March 16, 2023 Class Notes by Bhamin Chhatrapati

Introduction & Recap

There was a wise man who lived on the border and he raised horses for a living. One day he lost one of his prized horses. After hearing of the misfortune, his neighbors felt sorry for him and they came to comfort him. They said it is very unfortunate that your horse ran away. The wise man smiled and said “it may be so.” After a while, the last horse returned with another beautiful horse. The wise man now had two horses. The neighbors came over again and this time congratulated the wise man. They shared that this is most fortunate. The wise man simply smiled and said “this may be so.” One day, his son went for a ride on the new horse and his son was violently thrown from the horse and broke his leg. Once again, the neighbors came over and they expressed their condolences. They said this is most unfortunate. The wise man smiled again and said “it may be so.” One week later, the Emperor’s army arrived at the village to recruit able bodied men to fight in the war. Because of the injury to his son, the wise man’s son could not go off to war and he was spared from certain death. Again, the neighbors came and said how fortunate you are. The wise man simply smiled and said “it may be so.” Last week we studied vidhivasatpraptena santusyatam. Vivekji pointed out that when we see our image of Lord Rama or Lord Krishna, although the images themselves are different in many ways, the one thing that was consistent was the smile. Since the Lord is the facilitator, all our experiences (good and bad), are infused with the smile of the Lord. Just like when you take a piece of gold and you can create something out of that gold. You may create a weapon, you may create a tool, you may create an ornament. Regardless of what one decides to create out of that gold, ultimately it’s all the same in its essence. It’s just precious gold! Therefore, just like when I make something from precious gold, anything that I make from precious gold is infused only with gold. Similarly, our entire existence is infused with the smile of the Lord. In both good and bad events, we can learn to see the smile of the Lord.

Secondly, Vivekji also pointed out an important word from chapter 11 of Gita and that word was sthane which means proper, right and everything is in its proper place. It is a message that states the Lord does not make mistakes. Everything that happens we must see that it happened at the proper time and its proper place and in the proper way. Vivekji gave us three lessons to understand/practice sthane. When we work hard, and we get what we want, just as we wanted it, that should teach us to be grateful. When we work hard and get what we want, but we don’t get it at the exact time or in the exact way, that teaches us to be faithful. When we work hard, and what we want does not come to us, that teaches us to be peaceful.

When we go to the temple, we usually get prasadam. Sometimes we get exactly what we were hoping for, for example delicious halwa! Sometimes the pundit or Acharya gives us what we don’t want, for example a fruit we may not like. Sometimes there is no prasadam; for example, at Chinmaya Mission at the end of jnana yagna we do not get prasadam but we get books. In all three situations we must have this attitude that whatever is given to us, we see it as a blessing from the Lord. No matter what we get, we accept with absolute contentment. This attitude of accepting whatever is given to us from the Lord is called prasada buddhi..

The practice that Vivekji gave is to dissect negativity. There’s another story that relates to the practice of dissecting negativity. In a village, there was a very wise woman and people would come to seek guidance from her. More and more people were coming to her complaining about their lives. Some examples of complaints were an individual sharing that the neighbor lady is not cutting grass which resulted in decreasing the value of an individual’s property or a husband stating the wife doesn’t appreciate the food that he cooks. So once, this wise woman sage decided to tell them a joke. Hearing the joke, villagers laughed and then there was a brief silence. Again, the wise woman said the exact same joke and then she herself roared with laughter along with a few more of the villagers.. A few minutes passed, then the sage said the same joke again. This time only she laughed and no one else. Finally, someone spoke up, they shared that it doesn’t make sense to keep laughing at the same joke. The wise woman replied to them if it’s not okay for me to keep laughing at the same joke, then why is it okay for all of us to keep crying about the same problems? Therefore, we must dissect negativity. When I am negative, we shouldn’t add to it. We should understand that negativity is like a fire. It will spread. It will spread to the people around us. It will spread within me and eventually it’ll burn us. So we must learn not to get stuck in this cycle of negativity, as she brilliantly pointed out. We do this by dissecting negativity. We turn around on it and we ask why am I negative? Is there a point to my negativity? Who is this negativity benefiting? So we must at that moment stop and think about the negativity. If you’re experiencing negativity, look within to stop before it goes deeper. Once negativity gets too deep in us, it becomes our blueprint and we don’t want it to get to that point. So once we notice it, right away we want to start dissecting the negativity before it grabs hold of us.

