Despite that, this has been a time of celebration and festivity throughout human history. While we might be forgiven for soberly commiserating this time of darkness and cold, the festive spirit impels us to look ahead and to celebrate the return of light as the sun now begins its northward ascent in the heavens.

It can be no coincidence that Christmas, one of the more recent iterations of this midwinter festivity, glorifies the birth of the Son of God, which may be taken to mean the Sun of God; the literal return of light to the world.

The festive season is indeed a celebration of light amid the darkness. 

While in the Winter months the natural world withers and withdraws, the trees bare of leaves, fruit and flowers, we do the opposite. We decorate our homes with greenery and lights and we feast amid what otherwise would be a time of famine. We celebrate the renewal of life and the promise of brighter days to come.

The esoteric meaning of Jesus’s birth, which has a large number of parallels with the birth of Krishna (perhaps you’ve even noticed that Christ and Krishna are almost the same word), is of a return of the light—and, specifically, the discovery of the light and Divinity within ourselves and within all beings.

The scriptures declare this realisation of our inner Divinity to be life’s highest goal. By recognising the ever shining light of our innermost Consciousness and shifting our sense of identification from the body/mind/ego to this true Self, Consciousness, we are freed from sorrow.

That’s something we cannot find in the world of duality. While it boasts many joys and pleasures, the phenomenal world cannot offer lasting fulfilment owing to the limitations inherent in duality. All we can do is navigate the dance of the opposites as best we can; accepting the seesaw of good and bad, pleasure and pain, success and failure, happiness and sorrow. Trying to find lasting happiness—or lasting anything—in such a world is a fool’s errand.

It’s only by realising the light within ourselves, the Christ within, the Krishna within, that we’re able to permanently transcend the storms and stresses of duality.

So, as you’re switching on your Christmas tree or lighting a candle at night, recognise the ritual as a metaphor for the illumining of your own mind and heart with the light of your true being. Conducted in the right spirit, the Winter festivities represent a shifting away from worldly challenge and limitation to the self-shining and eternal light that is Consciousness; the one thing that can never be given or taken away from us.

The birth, as it were, of light, hope and illumination is the recognition of the Divinity of your innermost Consciousness. The Consciousness illuminating and enlivening your mind and body is the same Consciousness that illumined all the great sages and avatars of the world, including Jesus, Buddha and Krishna. This recognition of the inner holiness of all beings, the light (Son/Sun) born in the dark and dank stable of the mind, is alchemical in nature.

By holding fast to this Consciousness as your true identity, you transcend the limitations, pains, fears and sorrows of duality. You find that all you’ve ever sought in the world of form—happiness, freedom and love—is already there within you. What relief; what joy!

The world cannot give you what you seek. In fact, the world of maya, immersive and consuming as it is, will successfully obscure and conceal this realisation. It’s up to you to dispel the darkness of ignorance by keeping your attention upon the light you are; the simple, direct, ever present Consciousness in which all forms come and go.

There’s no greater gift to the world than the liberating light of Self-Knowledge cutting through the darkness all around. Bask in this light, in the eternal being of your own ever-full Self. Recognise this same light in all others as you go about the Wintry days and know that it shines always and forever.

Happy Solstice, Happy Christmas, Happy New Year.

Where the senses lead, the mind follows. 

This binds us to duality, subjecting us to the seemingly endless discords and disharmonies of the material world; the pain and sorrows, the disappointments and grief at a personal level and the many injustices, wars, conflicts and sufferings wrought by the samsaric mind at a collective level.

We naturally strive for harmony, peace, cooperation and to attain all those things we believe will bring us happiness. Happiness is natural to us because happiness is an aspect of the Self; sat chit ananda.

An important point, however, is that even the good things of the world, the upsides of duality, are, ultimately, no more real than the downsides. Both the agonies and ecstasies of worldly life are mithya.

The entire human experience is conditioned by ignorance; an immersive, universal delusion that binds us to form; seemingly robbing us of the vastness of our true being as as pure Consciousness, and contracting us into a painfully narrow identity based on identification with the body, mind and ego.

Subject to ignorance, we accept the world of form as the sole reality. We see only the visible, that which is perceivable by the physical senses, and are blinded to the invisible Source and ultimate Reality; the noumenonal Cause from which, and in which, the phenomenal effect appears.

The entire phenomenal world, the good, the bad and the ugly, is simply the play of maya and is, ultimately, mithya—unreal.

Ignorance is never felled by the single strike of the axe. Even once we’ve gained this Knowledge of Reality, we must continue fighting the illusion for as long as is necessary, or it’ll continue pulling us in. The ignorance-conditioned mind can be tenacious and, without continued vigilance and discrimination, will most certainly keep us immersed in, and bound by, the temporal world of duality.

The world may promise fulfilment and endless delight, as determined by our desires, attachments and conditioning, but there’s simply no way to find freedom and liberation from that which is fleeting and ultimately unreal.

The seeker of freedom must continually pivot the mind from the false to the true; from the phenomenal dream-reality to the Reality that is God; the Self—that which is already attained, here and now, eternally present as the very reality of our Being. 

The only way to be free of samsara’s crippling sense of limitation is to truly, fully and completely know the limitlessness of our true Self.

Such freedom cannot be attained by simply rearranging the circumstances of our material lives. It’s not earned by satiating desires and trying to avoid the discords of duality.  Only a fool seeks lasting freedom in an ephemeral and unreal world over which we ultimately have little control. That which is limited, the world, cannot yield the limitlessness we seek.

Instead, we must lessen the bonds of samsara by neutralising the immersive pull of the senses, which all too readily chain us to the maya world. 

We must learn to attain our joy and wholeness not from the world of objects, but from the invisible, ever-present and boundless Consciousness that we are. This is what we’ve been seeking all along. It’s something that can never be taken from us; something we can never lose. It only appears to be absent when ignorance, maya, veils and obscures the Truth from us.

There’s no happy ending in duality. The world of the senses is a field for the outworking of karma, both good and bad. Its pull is immense and immersive, yet in order to be free, and to enjoy the Wholeness of your own true Self, you must learn to divest the world of its realness.

Even if you’re lucky enough to have youth, beauty, health and riches beyond the dreams of avarice, the world can never deliver lasting freedom and happiness. Lasting freedom, lasting happiness and wholeness, can only be found through knowing the Divinity that is your true essence. This alone is the source of all joy, completeness, fullness and freedom. 

Such freedom exists independently of whatever might be going on externally. While we should always follow dharma and do our best to make this a better world, ultimate freedom comes from recognising duality, the bad AND the good, as mithya; as only apparently real; as impermanent, hollow and dream-like in nature.

In order to liberate the mind, you must consciously and constantly redirect your attention, focus and identification from the false to the Real, from mithya to Satya, from the world of duality to the boundless Consciousness/Awareness in which it appears.

By consciously transcending the phenomenal world and the opposites of duality, you come to realise the essential Wholeness, Freedom and Limitlessness of your own true nature.

Rory: This is why a teacher is important, to help unfold the scriptures and deal with both the overt meaning and the implied meaning. The Upanishads in particular are conveyed in an often poetic language which can cause confusion if not correctly unpacked.

John: Many portions of the scripture make enlightenment seem like a larger than life goal after gaining knowledge of which you supposedly become so pure that flowers bloom wherever your blessed feet touch the ground. 

Rory: I can understand why it might seem like that from the jiva perspective. However, first of all, it’s best not to see enlightenment as a goal or an attainment. I know the mind likes to think in those terms. It’s a realisation of what is; and yeah, in a sense it IS larger than life (if we consider “life” being the mithya world). 

It’s also not about “becoming” pure. It’s the realisation that you have never been anything less than pure.

As for the flowers blooming statement. Well, all flowers bloom by the light of the sun, and, similarly, all this universe exists by the light of the Self—you.

