098 with Swami Nityananda - Be Still, As The Universe Plays Through You

[00:00:01] Intro: At what age do we learn how to have better conversations at what age should we learn to have better conversations with ourselves knowledge is power reality is What I would love to do so my podcast is pretty free-flowing I have I literally sometimes I have half page notes a whole page today I have like one note I've listened to you and there's a lot of things floating around in my brain that I want to talk to you about but um I would love to if you don't mind start with kind of your bio like who are you what is it that you do how did you get into this was it like profound all of a sudden did you always think this way or you know how do you get into all this who are you that's a really good question well thanks first of all it's really a pleasure to talk with you and

[00:01:18] Swami: Gratitude and respect to your listeners and so the name on my driver's license reads Juniper Ellis so Juniper Ellis is the name that my dad and my mom gave me and I was born in Washington state I grew up in Washington state and so I'm inviting listeners to think about their equivalent as I talk about this but one of the things that I noticed that was part of my earliest awareness was in connection with the natural world I always had a sense of peace and joy and freedom and then also like a realization that we're non-separate so my body was part of the natural world the natural world was part of my body and so I grew up with just kind of like that Clarity and that Joy of being aware of that connection and so I'm inviting listeners to notice for everyone who's listening like what are your natural points of connection because so one of the foundations of our teaching I'm at a wake yoga meditation and that's a meditation Community geographically we're in Baltimore and we have people who join us online from all over um but one of the foundations of our teaching is that's basic to All Humans that we all have these entry points into feeling connected feeling

[00:02:31] Swami: Whole feeling peaceful feeling really inspired and excited and so for the

[00:02:36] Jacob: Listeners the question is for me what

[00:02:39] Swami: Are those natural points of connection and awareness

[00:02:42] Jacob: Hmm well interesting so you grew up with um you know basically what we would call a non-dual awareness so you know a lot of people don't um it's very difficult to understand these things from a materialistic point of view um for me I'd I had some inklings of that growing up but it wasn't until about five years ago or so that I had um I kind of had like some profound spiritual experiences and I um became vastly aware of the non-dual nature of existence um okay so can you okay so I just asked somebody else this question the other day to someone who uh for to a completely materialistic mind who thinks like you know this is me that's all that there is how would you explain non-dualism well so for me I thank you for saying that like I've never actually put it in those words but I think you're absolutely right like that's a fair description to me I would say I grew up with natural Oneness and that natural Oneness is natural like that's like basic too to our human awareness um so I think for someone who's had a feeling of being confined within a single human body that's why I'm offering that invitation is sort of like

[00:03:51] Jacob: Form for each listener what are the entry points like for example I've talked to a rock climber who the day job he's like a doctor and director of a hospital medical director of a hospital but when he's rock climbing the only thing he's aware of is my right hand is holding on to this rock and the next move my right hand makes is going to be to this rock and the same thing like that total focused present moment awareness so for that person rock climbing is one of those moments of just complete present full total awareness for other people it could be music so for people who love music sometimes there's a kind of like I've heard singers say this as well I gave a compliment to a really talented singer and the singer said I wasn't doing anything at all and so there's a there's thousands of hours of practice that go into that singer being able to say I wasn't doing anything at all but after you have that thousands of hours of practice as a singer as a musician then the music just sort of pours through you I think Yo-Yo Ma says it's like a whole new universe can be pouring through you with every note and there's that

[00:05:08] Jacob: Sort of like openness and when you listen to Yo-Yo Ma you can feel there's just like light pouring through that music and so for every listener for some people it's like they love animals or they love nature they love being out in the forest and so whatever it is there's that connectedness with something that's just really innocent and pure and natural and it involves that Focus that being completely present in a way that you're not even aware of any limitation you're not aware of any pain you're not aware of any like stories there's no labels so our conceptual awareness just kind of like it's not present and there's just complete focused awareness I think you know sort of like kissing the top of a newborn baby's head a lot of people have that experience or like if you're holding the hand of a dear one who's about to depart the body like they're about to leave the body or pass away it can also be that same just complete awareness that there is something so much faster than can fit into a human body um well yeah like he said um uh you're talking about how uh the universe you allowed the universe to pour through you and it's not you acting as the

[00:06:25] Jacob: Universe it's not the small self acting through you know it's uh you almost must um I'm a musician uh of sorts myself and it's taken me a while to kind of learn the essence of not trying and not sitting on a perch trying to catch what's next but instead of getting out of the way and allowing it to work through me you know in the time that you've spent working up to that the 10 000 hours as this often said um allows itself to kind of Express through you and sometimes um if you're familiar with uh Jazz so like jamming and jazz is very much uh it's non-improvised it's very much being present and just working with what's there like you can't be in your mind like oh I'm gonna do this like you're not thinking about that you're just here in your talent expresses itself and it creates something along with these other band members so it's really this dance um so what is it what so what do you find in your teach teachings like what seems to come up you know when you're teaching someone this from a place of um you know maybe they have many more years until they understand these things um in non-j and not just an intellectual

[00:07:29] Jacob: Way but in a experiential way what are some things that seem to come up like do they understand this at all or is it what um so that's a really really quickly that there is direct access that is available and I'm not sure if that's because so our