Discourse

Verse 4, Practice 29: sitosnadi Visahyatam

Visahyatam is to endure. “Sit” is cold & “Osna” is heat. “Adi” is other pairs of opposite
This verse is like a critical fine tuning step. Practices 25 to 28 fall under the category of tapah meaning to burn down our comfort zones. These practices we choose to do voluntarily but 29-32 fall under the category of titiksha. Titiksha literally means endurance or forbearance but in our world we call it cheerful acceptance. Cheerful acceptance of all the different circumstances that life serves us. So the question is, why do we have to accept? Well, we have to accept it because we don’t have a choice. Opposites are part of life, part of living. If there was only one situation or one experience for example, heat, then I wouldn’t know what heat is without cold. I wouldn’t know happiness without sadness. So, we need these two to even the experiences. These opposites are necessary to even experience these experiences. So opposites in life are unchangeable facts.

What am I expected to do or what are we expected to do? Endure them.

We need to endure them at three levels. The three levels are body, mind and intellect. The body level examples are heat and cold or hunger and thirst. The mind level example is joy and sorrow. The intellect level example is praise or humiliation. Is there a difference in these levels? In other words, is one level easier than the other? Well, it is said it’s easier at the body level and then it gets tougher. The reason is there’s a relationship between endurance and ego. Where ego is not fully invested, it’s easier to endure. Where ego is fully invested, it’s harder to endure. For example, if it’s snowing, or if it’s too hot, well, the ego understands I can’t control it much. Hence, easier to endure. As we get closer to the mind level, where I perceive joy or sorrow, it gets harder. When it comes to the intellectual level which is thinking of myself (being criticized or praised) then it gets exponentially harder to endure.

Hence endurance is a discipline we must develop to keep the mind calm. Otherwise, what do we do? As soon as we hit an uncomfortable situation, we either resist or react. Both of these take away so much of our time, effort, and resources. It is not worth our time as a seeker. We have higher goals. So our goal is to endure them cheerfully.

Does endure mean I resigned to inaction? No!
What is titiksha? Titiksha is a purposeful action. It is not retaliating or it’s not resisting. And where is this action targeted? I can’t manage the context. What am I targeting this action at? The mind, the content. These should not affect my mind. I have to have the balance of mind. So when I’m faced with choiceless situations, they bring out so many negative emotions from within us: fear, anger, frustration, depression. Bitterness, right? So what is titiksha? Titiksha is actively working on the content, so my mind stays balanced. The sages describe titiksha as willful acceptance. After all, we are not enduring the heat or the cold or the joy or the sorrow. What we are enduring is the condition of our mind: the likes and dislikes of our mind, intrinsically, heat or cold do not have a specific pleasure or sorrow value to it. In summer, cool weather is welcomed, in winter, heat is welcomed. So intrinsically, they are not good or bad. But what happens is the context and what we think we like or we dislike causes these polarities in our mind. So what are we working on? We are working on balancing these likes and dislikes. Titksha is not grinding teeth and bearing it, but accepting it gracefully with knowledge knowing that everything is just the way it should be. Sthane, as it is, is titiksha

The tactile practice is “All is well.” Keep Reminding yourself “all is well” in all situations.  

Discussion Question: What strategies do you use to endure discomfort or dislike?

• What would wise do
• Even this shall pass
• Visualization
• Walk in nature
• Japas 
• Hari ichha
• Don’t’ label good or bad