Swami Chibrahmananda joined the Ramakrishna Order of monks in 1999 and served Swami Prabuddhananda in San Francisco for 15 years. Brother Chidbrahmananda or Swami C has been a beacon of light as a part of the Vedanta Society for decades and is now taking his vast wisdom and understanding to One Spirit Center https://onespirit.center/.
Am I unselfish?
Am I loving?
Brother C’s Vedanta Youtube Talks are available here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hC1mHzmcCh4
His Favorite Books:
- The Way of The Pilgrim: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=62CBupYhHrw & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGvaF1V_asM
- Dialogues of Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj: https://theblisscentre.org/more/ebooks/IAmThat.pdf
- The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna: The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna as translated by Swami Nikhilananda offers the reader a penetrating view into the spiritual wisdom of India. https://www.amazon.com/Gospel-Sri-Ramakrishna-Swami-Nikhilananda/dp/0911206019
- The Peace Pilgrim: Peace Pilgrim walked and spoke continuously across America from 1953 until her death in 1981. “Walking until given shelter and fasting until given food,” she carried a simple yet powerfully enduring message of peace. https://www.amazon.com/Peace-Pilgrim-Life-Work-Words/dp/0943734150/ref=sr_1_2?crid=2LYR7PGPYCUV4&keywords=the+peace+pilgrim&qid=1672631016&s=books&sprefix=the+peace+pilg%2Cstripbooks%2C885&sr=1-2
Living life successfully is a “how” and not a “what.” This page plays with the various wisdom traditions from thousands of years in search of a working and practical knowledge for living the best life. It is a place to fan your own flames and identify your own means for reaching a meaningful authenticity in being. See it as an orchard of ideas where you pick the fruits best suited for your endeavor. All content will be freely available. The tiers are for support only. If you found value in this conversation please consider supporting Brother C via Patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/Monkotronic.
0:00
The first day of the new year and I’m very excited to have Swami chidbhavananda.
Am I saying that right?
You are Swami.
See is a lot easier though if you want Swami.
See, we met through the vedanta society and we just had a good connection I felt and wanted to hear, you know, your thoughts around kind of your path and your journey of spirituality and kind of share your lessons.
0:36
And, you know, we’ve had some good conversations before.
So I look forward to, you know, seeing where this conversation goes?
Excellent.
No, I am too, it’ll be great.
So how did you ring in the New Year for, for New Year’s Eve?
0:55
Nice.
Actually it’s not something I’ve done.
I think the last well the only New Year’s in recent history was probably 1999 bringing in 2000.
I don’t know why.
For some reason, even long ago, even in my 20s, I lost an interest in in, in celebrating a new year.
1:18
Seems so arbitrary to me, you know, Beginnings, part of my inner philosophy is that you know every moments of beginning a chance to start right?
Or start something over or do something again in the right way.
And so I write a kind of about for the last 20 years.
1:36
I’ve just been going to bed on New Year’s but last night I had a friend visiting from California so he invited me over to his Airbnb and made some dinner and we sat around.
It was four of us kind of just sat around and had some good laughs and caught up with each other and enjoyed each other’s company.
1:54
But I always home by 8:30, I think.
Yeah.
I called it early last night, myself.
And so yeah, I am the same way.
I don’t really feel the need to go out and celebrate arbitrary New Year.
2:13
A lot of the holidays even this at this point in my life, just like, I’ll celebrate it.
I want to celebrate and whatever way, it’s but to have some societal pressure around how to spend one particular day.
It’s just a little odd to me at this point.
2:29
Yeah, and it’s funny because I even the celebration itself seems to have been made up, you know, watching the ball, come down and Times Square.
Yeah, yeah, right, you know, you kind of wrapping my head around.
That was like, okay, why, why is it there that?
2:45
Is this mean, why, why are we doing this?
You know very well it seems like everything gets so commercialized, right?
I got one point.
A lot of these holidays were actually meaningful celebrations are rituals.
And then it’s like oh let’s just put facade over it and have people buy a bunch of stuff or you know, go spend a bunch of money where like there’s an underlying reason why we initially had the day to celebrate, right?
3:12
But then it kind of has gotten lost.
No, I would agree with that without becoming too much of an activist on the spot but The notion that, you know, I watched it happen in San Francisco, you know, I lived in San Francisco for 27 years and when I first got there, every little neighborhood had their own celebration, you know, of the neighborhood once a year, their street fair, and they were great because they were put on by the neighborhood and by the local businesses in the neighborhood and they were each very unique, you know, San Francisco has a very vibrant neighborhood orientation to their ship.
3:49
It’s wonderful.
