Speaker 1 0:53

Well, the question it kind of comes from something that was asked to me. So in the past year or so, I think, my own personal practices have moved a lot more towards like a sense of devotion. I've been doing puja every morning, which has been really beautiful, and, you know, going to things like yagyas and doing a lot more ritual and ceremony. Um, and I guess I am speaking to my family recently uh, you know, I've been doing puja every morning, especially in the past few months, and I don't talk a lot about my spiritual practices to my family because I think I'm kind of the odd one out a little bit and there is a little bit of a sense of kind of confusion and judgment, confusion and judgment.

Speaker 1 1:57

And you know, talking to my father about my time in India and even you know talking about, sometimes, he's like, oh, what are you doing tonight? And I'm like, oh, going to like a yoga thing or something. You know saying I'm going to like a yajna, yeah, and his kind of response is like what is that? And also, are you like a Hindu now or like a Hare Krishna?

Speaker 2 2:17

Like what's this?

Speaker 1 2:18

about, yeah, and I guess I'm also even trying to understand it still a little bit myself of these certain like rituals and practices that we do, that I know so resonate with me and practices that we do that I know so resonate with me.

Speaker 1 2:38

but trying to explain to him, and also in some sense myself, of the difference between these kinds of things that we do and aspects of Hinduism, and so where does kind of like the Vedic worldview, how to differentiate that in some sense from aspects of Hinduism, and I don't know just kind of how to explain it.

Understanding Vedic traditions vs Hinduism

Connecting with concerned parents

Speaker 2 3:01

Yeah, so the concept of Hinduism is a relatively new one in the scheme of the Indian spiritual culture in terms of how we understand it now and probably even how Indians understand it now. The Vedic culture dates back five, seven and a half thousand years. It's blurry as to exactly how old it all is and, um, you know what is referred to as hind. That, you know, derive practices from very enlightened masters that incarnated in different parts of India in different periods of time through the ages and cognized knowledge and reinstated the meaning and value of knowledge and practices. And through the ages they sort of took on different contexts as relative to the flavor of the age and the time, you know, and different masters came in to recontextualize knowledge because of a particular flavor of ignorance that was dominating the knowledge you know. So, a lot of these ancient traditions, they had a cultural context of the time and you know, and that creates an enormous amount of complexity in terms of trying to understand the history, understand this knowledge historically, you know, because there's just certain things that we don't understand about the way things were and why things were taught in a particular way and what they were in response to, you know, at that particular time and um, so when? When trying to explain you know what, what it is that we do to our parents, what it is that we do to our parents when their actual, only real concern is are you happy, are you okay? Are you not getting caught up in something that's going to make you something other than who we know you to be our little darling girl, right, that's? That's all that's really going on there. And, rather than trying to explain, if they don't really want to know the full details, an academic overview of what you're doing, where it's come from, and all of that they don't have the capacity to absorb that you can say look what these are are ancient, that create space to understand ourself, and I've been putting it to the test and I'm learning a lot about myself. I feel happier, I feel more confident, I feel, you know, capable of looking at things inside of myself that I don't love and don't like, and meeting it with compassion. I'm discovering self-love and, as a result, I'm finding greater peace inside myself.

Speaker 2 6:23

What parent isn't going to go? Oh, that's lovely. Well, maybe you can show me how to meditate, because they all want a bit of that when we put it to them simply like this. You know immediately they're. They just want to hear that their baby girl's okay and you're not caught up in some cult. You know where someone's going to. You know make you. You know go into kmart and you know unleash with a revolver or something crazy, because that's where a parent's mind goes to. You know all of this has got a really bad rap. You know you say the word guru. In the West everyone goes like this. They don't know how to deal with it, and rightly so.

