Robert Moses | Advaita Vedanta: Reality, Illusion, and the Nature of Consciousness

Robert Moses is a renowned expert in yoga philosophy and Advaita Vedanta. With over five decades of experience in studying and teaching Vedanta, Robert has become a respected figure in the field. He has been closely associated with influential teachers such as Eddie Stern and is the founder of the website Namarupa.org. Robert's extensive travels and his appreciation of luminaries like Ramana Maharishi have enriched his understanding and teachings in yoga, Vedanta, and pranayama practices.

Visit Robert here: https://namarupa.org/

Key Takeaways:

• Advaita Vedanta Philosophy: Advaita Vedanta posits that all perceived separation is an illusion; there is only one supreme consciousness.
• Impact of Vedanta: Robert Moses illustrates how the teachings of Vedanta have profoundly transformed his understanding of identity and consciousness.
• Yoga Practices: The discussion highlights how pranayama and meditation are tools to maintain balance, calm, and awareness in everyday life.
• On Suffering and Empathy: Advaita Vedanta acknowledges suffering but encourages empathy while recognizing it as part of the illusory world.
• Personal Growth: Regular practice, combined with understanding karma, faith, and consciousness, leads to profound self-awareness and peace.

Thanks for listening to this episode. Check out: 👇
8IN8 Ashtanga Yoga for Beginners Course Online- Learn 8 Limb Yoga in 8 Days - Get FREE coupon code for a limited time only (Regular price $88) https://info.nativeyogacenter.com/8in8-ashtanga-yoga-for-beginners-8-limbs-in-8-days/

Practice with Native Yoga Online - New classes EVERY day - Use Code FIRSTMONTHFREE https://nativeyogacenter.teachable.com/p/today-s-community-class

Subscribe to Native Yoga Center and view this podcast on Youtube.

Thank you Bryce Allyn for the show tunes. Check out Bryce’s website: bryceallynband.comand sign up on his newsletter to stay in touch. Listen here to his original music from his bands Boxelder, B-Liminal and Bryce Allyn Band on Spotify.

Please email special requests and feedback to info@nativeyogacenter.com

https://info.nativeyogacenter.com/8in8-ashtanga-yoga-for-beginners-8-limbs-in-8-days/

Chapters

• 0:00 A Journey Through Yoga, Vedanta, and Self-Discovery
• 10:42 Understanding Advaita Vedanta and Its Non-Dual Philosophy
• 18:52 Exploring Consciousness and Unity in Advaita Vedanta
• 27:00 The Dissolution of Individuality in a South Indian Ashram
• 30:22 Exploring Non-Duality, Karma, and Paths to Self-Realization
• 40:08 Balancing Empathy and Action in a Polarized World
• 46:40 The Evolution and Practice of Pranayama for Lifelong Wellbeing
• 1:00:14 Exploring Consciousness and Gratitude in Meaningful Conversations

Transcript

Todd McLaughlin: 0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. So happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, body work and beyond. Follow us at @Nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Hello and welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, I'm Todd McLaughlin, and this show is a space for exploring yoga as a lived practice, not just a theoretical one and one that supports clarity, inquiry and connection, both on the mat and off the mat, and today, I am honored to be joined by Robert Moses, a teacher of yoga and Advaita Vedanta with more than five decades of Study and teaching experience. Robert is also a co publisher of Namarupa, categories of Indian thought, and in this conversation, we explore the foundational principles of Advaita Vedanta, including non duality, self, inquiry, ignorance, liberation, and how these teachings can help us better understand the nature of self and reality. Visit Robert on his website, namarupa.org, the link is in the description. Send a comment. Let us know what you think. I really hope you feel as inspired by the calm nature that Robert delivers here, and the clarity from with which he speaks. All right, on that note, let's go ahead and jump in. I'm really excited to be here with Robert. Moses, Robert, thank you so much for taking time out of your day today. How are you feeling?

Robert Moses: 2:39

Great thanks for having me. Todd.

Todd McLaughlin: 2:41

Oh, you're welcome. I appreciate the work you do in the realm of yoga philosophy and teaching. I saw that you teach with Eddie stern, and your website is namarupa.org Am I right? It is good. namarupa.org can you know you've spent decades studying and teaching Vedanta. How did Advaita Vedanta first into your life, and what initially drew you to it?

Robert Moses: 3:13

I guess it was the sense that the universe is vast, and I began to think about the vastness of it, and of course, didn't find any answers, but one day, reading A book of Ramana Maharishi, basically the force and truth of His words actually kind of jumped out of the book and hit me and sort of knocked me over backwards. And I understood that the universe as we perceive it is not the whole story. In fact, it might be a kind of misrepresentation of what what is so from there on, I just started reading as much as I could about this particular view of the universe, which is that time and space are illusory, and that the awareness or consciousness of being is all that there is, and that each one of us, although we appear very much to Be separate entities, are really only this one vast, timeless, spaceless being or awareness. So this was, of course, you know, something kind of difficult to understand intellectually. So I. Realized I had to do something about my own perception in order to really grasp that, and that was basically trying to learn to sit still and quieten the ongoing drama inside one's own head so that one could get a deeper perception or an immediate awareness of consciousness. Nice.