And by the time I left, basically all of those little neighborhoods, had hired the same company that would just come in and dump these stalls and they have their people already lined up for what they would sell.
And and every one of these unique celebrations became a singular repeated celebration, from Hood to Hood with nothing special about them.
4:13
Know, a real emphasis on drinking kind of came part of it.
They used to always put a big Beer Garden in the middle of it all and it just changed the flavor completely.
It was no longer this human neighborhood.
Scaled you know interaction get to know your friends kind of experience anymore.
4:31
You kind of felt that capitalist hook put in your nose and you were kind of level on how to spend your money at the proper increments, you know, it really did change.
Yeah, exactly.
So yeah you and I lived in San Francisco.
4:48
You know, I guess there was I was in Pacific Heights which turns out I think it was near the vedanta society.
How long were you in in SF?
I was there 27 years, I moved there in 1985 And actually that was part of the big Journey actually for me because I moved there because the Berkeley Church of Christ at the time, I don’t even know if they’re still around, but was putting together a mission team of people to send to Berlin to start a new church there and I grew up in Europe.
5:27
And so I was very interested in that.
I was at the time was going to Seminary at Abilene Christian University.
University and I was a good little fundamentalist Christian boy and so I moved to California to under go under go the training and to get together with those folks and that lasted about five years.
5:46
Before I came to my parting, with, with that aspect of Christianity.
Anyway, that kind of fundamentalist aspect of Christianity and but stayed in the city.
And then really, at that point kind of really Conduct to the city.
6:04
And I’ve always had this radical notion that San Francisco is one of the most spiritual places I’ve ever lived, because and it, which is odd because it’s population or pop, not population, but reputation is of being just a, you know, a hedonistic party environment and I didn’t that’s available, everything’s available in San Francisco and I think that’s everything that’s available, you know, it’s like because people there stinkers there, There’s people that are still alive there and questioning and challenging and right.
6:37
You know, everybody’s very very much into the politics of the city very much into the social scenes of the city and I learned so much just from the vast variety of people that I got to meet and to interact with and you know, and that’s where I was introduced to a lot of different ideas.
7:02
Has and philosophies around spiritual life and what it means and it was definitely transformative for me and has been a big part of forming, my vision of what spiritual life is what that means.
Even Wow, yeah.
7:22
Just thinking, yeah, it’s the same same for me for the most part.
You know, all the experiences that I never would have ever thought I would have had in.
I never thought I’d live in a big city.
I was from, you know, the mountains and just living in San Francisco.
7:41
The day-to-day interactions can be just so life-changing.
You could walk down the street and you could run into literally Anyone and could change your life.
And yeah, there is something very spiritual about it and yeah, that’s amazing.
8:00
It was just how permissive the general Society of San Francisco was, you know, if you wanted to try something, or if you thought something was you wanted to express or investigate, the city gave you permission for that?
8:17
I mean, it was like the society there is So wide open that, you’re welcome to try whatever you want to try, no matter how bizarre it is.
I mean, I, you know, I hung out with three kids.
I hung out with gay folk.
I hung out with leather folk.
I hung out with radical Christians, you know.
8:33
It’s like everybody was there and you, you could check in and find them.
And everybody was living their life out loud so you could see them exactly.
Hawk to them.
Exactly.
Be a part of it.
If you want it or you or not, you know.
8:50
So it was that open permissive society that I found.
So wonderfully refreshing and so expand.
Right, right.
Well God, there’s so much.
Yeah, so many Avenues, we could take this.
9:06
And, you know, I was in San Francisco for about 10 years and found a lot of different circles to associate with and different paths to go down for my own.
Journey and spirituality and you and I’ve done similar things.
9:23
We both found Amma the hugging Saint, right?
And it’s just interesting how some of these where you can open up the whole world, right?
Like talking about all the options you have in San Francisco in particular to go out and live your life and find your freedom.
9:46
But then, you know, a lot of times it seems like there’s these Avenues that you can come in alignment with you know.
And so it seems like you know, spiritually wise there’s a number of different Avenues you could go down and you know there’s vedanta Society there’s you know meditation there’s you know all sorts of different beautiful practices and I guess it’s interesting.
10:15
I would like to hear your thoughts around, what?
You know, makes something resonate with you and it’s like, you know, that spirituality is that something that you can put into words or is it just like, you know, it when you feel it, you know.
Wow.
10:32
Well I definitely there’s definitely lots of ideas around it.
The most current ones in my mind are this notion that there is only spirituality that life by its nature is spiritual and the only requirement if Any requirement but certainly the requirement that seems to propel me forward is just awareness to not to make a constant effort to not be an otamatone to even in the way that you think the patterns of your mind, your daily habits to be at the driver’s wheel all the time.
