Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:14 Welcome to my Bob Thurman podcast. I'm so grateful and some good trends enabled me to present them to you. If you enjoy them and find them useful, please think of becoming a member of Tibet house us to help preserve Tibetan culture. If that house is the Dalai Lama's control center in America, All best wishes. Have a great day.
Speaker 2 00:00:48 This is episode 208 bridging body, mind and breath with yoga with
Speaker 1 00:01:15 Hello everybody. So one of the things that we all run into in this kind of context, where we're developing our yoga abilities and teaching ability and practicing ability, both yoga body and mind and the breath, which is the one that the Prada breath, which is the energy that is the bridge between body and mind. And in fact, it says sort of on that side of body, but it touches mind. And, um, let's see, in Asian science, it is the key key bridge, you know, like Tai Chi and other martial arts of India and so forth. It is the wind that is interconnecting the energy. And, um, when we do this, we tend to forget a little bit stressed out before we we're normally stressed out by the circumstances of the world nowadays, in fact. But then when we want to develop some sort of spiritual understanding and also some sort of compassionate abilities to help others help ourselves and others simultaneously, uh, we, in some ways it sometimes seems like adding stress on stress and, uh, this is not the best way to do it.
Speaker 1 00:02:46 A little stress is good, actually. Like for example, when you memorize something, if you train to keep repeating it, and then you turn away from where you're reading and you want to memorize it and you hope get it without looking at it. And then you go back and look at it is that little stress of sort of forcing yourself to remember something we read it and read it. And then the and we know it by heart and there's stress getting over that threshold to remember it and not kind of good little stress is good. But then if we like demand that of ourselves that we learned like two pages a day by memory I Tibetan Lamas do when they're young, that's when they're young, maybe that's okay, but later it's too much. So one of the things that people tend to do in these courses is chill.
Speaker 1 00:03:42 There's so much for them to try to get, but the thing is, remember the holographic view of reality holographic view of reality is that every atom, every molecule in the hologram contains the information of the whole hologram, but the redundancy of the fact of all of them containing it. And you get, when they're all together, the molecules in, as I say, a holographic plate that you shoot a light through to get the three dimensional hologram, uh, the redundancy strengthens the distinctness of the image, but the information is all everywhere. So if we learn one thing and we learned it well, then everything that'd we want to know is in that thing. And we can not feel stressed that we didn't get everything all at once. And we're happy to go by baby steps. And this gives us a gradual baby step building of self-confidence and feeling of centered nurse and feeling of present and Centrelink of knowing what's going on, where we are is really good.
Speaker 1 00:04:57 It's a way to do it through balance on. So just like balancing in a posture, you know, an Asana place, a being well in a way that the biggest one of the biggest questions is as usual when we are dealing with, uh, this kind of issue. And remember the goal of Audra yoga training is to help fulfill in whatever little way to help fulfill the Dalai Lama's fourth aim in life. And remember what that fourth aim is. It is his aim. Each aim connects to some aspect of his identity, right? And the three, the famous three aims that have been known by lots of people for years. Our first as a human being, his aim is to promote human values, especially the value of kindness and the value of wisdom and the value of science therefore have knowledge of the nature of reality realism, and that's a major aim of his and, um, he, uh, uh, as a human being and the second year is as a hinder his identity as a Buddhist mendicant monk, big shoe, Geelong intuition, simple Buddhist monk, one of his identities, and that he cherishes.
Speaker 1 00:06:29 And as a Buddhist monk, he feels his aim in life. His life purpose is to promote the mutual understanding an active collaboration and cooperation between the world religions, including the indigenous religions. And, um, um, although his focus has tended to be on the organized ones because they are so they're their impact in life in the world at the moment, it's so huge. But, um, he also has met with every different Indian chief and African tribal chief and medicine man, or whatever that possible, or he hasn't been able to. And, um, um, and, and, and, uh, he feels that the, uh, you know, world view of people is very tied up with their religions and that when the religions are in the past, religions have sort of dominated particular groups, tribes, nations of people, and two, because there weren't many of any other one, and therefore then they would tend to have religious wars and there would be a misunderstanding and fights and struggles, sectarianism and things like that.
Speaker 1 00:07:39 So he feels that's too dangerous and not possible in the current world. And he doesn't like it. He never did like it in a previous line and particularly now, so from long before we had the moral majority in America, and we had the Ayatollah and all this kind of thing in the world, he was saying this, that the world religions must develop mutual respect, not just tolerance, but also respect and even cooperation. He feels it's important to the happiness of the beings on the planet that the world religions remember that their job is serving the human beings, who are their constituents, their followers, and not dominating them and controlling them, but serving them as they're good as they are great founders that Buddha Jesus, Moses, Muhammad, et cetera, they served their people. And, um, so that's his second name in life and third name in life as a Tibetan who was to speak up for his people, try to help them.