John: I was wondering what level of purity is needed before I can stop my Sadhana?

Rory: Purity simply means having a predominantly sattvic mind. It’s as simple as that; guna management. 

The mind is by nature sattvic; that’s how it’s capable of knowing things, because sattva is reflective in nature, like the clear surface of a lake. 

Rajas and tamas are described as impurities. Both are essential for the mithya world to exist, and they’re not “bad”; they both have essential functions. But in terms of knowledge, they create impurities because they interfere with the mind’s ability to clearly perceive, to know and understand. They impede knowledge. Rajas has a projecting quality; it distorts what we see and makes us see what isn’t there. Tamas has a concealing/veiling effect on the mind; it prevents us from seeing/knowing at all. 

Sadhana is all about managing the proportions of the gunas. This isn’t a one-time affair. You don’t suddenly manage to purify the mind once and for all. The gunas affect the body-mind-sense complexes of living beings in the mithya world, even the jivanmuktah (liberated soul). Therefore, sadhana isn’t something that should really be thrown away. It can be stripped down to the bare minimum, certainly; but if you want to keep the body and mind happy and healthy, it’s important to be aware of the influence of the gunas and manage them as necessary. They’re constantly fluctuating, even through the course of a single day. So much of life is really just finding what works for keeping them in a more or less harmonious flow. The more sattva we cultivate, generally the happier we’ll be and the more qualified the mind will be for Self-knowledge and the three stages of Vedanta.

It’s a mistake to abandon sadhana prematurely. Take my word for it. As Swami Chinmayananda once said “eternal vigilance is the price of freedom”. Even once you fully “get” the teaching at an intellectual level, it takes time to assimilate it until the switch is flipped. Swami Paramarthananda suggested that if the first stage of Vedanta, shravana takes 5 years, we should allow 10 for manana and 15 for nididhyasana. The whole while, a sattvic mind is necessary. So that’s 30 years of sadhana.

Of course, once the knowledge has truly integrated and flipped your sense of identification from the jiva to awareness, you are free to do whatever you like because you know that, as awareness, YOU cannot be affected by the condition of the body and mind. But there’s a price to pay for failing to adequately manage the gunas; the body and mind will suffer the effects of rajas and tamas. Many jnanis become very dispassionate and some don’t care too much about the condition of the body-mind-sense complex. They are alike in pleasure and pain, as Krishna says in the Gita.

Continuing to do sadhana is a kindness to the jiva though. I think of it as housekeeping. Nobody likes to live in an unclean or disorderly environment. That’s why even mahatmas tend to continue their sadhana long after liberation. What better is there to do with the body/mind? Plus, by that point the sense of “doer-object-enjoyer” has been neutralised so there’s no sense of doing anyway; sadhana just happens because it’s a beautiful way of expressing the love we are and praising the Lord.

John: From what I know self knowledge doesn’t make it so that you never have a bad day again and some level of desire and fear will still be experienced though it won’t cloud your intellect anymore.

Rory: That’s looking at it from the perspective of the jiva, not the Self. Self-Knowledge is knowing you are the Self and the Self never has a bad day. It never has any day at all, actually. It’s just there—it just shines. All the mithya stuff takes care of itself. It’s not touched by the jiva’s good days or bad days. Again, the jiva will always be subject to the gunas, including the intellect, which can be contaminated by rajas and tamas. When the knowledge has been fully assimilated, however, you know that you are free of this whole play and are unperturbed by desire and fear. So, when you know that you’re the Self, you’ll quite literally never have a bad day again.

John: I realize that the goal of Self knowledge is not to make you a saint but just to understand your jiva’s tendencies and negate the binding and adharmic ones in the light of knowledge which will indirectly purify you as the unconscious sewer is cleaned out.

Rory: This is correct.

John: But it seems the purification game has no end. Every time I clear out some character flaw a subtler character flaw comes out, immediately I understood that this whole jiva being in Maya is in for a zero sum game purification wise. Should I just stop? These flaws which I am aware of are not noticed by anyone except for me and they don’t have a huge effect on my daily interactions. But leaving it there actually causes agitation because it is like a dark spot on an otherwise clean mirror.

Rory: I went through a spell like that. I decided I’d try and purify the whole damn subtle body and clear out absolutely all the crap. I found, like you, that the unconscious repository of samskaras is almost like one of those plate or mug dispensers you see in canteens; the moment you take one, another immediately pops into its place.

My advice is deal with the samskaras, vasanas and blocks that are binding and which cause significant discomfort. A reasonably pure, sattvic mind is important. It’s unnecessary and not possible to have a 100% pure mind. There will always be an element of rajas and tamas. Remember karma yoga. Just do your best, tackle what you feel needs to be tackled and take the rest as prasada. Accept those little dark spots; heck, even someone like Ramana could be cranky at times. It didn’t affect the splendour of his/the Self’s light one little bit.

John: I was wondering if you had any advice on how to stop this strange purification addiction as I surely don’t have the disposition of a saint who can successfully go through doormat Sadhana as I will have a lot of worldly karma as I am still quite young. 

Rory: Karma yoga. Keep your attention on the sun and the shadows fall behind you. Keep your mind on the knowledge and deal with any blocks as and when they come up, but don’t obsess on anything other than the light/beauty/bliss that you are.

Govindapada asked the young boy, “Who are you?”

The story goes that Shankara spontaneously recited the following six verses, which later became known as Nirvana Shaktam.

Nirvana means complete peace and equanimity, and shaktam refers to the number of verses. Needless to say, Govindapada immediately accepted the boy as his disciple! Wouldn’t you?

This succinct yet powerful composition negates our misidentification with the body-mind and its aggregates. It reveals Self-Knowledge as a shift from false identification with the material components of our being to the Awareness in which all things appear and have their being.

What follows is a somewhat loose translation, designed for clarity ease of reading. You may find these verses make an excellent tool for meditation and contemplation. Read each verse slowly and thoughtfully, allowing yourself to fully contemplate the meaning of each sentence as you do.

Each verse ends with the exhortation, “I am Shiva! I am Shiva!” In this instance, it’s not referring to Shiva as a particular deity or name and form, but as the formless, all-pervading Self; Existence/Awareness/Consciousness.

I am neither the mind, the intellect, the ego nor thought.

I am neither the ears, the tongue, the nose nor the eyes.

I am neither fire, water, air nor earth.

My nature is Eternal Bliss and Awareness;

I am Shiva, I am Shiva!

I am neither the vital energy nor the body’s physiology.

I am neither the elements nor the five sheaths.

I am neither the internal organs, nor the hands, nor the feet, nor tongue.

My nature is Eternal Bliss and Awareness;

I am Shiva, I am Shiva!

I am free of greed and delusion, aversion and attachment.

I am free of pride and ego, seeking and attaining.

I have neither desires of mind nor craving for objects.

My nature is Eternal Bliss and Awareness;

I am Shiva, I am Shiva!

I am free of virtue and vice, pleasure and pain.

I am free of religious duty and observance.

I am neither the one that eats nor that which is eaten.

My nature is Eternal Bliss and Awareness;

I am Shiva, I am Shiva!

I have neither fear nor death, nor distinction of caste.

I have neither father nor mother, nor even birth.

I have neither friends nor comrades, disciples nor guru.

My nature is Eternal Bliss and Awareness;

I am Shiva, I am Shiva!

I am without form or limitation, for I pervade all.

I exist everywhere but am subtler than the body and senses.

I have no need of salvation, for I am already free.

My nature is Eternal Bliss and Awareness;

I am Shiva, I am Shiva!

However, there’s a weakness in the Gita: when Krishna reveals both the good and bad aspects of reality, Arjuna is overwhelmed and asks for it to be taken away. Krishna should have insisted that Arjuna confront and accept all aspects of reality, rather than avoiding them.“

Absolutely no disrespect to John or yourself, but this isn’t a fair or legitimate criticism of the Gita. 

