The Divine Mosaic: Celebrating Our Differences

Embracing Boundlessness: Beyond Individuality and Differences

In this episode of The Bearded Mystic Podcast, host Rahul N Singh shares his insights on spirituality, advocating for the importance of inner transformation to bring about real societal change. He discusses the concept of being boundless, drawing from his guru's teachings and various spiritual texts like the Bhagavad Gita. Rahul underscores the significance of seeing the divine in everyone, regardless of their outward differences in gender, race, or religion. Drawing on personal experiences and historical religious teachings, he emphasizes compassion, love, and the necessity of evolving with changing times. Listeners are encouraged to contemplate the unity in diversity and practice all-embracing love and compassion in their everyday lives.

00:00 Introduction
01:29 The Concept of Being Boundless
02:25 Embracing Diversity and Individuality
05:41 Nature of Love
06:33 Spiritual Teachings on Equality
14:11 The Importance of Spiritual Integration
22:46 Final Thoughts and Reflections

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Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction
• 1:29 The Concept of Being Boundless
• 2:25 Embracing Diversity and Individuality
• 5:41 Nature of Love
• 6:33 Spiritual Teachings on Equality
• 14:11 The Importance of Spiritual Integration
• 22:46 Final Thoughts and Reflections

Transcript

0:00

Welcome to The Bearded Mystic Podcast where we are waking and growing in oneness. And I'm your host, Rahul N Singh, and I've been a spiritual seeker for over 20 years with a deep interest in non duality or Advaita Vedanta. Thank you for joining it's always an honor to have you listen to my thoughts we're going to be changing gears. I guess I really love talking about spirituality more and it speaks more to me. If I can give a message that is, you know, kind of goes around the subject of bringing real political change, then that can only be done if there is a true spiritual change. If there is a disconnect somewhere that I feel because there it seems to be a lack of discernment then I've got to do something to discuss that more in these episodes now, we will probably cover the basics, but also going to the depths of being in awareness and why being in awareness is really important. But before we go any further please like this video, or like this podcast, comment, share your views, be open about the topic, if there's any thoughts that really spoke to you, just let me know, and if you have any feedback, also let me know, and subscribe to this podcast if you're watching this on YouTube, and if you're listening to this on your favourite podcast streaming app, make sure you give me a follow, and rate and review the podcast. It really helps getting this podcast out to people. Being boundless is actually the topic of discussion today. I wanted to discuss this because it's something my guru has been talking about and I wanted to just share my view about being boundless and what that means. And just on a basic level, we are living in a world where there is multiplicity and diversity. If you look at it as individual silos, it will come under the taste of whether you like something or dislike something, raga and dvesh, so either you're attracted to it, or you're repulsed by it, but if you look at things in a complete picture, and you see things not as individual things, but as a spectrum, or as, my guru also used to use the example of a mosaic, you know, mosaic has a different materials, different textures, different colors, and it makes something very beautiful. Each individual square, that represents a mosaic is absolutely beautiful. And they stand out in their own way. Without that individuality, the complete picture or the complete blanket, I remember doing a mosaic blanket in primary school or elementary school, if you're in the US, it was amazing. That is the world. We are people who belong to, different genders. We have different sexual preferences. And we have people who are different colors, they belong to different religions and that is all beautiful. Now, it doesn't mean that we have to adhere, like for religion, it's philosophy, right? Based on faith you're only going to go towards something if you have faith in it or you like it. There's that diversity there, but when it comes to physical differences, and physical preferences, I don't think we should be so narrow minded to say, well, this is wrong. Or these people aren't good. For example, my guru also used an example where a parent went to the school and, the head teacher called them and say, they want to discuss, something about the, the kid, you know, how good they're doing. The parent asked, can we see, our child in the classroom? They said, you can't go in the classroom, but I can take you there and you can peek through the door and see, the kid in the classroom. And so they took the parents there and they saw their child. Later on, the kid comes home and the parents discuss how the principal was praising them. One of the parents turns around and says, but who were you sitting next to? This person said the name and then they said, you're not meant to sit next to that person because they're of a lower caste than us. Because obviously in India, there's the caste system and the kid replied saying, but he's my best friend. The parent was like, no, you can't sit next to that person. We are the ones that dislike other people's differences. Whether that's caste, and those things are man made, if you think about it. As a kid, I remember seeing people of different colors, obviously we see people with different gender and people have different sexual preferences and it's more open. As a kid, you're not going to see anyone as different