Speaker 1 00:08:37 And of course they been suffering terribly as a lot of 70 years, 71 years since I changed since 1950. And, um, by the invasion of the communist party, I don't say Chinese, although they would have been Chinese mostly, but most Chinese have always liked about. And so they never bothered much to go there because it's not enough oxygen up there or them, they liked, they liked it abandons. They consider them kind of magical people in their own history. They did the previous governments in China over, over the centuries, no one ever attacked to bed really until the communist. So, uh, which are, which is a restaurant ideology driven government actually novel the Chinese, uh, Daedalus here. Do you have any government? That's not? So those, those are his three aims. So the fourth thing he says since he has been since the age of 24, living in India, basically traveling around the world, but mainly living in India, his, he is a son of India.
Speaker 1 00:09:41 And even he says, most specifically, he's the son of Nalanda university monastic university, which was the most famous of the great many great Buddhist universities that existed in ancient India up until the 12th century, which were the big unit. They were the Harvards and Yales and the Oxfords of, uh, because they recently were bigger universities rather than the ones, you know, as sponsored by Kings, um, and their core around their courts is that, um, they drew from all casts there, they allow there was, they were meritocratic and that people who could do the study and who wanted to do the study would be, uh, would be candidate would be acceptable from any cast and women would be acceptable. We'll go. Unfortunately, after the sixth century, less and less women were able to social circumstance go there because of the enduring patriarchy quality of Indians, society and civilization.
Speaker 1 00:10:42 But anyway, as I was having lived three times longer in India, then in Tibet at the age of 88, on seventies and eighties, he was very anxious to do something for India. And so it was for him is to bring back those aspects of Indian, inner science, spiritual science, yogic, science, psychological science, and even physical sciences that Tibetans had preserved, which had been lost in India for the last 800 years to bring them back and have the Indian people, received them and understand them as reinforcement of their traditional culture, against their westernized, English, anger, science culture, you know, culture of militarism and out atomic bombs and, and, uh, whatever. And, um, to be taught in school. So that compassion would be taught in schools to children. And, uh, also the ideal of secular multi-religious society that was founded by the, like on the narrow in these people and to heal the religious divisions, that there are existing in India today.
Speaker 1 00:11:55 Cause it's an ancient, melting pot. And all of these things have become more mainstream in India offering a service that the Buddhist community did offer in a major way in India for 15, 1600 years from the time of the Buddha and the same wishes, the same time as the punish Arctic time are connected with things like the downtown yoga and things like that, but reinforcing them against the sort of Anglicised thing. So that's his fourth aim in life and that's the aim of Archer yoga. So then the main question that is always there in people's minds as well, we're looking at the Bhagavad Gita, which we expect to look at because that's India, that's Hindu. And then we, when we suddenly see this book by Shanti Deva by a great eighth century, Indian poet and Yogi and enlightened city, a no see, or Rishi, really a classical Indian Rishi, I was Shanti Deva, who he took the name of Shanti Deva, which means in Sanskrit the God of peace Shanti Deva, because he wanted people to feel peaceful just from hearing the name, that there is such a thing as the God of peace before that he was known as booster cool.
Speaker 1 00:13:08 One who eats, sleeps and goes to the bathroom. That was his nickname in the college in the university because he slept in classes. He would fall asleep in classes and they thought that's because he was a dropout and lazy. And just like, I don't even remember, but actually it was because he was studying all night and meditating that he would be sleepy in that time. It turned out, you know, I mean the famous story of how he wrote that, that book, it was his final exams, a guy to the post-op was his final exam because they were trying to kick him out of their university booster. Cool. They called him post to cool pool means to eat and Sue Mr. Sleep and cool means go to the bathroom. So, uh, and then the, the, we have that, I may have the Gita well, but, but the Sanskrit, the, the, the guides about some of the way of life, it's also in Sanskrit, it's also Indian.
Speaker 1 00:14:04 It's also mainstream India. It's really famous in India has always been Sanskrit. It's still there just as a work of poetry, it's considered really famous. And it's a very similar, um, type of metrical Sanskrit portrait as is the Gita. And in fact, the later renditions of the guitar that have come down to us or constantly edited and transforming the way Indian literature was different generations would change texts and things and bring them up to date, you know, because they didn't have printing. They didn't have, they didn't have a long-term way of preserving texts usually, and the variable moist and hot climate, you know? And so, um, so the big question is what, how do these two connect? And that's a big, that's a big question for me too. And, um, people used to think, well, the Buddhists have no cells and the Hindus have a self that was sort of the obvious, simplistic things seemingly, and you had houses simple as that.