Right back in the second chapter, Krishna highlights the dualistic nature of samsara and how the play of the opposites, light and dark, joy and sorrow, pleasure and pain, are unavoidable and must be accepted and endured with a spirit of even-mindedness. This even-mindedness, samatvam, is one of the key values he encourages us to cultivate.

I cannot emphasise this point enough: Krishna certainly does not suggest avoiding rather than dealing with the less pleasing aspects of reality. Quite the opposite! One of the Gita’s key themes (as not just a moksha shastra but a dharma shastra) is that Arjuna must face up to his duty and take action, even though his duty is not a pleasant one, to put it mildly. 

It’s Arjuna that tries to wiggle his way out of this by repeatedly expressing an interest in renunciation. Krishna shoots him down each and every time. He points out that Arjuna’s desire to take to sannyasa goes against both vishesha dharma (the dharma of the situation) and Arjuna’s personal swadharma. So, Krishna is not suggesting Arjuna “avoid” the painful and less pleasant aspects of life in the dharma field—he makes it clear that Arjuna must face up to and fulfil his dharma. Dharma is paramount and must even come before moksha. (Of course, if Arjuna’s swadharma was a mumukshu and not a warrior, the situation would be different).

Possibly John was referring to when Krishna grants Arjuna the cosmic vision of vishwarupa; Krishna as Ishvara; the entire cosmos and every facet of it, “good” and “bad”, including time, life, death and decay. Shaken by this vision, Arjuna asks Krishna to resume the familiar form of his mentor.

Krishna does so so he can continue to relate the rest of his teaching (we still have the remaining third of the Gita to come at this point). This was basically a literary device to depict the universal nature of Ishvara. His point has already been made; Ishvara is both that which is pleasing and that which is not. Again, to quote what he said in chapter two: 

“While the senses give rise to heat and cold, pleasure and pain, these experiences are fleeting; they come and go and must be endured. Those who remain even-minded in both pleasure and pain have true discrimination and are qualified to attain liberation”.

Most the Vedantic scriptures presuppose the seeker has already cultivated a sufficiently qualified mind. The Gita is quite unique in that it provides a blueprint for taming the mind. A person with significant unresolved emotional and/or psychological problems sadly isn’t a candidate for Self-Knowledge, but for (hopefully) most seekers, the proper application of dharma, karma yoga, bhakti and upasana yoga lay the foundations for Self-Knowledge by cultivating a discerning, dispassionate and devotional mind and heart. I believe when the fourfold qualifications are in place, it’s far less likely a seeker will succumb to enlightenment sickness. They’re kind of a fail-safe; one must skip them at their peril! 

Just wanted to “defend” the Gita. There is no weakness. 

The world just seems a tad topsy turvy to say the least. I am quite good at not becoming emotionally involved and dispassionate, but when I see the pain and suffering of others, I still have questions that I struggle to answer.

I understand I need to embed knowledge gained through readings, meditations, satsangs which can take a long time. I know we are all one, however as a father the future seems a tad shaky.

Have you any advice or wisdom that may settle me more so? 

Rory: Your question is a good one.

Life in duality is certainly not easy. We are indeed living in a turbulent and high stress world; wars, conflicts, economic issues, social entropy, warped values, and so on. I recently saw it expressed that humanity’s problem is that we have palaeolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology. It’s quite a predicament, particularly given that human beings have not been advancing a fraction as fast as our technology is.

I think one of the things that makes the world feel so chaotic and out of control is that we are now constantly subjected to the media, including to 24/7 newsfeeds and social media in all of its lunacy. Unfortunately, negative headlines generate the most clicks by far, so we are constantly bombarded by terrible news stories and frightening narratives. That’s to say nothing of the widespread deception and misinformation that circulates in our “post-truth age”.

I think it’s actually been shown, however, that in spite of the immense challenges we face, for most of us, there’s still never been a better and more peaceful time to be alive. Our duration and quality of life has never been higher. We have advancements such as human rights, animal rights, environmentalism, antibiotics, vaccines, painkillers and treatments for diseases that a century ago would have wiped people out with impunity. There’s generally less war and conflict than at most points in history (although, unfortunately, when there is it tends to be on a larger scale owing to globalisation and interconnectivity).

The imperfections and chaos have always been there and always will be. There’s no getting around that fact. As I sometimes say, “duality is gonna duality”. The Vedas and Puranas dramatise the nature of duality as a timeless war between the devas and asuras, or angels and demons. This is actually a war also waged inside each and every human being, for we each have a higher, divine nature and a lower, demonic (ie selfish, greedy, violent) nature. The two are often at loggerheads until we really make a commitment to dharma and spiritual enlightenment.

With regards to duality, the Bhagavad Gita advises us to develop as much dispassion as we can; to help us transcend the ups and downs of duality, and to cultivate a mindset of evenness and equanimity. Not easy! It does help, in my experience, to really streamline our media input and to create as much time and space as we can to simply remain in our own space of peace and freedom; to keep aligning our mind and heart with the Self, the truth of our being, rather than the objects and outer world, which are driven by an unfathomable chain of karma; of cause and effect. I truly believe this simple act, in itself, helps to contribute to peace in the world.

The phenomenal world is best seen as a kind of big “karma machine”. It’s all about karma; about dealing with the flow of both fortuitous and not so fortuitous karma. 

We cannot really judge, either. Only Ishvara has all-knowledge and can see the entirety of the big picture. There’s a quote in the Tao Te Ching where Lao Tzu says that good fortune rests in bad fortune and bad fortune rests in good fortune. That’s so true. At this level of maya, it’s often bad karma that can lead to good karma and sadly sometimes the other way around, too. We can see this when terrible things like wars actually lead us to new innovations, breakthroughs and technologies in peacetime. 

And sometimes what seems like good karma can lead to less favourable results and reactions. Sometimes what we think we want and need turns out to be the worst possible thing in multiple ways. That’s because any action will have both knowable effects (drista phala) and unknowable effects (adrista phala) which we simply cannot anticipate. 

I think it was Aldous Huxley, one of my favourite authors, who said that experience is not what happens to you, it’s what you do with what happens to you. 

Speaking personally, I came into this lifetime with a lot of difficult health karma. I actually first developed cancer when I was only about 7 years old and have struggled with it and other conditions ever since. However, I’ve tried to use it as positively and wisely as I can, to develop spiritually and psychologically, to become stronger, more dispassionate and more compassionate. Often people who go through life with no significant challenges don’t have the impetus or the need to grow as a person. Many Vedantins and spiritual seekers are so devoted to liberation because of painful experiences and suffering in their lives. The ability to turn that around and make something good out of it is the true alchemy of living.

Maybe we need the challenges to help push us forward and to grow, evolve and finally realise who/what we are and then break free of the wheel of rebirth? There’s a divine, creative Intelligence running this whole show and, I believe, everything that happens to us is an invitation and opportunity to awaken from the dream of self-ignorance and to realise who and what we truly are.

The Vedic view of life is very cyclic in nature, which ties in with the modern scientific view. From a cosmic perspective, the unfolding of the universe/cosmos is a result of fructifying karma. The creation unfolds, things operate according to cycles, the various ups and downs and ins and outs of duality…and then, when the karma has run its course, things eventually resolve back again into the unmanifest. That’s until the karma, stored in seed form in the causal body, again begins to fructify and Ishvara “breathes out” the world of the manifest once more. In all that time, the stars and galaxies are born and die and then are reborn, and this includes the countless jivas in existence. It’s all just the dance of karma throughout eternity. 

Ishvara is unfathomable to the human mind. We can never really know the “why” of creation and the “why” of all the world’s problems and challenges. We just have to navigate it as best we can and stay committed to keeping our own minds and hearts as pure and as aligned with God as possible. 