11:09
Focusing on.
Is this working?
What’s the fruit of this action?
Where is this taking me?
How does this feel inside?
Because I have this idea that this world is is meant to create sayings.
Well it’s hmm, I’m not going to say something like that, even though I just already said it.
11:28
But this notion it because because the premise would be that I would know something about why anything is created.
So I don’t, I don’t want to go there.
But the notion that that life seems to take you forward by Design things that don’t work.
Terribly hurt, tend to cause suffering and things things that Come to a dead end seemed to come to that end on their own.
11:53
And, you know, it’s generating a sense of fearlessness within to go where you think you need to go to try what I think you need to try, but don’t be attached to it, be willing to let go at the first sign that it’s not going to work, or that, it wasn’t what you thought it was going to be and adjust open change.
12:16
What do you think there should be some suffering?
I mean I guess you know of course there is suffering but is like it a perfectly aligned life going to be no suffering at all I guess.
Well, How to say that the obstacles are inevitable?
12:41
But suffering is optional, right?
You know?
Okay, it’s true.
That things are not going to work.
It’s true that you’re not going to get your way if you attached to it and resist it and push against it.
You suffer if you embrace it and accept it, get up dust off and and, and go boldly forward.
13:00
Again, you don’t suffer, you might feel some pain, you might feel, you know, some Some whatever from it, but but it doesn’t have to be, it doesn’t have to turn into suffering and doesn’t have to turn into a broken, anything everything’s an opportunity and, you know, that that way overused saying, you know, if life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but that’s exactly it.
13:27
Eckhart Tolle talks about that quite a bit.
I really like the way he approaches that that that for him, the one of the big goals of spiritual life is Except the moment as it is and not just to accept it but to lean into it and love it as it is.
13:43
Even if it’s not what you wanted, even if it’s not comfortable, even if it’s not part of your vision, he’s like those are the things that cause suffering.
He says, embrace it live.
It deeply and let it inform you and then the change comes as it needs to come.
14:08
That’s true.
That’s true.
Well, so you didn’t plot.
Are you doing?
Go ahead.
I said, I mean that that, that ability to, to lean into something or to accept something basically, that’s the same thing as dismantling.
14:30
The ego, you know, an idea of self that’s based on a story that’s lined up behind you that causes your preferences and your aversions causes your perspective of the moment.
You know, for each thing that I say I’m going to hold myself back because I’ve got like 19 He’ll about them, but that’s that notion, you know, just that’s really the goal.
14:56
Make your story, the moment don’t make your story, the history of your moment or the future right moment.
Make being write your story and that’s where all the power and life is that I think, absolutely, well, I think I’m hesitating because I don’t want to go too far into my story and get into, you know, that therapy session of like You know, just trying to understand.
15:23
I guess something like love right.
A lot of people go through a lot of hurt and pain with this process of love.
I’ve heard you talk about it and I think it seems like we all attach a little bit to this pain of Love or romance.
15:40
And I’ve you know a lot of people go through heartbreak and I guess to figure out what is right for me.
Own level of heartbreak, or attachment or suffering to live out my best story.
15:57
And so understanding, like, okay, well believe God has a plan for me.
But what am I in control of and what is not in my control?
And so, how much pain or suffering or sacrifice?
Do I have to live to have lived out this ideal Dream scenario of the perfect wife and house and job and everything else.
16:23
And so, you know, I’ve gone through the ups and downs of trying to create this ideal life, but a lot of it’s created a lot of suffering.
Instead of just going with the moment because I believe there’s a deeper purpose.
16:40
Yes the larger Vision you touched on a right there though.
You know, Street dish or gets out the who’s oh, marvelous.
Well, as if there would be a saint, that was a marvelous.
But he was a, he was a saint in Bombay who made cigarettes, you know, and one of his American devotees, kind of scroll down a lot of his teachings and interviews with him in a book called.
17:01
I am that.
Which most people don’t know if most people many people have read a great book, one of my favorite books of all time, actually.
And you know he may he makes it very simple one-line statement in there which really Nails it he says that that all suffering Sighs attachment, you know.
17:18
So so if you have an idea of what should be you’re going to suffer, you know if you have if you’re trying to impose a will and you’re attached to an outcome or to a result, you’re going to suffer and but don’t you think we’ll can be?
17:37
Integral to someone living really a in accomplished life achieving certain things.
Don’t you have to have will or like dedication, you know?
I’ve I’ve run some marathons and you know I’ve done some things that I’m proud of and it took a lot of willpower to get To that point and through that point of suffering.
18:01
So yeah, I don’t will Powers necessary, you know, of course, we could go into a conversation of what that means, what’s not necessary as an attachment to the outcomes.
