Rahul N Singh host of The Bearded Mystic Podcast explores the Hindu philosophy of Advaita Vedanta or Nonduality in a very simple, direct and practical way.
Episodes include discussions into eastern scriptures like The Bhagavad Gita, The Upanishads etc and discussions about everyday spirituality.
Rahul has been on the spiritual path for over 20 years and has an open-minded approach to spirituality and finds that there is no one size fits all approach.
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We explore how spiritual practice should be viewed as a full-time commitment rather than a part-time effort if we truly seek liberation, comparing spiritual development to working a job where you only receive benefits proportional to your dedication.
• Treating spirituality like a full-time job means maintaining awareness of the formless Brahman throughout daily activities • True meditation extends beyond sitting practice to constant contemplation of the highest reality • Karma yoga involves performing actions without seeking rewards, acting as an observer rather than a doer • Surface-level spirituality and ritualistic practice without presence yield minimal transformation • The ability to witness thoughts arising from deep sleep indicates deepening spiritual awareness • Anger stems from unfulfilled desires, showing where attachment still exists • Detachment paradoxically allows for purer love by removing control and expectation • Building spiritual "muscles" requires consistent practice regardless of past karma • Liberation (Jivan Mukti) requires dedication but is achievable in this lifetime with proper foundation
Keep working consistently on your spiritual practice, and regardless of how many lifetimes it may take, you will eventually achieve liberation.
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Bearded Mystic podcast, and I'm your host, rahul N Singh. Thank you for taking out the time today to either watch or listen to this podcast episode. So today I wanted to talk about how we view spiritual practice and what do we do after we receive, or we get, knowledge from the guru that we follow or the teachings that we follow. What do we do with those teachings? What do we do with that knowledge? And it seems to be that, you know, mostly every kind of tradition will have its own practices and we may do those practices, but there is a point when those practices can become more like a ritual, that we just do it because that's what's expected of us, and we may run um and we may just use it as a tool for just doing the bare minimum, just to kind of to not feel that we're drowning in this world. And obviously Maya is a very powerful creative principle of gods right. This is powered by this formless, it's powered by Brahman and it's interesting that we don't look at where it's getting its power from, but we get attracted to that expression meaning Maya. And I've often felt that whenever I speak to people about spirituality the ones that are serious. They will treat spirituality like a full-time job. They will do the practices as if it is a full-time job. So they'll put in the hours. They will try to meditate every day. They will. And when I mean by meditation, I don't mean just like you sit down and you meditate. I don't mean just that. I mean, like you know, you constantly are in awareness of the formless. You're constantly thinking of Brahman, contemplating on Brahman. That's what I mean by meditation. So you're thinking of the highest. You could be, working, you could be, you know, you know doing your job, running a business, you may be doing so many other things, but at the same time there is that subtle awareness of that formless. That's within us, that's around us, that's evident here, and that's because of the teachings we've received from wherever we go to or whomever we follow, and you put in that time. So if you're working for someone, you see it as karma yog, that whatever you're doing, you're not seeking any reward from it. You're just merely doing the actions as an observer, not the doer. So the karta bhav, the, the doing bhav, the doing intentional feeling, and the bhokta bhav, the, the enjoyer feeling, is put to the side. One is only the observer in this easier said than done, but that's what karma, yoga is and, to be honest, this is how we should function, once we know we're not the body and mind, because it's the body and mind that enjoys something or seeks the reward of something, or thinks that it's doing something. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1:
You know, reading the scriptures, or listening to you know YouTube videos or podcasts that are based on spirituality, like when I say spirituality, I mean like they are talking about the serious stuff. So whether that's the Upanishads, whether that's the Bhagavad Gita, the Brahma Sutras, yog Vashishtha, uddhava Gita, upadesha Sahasri, so many of these texts, ashtavakra Gita, so many and the whole point is that these are talking about Brahman, talking about this formless, and they are inviting you to remain in that formless. And, and that's the point of those uh kind of youtube videos or podcasts that you need to listen to, a lot of uh podcasts now are under the guise of spirituality, but it's more like I don't think it's really dealing with spirituality. That's my opinion. I use spirituality. The definition is very, very kind of traditional in some ways, but I think it is about studying the scriptures and that, for me, is satsang. You know when you're studying the scriptures. That's the real meaning, because whenever you are with the truth is when you're. You know, even your meditation can be a satsang if you are connected with that truth. So that's one aspect, right. So we need to do that. That's very important.