Because this is a field of karma, and our ultimate goal in life is liberation and Ishvara wants us to be free (otherwise we wouldn’t have Vedanta and the scriptures) we can trust that we’re always in the right place at the right time. Ishvara does have our backs—even though, from our limited vantage point, that may not always seem readily apparent. We may have tremendous difficulties to deal with, but as I remind people, there’s always much more “right” with us than is “wrong” with us—and, so too, with the world. The karma yoga perspective is key because with it, we’re able to accept the issues we’ve been given, individually and collectively, and, by working in alignment with dharma, we can find ways to navigate and transmute our difficulties until such time as we are fully grounded in Self-Knowledge and no longer bound by karma.

“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell or a hell of heaven.”

The purpose of this article is to bring together all the tools I’ve found helpful and effective in dealing with and managing the vasanas; those binding thoughts, compulsions, emotions, behavioural patterns and belief systems that cause so much agitation to mind and body.

Vasanas can be ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ in nature; or it might be better to term them ‘healthy’ or ‘unhealthy’. Healthy vasanas are those habits and patterns of thought and behaviour that have a beneficial effect on the mind and body; which bring peace, harmony and balance. Examples might include a commitment to self-inquiry, study of the scriptures, meditation, yoga, good eating, the steady practice of karma yoga and the ability to question and reframe agitating thoughts. Unhealthy vasanas are those compulsions, addictions and self-destructive patterns of thought and behaviour that have a deleterious effect on the mind and body — of which there are too many to mention.

Mind management is an essential component of Vedanta because, as Krishna states in the Bhagavad Gita:

“Without a peaceful, stable mind, contemplation on the Self is impossible. When one lacks the ability to contemplate, there is no peace. Without peace, how can there be happiness?”

The mind is our primary instrument for transacting with the world. Just as a grime-covered miror cannot reflect the sunlight, a dull or agitated mind is an unfit receptacle for the liberating light of Self-knowledge. That’s why Vedanta repeatedly emphasises the necessity of a qualified mind. 

In order for Self-knowledge to equate to liberation, the student’s mind must be reasonably tranquil, discerning, dispassionate and free from the relentless storm and stress of excess desire, aversion and attachment. 

This is by no means an easy feat, particularly in these disturbed and disturbing times. It is, however, a necessary one, and the results bring their own reward. Even without Vedanta, if you learn to manage your mind and deal with the psyche’s binding vasanas and samskaras, you’ll find enjoy a far simpler, smoother and happier in life, in spite of the challenges that inevitably arise in day to day living.

Be warned: it will take considerable work! 

It’s no coincidence the Bhagavad Gita is set on a battlefield. The battlefield represents the human mind and it’s a war against ignorance. This war will not be won in a single battle, that you can be sure. Ignorance is both hard-wired and highly resistant to change. 

So, please, go easy on yourself. As with anything in life, it takes as long as it takes to free the mind of its binding attachments, desires and addictions. Some people may need the support of a qualified psychotherapist to work through unresolved traumas. 

I particularly recommend Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT). I only know the basics admittedly, but it’s perhaps the only mainstream therapeutic approach I’m aware of that doesn’t take the ego to be the real self. In fact, ACT objectifies the ego and talks of the self actually being awareness, or the observer self. It combines mindfulness with CBT tools and emphasises the importance of acting in accord with our true values. 

It’s worth noting that Vedanta is not therapy. It is a means of Self-knowledge, designed for people who have already worked through most of their psychological issues and traumas. It’s very likely that most students will still have a fair bit of ‘stuff’ to work through, however, and it is for that reason, the teaching offers certain tools and techniques to help purify the mind.

Bear in mind that some vasanas and samskaras are easier to shift than others. According to the Gita, some can be removed as easily as wiping the dirt of a mirror. Others, however, tend to linger like smoke from a fire, which may take some time to disperse. Unfortunately, some are likened to a foetus in the womb; in other words, they must be carried to term and are going to be there for a set duration.

The 3 Foundational Yogas

1. Dharma Yoga

First of all, an understanding and commitment to dharma is an essential prerequisite. While Vedic society placed dharma at its very foundation, the same cannot be said of our modern society. This is in spite of the fact that dharma is universal and built into the tapestry of life itself.

Dharma can be understood in three broad categories. 

Universal dharma is constant and unchanging throughout time and location and applies equally to all beings. Non-injury is the highest universal dharma. No living being, from the grandest of men to the smallest of ants or amoebas, wants to be hurt. Because we don’t want or expect others to harm us, we know that it’s wrong to harm others. Other universal dharmas based upon mutual expectation include truthfulness, non-theft, straightforwardness and purity or cleanliness.

Situational dharma varies depending on time, place and context. Whereas taking a knife to someone’s throat is usually an act of adharma and punishable by imprisonment, a surgeon will take a knife to people in order to help or save them, and is thus following dharma. It’s up to the individual to use discernment to follow the various situational dharmas that life presents. We all have different duties at different times according to our many roles as child and parent, student and teacher, employee and employer, and so on.

Finally, all beings have a personal dharma specific to them. This ‘svadharma’ is determined by our inherent narure, which itself is a product of the gunas and our personal karma. It’s imperative that we act in accordance with this svadharma and follow our nature while observing both situational and universal dharma. We each have a certain role to play in life, a purpose not of our own choosing, but factored into Isvara’s design. 

The Vedic varna system highlights four broad categories of person according to temperament: spiritual seekers and teachers and anyone involved in the propagation of knowledge and education, administrators, leaders and law enforcers, businesspeople and those with skills in commerce, and those skilled in service. We’re all naturally suited to a particular role, and each role should be seen as an equal and necessary contribution to the society.

Above all else else, an unwavering commitment to dharma in all aspects is fundamental to cultivating a pure, peaceful and qualified mind. Even the smallest infractions of dharma create ripples of stress in the mind and invariably come with adverse karmic consequences. The first step to qualifying the mind is, therefore, to be a dharmi.

2. Karma Yoga

The Gita spends a great amount of time unfolding karma yoga as a means of purifying the mind. Traditionally, only sannyasis (ascetics) who renounced worldly life altogether were seen as suitable candidates for Vedanta, the path of knowledge and liberation. Krishna makes it clear, however, that while sannyasis are able to take the shorter path (after all, lack of worldly karma automatically removes an enormous amount of stress from the mind), those with an active life of worldly karma are still capable of attaining enlightenment as long as they prepare the mind by converting all karma, all action, to karma yoga.

Practising karma yoga means performing all actions as an offering to Isvara, or God/the Divine. Our actions are therefore not undertaken simply to satisfy our personal desires and aversions, but are sanctified as worship in midst of daily living. Our every action, whether grand or trivial, becomes a way of paying the rent to Isvara; our way of expressing gratitude for all the many blessings we have been given in life (including the blessing of simply having a human birth!).

Because these actions are given to Isvara, the results of those actions belong to Isvara as well. It’s Isvara that determines and dispenses the results of all our actions. The only appropriate response is to accept those results as prasada; as a blessing from the Lord. Whether we get the results we intended or something else entirely, our mind is freed of great stress, because we respond to situations with objectivity and evenness of mind.

Over time, the practise of karma yoga—converting daily action into worship and accepting the results with good grace—neutralises the mind’s binding desires and aversions. We move from a strictly subjective, ego-driven relationship with life, to a more mature, objective viewpoint. We naturally begin to cultivate discrimination and dispassion, two of the primary qualifications outlined by the scriptures.

For seekers with any worldly karma at all—which, let’s face it, is almost everyone—karma yoga is non-negotiable. Without it, you find your mind swept hither and yon by various internal obstacles (your own binding desires and attachments) as well as external factors (situations, other people, and the various hardships and stresses of life). Karma yoga is necessary to help manage the mind and gradually convert all personal desires to the desire for moksa alone.