Speaker 1 00:15:02 What is your self? You're a part of my automa, your Supreme self. It does your Supreme self. The one that is eating the burgers or the vegetarian food, or the drinking tea is Supreme, self drinking tea mama. Some himself is like this consciousness of God, it's his tea drinking a solution and a bit on tired. Okay. You and Brahma don't need tea. You are all tea. You know, it would be on your like body of Brahma is your body, your Supreme health. So it's not quite your normal sense of self to Supreme salad. So, so the Buddhist simply emphasize that tact, you know, the Punisher shots have net now, it's he not at T Nati? No, no, no. You know, when, uh, when, uh, I think is talking to Andrea, is it, uh, they got Indra was saying, well, I am the king of the gods and I'm this and I'm that.
Speaker 1 00:15:56 And then he's going, nah, nah, nah, that's the nitty Nettie. Not it's he it's, he just means quote, you know, no quote, quote, no on the code code. No on could not, it's not, it did not it. And then it becomes, eh, neti neti. So, so the Buddhists call it the Supreme self of selflessness. So what's the big deal. What's the problem, you know, and the Supreme self, of course, God is all compassionate to all beings cares for all beings, Krishna Krishna, Kate loves you, right? That's that, although there's two creeks, that's kind of really the crease of the, of the Mahabharata, which purports to be a moment in the Mahabharata. It's like a long moment at the brink of a war where, you know, uh, our is questioning, should he really do this war? Should he pressed a button? You know, should he draw his know and shoot his teacher, shoot his cousins and so on.
Speaker 1 00:17:01 And, uh, unleashes are a powerful arrows, you know, and then the lover loving Christina shows himself as the destroyer, my hot call, like great time to finally convince him that the killing process, which nobody, no ethic, no Hindu ethic, nobody I think is in favor of killing. But the killing process has, uh, has some illusory quality to it and God takes responsibility for it. And he shows himself as time swallowing all things. It was a great vision that Christian didn't give us that terrifying vision to, to arginine in the middle of the Gita, no shows time, uh, the destructiveness of time and its impermanence. And it's bringing the forth death, right, as a giant monster with many miles swallowing, all the people who are dying in the war, you know, so read devour of worlds. He shows himself as like, uh, what say, you know, later on in Hinduism, they associate shiver with that function.
Speaker 1 00:18:04 But Krishna shows himself like that in the guitar. And then in the bark of a tem. And even later in something like the Gita go into my favorite, they show him as a lover and Barkley of course is the odor to Krishna the lover who loves each individual beings. So it's a loving God is not a fierce and demanding and threatening God is that Krishna really is type of thing is where it comes down in tape. So the Gita is this wonderful, brilliant work where the three, three yogurts are taught and, um, the first year is called karma yoga. And that's the one that Krishna is enforcing, probably having Argenta do his cast duty is karma is action and do is cast Gigi as a warrior of fighting for the righteousness to preserve the cast, to preserve his family, reserves the society. Although interestingly, if you know the whole story of the Mahabharata, which I imagine many of you do, at least in some form, it ends up where everybody loses and it's considered the onset of color yoga.
Speaker 1 00:19:21 The dark age, the Mahabharata war starts out. It starts out with an inter family fight where one faction of the family wants to throne and the power and so forth. And they dishonor the five Pandava brothers who are the good guys and, um, who, um, by there was there five of them married to one woman polyandrous situation. They're like in Tibet culture where it should, the one drop a D is married to five brothers, your dish that are Jenna Bema and et cetera for forgot ask too. But I would just hide them but then maybe there's two more. And so it starts out in that fight and then it becomes a whole nationwide fight. You know, all the people of India Mahabharata time and for them, that's the world. And, uh, and then, uh, begins to dark age, you know? And, uh, and then the winners of the war are the good guys, but then the bad guys, a few of them survive the destruction and sneak into the camp of the good guys who are celebrating victory and kill all their children.