Todd McLaughlin: 5:27

How old were you at the time that you read that book by Ramana Maharishi?

Robert Moses: 5:34

Yeah, so I must have been 21 at that time.

Todd McLaughlin: 5:37

Ah, amazing. And where were you born?

Robert Moses: 5:41

I was born in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Todd McLaughlin: 5:44

Wow. Were you in South Africa when you read this book? Or had you already started to travel?

Robert Moses: 5:51

Yeah, actually, I was no longer in South Africa. I was traveling. I left South Africa in 1971 and traveling. And so at that particular time that I read that particular book, I was actually living in Israel.

Todd McLaughlin: 6:09

Yes, yes, amazing. What is your memory or recollection of your experience being in Israel at the time?

Robert Moses: 6:18

Well, at that time that was 1971 I arrived there and stayed until 1973 so it's a pretty intense place, as we know from all the news, although my experience of the intensity was more to do with at that point I was beginning to look inward, rather than outward. And so the experience of the intensity of the juxtaposition of different, you know, people living there different religions. You know, it's home to Jews. People are for Islam, Christianity, and very major sites, and it's also an interface between east and west side of the Eastern world, and then you've got the Western world, and there's also bit of desert and landscape like that. So that harsh sort of Stark juxtaposition makes this intense kind of inquiry. And for me, particularly at that time, if I look back, it was sort of the beginning of my inquiry into myself, so that all came together in one place interesting.

Todd McLaughlin: 7:36

So in 1971 you were about 21 years old. What to what level was the counterculture, slash hippie culture prevalent in America? Late 60s, early 70s? To what level did that display itself in Israel? Yeah.

Robert Moses: 7:56

And so if I step back just a little bit, because I was born in South Africa. So the counterculture, and this is extremely important and great that you raise that question was leading most young or not, most many young adults into looking for deeper questions into life. Why are we here? It's all just not materialism. There are other reasons for us being alive in our bodies on the planet. So that was actually happening towards the end of my stay, my period of life, in South Africa. And I actually had a particular friend who, out of the blue, just for no reason at all, said that religion is the answer, and I still remember that very, very strongly. His word. He had some, you know, influence upon me so and I wasn't particularly religious, but those words had some deep meaning. They meant something. So when I was I traveled with a friend because I was an architect student, and we were part of the architectural training in South Africa was to travel, General, usually, to Europe to study both old and more modern architectural masterpieces as a period of the fourth year of our studies. And during that time, my whole mind was changing. Somebody gave me I was waking up very early in the morning and not knowing what to do with myself because my friend slept a little later than I did. And then somebody gave me a book by Swami Shivananda called the practice of yoga, and in that book, it said, wake up early and sit and meditate. I and it also said, Don't smoke, don't eat meat. And these things were just happening to me naturally. At the time, I did smoke, and I just quit, you know, gave up smoking. I had grown up in South Africa, where eating meat is a big part of the culture, but I basically just stopped eating meat, and I found my whole shift of what I was doing in the world changing, and in this book were written things that were just happening to me, like wake up early, sit still, try to meditate, etc. So that that, to answer your question, that was all sort of running in tandem with the counterculture of the time, the hippie movement. We were sort of architectural, architect students, half hippies. I was still studying architecture, but, you know, we were traveling around in a false Walgreen van, oh, nice in which we lived. Yeah, that was the easy way to travel around Europe and study buildings, but I'd wake up early and meditate. And in fact, in one place outside of Paris, we picked up two young Indian medical students who were hitchhiking out of a crowd at that time, everyone thumbed around. It's not so common today, and there was a crowd, you know, hundreds of people trying to get a ride. And we just stopped and picked up these two young students. And somehow or other, I had a picture of the Goddess Lakshmi in the van. I didn't really know who she was, but one student looked at it and said, Well, we've been standing here for eight hours, and my goddess just picked us up, and I noticed he was super relaxed, like, really relaxed, kind of I asked him why. He said, Well, he does yoga, so I asked him to teach me something when we stopped in the evening somewhere to, you know, we would stop somewhere camp and cook some food and spend the night. He taught me to stand on my head, nice, since I never done any Asana, my body was, you know, a little stiff and trembly and shaky. And he got a hold of my body, and I just felt his relaxation like flow into my body, and I stood on my head. So all these things were, you know, landing in the right place at the right time?

