Transcript
Speaker: Hi, I'm Alan Finger. Welcome to the Genius of Nothing podcast. Nothing is no particular thing.
Speaker: It's all things at once. Genius.
Speaker: Welcome everyone to the Genius of Nothing podcast. I'm Katrina and I am in London with Sebastian who's back in Stockholm. Back in the snow and ice, freezing my ass off. And Al who's in Florida as usual. And never moves. And never moves from Florida. Nice to be here with you all.
Speaker: inhale yeah um And today we are finishing the Niyamas. So the last one is Ishvara Pranidhana. And i think this one is so essential.
Speaker: But unlike Al, who, you know, talks about not being in the mind, and this one's all about surrender,
Speaker: I actually use my mind to tell myself to surrender quite frequently. Because when things are going wrong in my life and i have a tendency to want to control everything or like know what's happening, I have to use my mind and say, okay, you know, you can do like your effort, you do the best you can, but then you have to surrender to the result. But equally meditation tries to teach us to surrender. Yeah, but I mean, I do the same thing. it's it's um It is a lot of work sometimes. I mean, you have to keep, have to remind yourself that to to release and to to just surrender. but But it does get more more effortless as you evolve and as you keep your practice up. it It gets easier. But I would say for most people, to the thought of surrender can it actually be very, very scary because usually we are so interconnected with a lot of our issues and problems we have in our life, even if we know that we need to release them and need to let go of things. They are so interconnected to our personality that by giving up them or releasing them, would be like committing psychological murder of yourself, like self-suicide, because it's so into your personality.
Speaker: And that's why really the the importance of the yamas and niyamas before that, that when you arrive, if you do them and can kind of follow that, you can arrive at this point where... where really the Ishvara Prandana becomes more and more, you know, just becomes effortless. It doesn't become this huge thing. So don't listen to this and just feel like all this pressure.
Speaker: It's when you get to this point, it becomes so much more effortless. And i do like something you say, Al, that that helped me out a lot, especially with a the pressure of the whole thing, is that you kind of have control 49% of your karma.
Speaker: And then the rest, the 51%, is of the larger karma, the universe, that you don't really have control over. So you do the best you can with your 49% that you have and surrender that.
Speaker: And the rest takes care of itself. ah So, you know, that's half the work already done. that's That's pretty fantastic. So that really takes a lot of the pressure off.
Speaker: ah Just put put that into the text or the concept of evolution. You know, we don't control evolution. Evolution is happening.
Speaker: And we're part of this evolutionary force and matter that's going on. We're doing our little role in it now.
Speaker: And that's our life. um So to think that we control evolution is kind of bit outrageous. So it's much better to realize, and that's why I made that up, because...
Speaker: In evolution, you're here and you have to do your role efficiently. the best you do it, the more... The best you do your role, the more gracious you work out your role in evolution, your karma.
Speaker: And the funny thing to me is that when I first started studying with you in 2001, you used to say, oh, you do 50% effort and 50% the universe. And then you changed it because it was like, okay, well, most people actually try... too hard. So we need to get that, readjust that so that you only do 49%. And actually sometimes I think about... Then I met Katrina and she said, oh, okay.
Speaker: Well, if it's 50-50, I can control it. Yeah. It changed formula. Yeah. but But I think that's because like I used to do really like 99% try 1% surrender. And slowly, slowly, I've had to get to the place where i i i really do. so it's It's impossible for me to stop myself from trying or being perfectionistic. But actually being able to recognize that I'm not in control
Speaker: um as hard as it is, is also somewhat, like you say, it it helps things to weirdly run more smoothly. Like I think my mindset before i met you was that, oh, I'm going to try and if I just control everything and don't take my eye off the ball, then I'll have everything lined up and nothing will ever go wrong. But in over-trying, you make mistakes. that You don't um kind of allow for the things that are completely beyond your control. And it's easier to just sort of sit back. So let's make sense of that. Yeah.
Speaker: Because when we live in this plane of mind and the limited plane of our mind, because our mind is limited to our five senses,
Speaker: So it's almost that this plane is illusionary. You know, it's it it seems it's real, but it's not everything. There's a bigger picture.
Speaker: So the bigger picture, Brahman, this bigger, this greater intelligence, is elu like illuminates one, a luum makes you an illuminary.
Speaker: So when you're living and as a in the illusionary place, you're trying, you think you control, you think it's you. But when you switch over,
Speaker: And you you so you're surrendering. is that a good word even? Because that gets a bit sloppy. Yeah, I don't like surrender. it's Yeah, it's when you when you realize that the greater intelligence is governing and you're doing your role.
Speaker: and you want to do that role the best you can, then things go smoothly for you. yeah but the more you can can get that understanding of the big picture,
Speaker: the which illuminates you, and the small one limits you. It's illusionary. There's such a huge um difference to...