You know, if you’re running a few running, a marathon For Your Love of running, then you enjoy the Ameri Thon you, enjoy the run.
18:18
If you come in six, hundredths or you come in, first, you enjoyed the Run.
That’s that’s why you were there.
So the practice is, is being present in the moment and enjoy, morning, whatever is in front of you as being enough, you know?
18:35
So if you smell, if you smell Pizza in the air, don’t take that.
As a need to go get a piece of pizza.
Just enjoy the smell of Pizza in the air.
Don’t let it take things out of your past and bring them into your mind.
That make you feel like the moment is lacking something.
18:52
Now, now, I have to go find pizza, which involves money, right?
Pizza, parlors, and all that correct.
Just enjoy the smell of pizza. but you know, and right after become part of your perfect moment and I think taking that approach to life is necessary, but but setting up a scenario where you need something different in the moment to be fulfilled is a scenario of suffering in the long term, you know, in the law in the long term, you’ll find that once you replace or get that thing in the moment that the mind, the You’ve been listening to that, you’ve been subject to is going to present you with another need.
19:35
Another desire.
And you’ve put the hook in your nose, you know, no longer.
Are you living in the present?
You’re living in the future, when you’re going to acquire this perfect day, or this imagined Gem of satisfaction, if you don’t have satisfaction in the moment as it is now, you’re never going to experience a lasting satisfaction.
19:58
You’re always going to be standing on.
The changing sand of the beach, you know, you’re always going to be right unstable.
So the exercise in life is to be able to see the Perfection of the moment as it is.
I love the conversations that come out of that statement because immediately people come up with a thousand different ideas of how another, right?
20:22
But it’s not a quick answer statement.
It’s one of those.
That’s why we meditate to kind of let these surface ideas sort of make their way all the way down inside.
So you understand how it integrates Right.
Well, it makes me think of, you know, krishnamurti choiceless, awareness of just kind of being able to appreciate things, but not attached to them.
20:45
I guess there’s the underlying notion of like, what There’s got to be something to attach to, I guess.
Is that a natural process of like, if you’re hungry, you smell the pizza and you’re just aware of it.
21:05
That’s one thing.
But if you’re hungry and you want pizza, you like pizza, you have enough money to buy the pizza.
What’s to, you know, say that getting pizzas.
Wrong I guess you know or do you know if all those things are true, get some pizza but if you don’t write for pizza, don’t suffer.
21:27
Just narrate, you know, right?
It’s, it’s, the point in spiritual practice is to understand your relationship between body your undulation from your relationship with mind.
Your relationship with this imagined, external world.
21:46
But, but knowing that, they are not what you are, that you are something beyond.
All of those things.
Just like the dreamer in a dream is not the dreamer in the dream, he’s the dreamer of the dream.
And spiritual life is coming to that awareness about life, that you’re not in life.
22:02
Life is in you and that you don’t need these things.
Yes, you can be hungry but you can be content and hungry at the same time or you can let that Harden torment you and keep you from any inner peace.
You know, that’s body identity.
22:18
That means you’re attached to not being hungry, bitch, the thought of it that way, but you don’t have to be, you know, you can take Care of those things, right?
As they as they arise or as they need to be fixed or can be fixed, but you’re not basing your contentment on changing things.
22:39
You’re basing, your contentment on your own existence that you are here and the profundity of just being is enough for life.
It’s enough from deep rich, outrageous life, actually, nothing else is needed.
22:58
The more aware you are of the moment, the more mysterious it all becomes the more you begin to realize the things that you don’t know.
And you begin to realize that, that’s almost everything that you don’t, you don’t know anything.
And that’s what makes life beautiful is when you begin to realize that and then you begin to suspect a suspect that Baby.
23:21
There’s nothing really.
That can be known in that sense.
Right?
The more you know, the less, you know, that’s exactly the Aristotle or Plato or one of those, one of those great learned men said that that, you know, wisdom is to know that, you know nothing, right, right.
23:46
The more I learn, the more I want control, the more I don’t want that, and The more I just want to be free and be present and be willing to adapt to whatever situation works in the moment.
So, You mentioned.
24:02
I am thou who who wrote that again SRI nisargadatta Maharaj you think should be but and I am that, it’s usually comes in two volumes but I’ve seen the single volume of it nowadays but it’s just a series of questions and answers, huh?
24:31
And yeah, I was going to ask you about your favorite books.
I guess.
What’s been something that’s been foundational to you, in addition, to that I am now and I’ve heard you reference, Hafiz quite a bit obvious and also.
24:47
Yeah, go ahead.
And I wanted to hear your thoughts on like, Yeah.
How did you find high fees I was in Aardvark?
