Dharma and Yoga - Aligning with your Divine Nature

Transcript

Namaskar. So we, human beings,
don't come with an instruction manual,
and as a result we often don't know how to fully
access all of our potential. We're not even
aware that it exists. It's like somebody living in
just one corner of a house, and there's all these
unexplored rooms. Now, the yogis develop
the concept of Dharma. Dharma refers to the fundamental
nature of something. And human Dharma
has four parts. So, this is going to be
a series of five parts that's going to explore each of these aspects
of Dharma in depth. Today I'm going to just explore
overall the concept of Dharma. What is Dharma?
How can we express it fully? And how can this
lead us towards a life of much greater
fulfillment and happiness? So, Dharma refers to
fundamental characteristics, the fundamental
nature of something, what defines it. So, if we look at fire,
for example, fire's characteristic
is to burn. If it cannot burn,
then is it really fire? Or water, for example,
is to be wet. So, all of the universe, all of the different
elements of the universe, all of the different
beings in creation, each have their Dharma, they
have a fundamental nature. And when something is
aligned with its nature, it is able
to express fully. For example, I am thinking now of
a funny story, actually. There's this video
on YouTube of a woman who's washing the dishes
with her elderly father and she says,
"How did you like that iPad that I gave you
for Christmas?" And he's like, "Oh, yeah,
it's good, it's nice." And she's like, "So, have you
explored all of the apps?" And he says, "Um... apps?" And meanwhile
he takes the iPad, and he cut some
vegetables on it, and her eyes are popping out
of her head as she sees this. And then, he just cleans
the vegetables off of the iPad, and then takes it, and sticks
it into the washing machine. And now she's really
looking extremely shocked. And he looks at her and
says, "What? What's wrong?" So, for him the iPad was just really nice surface
for cutting vegetables, and he had no idea that
it had all of these apps, and all of these
other potentials in it. I think sometimes, if
the Creator could look at us, how we're using our bodies
might think also that, "Wow! I gave them this
wonderful human body, and they're only
using it the same way if they had a simple
animal body - just to eat, and sleep,
and procreate, and so forth. These are
the characteristics that all of the animal kingdom
share with us. Now some people
say, for example, that a human being
is just a rational animal. My teacher said that
would be kind of like saying that a plant is just
a mobile... sorry, that an animal is just a plant
that can move around. So, obviously that
doesn't make a lot of sense. There's something really
fundamentally different between a plant
and an animal, other than the characteristic
that it can move, that a plant is usually
rooted in the ground, and that an animal is able
to move around freely. So, in the same way there's
a sort of qualitative difference between human
beings and animals. just as there's a qualitative
jump or difference between plants
and animals as well. So, what is this
qualitative difference? The yogis were
able to define this and look at four
different aspects, four different aspects
of human Dharma. Now, human Dharma contains
as well animal Dharma. We also share
the characteristics that we have evolved
like human beings, human forms
have evolved over eons over thousands
and thousands of years. Our bodies, our glandular
system, our nervous system, our brains
have all evolved, just have some very
complex and subtle qualities. One of those qualities,
for example, of self-reflection, is something, that you don't
find in the animal kingdom. But we're going
to look now at how to align ourselves
with these qualities. So, these four qualities are the need for
continuous expansion, freedom, going
past all limitations. Another characteristic is
our need to be able to serve, to be able to love,
to be able to give, to make the world
a better place. Another one is
our need to feel part of something much
bigger than our small selves, to feel a flow, to feel
part of that flow, to feel in harmony with it,
to be able to follow our heart, our dreams
in the deepest sense. And finally, the ability of
a human being to self-reflect and not only self-reflect,
but to self-reflect on its very Source,
on its very essence, and for our ability
to merge ourselves into Supreme Consciousness,
into the state of yoga, into the state of unity. So, these are the four
characteristics of Dharma, and we're going to be exploring
each one of these in depth. This will help us to be
able to live our lives in a more aligned way,
deeply aligned with Dharma, deeply aligned
with the universe. That way we're not
fighting against nature we're taking its help. It helps us to more
fully express ourselves. You might have
heard of permaculture. So, permaculture, okay,
when I say permaculture, first of all
many people just think it means a certain
style of gardening. It's really not that. Permaculture is about a deep
understanding of natural laws how they are operating in nature, and how we can
align ourselves with what nature
itself is trying to do, so that we don't have to
work so hard against nature. For example, when we
are planting a garden, if you're doing it
organically, you know, one of your
biggest challenges is keeping the weeds away from
the plants you're trying to grow. So, a lot of gardeners
spend a lot of time clearing, keeping the earth
around the plants, they're trying to grow,
clear of weeds And that takes
a lot of effort. Now, permaculture simply
acknowledges the fact that, I thought this was
such a beautiful metaphor, the Earth doesn't
like to remain naked. She's very modest, she will
always try to clothe herself. And so, what can nature clothe
itself with most quickly? The most fast-
growing plants. And these are our weeds. They're not the plants we're
usually trying to cultivate, but they come up right away. And so if we understand
that Nature's trying to keep herself covered,
doesn't like to be bare, then we can be
choiceful about that, and instead of allowing just
the weeds to come up, we can cover the Earth
with something called mulch, which is the layer of...