or as bad. It's only when someone feeds that idea into you, that you have that vision. For example, I never knew what immigrants were when I was growing up, seeing different people was normal. Growing up in a spiritual atmosphere, we were told to see everyone as one. You never had negative feelings about anyone. But obviously if you start reading newspapers, which I, I did, and those newspapers would tell you, oh, you need to fear these people, and, and that fear got created, and fear obviously then will harbour hatred, no matter how, one will say it. Now, like, It's got so nuanced, where we are okay with legal immigrants and then there's illegal immigrants. But really, you look at the language, illegal, automatically makes you think the other person is a criminal. And that type of language is limiting us. Limiting us in the sense that, if it's love, love is expansive, love contains everything. If you actually investigate love, if you truly go into what love is, and truly experience that love, you cannot see a beginning to it, you cannot see an end to it, you cannot see it define things for you. It doesn't do any of that, it just seems to interweave itself in everything and it's interwoven in everything. you cannot miss it, it's just so apparent. That's what love is. But with hatred, you can actually feel your world closing in and like I said, when you, when I was growing up, you know, someone says something bad about a different race that had a negative impact on me if I ever saw that person of a different skin color, I would make sure I locked the doors in the car, And it's just that feeling of, oh, what if they're going to harm me because that's what I heard. If we look into spiritual teachings, whether that's Advaita or Sikhism, it's actually all about seeing everyone as equal and being loving towards everyone, having compassion, not seeing those differences as a reason to hate, but actually seeing those differences as a reason to celebrate our uniqueness. As I've grown in spirituality, I've noticed one thing within me you cannot hate anyone, even if I see the worst person alive today, at the end of the day, that person has their vulnerabilities and sometimes we forget because we may see something through the media or for the few hours that we see that person, we may, they may look like nothing affects them, but you just never know how feeble they may be. You never know how their ego has made them incredibly fragile. For example, there's a lot of men who want to be alpha males and this whole idea of being alpha and being masculine and there's nothing wrong with being masculine and there's nothing wrong with being an alpha. In my opinion being an alpha means that you are compassionate and you understand your tribe and your tribe is the whole world. It's not just your individual friends and your friend circle and your family. No, your tribe is everyone. For example, if you had to go up into space, you will not be able to see any borders. It's a borderless earth. And just imagine, people keep talking about wanting to see aliens and I'm thinking if aliens came down here and they saw how we have imaginary lines and according to that, we define people and either we have a positive view of them or a negative view of them, it's so silly, they would think we're the silliest creatures in the universe and they'd probably leave thinking we just haven't evolved. And so this idea of being boundless that my guru has been talking about is about embracing everybody. Embracing even the ones that we don't like. That doesn't mean that we do not take action in terms of correcting things. Of course, we must. But again, the action of correcting things has to be done with compassion and has to be done with the good intention to not hurt anybody, to have that feeling of ahimsa. And that's really important. So being boundless is seeing the divine in everyone and understanding that divinity is not subject to our individual likes and dislikes. That divinity, even if you dislike something, it's still divinity. If you like something, it's still divinity. If you perceive things in such a way, if you remind yourself that it's all divine, then that's spiritual understanding. That's when we understand the basics. And this is really the basics. If we still do not have that same vision in Sanskrit, it says samdrishti. If we do not have that drishya, that perception, that vision, that everyone is sama, the same, we haven't understood the basics of spirituality, it's interesting we say that, the Guru or the knowledge of the divine for example, in the Bhagavad Gita, people see the Virat Roop of Sri Krishna. Arjuna sees it and I'm hoping that those that have read the Gita and have their own experiences, probably have experienced the Virat Roop of Sri Krishna. So if they see that Virat Roop, why do they not see it in those that are less rich than they are, or less wealthy, or those that are of a different color, of a different religion, of a different sexual orientation, of a different gender fluidity it's interesting. And there's a reason why I'm saying this. For example, in Hinduism, we know there being three genders, there's male and female, and obviously there's trans as well, and that's known as a third gender. But I think it's a lot more complex than that. I'm just really simplifying it. But all I do know is that people have many pronouns so as a spiritual person I should be able to embrace all pronouns or all gender diversity and the whole spectrum I should be able to embrace it. I shouldn't see it as wrong or what is this? There's only male and female. That type of binary thinking is not spiritual in my opinion. In fact, spirituality is about evolving and if this is what science is now telling us and this is what society is now telling us, it's not