Day 25 - Our Life's Song

 

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India.

Yesterday, we talked about yoking together our earth life with our spiritual life, what that means, and whether or not we felt that we were living our lives harmoniously. Today, we will continue on in our exploration of this idea.

The meaning of the words Bhagavad Gita are Lord’s song or life’s song. As we know from our previous reflections on the Atma and the Brahman, our lives are a part of the bigger picture or the atma (the self, the wave) within the Brahman (absolute reality, the ocean). Hence, the Gita asks us to reflect on first life’s song and second our own life’s song.

So, the first question for our journal writing today is what is life’s song? And, our second question is then what is “our” life’s song? In yoga and upon reading the Gita, we are meant to reflect on and we are supposed to determine what our purpose is here in this earthly life.

In the first sense, life’s song is to serve. In other words, our absolute purpose is to serve humanity. In the second sense, we are asked more specifically to reflect on how we, as individuals, are meant to serve that greater purpose. In other words, what is your specific task or how will you serve?

Many people do not understand what it means to serve. Usually, we think of service as taking care of others. For example, we think of service as volunteering at a nursing home or to feed the homeless. While these things are certainly a part of service, they are not the only part. In fact, upon closer reflection, everything we do is a type of service. From doing laundry and cooking dinner to helping our kids with their homework and writing a report for our boss.

For today’s journal entry, I want you to write about all of the things you “do” in your life from the time you wake up until the time you go to bed and think about each task as your service to the world. What did you learn about yourself during this process?

Shanti

Day 27 - Your Dharma Part 2

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India.

 

Yesterday, we ended our tarka practice with the question, what is your purpose in life or your dharma? Today, we continue on with that question to a second level of the word dharma. Dharma also means duty. So here, we could also ask ourselves the question, what is my duty in life?

 

The word duty often calls up thoughts of responsibility or questions like what am I responsible for? This is a question of ethics. So now, if we yoke together both purpose and duty within the word dharma, we come to understand that we each have an individual purpose to fulfill and a way to fulfill it. Not only should we fulfill our purpose but we should fulfill it in a responsible and harmonious way.

 

This is one reason that I asked you yesterday to make a list of your strengths in your journal. Your strengths tell you about what you do well. We are meant to do these things. It is our duty to do them. For example, if you think you are very good at teaching others but not very good at woodworking, this is a hint from the universe. One might say here, it is your purpose to teach or your duty to teach. It is not your purpose to be a woodworker. So, another way to find our purpose or our dharma is to make a list of what we do not do well. If you are still searching for your purpose, you can eliminate those things from the list that you have difficulty with and those things that you do not enjoy doing. We are given strengths and talents and we are meant to use them to fulfill our purpose.

 

In your journal today, I want you to make a list of things that you don’t think you do well and things you are not interested in doing. Now, you have to be careful here because sometimes we have weaknesses that we are meant to develop into strengths and sometimes we are afraid of success. When making your list, make sure that the things on your list are not there because you are running away from them.

 

Shanti

 

Day 28 - Your Dharma Part 3

Today's Tarka Practice

Our focus this week will be on the Bhagavad Gita. The Gita is one chapter out of the Mahabharata, which is one of the longest Sanskrit epic poems from ancient India.

Yesterday, we were talking about the relationship between dharma, duty, and purpose. Today, we will continue that discussion here, so if you missed yesterday’s post, read that one before reading this one.

 

A second way to understand the relationship between purpose and duty is this – it is our duty to fulfill our purpose. Hence, our task in life is to find our purpose and then to do it. The deeper message here is that when we are off the path - we are not finding our purpose or doing our purpose (we are not living our dharma), we will experience pain and unhappiness. However, when we are on the right path – we are moving towards our purpose and beginning to practice our purpose (we are fulfilling our dharma), we will experience joy and happiness.

So, our next task is to now write down in our journals those things that bring us pain and unhappiness and those things that bring us joy and happiness.

 

Finally, over the weekend, you can examine all of your journal entries this week in order to begin to get a sense of what your purpose in life is or what your duty is or what your dharma is. Go ahead and write those things down. Keep this list. Build on this list and notice some of the changes you begin to make in your life over the next few weeks.

Shanti

Day 31 - Turning the Negative into a Positive

Today's Tarka Practice
We have now talked about two different types of karma - San-chitta karma and Pralabdha karma. The next type of karma it is important to understand is Kriyamana karma.

 

Kriyamana karma is the karma that you are creating in this lifetime. To clarify, Pralabdha karma is all of the karma in this lifetime but Kriyamana karma is the karma you are constantly creating and adding to the Pralabdha karma tank or ocean if you will. For example, on Wednesday I talked about one of my traits - teacher as a part of my Pralabdha karma. Now, when I teach I am creating something and this act of creation creates karma.

 

In other words, karma can also be described as a cause-effect relationship. In my essence, I am a teacher; therefore, I teach. This act of teaching creates an effect on myself and on others. Remember, it is not a good effect or a bad effect, it is just an effect. Someone might see my teaching as either good or bad but this is not karma. Instead, this is someone bringing their own attitudes onto what I am teaching and assigning it a meaning of their own. Most likely, they will interpret my teaching in a way that is harmonious with their own karma.

 

To simplify this idea, what I mean here is that everyone has their own personal lens through which they see the world. This personal lens effects one's attitude towards things. What is important to understand is that you can change your attitude about something at any time. You have the power to see things in any way that you want to see them.

 

For today's journal entry, think about a time in which you experienced something you didn't like and had a negative attitude about it. Now, think about how you could have changed your attitude in order to experience this same thing more positively. I'll give an example for further clarity.

 

When my daughter was born, my pelvis separated and I couldn't walk or take care of my daughter without help. I couldn't carry her or get her a bottle or get up with her in the middle of the night. I couldn't do anything that one normally does with a newborn. I could have seen this as a very negative experience (and on some days I did). However, I thought mostly about what a great gift it was because it allowed me to spend time with my newborn. All I could do was sit in a chair all day long so this is what I did. I sat with her on my lap, holding her for the entire day. This was precious bonding time for us both. If I had been able to move around more, I might have missed out on this bonding time because I would have been very busy cleaning and cooking and tending to things.

 

Think of this example and write about a time when you turned a negative experience into a positive one.

 

Shanti