno. Now it's become a Pavlovian response. Get in the car for a half an hour drive, make a podcast. Or when I walk the dogs, although less so walking the dogs. And for anyone, that's just first time you've listened. Uh, is this episode, uh, what I'm referring to is every time there's a chatty episode of me just on my own, I tend to do it when I'm in the car. Or when I'm walking the dogs, I'm tending actually to try and walk the dogs more mindfully and be in nature and not be on social media and not recording. So yeah, that says a lot about my brain, I think. Um, so today's episode, I wanted to talk about something that's been a big theme in my yogic studies recently. So I study a, uh, yoga sutra course, uh, advanced Yoga Sutra. So the Yoga Sutra. Is a text written by Penan Patanjali, sorry, uh, thousands of years ago. And it's the basis for most of what we understand about the most widely practiced version of yoga, which is the eight limb path. Um, incorporating asana, practice, breath work, meditation, so on. Um, and in that text, uh, the sutures that we're on, so the sutures is 190. Six, I think sutures. And they're all, they're one liners and then they're written in Sanskrit and then they, we decipher them and then we discuss what they mean. The most famous one is probably the first one, or is it the second one actually, which is yoga is the cessation of the fluctuations of the mind. So chitty, written, theda, I think I've probably said that completely wrong, but anyway, that's not what we're talking about today. What, what I wanna talk about today is a big theme that comes up in the Yoga Sutra, and it came up in a book I'm reading last night. So the book I'm reading. Doing in bed. Um, I'm not very far into it. It's a very renowned yoga text, modern age yoga text. It's written by Iyengar, so he actually created his own type of yoga. I don't know much about Iyengar yoga. I really must go practice it. And um, yeah, I'd like to learn more about it. I know it's a very precise yoga. Perhaps that's why I haven't done it yet, because I'm not a very precise person. Um, anyway, his, his book, I think it's called Light on Life Again, I should check that. I'm gonna check it and I'm gonna post the Amazon link below because I love it so far. So I got interested in the cha, the person Iyengar, BK Sengar, I think it is, uh, because one of his students did a podcast. I'll also post that below and it'll make you interested in it too. It's from one of my favorite yoga podcasts, which is, um, the one with Bradshaw. Geo Gambino, and I've completely forgot what it's called, but I post it below. It's a really funny, oh, it's called The Funny Thing about yoga. That's why I like it.'cause it's like the only podcast I know that's like legit, actual funny, all way, like almost all the way through about yoga. So they've really carved themselves at a niche there. So what they talk about on this podcast, um, what he talked about was Iyengar. And so that led me to this book by him. Uh, and it's quite a renowned, I've heard people talking about. His book. I'm like, oh yeah, it's a good time to read this book for me. Nice. It is nice. It's easy to digest. He's talking about all the main yoga stuff, um, and presenting it in a really lovely way. He's talking about the kosher. I'll do an episode about those, I think. And um, but what he's talking about now, and there's a whole chapter that I've just begun, is I'll get there eventually, the. It is Perusha and reti. So basically what those two things mean. Um, and they talks about a lot in the yoga sutures. And it's a key theme in yoga and it perfectly mirrors what this podcast past is about. So Rey, Rey, he says in the book, it means nature. Um, so what we've kind of what, what we look at it as in the studies I've been doing, so it's the same thing, but it's anything that's material. So it's anything that's tangible. So that includes nature, that includes this car, that includes my teacup here, my portable teacup that. Includes my bag with the stuff for where I'm going. Um, that includes me. It includes everything. Everything, everything, everything that's of this Earth. So that's reti. And then in contrast to that, there is Perusha, Perusha, and I'll put those two terms below as well, because they're sometimes spelled differently depending on which book you're reading. Um. And so what he talks about, and I've not got too far into it with him, but um, we've, we've approached it quite a bit in our studies is life is about, and therefore yoga is about like walking on the earth whilst looking up at the sky. It's like, how do we inhabit both of these realities? Um, so it's like, how do we stay conscious but grounded? It's like literally. So the conscious part for me is the perusha, the soul, and the grounded part is the earth, the nature, the ti. And so I thought, wow, this is like a great subject for the podcast. And obviously I haven't prepared anything. That's not how I do this podcast, because if I did that, I'd never do it. Uh, and so what I do is just tend to speak from the heart as, so