Todd McLaughlin: 12:48

Yeah, amazing, amazing. I love hearing that. Thank you so much for telling me those stories. I love that. I'm curious for listeners who are completely new to Vedanta, how would you describe Advaita Vedanta in clear, accessible language?

Robert Moses: 13:08

Yeah, so Advaita Vedanta. The word Vedanta means the end of the Vedas Anta means end. Veda is Vedas. Vedas are scriptures, but are said to contain basically, knowledge of the human being and his her place within the universe and what is the universe, which have been passed down in India orally, for you know, a long, long time, more recently, of course, written down. Parts of them have been lost, but the Vedanta is supposedly the end of the Vedas. It sums up all the knowledge written in those Vedas, and sort of brings it to a conclusion. And then there are different types of Vedanta, and the one that I have a affinity towards is called Advaita, which means non dual. And then it's usually said as consciousness. But the thing about Advaita Vedanta, different to the other types of vedantas and other philosophies, is that it is said to be absolutely non dual. So most of our philosophical viewpoints take for granted that we're here and I'm an individual, and you're an individual, and there's a universe, and perhaps there's a God or something like that, and try to explain the experience of being from that point of view. Advaita says. Is this never, ever has taken place. There are there is no beginning, there is no end, there is no separation, there is no i, there is no you. That is all comes under what they call Maya or an illusory appearance that causes us to mistake the absolute Being which we individually are as separate individual entities. So So, and this was summed up by one of the great teachers of Vedanta Adi, Guru, Shankaracharya, who said basically that there is only consciousness, that the individual is none other than that consciousness and that the appearance of the world and its creation, ongoing activity and its possible dissolution, and that all the Separate appearances of names and forms are basically unreal. And so he summed this up in a kind of three word, three line, saying that the world is unreal. The only reality is the supreme consciousness, and that the individual is that supreme consciousness, this is a very tough pill to swallow. I mean, none of us are going to buy that, because we definitely experience the world of ourselves as an individual, and we see, you know, vast space and time out there. We experience things like that. So it's very difficult to have the sense of awareness that I am consciousness. Yes, yes.

Todd McLaughlin: 17:11

Amazing is, is this idea of, do you feel like the non dual aspect is so hard for us to contemplate, because not only when we look at the world, we see all this dichotomy and polarization that that's basically why it is so difficult for us. Do you feel like because of the perhaps, you know, like even in a religious sense of growing up believing in good and evil in a non dual state. Would we be accurate in saying there is no exactly good or evil, that all of it is a manifestation of consciousness? Yeah.

Robert Moses: 17:58

I mean, that's you hit upon one real difficulty of trying to cognize the reality that all is when we look around us and we see all the good and bad, the good and evil, and we see the many different types of beings and Where and what's going on in everything in the natural world and in the human world, it's very difficult to say that this is all just an apparent kind of show or drama, and that intrinsically, it is all Absolutely, let's say, quote, fine as it is, because we see good and bad, and very difficult to try to resolve that. What is that? What is good, what is bad? You know, what is right, what is wrong? And one you know, Vedanta says the main reason is because we're looking at everything from the point of view of the sense of individuality. When we have that sense of individuality, then everything is black or white, right or wrong, good or bad. Everything, you know, it has all these counter positions. If we can somehow remove that point of individuality, then we'll just see it as it is.

Todd McLaughlin: 19:28

Yes, great point. Great point. I mean, right away I think of the idea of like a kind of like a group consciousness, in the sense of sometimes, I've heard people try to explain, like, if there was an alien species or race outside of planet Earth, that there potentially could be this sort of group think or group consciousness, where. All of them are having the exact same thoughts at the same time, or all of them are having a sort of awareness of, we are all kind of the same, experiencing the same and so then when I look at all the human beings, and this doesn't even, I'm not even including all the animal life and all of the creatures that have eyes and senses, is there some sense that you have that we kind of are one big, large being, so to speak, all viewing the world from our own perspective? Yeah.

Robert Moses: 20:35

I mean, that's a way to attempt to cognize it. That makes sense. Yeah, and so what we're all doing is we're all looking at everything else through our limited framework, which is our body, mind, senses. We are perceiving through those senses, the consciousness, whatever it sees is a little bit not clear. Even you and I right at this point, are seeing something slightly different. We are from a different angle, a different perspective. So I mean one way that we can are there two ways that I've always thought about and often when talking to people who you know, ask these questions, one way is, what happens when you go to sleep? So we are awake here, and we're seeing each other, and we're talking to each other, then we might go to sleep and we might have some dreams, and in the dream state, we will have experience some other kind of reality, sometimes flying, sometimes in a foreign land, sometimes seeing people we know, people we've just don't know, or sometimes fantastical experiences. And then we have deep sleep where there's nobody else, and to all intents and purposes at that time of deep sleep, we are not there either. You can have a very nice bed and you sleep, and you say you have difficulty going to sleep on your very nice bed. So you get down on the hard floor, and you fall fast asleep. At that time you're asleep, there's no hard floor. It only appears when you wake up. So the appearance of the world to all of us at all times, only appears upon when we have what we call waking state consciousness. Waking state consciousness is not different to dream consciousness, except time and space have different differences. And you know, a dream you can have a whole lifetime goes by in a flash, but in the deep sleep. There's no time and there's no place. You only say that you were in that room when you wake up. When you wake up, you say I was sleeping on the floor. While you were sleeping on the floor, you do not say I'm sleeping on the floor. You'd be awake at that time. So this is one of the major ways to try to understand the basic non reality of time and space is that it's only a particular state of consciousness when the sense of awareness has moved out through the senses and begins to experience objects as separate from myself. That's one way.

