Recently, I was invited by the Athletic Department of my alma mater to offer workshops in peak performance for student athletes and their coaches. At this highly competitive, elite, New England college, winning is the prime target for all twenty-seven varsity teams. Imagine then, the audience’s surprise when I framed the workshop with this shloka from the Bhagavad Gita:

कर्मण्येवाधिकारस्ते मा फलेषु कदाचन |

मा कर्मफलहेतुर्भूर्मा ते सङ्गोऽस्त्वकर्मणि || 47 ||

You have a right to perform your prescribed duties, but you are not entitled to the fruits of your actions. Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities, nor be attached to inaction. (2:47)

As I recited this I could see a question mark forming on many faces, “What does that mean?” I explained: “Your goal,” I said, “is not to win.” A visible uneasiness rippled through the room—people started shifting in their chairs; some turned to others with looks of disbelief, “What planet is this guy from?”

I reminded everyone that as a graduate of the college I was well aware of the school’s national status in athletics, the importance of attracting top competitors from around the country, and how winning translates into alumni dollars. Moreover, in my private practice as a performance psychologist, professional and amateur athletes seek me out because they want to win. So what did I mean when I said the goal is not to win?

That was the question I had when Acharya Shunya offered a discourse on this shloka. At first it made no sense. After all, I was brought up in the highly competitive world of American education, where coming out on top is all that matters—having the #1 football team, grasping the A+, getting the highest SAT score, gaining admission to the most prestigious college. In America, and throughout most of the world, life is all about winning. Now, my teacher is opening the crystal clear window of the ancient, sacred text for a different vista. On the battlefield of Kuruksetra the Lord is instructing, even commanding, the warrior Arjuna to focus on his duty: to fight the noble battle— slay the sensory-driven Kurus—and not be stuck in his ego-driven anxiety of “What will happen if....?”

As human beings, we are always in action. Cooking a meal, studying for an exam, making love, writing a book: we play out our lives on the field of activity. But if we strive to cook the most delicious meal, to get the highest marks, to be the best lover, to write the award-winning novel, our focus is not actually on what we are doing, it is on the result. Put another way: when we are preoccupied with the outcome of our actions we are in an indeterminate future, not the present. The Lord is instructing Arjuna—and all of us—to put our entire selves, body, mind and spirit, into what needs to be done now. When we are fully present, we are committed to our dharma, our duty. We are not distracted by how we appear to others or what will happen if and when....

And what does Krishna mean when he says, “Never consider yourself to be the cause of the results of your activities”? Shakespeare provides a poetic response: “All the world’s a stage and all the men and women merely players.“ We are in the leila, the play, of God’s design. Ishwara is the producer, the playwright and the director. Krishna is reminding us there are much greater forces at work that shape the events of which we are part. And he also affirms that we cannot be idle bystanders (“...nor be attached to non-action”). Our job it to fulfill our dharma.

How does all of this translate for the student athletes and coaches? What should they focused on, if not winning?

The answer is simple, they have to play the game to the very best of their ability. Each athlete has this responsibility to themselves, to their teammates, and to the people who cheer them on: be your best. Whether you win or not depends on many forces out of your control (the other team’s prowess, the weather, the time of day—literally, God knows what). Since you have to act, exercise your dharma, in the moment, at the highest level you can.

One more note: when we go to a baseball game, a swim meet, or a tennis match, we are enthralled and inspired by the talent and commitment of all the athletes, by the level and quality of their play. They represent the best in us. But focusing on the winner by definition implies that someone is a loser, with all the unfortunate connotations of that word. In our winner-take-all culture, a loser is less capable, defeated, pushed aside, ultimately forgotten. While Arjuna needed to slay the ego-driven Kurus—a metaphor for what each of us needs to do on an inner level—on the field of life we need to play together. That is the game. Two sides make one whole. We are one.

Acharya Shunya tells us, “We live in a designer universe.” Ishwara has designed endless opportunities for us to excel and for each one of us to contribute to a world in which we all can grow and thrive. Play the game. We all can win. This is our birthright, and our possibility.

Ben Bernstein, PhD, Performance Psychologist (PSY14306)

Ben Bernstein, PhD, is a veteran clinical psychologist who specializes in stress and how it affects performance. Known as a “Master Performance Coach,” he works with a wide range of people in high stress-high performing occupations: athletes, business executives, lawyers, surgeons, opera singers, and many students of all ages taking tests. Known as “Dr. B,” he has created an original training model for reducing stress and improving performance and is the author of three books on stress (Test Success! How to Be Calm, Confident and Focused on Any Test; Stressed Out! for Teens; and Stressed Out! for Parents (with Michelle H. Packard). Dr. B is a national speaker on stress. He offers lively, informative and useful talks and workshops to diverse audiences ranging from parents, to dentists, to middle managers, to teachers.DrBPerformanceCoach.com

Join Acharya Shunya’s one year Ayurveda Self-Healing Immersion Course to begin your own beautiful journey of awakening health. Registration for 2020 is now open!

My earliest recollection of falling in love with Ayurveda was around the age of seven. My father’s uncle, seeing my lovely mother during a visit to India bloated from steroid medications for eczema, had suggested a visit to an Ayurvedic vaidya (doctor) whom he knew to resolve her skin issues more holistically. For years, she stayed in touch with this vaidya, appropriately named Dr. Vaidya, and we received overseas packages on a regular basis of powders in tiny folded pieces of paper, Indian-style. I can only imagine that this experience remained indelibly etched on my young mind from a past-life relationship with Ayurveda though it took me years to connect that love with my preference for warm water and cooked food, and for Indian sweets with saffron and cardamom over ice cream (which I always asked to be “warmed” first, to the dismay of my elders!). By early adulthood, indigestion issues from years of eating frozen packaged foods – the bestowal of an immigrant Indian family delighting in modern conveniences that removed the need to cook! – motivated me in a lifelong search for Ayurvedic help. Through my own self-study and consultation with various practitioners, I began to cook for myself and regain my health. But I was still dependent on others for my physical well-being and unable to discover a way to heal myself more deeply that spoke to my soul.

One practitioner I had encountered on my journey was I knew the “real deal” – whose knowledge of Ayurveda was based on timeless fundamental principles – Shunya Pratichi Mathur. Blessed to have her both as a friend and as my Ayurvedic doctor, her authentic living of this wisdom had nurtured my quietly held dream to learn from her. Yet, though we never lost touch, our lives seemed to move in different directions. The opening came when I read her just-publishedAyurveda Lifestyle Wisdom soon after my mother’s death and registered for her organization’s two-month Awakening Health course. As luck would have it, the two-month offering was canceled in favor of a completely online one-year self-care course.

By now, I will confess that I thought my homeschooled knowledge of Ayurveda just needed a little push in the right direction and that I was simply missing the deeper theory! My health was pretty good I thought – since I don’t eat salads, cook much more than the average American, always drink hot water and do abhyanga (oiling) before my shower. Yet I still had constant skin rashes and elimination problems. For the last decade, I had even followed a vegan diet, trying to “remove” whatever I thought I couldn’t tolerate, such as cow milk.

A year-long immersion

During the course, I spent every Tuesday evening in a two-and-a-half hour computer-based class, studying the fundamentals of Ayurvedic medicine, seasonal lifestyle protocols, pharmacology principles, and dosha theory, and then extra time watching and taking notes on one of the Ayurveda Ancestral Teachings Shunyaji had recorded along with her partner Chef Sanjai a few years earlier. We students made sankalpas (intentions) at the beginning of the year about what we hoped to learn. The course felt too slow in the beginning and too fast by the end. My brain didn’t think it could retain everything. Shunyaji often reminded us that we didn’t have to “get” it all at once but to trust that seeds were going deep into our minds. I also appreciated her recommendation to let our loved ones know to give us space during the upcoming year.

Now, more than two months since the course ended, I’m marveling at the inner change I’ve experienced. This was not a “mechanical” form of Ayurveda that we imbibed – it was a lived experience. First and foremost, we were reminded throughout the year that our core is pure health – we are not diseased and imperfect, we simply have to remember and wake up to a deeper place within us where health always abides: aham ārogyam, or “I am of the nature of health.” Within a couple of months into the course, I began to notice a difference in my internal conversations regarding health – instead of wanting to fix a “broken” part of my body, I could now observe and listen to it for clues about overall imbalance. What a shift from thinking of a body part as an isolated mechanical part to an interwoven member of an entire organism! Next, we learned specific diet and lifestyle tips that were easy to implement right away, though some needed explaining to other household members. “Did you mean to leave the thermos of water on the back porch?” asked my husband. “Yes,” I responded, “I’m letting it soak in the moonlight.” Learning that white clothes help the body stay cooler in fall, I stocked up on white apparel at a local thrift store. Pomegranates became my best friend and I was sad when they were finally out of season. And looking at the full moon might remind me to pick up organic unsalted butter to make ghee – month by month adding to my stock so that it ages for at least a year. Now I have an entire cupboard devoted to ghee!

Long wanting an organic garden, I started planting – a pomegranate tree, and herbs such as ashwagandha, shatavari, brahmi, and mandukaparni. Nearly every day now I go out and greet them. All this has come about because through the course I have begun to understand the bounty of Mother Nature and how she provides everything for our care. Originally from south India and blessed with some of my grandmother’s recipes, I am now gratefully acknowledging my debt to my ancestors for preserving this precious wisdom while understanding how to incorporate seasonal adjustments. How much power one has when one understands how to use the tools lying at one’s feet!

At the beginning of the year, Shunyaji advised us that we would not only learn how to manage our health but that we would even become more dharmic in our interactions with others. In fact, this did happen, not just because of my participation in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program, but also due to Ayurveda’s purifying effect on body and mind.

A straighter “dharma spine”

Ayurveda supports the healthy balance and flowering of the four purushārthas, or life goals. The most basic one – artha – relates to fulfillment of our material and emotional needs. Now, I shop more intelligently at the grocery store, knowing what is recommended for this season (macrocosm) and what specifically benefits my body (microcosm). Through the recipes I’ve learnt and knowledge of the pharmocological principles of my kitchen spices, I cook medicinally healthy dishes, which are simple to prepare. Comprehending my body’s signals gives me clues about how much to feed it and how to create more balance. Learning how to build our strength each winter and emphasizing the sweet taste while adjusting the balance of the six tastes based on the season satiates my body, mind, and nervous system. Shunyaji laughingly comments that Ayurveda makes us self-obsessed in a good way: we’re either preparing to eat, eating, or reading our body signals, which gives us less time to perform unhealthy actions, such as gossiping! From the artha standpoint, this body is the vehicle through which I navigate the world, and keeping it tuned up means I’m more likely to “drive” responsibly and achieve my other life goals. Even growing herbs allows me to make my own small contribution to the survival of the planet – an important commitment given that 95% of the Ayurvedic herbs are now endangered.

Artha also includes one’s emotional needs. Seeing Ishwara (God principle) as these beautiful foods and herbs and inculcating reverence towards them deepens my relationship with all of existence, The knowledge that everything I do and eat is medicinal – that my body is moving in alignment with a greater outer harmony of the universe and that my senses, while no longer in charge of my health, are not ignored – radiates peace through my being.

The next purushārtha – kāma or pleasure – is addressed through the sensual beauty of the meals we prepare and the overall care and luxury we give to our senses. In our modern world, we make the mistake of believing that sense attraction is either to be followed or to be ignored, but understanding the role of the senses to jumpstart the digestive process redefines them from wayward pilots to invaluable flight attendants.

Learning to cook both delicious and medicinal meals satisfies both artha and kāma goals of survival and pleasure. The ability to take care of these needs on my own frees me from feeling as dependent on others to fill me up. This gives me a true sense of sovereignty and enables me to focus on the next goal of dharma. The root dhr means dhārana, to support, and now I am supported to support others. My relationships have begun to transform – either waking up with me or rebelling against my waking up. Either way, my continually deepening understanding of the interconnectedness of all existence and my ability to manifest it through my daily habits gave me the power to walk away from unhealthy habits and people.

Ayurvedic psychology was a component of our course, and we learned how the three gunas (qualities) of the mind can be adjusted through thoughts, diet, and lifestyle. The subtle essence of what I ate thirty days ago has become my mind today, so reducing the heat in my food both minimizes skin rashes and nasal bleeding and grants me more patience. The gunas of rajas (activity) and tamas (inertia) are considered doshas or disturbances of the mind and our only goal becomes to increase sattva (clarity, equipoise). I find it fascinating that the Ayurvedic sages understood that not only are we not our body, but our equipment (which we are not) is interwoven and we have complete control over its nature.

It is when artha and kāma goals are unfulfilled that we compromise dharma. Instead, by dharmically

Putting this all together

Over the course of the year, despite needing alone time and space to transform, some family events necessitated travel and outward engagement. Initially dreading these “interruptions” to my new routine and practices, I discovered instead that they became fabulous laboratories for discovering my “adaptive ability” emanating from a bedrock of Ayurvedic principles and lifestyle. Already used to renting a house and having a kitchen while traveling, I now packed lentils, cream of wheat, spices, and even Himalayan pink salt and homemade ghee, and then bought whole milk and yogurt at our destination. For the flight, I would take a thermos filled with upma (a savory cream of wheat dish that is Vata-balancing, since flight and travel aggravate Vata dosha) or sooji halwa (a sweet made from cream of wheat, balancing for the same reasons) and keep cumin seeds in my purse to make a balancing tea. Dealing with the challenge of restaurant food where my choices were more limited, I either ate in advance and drank tea at the venue, or brought my own homemade spice blend to sprinkle on my meal. Rather than finding me difficult to be around, my family and friends appreciated my authenticity and ability to balance my own needs while fully enjoying their company and not imposing my choices (even subtly) on them. I felt free and detached – able to participate and withdraw when needed. All four purushārthas were being met.

Sage Charaka, one of the three foundational seers and teachers of Ayurveda, gives us a beautiful definition of Ayurveda:

hitāhitam sukham dukham āyustasya hitāhitam mānam cha tachcha yatroktam āyurvedah sa uchyate

Ayurveda is that science of life which deals with what is beneficial and non-beneficial, what brings happiness and sorrow, what is beneficial and non-beneficial for life, as well as measurement and nature. (CS, sūtrasthānam, sloka 41).

Ayurveda is truly teaching me how to cultivate inner happiness as well as how to live a beneficial life.

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Within the Vedic tradition there is a time to honor our ancestors, it is called Pitra Paksha. Pitra means ancestors, paksha means a period or phase of the lunar month. This phase, which started on September 24th this year, is 16 days when we give thanks to our biological ancestors.

It is curious that Pitra Paksha is similar in some ways to Mexico’s Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead), which is celebrated in early November. Both traditions have altars which are set up in our homes, including photos of our ancestors, ghee lamps or candles and an offering of the marigold flower on the altar. So interesting that marigolds are used in both cultures as an offering to ancestors. In my Mexican culture, the marigold is said to have the scent and color to guide the spirits to our altars.

Through the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program,Acharya Shunyagave us the teachings of Pancha Maha Yajna (the five great actions of Karma Yoga). A yajna in Sanskrit is a word for a ritualistic sacrifice. When we perform these yajnas daily, over time they reveal within us a different way to see life–to do for others first before our individual ego wants and needs. These teachings open up within us a space of gratitude. One of these yajnas is called Pitra Yajna, actions to remember our ancestors. The mantra to our ancestors is as follows:

Matradevo bhava, Pitradevo bhava – God is revealed through our Mother and God is revealed through our Father.

From my teacher’s words:

Everyone who shows up in our life–offering us light or darkness, joy or sorrow, respect or insult, is ultimately an opportunity, awakening us to the One truth of Atman– It alone is.

As both these rituals of honoring our ancestors approaches, I am remembering my Grandma, my Mom’s Mother. My first memory of her was very early on, as a baby, maybe months old. I opened my eyes and I see her. She is breastfeeding me – my Grandma. Was it real? It has been in my memory all these years.

Growing up, living next door to my Grandma wasn’t always ideal, especially when I was a teenager – but now my memories are filled with my Grandma as a blessing.

I remember holidays of making tamales with my Grandma, my Mom, Aunts, and my sisters. All of us around a kitchen table, laughing, drinking cups of coffee, and eating pan dulce (sweet bread). Memories of rolling out dough, using your comal (flat griddle) to cook fresh tortillas. That comal is in

my kitchen today used for making pancakes and chaptis (Indian flat bread).

I can still smell the Yerba Buena plant that lived outside your front door. You used that plant for years making ‘medicine’ by heating olive oil and yerba buena, then soaking a cotton ball that you and Mom would insert in our ears whenever my sisters or I had a cold or earache.

I remember whenever I would leave the house, I’d give you a kiss and you would make the sign of the cross on my forehead whispering Vaya con Dios (Go with God). I thank you Grandma for being in my life.

Pitra Yajna is beginning to take on a whole new way I see my past, family members who are no longer here, how I remember them, and how I miss them. With the knowledge of Viveka (discrimination) between what is nitya (real) and anitya (unreal), I am understanding there is an eternal conscious awareness, a Oneness, Atman (Eternal Self) that lives beyond our suffering and that that Oneness lives in joy, gratitude and compassion.

I have one lasting memory of seeing my Grandma leave for work, I see her walk up the street towards the bus stop. Such a clear memory, so many times I would see her take that walk, I must have been eight or nine years old. As I look in that past, things start to blur and I am back on that street, only now I am a woman in her sixties. I turn in the opposite direction where I see another woman, she has long dark hair and she is wearing a saffron and yellow sari. I walk towards her and as I approach, I bow down to touch her feet, showing my respect (vinay). She is my teacher, my Guru, Shunyaji. I turn to see my Grandma in the distant past, and I bow to her and all my ancestors for giving me this lifetime to move towards awakening.

As Pitra Paksha and Dia de Los Muertos approach, I will set out photos of my loved ones who are now in my ancestor realm, light my candles, set out marigolds and bow to my loved ones, for without them, I am nothing.

The author Sākshi Joanne Banuelos is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Student Coordinator of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

In our Vedic Spiritual Studies program, we are currently studying the Bhagavad Gita verse by verse. Recently, our teacher Acharya Shunya Ji taught on chapter 2 verse 54 - when Arjuna asks Lord Krishna: “What is the description of the man who has this firmly founded wisdom, whose being is steadfast in spirit, Oh Lord Krishna? How should the man of settled intelligence speak, how should he sit, how should he walk?”.

This question seems a little simple and maybe willfully obtuse. In the context of a discussion of higher consciousness, why is Arjuna asking about the dull body? Questioning about the physical habits of a supremely rational spiritual aspirant (what is known as an adhikari in Sanskrit) seems a little naïve. It seems like the question of a child. Arjuna, why are you focusing on these small insignificant details, when the goal is supreme consciousness?

I think it’s actually the perfect question for a beginning student to ask, and for a new student to hear. I like this question because it is so very human. Thousands of years ago, a competent leader, respected by his family and community, tasked with a supremely difficult ethical choice and battle in the tangible world, is challenged to look beyond all of his worldly competencies, set aside his ego and his preconceptions and learn a completely different way of Being. A way of Being that is steadfast and firm in knowledge, fully connected to Self and God. How can we conceptualize what our daily life would be like, if we aren’t constantly pursuing sensory input, chasing after our preferences, avoiding things we don’t want, getting distracted by our attachments, losing our minds (deliciously) to overwrought emotions, getting hung up on our righteous indignations and our resentments? What would that even look like? When everyone around us is so engaged fully in this world of the senses, in pursuing pleasure and survival, how can we be fully established in our higher Self and still participate in the world?

What follows is Lord Krishna’s essential teaching on the journey of the Adhikari, through the Sadhana (spiritual practice) of Karma Yoga and Jnana Yoga, to ultimate Self realization.

The question itself has been a powerful source of contemplation for me.

I also have had this question – and it stems from the same concern of a student semi-committed to spiritual enlightenment, while holding on to an old life with one hand. At its core, this is the fear of the ego at being lost and rudderless in the waking world. What identity will I have if I am not pursuing material aims or sensory pleasures? Will I still be me?

My ego is like a child in its thinking, and that makes sense – it was developed from the thought processes and experiences of the child I once was. This fear that arises comes from my inner child, who looked at the world and interpreted it through the input of the senses and what it learned from other unconscious actors – society, parents, teachers etc. This material world spins a weave of illusion (maya) that feels very real. The logic of the ego is predicated on the belief that this constantly changing/aging/dying experience of life is real. That this one life is it, that our whole lives are about scarcity and disconnection. Whether in regards to material objects, or relationships, or even time, everything I have experienced up until now is finite. So I hold on, clinging in fear, my attachments like suction cups to what inevitably will end. What then will come if I stop holding on?

Arjuna is asking the same questions I do – trying to wrap my mind around rationalizing what can only be known by Consciousness itself. Crossing that divide from fear to faith is for me, the hardest step I have had to take in this journey to Self realization.

I have spent 10 years studying Ayurveda, Yoga and Vedanta - listening intently, contemplating extensively, integrating partially. In subtle (and not so subtle) ways, I’ve been treating this like a lesson to be learned (by my mind-ego) and one future day implemented. Life circumstances have required me to implement the subtler teachings on a fast track. From the several deaths of loved ones that I faced, to family obligations, seva responsibilities, and changing life roles, all required I engage fully in Karma Yoga. Lots happened! I grew spiritually very quickly.

But recently, there have been some “leftovers” that have started to show up. Old patterns of thoughts and behaviors that were formed very early on, are being revealed as I keep contemplating what is real and unreal, what is eternal and what is the nature of this temporary life of the senses. What is showing up for me as my ego feels the pinch of change is a little bit of resistance and fear, a little bit of agitation and controlling behavior, a little bit of unmet needs, a little bit of unacknowledged desires, a little bit of resentment and ambition, and also...a little bit of self judgment for having these unmet areas at all. After all, isn’t a “spiritual” person past this?

As Arjuna asks - what does the spiritual person DO? What does a spiritual person look like? How does s/he walk in the world? It is Arjuna’s small-self ego, his inner child, crying out “will there be anything left of me?” My inner child is asking these same questions, and through Lord Krishna’s teachings on the practice of Yoga, my teacher is guiding me with compassion and wisdom.

Lord Krishna lays out a clear path through Karma Yoga and Jnana Yoga to become stable and disciplined in our mind, with the promise that if we manage this we will attain a lasting peace, not swayed by the circumstances of the world.

Like Arjuna, I can make a choice from a space of trust - that in following these directives my mind can change and my whole perspective will shift. The question arises from fear, the answer comes from divinely revealed knowledge, and the practice starts with a single step fueled by faith. The ego says - what if it doesn’t work? My higher Self (Atman) says - what if it does?

Thank you Arjuna, for asking these questions – your transparency has gifted us modern seekers with the whole of the Bhagavad Gita.

The author Aparna Amy Lewis is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Dean of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

As we drink in the nectar of wisdom and knowledge documented in the Bhagawat Gita, I am witnessing the unfolding of the source of this wisdom. It is infinite and unlimited which transcends all religions, beliefs and universal consciousness. I also firmly believe that Bhagawat Gita must be read with great scrutiny and definitely with the help of a teacher who has understood it from within and is imparting the interpretation without any motivated intension. I have found that teacher in Āchārya Shunya. In the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program, she brings out the relevance of the verses to our current times. At times however, when I listen to her, I physically go back in time and feel as if Lord Krishna is speaking to me through our teacher.

This discourse, in Bhagawat Gita, one of the greatest and finest dialogues of life, took place just before the onset of a war, a conflict between cousins over political power, greed, tainted by abuse of power and abuse of women as well. The trials, tribulations, delusions and bewilderment of Arjuna holds true even in this day and age, in our lives today! We face similar situations, conflicts and dilemma in different time and space. The conflicts remain universal.

We tend to get lost in what needs to be done and what to let go. We struggle to understand and strategize positive actions on the values we have the responsibility to uphold and fight for. In this delusional state, we strive for things that give us pleasure and avoid things that give us discomfort or pain. We find excuses for not taking proper action when it serves our comfort seeking self. For Arjuna, even as a decorated warrior, living the rest of his life as a hermit was more comfortable than fighting for righteousness. Many what-ifs scenarios come to into play and inaction sounds more comfortable and easier decision to follow. We struggle in the decision to fight for the bigger good.

TEXT 47 – resounded to me in many tribulations I faced in my life. Lord Krishna, tells us that we have the duty to perform and take the right actions. He guides us to not work from a space that feels that we are entitled to the fruits of our action. Not getting attached to the outcome? This is a concept, that in practice can free us all from the pains of disappointment.

Even before I started the Bhagawat Gita studies program with Shunyaji, I intuitively realized that letting go of the results is more empowering than you can imagine. The results then, are not limited by your thoughts or finite imagination. Many a times, when I was faced with creative challenges or other life challenges that needed resolution, the process I followed intuitively was very simple. Instead of rushing to action or indulging in self-pity or self-doubt, I sat quietly for a few minutes. I envisioned my results or desired outcome. I made it as detailed as possible with colors, sounds and even people in it. Then, I released that to the universe for guidance and protection. (I was not truly affiliated with any religion or God). I somehow trusted that the universe has infinite potentiality and resources. I did not even work on action plans and any such details right away. As time unfolded, the right actions just flowed. Automagically, the people who I needed help and guidance from, emerged. The results were also magically better than what I had imagined or envisioned. Of course, another ingredient I had in the mix was, my attitude. I have always approached these challenges as providing a learning and growth opportunity even though it was giving me heartache and headache at that moment. I knew not to waste time in instinctively finding an excuse or something or somebody to blame. I took the responsibility and ownership of these challenges that I faced. Also, when success came, I was conscious of not making me boastful or vain. I took it as my good fortune and divine blessing.

However, I have only tried this approach on bigger problems or challenges and forget to use this approach in my daily life. With this study with Shunyaji, even my day-to-day challenges and frustration with health issues, roof leaks, internet going down and repairs getting delayed is not controlling my mood. I consciously choose to not get frustrated or irritated. I am not totally there yet, but I can envision the time when I am my true self – unperturbed, calm – a state of total equanimity!

The author Manju Banerje has been a student of Acharya Shunya since 2017. Manju serves as a core volunteer, supporting the organization in a few capacities, including editing and illustrations.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

True courage is the willingness to be vulnerable while upholding our authenticity.

Āchārya Shunya explains the meaning of these three words in depth as follows.

Being vulnerable means accepting our human experience and acknowledging that we have an ignorant self called the ‘Jīva’. Upanishads or Vedic spiritual texts, are asking us to love that self which is living in this confusing world. It takes courage to live here on this worldly plane of existence and withstand the constant flux.

What is courage? Does it mean to show a brave face to the world and to constantly hide the vulnerability within us? Modern self help books might recommend this form of courage, but Vedānta explains courage in a very different way. It is asking us to accept ourselves completely as we are today. Our ‘Jīva’ is not perfect, hence we should not fight/hide from our weaknesses/lack of knowing, but remain vulnerable to where we are right now. Since most of us do not accept ourselves, we get angry with our ‘Jīva’ for not being perfect and also on other unaware beings.

Vedanta says that it is due to ignorance of our absolute ‘Self’ that we are born on Earth. It is during this birth that some ask the question, “Who am I?” and take on a spiritual journey to discover our true nature. On this path, we will encounter ignorant and dark areas within us, but at the same time we should constantly remind ourselves that there is also light within us. Vedanta is asking us to accept this package and remain vulnerable on this path. It is important to recognize that it is only when darkness is removed can light be seen. Hence we should have a soft attitude towards our learning self and give it the gift of knowledge and time to grow.

Sometimes the fear of being judged or misunderstood stops us from being vulnerable especially in close relationships. In those moments when there is a sense of dejection or angst with close relationships, an honest conversation with a soft attitude encourages the other person to open up as well. Such situations can also arise in a workplace. An open communication within a team leads to more learning and better work. Suppose we are stuck in a work related problem and due to our fear of being judged we do not discuss it with our colleagues. This will lead to delay in work and others might think that we are not putting in enough effort. Lack of clear communication on our part can lead to misunderstandings. Instead of keeping to ourselves, if we discuss our problem with a colleague, knowledge exchange will happen and a good solution can be arrived at in a timely manner.

All of this leads to a courageous living. It reduces angst, inner damage or suffering that can come in the future to us due to our present misdeeds (karmic damage) which we may commit due to ignorance. There is a famous saying that when we point one finger outside, there are four fingers pointing towards ourselves. Hence change in outer circumstances starts with a change within. When we look within and recognize the areas that need work while remaining non-judgmental towards ourselves, we will search for solutions and open up new pathways for reception of knowledge.

We have different parts to us but that is not our absolute ‘Self’. We are walking on the path to the absolute ‘Self’ and on this path we need to give room to feel our feelings. For example, when we accept our vulnerability in relationships, we accept that there are zones for growth in our human experience.

Let’s take another example, that of a student teacher relationship. In my Vedānta class with Acharya Shunya, we learn about how to purify our mind, our being, how to deal with the challenges in life so that we can reach the ultimate goal of human birth - recognizing our true spiritual nature. Can that be achieved through pretense? If we are feeling broken or hurt, and at that time our teacher asks us as to how we are doing, and we always reply “All is great!” then can there ever be a student-teacher dialogue? When my teacher opens the class to questions and a student takes courage to be vulnerable and share something from their life where knowledge could have helped them, a student-teacher interaction happens which leads to great learning for all. Progress can only happen when we accept that yes, there are weaknesses and they need work. Hence it is important to accept all parts of ourselves and be soft with us as well as other beings who are also struggling on this planet. This is the journey of the ‘jīva’ in quest for our true ‘Self’.

The author Vidya Deepa Gupta is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as a core volunteer, supporting in the A/V team and leading the Hamsa Dhwani, a special mantra chanting group.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Recently, we participated in a Bhagavad Gita sharing circle in which we reflected on our takeaways from our ongoing text study with Acharya Shunya. It was powerful to witness deep insights and personal transformations in dedicated sadasyas (student members) from different backgrounds as well as length of studentship, ranging from a week to nearly ten years, proving a testimony to the depth of contemplation we are reaching as a kula (spiritual family) of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Having studied the Gita a few times during the last two decades, though only once before with a living teacher, the experience of receiving shruti (direct transmission through hearing) from an authentic Vedic teacher whom I call my guru is lighting new pathways in my consciousness, specifically answering my deepest questions and reorienting my daily life. While preparing for our study circle, I jotted down my thoughts, discovering significant themes about death, permanence, karma and svadharma (one’s personal duty), which are giving me glimpses about how to live in the present moment.

Who is permanent?

From the 12th to 25th slokas (verses) of the second chapter, Sri Krishna describes our real Self as immortal, and that birth and death are merely a change of clothes. In the 26th sloka, the term nitya – which we had studied earlier as an attribute of Brahman (the pure formless Reality on which everything we see is superimposed) – reappears to refer to the stream of birth and death. I found it fascinating that the principle of permanence, nityatva, transcends both perspectives – whether or not I believe in the immortality of the soul, something is permanent.

Going deeper, I reflected on Acharya Shunya’s statement: “You can’t remove a millimeter of water from this universe – it changes from water to steam and comes back as raindrops. How can you remove an entire being?” How can I disappear ever? So, what is permanent is me. I just go offstage, change costume, and come back as another character – gender, race, family, all can be different. This loosens deha vāsana, or attachment to the body.

So, if I am not the body, how do I manage it, and what is its purpose? In her commentary on the 27th sloka, Shunyaji said, “Karma itself takes on the body; you are nothing but your living, breathing karma...This body is karma cash; the moment the karma cash is done, the body goes.” Another tug at deha vāsana. This teaching doesn’t contradict my studies in the one-year Ayurveda course, since I need a healthy body to complete my allotted karma in this lifetime. If my poor health shortens my life this time around, I’ll have more to do in the next...

So, in meditation, I can focus on the nityatva of Brahman, and in the transactional – or vyavaharika – world, the 28th sloka gives me a clue: creatures are unmanifest in the beginning and end, and they are only manifest in the middle. We see this in our daily lives all the time: for example, before and after I go to the college, I still exist but am unmanifest there, and I appear in the classroom in between. Every being including me is eternally sliding in and out of perceptible and imperceptible realities. Permanence underlies everything.

On a practical note, when I received the news of the death of a friend a couple of weeks ago, I found myself unable to think of him as gone. Separately, as I was walking to my classroom one morning, I noticed a thought I’ve had before: “Oh well, I’m a little closer to the moment of my death and won’t need to worry about life anymore.” Almost immediately I sensed the response of my Atman ( the part of Brahman within me) – that when I die, I’ll still be around: the next birth and set of worries is just waiting around the corner! This insight enabled me to ‘perceive’ greater ‘aliveness’ in the supposedly empty air and space around me, as if invisible beings were swimming around, including my friend. Everything is a continuum with deeper connection than our senses can perceive. Ultimately, I am never alone in this pulsating dynamic universe brimming over with subtle (sūkshma) energy. Interesting that even modern physics talks about “dark energy,” or unseen energy all around us.

Now what?