[00:07:54] Swami: Meditation community so we are awake yoga meditation and we're in Baltimore we were founded by my teacher and his name was Swami shankarananda and so

[00:08:02] Jacob: Swami Shankar Nanda I encourage you to go to awakeyogomeditation. org our webpage just look at his picture and you can't do it without just grinning because he's like this being of light this amazing being of light and so that energy of his lifetime of practice like all of that light that he generated in his lifetime is here and so maybe that's one of the the great gifts that we have in our

[00:08:26] Swami: Meditation Community is that people who walk in the door feel that light and so there's like a direct access that is present and available that is a thing that yogis say and I'm curious to ask you about is it the same with musicians but yogis say that it's really indispensable to have contact with a being of light like that and that gives you this huge spiritual boost almost like this heart opening or this calming of the mind so that the usual chatter and usual patterns of thinking just sort of melt away but I was curious to ask you like if you've ever played with a really established jazz musician like when you were starting did that help you enter into that free flow that you were just talking about so beautifully it's actually interesting I never really um thought about that way but I do have one of my dear friends Eric nordina's name he's this fantastic musician he's so good um and I got to um I've spent a lot of time with him but I got to actually spend like a lot of intimate time with him like we uh when he first started we kind of like I helped him kind of like write an album I

[00:09:31] Swami: Was I got to be around him as he was just performing and existing and um

[00:09:36] Jacob: Yeah there is like a spiritual Essence to that like there is a um you know and now that I think about it I suppose I've always gone to concerts and I always really liked live music and such and um you can instantly sense when some something's not real like you can tell the energy of the person on stage is very um apparent you know um so sometimes you just don't connect with it like if they're incredibly stressed out or they're you know miles deep in thoughts I feel like you can almost feel that in a sense but there is also moments where um time itself begins it begins to cease right because you're just this person is creating this vibration you know with their music with their words with their presence and sometimes even just them speaking on stage has brought me moments of just you're just screaming yes inside you know you don't know you're not thinking about anything you're just here and it brings you to presence and that's something that I've always just um you know I think people who go to concerts you know maybe great musicians are their Guru in a sense you know you're looking for that oh

[00:10:38] Jacob: You know because just like that picture you said that we're all we're all when we find something somebody who has it we're just we just want to follow them right we're like you have it like I don't know what it is but you have I want to listen whatever you say I'm listening you know so it is that yeah so I have a I have had the grace to be around um musicians and not just Eric nordina I've actually got to work with some incredible people and watching them not only right like pulling things from The Ether um and putting them into you know pulling things from out here and getting them onto paper and actually like getting a recording of that it's like whoa I just gotta witness that I just gotta be around this person who is just a conduit of the universe to get some sort of like musical expression um onto something that other people can hear from here forward so yeah certainly I think certainly yes yeah it's such a gift I mean I would just say it is such a gift because it's so much larger than the individual and so I'm really excited to hear you describe that in musical form so that's

[00:11:37] Jacob: Very much I think like what we are the

[00:11:39] Swami: Beneficiary of at Awake Yoga Meditation so that one of the words that Yogi sometimes uses transmission that transmission of spiritual energy is just so whole and so vital and so filled with peace and just connectedness and it's such a gift to have that oh yeah so wonderful okay so um what sorts

[00:11:58] Jacob: Of meditations do you guys teach over there what type of meditation I mean I'm sure a listener may have heard of uh vipassana following the breath maybe they've heard of um transcendental Transit I always do this every time trans Transcendental Meditation

[00:12:11] Swami: Um you know Mantra meditation these sorts of things what is what is something that you guys specialize over there yeah absolutely so when you walk in the door or when you hop onto one of our meditations online so we have meditations Sundays and those are in person and then we also share them on YouTube and zoom and then we also have meditations Tuesdays and Fridays and those are on YouTube and zoom and so those meditations are very they give like an opening invitation like if people find it helpful to have a brief focus and a brief guided meditation that people can enact if they want and then we have about 20 minutes of Stillness and so in the 20 minutes of Stillness you either can put into motion the guided meditation that we just sort of gave brief prompts for or you can practice whatever your favorite method of meditation is if you have a practice already established we also my teacher was a kriya yoga master so that is a method of meditation that came from India and so he was amazing as a Korea yoga teacher and when he left the body as Yogi say when he passed in 2014 he appointed me his successor and asked

[00:13:16] Swami: Asked me to teach kriya yoga so that's like a meditation that's taught one-on-one and so it's individually taught from the teacher to the student and it involves about 20 minutes of meditation in the morning and 20 minutes in the evening so it's very integratable into daily life it's also very potent and transformable it's transforming so it gives you like this technique of self-transformation self-healing working with what we've been talking about sort of like helping you be extraordinarily focused and present right where you are helping you be more of you and then so you were using that I think your metaphor might have been like that like that energy that frequency it helps you be more of your own signature energy and your own signature frequency so whatever you are here to share it helps that come into more direct View um well okay so is this through um I

[00:14:07] Jacob: Mean you said it's three you know 20 minutes of meditation and then a conversation is are these like Koons that you're kind of creeping them towards are you unwinding things that they are not um what is it what are these conversations like so I mean so basically if someone you can visit our website and we have more information on

