Your Mind Is A Prison | Hear For Now Ep.17

Can material success and spiritual life coexist? Why do you constantly seek happiness in a burn and churn work culture while putting your spiritual life on the back seat?

Maybe you’ve realised that all your answers come from the soul but you’ve found it challenging to be free from the attachments of the mind to lust, possessiveness and challenging relationships.

In this episode of the Hear For Now podcast, Ananda and Joseph explore the deepest questions that we often have on our spiritual journey and how we can apply ancient wisdom in our modern lives.

Every spiritual quest has questions and answers and this episode is based on your enquiries on the philosophy we follow for spiritual and material success.

Tune in for a deeper understanding of the spiritual science of self-reflection.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We're so limited. So limited in our understanding. So in our capacity to understand. When the lights go off, we can't see one meter in front of us. You know, our senses. Our capacity to understand. We don't know how we don't know anything about the ocean on this planet. We know nothing about space. We know nothing about our context. You know, yes, we think ourselves high and mighty. We lord it over material nature. We celebrate the advancement of science. And yes, there's been progress, but relatively speaking, it's the absolute complete hole. You really don't know anything. Hi guys, welcome back to the Here for Now podcast with myself, Ananda Nitai, and Joseph.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Thank you for having me, Ananda Nitai.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

I just did his full name for the first time. Anyway, welcome back. So it's just myself and Joseph today. And I was chatting with my brother recently, and he was saying to me how he's he's been an avid listener tuning into the podcast, like many of you. Um, but he wanted he had some questions essentially, and I wanted I wanted to encourage everybody to please flood the comment sections of this video and other videos with your questions. Um, because we've been speaking about a lot of different topics. Um, and I know that some of what we've been saying hopefully will have been thought-provoking um and maybe challenging, maybe unearth things that you wanted to you'd like to discuss or challenge some of your opinions. Or so, yeah, if you have any questions, please put them in the comment section so we can address them as well. Um, and we can have a um a dialogue, which is fundamental for understanding anything in this world. And so we can discuss. And um, we've actually, I mean, over the over the over the years, doing spiritual practice, we've both met a number of people who have many wonderful questions. So we thought to get the ball rolling, Joseph and I are gonna shoot some questions to each other. Um, we haven't discussed them in in advance. We wrote some down, I wrote some down. Um and yeah, just to open up, open up this space for conversation. Um, and maybe even ask some of the questions that you guys will have had already. Sound good?

SPEAKER_00 2:45

It sounds amazing. And just to add to that, I would love you guys to add more questions to the comments so that we can answer more of your direct questions and have more of a connection because that's what this podcast is about, actually answering your deep spiritual questions and uh gaining more connection with the spiritual world. So yeah. If you can flood the comment with more lessons, leave to tsunami, tsunami in the comment section.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Okay, so one of the questions that I had, um, so we've all we've spoken a lot about spiritual life being important and the goal in all of our episodes, pretty much. Um, and maybe sometimes we we've even spoke in a in a in a tone that might seem critical and or challenging towards those who um pursue stability in their material life, you know, a regular job and have to support a fight, you know, all these things. Um so do you consider it like a bad thing? Do you think that people who are looking after their material situation, those material, do you think that's a bad thing?

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Looking after your material situation, is it a bad thing? How do we connect our spiritual and material life is a question that that I'm asking myself. What is material life? What is spiritual life? If the supreme origin of everything is spiritual, then obviously the cause of everything material is also spiritual too. Alright, so everything in this world you could say is spiritual in a way. It's just how we use it. Just like if we have a knife and uh we could use it for an operation to help someone with a heart surgery, or we can use it as a uh as a tool to murder someone, essentially. So it's how we how we use our material assets, how we use our material life. Someone recently said to me, you know, if everything you do is for divinity, for a higher power, a higher purpose, then everything you do will um be free of the laws of karma, which means you can have unlimited success in that endeavour. Wow. Um if you're doing it for yourself, your karmic situation based on your previous lives or your previous activities will have its limit. Even if you're doing it for your family or you're doing it for you know, prestige, wealth, fame, beauty, all of these things, it will have some limit based on your your own karma. But if you do it for a spiritual purpose, there's no karma there, so you have more capability actually. And so the question is, you know, is everything material bad? I guess. Um if you're doing it with material intention for your own for your own senses, then then in a way it could be considered um unhelpful towards the spiritual progress. But if you're doing it, you know, making money in order to build a spiritual family or you know, going to work in order in order to inspire our others about your spiritual practice and see how happy you are. What are you doing? How are you attaining this happiness? And sharing it that way. Because if everyone was a monk, you know, how would we access how would society access uh people who are lawyers, doctors, um high-ups in social order? How would you know we need workers in the world in order to attract those people um and live by example? So yeah, that's that's what I think. Have you any thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 6:09