like these things never existed. You know, that's a very, shallow way of understanding human nature. All these things are coming out today or it appears are coming out today. They were still there in the past. It depends on how open society is. In that light, when we understand that everyone is the same, it doesn't matter how they label themselves, we know that there is just that one divine in everyone. For example, say you have a blanket, it's a mosaic of different pieces, different materials, different designs. Now, the one thing to bring it together is thread. So if you look at it, the thread is like that knowledge of divinity that, unites everyone that's different. Being boundless is understanding that you are that thread uniting with everyone. When you see things in that way, it changes your vision, changes the way you perceive life that's what, my guru has given to me and I hope that, I'm able to pass that down to my child. as I say this, in order for me to pass this down to my child, I have to keep evolving with the times and I've realized that I actually am still living like 20 years back or 30 years back, my knowledge has not grown. You know, people like to say, oh, that's, kind of woke and I don't want to know it. And I'm like, no, how about knowing it and understanding it? Because it's very easy to, when you don't know something of the other side, you just say, oh, I don't know. I don't care about it, but actually it's about understanding. And that's the difference, I think, in spiritual people and just people who don't think. and When I say spiritual people, a lot of people may claim to be religious and all sorts but if you do not see the divine in everyone, what religion or spirituality are you really following? We've seen, for example, a lot of these people who are, anti woke are Christians. And, if you think about it, Jesus was absolutely loving. He didn't see any differences. He would touch people who were untouchable in society's eyes. And he still touched them, he still embraced them. He was with the sick. He was with those who were considered less by society. So one can claim to be a Christian, but if there's no Christ left in you, then all you're following is an ism, not Christ's teachings. Christ's teachings are not words, they are the embodiment. And that's with every kind of, spiritual lineage that you may be part of. If you're not embodying their message, or embodying the life they lived, then we're not truly disciples or followers. We are merely by name or labels, just trying to win a crowd, I would say. To emphasize my point even more, I wanted to look at The Bhagavad Gita and in chapter six verse eight, Sri Krishna says the yogi who is content with knowledge and realization, unshakable like the blacksmith's anvil, whose senses are under control and who looks at a lump of earth, a stone and gold with equal vision is called spiritually integrated. This is beautiful because look at the word spiritually integrated. This is what a yogi is. Spiritually integrated and he says, who is content with knowledge and realization. So it's not just about getting knowledge. It's not just about getting Brahm Gyan, but it's actually getting that realization that Brahman is everything. There is nothing in this world that is not Brahman. Even Maya is only there because of Brahman and that's the realization and it says unshakable like this blacksmith's anvil. So like the blacksmith's anvil no matter what materials it smashes it remains unshakable That's how we need to be unshakable. That knowledge needs to be steadfast within us, integrated within us, it's such a strong foundation that no matter what storm of duality comes into our life, it cannot shake us. No matter what storm of hatred comes into our life, it cannot shake us. That unshakable force is love. It is divinity. It is Brahman. It is the awareness. That awareness is pure. It's clear. It's loving. It holds space for everything. And that's why it's unshakable, and because it's everywhere, and whose senses are under control? Again, our senses are the one that gives information to the mind about whether you like something or dislike something, whether you like heat and cold, whether you like the taste of something, or whether you like the sound of something, whether you like the fragrance or something. And when the senses are under control, it's like, okay, there's certain likes and dislikes the body has, and the mind may have, but my awareness is unshakable. As he says, who looks at a lump of earth, a stone, and gold with equal vision. So, if you have gold, if you have lump of earth, and if you have a stone, say that's a diamond, that sage, that spiritually integrated yogi will see the same. It will be like, you know, Okay, you gave it, that's fine. For example, say, you have a guru and, one disciple comes in and gives a massive bar of gold. And they give that and they say, this is for you. And the guru will accept it. Then say a little kid comes in, and he's been playing around in the mud and he comes to the guru and he says, I've got this earth here, and gives it to the guru. The guru will also take it. The reason being is that it sees everything as the divine. All these things, whether that's a lump of earth, whether that's gold, it's not going to stay with us. So all these differences that we see are only for this timeline in which we are alive on this earth. So why would we want to live in that timeline, which is absolutely short, which is like a blip if you look at the timeline of the universe, why would you want to use that time to be in anger over other people that you see different, or in hatred, in animosity, what is the point of that? I'm not saying that we cannot discern between what's right and wrong, we should. But at the same time, if anything