The Courage Of Authenticity
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THE SPH NITHYANANDA PARAMASHIVAM
न हि कश्चित्क्षणमपि जातु तिष्ठत्यकर्मकृत् ।
कार्यते ह्यवशः कर्म सर्वः प्रकृतिजैर्गुणैः ॥ ३.५
na hi kaścitkṣaṇamapi jātu
tiṣṭhatyakarmakṛt kāryate
hyavaśaḥ karma sarvaḥ
prakṛtijairguṇaiḥ
Surely, not even for a moment
can anyone stand without
doing something. He is always
in action, despite himself, as
this is his very nature
POWERFUL COGNITION
Let your body and mind work without
disturbing your inner space of
completion.
कर्मेन्द्रियाणि संयम्य य आस्ते मनसा स्मरन् ।
इन्द्रियार्थान्विमूढात्मा मिथ्याचारः स उच्यते
karmendriyāṇi saṁyamya ya
āste manasā smaran
indriyārthānvimūḍhātmā
mithyācāraḥ sa ucyate
He who restrains the sense
organs, but who still thinks of
the objects of the senses is
deluded and is called a
hypocrite
POWERFUL COGNITION
Bring Completion and Become One.
श्रीभगवानुवाच
लोकेऽस्मिन्द्विविधा निष्ठा पुरा प्रोक्ता मयानघ ।
ज्ञानयोगेन साङ्ख्यानां कर्मयोगेन योगिनाम् ॥ ३.३
yastvindriyāṇi manasā
niyamyārabhate 'rjuna
karmendriyaiḥ karmayogam
asaktaḥ sa viśiṣyate
He who begins controlling the
senses by the mind and
performs selfless work through
the sense organs is superior, O
Arjuna
POWERFUL COGNITION
Life has no purpose, only meaning.
न कर्मणामनारम्भान्नैष्कर्म्यं पुरुषोऽश्नुते ।
न च सन्न्यसनादेव सिद्धिं समधिगच्छति ॥ ३.४
niyataṁ kuru karma tvaṁ
karma jyāyo hyakarmaṇaḥ
śarīrayātrāpi ca te na
prasiddhyedakarmaṇaḥ
Do your prescribed work, as
doing work is better than
being idle. Even your own
body cannot be maintained
without work
POWERFUL COGNITION
Even if you sit still in one place, you are sitting, you are breathing, is it not? The internal functions in your body are happening. The breath that you take in carries prāna, the life energy that sustains you. So, you cannot say you are not doing anything.
INTRODUCTION
People ask, 'Swamiji, you say that life is purposeless. Then I may as well just lie down and relax. Who will give me food? Who will pay my bills?' When Swamiji says life is purposeless, he is not asking you to just lie down and relax in your house. All he is saying is, 'Let your body and mind work without disturbing your inner space of completion. You don't have to sell your inner bliss to have outer comforts.'
YOUR BODY AND MIND KNOW
THE RIGHT THING TO DO BY
THEIR VERY NATURE
The problem is that you never trust
your body and mind. You always
trust your ego and it finally dumps
you! Be very clear, your body and
mind will do their work. All you
need to do is keep quiet and relax
from your ego.
KARMA YOGi WORKS WiTH COURAGE OF AUTHENTiCiTY
Śrī Kṛṣṇa says, 'A karma yogi, one who lives the path of authenticity in action, is a man who relaxes into nitya ānanda (eternal bliss) and does his work from the space of completion.'
You always think, 'If I relax mentally
thinking life is purposeless, how will I
know what is right and what is wrong?
How will I finish my work on time?'
When you worry about what is right
and what is wrong, you will not make
small mistakes, you will commit big
blunders..
TAKING THE RISK AND JUMPING INTO THE SPACE OF COMPLETION, AND LIVING WITHOUT WORRY AND SELF-DOUBT IS WHAT I CALL COURAGE OF AUTHENTICITY, THE COURAGE TO ENTER SPIRITUAL LIFE
When you take the jump, you will naturally make some small mistakes.
Don't worry about them. Putting up with that mistake is what is caled penance, tapas. Penance is nothing but accepting and completing with the small mistakes you make and restoring your integrity and authenticity when the conscious transition happens in your being.
When you move from worry to bliss, when you move from falsehood to truth, when you move from incompletion to completion, you will make a few mistakes. You will fall and rise just like a baby learning to walk. When babies learn to walk, they always fall the first few times.
But just because of that, can you say they should never walk? Even if they make one or two small mistakes, they have to stand up and start walking.
MASTER YOUR SENSES
Life is like a river.
If you place your hands in the river and
keep them open, the river will always
be there in your hands. But if you try
to hold it, you will have only empty
hands!