How freeing it is to release the notion of a future end to life’s challenges! Their end is in the present moment itself. In each moment, I (jīva, or embodied actor self) interact with my karmas and receive sukha (happiness) and dukha (sorrow), as does everyone around me. If the purpose of my life isn’t about attachment to the body (deha vāsana), nor about just getting by until it’s over, but instead to transcend these sukha-dukha experiences and exhaust my present karmas, how do I live each moment fully? First – as Achaya Shunyaji taught in her recent bhakti yoga series in the Vedic Spiritual Studies program – accept what is happening without resistance. This is a teaching unto itself, as a gurubehen (sister through the guru) shared during the circle. Accepting means there isn’t an ego reaction to fix (arising from rajas, the mental quality of agitation) or to resist (arising from tamas, the mental quality of inertia). Instead, a deeper knowledge reveals itself, rooted in sattva (the mental quality of harmony and balance), which can bring forth a new solution. The experience can be freeing and strengthening. For example, I recently told a student I was working with this semester that I could no longer help him, that I have no other ways of explaining to him. His persona was so wrapped up in victimhood and I could no longer assist in that story. As he continued to ask other teachers for help but not me, I was impressed that I did not feel the aggressor I would have in the past, and continued to work with other students. Each of us has the power and freedom to stay stuck in a story or to create something fresh, as well as to act in a pure way with others, based on our values instead of a need for approval.

From a higher perspective, the notion of svadharma, or our personal duty, signals how we can exhaust our karmas. Sri Krishna elaborates on this later in the second chapter, as well as in the eighteenth chapter. Our svadharma is unique to us based on our mental propensities and karmic gifts. Arjuna was a kshatriya (warrior) and duty-bound to fight. These terms brahmin (seeker of Truth or Brahman), kshatriya, vaishya (shopkeeper, entrepreneur), and shudra (one who seeks pleasure and to make the world more pleasurable for others) have become confused in modern-day Hinduism, but their meaning in the Vedas is simply that our fulfillment lies in aligning our outward actions with our inner tendencies. The Vedas are clear that all of these varnas (classes or castes) are equal and not hereditary; they should not be forced on anyone. It is up to us to discover our unique combination. This compassionate explanation has lifted much of my internal judgment for taking an apparently long time to discover my own vocation. Graduating from Stanford University with a prestigious graduate degree in computer science, I felt like I had gotten off at the wrong platform in Life; it was only years later that I could understand from this teaching that my fulfillment didn’t lie in making life more comfortable for others or myself. Rather, my deepest urge is to discover Truth, which is why becoming a teacher (even of mathematics, which I see as reflecting the harmony of the universe) and being a spiritual student come most naturally to me, even more than being a wife, stepmother, sister, or even friend, for which I seem to be missing the typical outward interaction that others expect. Spiritual communities, too, can display a predominance of these tendencies, and I feel blessed to have found an authentic Vedic path that emphasizes interior contemplation in a householder setting while providing avenues for outward engagement from that inner depth, such as these blogs and the sharing circle.

Acceptance brings compassion.

Aligning with my svadharma and doing my best in the present moment with what I am given brings deep self-acceptance and compassion for others. We’re all characters and props in each other’s stories. Can I play a character that stands for values, firstly for myself, and ultimately in others’ stories too? The student I mentioned earlier never lost my regard as a human being. No anger passed between us and he stayed in the classroom for the rest of my shift. I remember years ago coming home from the same job, exhausted by so many people interactions; now I feel refreshed with as many! The difference is that I’m no longer juggling so many scripts with each person; now, I’m just learning to play myself.

The author Niramaya Nalini Ramji is a student of Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. She volunteers in support to the organization with the AV team.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Recently in one of of Acharya Shunya’s morning classes on Sadhana Chatushtayam (a class in the Vedic Spiritual Studies program on spiritual studentship), she spoke about papam and punyam. Papam is the negative accumulations of karma (actions) borne of ignorance (avidya) and (adharma) wrong actions which have no benefit to others, our world, or the universe. Punyam is the positive accumulation of karma, known as merits accrued from actions borne of knowledge (vidya) and dharma (right actions to all beings and all of Life). After this class I contemplated on papam and punyam and thought- what negative actions do I display and act out and what have I been able to change towards a more positive action?

One thing came to mind; and it had to do with a bird feeder and squirrels.

For many years we have had a bird feeder in our backyard and squirrels delight in climbing onto it, munching on the bird seeds, and many times the feeder has fallen and broken from their weight. For some years I tried to discourage the squirrels from hanging onto the bird feeder by running out of the house, broom in hand, ready to scare them away by hitting the broom on the ground, getting angry at those pesky squirrels! I really believed this was an okay thing to do and sooner or later those squirrels would move on. Today, this is no longer my M.O. with the squirrels. I’ve realized that my mind has changed from anger around the squirrels to compassion. I now have a peacefulness within my mind that happened over time through my studies of Advaita Vedanta with Acharya Shunya. My years of being present and listening deeply (shravanam) to my teacher on shastra and then contemplating (mananam) on these teachings have slowly but surely revealed to me a better way of being in the world. How I am now towards the squirrels that live in our yard has been a complete turn-around, a realization I had actually changed my mind, moving from darkness to light. It was as I’ve heard my teacher say “as easily as ripe fruit falls from a tree”, my mind had changed. Understanding that my actions had changed from ignorance to knowledge in my dealings with the squirrels. I had begun to see that the squirrel and I were One.

I’ve given up shooing away the squirrels with a broom and more importantly, I no longer see them as a menace. They still come around daily and hang from the bird feeder and I now spread some birdseeds out on the top of the compost container, so the squirrels can sit comfortably and munch away.

There is more to my squirrel story...this one having to do with prayer flags.

I have several strings of prayer flags hanging in our backyard, the newest string of flags we hung from a tree branch. It was very pretty, flowing in the breeze. One morning my husband and I noticed large holes in some of the flags and another morning the whole string of flags we found on the ground with a few flags missing. We hung up what was left of the prayer flags and contemplated the mystery of the missing flags. Then one morning, looking out the window from the kitchen I noticed a squirrel chewing on the remaining flags! He made off with two more flags and the last of the flags were now on the ground. I noticed my reaction – no anger or being upset. Actually, it was a funny sight. The remaining flags I picked up and placed them on a nearby bush and within a couple of days they too were gone.

All I can say is the squirrels in my yard are content and I am content with the squirrels in the yard and All is Ishwara.

The author Sākshi Joanne Banuelos is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Student Coordinator of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

The ego often has a notorious reputation along the spiritual journey. We are frequently led to believe that it is something we should try to destroy in order to come closer to our true Self.

As Acharya Shunya taught in an inspiring recent series of Vedic Spiritual Studies Program classes, however, there is an unexplored role that the ego plays, which ultimately leads to greater spiritual progress. The ego is a very essential actor in bringing us deeper Self-knowledge.

As we will see through this and the coming series of articles on the ego, it plays a central role on our spiritual journey. And while the ego can definitely lead us astray from our Self in a garden variety of ways, each with its own colors and flavors, it is this very same ego that can also be credited with bringing us back home to our deepest Self.

What is the Ego?

The literal term for the ego in Sanskrit is “ahamkāra.” When separated into its root words, we can understand how the ego is the kara, or “maker” of aham, or “I.” The ego is literally the “I maker.” As Acharya Shunya says, “the ego is nothing more than a singular ‘I’ thought at the core of our being.”

The ego is our container of thoughts, which travel with us from one body to another. They comprise the subtle body of thoughts, which remains with us forever, throughout all our myriad lifetimes, until the point when we are fortunate enough to achieve full liberation, or moksha, and no longer have the obligation to be in any kind of body.

The ego is responsible for creating separation and distinguishing an individual from the whole. In this sense, the ego serves the function of identification. It is the means by which we are able to know ourselves as separate beings from the rest of existence.

The Ego's Associations

The ego gets activated when our sense of “I” becomes fused with myriad associations. These include the most basic associations we are born with, such as our family, race and birth religion. We all have different psychological tendencies, personality traits, sun signs and unique body constitutions, and when we identify with those as defining ‘who we are,’ the ego gets strengthened.

The ego identifies itself with political groups, taking on labels like Democrat, Republican, Libertarian, etc. It does the same with cultural labels, like “I am a feminist.”

An even more common phenomenon of ego identification is with our profession. How many times have we referred to ourselves or met others who introduced themselves by saying “I am an artist, entrepreneur, social worker, doctor, teacher,” etc.? Our values are common additional sources of ego identification (e.g. “I’m a righteous person”).

Along with “ahamkāra,” another word connected with the ego in Vedānta is mamakāra, which literally means the “mine” (mama) “maker” (kara). Mamakāra signifies all those people, places and things we consider to be “mine.” This includes our friends and enemies, our likes and dislikes, our mind (passing emotions, as well as ideas, beliefs and imaginations), and personal experiences, including past traumas and future, imaginary occurrences.

An example that Acharya Shunya gave to illustrate ahamkāra and mamakāra in action is that of a person who identifies with their profession as a carpenter.

This carpenter can say, “I love wood. I belong to a family of carpenters. I believe in rosewood. I believe in the carpentry association of Seattle and California. I believe in Democrats or Republicans, depending on who supports the carpentry association of America, depending on what logging policies they have, etc. And because I’m a carpenter, the knowledge of how to be a carpenter, the tools to be a carpenter, this shop of carpentry, the gurus of carpentry, the clients of carpentry, these are mine.”

The Ego’s Artificial Value Adds

Along with its various sources of association and identification with different forms of I-ness and mine-ness, the ego also tries to add artificial value to itself in different ways. One such value add comes in the form of its degrees. Acquiring a house, spouse and child(ren) are additional sources of value adding. The ego additionally tries to add value to itself by getting strokes and attention from external sources, such as social media, our family members, friends, teachers, etc.

If we are unsuccessful in adding this value to ourselves, the ego laments about how it doesn’t have a degree, a house, spouse, child, attention from others, and so on.

Advaita Vedānta declares our fundamental wholeness. The Self is complete in itself. And yet, when identified with ahamkāra (“I-ness”) and mamakāra (“mine-ness”), the ego becomes more attached to the external and can easily lose itself in a world of associations, people, property, fame, money and degrees that we feel will add to us, making us somehow feel more full.

Acharya Shunya shared an example of how people will say, “When I have a partner in my life, I feel better. Without one, I feel dead.” A similar phenomenon happens with jobs, property, fame, money, etc. There is a kind of emptiness that can be experienced when the ego is without external forms of value. We experience depression, smallness and unworthiness when we forget the inherent value of our true Self.

The Journey of Aham to Brahm (an)

In addition to “aham,” the ego in Vedānta is also known as chidabāsa, which means it is comprised of both the Truth (of Brahman, Supreme Reality), as well as a reflection of Truth. The reflected part of the ego remembers, deep down, that its essential nature is wholeness, peacefulness, bliss, intelligence, knowledge and wisdom.

The ego’s memory of its true nature is often first a hindrance. In time, this memory of its true spiritual nature is what eventually also leads the ego back home, to the source and substratum of all existence - to Brahman.

The Projected Self’s Misdirected Cravings for Its True Self

We can see how this deep memory manifests in a bank robber. On the surface, it may not seem like a bank robber would have any memory at all of their true nature as a supreme spiritual being. If the robber did remember, after all, then why steal in the first place? The robber is after money. That is obvious.

But when we scratch the surface to dig deeper into the robber’s motivation for robbery, we will see that the robber has stolen to have enough money to ultimately have peace. The robber’s real nature is peace. And the robber’s ego remembers this.

All the different examples of how our ego acts out (by lying, stealing, cheating, manipulating, overeating, gossiping, and even committing crimes like murder), are, in fact, actually ways that the ego expresses a very hidden craving to experience its essential nature.

We often lie to ensure our security. We break others down by gossiping to feel a sense of our own wholeness. We overeat to feel the satisfaction of fullness. We cheat and manipulate to remove power from others as a way to experience our own power (or in the case of cheating on a spouse, to feel physical and/or emotional bliss). We kill to ultimately experience a sense of the soul’s immortality.

The true Self is completely secure. It is whole, full, powerful and blissful. It is immortal. And the projected self craves its true Self, deep down. Consciously or unconsciously, we are all searching for our own Self, because the egoremembers who it really is on a profound and hidden level.

Moving from Darkness to Light

The same memory of wholeness eventually turns ordinary, ego-driven people into spiritual seekers. This usually happens when we have suffered enough from all the misdirected paths the inner memory of our real nature can take us on to attempt to experience our true Self.

These memories prompt us with the increasingly nagging feeling that, even as our ego chases outer wordly identifications, desperately builds up its sense of ownership in different and creative ways and suffers more and more as a result, our true wholeness is not actually going to be found outside.

We realize, sooner or later, that we will need to start to look inside to find what we are really seeking. The ego is what ultimately redirects us to learn from a qualified spiritual teacher about how to access and connect with our own source of real inner satisfaction, fulfillment, wholeness, peace and bliss.

The journey of aham (the individual “I”) to Brahm(an) (Supreme Reality), then, is really one of returning back home, to our true state of Being.

The ancient Upanishadic mantra we close our Vedic Spiritual Studies Program classes with beautifully expresses the ego’s journey:

Asato mā sadgamaya

May I journey from untruth (asat) to Truth (sat)

Tamaso mā jyotirgamaya

From darkness (tamas) to light (jyotir)

Mrytor mā amritamgamaya

And from identification with the body subject to death (mrytor) to identification with my immortal essence (amritam).

OM Shantih Shantih Shantih

OM Peace Peace Peace

The word “gamaya” means “to journey,” or “to go.” The one who makes the journey from untruth to truth, darkness to light, and from identification with the changing body to the immortal Self is none other than the ego.

From Wave to Ocean Consciousness

The ego’s journey can also be characterized by the metaphor of journeying from wave consciousness to ocean consciousness. When we are identified with ahamkāra and mamakāra, it’s as if we have identified with a single wave.

Our whole existence is then completely centered around our existence as a wave - we become happy when we crest, and sorrowful as we fall. We associate with the other waves around us as “our waves.” And try to add value to ourselves by becoming higher and higher waves in the ocean. Along the way, we forget that we are actually much bigger than a single wave.

Advaita Vedānta reminds us that we are actually the whole ocean (a metaphor of Brahman – Absolute Reality). We are one with pure existence, our true nature, as represented by the ocean. When we limit ourselves to certain restrictive belief systems, or a binding sense of me and mine, we have subscribed to wave consciousness.

The journey is to go from believing we are a single wave to understanding that we are actually the whole ocean.

Forgetting Our Small Selves

We are one with all of existence. The times in our human lives when we remember and experience this universal oneness are those peak moments in life when the ego is not present, when we forget our small selves.

This can happen when we see the sunrise and forget ourselves. It happens during orgasms. We also experience this whenever we spontaneously cry when seeing something beautiful, or when we cry for another’s pain and suffering.

The Power of the Present Moment

The ego has no existence in the here and now. We are able to live from a higher, expanded consciousness when we surrender to the present moment and live simply with what is coming to us naturally.

The ego is responsible for repeating our memories of the past, and for projecting imaginary future scenarios and associations, but when we bring it back to the present, it can take us on a journey home, to our true Self.

It only takes a moment.

The simple act of smelling a flower grounds us powerfully in the present moment, as does taking a deep breath, and taking a second to close our eyes, remember and connect with the infinite within us.

The Invitation to Soften the Ego

Sometimes on the spiritual path, we hear about people referring to “killing the ego.” It is important to note, however, that we cannot actually kill the ego.

This is because the ego is really nothing but our thoughts, which travel with us from one body to another (as the subtle body of thoughts always remains with us, throughout our lifetimes).

We also should not judge our ego.

The invitation, instead, is to soften it.

Practical ways we are invited to soften the ego include:

1. Observing the ego

Anything we observe stops having power over us by the power of objectivity. We are not what we can observe.

By offering a compassionate witness consciousness (sākshi chaitanyam) to our tendency to associate, add artificial value to ourselves and become identified with our preferences for people, places and situations in our lives, we lessen the power of our own egos.

2. Meditation

One of the best ways to observe the ego is through the practice of meditation. When we practice the Vedāntic Ātmabodha Meditation Acharya Shunya teaches, we have the opportunity to simply witness the body, the breath and the mind with all its associations, likes, dislikes, memories, projections, emotions, etc.

This helps us separate ourselves from associating as strongly with our ego. Doing so strengthens our identification with the witness itself - the seer, our true Self.

3. Calming activities

Soothing activities like taking a walk in nature and listening to tranquil music help the ego to fall from superficial to deeper levels of awareness. The Self can only be discovered when we go deep.

This process of looking within for that immortal part of ourselves is something that is greatly assisted by quieting our surroundings and creating an environment conducive for spiritual growth.

4. Exposing our ego to spiritual wisdom

The voice of our true Self greatly increases when we listen to Shāstra (teachings from the ancient spiritual texts recorded by the ancient Rishis, or seers, from their observations of the natural world, as well as our inner world).

The ego starts to crumble away the more it is exposed to the Truth. Satyam eva jayate is a beautiful expression of how only the Truth (Satyam) has real existence (jayate).

What Happens When the Ego Softens?

In The Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna reveals how the same ego can be either a friend or an enemy of our true Self. As the enemy of the true Self, the ego leads us to suffering. As a friend of the true Self, the ego can lead us to liberation from all forms of bondage. When the ego softens, it becomes our friend. We can recognize it, see through it and train the ego to lead us back home.

From continually associating with ahamkāra (“I-ness”) and mamakāra (“mine-ness”), we find the we. And from the we, we find God. When the sense of the individual “I” completely dissolves, the resulting knowledge that arises is called Jñāna Yoga - the knowledge of Self.

Because we will still have an ego for as long as we are in our bodies, what happens when greater Self knowledge awakens in us is that we will ultimately awaken to a healthy ego. The healthy ego is one that knows that even though we are all individuals, we are inherently connected with the all (like a wave that knows it’s actually the ocean).

We bring our real Self and our projected self into alignment. The deeper sense of connection with all of existence stemming from this alignment naturally softens the ego and leads us more and more to the kind of freedom that comes from knowing who we really are – Brahman, the Supreme Reality.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each magazine to benefit from summaries

The author Ananta Ripa Ajmera is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Director of Program Development at Vedika Global. She is author of "The Ayurveda Way," a collection of 108 practices for body, mind and soul that she learned from Acharya Shunya.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

My propensity in life has always been towards arts, literature and aesthetics. Discovering beauty and meaning through literature and attaining a stronger intellect have been my pride in life. Studying Vedic Wisdom, it is reassuring to confirm what I had thought all along. When I feel this pride, I know that it is not tainted by my ego's power but instead enhanced by my soul power. In this state I feel vulnerable but never weak. It is like finding the true source (Satyam), clicking with it and flowing at ease.

Since age fourteen I have been reading Russian classics and other quality literature. Back then I didn’t know why reading certain lines in those novels brought tears to my eyes. Now with the help of my teacher Acharya Shunya and the Vedic Spiritual Studies program, I know exactly why. Literature is meditation, a deep inner listening of the written words and contemplation. Most writers without knowing the spiritual path, intuitively show us the way to greater truth. That’s exactly what brings tears to our eyes when we read a great poet, a novelist or see a beautiful painting. In a way writing is a dharmic act, a dharmic way of life with pure and full meaning.

My favorite American writer of the 20th century, Ursula Le Guin explains beauty in one of her essays in such a fashion that you almost think she is a spiritual student. But she is not. However, she writes from an amazingly spiritual standpoint that renders you speechless. Her mind evidently functions at a higher level, the level of Satyam.

In her essay she says;

“Beauty always has rules. It is a game. I resent the beauty game when I see it controlled by people who grab fortunes from it and don’t care who they hurt. I hate it when I see it making people so dissatisfied that they starve, deform and poison themselves. Most of the time I just play the game myself in a very small way, buying a new lipstick, feeling happy about a pretty silk shirt. It is not going to make me beautiful but it is beautiful itself and I like wearing it.”

In another line she says;

“That must be why the tired, aged faces in Rembrandt’s portraits give us such delight; they show us beauty not skin-deep but life-deep. In Brian Lanker’s album of photographs, I Dream a World, face after wrinkled face tells us that getting old can be worth the trouble if it gives you time to do some soul making.”

The last one goes like this;

“Not all the dancing we do is danced with the body. The great dancers know that and when they leap, our souls leap with them, we fly, we are free. And poets know that kind of dancing.”

Yeats says;

O chestnut tree, great-rooted blossomer

Are you leaf, the blossom or the bole?

O body swayed to music

O brightening glance

How can we know the dancer from the dance?

When Le Guin passed away beginning of this year I didn’t shed a tear, because deep down I knew it was the smooth passage of a woman who had done the soul making through her great novels and lived a dharmic life.

As my teacher, Acharya Shunya once said during a Bhagavad Gita scripture study class, Dharma or higher consciousness is living inside us not in a book; it is intuitive, and once it reveals itself, we talk dharma and act from dharma whether we are a spiritual student or a writer. Because dharma is the lifestyle of Atma in which is our True Self. Le Guin’s life exemplified the expression of this teaching on the inner blossoming of dharma.

The author Ozlem Tokmen is a student of Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

“If you are in a relationship struggle, ‘Congratulations!’, you are gifted a living classroom”. I have often heard this sentiment from my guru, Acharya Shunya, and she gifted this to us again during a recent Vedic Spiritual Studies class on power and relationships. This seemingly contradictory sentence has provided many opportunities for contemplation (mananam) for me over the years. In truth, I have never really understood it and have felt resistant. Yet I have always known Acharya Shunya to be clear when it comes to spiritual discourse, so I realized any confusion or resistance necessarily is mine to sort out.

It seemed to me that I have often been in relationship struggles: with family, at work and most recently in my marriage. I don’t want to paint a picture that I have discord everywhere, but suffice it to say there has been a consistent theme of relationship struggle in my adult life. Mostly this has NOT felt like a gift but a burden, a taxing frustration that I would rather not have to deal with. Over the years, I have teetered on the edge of “why me?”: I am a good person, I help others and try to be kind so why all of this? Needless to say I have spent a TREMENDOUS amount of energy to try to get rid of all of these struggles.

Fortunately, I have been able to not fall into the abyss of staying small through being in Satsangha with Acharya Shunya. That being said, I have experienced myself in a tension between shrinking down into victimhood, and acting from that place, and bursting forth with Shakti (divine energy) and acting from that place too. In other words, I am emboldened and lifted by the words of my teacher but this is a transitory state that gets deflated in the face of trauma and abuse by others. It is the gift of the Guru to prevent our collapse because the guru knows our true nature is Power. But is this really true that ‘I Am A Powerful Being’? Am I just borrowing the power from my teacher? How can I experience this Shakti not just in some fleeting moments?

These types of contemplations, necessarily, would not be at the forefront of my mind if I was not experiencing struggles. If life was flowing along easily I might actually ride the wave of semi-conscious living and not give too many thoughts about my inner strength as it would not even need to be tapped to live day to day. With my most recent, and most difficult, relationship struggles I have held onto the wisdom that struggles are opportunities for our own contemplation and growth. It has been a strange and beautiful process to stand in the Observer consciousness and apply the teachings I have received over the years from Acharya Shunyaji. In the last six months, after being a student of my guru for seven years, I am only now truly understanding the teachings. Certainly I have intellectually understood the words and sentiments, but through these struggles I have been able to truly live the knowledge.

This embodiment of Divine Power has been scary and I see all the ways in which my small self, who has dominated much of my interactions in my life, continues to try to stay in the driver’s seat. I really appreciated when Acharya Shunya said that we need to love our small self, our Ego, as it is like a child that does not know what to do unless guided. If you have ever engaged with children (teenagers in particular) they may resist or scoff at your guidance but with time you see that they actually have listened and are willing to be supported. This is the way too with Divine Power and the Ego, with our Divine Power guiding the actions of the Ego.

I am every day turning more to the gratitude of the relationship struggles on my path to moksha (spiritual freedom). They are allowing me truly realize my inherent power and letting my Ego transactions change from battles to moments of joy and love. My Ego has been in the driver’s seat for a LONG time, so I have much work to do. I am ready for the struggles ahead, knowing that I AM A POWERFUL BEING.

The author Janya Tuere Anderson is a long time student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Co-Director of Vedika's Awakening Community Circle program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Finding a teacher and discovering God, surrender to God enables the jīva to see Īshwara even in the world (‘the world’ began waving to Shreyas as he discovered this). Now understanding that his enemies, friends, and abusers had been Īshwara in disguise separates him from his ‘misery blanket,’ and he lives as a yogi in the world. Shreyas sat smiling at ‘the world’ and then turned back to look at Mathilda, who held her hands over his head, reminding us that with God in his heart, the jīva has access to more shakti – power, creativity, and energy. In addition, he receives grace, which can avert a difficulty about to come his way. Acharya Shunya concluded the play, telling us that though Brahman is attributeless, Īshwara is full of attributes, such as jñānam (knowledge of the Self), aishwaryam (sovereignty), and vīryam (power); thus, when we call on Īshwara for help, we find Īshwara everywhere.

As children, we connected easily with divinity. Growing up, experiencing sorrow, and becoming conditioned by the beliefs of those around us, diminished that connection to a greater or lesser degree. We forget our inner light, we believe that the world is a difficult place, and we deny the existence of God. Vedānta says, īshāvāsyam idam sarvam, there is nothing but God, the light of Brahman is shining everywhere. Everything in the universe, including us, is under the management and housekeeping of Īshwara; in fact, it is Īshwara who enables us at the appointed time to find our teacher in response to our heartfelt prayer. Thus, the Guru is regarded as a representative of Īshwara.

Connecting Jñāna and Bhakti

Our relationship with God is so important that the entire discipline of bhakti yoga is devoted to it. Ideal for householders, it purifies our egos of ‘I, me, and mine’ consciousness. When we cultivate bhakti as our svabhāv, or natural state, we can direct it towards our partner, child, or mother; however, survival consciousness erodes our day-to-day interactions. The rishis (Vedic sages) therefore suggested an ingenious technique: to direct bhakti towards the divine. There is undoubtedly a higher intelligence managing the intricacy of the universe, and the sages give us infinite freedom to worship this in any form – 840 million choices corresponding to the number of species of beings! As Acharya Shunya says, when we connect with Supreme Truth, whether through our thoughts or hearts, the fiction of the ego quietens down.

Some say Advaita (non-dual) Vedānta only emphasizes the Self and not God. Actually, jñāna yoga (the path of knowledge) has an inherent relationship with God: as our consciousness evolves, we first perceive God as a remote entity, then in the eye of every being, and finally in ourselves. A Self-realized person needs no one to turn to, but as long as we are suffering and caught in Māya, it is vital for us to develop a clear relationship with a presence to whom we can turn anytime; otherwise, we will feel spiritually orphaned, lost, and afraid in the turbulent river of life. The rishis tells us that the one entity available to us constantly is Īshwara. Even if we are lucky enough to have a living teacher, that teacher too is human, and their primary purpose is to help us connect with that same presence within us, called Ātman. Even without being aware of Īshwara’s existence, we are being helped; connecting directly to Īshwara enables us to channel even more help.

Understanding Bhakti

Bhakti yoga can be understood through the following three definitions.

I belong to God

The first definition is bhāgāt bhaktih – I am a portion (bhāga) of God, or I belong to God. Quoting Acharya Shunya, most people wear masks and are leading lives they are not meant to lead because they try to find their completion in someone saying to them, “You are perfect.” There are two sources from which we can authentically hear that we are perfect. The first is the Upanishads, which enjoin us to live our svadharma (personal duty) with courage and without shame (you are ‘spiritually shameless’). The second is our own hearts, which remind us even in the bleakest of times that a hidden power dwells within us and that we are a part of the divine wholeness. The practice of upāsana yoga – disciplines of body, speech, and mind that purify the ego, such as Ayurveda lifestyle, satsangha, prayer, and pure speech – enables us to access and nurture Īshwara within us and connect to our divine source of power.

I live in God's home

The second definition is bhaja sevāyah bhaktih – I live in God’s home. Remembering that not only do I belong to God but that everything and everyone around me does too, I offer service (sevā) to God by serving the world and its beings. This aspect is more challenging since my everyday interactions with the world – most of which doesn’t try to live an uplifted life – are more likely to trap me in worldly action and reaction. Remembering Īshwara connects me to my divine source of power. Now I can have a “designer attitude” to the world, by flowing outward through karma yoga.

Suppose someone is projecting their issues onto me and my mind is screaming to react. Instead, quieting my mind and asking what God wants me to see helps me to find clarity. The next step may be to create boundaries; yet, I can have compassion towards the other person and trust that Īshwara is working through both of us for a higher purpose.

Facing a challenge, such as the death of a loved one or a terminal illness for myself or someone dear, presents me with a choice: resistance (“I don’t want to deal with this problem”), or acceptance of the impermanence of life and of the necessity of destruction for the upkeep of the universe. Resistance cuts off my channel to divine help and my ability to respond creatively. Instead, I can ask, what does God want me to see through? This may be the opportunity to change an old pattern and work off karma. Feeling connected to the entire universe through my connection with Īshwara, I am no longer a tiny isolated speck – in my expansiveness, I know that only a part of me is dying. At deeper knowledge states – where my shraddhā or deep conviction is firm – my ego softens and de-crystallizes, my vibration strengthens, and my suffering reduces proportionately; in fact, karmas scheduled to ripen can mitigate or fall away. Thus this lifetime has taken me forward.

Purification and contemplation reveal God within me

The third definition is bhanjanāt bhaktih – bhakti destroys (bhanj) the erroneous notion that I am a limited being. Seeing Īshwara within and letting Īshwara flow through me removes my impotency: I can face anything that comes my way. Acharya Shunya tells us that by praying to Īshwara, she receives “deposits” of knowledge and teaching which she can pass on, because Īshwara is the puñja, the aggregate of sattva, of all good qualities.

In Practice

Applying bhakti yoga in my daily life, I notice that my choice in each waking moment is between upāsana yoga or karma yoga – is my current task to worship Īshwara within me or around me? This enables me to remain in sākshi bhāva (witness mode) more consistently. Having an ongoing inner dialogue with Īshwara means I never feel alone; yet my actions are performed with attention and care. I also have greater compassion for myself, since I am simply choosing responses from a place of purity within. I do not need to fix or eradicate parts of myself to become pure.

In relating to others, this attitude of bhakti enables me to judge less; instead, I can admire Īshwara’s different forms and behaviors while staying grounded in my personal connection to Īshwara. With a quieter mind, grihastha āshrama (the householder stage of life) becomes a perfect classroom for jñāna yoga, since love is karma yoga directed at an object in my awareness. A wonderful example is caring for my two cats, one of whom requires extra attention. Rather than comparing and judging – a human trait that they are free from! – I can simply attend to each one’s need in the moment. What is flowing through me is my svadharma.

Conclusion

Through these teachings, Īshwara’s power is revealing itself to me. Rather than from individual muscle, true power comes from increasing our personal sattva and combining it collectively. Raising my vibration by using my individual effort for dharma, I can relax my focus on mere survival and seeking sense pleasures, knowing that Īshwara will protect me through collective dharma. Bhakti yoga enables me to let my authentic self shine through and let Īshwara use it as Īshwara wills.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each magazine to benefit from summaries

The author Niramaya Nalini Ramji is a student of Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. She volunteers in support to the organization with the AV team.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Another name for the ego in Sanskrit is chidabāsa, which means the Truth (of Brahman, or Supreme Reality) plus a reflection of that Truth. This is why our deepest memory as human beings, regardless of how far our thoughts, speech, and actions may wander away from Brahman, is of our bigness, of wholeness, and abiding joy (Ānanda).

We learned in Acharya Shunya’s Vedic Spiritual Studies Program series of ego classes how, due to the reflected part of our consciousness, as human beings, we are born with an inbuilt desire to mimic our true bigness, wholeness, and abiding joy. That is why we seek out transitory pleasures.

It’s as if we superimpose our own selves onto the world, and then start believing in an illusion that the abundance within us actually lives out in the world somewhere. As a result, we feel as though chasing transient objects and experiences will bring us closer to who we really are, to our true nature.

This temporal mirage of abundance as being outside of ourselves manifests in the form of three different vāsanās, or ego-driven desires. These vāsanās can also be thought of as three levels of unconsciousness that the ego experiences in its journey through the jagat, the objective, material world.

What Are the Three Vāsanās?

The three vāsanās are like three different clothing the ego wears. They revolve around the body (deha vāsanā), the outer world (loka vāsanā), and the learning we have (shāstra vāsanā). Let us explore them one by one.

Bondage of the Body

In the Vedic spiritual tradition, having physical pleasure (kāma) is considered one of the four worthwhile goals (called purushārthas) in every person’s life. We are taught that it’s perfectly acceptable to want the pleasures of radiant health, beautiful clothing, good sex, good food, and good company.

Where this legitimate goal of life becomes unhealthy, however, is when it turns into a vāsanā, known as deha vāsanā, which is an obsessive preoccupation with the body: your own and/or that of another. When this happens, the body’s health, pleasures, rest, looks, relatives, and possessions color the mind.

An Obsession with Physical Health and Sensual Pleasures

We can want health so badly that we will drop everything, even the pursuit of knowledge of how to be physically healthy via Vedānta’s sister science of Āyurveda, if we get sick.