3. Upasana Yoga

Upasana yoga means meditation upon Isvara. This ties in with what is commonly known as bhakti yoga. With dharma as the foundation, the practise of karma yoga will eventually lead to upasana yoga. As the mind becomes more discriminating and dispassionate, it becomes clear that what we really want cannot be found in the world of objects, but is in fact the very source and essence of the objects themselves: God! 

Vedanta reveals that our understanding of God, or Isvara, is three-fold and depends upon the seeker’s level of understanding. Because it’s extremely difficult to conceptualise Isvara as the formless, all-pervading intelligence that shapes the Creation, or even as the very substance of the Creation itself, for many it is helpful to visualise the Lord as a particular form. Hence, worship of Isvara usually begins as worship of a personal deity. There are countless to choose from! It’s best to worship a form of Isvara to which you feel particularly drawn. You might want to create a daily puja ritual, offering your chosen deity water, a flower, and perhaps fruit or yoghurt. You can chant mantras, which is an excellent purifier for the mind (the very word ‘mantra’ means ‘mind protector’). The purpose of such worship is to purify the mind and begin to create a calm, contemplative and devotional disposition.

The next highest understanding of Isvara is as vishva-rupa, or the cosmic form. You expand your understanding of Isvara to encompass everything in the Creation: every being, every form, every flower and blade of grass. The entire world becomes the altar of your worship!

The final and highest understanding of Isvara is as the very intelligence and source of all being. For that, we have the three stages of Vedanta: sravana (listening), manana (reasoning) and nididhyasana (integrating the teaching). As Krishna states in the Gita, the highest devotion is to realise your non-difference from Him.

Upasana yoga is particularly helpful when dealing with difficult vasanas and samskaras. You realise that, as a jiva, you are reliant upon Isvara for everything, much as a baby is completely dependent upon its mother. You allow Isvara to shoulder your burden and you draw upon Isvara’s strength (which is, of course, infinite). That’s the reason programs like Alcoholics Anonymous programs work; by acknowledging that the jiva itself is helpless and instead relying upon a higher power, from which we are actually non-separate.

Satya/Mithya Discrimination

The key to freedom is the knowledge that all the jiva’s ‘stuff’— both the good and the bad — actually belongs to Isvara.

You are the Self, satya, and all objects appearing within you — whether the gross objects of the world or the subtle objects of your mind and psyche — are mithya. 

The ability to objectively discriminate between satya and mithya automatically robs the vasanas of the stamp of ‘my-ness’ given to them by the ego. They aren’t you, and they don’t belong to you. They never did and never will. 

As beautifully symbolised by Nataraja, the dancing Shiva, Isvara is doing all the doing here; from the lofty feat of keeping the stars shining and the planets spinning in orbit, to the smaller scale operations such as keeping your heart beating, your hair and fingernails growing, and generating the thoughts in your mind. All of that is mithya and mithya is taken care of by Isvara. You are satya; the Existence/Consciousness/Being from which all objects seemingly arise and into which they again dissolve.

Always remember that any thought, feeling, belief or compulsion is an object known to you. Because it is objectifiable and known to you, it cannot BE you. It only has the power to disturb you when you identify with it; when you think it is YOU. It isn’t. It’s a subtle object produced by ignorance; by non-apprehension of your true nature. All that happened was you superimposed satya on mithya; you saw a snake when actually there was only a rope. There never was a snake. The snake was mithya; it appeared to be there, but it was only a misapprehension.

Negating the vasanas as mithya might sound like spiritual bypassing to some, but it is actually spiritual contextualisation. You aren’t denying these issues or pretending they’re are not there. You’re just robbing them of the sense self-identification, which was actually the real cause of your suffering. Instead of seeing subjectively, you view them with objectivity, and are then able to deal with them in the appropriate way. By knowing them as just objects appearing in awareness, you shrink them down to managable proportions.

Journalling

I’m a huge believer in the power of journalling. It got me through some very tough times. It’s actually a very simple process. You get a notepad and pen and just spill onto the page whatever thoughts and emotions might be troubling you. You give yourself free reign to rant and rave, or to simply write whatever comes to mind. It’s best to do this in a stream of consciousness fashion. You don’t have to worry about spelling or grammar, or even necessarily having it make coherent sense. You just spill the contents of your mind onto paper. (Make sure you keep it private and don’t let anyone else read it afterward.)

I learned this technique many years ago reading a book called ‘The Artist’s Way’ by Julia Cameron. She called them ‘morning pages’. Every morning, you sit and write three pages on any subject, and you do this whether you want to or not, come hell or high water. This serves as a kind of ‘brain drain’. It relieves the internal pressure of unassimilated thoughts, events, judgements, fears, desires, and so on. It gets things onto the page, enabling you to see what’s really going on in your mind.

It also helps you process things and find solutions. Very often you’ll find the intellect stepping in and helping you to make sense of things, interpret things in a clearer light, and find constructive ways to deal with particular issues. 

I recommend this any time you’re feeling stressed or going through a particularly challenging time. It’s a potent form of therapy in itself, I assure you.

Journalling is also an excellent form of nididhyasana. As you work with Vedanta, it’s helpful to keep taking notes and to write the teaching out in your own words. This helps you go through the teaching again and again, allowing it to gradually soak in and permeate every level of the mind. I spent years doing this and found it an invaluable sadhana.

Self-Inquiry and the Pratipaksha Bhavana Technique

This is a step by step technique for getting to the root of whatever thought patterns, belief systems and values lie at the root of a particular vasana or samskara. It incorporates elements of Byron Katie’s Work, which itself is a combination of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) and the Vedantic technique Pratipaksha Bhavana (applying the opposite thought). In my experience, this is best done in writing. So grab a notepad or journal and take some time to answer each question honestly and openly.

1. First of all, identify the thought behind the vasana.

Try to put it into words as a short, simple statement. For example, relationship issues might come down to the thought, “I need ____ to appreciate me.” Sometimes it helps to keep asking, “Why is this important?” “Why do I want this?” or “Why is this a problem?” You’ll be surprised how often it comes down to the thought “I’m not good enough”.

2. Identify the guna underpinning this issue.

Although sattva can cause some issues, such as attachment to pleasure and somtimes a sense of superiority, it’ll most often be the terrible twosome, rajas and tamas, at the heart of it. Rajas is responsible for the more extroverting and agitating issues; such as desire, anger, greed and covetousness, whereas tamas is more introverting, deadening and depressive, and is often associated with shame, fear, low self-esteem, etc.

3. See if you can identify the value underlying the thought.

The value at play might be a desire to be loved, or to be safe or recognised. It might be a value for status, money, or self-acceptance. Inquire into this value: is this a value that feels authentically true to who you are, or is it a value that’s been instilled into you by the society? (See below for more on values.)

4. Now, take a look at that thought, and ask yourself: is this thought really true?

In order to be true it must be absolutely true beyond any shadow of a doubt. The mind naturally invests our thoughts with truth and legitimacy, when in fact a thought is nothing but a thought; an interpretation; a mentally-fabricated story that may have elements of objective truth, but which is invariably clouded by subjectivity and all kinds of cognitive distortion.

5. Ask yourself: What is the price I pay by continuing to believe this thought?

What is the cost of keeping this thought, this vasana alive? How does it affect you physically, emotionally, psychologically, spirituality, and in terms of your loved ones, family, job, even leisure time? Explore it detail how it negatively impacts you. Shine the uncompromising light of objectivity and see how your mind begins to lessen attachment to this pattern.

6. How would things be different if you let go of this thought/pattern/attachment/vasana?

As above, explore in detail how every aspect of your life and your body and mind would benefit if you no longer had that thought? By now, you’ve hopefully convinced the mind of the pain associated with this pattern, the need to change it and the clear benefit of doing so.