Books are San Francisco on church and Market.
I don’t know that it’s still there.
25:03
I was at back when there was such a thing, as used bookstores, San Francisco had a huge number of them and I used to quite often when I be out on one of my wanderings, if I stumbled on a used bookstore, I would love to go in there and just bury myself in a quest for anything.
25:19
And I just found a small very thin book, but it was Beautifully decorated with gold leaf on the front and it was a, you know, an Islamic design.
So very intricate patterns in there and whatnot and it was called the subject tonight is love.
25:35
And the book was you know it touched all of my book fetishes, it was just the right size, it was just the right thickness, the right colors and I saw it on the shelf and I was like that.
Look at that book.
And I went and grabbed it was a collection of Hafiz is poetry You know he was a Persian poet from like the 1500s, I think something like that but what a marvelous course the this kind here’s the controversial part.
26:03
Is that the lived in ski Daniel lived in ski is the translator and conservative Muslims hate his translations because each and he died, he generally puts a lot of heart and so a lot of breath into his translations of the Poetry but he Open doors because the first poem that I read in there, was it had it had positioned God as a bartender serving updraft, ecstasy for everybody at the bar and in the bar were lesbians and prostitutes and sailors.
26:40
And, you know, just all together here and God, the bartender was just happily serving up equally to everybody, this Divine and appreciation.
And I was so touched by the openness.
Of that by the Equanimity of mind that that suggested that I thought.
26:57
Yes, if there’s a God, that’s exactly what he would be doing or she would be doing and so it opened my heart to, you know, when I my experience with my fundamentalist Christianity was very unsatisfying and when I when I, you know, when I walked away from that, I didn’t walk to anything.
27:21
I just walked out into the Big Wide World.
World.
I suffered a lot in that 10 years and Hafiz was the one that first opened the possibility of a God, that that truly was a god of mercy of love and compassion.
27:41
And I was I was thrilled by that.
So I Hafiz was a big one.
There’s a wonderful book called The Way of the pilgrim.
That I loved there’s the practice of The Presence by Brother Lawrence, which is another fantastic book.
27:59
There’s the gospel of Sri ramakrishna, which is if you’re going to go into Eastern philosophies, that is the gateway book in my mind because what it did for me was it’s a it’s a book on the life of a great Saint SRI ramakrishna.
28:16
And of course, many people believe that he’s an avatar but he himself leaves that up.
Individual.
He doesn’t present himself as anything, except he says, I’m a hole through, which God can be seen, which I love as a function of, I think a healthy person, a spiritual person, a saint is exactly that a hole through which the Divine manifests.
28:39
So, I love that book because I knew nothing of Eastern spirituality at the time.
And well, maybe, I know less now, but when I Read his life and then actually went to the hard texts, you know, the actual upon ishod’s and the different sutras I found that I just had been given an ability to understand them because of the life that ramakrishna had lived, all the truths of the sutras would remind me of things that he had said or done or situations.
29:10
He’d been in that kind of elucidated what they were talking about, you know, and in a way that made it very, very manageable for me.
So the gospel of Sri ramakrishna is a way of Of putting a handle on your coffee cup.
You know, it’s a way of being able to understand some of the deeper truths because the sutras usually they try and pack the most information into the minimal number of words because it was an oral tradition.
29:37
And so, usually, quite often if you read a Sutra, if you’re not of that tradition with a significant amount of experience in that tradition, you’re going to be interpret something, but it’s probably not going to be What was being said because the depth of the writings is significant.
29:55
So ramakrishna was a great way to get into that.
For me, there’s this book, this book here that I’m working with some folks on now called Zen mind, beginner’s mind, it’s an old, classic Buddhist clastic and I picked that book up.
30:11
There’s the peace Pilgrim you know I’ve read her life story and she has a little very small pamphlet on her means of attaining, inner peace.
Yes, and that is a marvelous.
Jam or Jewel, for spiritual life.
30:28
I think I’ll have to check those out.
Yeah, and she’s amazing.
She was, you know, she’s an American Saint.
She was right here in the United States and she just walked out of her house one day.
Renounced everything for the sake of Peace.
She wasn’t even on a spear on a religious Quest at all.
30:43
She didn’t, she didn’t even have a religious ideal that she was pushing.
She was just so fed up with the Cold War and this constant, stress of this, you know, ever imminent nuclear Holocaust.
Just that, she just walked out of her home and she only had two rules for herself that she said that day.
31:01
She says she said I will, I will walk until I’m offered shelter.
I will Fast until I’m off from food and she walked back and for our United States, something like 12 or 15 times, and she just kept talking about least everybody that she said.
31:18
And if you read her life, she had all kinds of these spiritual Awakenings and realizations from that and her message.