When the legitimate goal of pleasure becomes a vāsanā, sex addiction can also result. When this happens, the sexual experience becomes like a reminder of our original potency; we experience spiritual potency through the sexual experience. When our only connection to spiritual potency comes through the sexual experience, it becomes hard to stop. The mind then starts to feel that sex must be had at any cost, whether that’s through pornography, and even sex crimes like rape and incest.

The body vāsanā can additionally manifest as food addictions. We may find ourselves overdoing our consumption of alcohol or certain foods, such as chocolates, cheese, bread, cookies, caffeine, etc.

When any sensual experience become excessive, what begins as an enjoyable experience becomes no longer satisfying. Natural bodily desires become needs, and needs become obsessions. Pleasure then leads to pain.

Preoccupation with the Body’s Appearance

With deha vāsanā, we may often worry about how we look, and can even resort to artificial means of “fixing” or cosmetically enhancing whatever we feel is not “good enough” or beautiful enough by external, worldly standards. It is very commonplace in the entertainment industry, as an example, for many people to undergo plastic surgery to achieve a certain sought-after look.

We can also feel terrified and dismayed by the process of aging: every gray hair, wrinkle, and loss of vitality can disturb our peace of mind.

Our own body becomes a prison in this way.

Intense Attachments to Other Bodies

Deha vāsanā can also manifest as attachment to other bodies. We can become very conscious of the body’s relatives, including mothers, fathers, husbands and wives, who we want to squeeze every ounce of love from. We may see if our relatives are meeting some kind of externally driven criteria that we read about on websites and in certain magazines (i.e. does your husband compliment you when you do a certain activity?). We can also get very attached to the bodies of pets.

This type of attachment to other bodies is inherently selfish, as we become consumed by what we can get from others in our lives, to the point that we may not even consider what is best for these other people and pets who we claim to “love.”

Attachments can also manifest on the opposite spectrum of love, in the form of hatred. When a person commits murder out of rage or anger, he or she gets completely consumed by an attachment to destroying the body of another, for one ignorant reason or the other.

It is the body vāsanā that can lead to jealousy, overeating, and even murders and sex crimes when the ego gets lost in the voracious, insatiable, unconscious desires of the physical being.

The Lost Search for Abundance

Loka vāsanā is what we experience when we equate our sense of abundance with what those in the outer world will give us in terms of name, fame, money, and other material resources. Material and biological survival is one of the four legitimate goals of human life as per the Vedas. The healthy pursuit of worldly possessions, assets, professional growth and recognition, in fact, is called artha purushārtha. When we get consumed by the pursuit of abundance in any of its external manifestations, it becomes loka vāsanā.

We experience loka vāsanā when we become a slave to money, will go to any length to get attention from the world, and find greater value in material achievements than in our spiritual pursuits.

Money and Materialism: Is Enough Ever Really Enough?

When money and material objects become the objects of the mind’s obsession, we are left perpetually feeling like we never have enough of either. We always want more. We feel we will only be abundant once we have ten thousand more dollars in the bank. Some of us stay in jobs where we’re treated like slaves just for money. There are plenty of women and men who have married and/or stayed in dysfunctional, abusive relationships only for the sake of money.

And yet, we see so many people who seem to have everything on the surface - money, property, an estate, jewels, and furniture galore - but still don’t feel abundant. The possession of material abundance is also often accompanied by the strong fear of its loss. The satisfaction that is sought is often not ultimately found.

Climbing the Never-Ending Corporate Ladder

Whether or not we work in the corporate world, it is natural to seek out ways to grow professionally. We can easily equate success in our work in the world as an indication of our abundance. When this happens, our professional contacts become very important, our contracts and clients become critical, our deals begin to define us, our status stands out in our mind, and so on. When any (or all) of these work-related measures mean everything to us, and are important to pursue at any cost, we are caught up in loka vāsanā.

A great example of loka vāsanā that Acharya Shunya gave in class was how the moment we get a promotion, we celebrate it, and then while celebrating it, we tell our best friend about how we’re thinking about how we can possibly get another one. Our experience of abundance gets replaced with our discontentment.

Name and Fame: All That Glitters is Not Gold

In addition to the elusive quests for money, material things, and professional advancement, the desire for name and fame can cloud our spiritual vision, with the appearance of glamorousness. All that glitters is not gold, however. We can see from the sheer number of celebrities who develop drug and alcohol addictions and even commit suicide that achieving mass recognition can still lead to a feeling of profound emptiness inside.

Whenever we become blinded by the pursuits of money, recognition, promotions, material objects, name, and fame as forms of abundance, no matter how much we may attain of any of these, we feel as though we never have enough.

The Shadow Side of Study

The third vāsanā described in the Vedic spiritual tradition revolves around the learning we have had. The degrees, the certifications, the advanced studies, the competencies we’ve accumulated, along with the quality of degree giving institutions we’ve acquired our knowledge from all become a very big vāsanā bodysuit for the ego.

Even the study of spiritual scriptures or texts, which are meant to free us from the myriad layers of our ego, can create a spiritual kind of ego that becomes an obstruction to our truly knowing what we have studied. This excessive desire for knowledge and learning is called shāstra vāsanā.

Losing Sight of the Aim of Learning

The vāsanā that can develop around scriptures and learning is a parrot-like, unexamined obsession with learning, in which there is never a thought around who is learning, for what purpose, and how much is enough. In terms of worldly learning, the ego can easily judge others’ overall competency by whether or not a person has an Ivy League degree or not. In the spiritual world, shāstra vāsanā shows up in the form of Vedic scholars who may quote all kinds of scriptures, such as Tattvabodha, Bhagavad Gita, Kena Upanishad, Katha Upanishad, etc., but do not live even one word of these teachings.

Seeing Through Filters We Are Familiar With

Another way that shāstra vāsanā manifests is when students perceive the knowledge they are receiving through the lens of what they already know. An example of this is an Āyurveda student coming in with a background of molecular biology, and evaluating the concepts of Āyurveda by what molecular biology proclaims about the same subjects.

Another example of how this happens is when a student comes in to study Vedic spirituality with a new teacher after having previously studied with someone else. Instead of emptying him or herself to receive knowledge from a different teacher, this student may claim to know it all already, argue with things that don’t match what he or she has previously learned, or otherwise get lost in intellectual debates around spiritual knowledge that was meant to be internalized and lived.

Bypassing the Teacher Altogether

Yet another way that shāstra vāsanā manifests is in those who feel they don’t need a spiritual teacher at all. Many people feel it’s enough to simply learn from the actual Shāstra (sacred text). Because spiritual teachings are so codified, however, we will likely not progress very far in learning from a book only, and may become even more prone to simply quoting instead of actually living the deep meaning behind each word encoded in the Vedic scriptures.

The Interconnected Nature of the Three Vāsanās

All of the three vāsanās are interconnected with and perpetually feed one another. If we ask a person considering doing a Phd in statistics why he or she wishes to do this, we are likely to hear that it is because this person needs a job, wants beautiful clothing, and so on. And often what happens when we are tired of survival (artha purushārtha) is that we seek pleasure (kāma purushārtha). Then, when we have enough of pleasure, we get bored eventually and want to preoccupy ourselves with the pursuit of pleasure. Our lives, when unexamined, easily revolve around the body, the world, and the learning we have had.

We not only naturally revolve around the three vāsanās; we are actually encouraged – and rewarded – by our modern society for our vāsanās. As Acharya Shunya shared in her Satsangha, our world is like a vāsanā bar, where everyone is high on vāsanā cocktails and mocktails. Vāsanās can become like drugs. We get high from the experiences of the world, the physical body, and our learning. Those who don’t display ‘enough’ of these vāsanās even get frowned upon for not having them.

There are so many forms of undermining we do to get things from others – undermining our pride, who we are, and everything we know to be true and noble. This causes us to give away our integrity just so that the ego can have one more high with the drug of outer approval, or in terms of another body holding us close, as two examples.

So much suffering happens due to the presence of vāsanās in our lives.

How To Free Ourselves from the Three Vāsanās

When on a spiritual journey, we have the opportunity to become liberated by the chains of our own vāsanās, and to transform our unconsciousness around the world, the body, and the learning we have had to a conscious relationship with all three. Awakening to spiritual knowledge means awakening to our own unconsciousness.

As our vāsanās get exposed to us in our study and personal contemplation on Jñānam (spiritual knowledge taught by an Āchārya), we gain the power to start to lay them to rest. When we do this, then what is originally within us gets self-revealed. Our true abundance flowers. We experience a deeper kind of fulfillment irrespective of who or what comes into or goes out of our lives. This is worth waiting for. What becomes self-revealed is true bliss, which we had inside of us all along – we just forgot.

Fortunately, along with sharing a comprehensive understanding of the nature of the problem of vāsanās, Acharya Shunya gave concrete examples of ways we can free ourselves from our obsessions with the body, the world, and the learning we’ve had with three paths of Yoga she has taught in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Going Beyond the Body: Seeing the Same Self in All

For the times when we are consumed by bodily desires (deha vāsanās), we are asked to practice Upāsana Yoga. Because Upāsana Yoga involves disciplines for the body, mind, and speech, it is a very helpful sādhana (spiritual practice) for transforming our preoccupation with our physical being into a sankalpa, or sacred intention, that our body, as well as our mind and speech become instruments for the divine to flow through.

Specific Upāsana Yoga Practices for Overcoming Our Obsessions with Physical Health and Sensual Pleasures

For those of us who are experiencing physical ill health, Acharya Shunya specifically recommends we repeat to ourselves this mantra:

“I have a body. I’m associated with a body that is going through a fever[or other health challenge], but I am not this body.”

What this practice will do is allow us to explore our separation from our physical body. Because both the mind and the body are involved whenever we experience physical dis-ease, we can employ our mind as an instrument to help us heal ourselves by de-fusing it from our body, and allowing it to naturally rest in its true source: the abidingly healthy spiritual Self.

If we find ourselves in a situation where we become dependent upon the sexual experience to experience our spiritual potency, we learned how we can employ our mind as an instrument by positively connecting it with the Ultimate Reality (known in Advaita Vedānta as Brahman). Instead of thinking I am a man or woman, and associating ourselves with our biological, sexual needs, we can affirm:

“I am Brahman – the Ultimate Reality.”

This practice of thinking of ourselves as the deepest source of spiritual potency is called Brahman Abhyāsa.

We can practice the above mantra, or we can chant any other mantra(s) we may know to connect us with our true spiritual power. Practicing physical yoga āsanas and yogic breathing exercises (prānayāma) are additional Upāsana Yoga practices that help us channel our physical desires into greater self-mastery and spiritual power.

Advaita Vedānta Contemplations to Support Developing Greater Detachment from Other Bodies

Acharya Shunya taught how instead of getting caught up in analyzing what our relatives are (or are not) doing, Advaita Vedānta helps us analyze our own selves. We learn from this spiritual tradition that the others who are coming into and going out of our lives are nothing but our own Self showing up in different bodies to help us see and understand different aspects of ourselves.

In terms of excessive attachments to life partners, we learned how Adi Shankaracharya reveals in Bhaja Govindam (a collection of Vedic spiritual hymns) that when we leave our physical bodies, even our own beloved husband or wife will not want to sit with our body at night in the mortuary. Our partner will get frightened by our body and its rotting smells. This is where the physical relationship between two bodies ultimately leads.

Similarly, as we gain more spiritual knowledge, we should strive to love the common, spiritual Self in our pets, instead of getting lost at the level of our pets’ physical bodies.

We should honor the body of our pets, loved ones, and ourselves, because we regard the body as kalu dharma sādhanam, the vessel for performing all noble actions (dharmas). We therefore love the body, heal it, put beautiful things on it, eat organic, and so on.

When the time for death comes, however, we must ultimately be ready to let go of our own body, and accept it when others in our lives face death. We learn in Acharya Shunya’s Vedic Spiritual Studies Program how death, in fact, is nothing but a change of clothing, where we exchange one physical body for another until the time of our spiritual freedom (moksha) comes.

Look Within: the Quest for True Abundance

To prevent ourselves from getting lost in the chase for material and biological survival, and experiencing the pain of how enough is never really enough in terms of worldly achievement and acquisition, we are taught to practice Karma Yoga.

At a practical level of application, the sādhana of Karma Yoga helps us develop a healthier, more sustainable relationship with the world by focusing our mind on the process versus the outcomes involved in our work. In Karma Yoga, we practice making our work an offering to the divine, god consciousness (known as Ishwara). We receive the results of our efforts, whether positive or negative, as a blessing (prasad) from Ishwara.

Meditate on Being in This World, Not of This World

Money and recognition are not the same as abundance. If it were, then we would not see so much distress among those who are rich and famous.

Acharya Shunya shared how we can work for happiness, or work from happiness. What Karma Yoga means in a spiritual sense is that we learn to work from happiness (that lives inside – always) instead of seeking happiness through the outcomes of our work (which are outside us, and therefore not fully in our control). We want to, in this way, develop a meditative contemplation as we work that I am in this world, not of this world.

We can still learn new skills, pull out our contacts, and do what we can to achieve material abundance. But the key is to know while we do so that this is what we are doing for a certain amount of time, and that our abundance actually lives inside us.

Connecting with Our Inner Wellspring of Creativity

Every messiah, great being, fountainhead of knowledge, original scientist, thinker, architect, and spiritual leader has gone inside to find their eureka moments. This meant going against the world, and going within. They had to essentially make a spiritual journey inwards to discover the gifts they were meant to share with us all.

We can similarly connect with our most creative, original expressions of ourselves and thereby produce our best work by freeing ourselves from loka vāsanās, to allow our true Self to shine – not for attention or approval, but simply because the nature of the Self is to shine.

Living the Knowledge: Transforming Information to Wisdom

For spiritual study, we are recommended to practice Bhakti Yoga to infuse devotion into our learning of Shāstra (spiritual knowledge contained in sacred texts). What devotion does is invite this special knowledge to not just remain an academic pursuit, but to actually change our whole lives. As that is the real power of Shāstra.

The Three-Step Process of Learning Shāstra

In the Vedic spiritual tradition, we are taught how there is a three-pronged process for acquiring spiritual knowledge.

Stage 1: Listening Deeply

The first step is called Shravanam, which is the stage in which we simply listen to the Āchārya expound upon the wisdom of the Vedas contained in Shāstra with as little distraction as possible – and for a long period of time. What listening does is allow us to fully receive whatever wisdom we need in a given moment.

Stage 2: Contemplation

After we have listened, we are asked to then engage in Mananam, which is contemplation on what we have listened to. This is where we churn on what we have heard by really deeply thinking about it. Questions may arise in this process. We are asked to bring questions to the Āchārya in this stage of the learning process, to have any doubts removed that prevent us from making the knowledge a part of our living experience.

Stage 3: Application

Once we have any confusions that arose in the contemplation stage cleared up, we are then told to practice applying the knowledge to our lives. This is known as Nididhyāsanam, which means applying the knowledge, and simultaneously meditating on it. To do this fully and well, we need faith, devotion, and consistency. This stage of acquiring spiritual knowledge is when information becomes wisdom. What we have heard has now become our experience – we have verified the truth of what we have been taught in the laboratory of our own lives.

When we share knowledge from the space of lived experience of what we are teaching, it has power. What gets transmitted in this case is not merely a matter of recitation of facts and quotes, or a teacher becoming a walking encyclopedia of sorts – knowledge that is lived has the capacity to change the lives of others by ultimately giving hope.

Rather than get caught up by shāstra vāsanā, with devotion, we have the opportunity to become truly free from all forms of bondage.

It is Jñānam (spiritual knowledge attained from following the above process) that ultimately helps us go beyond the body to see the same Self in all, find true abundance within us, as us (to connect with our true state of Ānanda – infinite bliss), and to transform information into wisdom and spiritual power.

The gift of Jñānam, indeed, sets us free.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each magazine to benefit from summaries

The author Ananta Ripa Ajmera is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Director of Program Development at Vedika Global. She is author of "The Ayurveda Way," a collection of 108 practices for body, mind and soul that she learned from Acharya Shunya.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

I have been really in love with this Carrie Underwood song recently. It goes:

Sometimes, that mountain you've been climbing is just a grain of sand.

What you've been out there searching for forever is in your hands.

When you figure out love is all that matters after all, it sure makes everything else seem so small.

I feel that I have been living these lyrics so far during 2018. It hasn’t always been smooth--it definitely has not always been smooth--but I keep coming to this same conclusion: the world isn’t perfect, but it is complete.

A few months ago I found myself in a pretty common situation. Fresh out of college, not sure what professional path I wanted to take, I was (and still am) working in a high-pressure research institution in San Francisco. But with the commute, the workload, some health problems, and some family and communication struggles I felt burnt out, alone, out of options, tired, unvalued, and stuck in the “Rat Race.” I thought I had to escape this situation. I thought the only way I would be happy would be to leave and go to a place where I could have a slower pace of life.

I dreamed of moving to Hawaii, to a far off island where I could be at peace, where I could slow down and take my time. A place where I could have quiet, and simplicity. It didn’t seem like a very far out idea; I found some job options in my current field, so I felt like I wasn’t going to be cutting off all fiscally responsible options for a 23-year old. But I knew it would be a temporary fix, a place I could go and heal until I felt ready to return.

There was a part of me that felt fractured, unable to commit to this change. While I told my boss I was looking for new jobs, I did not send out any job applications. My head just swirled up with fantasizing over how much better I thought my life would be, but I felt stuck; unable to commit to the life I had nor the life I wanted.

I actually recognized that it was happening. I was off on a two-week long winter break, where I was able to just be at home, and rest. Shockingly, by the end of the vacation, I still didn’t feel rested. I felt like a walking contradiction.

I saw that the option of moving away might not be the right path yet. I realized I needed to change my attitude of my life now, or that same attitude would follow me anywhere I moved to. If I couldn’t relax when I was at home for two weeks with nothing to do, how could I expect to be perfectly content in an isolated part of the world.

I started to think about what I actually wanted (a task I always found hard to do). I came up with a small list. I wanted to be in nature. I wanted to feel like I was a part of a community. I wanted to feel more relaxed. I wanted my partner and my cats to be happy. I wanted to have more space and time to devote to things I loved.

Well you know what I did?

I started walking.

From the concrete and plexiglass structure of my work, I would just walk. I walked up Potrero Hill in San Francisco and found an abundance of community gardens and parks that I would sit in, look at the plants, watch the view of the bustling financial district from afar. I found these little gems of nature hidden in the asphalt-laden streets of the city I was trying to leave.

I started taking different transportation routes to work. I took the transbay bus that passes over the bay bridge. I hid my phone and caught a window seat to watch the sight of iconic San Francisco buildings rising up in the morning light. I took the ferry and watched the blue moon rising while feeling the crisp January wind rushing all around. I found the nature I was looking for; I made myself available to it.

This is not my normal. I usually find myself in self-pity, with no agency, wishing for other people to fix my life for me. And sometimes people do help out. But usually it is Life that intervenes and shows me what I really need to see: that Life is not perfect, but it is complete, and far more abundant than I could have expected.

I started picking up my morning rituals again. Drinking my hot water, watering my plants, feedings my cats, blessing my body with water at my altar, gazing at my hands in the morning and remembering the myriad ways my hands work in the world to give abundance, knowledge, and agency. I started to prioritize the things I loved, the things that bring joy to my life.

I started to to put myself out there so I could interact with my own community, my coworkers, my neighbors, my Oakland. I made myself available, started walking around, started making time to talk and listen to people, to not be afraid of what might happen, to sing while I work, to actually just sit and look at the clouds on the other side of the plexiglass window in my laboratory. I am learning to take off some of the pressures, and give myself room to make mistakes, to be seen, and to pay attention to my own life so that I can course-correct. Funny enough, while I have reduced my total workload, my efficiency and the quality of my work has improved drastically, now that I am not loathing my repetitive tasks.

So in one sense, I am still in the “Rat Race.” I am still commuting in the busy transit, working at the same high-pressure job. But I am not racing anywhere. I am learning how to simply be in the world, and in my peace. My negative thinking still gets in the way sometimes: Ugh I don’t want to do that work, or AHH I missed my bus. But I am beginning to more often take accountability for my thoughts, words, and actions. I start thinking new thoughts: Well I have nothing better to do, so why not enjoy that work, or It’s okay, there is another bus on its way. This process is taking me time. But instead of moving to the geographic place that I thought I wanted, I am using what I have learned in the Vedic Spiritual Studies program to move to the mental place that I truly wanted: a more and more consistent feeling of relaxation, acceptance, and appreciation. I am thankful for that. I feel supported by Life. That is more than I could have ever asked. And it is surprising, I am very happy to see that people around me have been so much more receptive to this attitude than I thought would be. Rather than overcommitting, getting overwhelmed, freaking out, and not saying anything to others, I am beginning to just say “Yes I can do that,” “No I cannot do that,” or even “I do not know if I can do that, but here is what I can do.”

I learned in the Vedic Spiritual Studies ProgramAcharya Shunya always says, we live in a world that is half-half, full of opposites. Half day, half night; sunny days and cloudy days; kind people and hurting people; flowers and weeds. It’s easy to find ourselves fighting against this, wishing for warm days during winter and cool days during summer. So much of the Vedic teaching centers around learning to give ourselves space so that we can take a step back, and watch as things come into our lives, stay in our lives, and leave our lives. As I begin to accept this, I am learning to appreciate the bad with the good, the dark with the light, the workdays with the weekends.

The World isn’t perfect in the sense that I don’t always get what I want, how I want it, when I want it, wrapped up in seasonal wrapping paper and topped with a bow. But the present inside is always exactly what I need. And I am starting to see that that is the beauty, that is where the perfection of Life lies. While the World doesn’t always give me what I may want, Life is complete. It is interconnected, full, enough, purnam (or complete) as the Rishis (ancient Seers and Teachers) say in Sanskrit. And because it is purnam - it carries all the opposites in its fold. It is full of beauty and destruction, rainbows and tornadoes, loved ones and frustrated ones, heartache and love, suffering and peace. As Shunya ji teaches us, it is my duty to take a step back, and keep Life in perspective. My wish, and the daily commitment I am taking up, is to nourish and maintain a lifestyle that can remind me of my peace so that I can course-correct my thoughts through my mistakes, and see the beauty and the potential that is working through it all (the good the bad and the ugly).

I am very thankful for this, because I do feel like I am slowing down to become a more positive person, and a more complete person. This is what I have been growing in my inner garden through the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. There are still weeds, hard times still come, but as soon as I remember that there is beauty and God hidden there, I start to feel more peaceful. So maybe I might move one day, maybe I might not. But either way I am happy to be working on my bhaava (attitude) first, rather than getting caught up in my feelings.

Each of us have a unique journey, a different path to follow. All I can say is that what I am learning here at Vedika, with Acharya Shunya ji, is how to be strong and kind so that I can keep on walking, through the mud and through the asphalt, remembering all along that while the World is not Perfect, Life is Complete.

And it is far more than Enough.

The author Shreyas Derek Cousineau is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Kitchen Coordinator, creating and offering delicious Ayurvedic meals to our Vedic Spiritual Studies classes and Vedika Global events.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

We are happy to share this story from our founder, Acharya Shunya.

Baba once shared a significant story with his disciples. I was fortunate to be a part of that inner circle. The Sanskrit word “satsangha” refers to a gathering of seekers, specifically disciples, which collect around a great Guru, to receive the wisdom of absolute reality (Brahman). Typically, the master meets the students on a regular basis to not only impart this rare wisdom that gets activated through purified speech of the Guru alone, but also, clears the doubts students may have. However, depending upon the state of the mind of the student, and the degree to which the ego is full of itself, or empty of prior notions, the results vary.

In the first type of mindset, the student’s mind is like a hot plate. The student’s personal consciousness is teeming with life agendas, and all types of vāsanās, (pertaining to the body, mind, or scriptures). In essence our ego is overstated, despite being in the company of a great teacher. So when rare wisdom (jñānam) comes through our ears, and enters our mind, it does not stay long enough with us to even make a dent in our consciousness. It simply disappears within moments, just like drops of water evaporate quickly on encountering a scorching surface. The greater the heat of the ego, the faster is the loss of wisdom.

These students are entrenched in their inner-identification with worldly positions. They remain asleep to the opportunity of a living awakened Guru sitting before them in a body, even as the Guru is discoursing with them about the Ultimate Truth of Self, Life and existence. Perhaps this rare opportunity presents itself due to past life’s accumulated good karma (known as punyam). In this lifetime, they come to the satsangha (gathering), and they appreciate the Guru’s uplifting words in the moment. They may offer sevā (service to the Guru as gratitude) and even like to revere the Guru as God, but alas, they do not retain the teachings. That is a great loss due to worldly fires that grip their mind. No sooner do they leave the teacher’s presence then they are back to square one – sleepwalking in maya, chasing mirages and running away from others. Thus, their spiritual benefits are minimal and transient. The wisdom has simply evaporated.

In the second type of mindset, the student slowly and steadily begins to recognize the value of rare Self-knowledge coming their way from the rare awakened teacher via the Upanishads. They recognize that the teacher’s body may not remain vigorous enough to teach forever (since the body of the Guru also is perishable), and perhaps their own karma can create future, unknown, obstacles in learning. Now, the student begins to esteem the study and learning opportunity and give it the attention it deserves. They become more focused upon their learning opportunity, value it as a priority, and give it their full attention. For this they may even have to sacrifice several privately held agendas. The student’s mindfulness begins to shows up in how much they value each encounter with the teacher (satsangha). The student’s entire personality becomes like a lotus leaf.

Have you ever seen a lotus leaf and its response to water droplets, either from rain or a hose? When water drops fall on the lotus leaf, it holds them for a long time, as long as it can, like glistening beads. In our perspective, this represents being with the knowledge, deliberately, even when we are not present face-to-face with our Guru. This longer association with “drops of wisdom” from the teacher, leads to greater inner alignment with reality and true Self, and expedites remembering who we are. The leaf that holds droplets of divine wisdom with mindfulness gradually blossoms a lotus. Yes, the lotus of the disciple’s heart opens, and the disciple encounters the outer Guru dwelling in that inner lotus. This state, an evolved one, is known as the emergence of Shraddhā (faith), the surrender of the final remnants of ego, to the Guru and Guru’s message from the awakening scriptures. The students who make effort to retain and contemplate upon the knowledge received from the Guru, begin to enjoy positive spiritual clarity and innumerable life-benefits in due course.

However, the lotus leaf may not always enjoy the bloom of knowledge. The disciple must remember to come back to the Guru, again and again, repeatedly, without break, simply for getting wet again and again in the shower of divine wisdom, since water-beads will disappear from the lotus leaf over time. So also, a mind that stops being exposed to the Guru’s wisdom rain for any reason, parches in the desert of māyā. Chances of the lotus blooming in due time, becomes another unfulfilled delusion.

Without water, the lotus leaf turns yellow, then brown, and finally falls back into the filthy pond of māyā (the changing reality superimposed on the ultimate reality of Brahman) . Without the Guru’s wisdom and sustained exposure, even the most sincere student will regress back to sleep-walking behaviors. Unless the student makes it a priority to remain steadfast in discipleship, the wisdom that once shone in the eyes of the student gradually dissipates.

Finally, it is a rare student who becomes a pearl of wisdom.

The story goes this way, that there is a rare shell that waits with its mouth open for rain. But simply any rain shower at any time will not do. It waits to catch even one drop of the rain that falls in the Swati Nakshatra (a star constellation, considered spiritually potent as per the Hindus). Then, the shell closes it mouth and goes to sleep (to the rest of the world), but remains internally awake and active, with that celestial drop, as its entire universe.

No one knows when the shell will re-emerge and how. When it does return back to the world, and opens it mouth again, the water droplet has become a pearl. It does not hoard the pearl for itself, but releases it into the ocean, adding a little more shine, to a self-shining existence. The droplet that became a pearl is the study of a disciple that first and foremost, discerns whose wisdom is worthy of waiting for and whose is not. The disciple does not get swayed for example, by the first person who declares “I am awake, I am a Guru, Come to me, I shall help you.” Clearly, the disciple is not gripped by deha vāsanā to get seduced by physical appearances alone. This unexamined desire for the body often makes an initial and lasting impression - such as attraction to the biggest spiritual gig, exotic mystical dress, or fancy advertisements (all contemporary examples of the kind of early discernment a pearl will do).

"I patiently await the rare rain that drops in swati nakshatra, alone. "

Then, the disciple assigns extraordinary value to each drop of wisdom that emerges from the chosen Guru’s auspicious mouth, since often, for such a sensitive disciples, even one drop is enough. Upon receiving wisdom, it feels complete. This shows that the pearl disciple is clearly beyond shāstra vāsanā, or unexamined desire for learning from scriptures, blindly hoping to study and master yet more scriptures, and even memorize a few or all verses. Meanwhile never personally making the effort to assimilate the essence of wisdom, to try to live the first verse of the first scripture ever taught to them. The disciple boasts about how many scriptures they have gone through. The tradition comments, how many scriptures have gone through you?

For the pearl, one drop is enough – less is more. So when they receive even one clear teaching from the Guru, such as the famous teaching in one statement, Brahma Satyam Jagan Mithya, which means, “Self is the only Truth. All else is Appearance.” Then the disciple will spend their entire life, or a good part of it, threading this one statement apart in the laboratory of their own life, relationships, ashrama (stage of life), īshanā (valid desires of a human life), etc., until they become one with the wisdom that this 4-worded aphorism, unpacks. In fact this statement is the quintessential essence of the Upanishads from the eyes of Advaita Vedānta, as forwarded by ancestral master teacher Adi Shankaracharya from the 8th century CE.

How many Upanishads can one hope to receive in one limited lifetime (with transient health, vitality, body, failing memory, etc.)? How many texts can one memorize, unless the 4-word statement is heard, understood, and internalized as a part of one’s daily life by an assiduous Disciple. In fact this entire book simply confirms this one statement alone.

Finally, the disciple shows extraordinary ability to turn inwards, away from the world and its māyā-mall of fame, name, popularity, accolades, and approvals. From past experience (in this life time or previous) or from the Guru’s counsel, the disciple already knows how unsubstantial is the drama of victory, name and fame earned in the world, won at such great cost, and how transient the worldly joy. We are always left unquenched; such is the nature of mirages in māyā.

The disciple is now only in quest of the abiding bliss of the Self. So the disciple has no qualms in truly re-prioritizing their lifestyle to pursue Self-knowledge full-time. They may even change jobs, work part-time or seek early retirement. They may move closer to the Guru (geographically) and not leave any opportunity for satsangha with the Guru. They offer unbridled, an exceptional selfless service to the Guru, and take care of the Guru’s outer form, just so that the teaching and learning can carry on, unrestricted by life circumstances. In their private and public life, these disciples go progressively inwards (they stop talking about their spiritual experiences and insights for a start). Hermit-like inwardly, regular people outwardly. Moms, dads, sons, daughters, they curate a meditative contemplative lifestyle and value solitude, to remember the Guru, worship the Guru as incarnate Brahman, and contemplate on the teachings from the Guru. They are present in the world, amongst the web of worldly relationships, but still, they manage to present beautifully expressed, calm spiritual boundaries. Thus the worldly waters (salty water from the ocean) cannot mix up with the single rain droplet (preciously received from the beloved Guru). This is how much they value the Guru – they become trustees of great wisdom, every drop of it.

The disciple is ready to leave everything (not physically but in terms of their worldly egoic-attachments to things), in quest of the Ultimate Truth. And they value the “truth giver,” the Guru, over every other earthly relationship. False appearances and māyā promises no longer sway the disciple from staying engrossed in sadhanā (spiritual disciplines).

The world says the student has become a hermit. In reality, the disciple is getting ready to be a citizen of the world - fully engrossed, active and dynamic. This time, the student sees with new eyes, the eyes of the knower, knower of Brahman, the Ultimate Supreme Spiritual Reality of One Being and Radical Bigness.

The story is full of symbolism. Baba explained: The Swati constellation represents karmic or divine grace and spiritual forces that come together to set the right environment so the disciple encounters the master for future awakening. Then, the rain of good opportunity, to meet and study with the Guru, falls on many. Only the One who internalizes even a single droplet of wisdom, becomes the true disciple, and ultimately the awakened knower. The others simply get wet and sooner or later, dry back up.

The outer shell is compared to the Guru’s protection, under which the disciple dwells, inwardly facing, (not outwardly facing the world) for a long duration (not a fixed amount of time). The disciple emerges from the shell only when the Guru releases the shell, not otherwise. So the true disciple does not self declare prematurely, I am a pearl. The Guru thinks with satisfaction, “Look another pearl, Oh Brahman; I give you back more of you. This one has now re-remembered.”

When the disciple emerges forth as a pearl, he or she returns as a Knower (brahmajñāni), an Awakened One (jīvanamukta), who shines, with a sovereign inner light, the shine of the Self. One in a million disciples becomes a pearl. But we should all aspire to become one. And in this way, with a beautiful inner smile, Baba concluded his storytelling that changed my life.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

The following is a teaching that comes from the oral tradition of our sampradāya, from ancient teachings passed from generations of teachers to generations of students. Like many of the ancient Vedic teachings, this knowledge was written down and those books burned, but the transmission continued through the guru-shishya parampara. With a deep gratitude for our living teacher, and for my own working sense organs and mind to receive, I share this Vinaya teaching fromAcharya Shunya ji.