No, I thought that was a really nice answer. I mean, yeah, it's like if everyone was a monk, yeah, the world would look a certain way.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

It's actually a beautiful story. Sorry to interrupt just before I forget it. Um I was watching his your favourite uh spiritual teacher, your spiritual teacher. Um I was watching um a lecture of this um monk who has travelled the world many times and has spiritual communities and is just an amazing speaker. But he was having giving this one talk, and um one person raised his hand and he said, You're a complete hypocrite. You know, if all the world were monks like you, that like what would happen to the accountants? What would happen to the to the farmers? What would happen to society? How would anyone make any money? And um like all the crowd agreed with that person. They were like clapping, and he felt under a lot of pressure in a way. And he thought about it for a moment. Uh and he said to him, What do you do? He said, I'm an accountant. What if the whole world were accountants? You know, what would happen to the farming? What would happen to the finance industry? What would happen to the entertainment industry? No one would be doing anything. And then everyone was like clapping, and like and so it's this point that we all have uh certain material material assets, but if we can use it in harmony with one another, in harmony with society, and in harmony with nature as well, then there can be a complete society. Yeah, sorry to interrupt you.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

No, you didn't interrupt me. That was um I funnily enough, I was thinking of that exact story, yeah. As you were saying, as you were speaking about if everyone was a monk, then yeah, it's brilliant, isn't it? Um yeah, like you said, there's nothing there's nothing inherently bad about material pursuit. Um being spiritual. I mean, it's the principle of Bhagavad Gita, that famous book that I mean pretty much everyone's heard of. And if you haven't, you should get a copy. Um there's a great version of the Bhagavad Gita called Bhagavad Gita as it is, um, by A. C. Bhaktivananda Swami Prabhupada, who is a Sanskrit scholar, um, a great spiritualist, and um practiced bhakti yoga, which is the yoga that's spoken about predominantly in the uh Bhagavad Gita, uh, the highest, the culmination of the yoga lada. Anyway, and um yoga means connection, union. So we're practicing yoga when we can connect everything that we're doing to the source of everything that we are. Um and that can be as an accountant, that can be as a monk or a nun, that can be um as a footballer, even, depending on how we use the fruits of our actions. Like, do we use the fruits of our actions for our own sense gratification, buying items that are gonna keep us materially attached, or do we use those items um in accordance with the characteristics of the eternal, blissful soul, whose mood is to render service to divinity so we can use our money in different ways, for example. Um so yeah, like the knife example you used, um the monk, the accountant example. Yeah, I think you answered the question very nicely. It's like, but yeah, we're all very attached and entangled with our um, you know, thank God that noise has stopped. Apologies for any anyone tuning in. If you could hear that noise in the background, there's this whirring upstairs. Um but yeah, the oh um yeah, I lost my train of thought now. Um But yeah, essentially um Well, this is something different to what I was gonna say, but yeah, essentially we all have a unique nature. We're all individual and we have a unique nature and capacity to offer something. Um so we shouldn't neglect that. In that in that book, the Bhagavad Gita, it says that um it's better to t it's better to perform your own duties imperfectly in this world than to perform the duties of someone else perfectly. Um maybe you're not inclined to being a mank or an maybe you are inclined to uh to business, or maybe you're inclined to teaching, maybe you're inclined to art or something like this, you know. Um we should try and understand what our material nature is, and then try to use that um in service. So yeah, I think that speaks to the question. That is some of my some of my thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Yeah, beautiful as well, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

And so yeah, the um do you did you have anything else you wanted to say on that question or not?

SPEAKER_00 11:29

On that question in particular. Nothing else is really coming to mind. Okay. But I um I was thinking of one question that sometimes people ask me, family members or people on the street, even that I meet. Sometimes people say to me, you know, why do you have that haircut? Ananda, I would love to love to know why why do you have the haircut you have?