Which is so pure and so simple, it’s not complex, you know, it really is just the Golden Rule and she’s got a few you know like five or eight points in there for living a fulfilling life but she did it.
31:38
That’s the thing.
That’s why I like to listen to her because I don’t know anybody else in my life that has walked out of their house and was willing to sleep.
Under bridges was willing to hitchhike across the Nevada desert, as, as a single woman, nonetheless, And right.
31:57
Well, you’re a monk, right?
So can you talk a little bit about what that means to go out and have like, alms and do you have a bowl?
Do you have do you look for other people to provide sustenance to you?
32:14
Or, you know, that’s just an interesting thing for me to hear about understand that someone could go out and just completely rely on other people for their Our sustenance.
Yeah it’s it I don’t rely on other people.
32:30
I rely on God on the divine, right.
Right.
You know that seems like a pretentious thing to say but it’s a new lesson that I’ve learned because it I did renounce, the world in 1999, when I moved into the vedanta monastery in San Francisco because of some experiences that I had with some wandering monks.
32:51
And some saw dues in India when I went there for six weeks in 99, Nine and medpro Raja commotion, Prana.
Who was a nun at a monastery, Convent.
Induction ishwar India.
And I went to see her because my one of my good friends who was traveling with me Talked about her as being, an enlightened soul.
33:13
I didn’t know what that meant and I asked him and he told me that she’d had the god experience and I laughed in his face because I, you know, I was like somebody this day and age is still saying something as atrocious is that, right?
And he was a very straight day.
She was like, yeah, that’s why I’ve heard about him and he was always a mathematician.
33:30
He was a professor College professors.
So I could throw his opinion away immediately.
So, I asked if I could go and I went to see her and I had a had a spiritual experience.
With her with the only one in my life.
That was so profound really back from that trip and move directly into a monastery and I didn’t really know what that was about.
33:51
I just knew that she had just presented me with something that I had never seen heard or experienced before that suggested the truth of these ideals.
And I just knew that if that existed, if that was real, that was all I wanted.
34:08
And so, I did I gave My career as a systems analyst and gave up my home and literally all my lost all my friends, actually, in that transaction to doesn’t lose anything.
But a monk going into that kind of, right?
34:26
So suddenly, we had nothing in common anymore.
So I moved into that Monastery and was in that in a monastic environment, for 23 years, which means just up until about two months ago.
For me and 2 months ago, I walked And out of that very safe and very beautiful environment, not out of any judgment toward it, or even any change in it.
34:50
I just felt an inner inspiration to do something that really was not within the scope of that Monastery.
And so with their blessing, and with the blessing of the president of that order, I headed out here to California, or Colorado, from California to Kind of start.
35:12
And a new religious ideal.
I guess that was more in line.
With the way I my inner life was going that I didn’t see in any other thing out there and so I thought well let’s go give this a shot and I came here with, you know, very little, you know, when I got here I sat I had found a rental, a room in a house to rent.
35:37
And after I had paid that rent for the month and the 30 deposit.
I had two hundred and sixty-eight dollars in my pocket and I went in and I sat down in my Shrine and I told the Divine mother, I was like, okay I’ve come I’m here.
35:58
I’m ready to study of the month so I’m good for a month, but I’ve got $200 and you know, it’s just a series of events.
Literally I had a I opened a patreon account.
But nobody knew it.
36:15
And yet at literally, within within 10 minutes of ending that meditation where I had kind of laid out my situation to the Universe At Large, my tablet.
Dinged.
And I looked at it in the notice was that somebody had a new patreon Patron, and I was like, what do you mean?
36:36
I just had opened the account.
Literally the day that nobody knew about it.
I had not put any content there.
I put no statements are done.
Nothing but signed up for the account and somebody danged and I had a new Patron.
And so I turned around back to my little trying again, just because those are my habits, and I was like, well, thanks for the $20 a month, but, you know, that’s $20 I’m needing more literally the next day, ready for class.
37:08
And after the class, just some random stranger who had been there for the class gave me a check.
Later on when I hit, when I open that envelope back in my room, it was a check for two thousand dollars.
And wow, my wow.
37:27
Wow, that okay, that that works.
Ma thanks, that’s an order to keep eating in Boulder Colorado and yeah, I’ve been here now for two months, and they’re significantly more in the coffers.
37:44
Now, I’m good for probably the next eight months already and I am not working a job in a conventional sense.
At all, I’m giving classes at the library.
I’m doing my online stuff.
You know, three four, five times a week.
38:01
I’ve got classes online and it’s happening.
No, plan, no.
Will or vision of my own that I’m forcing on it.