(True/complete) knowledge gives discipline, from discipline comes worthiness, from worthiness one gets wealth, from wealth (one does) good deeds, from that (comes) joy.

In this sutra, students of Advaita Vedānta are given a clear pathway to achieving Joy – that abiding happiness that each of us seek in this life.

Vidya gives Vinayam – Knowledge gives Discipline (and Respect)

Vidya means knowledge, but not an ordinary knowledge – rather, it is knowledge from shāstra that awakens us to the Self. Shāstra, or sacred texts of the Veda and Upanishads, is alone considered an avenue to vidya as they help to reveal the highest knowledge of the Self/Brahman. All other knowledge – whether of science, technology, art etc. is not true vidya, rather it is information. Knowledge then in this context is the knowledge of the Self. Only this vidya creates vinayam – the discipline and humility of studentship.

Vinayam gives Pātritām – Respect and Discipline gives Worthiness (as a student)

Vinaya is a cultivated mindset of respect and deep studentship in our relationship to both teacher and shāstra. Why is this important? Why should we intentionally cultivate a mindset of respect as spiritual students? When we hold this value of respect in our thoughts, our words and our deeds – in every interaction with our teacher and the teachings, we are doing our own inner work to purify our minds and egos. The knowledge of Self is there, but if our minds are in confusion and a constant state of reaction, we won’t be able to receive this wisdom from our teacher. No matter how much we hear, we cannot Know. It is only when we have Vinayam that we are able to develop pātritām – to become worthy vessels for the knowledge of Self – to become adhikari. From the Sanskrit word pātra meaning vessel, we become worthy students for this knowledge, as we purify our ego and stabilize our intellect appropriately. Our worthiness comes from our respect.

Pātritām gives Āpanoti – Worthiness gives True Abundance/Wealth

So what does pātritā give? What is the life benefit of being a worthy student of Self Knowledge (ātmabodha)? That worthiness gives dhānam or gifted abundance. The one who is this worthy vessel achieves (āpanoti) wealth. In this case, we are speaking of True Abundance – not just the wealth of dollars or rupees, but of every kind of abundance. Vinaya brings happiness in our lives and our relationships. Material health, social relationships, physical health – everything comes from this Vinaya. When we understand the many meanings of dhānam we recognize the many gifts of this life. Instead of living a deprived miserable existence, with vinaya we have achieved some “dhān”. Shāstra is itself a kind of wealth. We can also have gurudhān – the huge blessing of a teacher, or strīdhān – the gift of a wife, or putra dhān – enjoying the blessing of a son, etc. This whole life we lead is a life of blessings. From this abundance on all levels, a sense of flow emerges. This leads to dharma – a life of right action.

Dhānam gives Dharma, from Dharma comes Sukham – A life of true abundance naturally leads us to right action, which in turns brings us Joy

When we are in flow, we are in a state of deep connection to universal ethics. When we understand our wealth to be manifest in the many blessings of our lives, we experience spaciousness and generosity. We naturally make choices and take actions that are beneficial to all, not just for our own small self-interest, but for everyone.

These kinds of universal right actions lead to Joy. When we fulfill dharma we fulfill our destiny, we live in our sva-dharma. To realize and live in alignment with our highest purpose, leads to an abiding connection with Self and a lived experience of Joy.

When we understand this relationship between Knowledge, Respect, Worthiness, Wealth, Dharma and Joy we have a template for a life of wholeness. If you are ready to experience abiding happiness in your life, this simple teaching can provide insight in each step.

Contemplate the following:

We can only truly become an adikhāri when vinaya is in place – when vinaya ends, you are no longer a worthy vessel.Only if there is true vinaya, not from neediness but from a place of deep humility and respect, can we have vidya.

Love and Light,

Aparna

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each magazine to benefit from summaries of

The author Aparna Amy Lewis is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Dean of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

In Vedika’s Bhagavad Gita classes Acharya Shunya is unpacking each verse of this sacred text with depth and care. All of the verses have profound meanings, and depending on what in our lives we are contemplating on as students, some really hit like an earthquake - either by shaking up and calling into question longstanding notions about ourselves and the world, or by offering an answer to some nagging question that has been lurking around in the back of our minds without ever being definitively settled. These kinds of consciousness-expanding questions or soul-quenching answers tend to reverberate in the mind for days, if not weeks or more, after we hear them.

I had the experience of this after Acharya Shunya’s explanation of one of a few terms in a recent Bhagavad Gita class, part of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. As I mulled over the meaning and practical implications of this one word in different life situations after the class, I felt some deeply encrusted spiritual ignorances crumbling away and whole new possibilities full of light and freedom open up in the way I think, speak and behave. The terms were all descriptions of the atman, our deepest spiritual self that is untouched and unaltered by the world of experiences around us. One description of atman that hit me hard was that the atman is ‘akarta’ - meaning, it is not the actor.

Throughout the Vedic Spiritual Studies program we learn a lot about ‘the actor’ - a shorthand title for our ego-based identity that often reacts to the world out of deep-rooted impulses. This ‘actor self’ is full of attachments to people, things and ideas in life and these desires often cloud our judgement in myriad ways.

Often I would tell myself, and have often heard encouragement in new-age spiritual circles, to - “Let your soul decide. Let your soul speak for you. Let your soul do the work.” These kinds of statements always seemed enlightened enough. They seemed to say, “Set aside your own ego. Don’t blindly follow others. Don’t get boxed in by default patterns. Go deeper and connect to a place of authenticity and higher guidance before choosing/speaking/acting.” Sometimes when I had to face a difficult conversation, or make a tricky decision, or offer compassion to a friend who was going through a hard time, I would mentally use these kinds of phrases to settle my nerves, or try and get some clarity, or connect more deeply than on just a superficial level. I was interpreting the ‘constant witness of the soul’ as an all-knowing presence that could steer me in the right direction if only my ego could get out of the way. But something never quite sat right whenever I tried to get my soul to act in place of my ego or mind.

When Acharya Shunya explained the teachings of Krishna to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita about the akarta nature of the soul, something clicked and I realized I had been trying to force the soul to ‘do’ something, but action was not part of its nature. To be a guide, or to weigh in on what I should and shouldn’t do, or to form the words I should use, the soul would have to act. To act it would have to desire one outcome over another, have preferences, have a will. But if the soul is eternally blissful, unlimited, pure consciousness, without birth or death, regardless of what happens in the course of my life experiences, it will remain the same. I wanted this eternal witness to my thoughts and life story to gift me pearls of wisdom from its perch of perfect equanimity.

Actually, the role of the soul as a non-actor has much more radical implications for our sense of identity than the soul acting as simply a wise confidante and advisor. The definition of the soul as a non-actor (akarta) revealed to me how motionless, how purely aware the Soul is, how it need not and can not be called upon to interfere in the changing world of daily life. Meditating on this stillness, this pure observer Self as my deepest nature, released any lingering feelings of worry, stress, or anxiety. On the most fundamental I am beyond the need to act, whatever choice I make will not affect the fact that the Soul exists. This contemplation also put into a brand new perspective the role of the ego and intellect in the process of remembering the Self. Rather than waiting for the Soul to pierce through the clouds of life’s confusions and declare all the answers, it is only the ego and intellect’s responsibility to become refined, clarified and purified so that they maximally reflect the light of the Soul’s consciousness. These rarified mental apparatuses, which are defining parts of the ‘actor self’, will then be able to guide our thoughts, speech and actions so that we act according to intrinsic noble principles, for the good of all. Vedanta and Ayurveda offer many methods through which we can cultivate sattva (the universal quality of clarity) through balanced foods and lifestyle, sustained practices of sense control, thought training, study of Self-knowledge, spiritual practices, etc.

This is actually quite a comforting and empowering idea. Knowing that my soul is silent but never going anywhere, and that if I keep fine-tuning the active parts of my mind and ego through time-tested practices, my thoughts, speech and actions will automatically become illuminated with wisdom. I now have more awe for the Soul’s presence and determined resolve to train my mind and ego knowing that the Soul is not at all the actor.

If this is the life-changing revelation coming from Acharya Shunya’s teaching of a single word of the Bhagavad Gita, I am eager to stay attuned to see what the rest of the sacred text holds!

The author Ishani Naidu is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Editor of the , which is an offering of Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her .

One evening, chatting with my husband on the phone before going to sleep in our apartment across town (where I spend a night a week babysitting our cat who lives with our stepson and enjoying some retreat time) I paused for a long moment when he asked me about my day. Finally I responded, “Oh, I had a really nice day!” “Yes,” he said, “it was a nice day today.” “No, I don’t mean it was nice. I had a nice day. The world and I did well today.” “Okay,” he replied, amused, “then I’ll leave you and the world and go to sleep. Love you and good night!”

Yes, I had had a really nice day. It was so rich in my mind. For the last few weeks, I had been pondering Acharya Shunya’s current teachings on bhakti yoga and the second chapter of the Bhagavad Gita, in addition to reviewing her prior discourses on the Vedānta primer Tattvabodha and sādhana chatushtayam (introduction to Tattvabodha which prepares a student for the path of Self-enquiry) on the intranet. Together, they were shifting my paradigm of my relationship with myself, the world and God.

What is significant right now is that I am emerging from what I call my “unconscious period” of about 10 years, during which I had mostly surrendered my power and authority to others, in the belief that I could not maintain relationships otherwise; as a result, I had experienced a great deal of rage and helplessness stemming from a belief that I was limited and powerless. Yet, before this period, I had experienced more of my power. I had chosen to surrender it. And now I was choosing to reclaim it.

Waking Up

In her classes on Tattvabodha, Acharya Shunya states that Vedānta begins with the premise that we are unlimited powerful beings, and the living teacher translates the words of the rishis through these ancient texts to evoke our hidden power and have us reclaim it. What a blessing to be in the presence of such a living guru!

Bhakti yoga addresses our relationship with God, whether we call it Brahman (the Biggest) or Tat (That), the pure substratum of all that exists, or Ishwara, this same pure Intelligence combining with Maya to become the universe. Here are the three definitions of bhakti:

1) Bhāgāt bhaktih, I belong to (am a portion of) Ishwara/Brahman.

2) Bhaja sevāya bhaktih, As part of Ishwara, I want to serve Ishwara (this world and beings).

3) Bhanjanāt bhaktih, Worshipping Ishwara reminds me of my divinity and destroys the erroneous notion that I am limited.

First, just as my hand is a vital part of my body, I am an essential part of Ishwara. Then, just as my hand takes care of things other than itself, I am here to serve Ishwara in the form of the universe. Finally, just as my hand has an unseen power or energy and is not just flesh and bone, as I purify my mind and remember the divine, I become more in touch with the divine principle within me.

In our Gita studies, we are contemplating on God as the Self within: aham (I am) nitya (without beginning or end), satyam (changeless), avināshi (indestructible), sarvagatah/vyāptam (all-pervading), aprameya (unknowable to the senses), akarta/abhokta (neither doer nor experiencer), nirvikārah (without modification). Having initially depended on the world, I am discovering how to depend on God as a principle all around of which I am a part, and ultimately on God as the Self within. I am all I need; I am enough.

Hello, world!

These definitions of bhakti yoga shine light in my understanding that if I am a portion of Ishwara, so is everything around me. Until now, believing in my own limitation compared to that of the world, my choices have been to find some area in which I have more power and control the outcome, or to feel a lack of power and resort to inner rage.

Now a third option was emerging. If I am Ishwara, and everything around me is Ishwara, then together the world and I are acting in unison. Everything happening is for the benefit of all, no matter how it seems to my jiva (ego-based actor self). Far from feeling a lack of power, I reclaim all of my power, for my power lies in being present to and responding creatively to how Ishwara manifests in each moment.

This is why I had had such a nice day. On the surface, it had been an ordinary day, just like ones that I’d had for over 10 years, working as a mathematics instructor at a small junior college. Driving to work that day, I’d decided I would continue playing with this idea that Ishwara was in everything and everyone around me and see how it felt. I noticed that my sense of Time seemed to shift: in one way it disappeared, since I felt a deeper and yet less entangled connection with each student or colleague; in another way, it became clear markers of my dinacharya (daily Ayurvedic routine), such as mid-morning snack. Seeing each interaction as Ishwara relating to Itself allowed me to maintain healthy boundaries and disengage appropriately, such as being able to remind a student that I was more interested in helping him gain clarity from within himself rather than spoon-feed him an answer. And when my colleague commented on how jealous she is that I always bring in healthy food, my response was, “Yes, I do!” without feeling apologetic. When leaving for the day, I passed a healthy-looking cat watching a mouse and marveled at how Nature is simultaneously moving in so many directions at once without any need for my intervention. All of these seemed to be living examples of prakāsh (light) and prasād (grace) manifesting from increased sattva (the natural clarity of the mind when rajas, or agitation, and tamas, or inertia, are reduced), a topic Shunyaji recently covered in our year-long Ayurveda course.

A particular moment revealed Ishwara’s power to me. Glancing at my smartphone app, I saw an EV charging station free, which was rare for that time of day. I told my assistant that I was stepping out for a moment and headed to my car. While walking, I remembered that I had forgotten to put my parking permit on my dashboard – unusual for me! Thanking Ishwara for this reminder – for from whom else had it come? – I also resolved to see any resulting parking ticket as a blessing. No such blessing was there, and since the smartphone app no longer showed the charging station to be available, I felt immense gratitude that the power of my intention (sankalpa shakti) to see Ishwara everywhere enabled me to experience the protection Ishwara provides, even from myself.

The author Niramaya Nalini Ramji is a student of Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. She volunteers in support to the organization with the AV team.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

I was recently asked to transcribe a live spiritual discourse (known as a satsangha) by my Guru Acharya Shunya, to which I promptly agreed. Once receiving the instructions, I realized this task would be more time consuming than I originally thought. Additionally, I thought I’d be transcribing a more recent satsangha, not one from two years earlier. In spite of the changes to all my preconceived notions about what this seva (selfless service) would be, I proceeded with a happy and willing spirit. Several times I sat down to begin my transcription but I’d run into one obstacle or another. First obstacle was trying to find the right time.

I wanted a large block where I could sit down, uninterrupted to work. Then it was computer problems: not being able to access the video, signed into the wrong account, and who knows what; sometimes electronic things just don’t work for me. It’s something I’ve come to accept, frustrating as it can be. Lastly, unexpectedly getting a full time job which now meant my once primarily free daytimes were no more. By now, days were turning into weeks and the timeline for requested completion was rapidly upon me, but so was the Thanksgiving holiday along with all the planning and preparation which that entails. How and when would I manage to fit it all in?

On Thursday night I attended the Vedic Spiritual Studies program in person at our wisdom school Vedika Global. Our teacher, Acharya Shunya was beginning teachings on Bhakti Yoga, the yoga of devotion, a class I did not want to miss! As she started her discourse, class she was informed by the school's AV team that the slide presentation she had prepared for that evening's class would not be able to be shown due to technical difficulties. I smiled, finding comfort in knowing I’m not the only one these things happen to. Acharya Shunya ji had to be flexible and adjust on the spot, for what she prepared was not going to happen in the way she had planned it. She asked for a few volunteers and before we knew it, we had a minor stage production coming to life right in front of our eyes. It was such a rich, clarifying and fun class.

Saturday morning I woke up at five am, my allocated selfless duty (seva) on my mind. After completing my Ayurvedic daily self care practices (dinacharya) I retreated to what we call the “California room”, in our home. It is a small room on the back of the house that has huge windows the length of the wall looking out to our backyard, full of various trees and their inhabitants. Of course, when I sat down to begin my seva, all I could see was darkness. Finally, after weeks of failed attempts, it was all coming together, I had my block of time, I had a quiet space and time where I would not be interrupted, and yes even the computer was cooperating and the video began playing, no problem. Before I knew it, I could see the trees outside the windows and the sun had come up. My transcribing was coming along and yes it was taking some time to complete, but I found the topic so rich and amazingly complementary to the Bhakti Yoga class from Thursday, that I enjoyed every precious moment.

The topic of the class I transcribed was about the qualities of ultimate reality or Supreme Consciousness, which are: Sat, Chit, Ananda, Ananta and Poorna (Sanskrit terms that I will explain below).

Sat: Unchanging (I am unchanging truth), Chit: Awareness (Unchanging, pure, objectless, intelligent awareness), Ananda: Absolute Joy (joy which is free from external sources of joy, but an independent source of joy), Ananta: Limitlessness, and Poorna: Fullness. When explaining these concepts, our teacher Shunya ji held up her hand, and pointed to each finger as one of the five. I love this visual because they all work together just as our fingers on our hand do. It is a physical reminder: beginning outwardly at my outer personality (jiva) level and moving inward connecting to spirit or Self (atman), and to God (Ishwara). I think of my own inner most being as Sat, Chit, Ananda, Ananta, Poorna, when I look at my five fingers. My own hand has become the tool to pull or hold back the blanket of mental delusions (maya) that is trying to prevent me from staying connected to my true Self/inner God.

I know that if I had been successful in transcribing this class sooner, before experiencing the Bhakti yoga class, then my learnings would most definitely have been different. I am grateful for the teachings of oneness; and I learnt the relationship between Guru (Master) -Shastra (Upanishads) -Iswara (God) and what role they play in my life to lead me home to me. It has helped to calm me down. It has helped me to understand that all things happen for a reason even if I don’t know what that reason is at the time. It has helped me to know myself better, to be gentle with myself, to ask God (Iswara) for help (which has not been easy for me to do in the past and something I am still working on) and to listen carefully for answers. It has helped me to listen for guidance, so that when that block of time and quiet place became available, I was ready and waiting for it. I could have easily missed it and fallen back to sleep; it was Saturday morning after all. Sometimes God whispers and if we are too busy, too stressed, too hurried to make everything happen in our own timing, then we don’t hear or answer; we don’t see the connections.

So as I prepared for the Thanksgiving holiday, I expressed my deepest gratitude, first to my Guru, Acharya Shunya ji, and her teacher’s Baba and Bade Baba and to our ancient linage (Sampradaya); and finally to Vedika Global, an auspicious platform for igniting transformational change, not only in my life but in countless other lives.

May the light of the Highest Truth (Brahman) shine upon all of us during this holiday season and always.

With a soul full of gratefulness,

Siddhi JoAnna Traski

Acharya Shunya’s Ecclesiastical Council Chair, Vedika Global

The author Siddhi JoAnna Traski is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya and serves as Chair to Acharya Shunya's Ecclesiastical Council.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Who am I? What real part of me stays the same while everything else about me seems to change? So many of us have asked ourselves these questions throughout our lifetime. In looking for an answer, we may ask ourselves, ‘Am I the body?’ The body changes; we are born, we grow, we develop, we age, then the body dies. No, we cannot be the body. ‘Am I the mind?’ Thoughts come and go, the mind goes through its likes and dislikes, its judgements, anger, love, hate. No, the mind too must be impermanent. I ask myself, ‘Am I a daughter, wife, friend, mother?’ Are these permanent or impermanent? These all can also change. Then what is permanent? Vedānta says Truth, the Oneness of all, and that Oneness is something we have forgotten because we get so caught up in the trappings of this material world. A person can go through life striving for all the material things that bring comfort - a well paying job, a beautiful home, cars, family life, and still feel an emptiness inside that these things don’t seem to satisfy. Once we start to inquire about what does bring lasting happiness and contentment by looking within, sitting with a Truth teacher, the question many of us have asked, ‘Is this all there is?’ goes away and we begin to step into our Truth.

Through the teachings of with Acharya Shunya, we are shown a different way to see ourselves in this world. Deep within each of us is something separate from the changing layers of our ego/personality that we accept as “I”. In Sanskrit this is called sākshi, which translates as ‘the observer.’ We can access this observer through our sākshi bhāva (observer feeling) in our day to day lives. It is always with us and has always existed, Vedānta says.

Our ego/personality, which Acharya Shunya calls ‘the actor self,’ is something we need to live in this world. To do our jobs, make a living, take care of our families, perform all of our day to day tasks depends on this actor self. Though there is a practicality and utility to this part of ourselves, it is not all of who we are. When we ask what connects us to a greater purpose, a deeper, satisfying, knowing what Life is all about, this is where accessing our sākshi bhāva within starts to uncover our True Self.

This observer witnesses all of our thoughts and actions without judgement or desire for certain outcomes. Acknowledging the observer brings a sense of relief from our everyday likes and dislikes, worries, ups and downs of the mind which we previously thought defined our existence. When we feel a presence within that is unchanged and independent of the life circumstances around us, the fluctuations of life feel somehow lighter. We can access this observer by the practice of stepping outside or away from thoughts, our actions and only observe. It can be done, if only for moments at a time. We can step outside of our small selves and be in the moment. For example, at a family gathering, there may be one relative that can never be appeased and is always finding fault, and instead of getting caught up in their story like we usually would in the past, we simply step back and observe. By observing, judgements fall away and a genuine feeling of compassion arises. To truly become aware of the pulse of Life within us and all around us, this Observer dissolves into a feeling of unity and oneness with all.

Awakening to Soul Consciousness

The ancient Vedānta texts, the Upanishads, say our entire existence as we perceive it in daily life is due to one long sleep of the soul. Awakening to the presence of the soul is a journey through three states of consciousness.

In the Awake state, we are living in this physical cycle of birth and death, we are bound by impermanence. Everything in this māyā (world of phenomena) changes. My teacher, Acharya Shunya calls this māyā a magic show; things appear to be so solid or permanent, then disappear. We are bound by impermanence, but we don’t question what or if anything persists underneath the changes because we’ve totally forgotten our true Self.

How then do we find our true Self? Through an awakened teacher (guru) who questions everything in this world and asks us to do the same.

Through Sādhanā Chatushtayam (a series of conscious behaviors a student of Vedānta cultivates so they can progress on their spiritual path) teachings of viveka (discrimination between what is real and what is not real in this world) we ask ourselves on a daily basis, “Is what I’m experiencing real? Is it unchanging or will it be something different in the future?” Is this world not bound by cycles of change? The child is born and depends on the mother and father. Over time the child grows and becomes an adult, the mother and father grow old and now depend on the child. Is this Truth that never changes, or untruth, which is always changing?

An awakened teacher will ask, “Are you in bondage through this world dream or are you present?” Present to Truth that never changes through past, present, and future cycles of time. This Truth cannot come from the senses. Our strong feelings come from the actor who is trapped and allured by this material world.

In the Dream State the “I” (ahamkāra, ego) is invested in the astral realm. This realm is more subtle than the gross physical world we encounter when we are awake, but still has fluctuating qualities. Dreams are all mind-made. They can seem so real upon waking but as the day unfolds we forget our dreams. Acharya Shunya related this to the cycle of birth and death; we fall asleep and wake up in another life.

The Deep Sleep State is said to be where we lose that identity with the actor self. It may be only for a few moments, but for those moments we are in bliss and wake up feeling renewed and refreshed. According to the Upanishads, in this deep sleep, we die a symbolic death as our consciousness disconnects from our senses and mind. During this deep sleep for a few moments everything is shut down, gone, this consciousness is at its deepest place, this consciousness curls back into a seed. Here the actor finds some rest in the heart.

Practices to Identify with the Observer

Practice in your waking state being the observer, whether doing daily tasks at home, at work, in traffic, or a family gathering. Our true nature is to observe, so this is not hard to do because you are expressing your true Self. The more the sākshi bhāva, the less reactive the actor. What if you Observed your emotions as part of the actor’s emotions? Another teaching from Sādhanā Chatushtayam is known as vairagya (dispassion) or non-attachment to our emotions. This practice of reminding ourselves that passing emotions belong to the actor and do not affect our deepest Observer Self helps us differentiate between what is temporary (emotions) and what is eternal (the sākshi / Observer). Vairagya cultivates a little space between the actor and the Observer and this gives us a chance to respond consciously rather than impulsively react to life situations.

Try to observe the actor in the awake state, and then before sleep, ask to observe in the dream state, and possibly evoke the sākshi bhāva which is already there during deep sleep.

Have you had that perfect, deep, satisfying sleep? What do we experience after a good sound sleep? We wake up saying, ‘I slept well.’ If you were asleep, how did you know you slept well? There must be something that was aware while you slept. It was that which is always present, your sākshi, who knew.

The deep sleep state is said to be almost like a short death - we are no longer in a dream state as the doer, we are in a state of suspension where the mind seems to disconnect from the senses, no thoughts to disturb, a complete settling of the mind.

When we are in an observer state all the way into the depths of deep sleep this is where awakening happens. What if the observer and not the actor was awake where this māyā is at its densest? The observer pierces thru this fine layer and on the other side is Pure Consciousness. This sākshi consciousness is a substratum of all the changes the actor goes through. The more aware we become of our observer state, the less we will be carried away by external changes of consciousness and internally your true nature starts to be revealed. You will be able to distinguish between the actor and the true self.

As we practice bringing in the observer, we will have less reactivity, improved relationships, and a knowingness emerges within. Compassion will rise within. We will start to see our loved ones, not through our judgements or agendas, but we recognize them as ourselves, a Oneness unfolds. God is waking us up from this cosmic dream, this material world, what we were believing to be our reality. What is not real, falls away, and Self-Realization starts to breathe within. Our sākshi gradually helps the actor become a freer actor and we start to live from our Heart center and Life is sweeter.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each

The author Sākshi Joanne Banuelos is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Student Coordinator of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

Shadow and Light, aspects of our life.

Ego to eternal light, a strife, life after life.

The play of shadow can sway or excite,

create an entire show, night after night.

Shadows come and go due to the light,

somewhere low, somewhere bright.

The inner glow offers some insight.

and we steadily plow towards the light.

As we grow closer to the light,

we diminish the shadow and are ready to ignite.

Though the candlestick still casts a shadow,

the lit up wick can no longer do so.

Merging with light it becomes the light.

Such is the glow, the candle too stays no more

and the light melts its shadow.

Warmth and glow melt the ego.

But were it not for the shadow, would we know the light,

play with the transient shadow, strive for eternal light?

for where there is eternal glow and forever bright,

there is no shadow, there is no light.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each

The author Sukhdeep Kaur is a student of Acharya Shunya. She performs sevā as part of Vedika’s Audio/Video team supporting to bring Vedic Spiritual Studies classes and Vedika Global events to distance students.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

The following is a letter of farewell from Hema Patankar, the President of Vedika Global's Board of Directors for the last 10-years.

Dear Vedika Community,

It has been my great good fortune to have been part of Vedika Global since it was founded, to walk with Shunyaji as the President of Vedika's Board of Directors, as she shaped a vision into a living, breathing reality that uplifts so many seen and unseen seekers. When Vedika began, our Board members also served along with Shunyaji as Vedika's Seva team, and in addition, I had the opportunity to study in Vedika's inaugural class, the Beeja or seed group. It was an illuminating, uplifting adventure!

When Vedika began, people thought of it as a school of Ayurveda, though the classes were so much juicier and deeper than the idea of a school might imply. Shunyaji opened up the experience for her students that the wisdom of Ayurveda is primarily a way of living that encompasses every bite, every breath, every train of thought we take.

This was a radical approach at that time. Now, ten years later, Shunyaji's book Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom is a best selling book in the field. The wisdom she shared in those early, intimate classes that I had the good fortune to participate in is now being read with enormous interest and out into practice worldwide. And everyone in the field of Ayurveda and Yoga is talking about Ayurveda as a lifestyle, not just a system of herbal supplements. It was Shunyaji's voice that turned the tide.

As I prepare to hand the leadership of Vedika's Board to our next President, the very capable, devoted and radiant Gayathri Raman, I'd like to share a few reflections on the energy of those founding years of Vedika.

At a time when the trend in both India and the West was to teach Ayurveda in a way that paralleled the thinking of modern medicine, Shunyaji began teaching Ayurveda at Vedika in the traditional manner of her family's lineage that gave great importance its spiritual dimensions. At a time when Ayurveda was mostly being taught in the West in short professional courses, Shunyaji made Vedika's focus lived Ayurveda: knowledge to be experienced and internalized personally over time before thinking of making it a profession. At a time when interest in Ayurveda seemed to focus on the business opportunities it presented and on placing Ayurveda in the domain of high end spas, Vedika's programs put great energy into making the wisdom of lived Ayurveda not a commodity but readily available to seekers, mothers, and whole communities both local and around the world. At a time when Ayurveda was being taught in formal settings that tried to feel like a college, Vedika was developed a Gurukulam: a nurturing environment of shared exploration, a community that felt like family. At a time when Yoga, Vedanta and Ayurveda had been housed as separate fields, Shunyaji's teaching presented them as deeply interwoven, for example, leading Ayurveda students in a deep study of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali and leading Vedanta students in contemplation of verses from Charaka Samhita. At a time when people said that the knowledge of Ayurveda needed to be adapted to the West (by removing all the Sanskrit terms and leaving aside the classical texts which they declared too confusing for Westerners), Shunyaji taught from the ancient texts in a way that was both illuminating and accessible (keeping all the key Sanskrit terms and making them familiar and meaningful). While making Vedika accessible to people raised in the West, Shunyaji always made sure that the knowledge imparted at Vedika stayed true to the way it has been lived and taught for generations in her family.

Several years ago, a group of students accompanied Shunyaji to a huge Ayurveda conference on India. People looked at our smiling, idealistic group obsessed with mung daal, spiced milk and being up in time to greet the sunrise. They wondered what we could really accomplish for the field of Ayurveda. Many people urged Shunyaji to focus on scientific research as a better way to promote Ayurveda. Yet so many leading practitioners and professors of Ayurveda in India were deeply impressed by what they saw in Shunyaji's students and told us that we were in fact living their dreams. To this day they continue to express great admiration for Shunyaji for her inspired and courageous leadership.

It has been exciting to swim against the tide with Vedika. We have been swimming with a constant focus on Truth and dharma, and the light of the heart, confident that in this way the blessings of the rishis would always be with us.

One of my great joys has been interacting with the students of Vedika, watching amazing transformations in health and understanding, watching students flourish at every level of their being. I have delighted in watching fear transform into joy and purpose, shy students become shining leaders, casual visitors become devoted sevites, and curious spouses embrace not just Sanjaiji's delicious cooking, but the teachings of Vedanta.

I do love to imagine all the homes and kitchens that have been transformed and picture the children who are growing up eating the traditional Ayurveda dishes their mothers learned at Vedika. I have found special joy in witnessing dedicated students grow into inspired teachers.

As I conclude my wonderful years serving on Vedika's Board of Directors, I look back with great pride and joy in all that has been accomplished, and all that has been set in motion for the future. And I picture all of you in whom the wisdom taught at Vedika lives and flourishes. My heart is with you.

With enormous gratitude to Shunyaji,

Hema Patankar

About the Author

The author Hema Patankar is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya. Hema now serves as the Ayurveda Program Advisor and previously served for 10-years as Vedika Global President and Director.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

An Excerpt from Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom by Acharya Shunya

The Ayurvedic tradition celebrates human sexuality not only because it enhances physical and sensual pleasure but also because it enhances emotional intimacy and mutual respect and can even, in the act of physical union, bring individuals to the experience of their own divinity.

One Sanskrit word for sexual intercourse is sambhoga, which brings together samyaka (a word that means "maintaining balance") and bhoga (pleasure or sensual enjoyment). Thus, sexual intercourse in Ayurveda means that activity by which one maintains equilibrium and also acquires sexual gratification.

In Ayurveda, brahmacharya, a balanced indulgence in sexuality, is often adopted as a way of life and refers to our acceptance of ourselves as more than just beasts under the control of a frenzied sex drive. Instead, we are asked to celebrate our sexuality and at the same time accept the responsibility to understand and regulate our sexual drive. We accept that our sexuality itself is God-given. Thus, the word brahmacharya beautifully brings together the opposites of sexual indulgence and sexual restraint. The Ashtanga Hridayam puts it this way: "From a disciplined indulgence in sex through brahmacharya, one gains memory, intelligence, health, nourishment, sharpness of sex organs, reputation, strength, and long life."

The Vedic sages were farsighted, indeed, when they conceived of a society that holds its collective sexual energy with transparency, accountability, respect, sensitivity, and care. Human pleasures, such as singing, dancing, playing, enjoying material wealth, and sexual gratification, are seen by the sages as pursuits that play an important role in the overall health and well-being of an individual and a society. In fact, the Ayurvedic sages go so far as saying that if the sexual instinct is forcefully suppressed, it leads to mental perversions and countless physical diseases.

In the context of Ayurveda, however, our sexual desires along with all of our other personal wants and desires are seen in relation to the whole of dharma. This context and sexual education within a larger framework of values and ethics gives our sexual desires a healthy outlet and prevents sexual perversions, addictions, and compulsions.

The Concept of Shukra

One of the most important Ayurvedic concepts regarding sex involves shukra, a Sanskrit term that denotes not only the human sperm, ovum, and hormones regulatingsexuality, but somethign more - a matter-based and intelligent potency that is located in every cell. It is because of the presence of the shukra that each and every cell can regenerate itself agai nand again.

