Leading Dialogues
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Leading Dialogues
International Women's Day Podcast - Part 2
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Swami Purnananda in discussion with Sharanya Bharathwaj
One habit women should drop immediately for inner peace.
SPEAKER_00Criticism.
SPEAKER_01Criticism?
SPEAKER_00Self-criticism and criticism of others.
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00But that's wide range for every human. So, you know.
SPEAKER_01So you feel women criticize more than men?
SPEAKER_00No, I think no, but I think if there is a culture whereby women are made to feel somehow inferior, and I'm talking more so in terms of uh developing countries, you know, or you know, Africa and so on and so forth, where women could be viewed as second-class citizens, you know, for some reason or others, somehow inferior.
SPEAKER_01Um, many women uh today struggle with balancing career, family, and their inner growth. How can spirituality guide them?
SPEAKER_00Well, uh you see, it's not just women uh because uh we have to take that away because there's a general human problem.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but since we're talking about women's terrorists, sure, sure.
SPEAKER_00So uh, but the answer would be the same. Even if you ask me about men, the answer would have to be the same.
SPEAKER_01But men seldom manage home.
SPEAKER_00Yes, but ladies do that as an additional uh yes, but we all have to manage day-to-day working, waking life, whether it's uh domestic, whether it's the workplace, whether it's a combination of the two, life is life and requires uh is a demanding thing. It requires us to address day-to-day issues, uh, which are essential essentially uh human issues to do with such basic things as survival. If you think that we are so far removed from the animal in the wild, well, yes, we're much more sophisticated, but the basic requirement for food is still there. And our sophisticated way of handling it is to develop a job or a career or something like that. So now, what is uh spiritual life and how would we begin? Supposing you are uh a person, a woman looking after house and home, even that much, even though that's a kind of classical, or try to do that and do work, you know, try to handle everything, uh, and much more demands because typically and unfortunately, um where there's no shared responsibility, uh a woman could go to work, come back, uh, collect children, and then do cooking, and then cleaning, and then homework, and all kinds of things, you see. And uh so uh the difficulty is the same difficulty that has always been there, and that is to handle life and yet at the same time have some kind of spiritual direction, because there's a false line between secular and spirit. So that false line is there, if I'm somebody who has a job and looking after and all the things I'm describing, well then that's their spiritual life. Like how they say work is worship. Yes, yes. So if I'm a military person, then my spiritual path is to be a soldier. If I'm an accountant, my spiritual life is to be an accountant. If I'm a housewife, my spiritual life is to be a housewife. If I'm a student, my spiritual life is to study well.
SPEAKER_01That's the prescribed duty mentioned in the Gita as well.
SPEAKER_00Yes, yes, yes, for those who don't know what that is, Google is there again. So uh so yes, the the whole idea of that is you're in a situation and you have to learn to transform that situation into something that is elevating and something that is useful and something that is liberating. So we have the capacity to transform discord into harmony. And where do we start? Well, where we are, whatever our occupation is. The work and worship are just two different words for the same thing.
SPEAKER_01Beautiful, Samiji. Yeah, that's wonderful. On a lighter note, people think you know, work you work hard and you should then shop. That's a workshop.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So yeah, Swami, one more uh thing I just wanted to ask you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah. I'm gonna have to ask you some questions too, but anyway, go on.
SPEAKER_01I think people will be interested to listen to you, Swamiji. So, how can women protect their mental and emotional well-being in this fast-paced world?
SPEAKER_00Well, by allocating time for themselves, work-life balance is all around for everybody. Uh, and I think since COVID, uh anybody uh has had to work a little harder. I know in business life, if you ask people involved in that, they'll say that the alternative to not working longer hours would be to have no job. And so many companies can take advantage of that kind of thing. So there has to be a period of time where there is time out for everybody. Um you know, big one of the big contemporary topics would be AI. And the advantage of AI might well be, if used or handled well, to create much more leisure time. But then leisure time, you have two broad avenues. You can either be lazy and say, okay, let me relax to the point of sleeping, or it could be something that stimulates creativity, exploration. And what we call spiritual life is exploration really of what is the deepest level. Below the surface, when you talk about all this busyness in life, we're simply talking about the surface, comparable to the surface of an ocean. But deeper down, it's all calm and quiet and peaceful. It's the ocean. And there's only one ocean and many, many waves. So getting to that unity, we all need time to get to that unity. That means then that there has to be time for sitting quietly and meditating, whatever that means to you, andor worshipping, whatever that means to you. If you don't believe in God, it's okay, just the sitting for meditation. Um, and uh then there has to be time whereby we take the raw material of the day, whatever it is, and learn to take that as raw material to transform into harmony, in harmony of mind. And so it's a bit like uh a rose flower, beautiful and fragrant, but its raw material is compost. Okay. So um we have to take all the compost.
SPEAKER_01We say you have to get to the source. Is that your thing?