You know, my ideal as far as what I’m doing, I’m being I’m creating an inner reality for myself where I’m true to to To love, you know, I’m true to my ideal of my nature being love and wisdom and existence.
38:33
You know, that subject the number from the, from the upanishads are from the Eastern scriptures and just staying true to that.
And that that involves listening than in which, which is another word for awareness that involves just being completely open to what is Not, not Implement, not implementing my vision of what should be or what I want to do, or what I want to accomplish.
39:02
But in my words, keeping my eyes open for the presence of the Divine, the presence of love the presence of wisdom and the presence of awareness.
And if I see that anywhere in anyone around me, I make it my business to encourage it to fan that flame.
39:22
I don’t care.
What.
They’re in, I don’t care what’s their inspiration behind it is what I care about is seeing a touch of the Divine somewhere and my whole mission.
The hold the whole mission statement for my life at this point, just to run up to them with a nice piece of newspaper and just start Fanning that Fanning that plate.
39:44
Well, I think you’re doing that.
I’ve certainly see you sharing that light and Illumination of the Divine.
And so it tell me a little bit more about you know, what you’re building there and in Boulder or what, you know, the Divine is is putting through you and you know how how we can help support that.
40:15
Well the best support is is your own awareness in your own life, you know, build that inner Integrity.
Make sure that what you think what you say.
What you do or an alignment.
That’s the best support, you know, and join in the effort if you see good, feed it.
40:31
However, you can and go around looking for it, have eyes that are always looking for the positive have eyes that are always looking for for the good in people and always assume the good first here in Boulder what we’re like.
40:50
I said, we started a class initially at the public library, Very and then moved it to someone’s home class called mining.
The real where we just talked about the different tools available for developing that inner sense of awareness so that your life can become that conversation with the spiritual, you know, that tap into it.
41:11
There’s many, many ways of doing that including all of the religions.
I you know, the only thing you have to be careful of is egoism that sense of me and mine if me and mine starts mixing.
Religion.
You get 911.
Yeah.
41:28
Yeah.
You you get the you get all the unpopular things about religion, manifest, when me and mine is mixed with it.
So that’s the one caution that I put out there for anybody, you know, that the two questions that I asked about my own success.
41:46
How am I successful?
There’s only two questions.
I allow myself and this is from Swami Vivekananda.
Actually he’s theirs.
Only two things to ask yourself, am I unselfish?
That’s the first question and the second question.
Am I loving?
And those are two.
42:03
Those are two sides of the same coin.
Being unselfish means not demanding things for self, not not having your ideals Trump anybody else’s and the I am loving, is the proactive part.
Am I actively looking for ways of serving a, my actively looking for ways of You know, giving of what I’ve got or what I have.
42:29
And so, to the degree that you can say yes, to those two questions in the world, I live in to that degree, you’re successful to that degree your spiritual. and, So here in burp and I guess in Boulder what we’re doing, we’ve decided I’m, you know, one of the things I’m always careful to tell people that I’m not a guru.
42:52
I’m not, right?
I’m not another religious teacher who’s here to tell you like it is or tell you how it is.
I really, I really work toward being a cheerleader.
You know?
I’d that’s that’s my role is to run around looking for what God is up to and standing nearby with my pom-poms and saying awesome and do it right?
43:18
Keep on going.
Yeah, exactly.
So that’s what I’m doing here and the way that that looks we’re doing all of our classes online at this point just because it it’s I don’t have to look for places to do them and they it works.
So we got that, a lot of people are ya in and actually, since I left the safety of my Monastic home in Hollywood and came here.
43:44
You know, I’ve gotten 50 new subscribers per month since I’ve been here, so it’s working.
Wow.
You know, people are getting grow and then our meetings here, our get-togethers are not.
The ideal is they’re not there for teaching, you know, I don’t give a lecture or whatnot, they’re there for Holy company and so we do practice together, we you know, if someone Can sing or play music will sing and do music together and then we have conversation through dialogue and opportunities for teaching come up.
44:20
And that way, I don’t I don’t put my path on anybody else, you know I’m primarily a listener and a sounding board.
So you know say something here, something comes out and so all teaching is done through that kind of dialogue that way if a Christian comes They can be a better Christian.
44:42
If a Muslim comes they can be a better Muslim you know if a Hindu comes they can be a better Hindu of an atheist comes.
He can be a better atheist you know it’s there’s there’s no requirement or not.
It the path is not the important part.
You know, the heart is, the important part and so I try and keep everything heart-based and I try to keep people on the same path and trajectory that they’re on, but to try and give them the tools for Success.
45:08
You know, that’s one of The beautiful things about the vedant 0, which is, I guess the official word for the theories I’m using is is that if they don’t does not really interested in what you believe, they’re not really interested in what what you’re doing vedant is very interested in how you’re doing it and giving you the tools.