[00:14:24] Swami: Kriya um there's like a video where I'm talking about kriya as well but if you sort of like contact us you can email me

[00:14:30] Jacob: At Swami awake meditation. org and say

[00:14:32] Swami: Hey I'm interested in kriya and so that would involve just setting up like an hour-long conversation with me in which I share um a technique and then that technique of meditation is you practice it in your daily life 20 minutes in the morning 20 minutes at night and it's just helping you be that which you are always and so it works with breath and it works with Mantra what you're really getting and this is my experience from having received these techniques from my teacher who I mentioned is just a being of light what you're really getting is not only the technique it's also this huge boost of spiritual energy as well

[00:15:10] Jacob: Okay so when you first started learning meditation I mean I know you said you kind of had this uh recognition of Oneness since you were since you were a child um was meditation incredibly easy for you at the beginning do you remember any of your of your quarrels I'm always trying to pull in um like people who are just beginning or they don't know much about this maybe this is the first episode they stumbled upon and they don't really know any of this like what might they be coming across and what did you come across well so I mean the answer is by Grace yes um I mean I recognized meditation as soon as I started practicing it was sort of like oh this oh yes so oh I'm so vibration um yes um I also I mean I've been serving

[00:15:50] Swami: As my teacher's successor since 2014 so I'm happy to just offer some you know commentary or observation about having shared the technique with meditation students and things that people notice um so I think that the things that people notice like one very frequent refrain is I just feel so much more peace I just feel so much more calm I feel so much more focused I can close my eyes anytime I need to and I can connect with that you didn't use this word but you were kind of describing it there's like a current of inspiration that each of us has the ability to connect with so whatever our work is like we might be writing computer code or we might be like in a really high-powered corporate job or we might be whatever we're doing wherever we are that energy it's just pure Creative Energy so you were talking about sharing it through music but it's like whatever you're doing whoever you are wherever you are it connects you with that Pure Life Force and then it helps you in your own body your own heart your own mind bring joy and Harmony so that you're able to choose how would I like to respond in this particular moment and

[00:17:06] Swami: So what happens is we become increasingly aware of wherever our pain points are or our reactivity is we become aware of those and able to not react and not enter into the sort of like lower frequency the anger or the fear or the frustration or the doubt or the limitation wherever that we have humanly felt blocked before that increasingly dissolves and it melts away and we're bringing healing we're bringing compassion we're bringing wisdom we're bringing awareness in humanly felt I really like that's wonderful yeah we're all just humans right um uh okay so you I want to transition over to your book um could you tell us about your book so if I let's do um you know if we just stepped on an elevator together and you had to give me a pitch and there's a slow elevator but uh and you're like oh I'm an author I've written a book what would it be about what is your book about okay well we can do a really fast elevator first so if you go to awake yoga meditation. org you'll find there's a book called awake The Yoga of pure awareness and the fast elevator talk is it's about how to live in joy and freedom right where you are right in the

[00:18:22] Swami: Midst of daily life and if you want a slightly longer elevator talking yeah it's it shares yogic teachings so we are a meditation community in the yogic tradition it's also shares teachings from the Buddha the one who is awake and then it also shares teachings of ordinary humans we're really focused on sort of how do you do this in your daily life what does this look like as a human with a human body on the human emotions and human thoughts Human Relationships human work in our time in our space like how do you do this and what does this look like um and so we also just share like inspiring uh Vivid relatable stories about humans who are living these teachings and living these truths um cool wonderful uh do you have off top of your head I mean I'll definitely link your book down below um I'll link the website down below so everybody can click on that and definitely check this out um but do you have any of those stories off the top of your head um like any relatable human level stories well so one of the ones that left into

[00:19:20] Jacob: My mind as soon as you said that and you'll you can read Fuller details in awake The Yoga of pure awareness but one of the stories is about a mom who made the decision to donate her son's heart her son was on life support um and he was an organ donor and so she sat next to his bedside before the life support was removed and his organs were donated and she listened to his heart for an entire day and she just had her ear up against his chest just listening to his heart just memorizing his heartbeat and it turns out that human hearts are as unique as fingerprints there is a signature heartbeat for every human heart and it turns out that she later met the person who had received her son's heart and she said to him I know this is going to sound really strange but may I listen to your heart and he said yes and she put her ear up against his chest and she listened and she was like that is my son's heart that is my son's heart I would know that heartbeat anywhere and so this is the idea that the heart of each of us is actually so much larger than this

[00:20:37] Jacob: Physical body and that was the way in which she lived that realization so we are each living that realization always like the reality is when you're aware of how interconnected we are we affect hundreds of people some of whom we know some of whom we don't know and then that ripples out so thousands upon thousands are affected so every time we're choosing kindness every time we're choosing Good Humor every time we're sharing like you're talking about musicians just sharing that Joy sharing that incredible Creative Energy It Goes Forth and the world changes the energy of the collective the energy that's available in the whole world changes so the heart of each of us is actually walking around in everyone and her story just makes that really Vivid yeah well I think of a few things um I I do think about the difference I feel like I had some understandings of uh or maybe understand this isn't the correct word but of kind of the difference between acting from the heart and acting from the mind and that they could they could hold hands beautifully like they can they can work together but um I do yeah it's almost like the heart is our connector to the universe and