Speaker 1 00:20:34 So in fact, they lose too. And, um, and in the end, the, the, the king who righteous king, additionally, you know, he goes off to, he gives up and goes off to heaven with his dog, and then they don't let him want to let him into heaven because he can't bring his dog. So he doesn't even go there. She loves his dog, which is one of the wonderful things in an Indian story. I love that. Or either, maybe it takes the dog with them. They've heard the dog turns out to be Yama. And the legend is the Lord of death, the Lord of the underworld. So, so, uh, so th that's the overall Mohab or framework like the overall idiot, idiot, Elliot and Odyssey thing. And since everybody gets destroyed, you know, the winners, their children get destroyed. So in a way, the overall, the short parts of the effort glorify the warriors, but the overall thing of the epic is part of an era where the warrior ethic is, is a, is this is rejected.
Speaker 1 00:21:34 So karma yoga in a way was kind of rejected in Buddha's time and an punish Hadik time when they said that they, you know, violence bad on India, woke up to the great teaching of nonviolence, both on whether Buddhist or Hindu or Jain or whatever it is. Non-violence became like a major central core of Indian civilization, why it must became, so civilized was precisely non-violence, that's what differentiated it from almost all of them cultures of the world at that time. Was that him side? Yeah. So which Gandhi ran on, you could say later in confronting the British. And so it still exists terror in the midst of their westernization and militarization of their society and persistence of the caste system as well.
Speaker 1 00:22:27 Okay. So that's the karma yoga, and that is in a way, the bottom line, one of the bottom lines in the white guitar. And that line would be somewhat contradicted by Shanti Deva in the sense that he, he and his sixth chapter, he talks about the conquest of anger in order to develop the transcendent virtue of patience or tolerance and not react to injury. In other words, with angry action or angry mind, and action means also your mental action, angry speech, but to use the injury as an opportunity to develop your patience and tolerance and your self transcending ability. And, um, and there, he says, well, one way it is okay if you, you know, one way, when you have an enemy, you fight and you conquer your enemy, that's considered a good thing in the world, but in a way, in a larger reality, it isn't because that being then gets reborn and comes back after you.
Speaker 1 00:23:45 And so violence is an endless cycle vicious circle cycle. So it gives that level of kind of teaching and much better. It is to use your injury and look at why did we have that conflict and be the one to put an end to all conflict yourself. And that's a root path to heaven. You know, that's the path to not only to enlightenment it also to heaven, to improving your worldly situation as well. Patients being the great skillful, transcendent virtue that it is. So in a way, he gives a little bit of a corrective to that line in the Gita, but then the Gita has that other line too, which is also gives us corrective to itself in one way, because it has the second bottom line. And that is what's called Nana yoga or wisdom yoga. And there, the idea is common to all the Indian traditions, that if you look at the nature of life and the world in a scientific way, with a view to seeing its true nature and true reality, don't accept it superficial reality as unless you can verify it, but to like a scientist, examine it, to verify it.
Speaker 1 00:24:57 And then when you do that, you Pierce through its superficial illusory surface, and you go to the depths of it. And in the depth of it, you find freedom. You find Moksha, you find release liberation and that liberation, then it's really the victory of the battle. That's the battle over any to any kind of conflict, but then yourself or outside yourself. It's a, it's a realization that reality offers the opportunity of liberation from suffering. That's Moksha. That's the fourth aim of life in Hinduism, of course, that's Nirvana and the total aim of life and the Buddhist and Jane traditions, but, and some of the other ones that, that are not prominent, we don't remember. And, um, so that's not a yoga and that's fully taught by Krishna. Also, although it underway, it contradicts the karma yoga. So our journal in a way uses that to say, well, why should I kill these people?
Speaker 1 00:25:55 You know, there's a higher reality than just they did something bad, but killing is bad and I'm not going to go down to their level. And so, uh, that also that's that conflict or that tension, let's say that the paradox is right there within the Gita. In other words, you have Yana yoga and he teaches the power and the importance of Yana yoga. So you have Karmiel garden Yani over then. How does Krishna resolve that paradox? He takes, he does. He takes full responsibility for everything he says, I'm it, I'm all in hall. I'm everything. I'm everywhere I am in everyone. I am everyone I'm in their suffering and I'm in their liberation from et cetera. So somehow he, he, his will God's will his rod right hand. And then therefore the third yoga, this is the special yoga of personnel of the Gita, which is in a way very interesting.
Speaker 1 00:27:03 This is contradicting the Vedas because, you know, therefore the Vedas to not have a monotheistic attitude, they do have Indra's the king of the gods to whom shakra Indra, whose one offers. They do have Brahma as the power of the ritual. And Brahma means a power of life force and the force of mantra and the force of the ritual, the sacrifice to the gods in plural. But there is no one God to be devoted to. And, and in fact, the relationship in the Vedas is not so sort of the primal level, Indian religion is either karma or it's karma, yoga really, and karma can also mean a ritual act. That's actually the primary meaning is of causality of ritual, sacrifice your sacrifice to the gods. And then the gods give back to you prosperity or victory or health or whatever you want from the gods.