If you just allow it to happen it will
continuously flow through you. The
moment you try to possess it, you will
have only empty hands. You will not
be able to have life itself. Never think
that having comforts in the outer world
will give you inner completion.
All developed countries are filled with depression. They have the best roads, the best infrastructure, but their people are depressed. Never think outer space will give you inner space. If you want inner space, you need to work towards creating it. You need to understand the science of completion and the creation of inner space.
SCIENCE OF CREATING
THE RIGHT INNER SPACE
Whatever you choose, whether material life or spiritual life, you will always feel you are missing the other part.
As long as you think you are the mind, as long as you live with the mind, you will have this problem of material life versus spiritual life. The space of completion or incompletion, purposelessness or purposefulness does not work logically.
It explodes in all dimensions. As long as you are caught up with material goals or spiritual goals, you travel only in one direction of incompletion, because you think you are body or mind.
The more you are caught up with purposes, the more you think you are the body or the mind. When you realize the purposelessness of it all, you will straightaway fall into the depths of your being.
BRING COMPLETION AND BECOME ONE
See, it is like each part of your incompletion claims, 'I am you!' For example, if your name is Sundar, each part of the broken you claims, 'I am Sundar!' 'I am Sundar!' and who screams loudly, he thinks he is Sundar. And one of the worst things is one part of you spends so much of energy to disprove that the other part is not you.
So finally, whoever wins, whoever loses, who is the loser? You! One part of you winning is not you winning. Unless your whole wins, you are a loser! When you bring integrity into your thinking, you become aware of every anxiety you go through, every fear you go through; you see how you are responsible for creating negativity in your life, and you also see how you can align yourself with yourself, and the world can just align itself with you.
DO WORK WITH DEVOTION, DROP EXPECTATION
By nature, man has to work.
The senses have to be
engaged in some action.
Even if you try and control
them and do nothing
externally, the very act of
restraint is an action in itself
KṚṢṆA SAYS VERY BEAUTIFULLY, ‘BY NATURE, THE SENSES ARE TUNED TO BE EXTROVERT.’
‘Extrovert’ is not something
negative. Extrovert senses will always
be alive, creative, active and
contributing.
Kṛṣṇa says, your senses, by nature
are programmed to go out! You are
programmed to work, to go out.
The choice is really about how to
work. Here, Kṛṣṇa gives the answer
to that. He says that we should
perform work without unnecessarily
being bothered about whether or
not it will fetch the results that you
expect.
When do you get worried or afraid?
It is when there is an unwritten
expectation, an unconscious desire
to achieve something as the result of
an action.
KṚṢṆA SAYS, ‘DROP THE VERY DESIRE AND DROP THE VERY EXPECTATION.
Neither expression nor suppression is the solution. Only completion is the solution.
GOALS:
Let a child understand when we
keep quiet and relax from our
ego, our body and mind
will do their work.
Understand that we can accept
and complete with the small
mistakes we make and restore
our integrity and authenticity.
Let children understand to
bring integrity to their thinking
and detach from the results of
work and expectations.
ASSESSMENTS
- If life is purposeless, should we just down and do nothing?
- What does worry cause us to do?
- What is courage of authenticity?
- What should we do if we make small mistakes?
- Who is responsible for creating negativity in your life?
- What are your senses by nature programmed to do?
- How should we work?
- What does Kṛṣṇa say we should drop?
ART OF THE DAY
ART OF THE DAY:
TRUST YOUR THIRD EYE
Materials needed:
❖ Paper
❖ Colour pens
Procedure:
Sit with swamiji Write at least 10 sentences on what you trust about your body and mind. For example: I trust my third eye is real. Read these affirmation sentences in front of swamiji's photo
Inference: The affirmations with body and mind will help them trust body and mind
ACTIVITY OF THE DAY
ACTIVITY OF THE DAY:
PROCEDURE:
Tell a story as if you are God or Mother Nature and have to take care of everything in the world. What would all your commitments be? Second, tell a story as if you are a king or a queen and explain what all your commitments would be. Do the same as a mom or dad and finally as a kid. Now that we know from this exercise that our commitments are really small and that we can really keep them, let's be integrated with our commitments starting from today.
INFERENCE:
Connect them to the fact
that Integrity means
honoring every word you
utter to yourself and
others.
WORKSHOP OF
THE DAY
WORKSHOP OF THE DAY:
VAAKYARTHA SADHAS
Have the children discuss situations when they are authentic at one time and inauthentic at other times. They have to be in the same authentic space always.
Inference : Build authenticity as the pattern in your inner space. Authenticity has to be practiced in every dimension of your life.
Conclusion: Life has no purpose, only meaning
- BHAGAVAD GITA -
BOOK III, VOLUME III