SPEAKER_01 11:51

Yeah, I don't know if anyone's seen the back of my head. But they probably have. Anyway, I had a bit of hair at the back of my head. I don't really want to share it on camera, I don't know what it looks like right now. But anyway, um, yeah, so as you can see, I've got a shaved head. I'm so discharge. Um, it's like a it's um it's a symbol of renunciation. Now you can see in different traditions people who are practicing um renunciation of material things, um, they often have a unique haircut. Like in uh Christian monks, you'll see they have like this, you know, they had they leave hair like in a circle around their head. I don't know if you've seen that.

SPEAKER_00 12:37

Yeah, I think I have, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:38

Yeah, in the monks' habits, and they'll have um or in the Buddhist tradition, they have shaved heads completely bold, you know. And so, yeah, I have a shaved head, and Joseph has a shaved head, but with we have a little bit of hair on the back. And in the Buddhist tradition, um there's similar renunciation, it's about renouncing all attachment to material things, to material activity, renouncing it renouncing that completely. And in so doing, there's a there's a peace that comes with that. Um, in the in living a life of detachment, um, in giving up the desire for sense gratification, or not uh submitting to the overwhelming desire for sense gratification. Um so you give up all activity in that way. And so you shave your head completely, and it's a symbol of renunciation from any any activity, any material attachment, and with that comes peace. But we want peace because we're anxious and we're stressed. And it's understood in the Vedic pantheon, which is where Buddhism, Hinduism, all of the yogas and meditations that we practice derive from. It says that even beyond that peace, there's something you can experience, which is called ananda, which means bliss, and that's the joy and bliss of the soul. Like actually, we're all inherently active, we're all doing something. Even if we're doing nothing, apparently we're still doing something, which is doing nothing. Anyway, and bear in mind that it's very hard for people to maintain doing nothing for the most part as well. Um there's a famous uh TV show I used to watch called People Just Do Nothing.

SPEAKER_00 14:28

I don't know if if you've heard of it, but it's called anything anyway.

SPEAKER_01 14:33

It's it's a comedy, it's like a sip comedy. Anyway, it's about this um these guys who live in Bradford and their garage DJs. Um and they're not they're not very famous or successful necessarily. Um and they DJ out of their flat and they put like colourboard boxes on their walls and stuff, and anyway, they're kind of um they're not very productive, you can say productive society, but they're very funny people. Anyway, yeah, it's cool. People just do nothing, but they're still doing they're still doing something. It's just in the eyes of society they're doing nothing, but still you're doing something, yeah. Anyway, yeah, to come back to the question, going on a tangent, but so we leave, I leave something on the back of my head, and Joseph leaves something on the back of his head because um we give up all attachment to material activity, but as we kind of alluded to in the previous question, we maintain our attachment to one final thing. So we have one last thread of attachment on the back of our heads, which is our attachment to spiritual activity, because we are all actor by nature, and so we can spiritualise our activities, as I mentioned, by harmonizing every action, ideally, every action, every thought, word, deed, um, with a spiritual pursuit. And that might not be explicit, like you might be sitting behind um a computer in your law firm or in your marketing agency. Um but what are you gonna do with the fruits of your labour? Again, you can use it use it, use it uh spiritually in service. So um yeah, there's one last thread of attachment. So we leave a little bit on the back of the head. We're announced, but we have one thread of attachment to our activity.

SPEAKER_00 16:20

Just a follow-up question on that um bliss that you're mentioning, that maybe Buddhists are looking more for peace, whereas you know, this tradition is looking for for bliss, for ultimate happiness. Does that mean that we're always happy? Does that mean there's uh no anxiety, stress? What does that mean to to to look for ultimate happiness?