Speaker 1 00:27:59 This is the idea, and you don't sacrifice them. And the gods don't give you what you need. So the causality of fulfilling your destiny in a positive way, it's where the word in through ritual action is what karma yoga comes from. And that's what karma yoga is that original Vedic layer then Yana yoga is still punish addict layer, which is challenging the efficacy of that causal layer and saying, there's a knowledge than an inner sacrifice of a knowledge of the good sacrifice. If your ignorance sacrifice degree egotism. And through that inner sacrifice, you contain release, which is a higher fruit, then either wealth or health or victory or fame or whatever status or whatever it is that you might want in worldly sense. And that is the Yana yoga, and that's the next layer. And that's where Brahma becomes powerful primer because Brahma meant in the Veda, the force of the ritual, it's like cosmic force creative force of the ritual because the ritual control, even the gods, as well as the humans in the early Vedic karma yoga thing.
Speaker 1 00:29:09 Okay. So, so then God takes one more step. And he says, I'm old at all. I'm older gods, I'm older, the rituals, I'm all the karma, I'm all the knowledge or so. And so the way that the highest way of all his dedication and devotion to me, buck tea, and that's back to yoga. And this back day means in a way, become selfless through devotion. You know, you will give you a melt yourself into the depth, into what you're devoted to, into your object of devotion. You melt yourself into God, you become your soul, becomes the partner, the mate, the consort of God, you know, and the whole Loverboy imagery of the back of our tongue, your soul becomes a Gopi. The cow herd is, you know, a female cow milkmaid who just is in love with the, with the, with Krishna. And he responds equally to all of them in the famous rasa, Lila, where he multiplies his body.
Speaker 1 00:30:16 And he becomes the lover of everyone who opens their soul to him, something like that. So that's a buck teeth, that's a model of the buck team. Okay. So, uh, but where does that notion that how did Cristina change from being the fairy fierce destroyer in the Bhagavad Gita and urging back the old Vedic karma yoga. We were a chat trail. That's a warrior class. You have to fight that's your job. He was right. Nevermind the result. You just do it. Cause it's your duty as prescribed in the Vedas then, well, are you later, maybe you can drop out and get your piano and get mugshot. But then in a way that the five brothers who win the battle, they don't actually get mugshot particularly. And, uh, but anyway, it's sort of there, it's a, it's a promise of it is there. They will get it.
Speaker 1 00:31:13 Is that a way? And that biomedical thing, it's really the Brahmin who can mainly only get mugshot XLT. I should just take care of the kingdom. You know, cause the Brahmans are always kind of trying to claim they're the top cast in society. They are the intellectual cast, but in social fact of the Kings higher, the Brahmans, you know, the Kings are like the board of trustees and the Brahmans are the faculty. The faculty may think they're higher than the board of trustees, but the board of trustees hire them and fire them, unfortunately. So they are actually in control of the society when there's violence, when violence is the source of power, then the warrior class has the control.
Speaker 1 00:31:58 So, uh, so that's the third one is Bhakti, right? And, but then back to he puts in, in the bok Tito's, there is a Moksha element of the Yana yoga, because you say you, you, you are devoted, but you don't hope for any fruit from what you do. So they put a mugshot element into the karma yoga because you do your act without caring what the result is. You don't expect any results, you just do it because it's your duty is like cons categorical imperative and ethics. You're just do, what is your duty? You don't think about, it's not utilitarian. You don't think about the reward you're going to get. Okay. Then, uh, so that's an element that you're liberated even in doing it because you're sort of interesting that the people who prescribed the duty are going to take care of you. That's how let's say it like that.
Speaker 1 00:32:54 Then in Yana, yoga, Moksha part, you only get Moksha from hearing the sacred word from the Gudo from God, you know, Tut tem, a Z sort of God gives you the word that you same as God. And when you hear that with a certain complete faith and receptivity, that's the way Bhakti, Bhakti resolves that problem. That's how you achieve it in a way in, but until you don't really achieve freedom, you know, by reason actually, although they don't tell you, it's very rationalistic and Shankara was great philosopher, but ultimately the philosophy is that you just hear tucked on a Z or hambre. Moe has me, uh, all of those famous, great Mojave accounts where they all the great expressions, they're great words. And you just hear it. It's the surety is the hearing. And somehow when you hear it, it just goes right through you and the word itself, the logos lifts you into oneness drama, it's unreasonable, but you make that leap of faith.