[00:21:51] Jacob: We could all get caught up you know just being in the mind and um you know and just being a human to protect ourselves we put armor around our heart right you know we have these various um you know ways of pain is pain is so painful sometimes right and so our mind seems to kind of jump in and we'll intellectualize well I'm not gonna do that again and so we put Gates around our heart and whatnot um I okay and one more thing that just it came into my mind um I forget exactly his name but he's his famous bodybuilder uh Eric something perhaps but uh he actually had to have uh he had his heart replaced like he had to have a heart surgery and he got someone else's heart and um it's so interesting to hear him talk about it because he started having like afterwards the surgery went well and he was healthy and everything um uh he started to have like cravings for certain things he started to think in certain ways and uh he got to a point where he's like I don't know how to tell you this I don't know how to explain this or verify this but I think my heart

[00:22:51] Jacob: Was like a small Asian woman's heart and she liked these sort of things and there was basically like he had these intuitions of you know the heart had a personality structure to it almost it had um innate features and um I can't recall exactly but I think he was able to kind of confirm whose heart it was and like match the picture to the yeah that's who I think this Hearts is you know so like how incredible is that you know our heart has a mind of its own our heart has it holds you know not only is the connection to the universe like I said but it's um yeah it holds a piece of us doesn't it you know it's it's quite incredible that is a gorgeous description I am definitely immediately going to Google that oh yeah I feel like his name's Eric something I'll uh if I could find it after this I'll send you I'll email you a link but um he's very cool I've heard him on a podcast talk about that um so cool go ahead go ahead what you were saying I mean as you were talking I was just thinking what you were saying is really apropos of a teaching that I

[00:23:49] Jacob: Came across recently shared by Ramana

[00:23:50] Swami: Maharshi so he was an amazing Yogi from India in the 20th century um completely established in non-dual awareness and he had a student whose wife left the body whose wife passed and what he said to a student who was consumed by grief he said don't let the Mind eat away at the heart and so the heart is aware that we remain connected beyond the physical and so he was guiding his student to connect with what is always present beyond the physical and to not allow the mind to eat away at that wholeness which is always present and so then that becomes the practice because of course like if you are a human and you are facing loss there's an adjustment and it's really honest spiritually to say this is a big adjustment that I'm going through and humanly I'm experiencing grief right now and it becomes much easier to move through it gracefully to not push down the feelings not deny them but also to connect with that wholeness if we're able to connect with that connectedness which goes so far beyond the physical so that we know like if someone leaves the body our relationship with them does not actually end we're still able to connect with what in them is real and their

[00:25:06] Swami: Awareness their love their strength their unconditional caring and support is with us and then we're able to be a yogi the bugger is assessed to us always I mean it says be a yogi no matter what so we're able to be a yogi and work with the mind like in a really compassionate and wise and honest and aware way um and you I uh I feel an opening to talk a little bit about death I always I do Wonder um I'm very open and comfortable and have understandings of death these days um but I do see where uh it instantly closes off some conversations it instantly makes people so um I mean we want to run from it you know just kind of like our Western way of thinking of things um I'm not sure how we got to got to this point because it's of course the it's the other side of the coin of life

[00:25:58] Jacob: Right you know I don't think any of the none of this would possibly be so beautiful if we didn't um you know have an ending of it but um what have you learned about death or what do you teach about death or how do you know you know those of us is of course it's difficult to to try to face what we think about death as a person you know right after someone we love has just died you know it's very difficult for us you know for someone to go well that's just the way it is isn't that beautiful you know of course you're not going to see that you know um they're hurting so um I don't know do you have any do you have any thoughts about death um and kind of like how our culture you know maybe covers over it or you know maybe how we could begin to see it differently as a whole one of the things so I'm happy to just share a few observations one of the

[00:26:48] Swami: Things that Yogi say is as long as we're identifying ourselves with the body then we're identifying ourselves with what is temporary and what is limited and they also say fear will be present because we'll be afraid of losing this body and so they say then we're not living from True awareness we're not living from this recognition of that in us which is beyond the body and so that is possible to become aware while we are still in the body of what is beyond the body and then when you're in contact with what is here that goes beyond the body then there isn't fear present and there's sort of an awareness of I mean I can even use a little bit of humor but I for example yesterday um I was up at work I was wearing these boots the socks that I was wearing were slightly too big to go with those boots so the boots were like too tight and I was like well I'm gonna keep going in my two type boots and it's gonna be fine and it was fine but when I got back from work I was like oh what a sweet thing to step out of those two tight boots and so actually from a yogic perspective

[00:28:02] Swami: That is the way that the light in US feels when we go beyond the body when we leave the body from the perspective of spirit it's amazing and I also want to really immediately say stay here every moment that you have to stay here in the body stay here and be fully here and when the time comes do not fear absolutely do not fear

[00:28:37] Jacob: Yeah I find that we often make up um you know maybe makeup isn't the right word but we kind of have our residual stories of you know heaven and hell um I think um there's a way I see of people coping with um with death uh and I'm trying to be careful because I don't want to be insensitive or disregarding what someone what someone's beliefs are but um I do find like okay this person passed and so they're they're now in heaven and there's a way that's totally true you know they are they have returned to the everything in a sense um you know but who they were when they were here only really exists within you you know um and I don't know if we always have access to that um um I don't know do you have any thoughts about I guess like uh you know heaven in in the afterlife and you know maybe even reincarnation what is your what's your experience and or thoughts on reincarnation too