Todd McLaughlin: 23:48

Yeah, I like that. That's actually really nice. Thank you.

Robert Moses: 23:53

The other way is to think about containers. So if we have and I'll take a sip of water here. If we have a container, like a glass which has space in it, and then the room around here, which is a container which has space in it, we think that the container, the glass, the space here is smaller than the space out here. In actual fact, if I were to pour the water out and break the glass, we'll see that the space is really one. So Advaita Vedanta says that the idea that this is separate to that or this space is separate to this space is caused by the temporary container. The space is always one. If we remove the container, then we see that the space is one. So the our container is the body mind. Body mind makes us think that i. I am an individual, Robert and your Todd, etc. If we were able to remove the container, or the idea that I am that container, we would see that we all are one. You and I are one identical. So this is another way to look at the sort of non reality of separation of individual space and time, by realizing that we're just we're focused on the container, and this also, by the way, is the cause for lots of problems in the world, because according to our containers, we have different perceptions, and we also have different notions about other people's containers. They tall, they short, they fat, they certain this and that, etc. So however, within the one consciousness is not tall, fat or thin, it's all just consciousness. Wow.

Todd McLaughlin: 26:11

Well, thank you, because the way you're explaining it is very clear and relatable. And I love that analogy with the container. Thank you very much. I especially liked it when you tapped on it and made that nice sound. I I'm curious. And then, in some respects, if I were like, if I close my eyes, and you had your eyes closed, and you're talking in relation to the idea of, I think my container is separate from your container, in a way. It's almost like I'm having a conversation with myself by talking to you kind of, sort of, right. Yeah, that's awesome. And then if I have a conversation with myself in my own mind, how is that much different from me having a conversation with you. Now, I the obvious is obvious, but I'm curious just to hear your thoughts on on this idea. Yeah.

Robert Moses: 27:54

I mean, we actually, I guess, following from what you're saying, we're always just having a conversation with ourselves.

Todd McLaughlin: 28:02

I well, I like that. Thank you. I feel much, much more comfortable, like if I was a little nervous about talking to you before, I feel more comfortable now, because I don't have to be nervous, right? I don't have to be nervous conversing with you, because I can just think of you more like myself, in a way. So I don't know, I guess that just makes me feel a little more at peace. I wasn't terribly nervous to speak with you because I heard so many great things about you from from people, so I knew you're a really nice person based off of their idea. But um, I don't know. I just I think about that sometimes I'm just curious. What are some other thoughts that you have or realizations have you had in the is inquiry process in the world of Advaita Vedanta? Yeah.

Robert Moses: 28:49

I mean, the thing that I find I have to do is constantly remind myself of this, because, of course, I live in a world of duality. I mean, I'm in a body, and I think I'm Robert and so on, having very nice family, wife and three kids, and you know, we have to take care of all our physical needs and so on. But I constantly try to remind myself that I am just consciousness. So one way is to ponder dying. So when you're dying, what really is dying. So I think about that quite a bit. So this, apparently, what Ramana Maharishi did when he was 17 years of age. He was in his uncle's house in a little town in South India, and he he thought he was dying, so he lay down on the floor, thinking that, you know, if I'm dying, I should lie down. And basically, his sense of indevalid individuality died, but his body carried on for another more than 60 years. So during that time, he did not have the sense that you and I have of being an individual. So, and there are lots of illustrations of that, so I like to remember those illustrations, like, for example, when he was very young kid, he sat in this kind of like small room where you go down some stairs in a temple in South India, during which time he had just come there, and he was in the temple grounds. Some other boys were harassing him. So he went and sat in this little. Room where you can go to today, if you like, and you know, go and visit it and sit there small room. And at that time, when he was found sitting there, scorpions had been biting him, and some mice or rats were nibbling at his legs and and after, later on, he was asked what his experience was, and he said that, well, mice were eating the legs. He didn't, he didn't say, like, my legs, scorpions were stinging the body, the leg. So he didn't have that connection. And then also he used to, later on in this Ashram, you'd sit in a small little room, and people would come and sit there and meditate. And the people that sort of the management of the small ashram thought he needed to have a time alone where, you know, he could be by himself. And so they put up a sign, no one's allowed in here between two and four o'clock, something like that. The next day, they found him sitting outside, and he said, What are you doing? He said, Well, there's a sign says no one is allowed in there between. So he had, you know, and then many, many, many, many stories of that. But for myself, I've just had very brief, timeless, spaceless experiences when I read, when I have understood that I'm not this individual, not I've understood suddenly there was an awareness of being, this consciousness, just awareness, not an individual, always at that time, the mind comes back to think, well, how can I be like that? Forever and always? Is the question. Well, the answer is, basically, you have to take care of all the unresolved threads of your life. These are your karmas. These have to be taken care of. If they're not taken care of, you cannot be what you are. In other words, we're kind of here in the state of duality, to learn lots and lots of lessons and to to balance our karmic sheets so that we can be what we really are, which is not an individual. Our karmas are created by the thought that we are an individual. Because when we think we're an individual, there are others, and therefore we either treat them well or not, and we'll create a karma which will come back to us. So there's a lot of these karmic threads that are unfinished, and we need to kind of finish or take care of those without which we cannot be, what we are, which is timeless, spaceless, causeless, immaterial, infinite, being, so little going on and on.