7. Assume the perspective of the Self; the boundless awareness that you are, and in which this thought or pattern appears. As the Self, how do you view this thought, belief or pattern?

7. Apply the opposite thought.

If your thought was one of lack, adopt a thought of abundance. If it related to the need for a relationship, or a certain object, affirm that you are already whole and complete without that. Turn that original thought of pain and limitation into a thought of peace, happiness and limitlessness better reflecting your true nature as the Self. You are replacing a thought of ignorance with a thought of Truth.

8. Find evidence to support the new thought.

The mind, accustomed to the habitual as it is, may take some convincing of this new thought. You may need to keep applying this thought to the mind each time the original thought seeks to reassert itself. This takes vigilance and persistance. It helps to actively look for evidence to support the new thought. Write down three to five pieces of evidence which prove this new thought is as true or truer than the original limiting thought.

This is a great practice… and it really works. At first it may require consistent work. Eventually you’ll find it becomes automatic and habitual as your vasana for inquiry grows. You then no longer automatically believe every thought that passes across your mental landscape, and instead have the ability to look at mental content with objectivity and greater discernment and dispassion.

Dissolving Emotional Blocks

Whereas the previous technique dealt with things at the mental level, this next technique is one of the most powerful tools I ever found for dealing with the emotional level. It’s based on an ancient Taoist technique which I call ‘dissolving’ meditation.

Part of the mind’s job is to doubt and emote. The mind endeavours to make sense of the sensory data relayed by the perceptive sense organs. Emotions are then generated as signals motivating us to act; to advance or retreat, to engage or withdraw.

Neuroscientists have shown that emotions actually have a very short lifespan. The emotion is triggered by the release of certain chemicals which apparently flush through our entire system in the span of a mere 90 seconds! The problem is the mind tends to keep focusing on the thoughts or stimulus behind the emotion, thus continually triggering the emotional response. That’s why the above technique is helpful for getting to the root of those thoughts and breaking the cycle of emotional reactivity.

Some emotions are easier to deal with than others, however. Sometimes when we fail to assimilate our experience, we can be left with unprocessed emotions which we experience as a contraction in our body. Our prana/energy stops flowing as easily and, like water collecting into a puddle or pond, becomes stagnant. This emotional contraction can often be very painful.

The Taoist dissolving technique is extremely simple. If you find yourself dealing with difficult or unprocessed emotion, you simply take some time out and isolate where you’re feeling this sensation in the body. It might be in your chest, abdomen, the pit of your belly, or your throat or head. 

The key is to assume the role of objective witness, and simply bring your attention to this pain or discomfort. Be curious and open; don’t resist it, but don’t get lost in mental stories about it. Simply be willing to feel it. Get a sense for its vibration and quality. Sometimes it’s helpful to give it a label, but you do so objectively and dispassionately, as though you’re a scientist studying some fascinating phenomena. So you might say, “Here is a feeling of sadness/hurt/anger etc.”

All you need to do is spend some time directing your conscious attention to this emotion. Although it may be painful, you simply hold it in your awareness, without any sense of resistance and without trying to change it. As you keep holding it in your focused awareness, you’ll find it naturally begins to uncontract and relax. 

The Taoist metaphor is that blocked emotion/energy is experienced as ice; hard and unyielding. As you spend time holding it in your attention with laser-like focus, you’ll experience this ‘ice’ gradually melting into water. It’ll start to flow more freely and you’ll feel a great sense of release as it does so. The key is then to keep your attention upon it until this ‘water’ eventually evaporates into thin air. The sense of release will feel extraordinary, particularly if you’ve been carrying this unprocessed emotion for a while.

This simple technique is the essence of simplicity and it works every time. Some emotions are easy to dissolve; just a little focused attention and they quickly disperse. Others take longer and may require repeated sessions. As with all these tools, persistence is key.

Be the Witness

Mindfulness is all the rage these days and with good reason. The term originates in Buddhism, and the key to mindfulness is being an impartial witness to your experience; your thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. By impartially witnessing these gross and subtle phenomena, they cease to pull you into identification with them, which is the source of all misery.

Vedanta’s equivalent of mindfulness is called sakshi bhava, which means ‘being the witness’ — which is, of course, what we are all along! To practice sakshi bhava is to practice Self-knowledge; to take a stand as awareness and know that all objects, whether gross or subtle, are appearances in you and cannot therefore be you. You, the Self, are sakshi, the witness.

The more you simply witness the arising of all the mind’s various thoughts and emotions, the greater power you have over them. The key is to divest them of all subjectivity and to remain objective and impartial; to always see the body and mind and all its sorrows as objects arising in you—you being the all-pervading and transcendent awareness that is ever untouched by them.

This will give you greater insight into the workings of the mind. You’ll witness with greater clarity and objectivity the patterns of thought and behaviour that arise and be better equipped to deal with whatever thoughts and behaviours cause agitation and suffering.

Practice Objectivity

This leads to our next practice—objectivity. 

The Self is entirely objective. Just as the sun shines upon all beings, saints and sinners alike, the Self is that which allows the entire universe to be, lending its existence and sentience to every aspect of the creation without a hint of favouritism. It’s the jiva, with its assorted likes and dislikes, desires and aversions, that superimposes a veil of subjectivity upon the world of objects. 

Objects themselves are value neutral. They possess only the value we ascribe to them, and that value is entirely determined by our likes and dislikes. In the Gita, Krishna prescribes objectivity as one of the keys to managing the mind. Objectivity means to strip an object of whatever value we have superimposed upon it and see it as it is—in other words, to reduce the object to its own status; neither fully good nor fully bad.

This is a particularly helpful practice when dealing with objects of desire or attachment. We desire the object, or are excessively attached to it, because we’ve been investing it with a certain mind-created value. 

One of the keys to breaking free of binding desire and attachment is to continuously contemplate the down side of that object. Our tendency to only see the upside, much of which is largely a projection of the mind, is what generated the desire and attachment in the first place. To consciously reflect upon that object’s inevitable downside helps create a more balanced and objective vision.

Manage Those Gunas!

Much has been said about the importance of managing the gunas. In fact, it’s so important I should probably have listed this alongside the three foundational yogas. Everything in the material creation is conditioned and determined by the interplay of these qualities. Therefore, the ability to understand and master the gunas is essential to a healthy and happy life. 

The latter chapters of the Bhagavad Gita explore the gunas in detail and how they relate to different aspects of life. I also strongly recommend James Swartz’s “The Yoga of the Three Energies” book which is an excellent manual for managing these qualities. 

I’m not going to go into great detail here. Suffice to say, as I wrote in my Bhagavad Gita commentary, rajas is your ticket to passion and pain, tamas is your ticket to ignorance and indolence, and sattva is your ticket to freedom. 

It’s essential that we learn to burn off excess tamas by cultivating the appropriate amount of rajas. People prone to depression and inertia benefit from going to the gym or any other form of work-out. When tamas rears its ugly, apathetic head, it’s helpful to stir up a little desire and set some positive goals that are in line with your dharma. These should, of course, be done as karma yoga.

Rajas can be managed by cultivating as a sattvic a mind as possible. All the tools above will help with this, including karma yoga, dharma yoga, upasana yoga, meditation and so on. 

The entire purpose of spiritual practice is managing rajas and tamas and generating a pure and sattvic mind. When the mind is sattvic, we see clearly and have the ability to exercise proper discrimination and make sound choices in line with our highest values and true priorities. 

A sattvic mind is also a happy mind! Rajas and tamas make happiness impossible because both create so much pain and sorrow. If a person does nothing more than cultivate a predominantly sattvic mind, they’ll live a largely happy and satisfying life.