Speaker 2 7:11

The role has been abused enough for us to be skeptical or completely mistrusting, and I think that level of skepticism in this day and age is important. Healthy skepticism is great and you know you just put it to them simply. You know I just sit and I find calm within myself. You know I find anxiety and the stress leaves feel more restful, more present. They're going to be like, hmm, quietly, they're going to want to know about that and they might not admit that initially, but when they actually start seeing you, less worried and stressed and anxious, eventually it starts to rub off on them and they get curious. Well, let's hope. Yeah, yeah, but the trick's not to try and explain it to them on the level of your understanding. It will bewilder them and only create greater anxiety.

The wise don't bewilder the ignorant

Speaker 1 8:13

Yeah, I think I learned that eventually, but at the beginning, like years ago when I was first into yoga and everything, it's like I was really trying to talk to my family of course, totally and then eventually now I've kind of left it and usually I don't really even say I'm like, oh yeah, I'm just going to a yoga thing or something and I don't really go into it.

Speaker 1 8:33

And then occasionally I'll be like, yeah, I'm actually doing this puja tonight, I'm going to a yoga, or I actually did this just to kind of see, yeah, how they'd respond, how they'd respond, and then usually it is the response that I expect I'm not becoming a happy Krishna, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, something like that.

Speaker 2 8:54

Yeah, you know, there's a saying. You know the wise don't bewilder the ignorant. And when I say ignorant I'm not saying ignoramus. The word ignorant has a negative connotation. But you know, everyone has varying degrees of ignoring their fundamental spiritual nature. And it's okay to discern when somebody is ignorant of their spiritual nature. And if you are aware of your spiritual nature, you know the work that it took to get there.

Speaker 2 9:24

And it's a gross misconception to believe that just because you've worked it out that it's time for all of them to get on board. And you probably learned that the hard way very quickly. You know, unless there is inquiry, we don't try and jam it down the throat because all it will do is promote resentment and mistrust and you know they'll come at you and you know so. The wise are happy, happily, to hang out with anyone in any state of consciousness and not have to announce the state of consciousness nor have it be understood in order to feel validated, particularly by the parents. But this is all a part of a journey. It's a it's. You know we, we have to go through a process to understand really the importance of this principle. And it sounds like you're at the other end of that. That's great, and I would just encourage you to continue not bewildering them. You know you're not being dishonest. You know honesty is cruel sometimes Because you know some people can't handle the full extent of it. And what's the lesser of the two evils them being bewildered by you, you know, and not loving you, or you kind of curbing the truth and then being totally enamored with what you're doing and how you are? That's very clear. It's an easy choice.

Being relatable, not self-righteous

Speaker 2 11:06

We want connection. They don't. You know. Not everybody needs to understand what's going on here. At the end of the day, all that matters actually is the extent to which you can be relatable to anybody. If all of this effort doesn't make us more relatable to everybody, then it fails.

Speaker 2 11:27

As far as I'm concerned, if that is not the primary capability that this beautiful knowledge elicits, then we've got something wrong. We haven't worked it out, because the more we become established in ourself, the more we see ourself in everyone and everything, and that should therefore give rise to capability to connect and relate compassionately to everyone and everything, and that becomes the bridge. We meet people at their state of consciousness. We don't go, come up here, and if you can't, or whatever it is, because all of that will just create fear, and that's what your parents kind of, that's what happens to them. You're like you need to come up here and understand it. Yeah, just sit down and go. It's just, you know, I just close my eyes, it I come out, I feel happy. How are you going? That's it, you know, that's it.

Speaker 1 12:34

Be you, yeah yeah, and maybe talk about in like a light-hearted way.

Speaker 2 12:41

Yeah.

Speaker 1 12:43

Because I think sometimes my family also does think that I'm a little bit, you know oh of course, up here.

Speaker 2 12:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, if you're different, you know, if you're making choices different from the rest of the family, that is going to press buttons because immediately it makes them go well, what are we not getting here? They know that there's something that they're not getting and we don't want people to feel inadequate in the way in which they're existing. That's a tension that we don't want to be promoters of. Yeah, we don't want to be self-righteous in our spirituality, stinky.