Todd McLaughlin: 33:58

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I'm mesmerized right now. I'm curious, is you mentioned that Advaita Vedanta is a particular philosophical say thread of Vedanta. I've had a chance to do a little reading and study on non dual Shaiva Tantra. So then, in this world of, or in this idea of understand, there's multiple non dual schools, how can we have a lot of differences in something that is saying non duality, and you know what I mean, like if, if there is true non duality, are there any other aspects of non duality?

Robert Moses: 34:50

Yeah, well, yeah. I mean, this is a really good question. How can we but we are living in a world of non of duality. I am Robert. You are Todd. There's 7 billion people out there, not to mention the infinite number of organisms, trees, plants, planets. I've just been reading about a discovery of a black hole that's speeding through space at 2.2 million miles per second.

Todd McLaughlin: 35:27

Like trying to comprehend that. So wait, black holes are flying through space.

Robert Moses: 35:34

I was kind of that escape. It's called an escaped black

Todd McLaughlin: 35:38

it's an escape black hole. What? And okay, I'll let you continue. Thank you.

Robert Moses: 35:44

Well, it's only it's only cognizable by the fact that it's pushing something in front of us and it's trailing something behind it, otherwise you can't see it. But anyways, there's lots of stuff out there, and there's lots of stuff in here. Advaita Vedanta is a philosophical system which says all of that is only caused by it's only an appearance call, and to try to explain the appearance, they say it's caused that appearance is caused by something which is termed as Maya or illusion, which it itself is illusory. It itself does not exist. So all of that is illusion. So Advaita says, no matter what the vastness of the universe and how many black holes there are and how many microorganisms there are. It's all just a apparent temporary creation of an illusory sense of separation that does not exist anyway, if I were to somehow remove that illusion, I would not have these questions. There would be no separation, there would be no difference. But not everyone buys that. Different people have different experiences, so they try to describe the nature of the universe in a slightly different way, saying that, yes, there is a temporary appearance of illusion, or because you're in your body, you will see things in a particular way. And this gives these experiences are had by different philosophers or sages, saints or seers at different times, and then they'll explain what their experience is and and if they forceful enough about it, it will become another sort of aspect of a philosophical way of trying to explain what We really cannot explain with our minds. Yeah.

Todd McLaughlin: 38:03

Good answer. Great answer. Thank you. In the world of yoga, we hear about renunciation, and there's a story line that there at one point in history, perhaps in India, that it was believed to reach the highest state of self realization would be to renounce the world, or take up the vow of a monk or nun and renounce, renounce. And then we have this idea of that yoga is possible as a householder and in the realm of the teachings of Ramana Maharishi, would we see him as a renunciate or as a householder? Or is even all that just an illusion? In the big picture is, is this idea that we even could, you could be a renunciate and I can be a householder and that we are two different things. I guess I'm understanding what you're saying then, from the non dual perspective, these are just different ways of us seeing differences between us, as opposed to embracing the Advaita, understanding that well, even if it appears that you're a renunciate and it appears that I'm a householder, in actuality, or the same? Yeah?