SPEAKER_00Yes, that would be the source, you see, because we are we are we are not purely psychophysical.
SPEAKER_01This reminds me of your oaths that you know about.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. For those who don't know, you see how to have an outlook whereby we're not highlighting the negative all the time. We have to highlight the positive because whatever we highlight or whatever we're used to or whatever we repeat habitually goes into a kind of library called the unconscious mind. And that becomes the habit level. So if we're habitually depressed, then our nature will be one of depression. Um so all of us will experience from time to time elements of depression or elements of negativity and so on. And the art of guiding thought really is to use the time that comes in in uh units, like trains arriving, you know, and then to see okay, what is the content of it and is it good for us? And if we decide it's not good for us, then we can see that the next second or the next second or the next minute is available. Observing the things that we normally take for granted. A blade of grass is not just a casual thing which is green and we bypass it. Actually, there's an element of observation which only a specialist in grass would know. Or if you go out uh for a nature work with uh with um a person keen on bird watching, and the bird watcher will say, Oh, did you hear that? Uh that's and he'll identify the bird. Yes, yes, but you'd have no idea about birds, and you didn't even hear it. And so uh you have to have the same kind of keen observation of the specialist like that, because that gives you an element of deeper appreciation, and appreciation gives you a kind of internal feeling of gratitude, thankfulness. So to observe, to appreciate, and give thanks. And the more we do that, the more we are able to reform and elevate the habit level and all systems which are designed for this what we might call self-discovery, whether we call it religion or otherwise, religion to us is realization of the fundamental truth of who we are. And so, if that's the case, uh what does it depend on? How will we get that? We'll get that by removing all the obstacle areas for us doubt, fear, um, uh temptation.
SPEAKER_03Yes.
SPEAKER_00Temptation meaning I see something, I take it at face value, and I feel there's a gap in me that can be filled from outside, and it doesn't fill me, so I do it again. And that's a repeated thing, and I get into the habit of doing that. And it's extreme, it's called addiction. So, how do you solve addiction by creating a counteraddiction? And so different systems have a different way of doing that. We won't go into that, but uh, different systems have a different way of doing it, and all are correct. So it's a bit like we have to take, you have to reform the unconscious area, and you cannot do directly, you have to do it through the conscious mind, through your daily daily experience. So, for some people, washing dishes is an arduous task, for others, it's a delightful occupation using energy which is not really technically theirs, okay? Yeah, at its at its most basic, we're all running on solar energy, it's nothing to do with us, really. Without the sun, we don't have anything. So, and yet we're we become entitled generously to believe that it is our personal energy, and nobody's out. We create a kind of border around us and say, that's my that's my territory. I'm tired. Nobody else is tired. See?
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So that kind of thing, yeah. Um, so I don't know what was your question, but anyway, there it is. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yes, for me.
SPEAKER_00We should try and finish off shortly, probably.
SPEAKER_01Yes, I mean.
SPEAKER_00Because time is running out now.
SPEAKER_01What is one inner quality?
SPEAKER_00Inequality.
SPEAKER_01Women should trust more in themselves.
SPEAKER_00Yes. In their womanhood.
SPEAKER_01Okay, can you elaborate on that, Swamiji?
SPEAKER_00No, you're a woman, you elaborate.
SPEAKER_01Um, you mean the inner instinct that women normally have? Is that the one you're referring to?
SPEAKER_00Or I mean that that um uh if you ask if you ask uh a man, maybe they would answer manhood. And what does that mean? That means there are qualities traditionally associated with men, such as physical strength, for example. Um, in this day of ultra equality, then that could be contested, of course. But uh because women have a different kind of strength, you know, not necessarily inherently a physical strength, but there's no man that has the, well, even physical, there's no man that has the physical uh the physical fortitude uh to give birth that I know of. You know, most men that I would uh speak to uh don't really want to go through childbirth. Or the menstrual pain. Or the menstrual pain, yeah. Uh good example, or any of those kinds of things. Yeah, true, true, true. And and and not only that, but also the the change of life, you know, where um hormonal changes take place, you know, and that means uh we have to cope for with different moods and so things, yeah. See now there there might be an argument to say, well, men are going through something similar, change of life, but I don't know if that's really well established. But certainly women are going through the uh menopause.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. There is a there's men in menopause.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, for men it's all on pause, you know. So uh so that's it. So there is a great, great inner strength that women have, uh which which which men don't have in that same way. And I don't think we can dispute that really. So to assert the value of who you are, whatever you are, uh, and uh use that, make it useful because it's there for a reason, it's there to be used. We have to get used to the idea that that what we call body and mind is and the combination that we call a person is actually not an identity, it's an instrumentality. We have an instrument of call the body, we have an instrument called the mind. As soon as we understand that, a lot of problems get solved.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Swami, um one habit is the last one, probably. One habit women should drop immediately for inner peace.
SPEAKER_00Criticism. Criticism, self-criticism and criticism of others. Yes, but that's wide range for every human. Uh so you know.
