March 9, 2023 Class Notes by Abhiram Bhashyam

Introduction

One has to be exposed to their potential to be able to know and grow into their potential. Exposure->knowing->growing. Our potential is to be independently joyous. Growing manifests through sadhana – “practice.” One has to practice their potential to grow into their potential. The practices in Sanatana Dharma are about unlearning – unlearning who you are, what to do, how to eat, etc. Another word for unlearning is renunciation. We have to renounce our present potential, even when our context is pleasant, smooth and working, in order to grow into our true potential. Most are not comfortable with unlearning/renouncing.

A wonderful word of wisdom shares “jala vidya dharma dana” – all of these are accumulated or filled drop by drop. A pot is filled by drops of water, knowledge is felt with drops of lessons – the same for dharma and dana. Our Practices to Perfection course is a beautiful design for us to grow into our potential. Compared to Vedanta (jogging) and Upanishads (push-ups), this class is like a walk. We find lots of reasons to avoid jogging, but walking you can do all the time. And this is why I’ve strongly encouraged everyone who is serving to be exposed to their potential. If you are not exposed to your potential, how can you serve? Self-development has to be followed along the lines of a scripture – a scripture is a mapped experience of one who is independently joyous. In this case, Acharya Shankara has experienced independent joy and has mapped his experience for us. If we follow this script, we will feel the same. If you follow self-development based on your personal or individualistic flavor, it will be bound by error. To follow a shastra and to make it resonate with us, we are exploring a scripture from an absolute level – our scripture wants us to be independently joyous – but knowing for some of us that’s too high, we have a relative and tactile level. Absolute Relative Tactile (ART) – from the level of shastra to swasti (general goodness/well-being) to sadhana. The purpose of reviewing is because we are in our final 10 classes. Sadhana Panchakam has five verses by theme:

Verse 1 – Shastra – scripture

Verse 2 – Svadhyaya – self-love

Verse 3 – Sva-anubhuti – the more you know who you are, the more you feel who you are

Verse 4 – Sadhachara – how one should orient their lifestyle

Recap

Verse 4, Practice 27: svadvannam na tu yacyatam; Beg no delicious food. You are what you eat. So if you only eat tasty food, then you will be fertilizing “likes” -> dislikes. We tend to underestimate our eating habits and the effect they have on our mind. You are what you eat and how you eat. Eating is such a focused process (we sit, there are dishes, there is etiquette) – when one treats food functionally (this is energy so I can go about serving), it saves one bandwidth so one can  tune into the fundamental. If you make food fundamental, you never have bandwidth for the real fundamental. Practices 25-27 all relate to our relationship with food.

A slight change to our practices: Ignore snacks. Surf agenda -> Plan meals (to be consistent with the focus on how we eat). Naturalize meal -> Naturalize food.

Discourse

Verse 4, Practice 28: vidhivasatpraptena santusyatam

Absolute – Vidhivasat – what has been ordered by the divine (providence). Praptena santusyatam – one should smile for what they receive from the divine. Compare portraits of Shri Rama (straight) to Shri Krishna (curved) – but in both, they are smiling! Both smile through all their experiences. Shri Krishna used to wear feathers because the people who he lived with couldn’t relate to gold, but they could relate to his peacock feathers. If both are smiling and they are facilitating our experiences, then our experiences have the potential to allow us to smile too.

Relative – Shri Krishna shared sthane – all that comes in and out of our life is proper. It is properly placed for us. If we work hard for what we want and we get it now, we are to be grateful. If we work hard and we get it but later, we are to be faithful. If we work hard and we don’t get it, we are to be peaceful. Grateful, faithful, peaceful – this is what our multiverse is teaching us.

Tactile – Dissect negativity. When we have an instinct to complain, ask why are you complaining or engaging in negativity? If others are complaining, we should dissect it such that we are not affected by that complaining or negativity, otherwise we ourselves submit to negativity.

Discussion – How do you deal with people you have to live with who don’t listen to you?

Vivekji’s Observation – Acceptance and patience. Lack of patience leads to continued non-listening. If you can nurture patience, non-listening will turn into listening.

RAW – Dissect negativity