Before the synopsis of the class, please read this important announcement.
This Sunday, May 8th, is our Gurudev Chinmayananda ji's birthday.
We will have Guru paadukaa pooja during Bala Vihar at the ashram.
So, this will be an in-person class for everyone.
JCHYKs are required to help with the setup and cleanup.
Please be there at 9:00 am, before everyone else starts coming.
Hari om everyone,
We started with a brief meditation, followed by chanting the Bhagavadgeeta. We chanted verses 39 - 72 from 'BG chapter 2'.
We started our interactive time by asking questions about how much we are in control of the events or things around ourselves. Soon, we figured out, NOT MUCH, really!! As simple as, once we swallow the food, down the esophagus, we have no control over how it gets digested. But we somehow think we are so invincible and grow highly inflated egos. Or, on the contrary, think that we are insufficient and have deflated egos... Inflated ego or a deflated ego, both are vices of equal nature. Both give us a feeling of incompleteness.
For this, we took the example of a single account vs. a joint account at a bank. If it is a joint account, I will have access to the resources of two people, rather than just mine. So, why not have a joint account with bhagavaan and have access to all he has!!
We then asked questions about the different layers of our personalities. We quickly realized that we have 4 different layers - physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual.
We established this with simple examples -
- if I'm tempted to eat a dozen ras-malais at one go, I'm functioning at my physical level (temptation of the tongue)
- if I do 'whatever I feel like doing', I'm working at my emotional level
- if I remember to not waiver from my decisions, I am using my intellectual abilities
- if I feel a sense of accountability for my actions, I am in functioning from my spiritual level!
We ALL have this inner voice that keeps guiding us. Problem is, we ignore it.
We can think of each of the first 3 layers as a different DJ playing different music. Our spiritual aspect is that friend (Krishna) who is with us at all times, guiding and helping us progress. But the voice of that friend (spiritual aspect) gets drowned amidst the loud noises of the 3 DJs (physical, emotional, and intellectual levels). We need to be an integrated person, putting all our different layers together and allowing the Lord to guide us.
God is not some idol sitting in the temple, waiting for us to come and pray... He is very much within each one of us, guiding and teaching us ALL the time!
Krishna asked Arjuna to train himself to learn to listen to that inner spiritual voice that will keep him on the right track. We remembered this quote that can be extended to our interactions in the world as well
If we follow all these, we can live blissfully in this body! This brought us to the end of Chapter 5. So we summarized it using the below flowchart.
Have a great rest of the week and we will see you at the ashram for Guru paadukaa pooja this Sunday.
Regards,
Rashmi and Raghav.