can be a layer of straw, can be a layer of
decomposed leaves, something that actually
serves the purpose of not only creating a barrier
so the weeds won't come up, but it's also
nourishing the Earth, because that mulching layer
is like breaking down and doing exactly
what happens in a forest, and fertilizing, and
nourishing the whole system. So, instead of just
getting rid of weeds you're not only protecting
your plants from the weeds, but you're nourishing
the whole system, because you're working
together with nature, you're cooperating with it
in an intelligent way. And when you apply
this kind of principle of aligning yourself
with nature, and trying to understand
what is the deeper purpose, what is the system
trying to achieve. Then instead of just using
the iPad to cut your vegetables you can really achieve
your full potentials. Unfortunately we
sometimes also do this with our human body,
with our human potentials. We're only using a really limited
part of our human potential. And we're not aware
that there are apps, that there are other
types of potentials, that are there,
that we can tap into. So, that we're working
together with the nature that the Universe,
this whole design, that the Universe has
of human beings being able to
self-reflect on Divinity. Not only self-reflect but to
become merged with Divinity, to flow into Divinity
to become one with it, to become a conscious
part of the universe, that's co-creating,
co-evolving. So, the universe
is evolving naturally according to laws like natural
selection and genetics. To a certain extent that is
how beings and systems evolve. But when we get to human
beings we're no longer... we don't any longer just
have to be passively evolved by only genetic laws. The reality is that human
consciousness is able to start to co-create the universe. You know, we have
the ability to... to use certain
of our subtler aspects such as compassion. and no longer do we
need to just allow laws like survival of
the fittest to determine how we function,
how we evolve. For this reason
I also think that even the development
of Technologies, we shouldn't be afraid of it. it is a part of
what human beings do in their co-creation
of the universe is that we start to
evolve also Technologies, we start to evolve also
artificial intelligence, we start to evolve other
aspects which help us to increase our
own evolution, our own Mastery
of certain elements, but also other
subtler abilities. Now, Dharma is interesting because all of the aspects
of Dharma can be harnessed and used in a very limited
and materialistic way, or, if we properly understand where the universe
is taking us, and that it's taking us
on a sort of journey of evolution of Consciousness to become more and
more compassionate, to become more
and more subtle, to become more
and more divine, and to be a channel for Divinity to work on the planet
through our small minds. If we're able to merge them
into that Universal flow, then that Universal flow
is working through us, and we're increasing its
expression in the world around us. And that's the beauty
of being able to understand and align ourselves
with Dharma. One of my very early
teachers on this path before I came into the yogic
practice was a Korean zen teacher. And he had an expression
that I thought was just so cute. he said, "Human beings -
number one bad animal, because human beings forget
what human being's job is." So, this is why
when we're in nature we often tend to feel
a lot of peace and harmony, because all of the plants,
all of the animals, all of the natural elements
they're just flowing according to their nature,
according to their Dharma. They're fully aligned
with Dharma, because they don't
yet have a choice. So, they automatically flow, all of nature
automatically is moving towards subtlety, actually. Means it's evolving it's
in a process of evolution, and ultimately it's
going to evolve towards subtler
and subtle life forms, and in the meantime
all of nature is acting according to different
natural laws. And that's why it's
such an amazing reservoir of metaphor, of wisdom
and of Peace for us, because when we're immersed in
nature we're immersed in Dharma. We tend to get out of alignment
when we're just in our heads, and when we're just surrounded
by our own thoughts, and our
"mad monkey" mind. But when we're in nature,
we start to feel the peace and the oneness of the universe
that's surrounding us. So, the more
that we are able to become one
with our Dharma, the more that we're able
to deeply understand it and to channelize the mundane
or materialistic expressions of our Dharma towards
the subtler capacities, the subtler potentials our undiscovered,
untapped resources, then our life can truly
be fulfilled in a deep way, not in a limited way
that just disappears, and is ephemeral and that
we're always chasing after, but in a deeply fulfilling
way as we express more and more
of that Divine Dharma. So, I invite you
to follow the series, there will be four
more parts to this, and also to not
just stay in theory. It's so important
in the yogic path - 1% is theory,
99% is practice. And so, I hope that
it will inspire you also to express and explore
your Divine Dharma through the practices
of yoga and meditation that allow you to harness the deeper aspects
of our human nature, and to channelize them
towards that Universal Oneness, and to become a part of... we're already part of it,
but to become aware, that we have that Oneness
with the essence of creation. So I invite you to take
our meditation course if you haven't
already done so, just
to our Channel, or share your
comments and thoughts. Thank you so much. Namaskar.