SPEAKER_01 16:44

Yeah, well there's a word called Vaikunta, and this word vaikunta, it means free from anxiety. Literally, that's a literal translation. That means to be freed from an freed from anxiety. And so naturally, when we're um we're in the material world, we have bodies which are material, they're composed of the same my body is made of the same stuff as this table and this microphone and this it's made of the same elements, you know. It's it's material stuff. My body is composed of and in the same way that this is gonna degrade and deteriorate over time, so is my body, and it's already doing it's doing so, you know, gradually. Because of time. It's how time works, the force of time, which is all around us, ever present. Um and so in that condition, we're bound to experience some distress. You know, we're going to experience uh old age if we live long enough. And with old age comes um the the gradual debilitating of of our own bodies, you know, and um or deterioration, I should say sorry, of our own bodies and um lack of ability to carry out the form activities that we're once able to, and that's distressful, and there's pain and there's disease and there's all these things. You know, there's the suffering of our own minds, there's the suffering that other living entities inflict upon us in this world. Um, there are all of these different forms of distress that we have to experience. So we're bound to experience some distress. It's not purely happiness, but our in this material world, but our essence itself is blissful. And the more that we realize that nature, which is also a state of consciousness, the more that we're situated in the consciousness on spiritual consciousness, the consciousness of the soul, um the less that these things affect us. It's like um, you know, uh it's like you get in a you get in a plane on a flight and as you get higher and higher, um all the people down below start to look like ants, and the city starts to look like a like a a toy city and so on and so forth. It's like the the difficulties are still going to be there, but they seem a heck of a lot smaller.

SPEAKER_02 19:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Yeah. And they don't affect you because you're situated you may be within your body, but your consciousness, who you actually are, is beyond the body. And if you're situated on that platform, then those things don't agitate you so much. Um it's like so my my guru's guru um he when he was an old man, he was traveling the world. I mean, he traveled the world fourteen times in twelve years or so. And at the age of well, in his seventies, you know, late seventies. Anyway, and so he doctors detest on him, and he should have been in so much pain. Like the nerves, the nerve endings were touching his skin, like he should have been in such extreme pain uh because of his bodily condition. But he was completely blissful. And he was peaceful he was blissful, sorry, because the soul is an under and because he's situated on that platform. So yeah, it's like that.

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Beautiful answer.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Um sorry. No, I didn't really want to say anything else. I was gonna ask you another question.

SPEAKER_00 20:31

You can answer.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

No, but shoot, what were you gonna say?

SPEAKER_00 20:33

I was just thinking about when you were talking about the difference between Buddhism and and this in terms of the Buddhist want to be peaceful, wanting oneness, wanting unity, whereas this is more like variety within the oneness. So both oneness and variety. It made me think of the analogy of like electrical appliances that are all locked into one energy centre, as it were. But they're all different appliances, they're all there's a variety among the different aspects of you know, a microphone, a camera, all of these things, there's a variety there, but also oneness at the same time. And so for me in my own life, I went a lot a lot of the time around that round that route of trying to find oneness within myself, oneness within society and all of these things, but without really understanding the the variety within that oneness. And it says that we need to learn about both the material and the spiritual. Understand that we're all spiritual beings, but also there's there's differences between us, you know. Like if you're a businessman and you you do a deal, you know, yeah, just give me whatever note you have, five, ten, it's all the same, you know, it's not it's not the same, actually. There's vi variety, there's greater and lesser. So it's the same in spiritual life too.

SPEAKER_01 21:55

Um nice, beautiful. Yeah. Like we mentioned briefly the um yeah, I said my guru's guru and you're speaking about these concepts and some people might ask, you know, like why do you even need a guru? That's a question people ask. Yeah, why do you even need a guru? Aren't all the answers like you speak about you know your bliss or like, well, aren't the answers all inside anyway? Like, why do you even need a guru? Yeah. What would you say today's that question?

