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: Hello, everyone. This is Katrina Rutka, and it's the Genius of Nothing podcast. I'm here with Sebastian in Sweden. Good evening.
Speaker: And Alan Firda. Good afternoon. Namaste. Yay. Okay, so we um last week did a hymnsa and talked about nonviolence and non-harming and gave a little overview of the yamas and the things to deprogram your mind of bad patterning.
Speaker: And so we were going to move on to the second yama today, which is satya, which is truthfulness or, you know, speaking truthfulness.
Speaker: Speaking your truth, it's truthfulness in all matters. um Al's daughter is named Satya, but I think Satya is quite a nice one to follow on Ahimsa because maybe we can open the discussion about talking about what it is, but also there are elements of Satya where, you know, if you're telling the truth, it can be harmful. So there aspects of...
Speaker: aa where maybe it's more loving to not tell the whole truth um or to maybe omit things ah that might be harmful from the truth or to just shade it a little bit.
Speaker: um yeah Yeah, I think that's such an important point that you're making there. It's interesting Because you you always want to live from himsa, right?
Speaker: You want to honor that, like you were saying. And if we can live from that, get be you know, be rooted in himsa, you will automatically find, you know, the language to communicate, to express really anything, even things you find really, really hard to talk about or to tell somebody. Yeah. Because it it will come from ah place of love.
Speaker: And... then that language will reflect that. And then it becomes very hard for you to lie to others or even to yourself. You know, things like, if do I look huge in this dress? Yes, Sebastian, you look huge in that dress. Thanks for that.
Speaker: Thanks for the honesty. Yeah, that's why I come to this podcast. For the honesty. Yeah.
Speaker: So one's got to be a little bit of a bit careful because it's really not that you're avoiding telling the truth, but it's more doing it, as you said initially, in a loving manner.
Speaker: And sometimes be the truth that you're expressing might mini need might be needed to be expressed over a period of time So you don't have to get it all out, which is sometimes being truthful for your own sake.
Speaker: Sometimes you have to just be patient and let the person come to it and help them come to it rather than avoiding it or I think you said shade it Because you know what I'm saying? Shading, it's really just doing it in the most delicate manner and slowly bringing it out. Yeah, just doing it in a sattvic way, really.
Speaker: Yeah, because time, you know, often in time we want to get things out and say it in our own way. And that's really something that is more of a condition of the person that they feel they have to go and say that.
Speaker: However, Al, I think that the things that have helped me grow the most in my relationship with you have when is when you've told me ah real truth in a hard way that has made me reframe the way I'm behaving, the way I'm thinking.
Speaker: and I'm just wondering if you're particularly mean to me you're yeah Yes, he's definitely mean to you. Yes. I mean, I don't know what he's talking He's lovely to me. Yeah.
Speaker: Because you've told me some things that are pretty harsh and in pretty harsh tones as well. Yeah. Sometimes, you know, we have all the emotions and we have to use the emotions correctly. And sometimes if you, I mean, you know, it's it's a little bit different between the teacher and the taught.
Speaker: between guru, sishya, because you're there to guide someone. And if you see you're not getting there in a certain way, sometimes you might find that you need a little bit more directness or heat in the mixture.
Speaker: and But talking in general and talking in teacher, student, guru, sishya, it might change a little bit how that's put across.
Speaker: Also, I think the relationship of Guru Sissya, because we are very close and maybe with a student you didn't know as well, you wouldn't feel so comfortable giving them a blast. No way. I would never do that if I didn't know them.
Speaker: Very unlikely. It's more when when you know someone well and you see that you need to get something across, you might have to use heat.
Speaker: And after the heat... you should feel the heat must always produce love. So rajas and tamas, you've got and sattva.
Speaker: Your mind has got the active part, the passive part, and the balance of the two. And so you use that rajas or tamas to create the sattva.
Speaker: So you might use more heat or something, but afterwards you've got to feel sattva. I've never ever felt that I've done everything with you and we've gone off and been angry for it.
Speaker: Maybe temporary because you didn't want to hear something. maybe you didn't want to hear it, hey? Because sometimes that's the case. Sometimes you don't want to hear it and that's the case.
Speaker: Unfortunately, you see, that's what happens with Guru Sisha. Mm-hmm. Because the guru is in the teaching way. But yeah when I got it from my father, i had to stomach it.
