WE ARE ALL MISFITS

There are people who start out doing one thing in life only to find that it's something else that is really their calling.  Until they yield to that calling, they feel like--and are, misfits.

We all have an inner voice calling us.  Due to all the commotion in our lives, however, all the people, things, and events pulling at us, we can't or won't hear that voice.

Eventually, though, we have a revelation.  It may come to us while we are watching a sunrise, or even while we are standing on a street corner. 

We see now that what we have been doing with our lives is hollow, false, that we have missed the mark.

This is because the purpose of human life is spiritual awakening.  Everything other than this is unsatisfying to us in the end.  The problem is that we are looking in the wrong place for fulfillment.  We are listening to the wrong voice.

BLINDERS

Life is not "my," "me," "mine," "my story," even though the egoic self insists that it is.  When we live life as "my," "me," "mine," it's like having blinders on. 

SELF-ABNEGATION.

The mythologist Joseph Campbell said be who you are.  Who we are is not our egoic selves.  Who we are is the Atman.  The term self-abnegation means relinquishing, surrendering oneself as a means of transcending the ego.  Also termed dying to oneself, it is necessary for spiritual advancement.  We cannot see the Atman, who we are, if all we see is our egoic selves.

BRAHMAN CONSCIOUSNESS

Transcendental consciousness, the background, witnessing consciousness does not belong to us but to the Atman.  Indeed, it is the Atman, and since the Atman is Brahman, only one consciousness exists.

It is across this one consciousness, like a movie screen, that life occurs.  This has been described in Vedanta as the sport, play, or drama of the Brahman, in which the Brahman performs all the parts.

It is said that the Brahman does this in order to know itself, because it cannot know itself otherwise.  In the same way that eyes cannot see themselves, the Brahman likewise cannot see itself, except with a mirror, which is us.

TWO TRICKS

The trick to life is living it long enough.  The other trick is living it often enough.

THE FIVE AND TEN BUDDHIST PRECEPTS

The Five Precepts constitute the basic Buddhist code of ethics.  They are undertaken by lay followers of the Buddha in the Theravada as well as in Mahayana traditions. The precepts in both traditions are essentially identical and are part of both lay Buddhist initiation and regular lay Buddhist devotional practices.  They are not formulated as imperatives, but as training rules that laypeople adopt voluntarily to facilitate their practice.

The late Dharma Master Yin-Shun listed the Five Precepts in concise terms:

1.Do not kill. (Unintentional killing is considered less offensive.)

2.Do not steal. (This includes misappropriating someone's property.)

3.Do not engage in improper sexual conduct. (This refers to sexual contact not sanctioned by secular laws, by the Buddhist monastic code, or by one's parents and guardians.)

4.Do not make false statements. (Included here is pretending to know something one doesn't.)

5.Do not drink alcohol.

The Ten Precepts represent the training rules for novice monks and novice nuns in Buddhism. They are used in most Buddhist schools.

1.Refrain from killing living things.

2.Refrain from stealing.

3.Refrain from unchastity, that is from sensuality, sexuality, and lust.

4.Refrain from lying.

5.Refrain from taking intoxicants.

6.Refrain from taking food at inappropriate times, that is after noon.

7.Refrain from singing, dancing, playing music or attending entertainment programs or performances.

8.Refrain from wearing perfume, cosmetics and garlands, i.e. decorative accessories.

9.Refrain from sitting on high chairs and sleeping on luxurious, soft beds.

10.Refrain from accepting money.

AHIMSA

Ahimsa is a term meaning to do no harm. The word is derived from the Sanskrit root hims – to strike; himsa is injury or harm, a-himsa is the opposite of this, i.e. non harming or nonviolence.  It is an important tenet in both Buddhism and Vedanta.

Ahimsa means, specifically, kindness and non-violence towards all living things including animals.  It respects living beings as a unity, holding that all living things are connected.

Since the beginnings of the Buddhist community, monks and nuns have had to commit themselves to the Five Precepts of moral conduct, with the very first Precept being to not kill.  Lay persons are encouraged, but not obliged, to commit to any of the Precepts, even as, in both codes, the first rule is to abstain from taking the life of a sentient being. 

Buddhist monks are furthermore to avoid cutting or burning trees, since some sentient beings rely on them.  Monks and lay persons alike are permitted to eat meat and fish, on condition that the animal is not killed specifically for them. 

Indian leader Mohandas Gandhi strongly believed in ahimsa, which included the avoidance of both verbal and physical violence.  Ahimsa recognizes self-defense when necessary, but stipulates that any kind of violence entails negative karmic consequences.

THE SELF THAT ISN’T

The "self" exists only relatively.  Moreover, since it is transient, in flux, constantly changing, it is an illusion.  It cannot be pinned down.

The self is in a state of becoming.  This is to say, it is forever becoming something else.  The person who walks into a room is not the same person who leaves that room five minutes later. 

The person has become someone else in that five minutes, having had new experiences in the room, having gained new information about the room and the people there, but then also having undergone an additional five minutes of wear and tear on mind and body, having aged another five minutes, having moved five minutes closer to death. 