Speaker: Well, you're surrendering. I mean, because it's you are you are part of the bigger intelligence. It's the bigger intelligence is in you in a limited way. Yeah, but it's really about riding. You're riding the edge of like doing and not doing with Ishvara Pranidhana, really.
Speaker: right So that's why it has the two terms. I was just going to say that and I'll i'll let you talk. but So the only way to deal with it is abhyasa varagya.
Speaker: Do as best you can and that then offer it back to the part that is the greater intelligence. Yeah. and that's that's a So you've still got to do it. If you don't do the best you can,
Speaker: it's There's going to be friction. Yeah, I need to work on that. But I also think that the best you can is, it's interesting that this comes as the 10th of the, you know, there five yamas and five niyamas, and doing the best you can also is, in essence, living, you know, um without hoarding, without stealing, with being self-studying, with not, um with being non-violent. Like, doing the best you can not only in the job you do, but also in the way you live your life. It's kind of, um I guess, what we would call maybe like a moral precept to all these moral precepts, but they're not really, they come naturally and not moral. I know you were going to argue with me. knew you were, you um which is why I put it out there. But some people think of them as as that, but we think of them differently as the way to live in harmony with your true nature, culminating in this ability to surrender your actions to the greater intelligence.
Speaker: So, yeah, you know, to me, i just, the same thing, but it's like when you add in morals, then it's like, well, I'm doing right or wrong. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: where were the yamas and the niyamas are just there to guide us of how to live they in tune with the – each one builds on the other and you need them all in order, and it's the same thing you were saying, to be able to live in tune with the greater intelligence. Mm-hmm.
Speaker: If you're lying, if you're stealing, if you're overly busy with lust and sex and these are the things that are... Of course you're not going to live tune with Brahman, with a greater intelligence.
Speaker: You're living in the limited world of illusion of because it's limited.
Speaker: It's strange that I still to this day kind of get stressed out when we we're talking about it, like just about surrendering. And I kind of always feel like, oh, am I surrendering enough? You have to surrender more. it It can be stressful because the mind is involved in this when we do that. And I think the beauty of the yamas and niyamas when we arrive to this last point of Ishvara Parnidana is, for me at least, is that that the yamas and niyamas doesn't become things to...
Speaker: to don't do and do to stay in the present, for me, they become, they are, but they also become like in more of a technical manual almost. Like a technique you do, and when you arrive to the end to Ishvara Parnidhana, where we are now, it just becomes effortless.
Speaker: And the beauty of that is that it's so well-crafted because when the mind gets, you know, entangled in something, when the mind comes in, its it always screws things up. And at this point, you don't use your mind. You just, it releases, it happens effortless. And that's the beauty of it, that it becomes a flow. And that's really the key.
Speaker: And in a way, I ah feel exactly the same way about it as when I step into nature. Because always when I step into nature, it's i always feel like I'm stepping into this vast, huge brain, you know, like just flowing and releasing whatever it needs to release without hesitation. You know, just everything is just happening, just flowing and together as one.
Speaker: And that's that's really, you know, the greater intelligence just being manifested. And surrender, I think, sometimes has the connotation in more traditional schools of being like surrender to God with a big G. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Giving up. Yeah. Giving up to something else.
Speaker: yeah Yeah. Surrendering can have that negative connotation that you're surrounded you're surrendering, you're you're giving up, you're giving up your dreams, you're giving up hope, you're... Like to some big old white man with a beard in the sky doesn't appeal, frankly. You can only do it when you realize that you're part of the greater intelligence and the limited part of you stops you, but the unlimited part illuminates you.
Speaker: it it fills you. So when you've done all of the first steps, and you meditating and doing your practice of sitting and being you, it's the easiest thing ever to do.
Speaker: yeah So to me, yes, surrender is totally the wrong word. Yeah, so you need to rewrite these in all different ways. Can you call a yoga journal and tell them? Give them an update. Tell them to get straight. It's very difficult because even people learned the yoga sutras learned them how to recite them one after the other. And what are they doing?
Speaker: They reprogramming themselves yeah into like a religious. Now the sutras is becoming a religion. They're going to live by them.
Speaker: They're just concepts and ideas in the sutras to help you realize what Tantra is teaching you. But we have such a problem with that, I think, because we are when you feel when you feel connected, you don't see it you won't see that. But when you are when you're disconnected and you feel separate from something larger and bigger, the universe, a.k.a. God, whatever it is,
Speaker: you believe in, it's easier to go on board with the whole thing that something bigger, you know, like you're're you're giving yourself to something bigger to God and you're you're under God or something else. Not that you're ah you are God, really. So I feel like it's its's really about training. It's really about the meditation, about the practice really in the that when you feel separate, it's easier to get on board with that kind of logic. And when you don't feel a separation, it's it's you can't you can never go back to that.