Robert Moses: 39:31

No, totally. I mean, the different paths renunciate or householder are really according to the particular individual's karmic path created by thoughts that they had previous to that moment, and it could or could not help them in trying to perceive the reality so people will follow a particular path with the idea that this particular path will help me to you Know still my mind, enable me to meditate deeper, enable me to perceive more clearly what's going on. And it could help. It also could hinder. It could create some difficulty. Yes, yes. So what we really and but from the ultimate point of view. It does not matter if you're a householder or you're a monk or a nun, this is not really an indication of your inner state. This is only an indication of your outer state due to karmas, and it could be very helpful for you or might not be. Advaita says you don't have to be one or the other. In the case of Ramana Maharishi, he was naturally just live like that. There was no question. But even even in his state, people did, some people would criticize him by saying, well, then ashram grew around you, just like a householder with a house. Interesting. People are always going to have quibbles, one way or the other, yes, but he was living up in a cave, and he wouldn't speak for a long time, and he started only to speak when people started to ask him questions, when they asked him questions, that sort of prompted him to speak. And then ultimately, he came down from that cave to live at the foothill of that mountain because his mother came to look for him, and when his mother came to look for him, for some reason, he allowed himself to be brought down. And then this Ashram grew, which, you know, which was also good for us today, because basically, you can kind of a history and and a an inspiration of this teaching brought into reality,

Todd McLaughlin: 42:26

yes, yes. How could if I am wrapped up in current affairs and feeling the polarization of society is having a negative effect on me. What is Advaita Vedanta inspired meditation, or way of coming to terms with that sensation? How? What would you recommend if I'm feeling very just at odds with the things that I see going on in the world. Is there a way to make good with that? And, you know, I guess if, if I'm looking at something that I see as injustice, and I feel bad for the being that is experiencing that injustice, I guess from an Advaita Vedanta perspective, in some respects, I could look at it and say, everybody needs to experience what they're experiencing to grow and to maybe work through the karmas, but I guess I still have a hard time watching injustice At the same time. To what level do we socially like with do we? Do we pull back and do we just watch and just say, look, there's nothing that I need to do, because this just needs to happen for some reason that I can't explain. But is there a point where we need to step in and engage in the karma, so to speak. And how does Vedanta address that issue?

Robert Moses: 44:09

Yeah, this is a tough question. I mean, basically, what's going on? By the way, this has been going on basically forever, okay, but one thing we need to feel, we need to try to feel, is empathy and understanding of the suffering of people who are being mistreated in all number of ways, mistreated is a pretty weak word for a lot of the stuff that goes on in the world. But we need to, Vedanta, don't say you don't have these feelings. We've got these feelings. But it also says the feelings are to do with your body, mind entity. So always to try to revert back to the realization that I am, that consciousness. So the but the consciousness is manifesting both in the people that are suffering and in the people that are perpetrating that suffering. This is, you know, from both sides, yes. So this is, you know, we don't we got to learn to accept these. Or both aspects, and then we've got to see that with it's within us that myself, I also have all these aspects, because I, if I am that full consciousness, then this manifestation of injustice is part of what I am as well. But Vedanta says that that thought is only illusion. You are not. There's no such thing as justice or injustice. But that doesn't help you in the moment, because in the moment, you're an individual and you're feeling that this is not right, or that that's not good, so we do have to act within that because, because of our perception of where we are. So you might have to do something about that, doing something about that will help you to will help one to not only perhaps ameliorate a situation, but also work out your own karma. You feeling that so much so that you need to get out there and do something about it that's a karmic thing that will happen. Yeah. I mean, I was born in South Africa. I lived in and grew up in South Africa, where every day in front of my eyes was pretty severe racial injustice and and so, you know, I had to at certain times. I came across certain situations where I had to choose to do something, you know, right or wrong, so, or from my perception at that time, the problem also to so we choose and we do something. What I mean to say by the problem is we never actually know what's right or wrong. It's very difficult to know, and we might do something that we think is helpful and actually creates more of a problem. So the world is a very complex place, but in the meantime, in order to feel a sense of of wholesome doership. We try to do actions that at this time we perceive as being helpful to the society, to the family, to our friends, people around us, the town that we live in, and so on. We definitely need to do something. Yes.

Todd McLaughlin: 48:22

Thank you. Robert, great answer. I really I benefit from that. Thank you. You know Vicki Clark, who was kind enough to introduce me to she raved about your teaching that you do with pranayama. Can you elucidate what pranayama is for you, and a little bit of or could you also talk a little bit about how when you first started to engage or practice in pranayama, how has your own practice evolved as you've evolved?

Robert Moses: 48:58

Yeah, super good question, because when I, when I first started this whole yogic path, I I just wanted to, basically, my main aim at that particular time was to stop My thought process. Just, you know, I thought, if I don't think, then everything will be fine. But I realized I couldn't not think, why, because my body kept on wanting to move around. Got, you know, if I sat still, it got fidgety, got painful. So I realized, okay, I have to do something about that. So came across yoga asana, which very helpful for getting your body to become more comfortable. And also, you know, allow you to sit comfortably for longer periods of time. But still, this idea was to try to stop the thought process, stop things, etc. And then, you know, when I first learned about pranayama exercises, or it was also with that idea that if I just did enough of these, everything was going to stop. But that doesn't work, because everything goes on.