I'm having a conversation with someone, um, about this subject. And I love to introduce these, these concepts to people that aren't necessarily. Or don't want to necessarily do a Yoga Sutras course or even study yoga teacher training, but like just introducing these concepts to people while you are like washing the dishes or walking the dog. Like these are amazingly mind bendingly, mind altering. Huge concept that will change your life if you can grasp and grapple with them. For me, the only way I can grasp and grapple with them and the only way that they've landed is through. Through doing these study courses where I meet other people on Zoom and we discuss it and we literally bring in real examples. We ask questions, we laugh, we get it wrong. We, we, we, you know, we recommend re other books to each other. And so I've done this sutras course twice. I'm actually doing the advance one now where we revisit them, but we do chanting and stuff as well. But, um, I really, truly believe that I have landed this concept now. Um, it's, I guess, I guess it also pertains this subject to something I spoke about earlier on in the podcast, which is, what does it mean to be spiritual? Like what does that even mean? And because what I was saying on my Instagram bio was helping women explore spirituality, and that's what I do. But then when I said that to somebody, like a lot of things I say to people, she was like, well, what does that mean? So I know what I mean, but other people sometimes say what I mean, dunno what I mean. But she's very much a projector. Problem. I'm a projector in human design, and we have these big ideas and big feelings and emotions and big, big concepts and other people struggle to understand what we're talking about. And I hope so much that through this podcast people can start to understand some of the things I'm talking about. Um, and I guess it's also helping me land these concepts by talking about them. So perusha the soul. For me, spirituality is really simple. Do you believe in perusha? Do you believe in the soul? Yes or no? So if you don't and you truly believe that, and this is fine by the way, you do you, if you believe, I doubt you're listening to the podcast if that's what you believe. Unless you're like a friend or a family member and you are like, oh, curious. Um, but this is fine. Like people really close to me in my life, like really close to me in my life, believe this, that you die and that's it. And that we are literally meat and bones and. The reason we have thoughts and consciousness is because we have this physical thing in our head called a brain and that's it, right? I don't believe that. I believe so. That's Rey. So I guess the people who I adore and love and they're perfectly entitled to believe this, um, they're not spiritual. I guess they would say they're not spiritual, or they might say something like, well, I am spiritual, but like my spirituality is all about how wonderful. That is, and how wonderful science is and how magical, you know this earth is. So I would say, well, what created it? And then they would say, I'm guessing the Big Bang. And I would say, I think spirituality is the big bang. You know? So I believe in a consciousness beyond the physicality, which you could say has a collective consciousness, but also individual consciousness. I. I mean, I'm so on board with this. Obviously I believe in angels. I believe in spirit guides. I believe in life after death. I believe in reincarnation. So I had a really good conversation about reti and perusia with my husband. So I do, you know what? I've just realized something. I have a lot of breakthroughs on this podcast and I'm talking to myself. Um, me and my husband are a really good example of perusia and reti because, and conscious, but grounded because he is the grounded to my conscious. And as much as some. Times I've said, and I've said this to so many other spiritual women who are married to very down to earth, non-spiritual guys who have very grounded jobs and who are not into all the things we are into.'cause we're all witches and they're like the best guys in the world. But they're just not like that. And it's a challenge, right? Being married to people, to a guy who's not into this, whose truth isn't this. But we had a moment of agreement the other day and I was like, yeah, that's exactly what I'm saying. He was like, well, yeah, so we agree. And so what we were saying was, I was like, we, we were walking the dogs and we were by the river, and I was like talking about water consciousness. Like, isn't it, isn't it amazing? They're like, water is the, is is, this body of water has been around since the bod beginning of time. Like it's the same body of water that just gets recycled, recycled, recycled, like, and they're talking now about water consciousness and how, you know, water has seen it all. It's been here for everything. It's got consciousness and I was, and then we got talking about atoms and how, you know, when you die, you go back to the earth. And then that those atoms, this is where I struggle