Speaker 1:
I talked about serving, so seeing giving your job as a way of service, even though, yeah, you're getting a salary or you're getting paid for it. But that's the natural consequence of that karma. It's not something that you're expecting, you know. And in today's time, since most of our salary just comes into the account, I think it's rather easy to become detached. That's my opinion. I'm not saying that if I know, if I don't get paid, I will not be worried about it. That's also my dharma. So dharma to make sure I get paid because it supports my household expenses.
Speaker 1:
And also, when it comes to serving your family members, your friends, do it with a say of above, do it with an act of not wanting something in return. So that's very important for us to do, and so when we do that, it's like a full-time job, literally, and it's easier because you don't need to do something special in order to be in awareness of that highest reality. We don't have to, it's simply here. So that's one thing.
Speaker 1:
But what I find is, and you know, whenever we go to a religious place or a spiritual place and we just do the bare minimum and we do it more ritualistically rather than you know really like, for example, you may chant a mantra, right, which you've been given by your guru, but are you really absorbing the meaning or are you just chanting it, just reciting it without, I would say, chanting still requires an energy to be present. But if it's just you know reciting, are you just reciting it, you know, just so you can get over it type of thing, or are you chanting it to absorb that energy from those words, from those sounds? This is what I'm telling us, but so, but I find, and if you may do this, like a part-time thing where, oh yeah, you know, you just do it now and then, that's still good, still okay. But don't expect that you will be getting jivan mukti by doing something part-time. That's like getting a part-time job and expecting a full-time salary. I mean, just doesn't work that way. Same thing with spirituality. I mean, it just doesn't work that way. Same thing with spirituality.
Speaker 1:
Obviously, a lot of things influence this, like your karma, the karma you've done in the past, the karma that's come from different lifetimes that are in effect now, things like that, and your vasana. So your mental conditioning, all that does play a part, for sure. But regardless, you have to put effort in spirituality in order to get the benefits. And to me, the only benefit is, you know, making sure you have a strong candidacy, at least for jivan muk. That will happen by the grace of Brahman, by the grace of Niranjaya, by the grace of the Formless, by the grace of the Guru as well. All that is there. You know Sri Ramana Maharishi talks about this that. You know it is the Guru's grace that you get realization, but you do have to put in the effort in order to get that grace. Don't think that grace is just gonna work without any momentum, so to speak.
Speaker 1:
But a lot of us we see spirituality like a zero hour contract. And you know the best Lyft driver, or you're a delivery, food delivery driver, so you just do the hours that you kind of want and you get paid accordingly. But the whole point of the meaning of zero hour contract is you're not going to get any benefits from it other than pay, and that's I mean, that's what it was like in the UK when I used to look at zero hour contracts. But here in America I'm not too sure, but this is the way I'm viewing it as. But the whole point is that a lot of people just do the zero hour contract and they want the full time benefits of spirituality and that just does not happen.
Speaker 1:
How are you meant to address your karma, the basic thing, just dealing with the karma that you have in this lifetime? How are you meant to deal with that if you just are doing a zero hour contract and, most likely, if you're doing the bare minimum in spirituality, you're just actually going to accumulate more karma. You're going to create more karma for yourself because our reactions aren't going to be based in spirituality. You know, often people quote this from the Bhagavad Gita that because Sri Krishna says if you remember me in your last breath, you will come to me, and obviously he's talking about the highest nature. He's talking about Brahman, not actual Sri Krishna, the body, the name and form, but the actual, uh, the actual self, the real self, the true self, brahman, this Nirangar, this Shiva. It's something about the highest principle, that highest reality, the ultimate reality, because if you remember this ultimate reality, you will enter into that ultimate reality.
Speaker 1:
Now the thing is, do you think that if you've not put any spiritual practice in your life, that the end moment you will think of the highest? You would think of the ultimate reality? If you've been engrossed in Maya, you've been in love with this appearance that's been powered by Brahman itself, been powered by this formless itself. Do you think that? Or do I think that somehow I'm going to remember the highest, I'm going to remember the ultimate, the absolute? I don't think that's going to happen Because it has not become subconscious in me.
Speaker 1:
Again, in Vedanta, we talk about how you know. You know there's waking, dreaming and deep sleep. Has the? Has our spirituality even reached the deep sleep level where you are still in remembrance and in awareness of the highest reality of the absolute, even in deep sleep? Because, yes, the, the ego, is not there, but that doesn't mean that the formless is not there. The formless is still there. The absolute reality is still there because it's present in all states, because it's beyond all states. Hence it's called durium, the fourth state. So have we even done that?