Todd McLaughlin: 50:21

So true. We all do the same thing, don't we? It's funny how?

Robert Moses: 50:25

Yeah, I mean, basically, took me a long time to realize that what prana is is the movement of the entire universe. It's just the universe moving. It doesn't stop. It's at. And Vedanta says it's apparently moving, but within the sense of not being in that Advaitic space of awareness, everything is only moving. So then the next thing was, well, how can I work with that movement to try to bring a sense of peacefulness and calm to myself my thoughts to be able to, you know, maintain a good, healthy balance of life and so on. So the pranayama basically became a way of maintaining more or less equanimity, no matter what was going on around me, very, very, very, very, very difficult, because you know, as you know, all things are going to be going so And still, I have a thought, because in the yogic text, particularly the Hatha Yoga text, there's lot of talk about being able to manipulate and move the prana in a way that it's going to either give you some kind of a spiritual experience, or At least give you a bring you closer to a sense of being, consciousness and so on. So I was, I was practicing in order to get this type of experience, to have the experience, some kind of higher experience. And still, you know, this would go on and on and on. When I realized just doing the practice is what it is. There's no you don't need to get anything out of this. What you need to be able to do is, when you're not doing the practice, to bounce back from things that upset you, shock you, disturb your mind, cause difficulties in your health and things like that. You should be able to recover from those a little bit quicker than you had done in the past. So the practice just just became like brushing your teeth. You wake up in the morning and you brush your teeth, so you sit meditate, so you do some pranayama, so you do some exercises, and then slowly became the realization that your breath is the key to all of this. How you use your breath you can consciously make big changes in your awareness and in your physical mental state of being. So over the years, it sort of went from I want to get here to basically, I just want to be here. Yes.

Todd McLaughlin: 53:39

Yes. Amazing. Well, very cool. Robert. I mean, was there who was the first teacher that you went to to help you learn pranayama? Did you do it all through reading a book, or did you come in contact with a teacher who took you through a specific type of pranayama practice, and then, on that note, when you if, well when you practice pranayama. Now, do you have a structure that you work off of, or do you just simply, simply observe your breath?

Robert Moses: 54:12

Yeah, so currently, I use definitely a structure. So I learned initially from Swami Vishnu Devananda, who maintained that he had done a lot of pranayama when in his younger years. And then more recently, I picked up, and so that was in person. And then more recently, I found the teachings of another person, a Swiss person named Reinhard kamenthaler, who had not met but have corresponded with, who does a particular type of practice that's pretty intense and learned a whole lot from that practice as well. And then also came across the you might have heard of Patrick McEwen, the oxygen advantage or so his His teaching and His talks and so on, you have a whole different aspect. So in the yogic sense, which were the other two teachings, the idea is basically to oh, there was also another Indian man who I only met on Zoom, who does some pretty intense. Pranayama practices. So basically, the idea is to try to get this prana to move in a way that you want it to move. And the Patrick McEwen thing is really just to how you can use your breath and your breathing to stabilize your nervous system. So what I try to do with what I practice, is really just try to stabilize the nervous system as much as possible, with the idea that that it should become stable and strong, if by chance, one day, the prana does move in a direction that the yogic texts maintain. It might do so or it should do so. Along the way, I've gone up and down with my practice, you know, as as goes with everything, but I've also seen a few people misuse some of the practices and get into difficulties, physically and emotional difficulties, enough for me to realize that you should never overdo these practices. You should you should always keep them steady. And the big and two big things about that, one is it's difficult to keep on practicing similar things over a long period of time. That's one thing. It's always easier to get gung ho and do something too much, and then you're always going to come boom, back down. Yes, so to maintain a steadiness is that is part of the practice, a regularity and a steadiness. And the other big thing is, what are you doing outside of your practice in your everyday life? If the activities of your everyday life are not conducive to, you know, mental peace and calm, then you're just going to be struggling a lot more, and you're always going to okay, I'm sitting here practicing, and everything's fine, and then I, you know, blow it by doing something.