[00:29:33] Swami: When I so when I first met my teacher Swami shankarananda one of the things that he said is I want what's beyond heaven so the traditional yogic teaching I'm happy to share that and then I'm also happy to share my perspective on the traditional yoga teaching the traditional yogic teaching is that it's possible to go beyond heaven so when we are in contact with that in us which is pure Consciousness pure awareness what we've been talking about all along and we're positing that's here like it's already here that's natural it's who we are eternally so when we're in contact with that which we are eternally then we're able to live in joy and freedom while we are here in the physical we will still have experiences in time and space so we still experience the pairs of opposites the yogis describe this as Pleasure and Pain they describe it as victory and defeat they describe it as gain and loss and so the pairs of opposites are still here when you're in contact with the source of that there's a lot less clinging and there's a lot less fear and there can be in enjoying of the Eternal of absolute peace independent of what's happening in time and space independent of what you

[00:30:51] Swami: Are experiencing in your body or your heart or your mind and so that right there that awareness the yogis actually describe as being beyond heaven because so what the yogis say is that as we lift our awareness as we shift our vibration and we choose this energy of Peace we choose this energy of kindness we choose this energy of how much love and wisdom and understanding am I sharing with myself and also with all then that is the energy that we generate that is with us after we step out of the physical and so it's what we will enjoy we will experience that we will just be even more of that energy of joy and kindness and brightness and Freedom the ability to create just by thought so you know like in time and space you might save up money for years to buy the materials to build the whatever it is but by thought it's possible beyond the physical to create so there's that amazing gift and then the yogis say that there will be a time when we are again inspired to learn what it is possible to learn only in a human body and so there are certain things that right now for

[00:32:03] Jacob: You and for all of the listeners and for me it's only possible to learn through being in that particular human body that you are in and so that's why I'm saying don't rush it like don't be in a hurry believe because your soul wants to be here in that body I know your human self might have other opinions occasionally but from a sole perspective whatever it is that you're going through is absolutely perfect for soul growth and for soil expansion and so I mean to put like really specific things on it like say that someone is in a healthy able physical body for X years like the first 30 years of being in the body but then there might be a period of great physical challenge for the next 40 years let's say from the Soul's perspective that's not wrong like that's not a mistake like from the Soul's perspective the soul learns something it could only learn in an Able Body for 30 years and now it's learning something it can only learn and what we would call a handicapped or disabled body or a body facing extreme challenges for those 40 years and so it's really important to not judge like to not think from a human

[00:33:15] Jacob: Perspective well there's something wrong with that person because they're experiencing that also it's appropriate to assist and to offer every compassionate health and assistance and support to everybody whether that body is able or whether that body is what humans call disabled but to sort of like let go of judging it from a human perspective because whatever the soul is going through is amazing for soul growth for this sort of like how much love how much wisdom can I possibly generate in this human timeline from my perspective it's all now and so it's only from the linear human concept of time which has past present future in a linear plane that it is reincarnation from my perspective it's all now so from the now all the timelines are simultaneous and you actually can experience it if you let yourself just be fully present in the now all the timelines are simultaneous and one of the things that means is possible in the now to send healing out through any timeline so it's possible in the now to radiate healing to yourself like say that a listener experienced trauma at age 24 or age 14 or age four from the now it is possible for that listener to send healing to send

[00:34:43] Jacob: Wholeness vitality and peace and their 24 year old self 14 year old self four-year-old self will actually receive that healing because the human timeline which sort of sees it as being like if you've ever seen those horses with uh they have like the blinkers over their eyes so they can't look that's like the human timeline that sees past present and future like in a single kind of line but from the now all the timelines are and so we're able to send this wholeness this healing this health this Vitality this peace this freedom to all the timelines wonderful perspective I thank you so much for sharing that I really like the way you put that it truly is you know it reminds me of I'm sure you've heard of like the Law of Attraction right um the Law of Attraction kind of uh the over and over it takes so it takes a while to really like try to um I understand I suppose what they're trying to say about their um it's not about wanting that thing it's about acting as if you already have it you know it's about um embodying what it what it must be like to experience that thing not come from a way of wanting I'm Alan walk Alan Watts

[00:35:55] Jacob: The philosopher has uh the backwards law you know if you're consistently trying to get away from something you're trying to act from a place of Desiring that thing you are proving to yourself that you don't already have it you know in a sense so yeah I love the man the time is always one of one of my most fascinating subjects and I love how um uh time becomes so one of the most fascinating things ever in this spiritual world you know in any of these studies of uh spiritual philosophy or spirituality like time itself it's a lot of our um you know for complete lack of a better word our prison you know our this is a wonderful beautiful prison that we have in this 3D 3D existence here but um yeah like a lot of a lot of our freedom is found through the perspective of the Soul you know and in the soul exists out of space and time um so it gives you a meta perspective of what you're going through while you are in space and time in a sense right yeah um I did I okay so I would like to talk about yoga a little bit um I think uh you've probably answered this