Speaker 1 00:34:04 So in a way that in a way that gets us message, maybe is that the same as the Brahma Sutra is that it is still kind of faith. When you're just here, you hear the word of God and then the word of God becomes you and God and you, and you experience your oneness with God or you become God. And that of course is special Indian thing, Westerners that kill you. As you say, Sophie's and Christian mystics, who said that would get executed. Probably the authority was they wouldn't want them to get out of the karma yoga in the west and in China. So, but it's special Indian advanced vision that is so a greatness of Indian civilization. So, um, so that's the Gita and then we turn, so, so then what is the, so what is Shanti Davis talking about? Okay.
Speaker 1 00:35:00 On Shante David's side, he begins with love is the power also. And, but, and love is can be erotic and can be reciprocated. People can be in love, but true love is only the wish for the happiness of the beloved. So, and that is these strongest force. That is this that's what makes Buddhas participate in reality and Buddhas vision and announcement in the four noble truths. Nirvana is that that happiness is the destiny and the reality of things. So in a way there's agreement, you know, there's a famous, such it Ananda being awareness, joy, such a down under being awareness bliss, that is the Nirvana vision, but to get there, how do you, how do you, where is the critique through an association, the tapas, you know, the burning away of that, which prevents you from realizing being awareness place, then different ones have their different methods. And within both put aside and so-called Hindu side and so-called Buddhist side, they have, there are many varieties of differences within each side. It's not like they all have just one way. So,
Speaker 1 00:36:42 Uh, so, but to Shanti Deva, there is a moment in the sort of Bhakti, Andreesen and karma, all three, if we, if we sort of try to look at the interviews of guide to the boat itself, that way of life, and I go by detail, we can bridge the differences in the role of this sort of ultimate power of it, you know, Krishna as God, you know, in that chapter of the Gita. I think 24, neurotics sorry. I'm sorry. I meant to bring the book, but tell me your circumstances this morning. Um, I think it is where he says, I am everything. I am the, this cows and that cast and the other cast and I'm the whole of the world. And I'm I'm you and you are all in me and everything, you know, it's, it's all right, because it's all me and I am pure God, you know, I am pure divine power.
Speaker 1 00:37:47 And only here for everybody, you know, sort of thing, kind of bridging over towards the loving Krishna. He says, after this is after he's got an hour agenda to follow his duty and do it however, in a car and a Yana yoga Moksha type of way, by not seeking, worrying about the result, not expecting reward, um, which is the nano yoga sort of level. Then he, then the Barclay level is because everything is, is for me. So everything is a sacrifice to me. It's what you would give yourself to me. Of course, I am you, if that's your way of unifying with me in other words sort of thing. And he, he totally wonderfully brings everything together like that. Um, he guarantee is the freedom from, he was a shot. You could say of the dev team, if they can reach total devotion and all the great Krista back to schools kind of have uphold that idea.
Speaker 1 00:38:49 I remember my friend jammed us, who was from the volleyball, Western, Western Indian, uh, Jaipur and, uh, um, in, um, uh, uh, Jaipur level and Myra Australia level of, um, uh, Roger Simon and my Rashad level of, of, uh, bark team. And they, their, their, their idea that the Shankar wasn't nondual enough and that by pure devotion, you are that's Nirvana. You know, when your devotion is total, you are in Krishna's Nirvana, you know, Krishna Krishna's paradise here, everything, you, you increase the R one sort of thing already, and that already has happened and Bhakti is just acknowledging their reality. So they're unifying very powerfully in that way. No Mila and Baba, the leader of that coming from Balaban Sharia, I particularly liked that group cause I loved sham does. And in the case of Shante, David, he says that Buddha, he defines this as a Buddha is a being like a God. Um, in that he, his body is all reality. So that means you are Buddha that same oneness with Buddha as the dharmakaya and Dharma there means reality itself. It doesn't just mean teaching doesn't mean duty doesn't mean religion or has other layers of meaning and Dharma, but Dharma or highest meaning is the new reality itself, which Buddha announced from this very beginning as is Nirvana. That is what reality is. And that is Buddha's body and Buddha's body is everything.