Speaker: Exactly. that That is the essence of it all. yeah Yeah. If you're feeling separate and you're not, the only way to feel not separate is from the sutras, yoga, chitta, vritti, riniradha. Stop the flux of your brain because your brain is the limited part of you.
Speaker: And so if you're not stopping it and feeling your connection to a greater intelligence, it's impossible to be illumined by it. So only when we can get beyond the atom.
Speaker: You know, the first Yoga Sutra says, Atta Yoga Anu Sasanam. Anu.
Speaker: is the smallest particle in Sanskrit, an atom. And it's saying you want to exist in now. And the yoga singularity
Speaker: lets you go beyond the smallest particle, an atom, to experience the now. Because the now it doesn't exist in this plane.
Speaker: You can be in the now. You can be in opposite world. You've got to be in yoga, in singularity. And then you can transcend the atomic world.
Speaker: So when you know it, it's all easy. And that's why I love that word, Mangalam, from Sanskrit. that auspicious magical energy that just starts happening in your life.
Speaker: And it's kind of phenomenal how it does work. And that's why I love Valium. What's that? That's why I love Valium. So relaxing. Auspicious. Gives you that feeling of completely surrendering and letting go.
Speaker: Lol. Yeah, that's good. So that's... Al, did we just lose Al? Did he finally have enough? I think when I said Valium, he decided that I was like a no-hoper. and I him. I can't deal with this. It was enough. but I went as hard as I could. I thought, okay, this is a good part to end this section. There is no hope.
Speaker: I've never heard from him again. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker: So Ishvara Paranadana is something that i really taught me a lot in in my relationship, you know, to surrender and that you don't have to always be right and know you can just listen and just be there. And Katrina, I know you you said you just dropped off your daughter at ah the university. So, I mean, that's got to be very hard and that takes a lot of surrender, surrendering of control, surrendering of, you know, or just letting go. basically Yeah. And I think the whole time when somebody is pushing your buttons and you have to be the bigger person and surrender or let go or, you know, they are like gaining their freedom, but you want to kind of like keep them safe or whatever. It's a lot of surrender. And to your point, relationships. I mean, I feel like you do have to let give people space and like surrender to what will be. I mean, you might want something to be a certain way, but if the other person doesn't want it to be a certain way, you have to like surrender to that and let it be, know? Yeah.
Speaker: so So guys, let's yeah let's just come back to this. We were all saying how we didn't like the word surrender. And you two have gone off in a whole story of that surrendering. And yeah I'd like to just from the tantric point of view, find a different tool for you. Because it's not about surrendering.
Speaker: It's being in sattva guna. In other words, it's living in tune with the greater intelligence. And where you're in when you're there, rajas and tamas in earth here doing nothing and overdoing nothing,
Speaker: dissolve into present. And in the present is where you can be illumined. In the present, illumined.
Speaker: What a great word. You can, you light up and you see it all. So when you surrender, it's you're surrendering one side of the brain to the other, rajas to tamas.
Speaker: But when you when you're in sattva, which happens in meditation, and you're in that neutral, then it's it's not hard. You're living it.
Speaker: And so those three terms become so useful to us. Rajas means kinetic doing.
Speaker: Tamas means inertia. Not doing and... And when you're in sattva, you can listen.
Speaker: You can only be inspired when you're in... inspired, when you're in tune with something greater than you. So when you're trying to puzzle it all out and have all the tricks and the language and surrender or not surrender, mm-mm,
Speaker: Just get into sattva guna, that state where you can transcend the atomic plane and tune to the genius. Hence our name, the genius of no thing, of nothing.
Speaker: And I always end off things and I say, have a super wonderful day and a super wonderful life. Wonderful. In other words, tune to that greater intelligence and let it fool you in everything that you do.
Speaker: And then the auspiciousness that keeps this whole crazy world we live in keeps its balance. And that's something greater than anything human.
Speaker: So we've gone through the yamas and the niyamas. And we feel balanced, we feel great. But where are we now? Sattva guna.
Speaker: When you stop the to-dos and not to-dos, you end up in sattva guna. And then you don't have to surrender. You're living in tune with a greater intelligence.
Speaker: Ishvara pranidhana. To live in tune... with Ishvara. And when you can learn that it's the that it's just you being able to tune to the unbound intelligence, 49% means living in Mangalam. then You're translating more that, for sure. Oh, yeah.
Speaker: in to the fortyn nine into your living the world needs more of that for sure oh yeah susan Have a super wonderful week, everyone. Namaste. Namaste. See you next week.
Speaker: Namaste. And don't forget to like and subscribe.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us today and have a super wonderful week. Namaste.