[00:37:05] Jacob: Question in various ways um before on podcasts and in conversations but um uh how do we how do we unwind so say someone who's listening right now um

[00:37:13] Swami: When I say yoga or Yogi they think of you know either um you know someone wearing orange um in Tibet or they think of yoga as like a physical body movement like you go to a yoga class and it's stretching you know um uh how would you explain yoga to um you know maybe bring someone to the to the definition of you know Union with God the Yoke of all um how would you get someone from the difference of I'm going to a yoga class and it's breathing and um hopefully I don't fart you know and um uh to Union with God what's the what's the jump here that you would perhaps explain awesome question so I was just smiling so I do have myself a yoga Asana practice and so respect and joy for everyone else who loves yoga Asana and that's often what's hot at a yoga studio and I was laughing because for me one of the things I always noticed was sometimes people came to class with very stinky feet so sometimes you're sort of noticing the very pungent feet of someone else who's in the class um so but um besides that what the yogis teach traditionally is that yoga Asana prepares the body for meditation and so

[00:38:28] Swami: That so after you've done your yoga Asana practice then there's a kind of calm and a kind of quiet the energy is moving freely and so then you're ready for meditation and so what we teach at Awake Yoga Meditation is Yoga philosophy and sort of like those teachings of universal Oneness and how to live in joy and freedom in a human body in a human heart in a human mind in a human life and so it's I mean I would say in some ways more accessible because you know like no special postures are required you can meditate sitting in a straight back chair if you prefer if you are a yogi who likes to sit in like Lotus that's absolutely great to meditate in that position as well but it's not required so it's possible to sit in a comfortable chair and then the other thing that I would say is that the yoga that we teach it's immediately accessible so it's like right there in the midst of doing your dishes or having that conversation with your family or being in your workplace that's where your yoga is like it's everywhere so it's how do I live from that kind of awareness and that kind of kindness just

[00:39:32] Swami: Being more of my true self right in the midst of my daily life um yeah it kind of reminds me of uh when I learned to meditate like it took me I feel like it took me a couple years to uh in romdas puts it in a nice way you know the goal is not to be a good meditator it's to be free you know it is so at the beginning I was always like I got it I gotta do this at exactly this time it's gonna be exactly this long and and I'm meditating my eyes are closed and I'm breathing and I'm you know like you just super exact about it and then after a while this

[00:40:00] Jacob: Beautiful thing starts to happen in your Waking Life um where like you said you're doing you're doing the dishes and you realize you're just doing the dishes and you're not having a conversation 10 layers deep with your co-worker that just happened earlier and um you know you're present in this thing I also um when I first began I was so obsessed with meditation when I would countless hours I just had this I couldn't stop meditating and doing yoga I was so obsessed with at the beginning um I used to I would go to the airport like kind of early so I could sit with my eyes closed at the airport um and just like so I can you know I met like okay if people are looking at me like cool sit with that what's that feel like and then there was some training ground for that but now it just feels sort of silly now I can just be at the airport doing whatever I'm doing but also meditating right you know just being aware of where I am and uh you know that's that's my yoga too right um yes uh yeah I love the transition the the letting go that yoga can bring

[00:40:58] Jacob: You know um the I do think a lot of us really do benefit greatly from you know the actual physical practice of yoga whether it's going to a class with other people or me when I first began I did a lot of YouTube um I really um I was very self-conscious person and so I didn't want to like have people look at me while I'm making weird faces or anything like that like now I could care less but I'm at the beginning that's sort of what I needed so um just like the freeness the openness to kind of like um just being that a lot of the breath and the stretching we you know we hold all this tension in our body right you know so being able to like loosen that and let go of that through the breathing and the stretching and in the the physical movements and the um yeah it really it really gives you gives you a lot of a lot of presence so um do you guys practice do you guys have a have a practice at your at your Center do you guys have a Daily Yoga practice physical body yoga practice so what I'm what I will do is I will share Asana and I will

[00:42:01] Jacob: Share techniques for people to help them ground The increased spiritual energy if that makes sense so when people are meditating some bodies have a process of adjustment to having this more spiritual energy and so it can be really helpful so I will individually share practices with people we don't at present have like a Daily Yoga Asana practice it's not part of our current offerings I would be very open to it just because I think as you said it can be incredibly joyful and peaceful and freeing and it's it's an absolute gift I agree with you yeah stinky feet and all yeah I mean that really is another funny thing of classes is I try to remind people anytime I have anybody go to a yoga class with me or something um you know as easy as it is to find the thing that we complain about at the end or find the you know the silly fart or whatever part of the yoga is not just the physical right it's the observing my mind oh the oh there's judgment you know there's oh there's Judgment of that person or oh there's Judgment of myself or um uh oh there's uh regret that I ate that burrito three hours before you

[00:43:13] Jacob: Know that's um you know and they're just thoughts and they're keeping you from being fully here so um yeah that's wonderful um so okay so did you I briefly asked you about it did you have um I'm very interested in like these uh I really am fascinated by like near-death experiences and profound um spiritual Awakenings like for people that are completely non-spiritual and then they have some sort of um you know they're shot out of their body in some sort of way and their whole world flips up to you know their whole trajectory of who they thought they were and whatnot is just different from this point forward um Kundalini Awakenings that sort of things um did you have any experience of that or do you have any um do you teach anybody with experiences of that or any perspectives on you know profound sudden Awakenings well so for me you might have kind of gathered this as a result of that early awareness for me there's just always been a kind of natural Oneness that has been part of my awareness and part of my experience and so not a feeling of being limited to a single individual human body and so