Speaker 1 00:40:45 So that level in Krishna and the Gita and that level of the dharmakaya sort of ultimate reality teaching in Shanti Deva, and then Buddhism is same thing. There's really is not a difference. It's just a matter of, I don't feel like that. I don't feel like I'm Krista. I don't feel like I'm Buddha. I feel like I'd like to be one or in the case of a Bhakti person. I feel I'd like to feel one with Chris and I'd like to feel his presence. You know, I like to be one with him. I like him to take the world and take me in my soul Laden in himself and cherish it the way I cherish him. But I don't have any expectation of that. I just want to give myself to him. That's all. And I'm trusting his love in me that he will accept me sort of thing, but I don't even wish for that acceptance.
Speaker 1 00:41:38 Cause all I want to do is just to give myself 10 it's like a complete self-transcendence actually. And, and uh, since Buddha is defined as a being who is only embodied as a outer compassion for other beings, because he is one with the reality that he sees his a hundred percent freedom, a hundred percent bliss, Satchidananda being awareness, joy or Sukar island. I know that's her joy or bless her ecstasy or whatever you want to call them depending on different levels of them. And um, uh, so I'd love to feel like that, right? That's the, it's the bark, the Waller once and the bodhisattva path practitioner who lives the bodhisattva path life after life. That's what they want to be one with Buena. Now the one difference. So if, if Krishna is everything and everything, so everything is already Chris now, right? So there, so it's already happened.
Speaker 1 00:42:49 So one devotion is simply aligning oneself with the reality of what is the true reality, which is there on the presence, on the pretense, on the whatever I've preached now, right? So on the other hand Krishna, and th then, then you look back at the vision that he shows to get our journal, to do his karma yoga. He shows himself destroying everyone as do great death, great time, great death. He destroys himself as a super killer armies are marching into his mouth and he's devouring them as his fangs and blood is flowing. It's swallowing it all. So it's completely time the destroyer. So, and yet he is all of them. So is he destroying himself or is he showing violent people that their violence is fails because they all get destroyed and yet, so in a way he's challenged, he ordered it to be what Adrina thinks he is so that a dimension of our journey as being as a warrior, if seen as some sort of separate identity is being swallowed up into destruction, even though he seems to win the battle.
Speaker 1 00:44:12 He's also part of one of the armors that marches into the mouth of time because he grows old and dies. Okay. But there is no death. If everything is Christina, there's just being one with Christina. Have you approached it fiercely? It seems to swallow you in destruction. If you post it, it comes through as a lover. But in fact, both coming, the fact of it not being used, that you being separate from it is ignorance and that your oneness with it is same. Whether it seems to be swallowing your ferocity by ferocity or swollen your, your affection by affection, sinusitis, or Eros, whichever one either, you know, the God of death, the God of Eros of love either one same.
Speaker 1 00:45:05 So there's the losery element is both places. And the oneness element is same in both. So, so that's, that's, that's it, they are the same. Now, what is the benefit? What is the benefit of having the difference? Why doesn't Buddha just say our big reach now. And actually after Buddhism left India, they came up with the idea that was Krishna is the ninth avatar of Krishna. And he proceeds an avatar that then unfortunately the 10th one root chakra is, uh, destroys the demons. So there's a violent aspect and the 10th one again, supposedly. So, so they're in a way that, that sort of after Buddhism left India, because it's seemed to leave India because it's a it's main university educational institutions and it's sort of casts, transcending institutions. It's the gala Laterion institutions against the caste system had been destroyed by the Muslims and Muslim conquest of India.
Speaker 1 00:46:29 They burned down everything, but, but actually as that's being revealed lately in the yoga world, the sit-down level, they did not just destroy it on the contrary. So the great tantric adept, the vagina, yoga people they've survived on this. Uh, James Mallinson is teaching this wonderful course that just taught a wonderful course in publishing a wonderful book. Still I think not completed, uh, about was something called the emergent city, which is the achievement of the deathless elixir. That's her name, title. And that was translated into Tibetan is written by a Buddhist Siddha. But the up once you were a great adept, you were aware of the oneness of reality of the non-duality of reality. You were not really a Buddhist or, or, or a bison of this storage, high vide or whatever. You're not, you're just a enlightened being and the different institutions and the different relational identities are, have their use and they have their problems as well. As in the case of all relational things of all relations, it would have just been in the holidays with a Hanukkah and Christmas and Kwanza, whatever different holidays, however, we celebrate them. And then new Roman new year out of the many new years that are now drifting around our society, Jewish new year, Roman new year Tibetan new year, Chinese new year, I think it might be a few more, but those are the main ones.