is bringing hatred within you, or seeing somebody as different, that's not worth it. And this is why I'm probably liberal. Because, in the end, I have to see even my worst enemy As the same as me, or see someone that I absolutely despise as the same as me, it comes back to that. In the Ashtavakra Gita. Chapter 18 verse 9 and this really sums up everything we've said so beautifully. Ashtavakraji says such thoughts as this indeed am I and this I am NOT are annihilated for the yogi who has become silent by knowing for certain All as the Self. Once you know all is the Self, everything here is just the Self, it's just Brahman, it's Nirakar, it's oneness, how can you have that, oh, I am not that type of person, or, oh yeah, I'm that type of person, all these labels that we give ourselves, they are not there to divide us, they can define certain traits of us, but we don't have to identify with it. What we need to identify with is our true nature, which is the Self. And for anyone on the spiritual journey, before you see anything in life, if you do not see the divine, if you do not see Nirakar, if you don't see Brahman, if you don't see God before everything, then we're opening ourselves to mistakes and that's why I think the first mistake we ever make, for example, when it comes to voting for someone because we want lower taxes, rather than caring about the rights of other people. The reason why we make such blunders is because we are actually forgetting the complete picture of the divine. So what we're seeing is just our own upliftment. It's very individual. And guess what happens if you have that individual sense? All you're doing is opening yourself up for greed. So such thoughts like, oh yeah, I care about my money. I care about becoming more rich. It doesn't matter about women's rights or trans rights or anything else. It doesn't matter if the poor remains poor. I've always said this, I'm happy to pay more taxes because one, it's giving back to the society that has allowed me to get rich. That is from spirituality. Those thoughts are truly from spiritual thinking. I don't think it's my nature to think that way. So, these feelings of wanting to share, that's being boundless. When we see everyone as the one self, as that oneness, we are truly then embracing everybody. We are truly then seeing everything as one. We are seeing the unity in diversity. These thoughts may seem wishy washy for someone who wants to lead an individual life and I get it. That's fine. But if we really want to follow the words of say Guru Nanak Dev Ji Sri Krishna Ashtavakra Ji Sri Ramana Maharshi, Sri Ramakrishna or Swami Vivekananda, Babaji, Mataji, anyone spiritual, if you really look into their teachings, it is about being all embracing, because that's what God is. God is all embracing. God is omnipresent. The only one present here. So, even though this multiplicity is there, really, it's just that oneness. And that oneness is what gives love. It's that oneness that has compassion, that cares, that shares, that is full of love and peace, that is full of clarity, that is kind, that is prosperous, that is understanding, and so forth. We don't have to go out in the world and say, well, I am this or I am that, or I'm not this and I'm not that. It's about understanding that even if other people want to label themselves, that's fine. And all I need to do is see the Self in them. That's it. That's all I need to do. I don't need to condemn them and say you're woke. Or anything like that. It's just see them as the Self. And this is a learning thing because I think in the past couple of days or weeks, I've kind of got drifted into the individual thinking and the silo thinking and I've had to think about it. That doesn't mean that somebody can come up to me and say, xenophobic or racist things, and I'm going to be okay with it. No, there's a line that I'll draw, What I need to understand is that I don't need to get angry, I don't need to get disturbed. I can just see, I can just understand what they're doing. And I have a platform where I can speak against such things, that's an honourable thing that I can do, where I can reflect upon it and speak against it. So that's what's been going on, and that's why I wanted to share my thoughts today. So, once we understand that we are the self, that we are awareness, that we are boundless, that we contain everything that's in this universe within us, and everything within us is peacefully coexisting, then disturbance will never come to us. And that's truly what I feel that every spiritual teacher has been trying to get us towards. And somewhere we are losing the message and we are just doing the ritualistic things of pretending to be a good religious person or spiritual person but we're not actually becoming spiritually integrated. Do like this video, do share your thoughts and, you can be even reflective about me, like if you feel the past few episodes have kind of drifted, you can be open with me. What I've realized is. I think it's very easy for me to turn around and say, be all embracing, but I have to practice it and speak up for those who are less privileged than I am, speak up for them and empower them wherever I can, offer my time and resources to them. But at the same time know there are going to be forces against that and I have to accept them, give love to them because that's the one thing that's missing from their life is love and I think whenever you hate somebody or have those feelings, it's because love is missing and if love is missing then spirituality is missing. So even though what I've said may sound idealistic, it's actually the most realistic thing to be like extremely realistic. Those are my thoughts. I just want to thank you for listening and do catch me in the next episode, do take care, Namaste.