Speaker 1:
So my point is when I entered the spiritual path, I honestly thought it was expected of me to do the maximum amount. I mean, there was a time when I was lazy. Yeah, I mean for sure I was lazy, I didn't bother much with spirituality, I wanted to enjoy the world more. Yeah, there was that period of time, for sure. Now I'm still enjoying the world, but somehow spirituality is just, it has to be there in my day. You know if, if I don't do any spiritual practice in the day, I don't think I could sleep easy at night, not saying that when I have less sleep I'm not having done spiritual practice.
Speaker 1:
But what's interesting is you can notice things that you never noticed before. Like, for example, there's been a situation at home we have to plan for something. So planning in this, uh, preparing for that moment, you know, meanwhile wife discuss it and and you know, and we put forward a plan to make it happen. So I mean it's happened like within a month. So I mean it's happened like within a month, so actually within a few days, because it affects, you know, our traveling plans.
Speaker 1:
So On Saturday night I slept less and what I noticed was that in my deep sleep I saw the bubbling up of a vasana, of a thought, of a vritti. I saw the movement of thought and I saw the thought rise up and I saw how that got me to the waking state, and it was interesting because this is the depth of spirituality that we kind of need, and I was like, oh, thank God, I can see this now. I can see when the movement of thought is created and I can see when it rises up into the waking state, and this is a good sign. If you can do this, this shows that you know your spirituality is entering deeper layers of your yourself, and that's what you need, because it's break. What's interesting is, spirituality is about breaking away from the body, yet using the body to aid spirituality it's interesting.
Speaker 1:
So you detach in order to infiltrate, which is an interesting thing, but remember, your consciousness pervades everything, so your consciousness will be present. So your consciousness will be present, and this has to be our experience. And this is why, you know, we study texts like the mandukya upanishad, because it's about the waking, dreaming and deep sleep state. It's not about just reading the verses and being like you know, oh, wow, that's powerful. It's actually looking at how you can apply it to your life, how it really matters in your life, how it deeply impacts your life. If we see spiritual practice as just a minor thing in our life, we're not going to get anywhere. We're not going to. You know, recently I've been part of some Discord servers. Obviously, I have my own own discord server, but I've been part of other discord servers and what I find is that people want to talk about spirituality but it becomes more or less like surface level and people seem to think that surface level is something deep, seem to think that surface level is something deep Like, for example, some people think that having anger is okay in spirituality, and we know that that's not true.
Speaker 1:
Again, in the Bhagavad Gita, sri Krishna says that anger is a result of unrealized desire. Just because we don't bring a desire into fruition, we don't fructify a desire, we don't meet its end. It causes anger Because there's resentment. I didn't get what I wanted or I did not dissolve what I wanted in time for me to be at peace. So it became anger because I didn't get what I wanted, I didn't get what I desired. And so he obviously is not saying that anger is right Because we're meant to detach ourselves from desire.
Speaker 1:
The very basics of spirituality is dealing with desires, because those are very easy to observe Frankly throughout the day. You can observe your desires by how much you are on Amazon or any other shopping website, or how much your mind is thinking about home improvements and this and that and where to invest your money, all those things. When your mind is just thinking about those things, that means desire is there. It's very easy to observe desire. I'm just talking about observing desires, being aware of desires, not talking about dealing with them. Dealing with them will be, you know, actually learning to detach yourself, and if I told people to detach themselves from their retirement fund, I don't think they would sleep at night. So you know, but but that's what. That's the work that's needed. But we want to avoid those things because we think how can we live life desireless? How can we live life with detachment? Yeah, being detached from your loved ones?
Speaker 1:
I often say this to people who who will claim that I'm attached to my son and to to my wife and family, and I am somewhat attached. I won't say I'm not. I'm working on making sure I am detached and that's the work that I have to do. So here, the thing is, what I find is, when I'm attached, anger arises. When I'm detached, love remains, and so it's like a no-brainer at this point that detachment is the best way to even have the expression of love, and that only comes with spiritual practice.
Speaker 1:
Again, one has to learn to detach and that means that you have no element of control over the other person. So just imagine that you can't even exert control of your 18 month old. You just got to let them be. You can put things in place to make sure they're safe for sure. You know there's certain things, you sure they're safe, for sure. You know there's certain things you can control in a detached manner, but some things you can't and you can never change another person.