because I'm not very scientific. Get, you know, they are literally going to be created into something else. You know, the, the idea of something being solid is a fallacy. We are literally vibrating cells and atoms and things like that. You know, we are amassed together. There is no such thing as time. It's literally elements of time, okay. That are stitched together. So we agreed, because I was saying, well, if things go back to the earth and then they turn in something else that's reincarnation. And he was just like, well, yeah, I guess you could say that. And I was like, okay. So the life force that creates those things for me is soul, and that's perusha. And that is probably the key difference between me and my husband. Like he. Doesn't believe, which is fine that a soul leaves one body and then enters another. Um, I mean, I don't know because I've, because I'm just a earthling on this planet, like how the process happens. But I believe in the soul. I believe as the yoga, you know, the, yo, the yoga teachings show us that. We are reincarnated time and time again until we finish learning the life lessons. Now, I don't know what happens then, and I'm not far along enough in my studies, I guess, or in my thought or in my embodiment of these practices. Like I've said right at the start of this podcast, I really do consider myself very young on my spiritual journey. Um, you know, I haven't got all the answers, but I know the difference between. Perrey and perusha. So why does it matter? Like what? So what? So what, so that's a good question to ask for. Everything is So what? So what, so, so the reason for, so what is, well when you realize that this is just material shapes, these are material shapes, these are material concerns. First of all, it gives you perspective, um, it really gives you perspective. But we don't dismiss the pro reti the. The earth, you know, a lot of, um, this is where a lot of spiritual discourse differs because like in the book I was reading last night, he's very much like, no, the most important thing is the earth. It is this walk as a human. Like that's the most important thing. For those who dismiss that and go straight to the spiritual, uh, they miss the journey. Like they miss the whole point of the exercise. The whole point of the exercise is to have human experience the whole. Whole point of the exercise. It's such a cliche, but it's the journey. It's not the destination. So let me give you an example. As I'm thinking this and processing this out loud, like in my yoga business, it's very early days. This, this podcast is early days. Um, it's like the physicality of the business is me showing up and teaching yoga to extremely small classes. Um, the physicality of this podcast is the fact that it's had not many listens yet. They're the physical facts, and I'm very early on in that. And so the physical facts of the are are the, the journey is what's important here. The destination is purely ethereal. It's in my brain and it's, it's this goal that I'm working towards, which is what I mean. I try not to think about what I want the outcome to be because I try and release the attachment to the outcome. But it's like the journey is the important thing. The creation, the intention is the important thing. Because if I, if I lose sight of what my intention is right now, then the, the joy in the process is lost. What's the point? And the intention in the moment of now will create the outcome. Um, and so it's really important to actually to, because what I feel when with a lot of these studies is, oh, okay, so what's the fucking point then? So what's the point? Like what? I'll let go of everything. I'll just let go of everything. And you could almost. Become nihilistic and be like, I'm not getting outta bed, then what's the point? And it could actually become a depression. But it's the opposite of that. And actually, even though it gives me the chills sometimes thinking about this, and I'll tell you a little bit about something that happened last night that reminded me of this, this process that I'm in and how sometimes it can spook you is, you know, we've got to be here in the here and now we've got to live our lives. And sometimes I look at people who have. Spiritual ignorance. Um, there is a word for that. I can't remember what it is. And I don't mean that rudely, it sounds really rude, but that in yoga is considered one of the main pain points of life, is like to be spiritually ignorant. I, I also think though ignorance is bliss because I think once you start to get into these things, it can give you so much joy and so much release. And it is work, it is doing that for me. You know, it's working for me, but I also look at other people and kind of. Envy them in a way because I feel like the work is difficult, the spiritual work is difficult and, and, and it was kind of easier to just drink and like have fun and live for the, um, see all of the reti as all that there is. It was kind of easier. Um, and all of this is so hard for me to articulate, but now I know that there is a bigger truth