While shukra's presence in our reproductive organs becomes the cause of procreation, shukra's presence in the rest of the body is the basis for sexual attraction, beauty, and magnetism. Shukra is the generative tissue, and it has the power to create a human being and to endow that being with the capacity for pleasure, happiness, strength and courage. Shukra's presence in our minds ties imagination, memory, creativity, and inspiration together into a bouquet of inexplicable enthusiasm and joy.

Ayurveda taught the world's first holistic lesson on sexuality by identifying shukra's presence, not in the human genitals alone, but in each and every cell, as an inherent bridge to the mind.

Increasing age is a natural cause for shukra loss. But time is not in our control, we need not fret. Shukra is replenished naturally from time to time - by Nature in certain seasons and by ourselves by eating certain foods. If you want to build a healthy stock of shukra, take stock of your daily diet and assess if you are eating enough kapha-promoting foods.

Shukra requires eating foods that are more nurturing, heavy, moist, sweet, cooling, and fatty in nature. Here is an abbreviated list of shukra-enhancing foods you can enjoy:

Dairy: Milk, cane-sugar-sweeteend yogurt, sweet cream, ghee, sweet butter, fresh-made cheeses such as cottage cheest (paneer) and mozzarella

Fruits: Fresh or dried figs, mangoes, peaches, plums, pears, ripe banans, pomegranates

Vegetables: Garlic and onions cooked in ghee (never raw), eggplant (fried in ghee) sweet potato, pumpkin, okra, yams, asparagus (all vegetables to be cooked in ghee)

Spices: Cloves, carom seed or ajwain, cumin seeds (all of these spices purify the shukra-carrying channels), turmeric (removes toxins from shukra), saffron (aphrodisiac)

With Love and Blessings,

Acharya Shunya, author of Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom: A Complete Prescription to Optimize Your Health, Prevent Disease, and Live with Vitality and Joy

Acharya Shunya Pratichi Mathur is the Founder of Vedika Global, School of Ayurveda and Vedic Sciences in Emeryville, CA, and, Bestselling Author of Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, a complete prescription to optimize your health, live with vitality and joy (SoundsTrue 2017), and the former President of California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM). Acharya Shunya is the recipient of several awards including for performing distinguished service by California Institute of Integral Studies (2016), and for excellence in providing education in Ayurveda by Association of Ayurvedic Practitioners of North America (AAPNA). Acharya was recognized as one of the Top 100 teachers of Ayurveda and Yoga in America by Spirituality and Health Magazine (2015).

Each living being on this planet is born with desires. Most animals have desires related to pleasure and hunting for food, but a human life is unique since it also comes with desires at various other levels. Human beings are the only species that go beyond basic survival instincts to question the purpose of their life.

In today’s world, there are certain spiritual and moral teachings that profess suppression of desires to purify the mind or to be closer to God. Vedānta on the other hand, says that it is completely valid and natural to have desires. Instead of making a person feel bad about having them, it teaches and encourages a person to use their intellect to evaluate desires and fulfill them or release them in a healthy manner.

We all understand that desires, when unchecked, can lead to sorrow or obsessive tendencies. Every desire that we try to fulfill leads to many emotions, like joy in the fulfillment of or sorrow in being denied fulfillment of a desire. As we race to fulfill our wants and avoid the pain of having our desires thwarted, our choices and mental state becomes less and less stable as they yo-yo between further and further emotional extremes. So the bigger question is, if desires are completely valid, then how should we approach them so that we remain in a state of balance no matter what the outcome of our effort to satisfy them? Vedānta, provides us a map for the same.

Vedānta says there are four goals of human existence, namely - Dharma, Artha, Kāma, Moksha.

Dharma relates to living life with nobility, following a good value system and conscious living. Artha relates to fulfilment of the basic needs of our life. For example, having a job so that we can pay our bills, have a house to live in, and have food to eat is necessary for survival. Kāma relates to experiences of pleasure, for example, going on vacation, buying things that we like, listening to music, etc. Moksha relates to attainment of the ultimate desire, which is for liberation from the cycle of suffering and desires by understanding one’s true spiritual nature.

Acharya Shunya mentions that according to Vedānta, we must first be honest with ourselves and evaluate where we stand in terms of our desires in life. It is very likely and natural that we would have some Artha and Kāma desires along with having a desire for Moksha. It is important to accept them and not try to bury them as that will lead to agitation. Once we understand this, we can then begin to evaluate our desires through different lenses provided by Vedānta.

Choosing the Nature of Desires

Firstly, we should check if our desires are binding or non-binding in nature. Binding desires are those which lead to agitation of the mind due to our attachment to them and trap us in a cycle of suffering. Sometimes we must stop ourselves from blindly satisfying these desires. For instance, imagine we really love the feel of cashmere sweaters. We already have a few at home, but we see a new color in the shop. It is very expensive and we do not have the money for it, but we go ahead and max out yet another credit card to buy the pleasurable thing we cannot afford and will feel guilty about later. When we understand this desire for the greedy pleasure of having more expensive clothes than we need or can afford, we know this is a binding desire that will cause us more suffering and will choose not to act on this desire.

Non-binding desires are those which are pursued dharmically and they do not trap us into a cycle of generating more desires. Even when we experience a natural desire that is binding, we can find a way to satisfy it in a non-binding way. For example, say we crave sweets. Before our higher mind can stop us when we have had enough, we greedily eat up too much of whatever packaged and synthetic sugar we can find, and then we feel physically and mentally sick later. Alternatively, to satisfy our desire for something sweet in a non-binding way, we can bake or purchase fresh cookies made with healthy organic ingredients and sit quietly, savoring the pleasure of the taste and stopping when we know we have had enough. We will feel satisfied and in control of our desires, not plunged again into a cycle of suffering by them.

Vedānta is practical in that it places Dharma as a foundation for first satisfying Artha and Kama, while the desire for Moksha will reveal itself once these basic needs are sufficiently satisfied dharmically. If a human being is constantly struggling with putting food on plate, then how will the thought of liberation come? Hence it is important to fulfill our worldly desires so that a spiritual desire may bloom. It is important to note that though Moksha is also a desire, it is a desire of the highest kind.

By emphasizing Dharma first, Vedānta teaches us to meet our desires ethically and not in an unchecked manner. Once we are mentally calm and not agitated with innumerable desires, can we walk the road to Moksha. Otherwise we will be constantly swaying from one desire to another, leading to us falling away from our ultimate goal. A person with unchecked desires will get agitated due to their attachment of wanting the desire to be fulfilled.

Choosing non-binding desires is satisfying our desires while aligned with the law of “Karma Yoga”. Karma Yoga, teaches us to becomes like a gardener in the field of life. It teaches us to put our intention into sowing the seeds of dharmic action, watering them, providing the right nutrition to the soil but not be attached to the outcome of that effort. The sprouting of the seed depends on various factors with some not being in our control. A gardener can only focus on doing what it can and not get into an argument with the weather as to why it rained when it was supposed to shine. Planting is in our hand and not the sprouting. With effort the seeds will eventually sprout hence there is no point being upset about anything. Our effort has to be in the nature of the seeds we plant and the process of nurturing them, not the outcome. For example, suppose we have a desire for professional success. To satisfy this urge, we work hard, are respectful of our coworkers, go for extra training as needed, and bring our best attitude to the office each day. We pursue success without cheating or taking credit for others’ work to get ahead at any cost. Contentment and Self-approval fills us as we see ourselves move up the professional ladder and this desire does not trap us in unhealthy thought patterns or bring about other binding desires in us. This Dharmic approach to actions in life is liberating and “Not Binding”. This keeps us motivated and persistent. As we keep planting seeds of karma with actions that are non-binding pursuits of our desires, over lifetimes the inevitable garden of our desires will transform overall into a field naturally full of non-binding desires.

Choosing the Quality of our Desires

Second, we must evaluate if our desire are sāttvic, tamasic or rajasic in nature. Sāttvic desires are ones which not only support us but also those around us. Tamasic desires are one which are self destructive, for example, a diabetic patient knows that it must not eat sweets but still eats them as he or she is refusing to listen to their intellect which knows better. Rajasic desires are one which make one work only for self-good. For example, suppose we cooked a dish which we really like but in order to prevent it from being shared, we hide it in the fridge and only eat it in absence of others. Hence once we are aware of this, we must evaluate from what place our desire is coming from. We can meet our desire to earn money but not by stealing someone else’s or causing someone else any harm. If we earn ethically and also share our abundance with others to whatever capacity we can, for example, by helping an organization working with animals, then it not only helps us but also the society at large. Sometimes it may be important to let go of some desires as they run counter to our spiritual aims in life.

Gradually this process will lead to contentment and a stable state of mind which will help us on our path to Moksha. Acharya Shunya gave an example from her own life. She said that when she started her Ayurveda practice, she would accept payments from her patients for the clinic sessions to fulfill her artha and kāma needs. She did not suppress her artha and kāma needs but pursued them ethically. She earned through her clinical practice and helped the patients on their path to physical and mental health. Since she practiced Karma Yoga and always placed Dharma before pursuing her desires, gradually as time went on her artha and kāma needs were stably being met, she went to a state where she no longer “needed” that check but the urge sometimes came from within to write a check to a patient in need or give free medications. Hence filtering our desires through the sieve of Dharma to see what is binding us and what is setting us free and pursuing our desires by following Karma Yoga brings us closer to our ultimate goal of Moksha.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each

The author Vidya Deepa Gupta started studying with Acharya Shunya in 2012. She performs sevā as part of Vedika’s Audio/Video team, writes for the The Hamsa Magazine and leads a special mantra chanting group as part of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

An Excerpt from Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom by Acharya Shunya

The science of Ayurveda recommends waking up while it is still dark outside. A serene beauty and stillness envelop the Earth at this time. Though it is still dark out, the early morning darkness seems to be softer than nighttime, almost as if it’s infused with a divine light. And rising this early benefits your body, mind, and spiritual practice.

As individual beings, we share an inherent relationship with our environment. So when light begins to spread across the sky, our minds, too, begin to experience hope and courage.

When we gaze at the sky at this time, we know, deep in our hearts, that the sun will be here soon, and the dark night will be consumed by the spreading light, taking with it the fears, doubts, and ignorance that enveloped us as we slept. When we witness the transformation from dark to light, from night to dawn, there is a stirring of hope and a spiritual presence in our subconscious being, which begins to reveal itself, banishing ignorance and infusing our consciousness with divine illumination and intuitive knowledge.

For me, the early mornings are magical. At this time, the darkness of the night is slowly dissipating, and the light of the sun, even before it has tangibly announced its bold presence in the sky, is making its subtle but commanding presence felt. I cannot yet see the light, but I can sense the light in my heart, wherein dwells that one consciousness that connects us with the sun, moon, and Earth and all that we know and also all that we cannot fathom with our ordinary senses. It is during this time of outer stillness and inner silence that you can most easily connect to Brahman, the universal truth, and the one reality that is immutable and absolute.

One beautiful morning when I was about six, Baba said to me, “Come, little Shunya, let us resolve every day to be awake for the breaking dawn, and let us rejoice in all its breathtaking, electric magnificence.” Baba would often talk to me on our way back home from the river.

On that day, he explained how the early morning sun distributes blessings, including the gifts of health, wisdom, and peace for all of Earth’s creatures, big and small. I liked this idea of gifts; it reminded me of receiving presents on my birthday and on Diwali (the Hindu festival of spiritual lights). My grandfather must have known this because he added, “But these gifts are different. These gifts are invisible, and you open them for the rest of your life."

That was enough for me.

Over the years, I would try my best to internalize Baba’s words because he never repeated himself. Even when I was too young to understand his words, his eyes would share an invitation to be happy by simply rising before dawn. Four decades later, as I write these words about the benefits of waking up early, I remember Baba’s eyes being lit by the first rays of the sun.

Daily Self-Affirmation

Ayurveda’s lifestyle begins each day with an ancient ritual of positive affirmation. In my own traditional school, Vedika Global, over the last ten years, incoming students have reported a leap in their consciousness within days of learning this ritual of self-affirmation. These students thank me for the gifts they have received through this prayer, but I offer thanks to my teacher, Baba, who showed me the way.

At any time of day, a positive affirmation will raise our mental energy. When such a ritual is done during brahma muhurta, however, the rising sattva in the macrocosm mirrors its golden reflection in our own minds and tunnels a great pathway to the source of our very beings, connecting us to our divine potential.

Through this morning ritual, Baba taught me how to access my inner divinity and its limitless powers. “Yes, little Shunya,” Baba said to me, “the divine exists in the depths of your own being. Evoke it daily from the depths of your being through this ritual, and once connected with your inner divinity, recognize the same divinity in the Self of every being you encounter. Your day will be lit up with the light of a thousand suns by this recognition. Move through the living present with this constant divine awareness guiding you.”

As I would chant the special mantra that accompanies this ritual, a little shiver would go up and down my spine. I was remembering, through this prayer, that the divine powers of the universe, known as Lakshmi, Saraswati, and Durga (the goddesses of abundance, wisdom, and personal power), dwell in my own being, literally accessible in the palms of my own hands.

With Love and Blessings,

Acharya Shunya, author of Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom: A Complete Prescription to Optimize Your Health, Prevent Disease, and Live with Vitality and Joy

Acharya Shunya Pratichi Mathur is the Founder of Vedika Global, School of Ayurveda and Vedic Sciences in Emeryville, CA, and, Bestselling Author of Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, a complete prescription to optimize your health, live with vitality and joy (SoundsTrue 2017), and the former President of California Association of Ayurvedic Medicine (CAAM). Acharya Shunya is the recipient of several awards including for performing distinguished service by California Institute of Integral Studies (2016), and for excellence in providing education in Ayurveda by Association of Ayurvedic Practitioners of North America (AAPNA). Acharya was recognized as one of the Top 100 teachers of Ayurveda and Yoga in America by Spirituality and Health Magazine (2015).

Earlier this year, our second child was born. Welcoming our son into the world has meant working on the deepest part of ourselves to be able to honor the special privilege parenthood provides us. Having gone through pregnancy again, and having received much spiritual nourishment from Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies Program throughout my pregnancy, I am happy to share Ayurveda's best practices from a physical, mental and spiritual perspective for pregnancy and childbirth.

Make Vaata Your Friend

Ayurveda's big offering in pregnancy is the understanding that this is a time when your Vaata dosha will naturally rise. Vaata dosha is composed of two of the pancha mahabhutas (five core elements: fire, earth, water, air, space) -- air and space. Vata dosha represents the force of movement. This doshawill rise steadily throughout pregnancy, coming to a climax for childbirth. This is nature's way of supporting the tremendous force necessary for childbirth.

Ayurvedic analysis rests on a foundational principle -- "like increases like." During pregnancy, the body is especially sensitive to Vata-aggravating foods and lifestyle as Vata is on the rise, and therefore, the Ayurvedic approach to supporting pregnancy involves being mindful of this sensitivity. Ayurveda does not remedy the excess Vata building up in your body as this Vata is necessary for childbirth. However, it does recommend avoiding excess Vata in your foods and lifestyle during pregnancy, as too much Vata can cause a miscarriage.

Post-partum, Ayurveda makes direct interventions to bring your Vata down and help you heal. We will talk about that a little later in this post.

All Trimester Food Advice

Pregnancy requires mindfulness of your Vata dosha. During this time, it is important to eat foods that are easily digestible. Raw foods (like salads and smoothies) are not easily digestible (unless you have a truly excellent digestion), and due to their cold nature, they aggravate Vata dosha very easily. An aggravated Vata dosha not only increases the risk of miscarriage, it also makes concentration on any work difficult as the mind gets jumpy. Ayurveda recommends warm cooked foods during your pregnancy.

The First Trimester: Go Easy

The first trimester is when most mothers tend to have symptoms of nausea and exhaustion. It is important to recognize that our body is changing and to go easy. If you were already used to a certain level of exercise, you may continue it after checking with your medical practitioner. However, Ayurvedically, this is not a good time to pick a new form of exercise. The exception is gentle prenatal Yoga -- that is because it is grounding and will not increase Vata further. As Vata is on the rise, mothers can find it beneficial to ground themselves in this way.

The first trimester is also considered the most risky time for foetal development. Ayurveda strongly recommends the avoidance of high travel during this trimester. It is important to understand that this advice has to be interpreted from a relative perspective. If your body was already used to traveling, then it won't be shocked by the same pace of travel continuing on. However, if you were not used to traveling a lot, it would be a bad idea to suddenly start traveling in your first trimester.

The Second Trimester: Enjoy yourself

Ayurveda considers this the stable period of the pregnancy. If you were wanting to go somewhere on a holiday, this is a good time to do it. This is also a great time to introduce a galactagogue (in plainspeak, a galactagogue is an herb that enhances milk production so that you will have plenty of milk by the time baby is born). In Ayurveda, Shatavari (asparagus racemosus) is known for being an effective galactagogue that reduces the chances of suppressed lactation, and also a protector against miscarriage. Shatavari rootlets are processed into a powder and available online.

When consuming Ayurvedic herbs, it is necessary to understand that these herbs also come with a recommendation for the Anupana, or the vehicle that is ideal for transporting the herb into the body. Shatavari's anupana is warm milk. If a mother has a weaker digestion and cannot handle milk, water is a secondary substitute (though, not ideal).

Shatavari is also available as granules mixed with sugar and cardamom, and sold as Shatavari Kalpa. These can be mixed into milk instead of sugar. They should be avoided by those who have diabetes (even gestational).

I took Shatavari Kalpa granules cooked in warm spiced milk during my first pregnancy. I had no lactation problems then. In my second pregnancy, my digestion was weaker, so I took Shatavari powder in room temperature water, and again had no lactation problems. I also went on a long road trip with my family during this trimester and those are beautiful memories.

It is in the second trimester that you will also start noticing cravings. This may not be applicable to every mother, but when it happens, Ayurveda strongly recommends that you honor it (barring alcohol cravings or smoking that is known to cause reproductive harm). These cravings come from the fetus' need for nourishment. For me, I didn't have any cravings for my first child. However, just when labor began, I had a huge baklava craving. My spouse took me to a nearby Whole Foods where I had a baklava in between contractions in the parking lot. Just so you know, my daughter has a huge sweet tooth, and thanks to her, I am into making all kinds of desserts. For our second, the second trimester was when I would feel the need to eat something cooling in the middle of the night. I would end up eating 1 or 2 raw carrots -- I wouldn't eat more as that would adversely affect my digestion. The Ayurvedic teachings tell us that sometimes, a vegetarian mother can have a strong craving for meat -- this is not to be ignored. The fetus is asking for more earth from the five elements perspective and. To honor it, foods that are predominant in earth must be eaten. This can be found all root vegetables and a rich earth dominant food according to Ayurveda is Udad/Urad dal.

The second trimester is also a good time to enroll into a childbirth education class. There tends to be a wide range of offerings, including at your neighborhood hospital. Reflecting on the number of years it takes us to develop professional competency in any area, it is humbling to realize that we do need to put in the time to educate ourselves on the numerous decisions coming our way in childbirth. These decisions require us to think about our values and who we want to be.

The Third Trimester: Slow down

This is a time of slowing down. It is a great time to introduce a meditative grounding practice if you haven't already started one in the first two trimesters. Ayurveda considers childbirth a multi-dimensional event of which the physical is just one. There are emotional and spiritual aspects to childbirth that also need their space. Giving the emotional and spiritual aspects their due space helps you honor childbirth in all its dimensions.

For the emotional aspect of childbirth, we found it truly helpful to hire a doula the first time around as we concluded that there was so much to learn and navigate in the medical system that we really needed guidance. It led to a great outcome -- we learned a ton about childbirth from someone who assists mothers all the time as her day job. In Ayurveda, much respect is accorded to the "midwife," who is the holder of ancient wisdom. Midwifery is an active profession in the United States and supports mothers who'd like to go with home birth. We decided to go with a hospital birth and took the services of a midwife as a doula. We were transparent about our decision process and communicated to my obstetrician that we would like to include our doula in the decision team. Doctors tend to be sensitive about how doulas communicate and they want doulas to speak openly and not behind the back of the doctor. Our doula was comfortable with that and so were we. The relationship with the doula is not just one of transacting information. Treesa felt like a second mother to me and I felt relieved to have her in the delivery room.

Emotional support in childbirth also has a community aspect to it. This is a time when you lean into your vulnerability and allow others to support you. We have a special gratitude for those who helped us out during this time. Friends came together to offer us food support post-partum. It is important to let friends know about the kind of food you need post-partum (see the next section). Our friends also made the time for us during the third trimester. I remember fondly the outdoor picnics and the pampering that comes a mother's way during this trimester.

The spiritual aspect involves working on the deepest part of ourselves to be able to honor the special privilege that parenthood brings us. For our second child, my spiritual nourishment came through my Vedika Global Ayurveda clinic practice, teaching Ayurveda and my teacher's discourses in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. No matter what your spiritual path is, this is a great time to view pregnancy from your spiritual perspective.

Childbirth and PostPartum: The 40 Day Rule

For both my children, thanks to the classes my spouse took, he was able to correctly identify that I was in labor, while I was in denial -- I had wanted our children to come a few days later! I cannot sufficiently emphasize how important it is to treat childbirth as nature's classroom and a great opportunity for education. My spouse will hopefully write a decision-making guide soon for this part. All I will say for now for mothers is that don't beat yourself up for anything that happens or does not happen during childbirth. I have known mothers who were crushed by the fact that they had a c-section baby after all the work they put in to be healthy. What is important is that your child is healthy and well, and that you are recovering well. Ayurveda takes a super-practical approach and meets you wherever you are.

Now, let's go on to post-partum healing. A little after your baby comes out, your contractions will continue in order to deliver the placenta. Right after that, it is very important that your nurse caregivers do an abdominal massage with warm compress to start the process of healing. These massages will need to continue once you come home, and I will say more about it a little later.

Right after childbirth, it is important to have light digestive meals that are healing. I had khichdi cooked liberally in ghee. Khichdi is an Ayurvedic superfood that balances all the three doshas: Vata, Pitta and Kapha. I avoided the hospital meal options (my spouse ate those).

This is the time to make major interventions to reduce your Vata and heal your uterus. As we have already mentioned, like increases like. Therefore, to reduce Vata, we must increase the opposite -- Kapha, or the force of stability. We bring the earth into our body in multiple ways. One of the most important ones for the rapid healing of the uterus is the consumption of wheat laddoos (balls).

This is also a great time to introduce methi(fenugreek) in your diet. This is an herb that is somewhat bitter and a known post-partum galactagogue. In the United States, this can be found in Farmers Markets (the Chinese farmers tend to carry it). It can also be found in Indian grocery stores. In my first pregnancy, while I had no lack of milk supply, I did experience pain in my breasts (engorged breasts) due to channel blocking. Consuming methi helped alleviate that. I cooked every meal with methi in some form. If I was having chapatis or parathas, I would mix methi in the dough. If I was having lentil soup, I'd cook the lentils with methi. A favorite dish was aloo methi (potatoes sauteed with methi).

Post-partum warm oil massages are great for reducing your Vata and a strong recommendation from Ayurveda. These massages are very liberal with the quantity of oil to be used. I used Dhanwantaram oil. Sesame oil works best. Heavier oils (like Dhanwantaram also sesame based) are better than lighter ones as they have more earth. The stroke of the massage should always be clockwise on the belly to aid digestion. In Ayurveda, metabolism is not limited to what you eat. Even your skin digests. So the oil is rubbed into the skin with the intention of absorption by your body. I did the massage every day for an hour for the first forty days. For babies as well, oil massages are therapeutic because their Vata is also high, and also because an oil massage strengthens their bones. However, for babies, the oil massage should begin only after the umbilical cord falls off. My son continues to get a 15-20 minute massage every day. His massage is gentle (don't pull baby limbs) with extra care taken around the neck.

Finally, Ayurveda puts a strict recommendation on new mothers to stay at home for the first 40 days, as getting in contact with outdoors air is considered as a major Vata aggravation. Ayurveda cautions that not taking adequate rest in the first forty days will lead to major weakening of bones later in life. This may manifest as early onset arthritis or osteoporosis. For both our babies, I followed this dictum and rested for the first forty days. One exception was our doctor's checkup for our babies, where we kept our exposure to a minimum. During this 40-day period, it was greatly helpful to have the support of my spouse. He ensured that everyone knew we were going to nest during these 40 days, and therefore would not be in a position to welcome visitors. We only started meeting friends after the first 40 days. Our wonderful friends understood this and supported us in a big way during this time.

About the Author

Shaaranya Geetanjali Chakraborty is a long-time student of Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program and is the Dean of Vedika Global's Ayurveda Studies Program. She has served as Chief Ayurveda Consultant for Vedika's Ayurveda Wellness Clinic at the India Community Center and has taught Ayurveda at a variety of venues, including Stanford University's Health Improvement Program.

I have been a student of Acharya ShunyaVedic Spiritual Studies Program

In our sweet kula (spiritual school community) we often wear white and light colors such as saffron or gold, and even clothe our building and altars in these colors. These colors are considered auspicious, beneficial, and even purifying. A student recently asked me whether wearing black clothes was bad or a mark of something inauspicious. The short answer is no, and the longer answer comes when we understand the “why”.

Advaita Vedānta, Ayurveda and Yoga, the three vidyas (Vedic sciences) we teach at Vedika Global, are neither superstitious nor dogmatically rigid. Rather, they are rooted in an 8000+ year old tradition of closely observing our mental, physical and spiritual relationship to the phenomenal world, and making intentional choices to improve our experience. There is a reason why we choose light and bright colors, and it's not because darker colors are evil.

Rajas, Tamas and Sattva are gunas, or qualities, of the mind. They are energetic states that determine the quality and tenor of our mind and thoughts. In very simple terms, when our minds are agitated we are experiencing Rajas, when resistant and depressive we are experiencing Tamas, when in a balanced calm mental state, we are experiencing more Sattva. These gunas influence (and are influenced by) our experiences of the physical world. They are mutable and changeable. Ultimately, each of these gunas acts like an overlay of our ātman (that inner Self which is eternal, divine and always witnessing our own thoughts and mind). Even Sattva, balanced pure shining Sattva, is still just a reflection of our essential nature, not ātman itself.

Because the gunas describe qualities and characteristics, they are ultimately part of the physical matrix that constructs māyā (our collective experience of reality - the perceptual world). Gunas are both a reflection of our environment (inner and outer) and affected by our environment (both inner and outer). When we describe associated qualities of each guna, we are not pointing to isolated characteristics, rather potential expressions of an underlying energetic state.

Tamas, is associated most with āvarana or covering. If we understood the buddhi (intellect+memory+ego) as a mirror of our deepest divine Self (ātman), then being in a dominant state of Tamas, is to be in a maximal state of darkness from the light of ātman. This does not mean evil. When we sleep for example, our mind requires some tamas to shut down the constant flow of thoughts and stimulus from our senses. Rather it means a maximal state of ignorance to our true Self. In Tamas, we are in a state of forgetting that we are more than the small self, more than our ego personalities, more than our feelings of separation and isolation. What we can understand is that when we are already in a mental state dominant in Tamas, we are likely to find ourselves resistant to change, lethargic, tending to inactivity and laziness. That may express itself in depression, and an inability to care for oneself including cleaning the body and home, etc.

"Likes increase like, opposites reduce.”

This maxim dictates Ayurvedic chikitsa (therapy). This is why taking mindful action to clean our house, wear clean clothes (whatever color), get rid of clutter, bring flowers and living beings into our space and hearts, all helps to relieve the oppressive overlay of Tamas. However, a clean house and a shower is not a guarantee against tamas in our mind. Similarly, while lighter colors do evoke more sense of lightness in the mind, it doesn't necessarily mean that dark colors are bringing about more tamas.

Rajas is associated most with the quality of restless agitation and maximally reinforces the ego. A rajas dominant mind may express itself with an excessive attachment to rules and discipline. If you find yourself in "Always/Never" or "Doing" mode, it is a good indicator that it's time to find your compassionate center. Stimulating colors and tastes, experiences and relationships, can all increase the power of rajas. Some rajas is a healthy support for the spiritual student. Taking action to start practices, to wake up and get moving, to set firm boundaries all help to move away from Tamas and towards Sattva.

That said, rajas is by its nature unstable - sometimes pointed towards that knowledge of Self, then spinning us away in distracted pursuit of achievement and ambition. This can come up in our spiritual pursuits too - the spiritual ego is a rajas dominant ego. "I'm more evolved than that guy! My teacher is better than yours! I do more Sevā and sadhana (service and spiritual practices)! I always wear white and that guy doesn't, so he's not as pure as me!" Rajas, rajas, rajas...

What we want for spiritual evolution, healthy social engagements, and good discernment, is a strong stable mind - dominant in sattva, with healthy rajas and tamas. This means developing a mind that is able to stay balanced in the face of external stimulus. In this way, whether we are wearing a black sweatshirt or a white Kurta, we retain our memory of our divine Self, our eternal ātman.

The analogy of the lotus is used frequently in Vedānta and in our Vedika home (see our beautiful logo!), to remind us of this very quest. The lotus grows and thrives, strives and blooms above stagnant foul dirty water. Unblemished by the dirty murky waters below, happily receiving the light of the sun, and evoking sattva, with its beautiful flowers and lush green leaves above.

Cleanliness is a tool to evoke more sattva. It's easier to feel harmonious and calm in a clean spacious environment with the soft scents of flowers and spices, the gentle sounds of birds and musical instruments, and light and bright colors all around us. But shaucham, or purity, also speaks to achieving an internal quality of stability in sattva- unswayed from an abiding knowledge of Self - even when we find ourselves in crowded dirty environments with stinky air, loud noises, and grime.

We start relieving the suffering of minds dominant in Rajas and Tamas by taking physical action. For the depressed person being an unwashed lump on the couch, wearing clean fresh light colored clothes, and getting up and cleaning body and home, will have a hugely beneficial effect on the mind. For the spiritual student who is dominant in rajas and occasional sattva, who is ready to find abiding stability in sattva, it's time for the subtler practices of Upāsana and Karma Yoga.

Ayurveda, Yoga and Advaita Vedānta offer us many practical tools to purify our mental state; reduce Rajas and Tamas; and relieve our own suffering. When we ourselves are more stable and reflect more of the inner light of our innate divine Self, we naturally relieve the suffering of others.

Love and Light,

Aparna

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each magazine to benefit from summaries of

The author Aparna Amy Lewis is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Dean of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

In Acharya Shunya

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program). At the same time, I happened to go on a family vacation to visit Hawaii, where I felt inspired to experience the physical ocean as a way to attempt to more deeply understand its usage as a spiritual metaphor for the ocean of our ignorance.

On this trip, I therefore took every opportunity that arose to experience the ocean in as many different ways as possible. We took whale watching tours in boats. We snorkeled. We went on a moonlight kayaking adventure. We did paddle boarding. And then one day, we took our very first surfing lesson.

The surfing lesson taught me many experiential lessons, bringing to life Acharya Shunya’s Vedic spiritual teachings in unforgettable ways. The experience of surfing was, in so many ways, like the experience of applying the knowledge we learn to our lives. Both are much harder to do than other people can make it seem! And yet, when we are able to do both successfully, the joy we feel is truly unparalleled.

We learn how, in the Vedic tradition, there is a three-pronged learning process for assimilating spiritual knowledge. The first is called Shravanam, which means deeply listening to the words of the teacher who has special knowledge of codified spiritual texts (called Shāstra). The second step is Mananam, or contemplation. After we contemplate on what we have heard in a systematic manner from the Āchārya (spiritual teacher), we then proceed to Nididhyāsanam, where we integrate and apply the teachings to our daily lives, and meditate upon it as we do so.

Our initial surfing lesson on the shore was like the process of Shravanam. We sat with our surfing instructor to listen to him, and followed along with what he taught in terms of surfing exercises. We felt comfortable with our surfboards. We felt like we understood how they work, just as Self-Knowledge seems easy to comprehend while we’re in the classroom. Then we contemplated on what we had learned as we practiced the exercises on our own for some time on the safe and stable shores of the beach. We asked questions and had our doubts cleared.

Then, it was time to swim out to the ocean, where we would apply the knowledge we learned on the shores to the waves. The waves of the ocean are like the subjective emotional responses and seemingly uncontrollable thoughts of our mind. When we are in control of our minds and all the wavering thoughts, which otherwise can be directed towards harming ourselves and/or others, we are ready to surf the waves of our minds. The surfboard symbolizes the knowledge of Self. And the process of surfing is similar to the process of applying and trusting in the teachings of Vedānta, which ultimately take us beyond our mind, to an experience of our true Self.

“Oh, they just make it look so easy!” It’s normal to react like this when observing other surfers gracefully riding the waves. It looks like everyone else has it all together except us. We can feel similarly as spiritual students when it seems like other students are progressing faster than us, and are experiencing more clarity, inner peace, and grace in the face of life’s inevitable ups and downs.

We, on the other hand, struggle to keep our heads above water. Though we have the surfboard of Self-Knowledge, we don’t really know how to use it yet! Despite having a surfboard, every time we may try to apply a teaching to our lives (to surf a wave), it feels like we get swept up by the repetitive movements of the waves of our habituated mental patterns (called samskāras). Even getting back to the part of the ocean where our teacher is and where we can begin surfing is challenging. On top of that, our knees keep hitting the coral reefs beneath the surface of the ocean. Now our knees are bleeding. It all feels so overwhelming. We may even want to quit at times, but then quitting the battle is not an option, as that would mean drowning in samsāra.