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yeah, it's a it's a good question, because many many people might say, you know, all the answers are within. Why should I read a book? Why should I have a spiritual teacher? Why why can't I just follow my own my own desires, my own whims, and all of these things? And so in the material life, if we want, you know, success, let's say as a lawyer, we need obviously to learn law, we need peers, we need mentors, mentees, all of these different things. And in spiritual life, it's the same in many ways. We need just a spiritual teacher, we need to apply that knowledge, we need to act. There's also a difference between our mind and our soul. And in our own practice, our own meditation, we might not know the difference between our mind and soul. And an un nice analogy I like is that if you're in a prison, which in in some sense we all are, um, we've all had traumas growing up, but even this whole existence is is in some way trauma. You know, just if you look at our our birth, how much pain there is. We all go through disease, um, old age and death. The whole life is is traumatic in it actually. Um one day we're hot, one day we're cold. Everything in this world is is in some way trauma. And so um we're in a prison in one regard, whether we we perceive it or not we are. And so if you want to be free of prison, if you want to get out of prison, you need to know someone who's who's free as well. And that freedom that they can give you is because they've experienced that freedom. And so you could be a prisoner on the lowest level, you could be a prisoner where there's um drug like excessive drug use, there's you know crime, there's degradation. You could be a prisoner on the middle level, you know, you have a nice family, you you know, do you do your duty, you could be on the upper level, you you're very wealthy, but at the end of the day you all go through the same things with birth, old age, disease, and death. Whereas spiritual truth, spiritual liberation as it were, brings you beyond that. Brings you to the point of I'm a spiritual being and my purpose is to connect with a supreme spiritual being. And in that way you can be free from from this prison we're in. But we can't do that on our own on our own accord. Um and for me that's that's why why you need a spiritual teacher.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, amazing. To add to add a little bit to that, these Jay is like um I had a few thoughts as you were speaking. But um uh one was just that we're so limited. Yeah. Um you know, we're so so limited in terms of our capacity to perceive. Um yeah, that was the first thing I was gonna say, sorry, was that even before that, you mentioned being in a prison, you know. What is that prison? Well, it's it's the um bindings of our own material desires, which is what keeps us perpetually dissatisfied. Like we may be in a penthouse suite with the cocktail in our hand, the beautiful woman in um IRSI, but and we may think we're and we may feel happy. Um But with the maintenance of what we've accumulated, there's a lot of anxiety. There's a lot of stress in getting to that point in the first place. Um and that satisfaction we feel is not so much happiness, but it's the absence of dissatisfaction. I think I've said that before, but it's the absence of a dissatisfaction. We're perpetually chasing a happiness and a higher level of satisfaction and a satisfaction. Because our default setting is not to feel quite satisfied, actually. But the spiritual understanding is that in our essence we are, it's just covered. Yeah. And when we're in eating build bodies, we're bound by the dictators of desires of our senses, like, oh that looks nice, all that smells, and all that tastes sweet. Yeah, so um so yeah, real freedom is um is not being controlled and governed by the demands of us, our mind and senses, yeah. And that's what the guru or the spiritual teacher helps you to do. Like you said, if you want to get free from something, you can't untie, you can't untie your hands if they're bound by Redn or so. Someone whose hands are already free has to do it. And so the guru should be someone whose hands are not tied, and then they can help you to do so. And it's a whole other conversation in terms of discerning as to who that person might be, but that's the principle. Um and yeah, I was saying we're so limited. So limited in our understanding. So in our capacity to understand, when the lights go off, we can't see one meter in front of us. You know, our senses, our capacity to understand. We don't know how we don't know anything about the ocean on this planet. We know nothing about space, we know nothing about our context. You know? Yes, we think ourselves high and mighty, we lord it over material nature, we celebrate the advancement of science, and yes, there's been progress, but relatively speaking, so that it's the absolute complete whole. You really don't know anything, and um and yeah, do we need a guru? I remember a story of my guru when he was young and he was seeking spiritually, and um he was in India and he had Krishna Murti speaking. Ah yeah, and then and um and he was on stage in this Pandal, and he was saying to this big crowd, and my guru was sitting at the age of maybe 19 in this audience, and he was you and uh Krishna Raji was saying, Give up your gurus, the truth is within. Listen to the voice within. He's in the Indian. I'm not doing an Indian ass. Anyway, so he was saying all these things, and um all respect Krishna Rudy, that way. And he was saying these things. Um and he was speaking quite compellingly, and my guru was with his friend, who um was also a spiritualist practicing their mashra. We left and they were discussing all his sin. He was saying that he shouldn't follow any guru, shouldn't listen to the teachings and teach the um and so his friend said so my guru said to his friend, What are you gonna do that? You got a greed in the Nashram? And he was like, Well, I'm gonna follow his advice and not listen to the advice. In the sense that Krishna Murati had just been t instructing him, teaching him what this not to do that. And so he was like, Yeah, I'm gonna do that and not listen to what you this thing. Keep going anyway, so I thought that was quite funny. It's an ironic yes idea that they where do you get your information from? We get it from books, you get it from teachers, you know. Yeah, we need teachers like that. We're very limited. Um unfortunately, we're out of time now. Thank you guys for tuning in. We're gonna carry on. So please flood the comment section. I implore you. Everyone that's watching this, everyone that's listening, if you've made it to the end, please write at least one question in the comments or go back to a previous video, write something there, and we're gonna have a look. And next week we're gonna address them more, um, or we're gonna tie them into all episodes. And thank you so much, guys, for tuning in. And we will see you on the weekend.