to. Life, it's given me so much, but it's also work and it's also hard sometimes. Um, and knowing that, what really used to get me is thinking, wait, okay, so I look at my kid and I'm like, wait, what? He's not just entirely here for me, this isn't the main event. Are you joking? Like, I've had previous lives and previous families, and he'll go on, his soul will go on to have more families and he's had previous, you know, what has his soul come to incarnate Stand. For example, let's use him. My youngest, you know, the real challenging one, who I absolutely adore, by the way. Like we are, I mean, we're joined at the hip. He's my buddy, but he also drives me insane. Um, and, and it's like that child, that soul came absolutely came at a time in my life to teach me some shit And oh my God, has that been achieved? Well, I'm still in the process like. The challenges I've had with him have taught me so much, the challenges I've had through literally having him, um, gave me, you know, and then I entered perimenopause and whatever happened happened, but I, I had this kind of breakdown in a way. Uh, and, and I'm still on a journey of healing. Um, and, and those things are a really good example of reti and perusia. So the reti is, I had a baby, I was postpartum. Um. I was per menopausal, per reti, reti, reti, the earthly considerations of my breakdown. But my, but my soul, my perusha, it, it came here for that. It came here for that because I needed to go through the sludge of the reti and reti can be sludge. Um, I needed to go through that to get to, you know, to come here right now sharing my thoughts on spirituality, because there's meaning to this, my. Soul has come and incarnated in this body, this lifetime to learn some shit. To learn. And the, and what yoga teaches us is that's the whole point of your life. So don't avoid pain, don't avoid suffering. Like don't avoid life.'cause that's how you learn the lessons And the perion needs that. The Perion needs to recruit. It needs the lessons to come down and do what it came to do. And so the idea is that every single time we incarnate on this earth, and that's why you can't rush anybody else's healing, you can't drag anyone else into your healing and your journey because their souls are here for their soul's purpose. You can't influence that. And so that's why it's all about let go surrender. Let go surrender. Focus on yourself. Focus on yourself. Focus on your side of the street. Heal. Learn your lessons. Learn your soul's lessons through your ti, through your earth. Experiences, that's what you are here to do and nothing else. And that kind of speaks to codependency and things like that. And so what was, what I was gonna mention to you is, oh my God, I've, I've started trying to stay up a bit later with my teenager, with my almost 15-year-old, because he's a teenager and he's like, I'm not going to bed like when you go to bed. That's weird. So he stays up till like half 10, 11. And so we've start, instead of just leaving him downstairs, which we did for a little while, we feel like it's really lonely. And actually it's, it's really. A key time to like bond with them, isn't it? Um, you know, shoulder to shoulder, which is like the best way for teenagers. And so my husband and I take turns staying up with them because we're both so old and tired that we both would prefer to go to bed at 9:00 PM Um, and so last night was my turn. So he loves horror movies, right? But he's a real film buff. Like he doesn't wanna watch crap like he watches, like, um, anything that's like weird or arty or anything like that. So he, he chooses this film. I'm like, this sounds creepy. And so this film, and I almost don't wanna tell you what it is'cause it's so scary. It's called Yellow Brick Road. Right. We only watched half of it. We turned it off.'cause I was like, I actually need to turn this off. But I might revisit it with him because the, the theme was a deep resonant one and a really intellectual one. However, it was effing scary. I'm not joking. It was a bit like ly witch project, which for me is like the scariest film ever. So the, the premise of the film was that back in. In the 1940s, the whole town just suddenly got up, got on a path, a trail in the mountains, and they all walked on this trail, and then they were all found dead. I, I mean, that's not exactly what happened, but I'm just gonna give you that version. Okay. So, so this group, this like young, enthusiastic group of psychologists and this, you know, um, students or whatever, go and walk this path with a camera, with psychological testing, videoing everything, and dah, dah, dah, to, to, to investigate what happened. And so. I mean, you don't even need to know. Obviously it goes completely tits up and the whole, and, and they start dying. And so I, while we were watching it, because I'm a neurodiverse and I, a neuro divergent and I have to do this type of annoying thing, I sat there with my laptop Googling about the story also because I wanted to check that it wasn't gonna be too much for Arthur and for me. And so I, I