SPEAKER_01So you feel women criticize more than men?
SPEAKER_00No, I think no, but I think if there is a culture whereby women are made to feel somehow inferior, and I'm talking more so in terms of uh developing countries, you know, or you know, Africa and so on and so forth, where women could be viewed as second-class citizens, you know, for some reason or other, somehow inferior. There are historical cultures like that. Um so uh if that is the case, then they have to counter that with the self-confidence of who they are and their women equalities. I come back to that. And the um so self-criticism is also criticism.
SPEAKER_01Uh, of course, it's not good to criticize others, but uh the counter-that's why uh there is a constant um even in these days we have a conflict between the mother-in-law and the daughter-in-law.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it should be mother in love instead.
SPEAKER_01Mother in love, yes. Oh, beautiful. Yes, sorry. Yeah, that's nice. That's a nice perspective to say that. Every mother should become, you know, mother, it shouldn't be mother in love.
SPEAKER_00That's it.
SPEAKER_01Always. Yeah. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00But the basis for all of that is uh because because when we use the term love, it's a vacillating thing. It's you know, and the word term love is applied very across the board to anything, you know. Uh somebody says, I I love chocolate. Okay. Are you in love with chocolate? No, no, that's not what I mean. Uh so we use this term quite loosely and generally. So love really, and uh this has been put by Swami Vivan beautifully. He says, See, love has is a triangulated thing, it has three dimensions, as it were, or three um aspects uh that it has no fear, no rival, and no reward. And if we had applied that, yeah, we have we've got what we really call love. Uh genetic love is an easy thing. Uh everybody loves their children and so on and so forth. In fact, um everybody who has uh a child, the child is super special, super intelligent, over and above any other child. Uh but to have that generosity of spirit for all children, see otherwise uh that kind of uh restricted kind of uh love is no better really than any other animal protecting their area and protecting their own loved ones and so on at all costs. That's a motherly instinct too, you know, to protect the young at all costs. You find very rarely, uh very rarely do we find any species, I can't even think offhand of one, that doesn't, where a mother doesn't protect its children or its offspring. Uh fish protect their eggs, uh turtles protect their eggs, uh uh you know, uh gorillas will will fight you to the death to protect their young and so on, you know, it's just how it is. But to have a love which embraces the whole of humanity is something special. And we have the capacity to do that. Historically, we've seen it. We've seen people who have that kind of um altruism, you know, true altruism, with no personal motive involved. We have that capacity. You might say, well, what's the use of it? A better world, better world for yourself, better world for everybody.
SPEAKER_01So this practice of uh embracing everyone, as Dice have, um probably that could be the next step in elevation of spirituality, and through that we see the university.
SPEAKER_00Well, you can do it from uh the bottom to the top, or the top to the bottom, as it were. You can start off by saying the reality is deeply within me, and I discover what that is, or you could say the reality, the absolute, uh transcendent, is outside me, in which case, the one case you'd have to explore the reality or the validity of what we are calling the external world and come to a conclusion that actually there is nothing that meets the criteria of a deeper reality. You can approach it from that point of view. Um and or you can approach it from the human point of view, gradually, bit by bit. Uh people who are um have a devotional attitude and a belief in an and let's say an extra cosmic creator God, that's uh not a bad starting point for them, but it doesn't really address a modern mind which says, well, that's kind of just a belief system. And the beauty about the oriental points of view is it accommodates people who are skeptics and who say, Well, let me get away from belief and let me look at something else. And this is where highest conclusions in our philosophy come to their fore. So you can approach it in many different ways. You can approach it through examining what is the nature of nature itself, that's called modern science. Modern science, therefore, will come to uh yield into metaphysics. Physics will become metaphysics and has and is happening already. Uh and then if you start from the other point of view, metaphysics, you'll discover the physics also.
SPEAKER_01Like you said, the two sides of the coin.
SPEAKER_00Two sides of the same coin, yeah. But it's one coin.
SPEAKER_01Yes, yes, absolutely. It's wonderful so much. Is there anything that you'd like to say for the children who are watching?
SPEAKER_00Well, I don't know if children are allowed to watch this, but anyway. Okay, because it's been an adult conversation. So I would say to um if there are of course children, what range, you know, um, at the by the age of nine, there should be a questioning thing and a sense that and be be helped in that, a sense of. Individuality, whereby the previous childish knowledge would be supplemented by a realization I have to do something for myself. I have to assert my own individuality, ultimately my own spirituality. So, yes. But happy woman's day, Shalana.
SPEAKER_01Thank you so much, Samiji. It was excellent talking to you. Thank you, Samiji. I'm more than blessed to be talking to you on this very special day.
SPEAKER_00All good, all good. All right. Thank you so much for the vast topic which we haven't really come to the end of, but I think it's enough. Time uh doesn't permit otherwise. Thank you. Yes. And thanks to everybody listening.
SPEAKER_01Thank you, everybody.