45:35
To go deeper and farther if you want to get well.
So if someone’s 22 in the head to thinking, how does someone get more into the heart silence?
Really?
The bat the end of the day.
The best teacher is silence, sit.
45:53
Sit in a quiet place.
You know, I always encourage people, they’re starting a practice or if they don’t have one already to choose a place, you know, if if you don’t have any money and you live in a studio, Choose a corner of the room with the rug in it that you won’t sit on that.
46:08
Rug in that corner for any other reason than silence, then your communion with being and that will help the Mind identify itself with silence.
When it sits on that rug in that corner or whatever, you come up with a closet, a big back chair, whatever you want, but dedicate something that’s used only for that practice and the time, you know, whatever you can Manage when I started my, my meditation practice, I limited myself to two minutes twice a day.
46:43
And I very seriously would not let myself go beyond that because I had a type, A personality and I knew my pattern is that I would get really into it and I would like that better times an hour.
The next day I’d be like doing hour and a half and the same way.
46:59
Yeah, the end of the week I was meditating anymore because I couldn’t sit for three hours.
And I right move, right burnout?
Yeah, yeah.
So I did two minutes and for six months, I did two minutes twice a day that was it and I wouldn’t let myself extended even if I thoroughly enjoyed that two minutes and I decided that these are all my own rules, but that when I increased my time, I said, okay, you have to do this in some sort of way, that’s not going to allow you to go down to control.
47:27
So I said, I can never and right more than half of the time to the time and I can’t do it any more frequently than every three or four months.
Oh, and so it took me a right time to increase that time, you know, but what it did was create a habit.
So that, all right, I did it.
47:46
I every day I sat for my two minutes twice a day and it became a mental space.
And so that’s why I was successful is huge to do two minutes.
All right.
Well, I remember, I went back to Colorado and I told my friends, I was really into meditation and there How long do you meditate for as I go you know 10 minutes you know like at that point I had done some longer sits but just even a minute or two steadily you know every day for me like that was more important than trying to sit for four hours at one time.
48:26
You know or anything like that just creating that like water running over the rock slowly forming that the canyon and just like That for me was, was huge to have that mindful maintenance every day, rather than trying to accomplish something huge where I could talk about it or something like that, you know, it’s right because see that’s the ego part of it.
48:50
The egoism part of it will, will, will tally.
Those kinds of things.
How long am I doing?
And how often am I doing it?
What are the results of it?
Spiritual life is not about a result, it’s about being and your goal is not to be enlightened, according to the very one of the very first chapter of Suzuki’s book here.
49:11
So first thing he says, the Buddhist does not cease it to, to attain Enlightenment, the Buddhists.
It’s to realize, he’s already enlightened and so there’s writing to accomplish in that two minutes.
It is to be fully present in that two minutes.
49:27
You know, to be fully fully aware of fully, fully present.
It’s a matter of being what you really are.
And that’s, that’s the importance of start of where you start.
You always have to be true to where you’re at.
Don’t imagine that your Buddha already or that your ramakrishna already or changes already, you know?
49:45
And that now you’ve got a sudden they start living like that.
Because you’re not and it’s going to be discriminating and it’s kind of difficult.
So be what you are and build on it.
You know, and build slowly because it’s not about accomplishment, it’s about the quality and I’ll write it to you.
50:03
What you’re doing, right?
Right.
Well, that’s amazing point to stop.
Unless you have anything else that you’d like to touch on.
I’ll make sure that I put in, you know, all the links in in the, The Bayou for your patreon and support you in any way I possibly can and what you do.
50:25
I think, you know what you say in living in body is really something that’s as close to a guru as I have been looking for.
So you know, this is just an honor to have your presence for this long and you know, if there’s anything at all, you know, I’ll do my best to help your vision and your mission to spread you know the The teachings that you are.
50:58
Excellent.
I, yeah.
And I was warmed by the things on your site.
Also the inspiration that was there and how well it was done.
Really.
Portray to me, just this, you’re an inner Integrity there.
So I also appreciate what you’re doing.
51:15
I’m glad to be a part of that in any way.
I can.
Thank you, thank you so much.
Well, let’s wrap it up.
Strong.
Mici.
Thank you so much and God bless you.
I hope you have a great New Year and a great life and I hope to see you at some point.
51:37
Excellent.
Yeah, deeper conversations going.
Absolutely.
I do plan on getting back.
Yeah.
I I do want to get this out there to the network and we’ll see, you know, how many people can come in and learn with you and being connection and communion with you.
51:58
So thank you.
Thank you.
Take care.