was reading about it whilst we were watching it, and actually I got lost in. Amazing essays about it. I mean, it's a very low budget art arty type of film. Um, and so I was happy for him to watch it because of that, but it was terrifying and it reminded me of my spiritual journey because so, so the example, a lot of people on the Reddit forums and stuff were saying it's so frustrating'cause you never find out why, like, why this path, this. This trail kills people. And a lot of the themes in it were about like, well, this is almost like, um, a warning to like, when you go into a deep exploration of the world's unanswerable questions, like it's a warning that all you'll be left with is your own madness because something's can't be explained. So I have just completely not, that is not verbatim what these essays about the film say, but that's the general gist. It was like, stop looking for answers and live in the here and now. That's how I read it. There's an excellent essay about it. Um, um, if, if you just Google the film and like some essays about it, you'll see. But anyway, it reminded me like, God, this is actually really similar to a spiritual journey in a way. Because if you keep trying to, especially scientifically explain the inexplicable, you will go mad. Uh, and so there is also an act of surrender and faith in going on a journey. Not knowing the outcome and being okay with the unanswerable, right? Like that's what I took from it. Anyway, I, I don't wanna talk about the film anymore'cause it was so scary. Honestly. It was awful. Um, but just suffice to say, I mean, I didn't go into that with my son because I just think he'd just eye roll me. Uh, and, but it reminded me of like, it gave me the chills in the same way that I get the chills sometimes in a spirituality class where. I sometimes slip into it and it scares me. And that is what I used to get growing up. I used to sit and think, oh my God, like I'm a human having a human experience looking out through these eyeballs, and one day I'm gonna die. And I used to just feel this chill of panic run through me like an existential crisis, I guess you could say. I couldn't articulate that to anyone. And I know, you know, you, you don't, you just kind of get on with it, don't you? And just go, I mean, the only. Time I ever used to explore any of those thoughts or feelings was, I guess, as a teenager smoking weed or something like that. You know, you would kind of try and articulate these feelings and thoughts that you were having about what it is to be alive. And I guess that's what spirituality does for me now I'm sober. It really is a fascinating journey into what all of this means, and I think it's important, although it will send you crazy if you spend too much time there. It's important to detach, re. Perusha because it's like you can kind of say, like we said in the class the other day, it's all perrey baby. Like it is just like drama. Life is just drama and you can let it go and just like enjoy life for what it is, but also with a pinch of soul and a pinch of like in the scheme of things, it gives you great perspective. But see the wider themes in life are, which are like to learn these lessons to love one another and to. Recognize the innate spirituality and to recognize that we are just not just, we are humans. Having a, sorry, we are souls. Having a human experience and having that perspective can be really helpful because then it can be really healing and not in a dissociative disassociative, uh, way, but rather in a reflective, observer way. What it's helped me do, and this is the key thing, so I'm teaching some classes at. At Sheffield Yoga Studio soon. I'm really excited'cause it's like the really good yoga studio where I go. So I feel like, oh my God, that's scary, but like great. And so I had to fill in a little bio where they ask you some questions and it was like, what is yoga to you? Or something like that. And, and I basically said what I've just said, which is like, I think it's just recognizing that your thoughts are not your own, your thoughts are just like, your thoughts are just thoughts. They're not you. And so it's really helped me land in that more modern mindfulness sense. The idea. That we, you are not your thoughts. Like this is reti. This is a physicality that you can separate from and just enjoy the bliss of being alive. And so I'm gonna leave it there. That was a huge theme to talk about and I don't know if I did a very good job, uh, as ever. I'm trying to just honor my truth and honor where I'm at in my own journey and my own limitations in my own strengths and weaknesses. And I'm trying really hard to stop worrying if anyone is listening to this. Like I'm not marketing it very much. I need to do that more. If you enjoy this, please, please, it would help me so much if you leave a review. I literally never do it. I need to stop doing it for other peoples because it really does make a difference for the person who's made the podcast. Um, so I've enjoyed talking about this so much, and I will see you next time. Okay, bye.