Do a Values Inventory

Although this is last on the list, if anything it should be near the top because the value of values should never be underestimated—and yet frequently is.

Until you have a healthy and dharmic value system your life won’t and can’t work particularly well. Indeed, you’ll find yourself beset by constant conflict and confusion.

Most of our values are instilled into us at a very young age. We don’t choose such values; they’re chosen for us. Some of those values will inevitably be false or harmful ones and that’s why there’s so much suffering in our supposedly ‘developed’ world. Why else would otherwise intelligent people base their level of self-worth on their bank balance or marital status, or worse, something ridiculous such as how many ‘friends’ they have on Facebook or the number of ‘likes’ they get for their latest Instagram post.

Even though we know such things don’t really matter, many people still have a value for them—and that includes spiritual seekers, believe it or not. This comes down to what we call ‘partially assimilated values’, which is when we have a value for something, but it may not be a fully assimilated value, or it may contradict another value we hold. This always results in inner conflict and confusion with regard to our actions. 

Often spiritual people have a partially assimilated value for moksa or enlightenment but also a value for seeking happiness in worldly objects. Which of the two will win out? Whichever value is strongest. Given that our value for materialism has been programmed into us from almost the moment we first developed language and cognition, smart money is on that.

Our values shape our priorities and our priorities then determine our actions and behaviour, which in turn become the building blocks of our entire life. That’s why it’s essential that we do a value inventory—particularly if you happen to be plagued by troublesome vasanas. Very often a conflict of values lies at the root of it.

It’s vital that we have clear set of healthy values that are in harmony with who we are.

So I suggest getting out the journal and taking some time to figure out what’s really important to you and what you truly value in the depths of your heart. 

The alternative is blindly and unconsciously trying to live up to the materialistic and worldly values conditioned into you by family, peers and media. So much of people’s suffering comes from self-judgement and self-condemnation for not living up to their values—which aren’t in fact ‘their’ values at all, but are simply the values they’ve unconsciously inherited from almost the moment they developed language skills. 

Chapter seventeen of the Gita provides a wonderful checklist of values for the seeker of liberation. I recommend referring to that and allowing the scriptures to inform your value system rather than the adharma of our consumer-crazed culture. 

Don’t be like the ignorant masses and live only to consume. Be a contributor! Make it your highest value to give at least as much as you take from life. Follow dharma impeccably and commit to polishing the mirror of your mind, to not only make it a fit receptacle for the liberating light of Self-knowledge, but to make it shine; to be as true an embodiment of who you really are as you possibly can. The world needs that. The world needs you.

I’m writing this on the morning of the Winter Solstice 2023 and have been reflecting on the way human beings have, throughout time, approached this darkest time of year.

We live in an age in which a great many of us take the miracles of electricity, running water and central heating for granted. Throughout almost the entirety of human history, however, the Winter months represented a life and death challenge. For many, it may have been a feat simply to stay alive, warm and fed.

I love the fact, however, that in spite of it being the darkest and bleakest time of year, the Solstice has traditionally been a time of festivity and celebration; a way of transmuting the burden of worldly hardship into a celebration of life, light and cheerful anticipation for better, brighter days to come.

Whether you are Christian or not, there’s a lot of rich symbology in the story of Jesus’s birth. The essence of the Christmas story is a Divine light kindled amid the darkest of times. This light already exists in the heart of all beings as the reflected Consciousness of Brahman, the Self; truly the “Father” of all that exists.

I sometimes get asked an interesting question. If everything in creation is Divine, why is there so much evil, suffering and sorrow in the world? Why are corporations, politicians and people in positions of power waging wars, committing murder and destroying the planet? If it’s true that everyone is essentially God assuming name and form, why do many people live with such closed hearts; selfish, materialistic and prone to adharmic actions?

The answer is that while everyone is Divine, not everyone manifests that Divinity.

As long as our mind and heart are conditioned by the influence of rajas and tamas, we are unable to express and actualise our true Divinity in thought, word and deed. Even though it’s always there, the inner light has no real way to shine through the prism of a mind tainted by gluttony, delusion and materialism.

Sadly, this accounts for the current state of our world. Lower values such as greed, lust for power and narcissistic self-interest all too often supersede higher values and attributes such as kindness, compassion, cooperation and love. You only need to take a look at the headlines on any given day to see ample evidence of this.

None of us can single-handedly change the world, or even the people around us, but we can change ourselves.

We each have a choice. Do we seek to express and bring forth our Divinity; that which is highest and best within us? Or do we allow negative cultural conditioning and the greed and dissatisfaction of tamas and rajas to be the driving force in our lives?

There’s an ancient Chinese proverb which states “It is better to light a candle than curse the darkness.”

In actuality, then light is already there; and it will never not be there. We simply need to clean the lamp of our minds to allow it to shine in all its splendour.

The birth of Jesus represents a symbolic kindling of the inner light in the darkest of times; the shifting to a higher, Divine consciousness that happens by surmounting our lower nature and baser instincts and impulses. 

This upliftment of consciousness means seeing the best in all and cultivating higher qualities, values and behaviour in our lives. It means an unceasing commitment to following dharma, because dharma is synonymous with God.

The Bhagavad Gita outlines twenty key dharmic qualities of mind that can be cultivated in order to express our inherent Divinity. These qualities are as follows:

1. Resisting the tendency to pander to our ego and its endless desires, addictions and lower impulses.

2. The absence of pretention and the need to impress and manipulate others.

3. Non-injury to all beings.

4. Having an open and accommodating attitude toward life rather than a rigid, closed mindset.

5. Straight-forwardness, honesty and the harmonious alignment of our thought, word and deed.

6. Service to your teacher. This doesn’t mean becoming a slave to the guru, but simply honouring and respecting your teacher and doing your best to realise and embody the spirit of the teaching.

7. Cleanliness in all aspects; physically, mentally and in terms of our actions, habits and behaviour.

8. Steadfastness; the ability to persevere and commit to your true goal with constancy and determination.

9. Mastery over the mind. Perhaps then most important quality a human being can develop! The mind is a wonderful servant but a terrible master. It must be appropriately trained and brought into alignment with dharma and the higher values outlined in the scriptures.

10. Dispassion toward sense objects. Another vital qualification for all seekers. Many waste their lives in a haze of blind, narcotic hedonism. It’s vital that we learn to master and control the senses, lest we be controlled by them.

11. Absence of egoism and the ability to see beyond the ego part of our nature.

12. Being aware of the limitations of birth, death and body-identification. This means becoming clear about the zero sum nature of material reality and knowing with surety that lasting happiness can only come from within.

13. Absence of the sense of doership. This comes from analysing all the consitutent factors necessary for action to take place. Ultimately, all actions are done by Ishvara, which alone is in control of all factors in the material field.

14. Absence of excessive attachment to our family members, friends, home and belongings. This doesn’t mean we don’t love those in our lives, but that we love with what Swami Dayananda calls “dispassionate caring”. Attachments bind the mind and prevent the full assimilation of Self-Knowledge.

15. The ability to retain even-mindedness and equanimity even amidst life’s greatest challenges and hardships.

16. Unswerving devotion to the Divine.

17. The ability and willingness to retreat to quiet places and disengage from the world’s constant hustle and bustle.

18. Being able to feel happy and content by oneself; or the absence of craving for the company of other people.

19. Constant and unwavering application of Self-Knowledge to the mind. This alone liberates!

20. Devotion to spiritual Truth. This understanding of the true nature of Self and Reality must so strong that it overrides the mind’s tendency to relate to life through a screen of division, separation and disconnection. It means seeing ourselves as we actually are, pure Consciousness, and not the body/mind/ego we might initially appear to be.

What we have above is a checklist for cultivating higher values in alignment with our true Self. By consciously adopting these qualities, we light up the dark night of ignorance and transcend the pains and suffering inherent to identifying solely with the aggregates of matter; the body, mind and ego.