So we persist, using the surfboard of Self-Knowledge to push ourselves up each time we encounter a wave as we paddle our way and make it back to the community of fellow surfers poised to ride the waves. This is similar to returning again and again to our community of fellow spiritual seekers. Here, we find out that we are not the only ones whose knees are bleeding. Everyone, in fact, gets scraped up by the coral reefs of samsāra. We just don’t know it. It’s all happening at a deeper level, beyond where our physical eyes can easily see.

We feel less discouraged by falling down and getting scraped by the reefs. We learn that these reef scrapes are, in fact, such an integral part of the experience of surfing that native Hawaiians call them “Hawaiian tattoos!” After getting beaten up by the intensity of the waves of our own self-berating and other-berating thoughts, the waves calm down as we get closer to the teacher, who presents a brand new perspective.

“You can actually befriend these same waves by going with the flow, listening and standing the way you were taught when you’re told,” the surfing teacher gently reminds and encourages us.

There is another way!

The waves will come. As long as we have our minds, thoughts and emotions are bound to arise in them. These emotions, we learn, arise even in the mind of the master. Whereas we, without the special knowledge of surfing acquired from the surfing teacher, tend to get swept, overturned and submerged by the waves of the mind, the master gracefully rides these same waves of emotions.

The master started out like we do, by struggling. In seeing the teacher’s example, as well as that of fellow surfers applying the teachings well, we, too, can start to pick ourselves back up, no matter how many times we may have fallen into the ocean of samsāra, swallowed its salt water, and gasped to breathe. We re-view, re-listen, and re-learn. What may have initially seemed so easy in the classroom is not easy after all, so we pay extra attention. We ask even better questions this time. And listen and learn as if we never have done so before.

Having rested our muscles in the process of re-assimilating understanding of how to apply our boards to actually surf, we start to feel ready to try again.

Then, fear takes over. We remember how painful it was to fail at surfing the last time we tried applying the knowledge. It’s easy for the fear to cause us to freeze and not want to even bother trying again. But then try we must, as our knees are bleeding, and the only way to really heal them is by taking our surfboard to reach the shore by surfing. This is similar to how the only way to really heal our emotional wounds is ultimately by riding the surfboard of Self-Knowledge to the shore of liberation from samsāra (moksha).

We muster up our willpower and courage. We pray. And then, no matter how much fear we may be experiencing inside, the memory of what the Āchārya has said awakens in our being. Faith takes over. “Your existence is not limited to these small waves. You are actually one with the whole ocean.”

With the conviction of these new spiritual thoughts, we embark out again. This time, when the teacher tells us to stand, we do so without a second thought. The waves come. We are still standing. We have mastered the waves this time. In the process of gaining greater mastery of the mind, we experience a oneness between the surfer, the surfboard and the ocean they meet in. These moments are sacred. They are, in fact, moksha moments. We gain a glimpse of our true Self, which is one with the whole ocean. This glimpse of Ultimate Reality is so inspiring that we wish to experience it again and again.

The more we practice gaining mastery of our minds with the spiritual surfboards of Self-Knowledge that we receive and learn to apply from our spiritual teacher, the better we become at riding the waves of our minds. We start staying connected more and more with our true Self in the face of life’s inevitable ups and downs.

We surrender more.

And begin to gain a greater appreciation and respect for our internal and external challenges. As without the waves of samsāra, we would never get to learn to surf, or experience the true courage, power and strength of our own soul. The waves are our opportunities to experience ourselves as something beyond each passing wave, to come closer and closer to knowing the profound freedom and abiding joy (Ānanda) that is our true, infinite ocean Self.

The author Ananta Ripa Ajmera is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Director of Program Development at Vedika Global. She is author of "The Ayurveda Way," a collection of 108 practices for body, mind and soul that she learned from Acharya Shunya.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

A gold miner sits on the edge of a stream, dipping his pan into the sand and silt and letting the water run across it. He clears the bulky leaves and twigs, tossing them back onto the banks. Gently shaking the sieve, the worthless dust falls away. What is left he closely inspects, scratching the dirty surfaces, holding pebbles to the light, looking for that telltale hint of gold. Hidden deep in the mountain upstream he knows there is a vein of pure gold, but it is too hard to reach and too difficult to locate directly. So while he daydreams of stumbling across the source, he contents himself with making a living here along the stream, sifting through so much worthless matter, looking for a few small flecks of the valuable heart of the mountain that will sustain him.

Brahman, the Universal Soul

Acharya Shunyas and sorrows we experience moment to moment.

Yet no matter how much the teacher describes our timeless essence in stories, or the ancient Advaita Vedānta texts lay out its mechanisms, will just listening to these words bring us face to face with the shining Self we are aching to greet? However vividly someone describes to you the culture, architecture and weather of Bali, can you say you have experienced it? You must make the journey yourself to really know.

It Definitely Isn’t This

Qualities of Māyā

Those layers that we are so delicately peeling away from our definition of who we really are, are called Māyā. Māyā is made up of three qualities – called gunas – which have different characteristics that combine and permutate to form all of creation. Tamas is the quality (guna) of inertia which makes tangible manifestation possible with its blocking and unmoving aspect. Rajas is the activity principle that is the moving aspect of manifestation. Sattva is the knowledge part of creation that is most closely reflecting pure consciousness. When we are feeling dull, depressed and lazy, tamas is dominant in the mind. Fiery emotions of anger and jealousy indicate excessive rajas. A mental state of balanced, clear calm is the hallmark of a mind full of sattva.

Māyā is not only creating our mental world, however. All of the environment is made up of gunas and therefore is also Māyā. Once we begin to entertain the idea that who we really are is something beyond what we have discarded as temporal and fluctuating, it is a small but radical leap of consciousness to apply the same logical framework to the world around us. If I watch leafy branches of a tree swaying in the breeze, I can say that the solid trunk and fibers of the leaves are dominant in tamas guna, the movement of the wind and flow of sap within its branches demonstrate the presence of rajas, and the tree’s innate knowing of when to flower, when to fruit, and when to seed is the sattva aspect. Knowledge of the gunas, layered over a foundation practice of ‘neti-neti’ becomes a transformative tool to understand the observable world. We begin to interpret the changes of Māyā more as a science of physics, and it becomes possible to distinguish our abiding happiness and sense of Self from the play of subtle and gross matter.

As the building blocks of manifestation, the three gunas are in a constantly changing relationship with each other. Because Māyā is entirely made up of these characteristics, Māyā must also change over time. The greatest mountain will eventually crumble and dissolve into the sea. The body decaying in the graveyard will nourish new plants which will feed caterpillars that morph into butterflies. The awkwardness of youth eventually ripens into graceful confidence. Time grinds on and Māyā dances with it, never the same for long and never exactly the same way twice. So when we observe that friendships change over our lifetime, or our hometown has gentrified since our last visit, or our thoughts jump quickly moment to moment – those observable changes are the proof that they are all part of Māyā.

Through the process of neti-neti we become attuned to what is Māyā. We cultivate a little space between our Observer Self (the constant witness) and the material world (the constantly changing.) As Acharya Shunya said, “This neti-neti is like a weed killer. You put it and it kills all the weeds of inaccurate identities. I am a mother, I am the founder, I am the President, all these titles are laughable. Knowing that I am Ātman, I am Brahman, I am satchitānanda [eternal consciousness and bliss], has allowed me to bring breathing space between all these titles.” With practice, we are able for at least a few moments at a time, to disengage our default self-identification with the outward labels and aspects of our physical and mental world that constantly change.

An Understanding Emerges

As what is not Brahman comes into sharp relief through the practice of neti-neti, an understanding of what is Brahman emerges out of the contrast. Where Māyā is all that is unconscious, Brahman is pure consciousness itself. Māyā is made up of qualities (gunas) that change over time, and Brahman is that which is without gunas and so is constant through all phases of time – past, present and future. Brahman is a truth of infinite existence that will never end. It is pure consciousness

without any trace of tamas or rajas in it. It is an infinite joy and bliss that never devolves into sorrow like the temporary happiness we experience with the people and things in our daily lives.

When the definitions of Māyā and Brahman are viewed side by side, it at first appears that Māyā is the cause of all our suffering and to experience Brahman is our salvation. This is the moment where the student must keep going deeper in their understanding, or else they will be left totally disenchanted with the outside world. When taken on its own, the process of neti-neti convinces us that everything we think, see, smell, taste, hear and feel is not ultimate reality since it is made up of gunas that will change and cause us suffering. At this level we are tempted to see everything labeled as Māyā as a parlor trick, a mirage intended to ensnare us in the dream where we forget the Self. According to this thinking, Māyā is something we have to struggle to break free from if we want the ultimate spiritual freedom.

An Inseparable Power

Advaita Vedānta teaches a fascinating relationship between Māyā and Brahman that fills out and grounds our understanding of both temporary and ultimate reality. Rather than simply an inferior category of separate, dead matter – Māyā is actually Brahman’s superpower to be or become anything. Brahman, as pure consciousness, has an inexhaustible creative potential, and Māyā is Brahman’s mechanism for manifestation. If Brahman is the spontaneous and inspired child, Māyā is the collection of different shapes and sizes of building blocks she uses to build. If Brahman is the artist filled with an irrepressible desire to create, Māyā is the lump of clay begging to be shaped.

Since Brahman is eternally existing beyond time, its potential to be and become is also eternal, so Māyā and Brahman share an aspect of being anādi, meaning ‘without beginning or end.’ The innumerable manifestations of Māyā are constantly emerging and dissolving, but the powerful potential to be and become is always present as a faculty of Brahman. Yet, this creation and manifestation function of Māyā is totally dependent upon Brahman’s illumination. Māyā is the bulb, but Brahman is the current that lights it up.

Applying This Wisdom

If our true nature is that of timelessness, expansive consciousness and unalloyed bliss, then why do we and everyone else seem to be living lives so boxed by limitation and exhausting cycles of suffering and temporary joys? Advaita Vedānta explains that this happens because Māyā has fogged over our memory of our true nature and so we have gotten locked into a game of looking for our abiding wholeness in the unstable world outside. The practice of neti-neti breaks us out of this default mode and creates a sliver of space between the manifested world of Māyā and our deepest Self (Brahman) where we can begin to turn inward and connect to the independent source of light and consciousness within.

But Māyā’s ultimate purpose is not simply to make us forget our soul nature. For as much suffering it causes us, it is not a punishment nor a curse. Rather, Māyā is the equally timeless and inseparable creative faculty of Brahman. This means that since Brahman is everywhere and in everything, so too is its creative power surging through every corner of your being.

To boldly and creatively live life to our full potential is to align ourselves with Brahman’s supreme creative power. When we do this, without attachments, within the worldly set-up of Māyā, we are asserting our deepest spiritual capacities and acting as a microcosm of the macrocosmic creator. To view every blade of grass, skyscraper, co-worker, lover, enemy as a divine manifestation of Brahman through the power of Māyā is to live life with reverence, awe and acceptance of all life’s shades and textures. Even as we detach ourselves by retracting our mental identification with what is outside and pulling it back toward identification with the Self, we can worship all that is not that as proof of That’s never-ending power to create.

This article comes from Hamsa magazine. We welcome you to enjoy reading each magazine to benefit from summaries of and heartfelt reflections on Vedika founder and Acharya Shunya's teachings, written by students of her Spiritual Studies Program.

The author Ishani Naidu is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Editor of the Hamsamagazine, which is an offering of Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

The following is a selection from Vedika founder and spiritual preceptor Acharya Shunya’s bestselling book, "Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom."

One night I woke up suddenly to a lot of commotion and confusion. My mother had become sick due to the weak heart that she was born with. My sister was crying, our father looked worried, and though Baba was serene, he was meditating outside my parents’ room, instead of his usual place in the family temple or outside under the courtyard tree. Mother looked like she was sleeping peacefully, but apparently she had fainted.

Then my aunt took my sister and me to her room and sang spiritual songs, appealing to the formless power behind all forms for my mother’s recovery and, at the same time, soothing us with her melodious voice. My sister and I held each other tight for comfort and finally drifted back to sleep, with our heads in our aunt’s lap.

Though the night ended with my mother getting better, still the disturbance and fear left lasting impressions on my young mind. I didn’t appreciate this scary surprise at all. I simply wanted my mother to be her usual, calm, strong and smiling, busy, bustling self at all times, as all eight-year-olds in this world want.

I developed a fear of the night. In daylight, all was well, but as night slowly approached and the sun began to set, I would feel a dread. “Will my mother fall sick again tonight?”

So many things that I knew by the light of the sun began to feel unfamiliar in the darkness of the night - the water drums that caught and stored rainwater; my Baba’s hand-carved, wooden armchair; the empty cage of Mitthoo, the parrot we children had freed within hours after being given him because Baba told us we should never cage any living creature; and even my own beloved rope swing, which had been hung from the trees by my father. All of these household items and others, well-known by the day, took on menacing shapes and personalities in the dark of the night.

Many a night I would wake up and lie in my bed paralyzed with fear. Then, of course, it was harder to wake up in the morning for the walk to the river, and sometimes I would drag my feet while Baba’s shakti carried me back and forth to the River Sarayu.

Baba, I know, was aware of all this, and one morning he looked me in the eyes and said, “You know, little Shunya, at night the sun never really goes away. It is only the revolving of the Earth that makes us have an experience of darkness. But this darkness never stays. The darkness is not real. Only light is the Truth. Light is always there, always present. Light is behind and beneath and through the darkness, so darkness does not stand a chance. It is only an appearance, a temporary reality, a passing phenomenon. Light is Truth. Light is the absolute, eternal, unchanging Ultimate Reality. Light always was, is, and will be.”

As Baba talked on, I felt comforted. What my child’s mind heard is that light, not darkness, is Truth. And I knew that this light dwelled in my heart and in mother’s heart too. I knew that I was made up of light and that even sickness was a part of this light. The light is all things without itself being affected by any of its forms.

Baba’s words conveyed his blessings to my heart, and slowly, the worries about my mother’s health that I had internalized began to lift.

Baba asked my mother, who was now feeling much better, and my aunt to make sure that every evening I massaged my feet, my ears, and the top of my head with warm sesame oil, as he had taught me. So my mother and aunt sat beside my bed at night for several weeks so that I didn’t rush through the practice but applied the oil slowly and deliberately. When I would begin this practice, I’d start feeling sleepy almost at once; my hands would feel heavy as the oil entered my body and calmed vata dosha and rajas, the mental quality of turbulence. This made room in me for sleep.

Also, my mother would chant many of my favorite bedtime mantras to me:

Asato ma sad gamayah

Tamaso ma jyotir gamayah

Mrityor ma amritam gamayah

Translated, this means:

May I journey in consciousness from untruth to truth,

From darkness to light, from fear of mortality of my body

To recognizing my indestructible, immortal Self.

One night, when I was struggling a bit more than usual with falling asleep, Baba came to the room where my sister and I slept, and he chanted the greatest of Vedic mantras, the Gāyatrī mantra. Baba sang very softly, uttering each syllable with a power that landed in my heart like a million-volt electric charge. Then with great gentleness, he lightly touched the top of my head. I seemed to be suspended halfway between the waking world and the world of dreams. I experienced waves of comfort, reassurance, and a tremendous, inexplicable joy. Baba reminded me then that the Great Light of Atman, the Self, dwells inside me, right in my heart. “The Atman makes you all-powerful and truly invincible. Remember that," he said.

And I did.

Baba said, “Use this light to welcome the divine darkness of nighttime. Fear not the night. The goddess of sleep will nurture you carefully as you sleep, and then you can wake up with renewed energy to grow and serve the world. Rest now, so Mother Sleep can heal and rejuvenate you.”

From that night onward, my fears were gone. The fears had fled, and I experienced the peace that is my natural state. I seemed to have become one with the Gāyatrī mantra. I became firm in the conviction that my true nature is greater than the darkness I could see at night - a darkness that is here to serve me, after all.

As for the monsters I saw in household items, the next time one of them stared at me through my bedroom window, I closed my eyes and focused on the light in my heart. I became so powerful and potent that the monsters revealed themselves in the light shining through my eyes to be no more than what they were. I felt that these “fearsome” water drums were actually rather lonely and were waiting out the night in anticipation of the morning, when I could come play hide and seek with my sister and my cousins around them once again.

Each evening, after my elders had chanted and left my room, I would gently await a different mother. Her name is Bhutadhatri, the Mother of the Universe, the Goddess of Sleep. She wears dark, flowing robes, soft and studded with infinite stars, and she holds us all like babies as we sleep. We are vulnerable then but filled with hope for a new morning. Because she is there with us, we are never alone. We can trust, and let go, let ourselves drop into sleep. My breathing would become very quiet with long pauses between each breath, and soon sleep would envelop me, ever so gently.

One night, between a breath in and a breath out, I observed my own true being. In this precious state, I could see that I was not even dependent on my body to experience my own light. This light is beyond the body. The light outlives the body. It is beyond day and night, beyond life and death. I could see then that my mother was not just her failing heart. Even mother’s sickness was simply a temporary night in an eternal, unending, totally amazing light-filled reality.

Read more in Acharya Shunya's bestselling book Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, a complete prescription to optimize your health, live with vitality and joy (Sounds True, 2017).

About the Author

Acharya Shunya is Founder and Spiritual Preceptor of Vedika Global. She is one of the extraordinary teachers of the living, embodied wisdom of Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda. A rarity today, Shunya was born into an uninterrupted spiritual lineage dating back thousands of years in the holy city of Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, India, where she spent 14 years studying Vedic scriptures and the sciences of Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with her Guru, Baba Ayodhya Nath – renowned Vedic Guru of his time. Her title “Acharya” is a customary title earned from traditional schooling in India, and means “a master teacher."

Learn more in-depth Ayurveda, and experience Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom come to life by joining Acharya Shunya's 1-Year Ayurveda Self-Healing Program at Vedika Global.

It seems that our lives are so full of messes.

Physical messes. I can’t go a few days without having to clean my three cats’ litter boxes.

Emotional messes. Holiday times, most can expect a cornucopia of family feuds to go along with their dinners and presents.

Personal Messes. What am I supposed to do with my life?

Interpersonal messes. How do I get my people to listen me?

I

We learned about Cleanliness, or Saucham, as spiritual value in last year’s Yoga Sutras classes in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. When I took on a new year’s resolution to focus on cleanliness, I knew there was a deeper significance than just cleaning messes. I had faith in my teacher that this was a door worth opening. As with all journeys, the experience has been more full, and messier, than I could have anticipated. (Read my reflections from earlier this year in my last blog, A New Value for Cleanliness.) As it turns out, this journey through Saucham began with cleaning my home. It delivered me to a lesson in abundance.

The act of cleaning can seem ironic. What’s the point? I often had that question as a child when my mom would tell me to make my bed. What’s the point? It’s just going to get dirty again! There is a subtle difference in the way that the Vedas address cleanliness from the way I learned it as a child. I often thought of cleaning as removing messes. That has merit, too. But in contemplating Saucham, I came to a new perspective: no longer removing the bad and the unwanted, but making space for the beauty, the potential. Allowing for the opportunity to return to innocent simplicity.

I started out this year by cleaning my home. I emptied out my closet of old sweaters and gave them to homeless individuals off the freeway. I pawned off unused kitchen appliances and furniture on my friends. I organized the monstrosity of my hallway closet and took a few items off the wall. I felt relief. I felt like there was more space to breathe in my home. More room, less clutter. I then began to clean my home more often, wash my laundry more often, not procrastinate quite as long at washing the dishes.

Cleaning can be seen as a therapeutic process. Resolving unaddressed problems, sublimating any pent up energy. Why else did I voluntarily spend my college years procrastinating on my final papers by mopping the kitchen? I have come to realize that part of the reason why cleaning has this therapeutic value is that it is also clarifying. My teacher, Acharya Shunya once said that sometimes, when she feels sleepy or dull, she picks up a broom and just starts sweeping. Not because her house needs sweeping, but because she is brooming her mind, cleaning out the mental clutter.

That is where the twist in my personal story begins. Sure, I cleaned my living room. I even found a new way to organize the furniture. But then an itch, a thought, came. Wait, maybe that chair would fit better over there. Ugh, I wish I could move the TV over there. In the process of bringing cleanliness to my home, I somehow got sidetracked, caught in trying to make my house fit into some perfect ornamentation, to fulfill some unattainable expectation I had dreamt up. In this process, I forgot something vital. I forgot to slow down and breathe. Wasn’t that my goal from the beginning?

After rearranging the living room so many times I can’t remember, another lesson from Shunya ji’s Vedic Spiritual Studies class finally hit me. She once said during a class: “Many people work in the world for contentment, people like me work in the world from contentment.” I loved this sentence when she said it; it stuck with me. So I took some time to think about what it meant. I realized that this whole ongoing search for a “perfect living room” came from a subtle, unaddressed dissatisfaction with the living room I had. I realized, in a moment, that if I just became content with the living room and the life I had, there would be nothing I had to worry about fixing. The heaviness, the agitation of the situation and those thoughts immediately lifted. I simply got to a point that I could flip the switch. I was immediately so happy with my life and the beautiful couch that I was laying on watching Star Trek Voyager with my angel of a kitten and my life partner. Life felt perfectly simple.

I have spent so much of my life obsessing, perfecting, stuck in this notion of fixing. In doing so I forgot about appreciation. I forgot to remember how blessed life is. I forgot to be happy, first. I feel like I am finally getting to a point where I can remind myself, on an ongoing basis, that cleanliness, that happiness, that restfulness, that simplicity is my treasure to claim. Like a winning lotto ticket that I forgot all about. I simply have to remember. With all this, I just want to say thank you to this lineage of teachers for reminding me that I can feel perfectly content in the midst of any mess that this benign universe can throw my way. There are endless messes in the world, but all it takes is a quick thought, a reminder, that I have everything I could ever need, and these so-called messes simplify.

The author Shreyas Derek Cousineau is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Kitchen Coordinator, creating and offering delicious Ayurvedic meals to our Vedic Spiritual Studies classes and Vedika Global events.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

As a Bay Area native, I have always enjoyed the fog.

Whether it is during a “June Gloom” in San Francisco, listening to the foghorns from Alameda on a late Fall day or watching the fog from the East Bay hills fingering its way from the ocean to the Bay, I am allured by its quiet power. I am not, however, a fan of driving in the fog (Central Valley tule fog, anyone?).

During a holiday trip to rural Italy in December 2015, my family had an interesting experience with fog. We were taking many day trips from my in-law’s home to the medieval villages throughout Le Marche province. While I was trying my best to enjoy our time there, I had a continuous nagging feeling of “something is not right”, like death was impending. As it turned out, that was the last visit I would have with my father-in-law before he died three months later.

While I didn’t really know that was going to happen and it was likely the source of my feelings, I knew something was going to happen that would be scary and life threatening. So, imagine my fear, then, when our family was driving through winding country roads back to the valley where my in-laws lived and the fog started coming in. Fog’s nature is to be low to the ground and thick, therefore I was becoming increasingly more frightened as the fog steadily grew, shrouding the roads and giving us little visibility. I thought for sure this was the result of my sense of impending doom. It was not, but by the time we made it safely back to the house, I think we all were a bit anxious and agitated; the fog had become a nemesis to our safety.

Once we settled back into the warmth of the home and let our shoulders down, we all could shift our relationship with the fog. I stepped outside to observe this amalgamation of water particles to render the fog innocuous (its just water, right?). To my surprise, the fog was so thick it was like a snow bank two feet from the front door, obscuring the beautiful valley scenery typically observed. The trepidation and foreboding that I felt while in the car, returned. I couldn’t see anything. Who knows what is lurking in the fog. Will I be safe?

To calm myself and to share this amazing sight, I called my daughter to come outside. As curious, trusting children do, she discovered that the fog was so dense that if you shined a flashlight on it, the light would be reflected back. I thought to myself, helping to ease my mind, something that reflects light back can’t be all that bad, right? We then turned it into a game of making letters and shapes with the light beam on the fog, where our whole family came out to play. Once again, my fear of the dangers hidden in the fog melted away.

As a student of Acharya Shunya for the past 6 years in her Vedic Spiritual Studies program, I have the privilege of receiving many transmissions from my Guru. One lesson that she has oft repeated, and that has stuck with me, is the way our minds trick us into thinking the thing coiled up in the corner is a snake when in fact, once you shine the light on it, it is found to be a rope.

My Italian fog experience is emblematic of how the snake/rope dichotomy is played out in our daily lives through our avidya (lack of Self-knowledge) and not having clarity of who we truly are.

My mind conjured up stories about “what-ifs” and feared the loss of my impermanent body (Deha Vasana): “What if we drive off the side of the cliff because we can’t see through the fog?”. My body then experienced the effects of the mind attachments and aversions (raga/dwesha): heart flutters, knots in the stomach, sleeplessness, feeling anxious. In other words, attachment to my body and fear of injury, created actual physical effects: I did it to myself.

This pendulum of likes and dislikes (raga/dwesha) creates a mental and physical spin, stirring up the dust of ignorance in the mind (avidya) which creates our own mental fog thereby obscuring the inward seeking for the Truth of the Self: “The fog is neat, but I’m scared of what I can’t see.” The back and forth is exhausting. I have observed that to make this “fog” less scary and bring it more under my control, I imbue it with more fogginess of my own creation: lifestyle choices I know don’t serve me or infusing emotions of “attachments and aversions” into conversations to where the “discussion” disintegrates into what we do or don’t like, what is good or bad. All of this leads to more confusion.

But when I can see that it leads to confusion, that must mean I am progressing on my spiritual path, right?

It becomes like the proverbial hamster on the wheel: I am running so I must be going somewhere. When we self-create the fog to do our “spiritual work”, we are at a stuck point in our path to Moksha or spiritual liberation from our own self-imposed limitations. It is not bad or wrong (judgments are also raga/dwesha), simply a signal. This is the time to deepen our spiritual studies, being aware to not be caught up in its mere intellectual pursuit known as Shastra Vasana, and embody the Upasana Yoga practices (self-disciplines) we have been taught, such as:

Chanting mantras and prayers become brooms that sweep away the dust from our minds.

As in nature, the fog in our minds is a transitory state. It is a signal for us to slow down, proceed with thoughtful caution and go inwards to trust that the way through the fog is in us.

The author Janya Tuere Anderson is a long time student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Co-Director of Vedika's Awakening Community Circle program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

True seekers of knowledge are as important as true teachers. I have been feeling very strongly about this for a long time but wasn't quite able to put it into words. It was all growing inside me as a feeling…The seeker…How important is that?

Can we actually discover anything without seeking? And most importantly, what distinguishes a true seeker from a non-seeker? Since I have started studying with Acharya Shunya’s Vedic Spiritual Studies Program almost two months ago, I was spellbound by the fact that Bhagavad Gita was running deep in me like an undercurrent. It was stirring me from inside and keeping me calm and peaceful on the outside. I couldn't quite put my finger on the reason as to why this text, fairly new to my life, was having a huge impact on me. Then one day, I realized that for the first time in my life, I was getting some answers to the big question in my mind. Be it about life, death, friendship, family, teaching, learning, grief, ignorance… These concepts were beautifully floating in my mind without colliding with each other.

I was somehow struck by this emotional, intellectual and spiritual stir which was going on harmoniously inside me. This feeling of excitement about the whole process led me to talk about Bhagavad Gita, maybe a bit too often in my friend and family circle. However, I slowly found out that not everybody was as excited as me or interested about these big questions of life and its possible answers. So we people are different. Some of my friends and family members, even my nine year old daughter has developed a sound interest and curiosity over time. They asked meaningful questions, made comments, contemplated and even a few got their own Bhagavad Gita text and started reading. On the other hand, some other people remained unmoved without a speck of interest.

I teach yoga occasionally and one day had a chat with one of my Indian students after the session. As always the conversation took a beautiful turn and ended up in the depths of Bhagavad Gita. I told her that my questions about life was finally being answered and that everybody should study this text with a competent teacher to find out more about themselves and the big questions of life. My student was lost in her thoughts for a while. I could see it in her eyes. Then she looked at me with a genuine smile and said, “You know, not everybody is looking for answers like you.”

This comment took me back to one of the Bhagavad Gita classes. During the class, Shunya Ji mentioned that Arjuna was the student for a reason. He wasn't some random person who ended up being in need of help. So this Guru-Shishya relationship was not a coincidental tie between the teacher and the student. In order to make this relationship work, the student should be a true seeker, ask questions, yearn for answers and most important of all, the student has to be in a contemplative state of mind. Only then, one can receive answers or get a glimpse of the truth.

This thought put all the scattered pieces in my mind together. To find a true teacher, a guru, a shishya, you definitely have to be a seeker like Arjuna. I have been a seeker for a very long time but my efforts were mostly vain. Maybe the time was not ripe or I wasn't ready…I had a steady feeling of hollowness inside which couldn't be filled with anything I do or any book that I have read. The genuine, the authentic, the noteworthy, the ground breaking or the paradigm shifting knowledge was nowhere to be found. When I finally came across Acharya Shunya and her teachings through her Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom book, I immediately felt so much closer to the true, authentic source. It was a deep feeling of connection with the right path. I knew, intuitively that I was on the right track. As I started to listen Acharya Shunya’s discourse on Vedas, Upanishads and Bhagavad Gita; the ground moved, the void inside me shrank and my confused mind cleared up.

Now I can finally acknowledge that we all are in the middle of a battlefield, struggling to find the truth and the righteous way. With each step I move closer to the source. But I don't feel scared anymore to move forward through uncharted waters or unbeaten paths. Because I am confident that I have the guidance of Acharya Shunya, her unbroken lineage and the thousands of years old of wisdom and light.

From my experience I can see that as long as you remain a true seeker, even if it is in the middle of a battlefield, your true teacher appears someday, somewhere when you least expect it. Each day, your faith as a seeker brings you closer to the true source. A seeker who is ready and open minded enough to receive knowledge, one day would find her true teacher and I feel fortunate to have found mine here at Vedika.

The author Ozlem Tokmen is a student of Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

One evening last year, I experienced an intense realization that seemed like a voice, which said, “You are not selfish; your baseline is to serve.” The next morning, we discovered that my mother had shed her body.

The avalanche of feelings I experienced during the next six months took me by surprise. It felt like a river was rushing by, washing everything I had known away. My only job was to pick up from the river what was important, which brings up the question of what is important from the perspective of death. I kept moving from task to task, but something else in me felt like it was coming undone.

As the oldest child and only daughter, I had experienced my mother from my childhood as my ideal – stunningly gorgeous and deeply immersed in the Indian culture. Playing baby Krishna in her Bharata Natyam (classical Indian dance) performances, I shall always credit her with my deep unwavering love of Sri Krishna, though I know now that she watered a seed that had already been planted in me.

Clearing up file cabinets prior to selling the house, I came across her documented but unfulfilled dreams – of spreading the love of Indian culture through the medium of dance. Perhaps she was too early a pioneer and the renunciation it would take was not in her makeup. Over the years, she abandoned her dream and I saw the layers of ego crusting over and dimming her once-present shine.

In my teens, struggling with my own womanhood and at odds with her drive to have me fulfill her dreams, I promised myself never to be like her. That vow, coupled with my father’s untimely death, led me on a long spiritual quest, first to Western thinkers and then finally back to my own roots, to teachers of Indian thought based on the scriptures.

But now my mother’s death turned everything upside down and I had to go deeper within. Having known Acharya Shunya for over two decades, I enrolled first in her Ayurveda course and then, resonating deeply with her opening lectures on my beloved Bhagavad Gita, in the Vedic Spiritual Studies program. Wasn’t it perfect that I had come home to an Indian female teacher spreading a deep understanding of my own culture?

Now as I go deeper within and ask “Who am I?”, I discover that my internal promise not to be like my mother helped me become someone else. In other words, I exchanged one personality for another. With her death, my “opposite” personality cracked. Is it necessary for me to be anyone but myself? Don’t I deserve to discover who I truly am and stop trying to be someone or not someone.

Just knowing that I am not defined by parameters – a “this” or “not this” – is enormously freeing. I no longer accept my smallness and each day expand my light and energy around myself, our family, our home, our town, and around the victims of the recent Santa Rosa fires, so close by. I am learning how to let go of arranging the pieces of my ego to appear synchronized and harmonious so that they too can wash away in that river rushing by. Freeing yes, but unnerving, for the old familiar landscape is gone. But the gift is coming back tenfold, as I am starting to find within me that original light I once caught a glimpse of in my mother.

The author Niramaya Nalini Ramji is a student of Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.She volunteers in support to the organization with the AV team.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

My brother and I sold my childhood home this past Friday. The couple of weeks beforehand had me preparing, packing and thinking of next steps. The selling of the home is significant in many ways because it represented a space of safety, memories (happy and sad), of comfort and also of smallness. This last piece is significant because I’ve had to overcome many feelings of guilt, denial and smallness in order to move forward. I realized through this process that I am so much stronger than I ever knew. There was a time when the thought of not having that home or my mother any longer was so unthinkable.