[00:44:16] Swami: For me I met my teacher Swami shankarananda in 2010 and that was a major Catalyst like just a huge unfurling of light and joy and peace and recognition um and it's very natural so it can just happen like in a very natural Simple Pure like it just helps you be more filled with peace it helps you be more filled with joy and yes I mean it is very true that people who come to the meditation community and who practice career you'll go yes absolutely like they have Awakening experiences like you have mentioned

[00:44:52] Jacob: Um and then I imagine you guys help them kind of stabilize um you know because it is it is certainly a jarring I mean I was in like a I was in some sort of psychosis luckily I was set up in um in an environment where all I could think to do was meditate and do yoga and like study all this stuff and just I was reading all these books and listening to YouTube videos and luckily I was in a position at that time in my life where I could do that but man I think of um sometimes I wonder about like you know we have these things in our culture you know psych wards and um you know we call people schizophrenics and all these things and sometimes I wonder if they if they had the right teachings and the right teacher could they understand and kind of get that energy um more balanced and kind of maybe it'll take a little bit a bit of work but kind of become a more stable version of what has happened to them it's a really good question I mean to comment on what we help with in our

[00:45:47] Swami: Meditation Community yes like it's not scary it's not traumatic it's a process of becoming aware of wherever healing is helpful in your own body in your own heart and your own mind and so that has like a different trajectory for each meditator and it's very natural and it's a process that increases stability um so there's an increasing sort of peace and balance and presence and steadiness and Poise in the physical structure but also like your emotions and also your thinking as well so there aren't as you were you were kind of saying like it can be scary or it can be you can feel like you've lost contact with reality the way that medication happens here at a weight yoga meditation it's more like a gradual expansion of awareness and there's just increasing Clarity and peace and recognition of wholeness this that has always been present all along and I think it also probably helps to have a community of other people who are practicing as well which sort of like it kind of shows you everybody can do this people from all backgrounds from all walks of life all ages all body shapes all body types like doesn't matter what your nationality is or what kind of accent you speak with like

[00:47:07] Swami: Everyone's welcome and it is just an increasing recognition of oh that's what's been here all along

[00:47:16] Jacob: Yeah beautiful um okay we are getting up here in time um I have two more questions so the first one would be what is the future of your organization you know you know looking forward in the next 20 30 40 50 years like where you guys headed um what would you like to see happen um uh where is the expansion you know not even just from a business standpoint but from a you know a spiritual standpoint like where what direction are you facing

[00:47:42] Swami: Who is my teacher I would encourage you visit awake meditation. org just look at his picture and it'll just make you grin with joy um just gave us the most incredible Foundation he was a being of supreme pure love and light just this sort of like radiant effortless wisdom and light and kindness and so that's our foundation and what he taught was that it's amazing just to keep your focus on spiritual Purity so the yogis say there's a process of purifying the heart for each individual and that just lets you know I think you were referring to this earlier but just for each human what are the yogis describe it as knots what are the knots that I can untie and it happens naturally so I would also just say like it's not something that you have to figure out or know in advance although you might intuitively already know oh I would love to heal that so but just as you meditate naturally as you work with the meditation those knots will melt and they melt into light and what happens then is you gain what I was talking about the Soul's perspective on your human Journey so you let go of judging yourself and you let go of judging any

[00:48:57] Swami: Other human who has been part of any experience that you've had there is an acceptance and a gratitude and a respect and then also an awareness that it's possible to create what we love it's possible to create in Joy it's possible to create and freedom and so we just have absolute Clarity and focus and dedication about sharing that amazing platform that amazing Foundation of pure love and just sharing that energy of wholeness and peace and vitality and joy and there's a amazing energy that is welcoming so anyone who walks in the door like people have said I just burst into tears because it just felt so peaceful I mean people say for the first time in my life I felt peace being here and so it's just this energy of light and joy and excitement and gratitude and gladness and so we love sharing it um so anyone who's listening who's sort of like yeah I'd like to check that out um please join us we meditate Sundays Tuesdays and Fridays online anyone I'm in Baltimore geographically the community is in Baltimore geographically so anyone who's in like Baltimore or DC Philly you're welcome to come join us for an in-person meditation there's nothing like it take not Han said that meditating in

[00:50:12] Swami: Community is a miracle and so come find out why like it's so much fun it's just amazing yeah it amplifies the light it just like amplifies the light and the joy um but also we share teachings on YouTube on Facebook on Instagram on Tick Tock as well so it's possible just there's so many different entry points we have e-courses online as well if you'd like to check any of those out oh wonderful okay cool yeah that's a it's very training to me I do um I have this uh this I do a lot of things on my own like I could do it on my on my own you know all these sort of things but I of course know the importance of community and um you know that's some of my work is um not trying to do everything on my own um so it's certainly something that's that Sparks for me um uh yeah just um meditating with a community that's something that I would like to uh to lack of better term challenge myself to try to do more often so yeah I would encourage anybody listening in that area to certainly go go check that out in Baltimore um how far are you from Philly