As the dark days begin to lengthen and the light again returns, why not make a commitment to embodying the spiritual Truth of the ages and to fully realise, actualise and express your inherent Divinity? 

That, more than anything else, is what our world needs and is the very doorway to lasting peace and freedom. It reveals to us the light that is always within us, ever present and always shining. It simply requires the commitment to dharmic living and the cultivation of a pure, sattvic mind in which to manifest our own inner light. 

What greater gift can we give the world?

Happy Solstice, Merry Christmas and a good New Year to you!

Rory: Vedanta encourages us, as jivas, to develop a devotional and prayerful attitude to life. The recognition that Isvara is the one running this whole show ought to humble the ego into submission, gratitude and reverence. The act of prayer is underscored by recognition that there’s a greater force operant in the creation; specifically, the Intelligence that creates, sustains and governs the cosmos—and that we ourselves, as jivas, are completely reliant upon it.

There are, of course, different types of prayer and the answer to your question really depends upon what is being prayed for and the mindset with which it is being prayed. 

People at the earlier stages of their spiritual development tend to view God as a big cosmic dispensing machine, and so bombard Him/Her/It with all kinds of requests, invariably materialistic in nature. Such an approach may or may not yield fruit. Let’s face it, I can pray to win the lottery until I’m blue in the face, but it’s ONLY going to happen if Isvara wills it. And because Isvara is responsible for all beings, including all the other people who bought lottery tickets that week, I have to understand that I’m probably not going to get what I want—and why should I when everyone else wants the same thing? The results are determined by karma, and with so many different causal factors at work, karma is largely impossible to fathom.

That’s not to say that prayer doesn’t work. It pays to remember that, contrary to what we generally assume, the entire creation is actually one single great physical body (the Sanskrit term is virat), interfaced by one vast subtle body (hiranyagarbha), both of which are projected from one vast and undifferentiated causal body. In spite of the appearance of differentiation and multiplicity, everything in creation is actually one, and nothing exists in isolation. To me, it stands to reason that since our individual gross and subtle bodies are actually parts of one divisionless whole, our thoughts, words and actions will have a ripple effect, with any action, no matter how small, sending ripples across the surface of the cosmic pond. We truly can influence our karma through thought and action. Indeed, that’s why the Vedas place so much emphasise on prayer and ritual. With our actions and even our thoughts (which are subtle actions) we fashion our karma and, by living prayerfully we can generate a high degree of punyam (good karma).

Prayer plus purposeful action is the key combination. What we pray for is usually a good indication of what we focus our minds and hearts upon. In the Bhagavad Gita Krishna promises that “In whatever form you worship Me, I will bless you accordingly”. If our lives centre around specific goals or material ends, and we devote our time and energy to their pursuit, putting in the necessary time and action, Isvara may well bless us with the result we seek, if it’s in alignment with our karma.

The greater benefit of prayer isn’t to do with specific end results, however. The more we pray and come to rely upon God, the greater it calms the mind and relieves the false burden of doership and ownership which lies at the root of our existential suffering. Ultimately we don’t own anything in this world; it all belongs to Isvara and Isvara alone. Anything we do have is only on temporary loan, including our bodies and minds. We are, in fact, just trustees.

Vedanta prescribes upasana yoga, or meditation upon Isvara, as a means of purifying the mind and rendering it fit for the assimilation of Self-knowledge, which alone leads to liberation. Upasana yoga may include prayer. There are basically two types of prayer: prayers motivated by personal desire (sakama), and prayers offered with an absence of personal desire (nishkama). In other words, we have prayers related to a specific desired end, and prayers of supplication; worship offered out of devotion and gratitude, with no strings attached! 

The prayer of the samsari, or worldly person, is generally a list of wants and desires, whereas the prayer of the seeker of liberation is born of a single desire, which the Bhagavad Gita calls the “desire that is not opposed to dharma”: the desire to be free and to realise our Oneness with God.

As for the effectiveness of those prayers—that’s something which depends, as I said, upon one’s karma. As karma phala data (that which determines and delivers the results of karma) Isvara has to factor all jivas and the environment as a whole into account. Those are a whole lot of factors and variables at play. Sometimes we will get what we want, and other times we won’t. This will be a cause of either jubilation or suffering for the samsari.

The seeker of liberation, however, lives by karma yoga, and therefore accepts whatever results come as a divine gift. The karma yogi is not only a humble devotee, but also a pragmatic and mature person. By accepting both desirable and undesirable results with equanimity, the karma yogi is no longer bound by action and its results. The ultimate aim of the seeker of Truth is a pure mind with which to realise our true nature as the Self…so, as long as karma yoga is exercised, it’s a win/win situation. 

As you point out, at the Absolute order of reality, there is neither subject nor object, worshipper nor worshipped, for all is pure, indivisible Consciousness/Awareness. Prayer is, therefore, for the jiva inhabiting the relative order of reality, and it’s a good way to live.

I hope this is of some help.

Questioner: Sincere thanks for the reply and highly appreciate you taking out time to answer my queries.

I’ve been reading your response multiple times and it is giving more and more insight every time i read. I’ve not come across such a beautiful explanation on Prayer before.

Rory: Well, at this level everything is about dharma. Basically, the body wants to live and be well, because life loves life. That’s why we have the miracle of an immune system and why, the body will innately steer us to what’s good for it rather than what’s harmful. We’re gifted with this wonderful apparatus and, as its trustees, part of our dharma is to look after that body–and to look after our mind as well, for that matter. Life always throws challenges our way. That’s simply inevitable given the nature of duality. While Vedanta gives us the Knowledge that, ultimately, we are free of this duality, and that who we are cannot be impacted or damaged in any way, we still must navigate the apparent world as best we can. We do that by living according to dharma. Some things we have to accept, for Isvara’s decisions are often final. But other things we must fight, which is precisely why the Gita is set on a battlefield and Krishna is telling Arjuna to get off his ass and take action 🙂

I’ve seen critics of Vedanta, who know some of the basics but not the nuance of the teaching, make arguments such as “well, if we’re the Eternal Self, then why bother doing anything in maya? Why don’t we all just kill ourselves, because it’s not “real”, after all?” The answer is that, even though we know that we are the Self and not the instruments of body, mind and ego, we should not live with an impassive fatalism. We must take the gift of life, and live it with full appreciation and commitment to dharma. The highest aspect of dharma is non-injury, which is why it would be terribly wrong to throw ourselves in front of a bus for no reason other than we know that, as the Self, we are deathless.

As the saying goes, it’s wise to accept the things we cannot change and have the courage to change the things that we can–if doing so is appropriate and conducive with personal and universal dharma. If you have a treatable illness and you decide not to treat it because, heck, you’ll die some day anyway, then you’re arguably committing a violence against Isvara; Isvara in the form of your body and also your loved ones, who’d presumably rather like you to stick around! Life is a gift and it should be cherished and maintained, and, if necessary fought for–which, again, is the basis of the Gita and Arjuna’s predicament.

For the jnani, the knower of the Self, there’s no longer a personal identification with the body. It’s just a vehicle. But, again, it behooves us to take care of that vehicle. If your car is falling to pieces, you get it repaired, or it becomes useless to you. If it’s beyond repair, then you get a new one. Same with the body! If it’s repairable then it should be repaired, and if not, then that must be accepted with grace.

Questioner: Isn’t it the ignorance of not knowing our true self that is causing all this global panic/anxiety surrounding covid?

Rory: It’s the ignorance of not knowing our true Self that causes all the generalised suffering and stress in our lives full stop. That’s the very root of samsara, and it has its basis in fear; the fear of believing ourselves to be separate from the Whole and totally at the mercy of a cruel and indifferent external world.