Speaker 1 00:48:12 And so that's the interconnection. I have been reading lately, a lot of this all the time, second Sutra and the Avatamsaka Sutra, this what they call the inter fusion of things, you know, they're they're, they have the three levels. And the other times you can Sutra according to the Chinese commentaries. And one is the level of the non-duality or the level of practice where you focus all the time on emptiness, on Moksha, on freedom, on transcendence. And you see through the world kind of, you know, you, you're just, you're, you're imagining that the state of freedom or the state of godhood Brahma Brahma your state of Nirvana or Brahma either Brahma, Nirvana, or just Nirvana, Nirvana, new Rhoda is something apart from life. But because you want to know, but it's more real life has an illusory quality because this is the greater reality. And in this reality, there's no suffering and there are no clear shots. There was no addictions addictive notions or emotions. And so you want that. And that's a certain level of the path, renouncing your possession of the world, all of them have. And, um, and you, you seek that
Speaker 1 00:49:43 And you find it, but then when you find it and you can find it as Supreme self, as one knows with Brahma, and then you find it as, uh, as, um, a kind of separate Nirvana, dualistic, Nirvana, where you in a place, apart from any differentiation, it's all one. And there was no perception of differentiation. It's like empty space, you're in this space, but then primer, somehow dreams, reality of relative reality. He dreamed up the being, he dreamed you up before you realized your oneness with him, and then you were one with him and do you continue to dream becomes an issue or the radon tests. And it becomes an issue for those, for the R hat, the one who overcomes the enemy of their ignorance and who reaches neuro dot , then what, then they reached out to the Virginia. Rhoda is Dharma MIGA, and of the yoga Sutra that you reached the raincloud of the Dharma.
Speaker 1 00:50:51 You become a cloud of Dharma. That means you teach you a cloud of teaching cloud of spreading reality, Sheri reality. Anyway, the first step is where you look at true emptiness and this timestamp, and then you escape from any kind of, you go into a sort of formless state. And in Finland, you feel it, you feel one with infinity and then you're as if it was a place you reach, but then as it's infinite, your awareness fields, it, and then it all seems like everything is nothing. And then finally you go beyond existing or not existing here in some extremely subtle state of disappearance, even the dead, but then the disappearance disappears and then we're arguing.
Speaker 1 00:51:52 So then where you are is the non-duality of ultimate and relative realities, what they call in Chinese, Leasher who I mutual non obstruction of principle and phenomenon. So now you're back into, you know, sure. Yoga or meditating and your head reach this thing where you would reach total space and total formlessness, but then you go beyond being in other way, in a way, your total freedom, but in a way you kind of don't exist in that total freedom. Uh, so then the question becomes for you, can you be free of the freedom or is the freedom a new place you're trapped in? That's a question. And, but at the time you don't have the faculties to reason or to think, or you don't have a sense of a body. You don't have a sense of language. So it's just a kind of orientation toward verifying yourself.
Speaker 1 00:52:53 You could say, you've lost yourself. And then you want to verify yourself as lost. Here's the verifying, you know, drive so powerful. And so when you're do you realize that freedom is free and then the illusory person who was looking for that, and also the freedom was primal. You realize that it's always been there. And so then the illusory person is not excluded from that, that, that discovered that that was in the body, that meditated, that achieved that overwhelming sense of reality. And then the issue is, so then in the middle of this space, suddenly you find your illusory self, but now you're sort of there and not there at the same time.
Speaker 1 00:53:44 Okay. Post Samadi post Turia. They have a concept of post-surgery. They don't know if I emphasize it because they're seeking the, uh, you know, they're, they're, they're, they're coveting, they're desiring the state of freedom so that when the, and that desire is what develops people's spiritual effort. But then, uh, it's there though, and it's acknowledged on both sides, both Hindu and Buddhist sides. And so then, then you get into this miraculous stage, what the Chinese call. Sure. Well, I, it's a mutual knowledge destruction of phenomenon and phenomenon. That is the miraculous level where everything contains everything else. And that's where you can really kind of be, be Krishna B one. That's where you write your to Kate, I guess that's where you ride your Kito. Hinda that's where you dance with Krista on the banks of the Yamuna. And, uh, you, you enjoy the play of Christina as a Lila. That's the whole area of Lily. Okay. So, so that's, uh, that's it, that's the main thing. Oh my God. How, how can time when you get old, you don't have to attain enlightenment. You just have to get old. And then when your due time becomes irrelevant, how was that an hour?
Speaker 2 00:55:46 This episode of the Bob Thurman podcast is brought to you in part Tibet, house, us men, online, and to enjoy the full recording and video retreat of this podcast, please visit menlo.org and their online sections or Bob thurman.com. The online retreat is now available to enjoy from anywhere, anytime via teachable.com. Thanks for tuning in and Tashi.