I imagined I would evaporate without them. I could not even imagine it; just figured I would not be able to handle it and may end up in some sort of asylum or institution. That is not what happened. It turns out that the pain is unavoidable though, and it is terrifyingly achy all the way to the majja (marrow). I stayed in that house for a year after my mother left her body, and it was a perfect amount of time. I took her clothes off the hangers, smelling each and every garment and placing in bags to gift to women coming from abusive situations who are looking for work--just what my mother would’ve wanted. I touched each and every item from her, from my grandmother, my great grandmother’s (even her moccasins), deciding how and where to distribute everything. This process was painful, but it was the type of pain when you are rehabbing a part of your body and it hurts but it is beneficial. I ran my hands over every wall of the home and thanked them. I thanked each and every plant and tree in our backyard. I spread my mother’s and dog Enzo’s ashes together under the tree my father planted in the backyard in the 1960’s. It offered us such protection and love and home to the birds she fed every day, and that I continued to feed every day this last year. One little bird took refuge in the patio cover all year long and I believed my mother was visiting me. I saged the house before I left it for good.

The way that the teachings of Vedanta in Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies program apply to my life, especially this last year of grief, are immeasurable. Through Sakshi Chaitanyam (witnessing consciousness), I take refuge in the observation of maya (illusion). I realize that praise and blame, loss and gain, fame and shame are all a part of the ego life. It was a fine line for me to allow my feeling body to grieve, to heave, to experience through uncontrollable shaking and hysterical crying, the loss of my mother’s physical presence in my life. I’ve learned to accept and allow grief to come through into my physical body as it pleases, to sweep through, rattle my bones and lightly leave. Many times I was tempted to suppress my feelings and take a false refuge in knowledge. Although the knowledge itself was not false, my refuge in it in place of having my feelings would be. I believe undigested grief can cause disease. I also believe staying willfully stuck in grief can cause disease. It has to move. The balance was allowing the grief to run through me like a river, and in times of quietude to remember my mother and I are not separate. We reside in the same place. The guilt and self-blame I carried were and sometimes still are the hardest thing. I have found that I have to forgive myself in order to be free from those shackles. It is paradoxical. It is an oxymoron that I must have full compassion for myself and my mistakes in order to honor my mother. The absolute trust, the willingness to surrender and receive guidance are some things I’ve received from the Vedic Spiritual Studies program as well as my recovery program and attending meetings. It really distills down to the oneness I feel in meditation, knowing I am “not that”, that joy and peace are my truest nature; these things I’ve learned from Vedanta and am able to tap into anytime I want.

The author Fiana Anderson is a long -term student of Acharya Shunya.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her

Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

What is the hot, fast moving, relentless onslaught that is tearing through the fabric of our community? From where did it arise? And how is it that we cannot limit it, cannot put a name to it that allows us to control it with our wits, and finally cannot find the means to put an end to it? It is burning without reason, scattering everything in its path, and surprising even those who thought they were immune to it. What force is propelling this destruction? What force is rampaging in our streets and in our homes, and prying open our hearts to the suffering all around us? Is it any different than the force that took hold of the shooter in Las Vegas, or that took form in the hurricanes from the Gulf?

How much more is there to face in this crucible that has arrived unbidden but stays as if we had laid a welcome mat for it. Indeed, we do not run from it in blind fear. We are naturally fascinated by its power and its endurance. At the same time we respect it and bow down in its presence that it may spare us our lives and our possessions, even though as it rages we know the possessions it destroys are transient symbols of our existence. And still, it cannot touch the inner spirit of our existence. And in that moment when our awareness of the transitory nature of our physical environment is ignited, we begin to slow down and let go of the litany of thoughts that propel us through our daily lives. Things that seemed important yesterday are dwarfed by our immediate need to evaluate our next move, mostly decided in response to the threat that is posed by this immeasurable force.

We continue with our lives, but they are forever changed by the realization that everything can be taken and returned to the vast ocean of existence in the blink of any eye. We observe and reach beyond our “normal” perceptions to try to make sense of what is happening around us. We act in the best interests of ourselves, our neighbors, our animals, our children, at the same time reaching within to contemplate the bigger question of where do I live when everything around me is changing, dying, disappearing. Where do I exist and how can I continue to exist in the face of such devastation?

We reach out to one another and hold each other with love and respect. We become blind to color, social status, and monetary wealth. We begin to see each other as human beings who dwell only temporarily in the realm of the physical. We begin to recognize the spirit of goodness in every act of kindness, bravery, unselfishness and even in the grief over loss that is expressed in the most subtle ways. Tears do not express enough of the deep quaking in one's soul although we find ourselves praying for the moisture of tears that might wipe away the distress and sadness that fills our hearts. In the face of fire, we seek the soothing qualities of water. In these times when even tanks of water cannot save our surroundings, we have to reach deeper and find the waters of the spirit, the deep flowing inner stream that connects us all, that generates all that is, that brings us together to find ways to cooperate in the face of unexplainable happenings.

We are strong. We are resilient. We are able to rise above the tragedy of extreme loss. We weep inside for those that strain to find the inner strength to stand tall; and we weep for those who are strong and realize that letting go in the face of this supernatural force is what we are called to do. We weep inside and outside, if we are fortunate to tap into that well of humanity. There are no easy explanations of how to react. Each one of us must draw upon our inner experience and make sense of our outer reality. It is not a simple task, and there are often no words that can describe the process.

Sometimes in the silence, we touch upon the unspeakable. For each one, that unspeakable is unique; yet we are tied together by the fact that we are all touching the same source of life, even in the midst of death and destruction. We find what is known as faith --- faith in our fellow men, faith in our god, faith in the sun rising and being able to shed its rays without the dimming of the soot-filled atmosphere. And even in the darkness we rise and stay connected to the knowingness that this too shall pass, and there will come a time when we will remember the strength we found when we were forced to live through a very bad dream.

The author Ambika Suzanne Saucy is a resident of Santa Rosa, California, who has studied with Acharya Shunya since 2010.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

An Excerpt from Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom

In Ayurveda, certain

Here are a few of their teachings you can start to incorporate into your life for greater wellbeing at all three levels:

Eat Fresh Foods, Not Stale

Stale foods have a mind-disturbing quality. They induce tamas, a quality of the mind that is connected with negative vibrations. Heaviness, dullness, and even sadness and depression are found to manifest in the mind of a person who has eaten stale foods. In time, the immune system also becomes weakened. I have helped countless people battle depression simply by having them eat fresh food.

So make cooking fresh your daily sadhana. Minimize leftovers, and when food is left over, eat it quickly so it doesn't sit in the refrigerator. Your own leftovers are better than those you bring home from restaurants and cafes because when you cook the food yourself, you know what has gone into it - both in terms of the ingredients and the emotions of the cook.

Take Your Time in Food Preparation

Ayurveda recommends preparing fresh foods in a slow and relaxed manner in a spirit of joy and with the keen anticipation that will make the salivary glands and other digestive juices flow. When we take the time to prepare our foods with natural ingredients available on our planet, these foods will, in turn, give us more time on this planet.

Food preparation begins with its purchase. I suggest you buy your groceries from natural markets or vendors who offer pure, organic, seasonal, and fresh foods. The next step is food prep - mindfully cutting, chopping, and otherwise readying the food to be cooked. Then, there is the cooking itself, the final step in a process that should delight the soul. I suggest you drop any habit you may have of rushing through your preparation. Instead, choose longer stretches of time for cooking. Then you can begin viewing food and its associated processes, equipment, tools, and gadgets as friends, not tasks.

In fact, watching food manifest from its initial raw stage to its final, ready-to-eat state is a meditation itself. Hold this thought: The world stands waiting while I cook my food as an offering to myself.

Make it Fine Dining Every Day

Based just on the length of its history, I think I can safely say that the art of fine dining was first given to the world by Ayurveda. The ancient texts of Ayurveda recognize the importance of eating in a beautiful place and of eating on appealing vessels and dishes.

Ayurveda fine dining includes, at a minimum, setting the stage with beautiful, clean, and inspirational crockery and eating utensils - whether flatware or chopsticks - with music in the background (wind chimes are great), perhaps a lit candle or two or oil lamps, and fresh flowers and fruits as an eye-catching centerpiece.

Sage Charaka further recommends dressing up for meals, wearing fragrant flowers on the body or perfumes, and also chanting sacred mantras before eating to set the right vibration and prepare the body and mind to accept the food with ease and grace. This is all pleasurable for our senses and plays a part in enhancing our anticipation of a meal, which in turn, boosts our digestive fire (agni).

Ayurveda recommends eye-catching utensils, fragrant spices, beautiful garnishes, and tasteful presentations of food to evoke excitement and enthusiasm and enjoyment in our act of eating. Fold away those TV trays and bring out your "guest" dishes - you should be giving yourself the care and beauty that you deserve. To put yourself in the center of your own lotus is extremely good for your health.

Read More in Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom

Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom is a groundbreaking work within the field of holistic health and traditional yoga. Raised in a distinguished lineage of Vedic mystics and healers, Acharya Shunya learned the ancient art of Ayurveda directly from her grandfather, a well-known healer in Northern India. Here, she presents both an engaging narrative of her unique education, as well as a complete encyclopedia of Ayurvedic practices, recipes, and knowledge. With Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, Shunya maintains the integrity of Ayurveda’s traditional teachings while showing us how to integrate them into our modern lifestyles.

Experience Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom come to life in Acharya Shunya's

The phrase, “Come on, it won’t kill you!” is used so commonly for everything from pressuring a friend to try tasting fried crickets sold by a street vendor in Bangkok, to convincing a 14 year old to stop text messaging during dinner.

We say it to encourage ourselves to take a bold action, or to shame ourselves to stop being scared of something ‘silly,’ or to snap a situation back into some realistic perspective.

After attending Acharya Shunya’s Vedic Spiritual Studies program series on Sage Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras, I learned a new way to use this phrase that transcends all the petty uses of day to day life and reset myself on a path toward the deepest Self.

As Acharya Shunya taught, Sage Patanjali outlined a series of root causes of suffering that exist in the human mind. When we become aware of the deeply planted mental seeds that grow into all the colors and flavors of suffering we encounter in our lives, we are able to use the mind-management tools from the Yoga Sutras and Advaita Vedanta to prune back these bushes of suffering that seem to have taken over all our thoughts, and burn out the seeds of that suffering. In this cleared out mind, suffering ceases and clarity prevails.

One of the seeds outlined by Sage Patanjali and elaborated upon by Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies class has a Sanskrit name – Abhinivesha, which simply means ‘fear of death.’ Of course we know that all living beings have a will to live – even an ant will frantically struggle to get out of a puddle of water to avoid drowning. So it seems reasonable and widely accepted that a fear of death is an inseparable companion to being alive.

Yet we sometimes encounter people, who seem to not fear death. These are the folks who accept terminal illnesses with grace, or show appropriate grief without totally losing their sanity when a loved one passes away, or the elderly who accept their body’s aging and decay without resistance or depression. These are the admirable people who have started to chip away at their fear of death and are experiencing more and more internal calm and peace because of it.

But I am in my 30s and healthy, so impending death isn’t on my mind very often. Sure, my heart rate goes up when I am standing on the side of the road and have a close-call as a bus almost grazes my shoulder. But is a fear of death really a root cause of whatever mental suffering I have?

I decided to experiment with this concept to find out if it applied to me. Whenever I noticed I was resisting something – be it taking on a new work project, or helping someone else with a task that I had no personal interest in doing, I asked myself, “Is it because you think it is going to kill you?” This sounds dramatic, I know. But that simple dramatic question immediately made me laugh to myself, because it reminded me not only that the actual task was not very likely to cause the death of my body, but also that I have a Soul that is a source of unlimited energy, abundance and creativity which does not age and die. Then once that spell of irrational resistance was broken by this silly question and reminder of my eternal nature, I could come at the task at hand with more detachment and objectively consider what action I wanted to take without the nagging feeling of unexamined resistance.

To continue to engage my fear of death and see how facing it could improve my mind, I made conscious time to meditate on the eternal Soul within. As the sages so rightly point out, only if we are identified with the body will we be afraid of its inevitable death and decay. If we are aware that there is a Self that is untouched by time and always existing, then the body can be understood, as Acharya Shunya describes, as similar to the skin a snake sheds without effort or discomfort at the right time. Remarkably, this attention to the undying Soul settled down a subtle background hum of discomfort or anxiety, which I only noticed had been there once it was gone. Remembering there is a part of me that is unaffected by the body’s death gave me greater composure in life situations that may be anxiety provoking, even if they weren’t actually a direct threat to my life.

A real test of this idea came up recently. Our community experienced a tragedy of the accidental death of a 4 year old child who was in my daughter’s class. While we were all reeling from the news, I became aware of the default thought pattern: the wave of panic that comes up when we imagine how another person must be feeling in a painful situation, the paralyzing fear of imagining that it could happen to us some day, the ignorant self-soothing thoughts that had it been us we would have been able to avoid such an accident…

As our collective world shook while grieving this death, Acharya Shunya’s teaching came to mind. Amidst the mind-boggling incomprehensibility of the death of a child by sheer accident, can we see this as proof of the Soul’s eternal existence? Can I as a mother, radically release the fear of my own children’s death by seeing them as souls encased in a temporary body? Can I pray that the other parents will not spend their prayers looking for answers as to why this accident happened, rather can I send wishes of peace that the departed child’s soul will lead them to understand that there is an eternal light they can connect to that is independent of the beloved body that no longer breathes?

I still don’t know how I will handle my own death or the loss of loved ones when those days come. But I know that as I train my mind to think this way, beyond a reactive fear of death, steadily every other corner of my life becomes more stable, peaceful and happy in the here and now.

The author Ishani Naidu is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Editor of the Hamsa magazine, which is an offering of Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta, Yoga and Ayurveda with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

This Summer I was fortunate to take a trip to Lake Tahoe. One morning while I was drinking some tea, I was looking out into the lake, admiring the deep blue water, and the beautiful snow capped mountains. I was feeling such admiration of nature’s blessings due to the fresh air, tall trees, birds, and the shimmering lake. I then noticed the quote that was attached to my tea bag, “Trust is the union of intelligence and integrity.” I smiled and reflected on this quote and how relevant it felt to me as a student of Acharya Shunya’s Vedic Spiritual Studies Program at Vedika Global.

As a student at Vedika, I have been given the opportunity to explore trust on a very deep level. Before my studies, I intuitively felt trust in spirit, divinity, creation and human connectedness. Despite my trust in a higher order, I felt confused by the myriad of thoughts, beliefs, and opinions of myself and others. I was also disconnected from a teacher, community, and experiences where trust was brought to life in sacred and uplifting ways. As I got older, I felt further detached from my values of trust, and more dominant in my mind and ego. I had a deep sense of attachment to my values and opinions on various things in life such as social justice, politics, philosophy, religion etc. I felt very justified in my beliefs and to what I felt was right. I surrounded myself with people who were similar to me and felt a strong separation from people who didn’t value what I did. When I found Acharya Shunya and Vedika Global, I felt burdened, separated, and depleted in my life experiences. I didn’t know who or what to trust.

Simply by listening to Acharya Shunya’s Vedic teachings, I felt reconnected to trust in the cosmos, in something larger than myself, and the infinite intelligence that we all feel at times. My heart and mind opened to her words. I found myself living more strategically. Through Ayurvedic teachings, I felt empowered with knowledge on how to support my health, and how to live in more harmony with nature. Through Acharya’s Advaita Vedanta teachings, I was more aware of my mind, and my excessive thoughts, fears, and attachments. I was given specific teachings and tools on how to be the witness of my mind, and how let them pass through breath, silence, and trust in all that was unfolding in my life. Instead of my firm conviction in what I felt was right, I felt more at ease with whatever transpired, and more trust in the divine orchestration of life. Each of my guru’s teachings, provided more reflection and tools, and therefore my mind was opening more to my heart and spirit.

As I work daily to detach from my mind and ego, I notice areas where I can grow and transform to allow more space for peace. It is easy for my mind and ego to fall into old patterns. When I notice myself in negative thoughts, I think about gratitude. Some days are easier than others to reach this place, but due to increased trust, and the wisdom of the Vedas, I can more easily turn my mental suffering into connection. I have more space within my inner being, to connect with my spirit, and the spirit of us all. For instance, I was recently feeling frustrated for most of the day. I was listening to my three small children arguing, looking at piles of laundry waiting to be folded, while trying to cook a healthy dinner and manage other household chores. I could feel my body tighten from stress, and my body heat increase from the irritation of listening to my kids arguing. I decided to go in my backyard to simply get fresh air. I then found myself breathing, and engaging in simple stretches. I noticed my body cooling down, my mind at more ease, and an elevation of my spirit. White butterflies started to flutter past me while landing on certain flowers in my garden. I saw bumble bees buzzing about and birds flying above me. I looked up at the big expansive sky and I began to laugh at myself. I realized how lost I was in my mind for the majority of the day and how simple it was to reconnect myself through spending 5 minutes in nature. These kind of experiences foster more more reverence and joy into my daily life.

The shift in my mindset, my increased feelings of trust, and the intelligence of the Vedas and my guru’s teachings have all integrated and transformed my life. I can come to a place of understanding, compassion, and acceptance easier than before. The union that I feel with myself, others and nature has expanded and provided great relief to my mind. Challenges still come up in my life, and I still have to reign in my mind and ego from over reacting. Yet, I still find that from being a student at Vedika, I have a much closer connection to the knowledge of who I am. I know that we are all born whole with divine light and special gifts. The ways in which I can cultivate and radiate more peace by using my mind as an instrument rather than letting it run rampant with over thinking has expanded my consciousness. I have continually been given ample space to learn and grow at Vedika through my studentship.

This new paradigm and way of living has been so inspirational and fulfilling. All of the things that I was attached to before such as equity, social justice, a liberal and progressive society, etc felt so impossible. That tremendous burden of not knowing how to help society and humanity in a real way has been removed. I admire things that I used to take for granted such as a sunrise, sunset, birds chirping, and to be able to witness these things is such a blessing. Integrity is defined as the state of being whole and undivided. I can now connect to the essence my inner light, and the inner light of all. From this space of sacred connection, I am awakened to the powerful spirit of healing and awakening. Everything and everyone provides the opportunity for more light and love.

The author Soumya Kristin Mattias is a student of Acharya Shunya, serves as the Satsangha Coordinator of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program, and assists in facilitating Awakening Community Circles.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

This morning as I woke up with the dawn, birds chirping, random thoughts came, mostly about work, then I looked at my thoughts and started chanting the Gayatri mantra and an ease came over me. I am deeply appreciating my spiritual study with Acharya Shunya. Her Vedanta discourses in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program are opening me to all new insights that build upon and support my spiritual journey of almost 20 years.

The study of Vedanta, the study of who am I, my relationship with this world and with God begins with all the things I am not. Am I this body? Am I the child, sister, friend, wife, mother? Am I my profession? Am I my thoughts, my likes and dislikes? Am I my personality?

Sounds confusing, doesn’t it? That’s why having a teacher/guru to explain, give examples, expound on these teachings, guiding me to contemplate what is Real and what is unreal has been the most important part of this journey.

Sitting with my teacher, listening to her words on these teachings; pierce through my beliefs, habits, judgements and opens up within me, really awakens me to the eternal Self. This hasn’t happened all at once, no it takes many times, over and over to really see Who I Am. I do forget and get caught up in everyday situations, but then I remember, and either I chant the Gayatri, watch my breathing, soften my heart, or re-listen to my teacher’s words. It’s all a process, a transformation, a coming home to the Self.

These teachings have brought an understanding of how to see my relationships in this world. We get so caught up in our judgements, our likes and dislikes, thinking this is life. No, it is only our small selves believing this is the real world, but it isn’t. What is Real is that we are all part of a Oneness, a one consciousness that has no favorites or judgements.

One of the practices my teacher has given is to pause, then take a few breaths, pause again if needed. This pause is a conscious pause before answering a question, if you feel you will be snappy, or are stressed, having a hectic day. Take that pause and breathe. Maybe wait a day, or two, or longer before making any quick decisions you may not have intended. Such a simple thing. This pause gives clarity which carries over into all aspects of life.

"Wake up, Wake up!" I hear my teacher say. "Wake up from this fog, these samskaras (habits so deep, they are like a sticky jam), and come home to You."

The author Sakshi Joanne Banuelos is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Student Coordinator of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

In preparation for the 2013 Vedika Global graduation ceremony, my teacher Acharya Shunya assigned me the task of creating a large mandala (a geometric Vedic spiritual symbol) representing the 3 pillars of our school, Satsangha, Sadhana and Seva (namely a spiritual gathering of truth, a commitment to spiritual practice, and a selfless offering of service). Naturally being a “left brained person” who believed I had no artistic talent whatsoever, this was a huge challenge for me. At the same time, I was recovering from a traumatic car accident, and experiencing living with a difficult roommate which ultimately led me and my family to quickly move out of our home under duress. Talk about the worst timing ever: (1) PTSD from a car accident (2) mental & emotional strain from a volatile home environment and (3) the belief that I can’t create something beautiful to share with my Vedika family! However, because I have shraddha (faith and trust) in my teacher and our lineage, I knew there were things I was not seeing about myself or the situation. I pressed on with the project. Little did I know that this project was the true embodiment of the 3 pillars of Vedika Global.

Satsangha

By the time I embarked on the mandala project I had been a student of Acharya Shunya for 2 years, during which I had many opportunities to sit in Satsangha (a spiritual gathering of truth) learning Advaita Vedanta concepts. ‘I must be a good, devoted student if I am sitting at my teacher’s feet and hearing her words’ was my internal self-talk at the time. I took copious notes and tried to sit still. However, I was embroiled in multiple situations where I embodied smallness and restlessness, totally incongruent to the core concepts of True Self/Brahman/Atman that I was hearing in Satsangha. What I now know is that satsangha, being part of a spiritual community dedicated to truth, while beneficial, is not complete without the contemplation and actions that help to solidify the knowledge. The mandala project Acharya Shunya assigned required me to take the time to contemplate the 3 principles in order to create an honest rendering of the concepts.

Sadhana

To move forward with this important project, and push past the small inner voice telling me not to screw it up, I knew I had to change my mindset to one of devotion. My act of creating a beautiful mandala for my kula (spiritual family) was an act of devotion. Once my mind shifted to view this creation as a sadhana or spiritual practice, I noticed that the mandala began to take its own shape. I became freer and less controlling of the process. I allowed my “right-brain”, innate creativity to flow through my hands to unfold an object of beauty. Even when my roommate stepped on the middle of the canvas, leaving a dusty footprint, I found myself observing my reaction of holding onto frustration and anger then suddenly having those feelings melt into a small wisp of memory. Once I realized that the footprint was an opportunity to pause and reflect on what is happening in my life and how I am holding it, it stopped having a negative power over me. In this observation I truly learned that a trespass is temporary while spiritual truth, like the paint on the canvas, binds all things.

Seva

I come from a family of people in service: spiritual leaders, teachers, nurses, social workers, so the act of being in service is very familiar to me. The difference, as I heard from Acharya Shunya in the Vedic Spiritual Studies program is the concept of “selfless service”, or Seva. Initially when I began the mandala project, I thought that being in service was doing what my teacher asked me to do. What I realized, however, that oftentimes that “doingness” is actually for selfish benefit: to be seen as good, smart, loyal, capable, etc. I have found that so much of my service was driven by the deep seated belief that my value is in my “doingness”. How could my teacher give me some thing to do that had the potential out me as inartistic, slow, not competent or inept? Again, because of my faith, I knew that she had presented me with an opportunity to truly be in selfless service. This mandala was not for me or to shine my skills. The act of creating something beautiful for the Vedika Global family to celebrate a rite of passage was an honor and a privilege. Through that understanding, I released myself and allowed the greater community to flow through me. I am forever grateful to my teacher, Acharya Shunya, for gifting me this opportunity to more deeply understand the pillars of Satsangha, Sadhana and Seva. This is an inquiry I am still in today as I move through my day-to-day actions.

In devoted, creative, selfless service,

Janya

The author Janya Tuere Anderson is a long time student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Director of Strategy and Development for Acharya Shunya's Awakening Health Center and Co-Director of Vedika's Awakening Community Circle program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Being good at multi-tasking is something that many people pride themselves on, especially parents and working parents. We live in a society where there is always too much to do and not enough time to do it! Therefore we multi-task in an effort to get more done in less time. It’s not uncommon to see people driving in their cars doing any multitude of other things, like eating, applying make-up, talking or texting, when all they should be doing is paying attention to the road! With technology the way it is today we see multi-tasking happening in new inventive ways. It used to be people would sit in front of the television while eating, this practice became so popular in one era that it led to the invention of TV trays! But nowadays people have ipads and iphones and handheld devices making it possible to check email, text and watch videos no matter where they are or whatever else they are supposed to be doing. While all this can be helpful, and convenient at times, it also comes at cost.

While one is busy multi-tasking it means that they are not fully performing one task or the other. Their attention is split between two or even three tasks at the same time. So what does that mean? Well, it means that they are not fully present when doing said tasks. They are distracted with the other tasks at hand. They are not mindful. Thus, they might make a mistake, or miss something important, and this all generates subconscious stress.

I am a busy mother, myself, of two middle school aged children. I work three to five days a week depending on the week. I prepare all the meals in my home, do all the grocery shopping, majority of the house work, all the laundry, care for our family dog, take the kids to all their after school activities and events, I am a PTA President, and a dedicated disciple of my spiritual teacher Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. Because that program is run by volunteers, I have also signed up for various selfless service (seva) commitments.

Naturally, I often find myself multi-tasking whether it’s being on the phone helping a PTA unit while starting the laundry or washing the dishes, then it might be helping kids with homework while preparing dinner. Lately however, there have been a few instances where I couldn’t remember where I put something or I forgot a conversation or response to a question that I had asked one of my children and needed to ask them again. Then during a spiritual discourse (satsangha) a few weeks ago, my teacher, Acharya Shunya touched upon a topic that she has shared with us on many occasions over the past ten plus years that I have been studying with her. She said, "Be present. Be mindful in whatever you are doing, be it washing the dishes, preparing a meal, taking out the trash, whatever it is. We should be focused on that task and not distracted with other tasks, whether they are physical tasks, mental tasks, or both."

Such a simple practice that makes such a huge difference! After being reminded of this important practice once again, I realized that it was my multi-tasking that was causing me to forget things or not remember them at all. Too often we let this busy, hurried life push us along and we so easily get caught up in what we feel we need to accomplish and we miss what’s happening right in front of us.

The other day I was arriving at work and while walking to my classroom I heard a bird singing, I stopped and looked around for the bird. It was perched up on top of the roof, right on the crest and it was singing so loudly and proudly it's chest all puffed up. It was beautiful and it made me smile to see it and hear it, to experience it in that moment, to be totally present, standing there with the bird. For several moments I was focused only on the bird, how she looked, how she sounded, why she was singing and then I began to observe myself standing there watching the bird and I thought, what might someone think who sees me stopped right there staring towards the roof?

Then I wished that someone would come by and would ask why I was just standing there so that I could share this sweet lesson of being present, of being mindful, of letting go of this need to multi-task every minute of our lives. After a few minutes or so the bird flew off and I continued to my classroom and about my day, but the experience stayed with me. That short time of being fully present and mindful of the bird and her beautiful song filled my soul and I believe that I was a better teacher that day. I had more patience, more energy, I was more filled with joy and happiness which then flowed out onto my students. I am so grateful to be reminded again and again of this simple but most important teaching, for lessons on being present, staying mindful.

This experience with the bird actually occurred before I heard Acharya Shunya's discourse at our wisdom school satsangha, Vedika Global. However once I heard the teaching again, it put this experience into perspective for me. I have found that over my many years of study I am most easily able to be present and stay mindful when I maintain the time and space for my practices, like meditation, japa mala, mantra chanting, taking 100 steps after meals, sitting at the feet of my teacher and hearing her discourse upon ancient Vedic wisdom from ageless texts and even stopping to breathe fully between tasks. Even one breath does the work.

When I am maintaining my practices, and contemplations on a greater spiritual reality that lives outside me and expresses itself in my heart, then when life does start to push me along in it’s hurried way, seducing me yet again to multi-task mindlessly, the universe sends me a beautiful bird to sing me a song and remind me what is presently important. Renewed through sacred knowledge, I can mindfully attend to all my tasks with greater ease and grace, one task at a time.

With a soul full of gratefulness,

Siddhi JoAnna Traski

The author Siddhi JoAnna Traski s a long-term student of Acharya Shunya and serves as Chair to Acharya Shunya's Ecclesiastical Council.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

Many things seemed predictable when I was a child growing up, because they happened every day, and I naturally assumed things would continue that way forever. Or perhaps I didn't think too much about them. When I finally spread my wings to fly out of my cozy nest, and started engaging with the world by myself, making my own way, and then proceeded to start a family with my partner, it seemed I had walked onto the set of another movie, and they had forgotten to give me a script.

I began to navigate using what I had, often stumbling, falling, experiencing great joy along with abysmal depths of sorrow, and slowly beginning to realize the unpredictability of the situation. Why was everyone not behaving the way I expected and wanted them to? Why were things not 'just so'? What are these new roles I was being forced to play? Why couldn't my heart stick to the script I had assimilated by observing those around me while I was growing up? If I may use a simile, why was I being handed strawberry ice cream when everyone around me should know that I only like chocolate?

My being was full of questions wanting to be answered and puzzles waiting to be put together. What was it that would bring all this together? When would people realize what a wonderful person I was and let me have my way?

This confusing human experience, not unique to me I realized, started becoming less overwhelming when I heard, then contemplated and began to put into practice, the knowledge on life stages called ashramas from my teacher Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies program. What was it that I learned here?

The Vedic sages, whose home was the Indian subcontinent to begin with, but whose vision and experience spanned all humanity irrespective of color, creed, belief or religion, observed that the human experience could be understood and lived through four stages of life – when we are growing up with few worldly responsibilities and are getting educated with tools to live out life (student mode or Brahmacharya ashrama), when we are in full-on engage mode with the world and caught up in the web of intimate relationships (householder mode or Grihastha ashrama), when the world signals that we are being relieved of our responsibilities and we can naturally withdraw or slow down the pace with worldly engagements (renunciate mode or Vanaprastha ashrama), and finally when we see our life experiences as a flourish in a bigger spiritual picture and can reach some level of equanimity to begin to answer life's foremost question 'Who am I?' (monk mode or Sannyasa ashrama). This question, the Vedas advise, would do well to be asked at every stage of life. I feel the resulting spontaneous answer from within can be an honest indicator of our experience thus far.

Grihastha Ashrama is that very stage of life that had me almost paralyzed with doubts and confusions. Now, this is when we are emerging into our own, and engaging with the world, perhaps through familial life with a partner, children, relatives and even transacting in a business. If it sounds so overwhelming, why not just skip this householder stage and go to less bothersome stages that lie ahead? Even though it may be considered sage advice, but the sages didn't advise this 'grapes are sour' form of renunciation. In fact, they felt that all stages of life are great experiences to explore and then potentially realize one's own true Self. In the case of the householder stage, one can discover one's truest Self through interactions in relationships with others and the world.

Acharya Shunya, being a householder or grihastha herself, had ample experience in navigating this stage and through her teachings, continues to shed light on new, interesting ways to look at this important stage of life. This knowledge has been tremendously helpful in shedding light on my ongoing journey.

Naturally I listened to this knowledge hungrily and contemplated upon it a lot. I was relieved to know that I am not the only one who feels like they are finding it hard to navigate the householder stage. This must have been a common human experience since the beginning of humanity, deserving observation and contemplation, out of which came insights and ways of transcendence or spirituality.

What have I encountered as I pass through this stage myself? What have I seen as I go through this colorful, dramatic, intense experience? How has spirituality helped me?

Well, it has given me the tools to see, know and understand the larger context of this life and recognize patterns that have been in existence forever. Given an interaction, let's say with an in-law, I can go through multiple spirals of action and reaction, with scripts that have been repeated sub-consciously or unconsciously. Or, I have the choice to exercise my spiritual muscle and respond to them in a way that elevates consciousness. I could go through a turbulent exchange with a child, and if things are not going the way I want, fall back into some reactionary patterns picked up from my childhood. To learn another way to be, a way that sits well with my deepest being, is the invitation.

Living life without a map, in this case Vedic knowledge, was like being on an alien planet. When I don't know the lay of the land, every obstacle has the potential to throw me off track. Every setback can reinforce my inadequacy in dealing with unknown or threatening situations. But when I remember I am a spiritual being having an earthly experience, I can pause for a few moments to inquire and refresh myself at the oasis of truth inside me. I can then begin to see the very same challenges and obstacles in a curious way, as learning opportunities. I can then draw from an infinity mindset, rather than a fixed mindset, to find responses and solutions.

As I see it now, the challenges or learning opportunities in the householder stage or grihastha ashrama come from the limited self being in relationship with people, with objects, with aversions and compulsions, being pushed and pulled between acting and reacting, manipulating and being manipulated, and certainly not the least, the how's and what's of communication. For example, not being able to express what is really in our heart (our desire for love and acknowledgement) and instead only spit out our anger at not receiving it, sets off a chain of blame game.