Speaker 1:
You know and I've kind of learned this the hard way that even if you have a different parenting style, the village is not going to understand your parenting style. My wife will, but not the village, and I have to embrace that and I have to become detached that the village is not going to understand. That's okay, I can explain. But do I need to get angry about it? No, I don't, and if I'm getting angry about it I need to work on the anger. That means there's an emotional attachment for the village to change. Yeah, so little things like that. Where we can.
Speaker 1:
This only happens when we make spirituality a full-time job. That means, yes, apart from being a householder and having a full-time job, we have to also be a full-time spiritual aspirant. And then if you achieve Jeevan Mukti a full-time Jeevan Mukta Now that, unfortunately, is every minute, every second of the day Then there's no leaving the path, because there is no path for you to leave at this point. But how many of us have got there? That's another question. But if we're all aspiring to be Jeeva Muktas, then that's what we can do.
Speaker 1:
So this has been a rather long episode, but a very good one, because it's about making sure we put time into that spiritual practice. And that's literally what my course is about, because while I've been working on it I think I've done around 12 I can even tell you the amount of time, the amount of percentage that I've completed, and it's not going to sound like a lot, but it's going to. It's interesting, to say the least, it's when you have too many tabs. It's interesting, to say the least, it's when you have too many tabs open. So overall, it means the 9.4% has been completed. So not even 10% yet, but it will get there. Very not even 10% yet, but it will get there, it will build up very soon, that percentage.
Speaker 1:
But all I want to say is that that this course is literally for that purpose, that we make spirituality a full-time job. The whole point is that if you've been given the highest reality by your teacher and you do not know what to do with it, this course will help you. If you want to get the absolute reality, you want to understand the highest reality, you want to be on the path, but you don't know how to get there, this course will prepare you for it. And it's interesting how this course is developing because obviously, the reason for it being at a 9.4 completion rate is because I've been playing around with what content I want in there and how it has to appeal to as many people as possible.
Speaker 1:
And when we get in contact with that absolute reality, that is one that stabilizes us, the one that's's very, because it is this Brahman, this formless. It's the subtlest of the subtle. It really is. It's swifter than the movement of the mind. So just think how fast it is, so how easy it is to lose your grasp of it. So the whole point of this course is to actually be able to grasp that which can easily leave you that subtlety that can easily be dismissed, and for that you need to build up your spiritual strength, your spiritual kind of stamina, and you have to grow, like, for example, if you're working out, you have to work on your muscles in order for them to grow and become flexible and reach where you want to be. So you have to keep doing the workout. You still have to keep doing those movements that can help you build that muscle, along with the other things.
Speaker 1:
Same thing with spirituality in order to remain in the awareness of Brahman, in the awareness of formless awareness, you have to work on that muscle. You have to put in a lot of work and that's dependent on your karma. And unfortunately, even if this is your last life and that's destined to be, you still have a lot of work to do. And even if, say, it's possible that you have future lifetimes, how can you avoid that? That means you have to pack in a lot of work, but it's not impossible and that's the beauty of spirituality is that it can be achieved in an instant.
Speaker 1:
But the question is, with that instant moment of realization, do you have the foundation to keep it strong? And that's why I think Advaita Vedanta personally works for me because it works on the foundation and one gets that instant realization and then one has to stay with it, stick with it, immerse themselves in it, and you realize that this Brahman, this formless, is not going to go anywhere. It doesn't disappear. Realize that this Brahman, this formless, is not going to go anywhere, it doesn't disappear, it doesn't Even if it slips away, it's still in your presence Even if, even if your mind loses it, it's still present. It loses the subtlety of the formless.
Speaker 1:
That's something you can achieve in this lifetime for sure, regardless of how much gomara you have to deal with, how much vasanas you have to deal with, how much vasanas you have to deal with, your conditionings, your, your, your limitations. We can work on it and we should work on it. So, yeah, anyway, uh, that's my, that's my little spontaneous talk today, and I hope this message reaches you in a way that inspires you to keep moving in your spiritual path. Don't lose whatever is your target in spirituality, even if it's like, okay, I don't know if I'll achieve Jiva Mukti in this life, but I want my next life to be. I want to be in my next life, I want jiva mukti, I want to make sure that I get there, or I want to reduce the lifetimes that I have to live for that. Just keep doing the work and you will get there. Just Just keep doing it, keep working and it will be achieved.
Speaker 1:
Right, uh, so, uh, that is the end of today's episode. Thank you very much for listening Again, if you want to um, all the details for whatever you, if you want to interact with me is in the show notes and video description below Uh time, see you very soon, stay safe, take care. Namaste.