Above all, the self is not separate from the rest of existence.  "No man is an island," as the English poet John Donne put it in his "Meditation XVII."   The self is part of a whole, one thread in a great tapestry.  Indeed, insofar as everything is Brahman, it is the whole.

ENDING AT THE BEGINNING

A Zen monk once described life as the interval between bathtubs, between the bathtub in which the baby is washed after birth and the bathtub in which the corpse is washed before burial. 

Samuel Beckett, the novelist and playwright, wrote in his play Waiting for Godot, "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more." 

Both of these images convey, starkly, the reality of life, but are also misleading.  For instance, life may be short but it is not a straight line.  Rather is it a cycle, a circuit where the finish line is the starting line.

We begin life by doing things, and then by doing more and more things, until we reach the end, where we find life undoing everything we've done.  The egoic self, for example, diminishes in importance to us, until, at the finish, it is completely unimportant.  Next, our possessions we no longer value, and then everything we've learned. 

This shedding of the layers of life is a purging, a purification that occurs quite naturally as we prepare for the end, a conclusion that we do not fear, it turns out, because we have been there before.  We die in the same place where we were born.  It is form becoming formless once again, the manifested once more the unmanifested.  There is never nothing, just the cycle.

RENUNCIATION AND AUSTERITY

In his book My Guru and His Disciple, Christopher Isherwood describes a situation where spiritual lecturer Gerald Heard, an early follower of Swami Prabhavananda, decided to resign his association with the Swami's Vedanta Society of Southern California.  His reason for doing so, as Heard stated in a letter to Prabhavananda, was that the Swami's way of life there in California violated the monastic standards of austerity.  It was too social, too comfortable, too relaxed.

This was to say, the Swami had Hindu notions of hospitality and often invited guests to lunch--some of them not even devotees, but just their relatives or friends. Appetizing meals were served--that is, if one liked curry--and they were not necessarily vegetarian.  The Swami had a car at his disposal.  He chain-smoked, which set a bad example for those who were struggling with their own addictions. The women, nuns, waited on him hand and foot and he accepted their service as a matter of course.  His relations with them--though doubtless absolutely innocent--could easily cause misunderstandings and suspicions among outsiders. For, after all, he WAS the only male in a household of females.

Even if Heard's letter was tactfully worded, it hurt Prabhavananda's feelings deeply, and he later answered Heard indirectly in an article entitled "Renunciation and Austerity," which he wrote for the Vedanta Society magazine.  It read in part, "You would identify the life of renunciation with a life of poverty and discomfort and you would say that if a spiritual teacher lives in comfort and in a plentiful household he is inevitably not living the consecrated life.  Your view is too simple.  A man of true renunciation concerns himself neither with poverty nor with riches.  If the poor man hugs his few trivial possessions, he is as much attached and as much a worldly man as the rich man.  Only, the poor man is worse off--because of his envy.  Mere outward austerity is a degenerate form of ritualism.  A spiritual soul never makes any demonstration of his renunciation."

According to Isherwood, Aldous Huxley, another of Prabhavananda's early followers, was distressed over this rift.  It was a disaster, Huxley said, when two sincere practitioners of the spiritual life fell out with each other--especially since there were so few of them.  "Judge not that ye be not judged," he murmured to himself several times--which suggested that he thought Heard was wrong.  Heard had his own style which others might well disagree with too, he seemed to be saying; Heard could be seen as too much of a "life-hater," as Isherwood put it, and a task master. 

This, however, was not the end of the Prabhavananda and Heard relationship.  The spiritual college that the latter went on to build in the Trabuco Canyon south of Los Angeles was not as successful as Heard had hoped.  As a result, he eventually turned it over to the Swami and the Vedanta Society with whom it had a brighter future, ironically as a monastery.

FALSE AUSTERITY

When austerity is undertaken with full faith and concentrated mind, without longing for results, but only for the sake of God, it is said to be “in goodness.”

When, on the other hand, austerity is undertaken for the purpose of getting praise from others, such as “He is a great ascetic,” or with the aim of receiving bodily respect, such as having people stand up when the person approaches, or for the purpose of gaining mental respect which would manifest in the future as, for example, gifts of money, then the austerity is in what is called the mode of passion and is considered false austerity.

Similarly, when austerity is performed out of blind attachment and foolishness, causing pain to oneself or others, or with the objective of harming or destroying others, the austerity is in the mode of ignorance and is likewise considered false austerity.

AUSTERITY IN VEDANTA

In Vedanta, the spiritual practice of conserving energy and directing it toward the realization of God is called austerity.  There are three types of austerity according to the Bhagavad-Gita:  

"Worship of the higher powers, service to the teacher and to the wise, cleanliness, externally and internally, straightforwardness, continence, and care not to injure any being, these things are known as the austerity of the body.

"Speech which causes no vexation, and is true, and also agreeable and beneficial, and regular study of the Scriptures, these are said to constitute the austerity of speech.

"Serenity of mind, kindliness, silence, self-control, honesty of motive, this is called the austerity of the mind."

We must never forget, the Bhagavad-Gita emphasizes, that the ideal of life is neither austerity nor renunciation, nor even meditation, but to know God, to be illumined within one's own soul.  The means must never be confused with the end.