As Acharya Shunya shared, the learnings will flower from within; however, the tools to navigate these areas can be found through a spiritual approach. Each of these challenges becomes an area of healing and wellbeing, when certain attitudes and mindful actions are employed. That is one of the core teachings of Karma Yoga - cultivating and employing the appropriate attitudes, and choosing the appropriate actions.

I remember Acharya Shunya talking about the adaptive self, the limited self. In order to survive through certain situations, human beings often adopt modes of behavior such as feeling like a victim, or overly pleasing others, depending on validation by others or becoming belligerent like a bully. All these modes of behavior obscure the recognition of the true, shining, wholesome Self in all.

What are the attitudes and what are the actions that will restore us to wholeness?

The ancient sages were wise indeed. They understood that these daily transactions of being in the world and acting in the world can deplete us and yet they are crucial for our survival and existence in this plane of existence. Instead of artificially renouncing and cutting ties with the world, they knew that the transcendence would come from turning this endless cycle of action or karma to karma yoga.

With this contemplation, I no longer have to bow mechanically to societal conditioning or mindlessly do what was expected of me, even though resentment was simmering away inside. By casting aside those negative thought patterns, by being educated about the nature of the Self and its strength and potential, by practicing the tools offered by spirituality, I started seeing the many opportunities that this stage of life was presenting me, to reach within and express the truth of my being.

I thought being spiritual was one thing and being a householder was another. Never could the twain meet. But when Acharya Shunya spoke about how important it was to inquire into one's own being, discover and bring that into one's doing, through Karma Yoga, I started seeing a glimpse of the light at the end of the tunnel.

How to do and what to do needs a brief sharing on sattva, rajas and tamas – the three meta threads which weave the world of our mental experience. Day and night themselves bear witness to their intertwining patterns, and they are reflected in all beings, their actions and their mindsets.

Rajas is movement. The pitfall is when it is unexamined. While I was making my way in the world, there was loads of unexamined rajas in my mind, so I felt I had to keep doing and moving, often upwards on the ladder of ambition, as I had not learned to look within. It was all about what gave pleasure to the senses and what didn't. The senses fed into the mind, and together, they were trying to ensure that my journey through this world was cushioned, that I could continue to collect and hoard objects and experiences that gave me pleasure, at 'my' beck and call or so it felt. I now understand that the mind and senses are there to ensure our survival, and they are always acting as they are programmed, but when they are not trained, the question of 'how much is enough', doesn't get asked.

Rajasic actions are motivated towards the survival, benefit and aggrandizing of the limited self or the ego self, the self that is separate from all other beings, the self that is competing with all other beings for survival, forgetting that this limited self comes and goes in space and time, and is one expression of the unlimited, larger field of consciousness. These rajasic actions can often be at the cost of another's well-being.

There are many descriptions of sattva – the quality of clarity, well-being, wholesomeness, expansiveness among them. Yes, the mind feels balanced when the sattva quality is predominant in the mind. Sattva is immanent in actions that benefit everyone, even though it may seem like they are not benefitting the individual self immediately. Ultimately, everyone does benefit because we are part of the whole. But the individual has now renounced benefit to the limited self at the expense of another more expansive universal self.

The options for choosing rajasic, tamasic or sattvic behavior became clear to me in one situation where I was planning for an event and had overlooked certain details. That omission resulted in no food being cooked for the volunteers. That was a big oops moment, and I felt really bad about it. If I allowed rajas to dominate my mind, I would pretend that I had not made a mistake, do a good cover-up job and may even blame another, while feeling anxious inwardly. In fact, to put people in their place, I might even bring up faults and past mistakes of anyone who dared to confront me. Oh, it was tempting.

With the tamasic option, I may sink into self-deprecation and lose sight of the suffering of those volunteers. A juicy tamasic choice would be to let others make mistakes, that could be prevented with mindfully given feedback, and as a result, everyone would suffer. Then I could show up and point out how I was not the only one who could make a mistake.

The sattva option was the hardest on my limited-self but the most freeing ironically. I could take responsibility for the lapse and apologize to those affected without deprecating myself but with an honest acknowledgement. I could make a note to self to learn from this episode. With spiritual binoculars, I could see all these options jostling around in my mind space, and then I had to choose one that would keep me on my chosen path. Ah, a householder rescued from an embarrassing situation, by the sattva of their own mind!

Thus, my journey continues as a relatively more awake householder, who is deliberately finding it useful to see through my own mind's rajas and tamas and always choose sattva. As I look at every area of my life as a householder, I realize I don't have all the answers yet. But I am more peaceful. I call myself a sattva farmer- and I cultivate sattva every day to navigate through the challenging but spiritually rewarding grihastha ashrama.

The author Vaidehi Shivani Maheshwari is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Program Director of Vedika's Ayurveda Ancestral Herbal Library.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her Vedic Spiritual Studies Program.

atmaiva hy atmano bandhur atmaiva ripur atmanah

The mind is the friend of the person, and his enemy as well.

Bhagwad Gita, Chapter 6, Verse 5

In the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program at Vedika Global where I am a student member, Acharya Shunya taught us about the stories of our mind that makes us lock ourselves into a small container and attach ourselves to the people and things we feel we own. We tend to forget that we are the unlimited source of truth, consciousness and joy, so we need not get locked into limiting stories of chase and attachment.

The human mind is made up of three primordial qualities of nature known as sattva, rajas and tamas. Tamas has the nature of inertia and darkness. Rajas activates us but also tends to create agitations and projections in the mind. However, the redeeming quality is sattva which is the cause for balance and clarity in the mind. When sattva is our mind’s dominant state, the other two qualities also operate efficiently - we have enough rajas so as to perform our activities and enough tamas so that we can go off to sleep at night. It is the excess of the rajas and tamas (at the cost of sattva) which causes suffering, and not otherwise.

Acharya Shunya explains how Tamas leads to veiling of reality (so we cannot know our own spiritual Self), and Rajas leads to projection of a false reality (so we believe that our mind body based self is our only reality). Naturally, this core lack of discrimination exists in a mind which is overrun by excess Rajas and Tamas. The veiling and projecting qualities of Rajas and Tamas also birth a uniquely self ignorant ego based concept of “me” in the mind (known as Ahamkāra) and false beliefs of “mine” stemming from this ego (known as Mamakāra).

Ego in Vedanta (ahamkāra) can be described as the spiritual darkness which has an effect of blocking us from our own truth of Self. As a result, we start believing in a misconception that I am the body, mind and intellect. This happens due to excess tamas. It is like the electricity saying, “I am the bulb.” It is like the great river saying, “I am the glass of water.” It can also be described as the “I am this” condition wherein we start identifying ourselves with attributes of the mind, body and intellect. We forget that we are the independent witness consciousness, a spiritual, boundless, limitless entity.

From this misconception is born a sense of false “mineness” or mamakāra which can be described as the “I have” story of the mind. We tell ourselves, “I have a dull mind,” or “I have a brilliant mind,” or “I have an ugly body” or “I have difficult parents”. In other words, we start identifying ourselves with objects, people or situations around us. Acharya Shunya teaches us that what we have or possess, we are not. We are forever pure consciousness, forever free of all bondages and attachments. When our sense of happiness stems from people or situations around us, it may ultimately lead to sorrow as people and situations outside of us are forever changing as we have no control over them. The only thing that we can control or work on is our own mind. Instead of trying to possess others or crave for approval from outside, we can try to inculcate a sense of gratitude towards the little support we get from people around us. This in turn frees us from the potential stories of likes or dislikes that the mind can build up towards others or ourselves and as a result we can then focus on winning over or seeing through the false set up of our own ahamkāra and mamakāra.

Acharya Shunya explained that to win over ahamkāra (ego) and mamakāra (ego based attachments) we can purify our minds by developing sattva proactively. To do that, we can eat fresh sattva enhancing foods like ghee, honey, seasonal sweet fruit, and cooked recipes (that I learned in my teacher Acharya Shunya’s Awakening Health Course), speak our truth and not deceive anyone, least of all our own selves. We can learn to take mindful decisions in life which may be a bit challenging in the immediate context, but they ultimately bestow us with inner (sattvic) strength in the long run and sustain us and the society. Our every moment in life can be deliberately mindful and purposeful.

Sure, it sometimes takes me longer than others, but I am able to complete my tasks successfully, with this new more deliberate approach of letting go of an old story born from my ignorant ego perspectives and stories (I am incapable, I am unworthy, etc). Trying again (with the aid of new knowledge and perspectives gained spiritually) is the most important part and each time I have overcome my fear, I feel much stronger within and have grown both intellectually and emotionally. Hence, now the false thoughts do not come back as often as they used to. I am relatively free in my mind therefore to plant new seeds and new ideas about myself. Now, I do my work to the best I can, and I also voice my thoughts or speak up where I feel it is important to do so.

Mistakes and accidents do happen and my recourse is to apply the learnings of Vedanta. The best part is that I am now using the same mind which used to once torment me to reach my divine potential. It is clear that without knowledge of Vedanta, my mind was like my enemy. Today this same mind is becoming my friend, leading me to my own true Self. Thanks to my mind anchored in Vedic wisdom, I am no longer wasting as much time, getting caught up in the drama of the world.

The author Vidya Deepa Gupta is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as a core volunteer, supporting in the A/V team and leading the Hamsa Dhwani, a special mantra chanting group.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

The first thing I do every day, after my commute home from work, is wash my hands. Now, I promise this isn’t some strange ritual or even an obsessive compulsive behavior. Simply put, my hands get pretty dirty. They accumulated the dirt because on my way home from the BART station, I pick up trash. I pick up cans and wrappers and papers and notecards; there is always an abundance of litter in my downtown Oakland neighborhood. I actually get a bit excited when I see some object to pick up. I get excited because I know I am caring for our shared neighborhood, our shared community, and our shared World.

Now, where did this all begin? It’s pretty simple. In the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program where I am a member-student, we learn about saucham, or cleanliness and purity as a spiritual value. It is a value we are instructed to uphold and maintain. But there is an important perspective we hold around this form of purity. Our spiritual teacher Acharya Shunya tells us that our atman, our true spiritual Self, our truest nature is always pure. Like water is always wet, our atman is always pure. But, we live in a world where messes, physical and emotional, happen. So we seek purity, but not from the sense that we are trying to make something dirty become clean. Rather, we remove the accumulated dirt and build-up from something that is eternally clean. We look for the purity in a world of messes, we look for the diamond in the rough.

So I chose saucham as a resolution for my 2017. And where did I begin with this cleanliness? My surroundings. It began in my home. It began as a call to declutter, to give away, to purge, and to clean my own home. And do you know what happened when there was less stuff in my space? There was more space to breathe. There was more space for me. It was a sweet process, it made the objects I chose to keep a little more special. It made the arrangement a little more functional. It allowed me to bring about a new beauty and light. When I made room for light in my surroundings, it allowed me to live in a space that was soothing and inspires my creativity.

When I started a new job that necessitated I walk through downtown Oakland every day, I witnessed how much trash there was in my neighborhood. Little things. Little forgotten pieces from somebody’s shopping trip. Little strings of another’s story they had forgotten to tie up. Since saucham was to be my value, it only made sense to help out with this litter as I could. I now have my favorite trash cans on my way, outside the Whole Foods, outside the First Congregational Church, all the way down Harrison Street.

But let’s say I pick up a paper cup on the street. Great, there is one less piece of trash out there. But then I look ahead and see 30 more cups. Well I can't always go pick up every cup; I don’t always have the time. So what’s the point of cleaning a world that seems to always get dirtier and dirtier? Because it is not about some arbitrary standard of clean, it is about love. When I pick up each piece, and usually one more than I want to, I am expressing my care and my love for our Earthly home. I pick up each piece because I want to say, “I am not simply going to be a consumer. I am going to give back because that is the world I want to live in. That is what the Vedas teach us.” I can make the effort to leave my house two minutes earlier so I can pick up those few extra scraps because we deserve to live in a worldly home that reflects our own inner beauty. It is a beautiful flow. With each object I put away, with every piece of trash I remove, I know I am cleaning up and caring for our shared home.

I wanted to just work on being a little cleaner, a little more relaxed, and a little more put together this year. I just wanted to learn how to clean up and finish the messes and the projects I begin. That’s why I chose saucham as a value this year. But the most beautiful part is that so much more came from my decision to be purer. As a result, I feel more in touch with my own home. I feel a new connection to my environment and community, and I can do this work without feeling so much entitlement or judgement. It has just become a healthy habit of mine, a new normal. That is the power of what we learn in the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program. This knowledge changes our values. By changing our values, we begin to be in the world with brand new eyes. We get to change our consumption into service. I am happy living my life a little lighter and cleaner. And I do not even mind having to wash my hands, every day when I arrive home from work. I even do it with a smile.

The author Shreyas Derek Cousineau is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Kitchen Coordinator, creating and offering delicious Ayurvedic meals to our Vedic Spiritual Studies classes and Vedika Global events.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

What are the benefits of participating in the Awakening Community Circles?

Past participants have reported a deeper sense of connectedness and well-being, and share that they leave leave feeling inspired and renewed.

What do you love about facilitating Awakening Community Circles?

We all want to know that we are seen and heard by other people on a deep level. Awakening Community Circles have a way of organically evoking the innate interconnectedness we all share, the unity within diversity, which erases the lines of separation and dissolves feelings of isolation. It is amazing to us how much we all (even “strangers”) have in common, and how it is possible for people who have never met before are able to share so authentically with each other in these Circles.

Awakening Community Circles offer the opportunity to hear perspectives of many members of our community. We all embody diversity in our life experiences, and Circles tend to attract people with diverse backgrounds (ages, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, professional backgrounds, countries of origin, etc.), creating an opportunity for rich sharing. Because the Circles so openly welcome diversity, they also seem to have a knack for dissolving the differences.

Everyone has a profound innate wisdom, and Circles have a way of facilitating that wisdom emerging from everyone in the Circle. As facilitators, we love bearing witness to the diversity in people and perspectives, and what transpires with each group. We also love that each Circle is unique – we never know what will emerge.

Why is this important to you?

We feel that serving as volunteers for these Circles is important because it is a portal for people to begin to contemplate health & consciousness (physical, mental, emotional, social, spiritual and communal), and what we have found is that the sense of well-being that emerges from within helps to awaken health in all those forms.

Can you describe your connection with Bade Baba(Vedika’s lineage fountainhead and the inspiration for Awakening Community Circle) and the work he did in his time?

In today’s culture, many people have role models whom they have never met in person, such as athletes, musicians and entertainers, and yet often they are role models only for their area of specialty and not necessarily how they live the rest of their lives. For us, Bade Baba is a role model because of the way he devoted his life day in and day out to tirelessly serving his community in a humble and down-to-earth yet inspirational and empowering way.

Radiant health and well-being is for everyone, not just certain people. There are certain individuals within every country who have devoted their lives to this equality of vision, and Bade Baba was one of those people.

The more we have learned about the history of India and the immense suffering of people, and the near decimation of culture, the more we have appreciated Bade Baba’s vision to recognize the suffering of all people as a key element of ill health regardless of what class they are in. In this modern time of true struggle with such divisiveness in this country, it is our hope that we can stand in the truth that we are all connected, and offer space to deepen those connections.

Can you share about the creative component of the Awakening Community Circles?

As children, we were all naturally creative and could express ourselves freely and effortlessly with no sense of being self-conscious. Children are spontaneous and heart-centered and don’t worry about what other people might think. One of our intentions for the Circles is to facilitate moving out of the intellect -- from our heads to our hearts. In Awakening Community Circles, we find that in addition to sacred sharing via the spoken word, creative projects have also allowed participants to tap into the wellspring of spontaneity and creativity inside themselves.

In the past we have made visual art in the form of collages, soul cards and hand-painted luminous moons. We have also done some kinesthetic activities, listened to poems and practiced a few very gentle yoga poses in past Circles. Though art isn’t incorporated into all of the Circles, the spirit of creativity always seems to emerge through the group as we connect with each other and with our own hearts.

How do you believe Community is linked with overall health and wellbeing in our modern society? What role does creating deeper Community connections play in enhancing our lives today?

Inherent in the word community is the word unity. Yet despite technology that allows us to talk with anyone around the planet nearly instantaneously, it can also hold us back from finding the innate interconnectedness which we all share.

There have been studies done that show that people who have meaningful social connections as they age actually live longer than those who do not. Isolation is a dis-ease of sorts, and in our highly technological society where liking on Facebook is more common than having meaningful conversations in person, it is easy to feel isolated. And one need not be alone to feel isolated -there are many people who feel trapped in relationships with their partner or relatives, who also feel isolated. The power of social health is often underestimated in our society compared to physical, mental, emotional health, yet all are related and interdependent.

Acharya Shunya mentions in her book Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom that the World Health Organization (WHO) defines health as “a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” She notes that “WHO has yet to include the spiritual dimension, so Ayurveda’s definition (of health) is more expansive.”

We as a species are interdependent for our survival. We need to form relational trust for a healthy society and a healthy self. We cannot build a strong community or society in the absence of trust.

The author Lawrence Hinman puts it this way: “There is a term from ancient Greece ‘Eudaimonia,’ which can be translated to ‘flourishing’ or ‘well-being.’ Aristotle speaks about this in terms of practical wisdom, and how that is related to happiness. According to this conception of flourishing, human beings are profoundly social by nature, and participation in the common life of the city-state, the polis, is an essential part of any happy life. Happiness or flourishing would be impossible without community.”

And “global health” starts with the individual. Global healing is only possible if we bring individual healing. Without the health of one there is the health of none. Self-awareness is the root of global healing. Or as a Native American proverb states, “True peace between nations will only happen when there is true peace within people’s souls.”

What has moved you the most in facilitating Circles?

The “a-ha” moments-- when participants experience and/or articulate something and it connects directly within them. We also love that people are willing to take risks by sharing incredibly authentically in these circles; we rarely see the same level of risk and openness when we facilitate in our “day jobs.”

Any particular story you can share about growth you've witnessed in others?

There are many stories but one which we fondly remember. A young Thai woman who was visiting the US came to the Circle and was surprised to find that through the experience of the Circle, she reconnected with her birth name. There was a moment of “wait, I am this, how could I have forgotten” – an awakening in the moment. She exuded such joy and gratitude, and we marveled that she made that connection after traveling halfway around the world and “randomly” finding the Circle. We have also loved having children and young adults attend some circles. How they engage with adults and what they say is so awesome and so authentic; they are honored for their own wisdom.

How has serving in the role of Program Co-Directors contributed to your own growth and personal transformation?

We feel truly blessed to be able to volunteer our time together with our team members, and we are continually inspired by each member of our team. We had all been through Ayurveda training at the same time at Vedika approximately five years ago, so we know each other well from that. And since then, it feels as if we have co-created a beautiful tapestry of teamwork and creative collaboration. We all bring unique, complimentary gifts to the Circles themselves as well as all that happens behind the scenes to make the Circles possible. It is also fun to apply organizational development and group facilitation skills in a context that is much sweeter than in other environments -- and the return on investment is also much higher in terms of transformation.

Join us for the next Awakening Community Circle at Vedika Global, details here.

On December 11, 2016, after the Ancestral Teaching Class on Ghee, I attended Vedika Global's Awakening Community Circle. It is a unique platform offered by Vedika open to everyone to participate in and share around a common theme selected for the occasion. It is a wonderful opportunity to discover unity in the infinite experiences and ideas expressed within the circle. This is a donation based offering by Vedika to awaken the community to our oneness.

The topic of the circle that I attended was “Embracing Sneha (Self Love) for a Life of Well-Being.” Sneha is Sanskrit for not only self-love but also an Ayurvedic term for internal and external oleation. An appropriate theme after the Ancestral Teaching Class on ghee. Ghee is a magical good fat essential to an Ayurvedic way of life for internal and external oleation. It brings about well-being and happiness when consumed internally or applied externally.

Sreedev and Karen led the Awakening Community Circle. We began by cushioning our seat of love - The Heart. Karen guided us through a restorative yoga posture of cushioning our hearts and led us through a meditation after which we shared our experiences of comfort, vulnerability, discomfort, or areas of physical pain or mental resistance in the posture. The idea of how much are we in touch with our own heart was explored.

Our second activity was a contemplation on Love and Oil. Each person in the circle described Love or Oil or both in terms or expressions we best identify these with. As Sreedev wrote our our terms and expressions on the chart, we discovered how much alike love and oil are. Almost all the words used for love could also be easily used for oil and vice-versa.

Our third activity was another fun activity which I had not done in a while. We made “Soul Cards” and “Vision Cards” out of magazine cuttings and scrap book material. We enthusiastically used our scissors and glue to create a vision to reflect our love for ourselves and others. We labored in meditative silence with love to create love. It was a beautiful experience and seems even more so as I write about it. We made Soul Cards and wrote love letters to our deepest self. We put these in heart stamped envelopes provided by Vedika and Vedika posted these to us after the New Year dawned. I just got mine and it brought on a smile that lifts my heart and makes my day. I had brought along a colleague to this Awakening Community Circle and she too just received her card. She shared about how positive it made her feel. It is true…"Love is all you need.” It all begins with self-love. Abhyanga! (An Ayurvedic technique of loving self massage with warm oil!) and Sneha! (same term for love and oleation!) My Soul Card is going to be a very cherished reminder of this.

We finished off with a Hopi story of where the the Creator hid our essence. Karen read it out and later shared it with us by email. A beautiful tale of how it is all inside of us.Then, we were gifted a jar of ghee. It is the most nourishing thing next to love. To top it all, all the sharing and activities were accompanied by a serving of laddoos (sweets made of flour, ghee, nuts and delicious Ayurvedic ingredients that melt in one's mouth and just bring about so much love) and chai (Indian tea made Ayurvedic Style) that were beyond delicious in this loving Awakening Community Circle.

I am looking forward the next one.

The author Sukhdeep Kaur is a student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as a core volunteer, supporting in the A/V team of the Vedic Spiritual Studies Program in bringing Acharya Shunya's teachings to students all over the world.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

gathering set amidst her beautiful backyard garden in Palo Alto to celebrate Acharya

Shunya’s new book, Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom.

She shared from her heart how she had come to Acharya Shunya many years ago as a patient, seeking help with health challenges she was facing. She describes herself at the time she met Acharya Shunya, “I had a beautiful 3 year old boy, a back that could barely stay straight for 3 minutes, and I was 35 pounds

overweight. I was trying very hard to bring my mind body and spirit back into shape after motherhood and from the aftermath of infertility drugs.”

After examining her pulse, tongue and asking some questions, Acharya Shunya concluded that Swati was lacking Ojas. This was a new word for Swati, and Acharya Shunya explained that Ojas is the essential life force within, and Swati was “running

on empty.”

To replenish her reserves of Ojas and come back to feeling good overall, there was a long list of foods she would avoid for the next three months – “no processed sugar, no eggs, no meat, no bread, no yogurt, no nuts, no cheese or paneer, no tomatoes, no

onion, no mushrooms, no garlic, no frozen or processed food, no fermented food, no raw food, no smoothies, organic as much as possible, nothing more than 24 hoursold, no butter, no oil…” As the list went on, Swati says with some humor, “and then

Acharya Shunya drops the bomb... no chai, no coffee, no wine, no scotch on thenrocks... by now I am thinking her theories are going to last 5 whole days in America and she will be back on a plane to India soon.”

When she asked what would be left for her to eat with all that taken out, Acharya Shunya assured her that the cleansing and nourishing diet she would be put on would be precisely crafted from only what her body needed at that time, seasonally appropriate, and with plenty of ghee. In addition to her stringent food guidelines, Swati was instructed on a variety of lifestyle measures that would also directly affect her basic life force – timing of meals, times for sleeping and waking, and self-massage practices.

Rather than feel daunted, Swati took up this challenge to rebuild her entire system with enthusiasm. In the process, she unexpectedly found the changes guided her toward a deep reconnection to her relationship with the cycles of nature and

balanced moderation she remembered from her own childhood. “I pretended that I lived in my grandfather’s orchard in Rampur, [India],” she said. “Where there was abundance but everything was in balance. Where we ate sunlight, we drank

moonlight and we slept under the stars. 6 beautiful ripe mangoes would come out of the tree and 4 grand kids would share them… There was no question of one person eating 6 egg whites. The hens only gave so many fresh eggs, so it was one per person if at all, or Nani baked a cake. The honey tasted of the fruit that grew in the garden and we would know it was the season for oranges. [Grandmother] would press a ripe orange through a muslin cloth between her hands and only half a glass of orange juice per person would come out, not a gallon each day.”

When Swati put into practice Acharya Shunya’s instructions, she found that indeed a shining essence of inner health emerged naturally. When Swati imagined herself back in the orchard, as a child unquestioningly surrendered to the laws of nature

and the wisdom of the loving elders around her, what Ayurveda was proposing made deeply intuitive sense.

Now Swati, often joined by her husband Shekhar and son Shaan, attends occasional workshops and events at Vedika Global. They come for the community of everyday people enjoying discovering more about Ayurveda and also for the wholesomely

delicious food cooked in the Vedika Global kitchen. Swati is always happy to learn something new from Acharya Shunya and Ayurveda’s wisdom, because she has experienced the wellspring of wellbeing ready to spring forth when she reconnects to her roots and the natural state of health within.

The author Ishani Naidu is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Editor of the Hamsa magazine, which is an offering of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program.

Study with Acharya Shunya

Acharya Shunya, Author of the Bestseller,Ayurveda Lifestyle Wisdom, awakens health and consciousness with Ayurveda, Yoga and Vedanta at her wisdom school, Vedika Global, in Emeryville, California that offers both onsite and online classes to students worldwide.

Join Acharya Shunya's Awakening Health course to learn and embody Ayurveda's lifestyle wisdom. You can also apply to become her ongoing student in her exclusive Vedic Spiritual Studies Program, exploring the spiritual sciences of Vedanta and Yoga.

Recently I was talking with my spiritual teacher, Acharya Shunya, about common “buzz words” in the spiritual self-help arena. In the modern new age, spiritual, psychology and even in entrepreneurial parlance the term “radical” is used a lot. Radical Self Love, Radical Acceptance, Radical Candor, Radical Honesty, Radical Beauty, even Radical Spiritual Warfare! All of these sound pretty exciting on the surface – who doesn’t want to make a radical paradigm shift away from mind based unhappiness? It's especially appealing to our ego when it validates our own self interest. “Yes! Let me be radical and different from everyone around me who is clearly engaging in “lower-level thinking”. When I’m radical I’ll be better/righter/more spiritual/richer/powerful/(insert goal here).”

However, what I don’t hear in these same circles is the same level of vigor applied to Accountability. Vedic Dharma teachings (also known as Sanatana Dharma) ask us to maintain a personal responsibility for the repercussions of our choices in all areas of our life. For any action or relationship to be truly Dharmic (in alignment with the natural cosmic order and ethical right action), it must take into account that our lives and our choices affect more than just our own small self-interest. The decisions we make every day – from what we say, to what we eat, to how we earn money, to how we engage with our families and communities – all of these choices have reverberations for the whole of society, and even the natural environment.

I recently taught about Vaak Tapas (Vedic Speech Protocols) – in Vedika’s Awakening Health Course, and I was inspired to take a fresh look at my own communications. The Bhagavad Gita and Upanishads guide us to practice 4 basic rules in our speech – nonviolence, truthfulness, pleasantly/respectfully spoken, and beneficial to the other. I realized that while I have made great strides in my verbal communications, I still allow some unconsciousness, some tamas (quality of the mind associated with inertia, lethargy, and inaction) to remain in my written communications. It’s remarkably easy to avoid being impeccable with my Word with indirect communication tools like phones and email. Avoiding clear communication has a buzz word of its own – it's called “Ghosting” when we just stop responding to emails and texts, and is even expected in the modern era. How many emails or texts have you just not responded to, knowing that eventually it would “go away”?

While I don’t full out “ghost” people, I have noticed there are times when I procrastinate or avoid responding. This usually happens when I am unable (or unwilling) do something and don’t want to create any disharmony in the relationship. It may manifest by not giving a clear “Yes” or “No”. It may come out when I don’t give my full attention or energy to a commitment I’ve made. In effect, this is a subtle kind of violence, and disrespect, and even may lead to a lie by omission, and it certainly doesn’t serve either the other person or myself. So I’ve made a Sankalpa (a spiritual discipline/commitment) for myself – I’m practicing “Radical Accountability” in my communications with others.

This Radical Accountability is my own commitment to my spiritual Self and others to communicate in a timely and direct manner. I started with calling people back and giving them clear and timely updates about meeting them for in-person connection time. Then I moved on to being proactive when I make commitments – if I agree to do something, I make sure I’m actively participating and not resenting the time or effort. I also have started to say “No” to social events that aren’t in alignment with either my capacities or my interest. Rather than avoiding uncomfortable conversations where I might have to admit that I am not always available, not always able to fulfill another person’s desires and needs, I am asking myself to step up and put my values into action, in all areas of my life. This has made for some surprising connections and appreciative emails. Rather than causing disharmony, it has led to more authentic communications.

Thus, much of my student journey in Acharya Shunya's Vedic Spiritual Studies program, has been spent in becoming a responsible accountable person – an ethical dharmic member of society. In addition to becoming an asset to our communities, when we become accountable for our actions and commitments, when we do what we say we are going to do, we build a deeper self esteem. I have more trust in myself because I have worked to become a trustworthy human being. It is a practice of radical follow through - in my Seva (selfless service to others), in my relationships, in my communications. Doing what I say I’m going to do has made all the difference – not only in becoming a person that others can depend on to be a stable and solid pillar, but also in my relationship to Self. I can count on Me.

My ability to discriminate between what is Real and what is Ephemeral (known as viveka) is so much sharper when I am not lying to myself, even in subtle ways. This is making it easier and easier to see the ways in which I contribute to my own unhappiness – and it's always when I am engaging in some kind of pradyna apradha (crimes against my own highest wisdom by not following through in accountability).

Radical Accountability not just in my communications, but also in all of my choices, is my commitment to seeing and ending those self-sabotaging behaviors which keep me farther away from Truth. I am grateful to the timeless Vedic teachings unfolded verse by verse, text by-text by Acharya Shunya. At last, we can go be beyond hype, into truly radical spiritual thoughts, behaviors and actions.

Love and light,

Aparna Amy Lewis

Dean, Vedic Spiritual Studies Program

The author Aparna Amy Lewis is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as the Dean of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program.

Learn more about how you can study Vedanta with Acharya Shunya in her .

The message Acharya Shunya teaches from the Vedic texts again and again, using different words and examples, is: “You are Brahman.” Brahman, the One universal consciousness that is both experiencing and manifesting all of creation, can be described in so many ways. In the Vedic Studies Program we have learned systematically from source texts the various definitions of aspects of Brahman the rishis have given to lead us toward experiencing Brahman. The tradition of Vedanta and the teachings of Acharya Shunya tell us that we definitely can experience Brahman both within ourselves and as a pervasive consciousness throughout the universe. But until that ultimate moment of direct experience of our Soul nature, it is helpful to contemplate on aspects of Brahman to begin to give us an idea of where the path is headed.

While this may sound like a dry intellectual exercise, or a long arduous path to some sparkling spiritual end-goal (which as beginners we may not even be convinced exists yet!), I can personally say that when I bring the contemplation of Brahman as my true nature and identity into my daily life through the instructions of my teacher, so much sweetness and joy emerges. The path of Self realization is littered with basic-life improvements every step of the way and each piece of teachings I implement brings about a whole new level of clarity.

The most revolutionary teaching on Brahman I received from Acharya Shunya during the Vedic Studies Program was a simple question she encouraged us to ask ourselves in the midst of daily life: “What would Brahman do?” I remember so clearly when she taught with a little bit of humor, but meaning every word… “Ask yourself, How would Brahman drive a car? How would Brahman go grocery shopping?... Then act like that.” The way she brought the incomprehensible bigness of Brahman into the itty bitty parts of life we make into major obstacles to our happiness totally shifted my thought paradigm.

There are times when I observe a swell of stress or frustration arising within my body and mind… then I remember my teacher’s words and immediately come back to the inexhaustible potential existing within me to respond with creativity, and a solution emerges. The tired frustration of slippery children refusing to get out of the bath can bring threatening words to the tip of my tongue, but when I breathe and remember the inexhaustible creativity of Brahman, I can choose to turn the moment into an imaginative play where they are fish and I am the fisherman catching them and they are happily carried in a towel basket toward their pajamas. At work, there are times when I look at the tangled mess of record keeping, reporting, and projects underway, and wonder how it will all get sorted out and efficiently streamlined. Then I remind myself of the unlimited creative potential of Brahman, and within a few deep breaths, a new attitude emerges that does not focus on limitations, rather it sees so many opportunities for creative response. With this simple instruction from my teacher to simply act like Brahman, all the same personal, social, and worldly situations come up, and somehow I feel a deep calm throughout them all. An old pattern would be to let life constrict what I see as my options in any given situation, my new awakened pattern is to open to the unlimited potential of universal consciousness, and enjoy how the spiritual concepts of Vedanta are transforming even the most mundane moments of my practical life.

The author Ishani Naidu is a long-term student of Acharya Shunya, and serves as Editor of the Hamsa magazine, which is an offering of Vedika’s Spiritual Studies program.

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