[00:51:12] Swami: Um I mean it's like two hours or something like that on the train and then I think I actually haven't driven it in a while but we're in North Baltimore which helps which helps with reaching Philly yeah the treatment is lovely though I'm sorry the train ride is lovely I've taken the train I just took like a week and a half ago I just took the train from uh Middletown to Philly uh and I've done that a couple times it's just a lovely train ride it's

[00:51:36] Jacob: Beautiful totally agree but also anyone wherever you are geographically hop on Zoom hop on YouTube and you can join us the energy is also incredible online it's amazing beautiful isn't that so cool that we can you know it's been so cool over the past few years with the pandemic and whatnot to discover that uh you could tap into this stuff online like you wouldn't really think it's like yeah it's different but maybe it is different but it is it's there you can you can really you can really feel it actually even on Zoom classes and even you know like this podcast I can really connect with people on here and I there was a while where I'm like I don't know it screens and there's a you know I don't know but it's it really is it's been beautiful very much the work of light yeah uh yeah quite literally a network of like uh through the internet cables um okay we have we have just a few more minutes um I actually okay so you had something um you were referring to someone who had spent some time in prison um on one of your videos on one of your talks that you gave um and I watched the

[00:52:38] Jacob: Clip of it and it was initially I had watched it and I was like oh yes I want to talk to her that sounds so awesome she has this perspective um but uh it was it start with started with only the self suffers the self um could you can you I know we're short on time here but um could you could you explain what you what you meant by that or I don't know if it was your words there or someone else's but what does that mean only the self suffers the self referring to what I think you're referring to I came across an account from someone who was in prison because of his work on behalf of peace and on behalf of justice and so what he said was that during his time in prison they were the happiest months of his life because he got to meet himself and he got to befriend himself he got to be a companion to himself and everything that came after that so after he left prison he became a really important figure everything that came after that poured forth from his knowing of himself and then I think you might be referring to there's a teaching from the bhagavad-gita says that we are our own

[00:53:48] Jacob: Best friend to ourselves and then the reverse of that may also be true that we may be the worst enemy of ourselves as

[00:53:57] Swami: Well and so what the yogis are saying is that every time we choose to calm and clear our mind and focus on peace focus on what we would love to create Focus On Healing focus on Building Bridges focus on connecting focus on that network of light what we're doing is making that available not only for ourselves but also everyone that we encounter even if we never say a word when we are in that energy you're on the bus you're on the train you're driving on the Beltway you're in the grocery store you're in that board meeting that energy of network of light and of peace and a possibility and of wholeness and of trust makes that available to everyone and it changes what is present in that organization in that family in that relationship changes what is present in your relationship to yourself as well and so the yogis really do say you don't have to go to prison to have that experience but it's vital to let yourself be a companion to yourself and so for that human that was just his sort of like he was in that crushing reality like I don't want to minimize how crushing that is to be confined and what he found was that it turned into a

[00:55:19] Swami: Doorway to freedom and a doorway to peace because he allowed all of the circumstances that he encountered humanly to take him deeper into being a companion to himself into realizing this is true this is real this is what is lasting this is what is vital this is what matters when we establish our own selves in what is true and real and Lasting and vital in what matters then silently that will permeate our families our relationships our interaction with our own body and our emotions and our thoughts but also all of the organizations if we're on boards or we're in high paced fast-paced high-powered corporate Realms those organizations will transform as we connect with this energy of wholeness and health and vitality and peace and it can happen silently it will also of course shape the words that we speak as well and so it will transmit through those words but the yogis would actually say that far more important than those words that we speak is that it's coming from that energy so to allow yourself to be established in that energy and then the words come forth from that and the words actually then this is back to where we started it's spontaneous it's effortless it's simple it's natural and it might be only

[00:56:42] Swami: A few words it might be a smile it might be a glance it might be just like the way that you are in your body and the energy of that meeting the energy of that decision the energy that sort of is going forth and is being shared through even very vast organizations can be transformed um yeah beautiful yeah it's like it really can be without words it makes you know the end of a yoga class A lot of times we'll say namaste the light of me sees the light in you and uh you know if you allow that opening uh how beautiful you know how beautiful um okay one bonus question this could be just a quick one I always like to ask this one what does the world need more of right now love just that energy of pure love that energy of pure kindness spontaneous and unconditional so sharing it naturally using your skill set not looking for any particular return from any particular person not looking for any outcome but just wherever you are being that pure energy of kindness and it's also the energy of inspired wisdom so that energy of pure kindness will guide you effortlessly to Insight and awareness and inspired wisdom as well

[00:57:54] Jacob: Beautiful I thank you so much for your time I had I had a wonderful conversation with you um I really appreciate your time I really appreciate the work you guys are doing I will most definitely in the description below um offer the links and links to your book um and yeah hopefully some people head that way and uh yeah this one this

[00:58:14] Swami: Was wonderful I really appreciate your time thank you so much for this respect to enjoy it's a pleasure talking with you Jacob yeah likewise Namaste

[00:58:21] Outro: Have a good rest of your day listeners have a good rest of your day as well love yourself drink some water and uh see the light in one another