Todd McLaughlin: 58:00

Or have that question of like, why is nothing working for me? Everybody keeps telling me that this stuff will work, but I don't. That makes perfect sense. Robert and I also like the idea that you brought attention to the fact that, well, perhaps in the process of learning or taking any practice, whether it's a pranayama practice or a hatha yoga practice, or if I'm going to walk the beach every day, practice that, creating one that's moderate, that I could potentially maintain, and then just keep that going over a longer period of time, my reap results or benefits more harmonious than, like you said, just being so excited and gung ho, like I'm Going to walk 100 miles, and now I gotta walk 100 miles every day, and then two days later we're like, we're done. So that makes sense with pranayama, amazing. Well, I love hearing all this. I really appreciate your clear and calm way of explaining, and it's obvious to me that you've been contemplating this since your 20s, and I'm guessing, I'm just guessing from the math that you told me, 21 in 1971 you're, you're probably maybe in your 70s. Now, am I okay? Thank you. And so I guess I, you know, for us folks that are still wanting to live a long, healthy life and, and can you offer in our attempt toward closing our conversation, I want to be very respectful of your time and, and thank you so much again for niching out time for me. I really, really do appreciate. I love this opportunity, and I'm enjoying this so much. Is there any other little bit of another tidbit of advice for those of us that want to continue to maintain our practice all the way through our life that you've found it's been very helpful for you to be able to maintain it in yours? Yeah?

Robert Moses: 59:58

Well, we got to think that one day our body is going to die. We always have this idea that we're going to live forever. Currently, there's a big movement of people trying to live forever, true. But you know, we when our karma for this birth is over, we're going to leave our body. So kind of our life is preparation for that. I always think there are two very important parts of life, one is birth, and one is death. In between, we're working out our karma, which we need to accept. We should have a lot of faith in the truth. Teachings of sages, saints and yogis that have come before us because of their the the way in which they have realized made use of the available life in their bodies, and whether we're going to achieve any of the you know, things that they've said they've achieved is immaterial. We should just simply have faith. Very important thing to have. We shouldn't have blind faith. Blind Faith will just create more illusion and things, because, in order not to have blind faith, we need to practice ourselves. And every now and then we'll get a little spark, a little bit of clarity, a little bit of understanding, a little bit of more awareness that, yes, this is this is correct. This is good. This is what I should be doing. In the meantime, we need to really work on our karmic relationships with other people, because that's what we came here on the earth plane to do. So that's a lot of different things. It's important to have regular sleep, to be moderate in your diet, to take care of your responsibilities as well as you can, and to allot yourself sometime every day where you do your practice like I like to get up early and be by myself for a few hours, and then, before I go to sleep at night, try to do something that sort of closes the day so that sleep can be good and deep. So it's just like birth and death of each individual day we go to wake up, yes, yes, and then be quiet. But basically, you know, yeah, have faith.

Todd McLaughlin: 1:02:46

I love it. Well. Thank you. Thank you so much. I really appreciate you sharing all this, and I like that at the start of our conversation when you made reference to the different states of consciousness that we experience, being awake, being in a dream state, and then that state where we're not here and or and where do we go? That's always a fascinating thing to me. I always love contemplating that. I agree, Robert, it's incredible. Well, I am grateful for people like you that was inspired at a young age and you sought and learn and are now teaching and sharing. And people can contact you on your website, NAMA, rupa.org, and you teach regularly via zoom. So I have anyone that's interested. I enjoyed hearing you can reach out to you very easily, and I have those links in the description. And I just want to again, say thank you for being generous with your time and for sharing with us. And it really is a pleasure. And I was looking forward to this greatly. After I got a chance to hear about you and look at your work, I was I'm very honored to have this opportunity. So thank you so much.

Robert Moses: 1:04:05

Thank you. Nice talking to you. Thank you. Look through all your Todd cash. You got a lot of people.

Todd McLaughlin: 1:04:14

Thank you, Robert. I know it's starting to feel a little bit like I I mean, well, it's people like you that are making it special. Every single person I've had a chance to talk to, i feel like i What a gift I get to learn. I get to learn from you today. And you made it accessible. You made it very friendly and accessible. And that's huge. I think that stands the test of when I look and see the injustices that I have a hard time viewing people like you that are willing to share your time and teach generously, like this is where it helps to balance all that out. So thank you. Thanks a lot. Oh, my sincere. Thanks to Robert Moses for sharing such depth and clarity around Advaita Vedanta, if you're interested in continuing your study or learning more about nama rupa, you can visit nama rupa.org where you'll find essays and resources dedicated to Indian philosophical traditions. Excuse me. Thank you for listening to native yoga. Todd cast. If this episode supported your inquiry or practice, please consider sharing it with a friend, leaving a review, subscribing to our YouTube channel at Native yoga sending us an email info at Native yoga center, visiting our website, native yoga center.com, and or just continue listening, enjoying. My goal with this show is to help inspire. You to deepen your practice, to continue to practice and to share the merits and benefits of your practice with the global community. All right, I hope you enjoyed. See you next time. Native yoga Todd cast is produced by myself. The theme music is dreamed up by Bryce Allen. If you like this show, let me know if there's room for improvement. I want to hear that too. We are curious to know what you think and what you want more of what I can improve. And if you have ideas for future guests or topics, please send us your thoughts to info at Native yoga center. You can find us at Native yoga center.com and hey, if you did like this episode, share it with your friends. Rate it and review and join us next time you you.