Speaker: But, you know, lessons came often months later. i would be, and especially with me and my father was my teacher, my guru, because he would say some things and they seemed like they were really, you know, sort of like taking sides of others in that.
Speaker: and But the the teachings to me were very, very strong. And I could have been really angry, pissed at him for a while. Until then I started saying, yeah, I guess he's right, you know.
Speaker: Yeah. I shouldn't. I need to do that change. Because I think it is that relationship between Sishaguru that you need to have such a strong relationship and such a strong bond of love between Sishaguru. Because i know just from my own personal experience, when I started with you more and more and went deeper into Ishta, a lot of times it felt like i was standing in front of a dark hole and you just telling me to jump in. And it really took everything in me to do that and just trust you and just jump head first.
Speaker: And I feel like I've never done anything or don't think I can do anything for you to ever, you know, not abandon me, but you know, not, not have that unconditional love for me or be there for me. The amazing thing that, that the Guru Susha relationship creates is like Katrina, you were saying before, like you create, know,
Speaker: a space of unconditional love and teachings that makes you grow, that enables you to to find the space to grow in your own time.
Speaker: The other major thing that I've learned that I think has been so helpful in my life from you, Al, is that anger, as we were talking about earlier, is an important emotion.
Speaker: And it needs to be directed appropriately. but there's a lot in my previous history with yoga, or even with sort of being raised to be a quote unquote, good girl and not question things whereby you're not supposed to get angry, you're supposed to subsume and dampen down into yourself those emotions that are natural.
Speaker: And inevitably, if it doesn't come out, it eats you up or it gets um transmuted into a negative thing.
Speaker: And i have had to learn, and I'm not perfect at it by any means, but to be able to express my anger in a truthful way, but also in a non-harming way,
Speaker: And that's a real um skill, I think. and you ah And the skill comes from having as much as possible space from your mind, as you're always talking about. So you can see clearly, okay, this is this is my role. this is This is the anger that that person needs to hear, for example, with your child or your partner.
Speaker: And Because some of some of anger in life is is triggered by something that actually then gets projected onto somebody and has nothing to do with them, which is problematic.
Speaker: But if you see yourself clearly, you can more or less discern when anger is appropriate and the level of anger. And we're talking about anger that comes out to help someone grow or it's not abuse, it's it's not physical punishment.
Speaker: Yeah. So, you know, that comes back then to the difference really of being tantric and in our lineage, the Ishta tantric, because If you do, if you sit and meditate and feel but right spirit, when you feel your spirit, you're feeling intense loving, but not there's no it's not loving of anything.
Speaker: I mentioned this in class yesterday. It's not like you feel, oh my God, I love God. Oh, my God, I love i love myself now. Any of that still playing with, it's not just loving.
Speaker: So when you can sit in loving, then the yamas and niyamas become obvious. But understanding for people that these things, if we do lie, we mess up our computer, our brain.
Speaker: because we're putting into our brain something that's a bit of information that's not working in harmony and truth.
Speaker: And eventually, that will create like a computer to misfunction, to bomb. Because eventually, these things are buried in our consciousness.
Speaker: And if they're not sattvic and pure, they will be there to create further karmic patterning. Well, then if you tell a lie, you have to remember you told the lie, you have to then perhaps cover up the lie with another lie, as you're saying. and just It's a snowball effect. And then And then over time, you forgot which is the lie and what is the truth because the brain is always fading.
Speaker: and then you don't know. And then you, oh, my God. ah And your brain is in like a turmoil because ah many people just lie whenever. i had one student of private it and he said to me, oh come on, Alan, everyone lies.
Speaker: I said, yeah, most people do, but not if you're yogi. You know better. You know that that's going to mess up your consciousness. So it's actually really interesting with the brain because the brain can't really differentiate between reality or fantasy.
Speaker: So if you lie and you keep repeating something, that can become your memory. You can feel like that's how it actually is. You almost starting to you actually you start to live your lie, which is kind of insane. Yeah.
Speaker: But so it's it's a very big risk in that because you really start to deform your reality and in the end you don't really know what's real or not real. But some people like certain politicians that I'm not naming names because actually most politicians, their whole...
Speaker: being their whole way of operating in the world is based on lies, which I think, how can we have then people in positions of power who aren't truthful?
Speaker: and that That kind of baffles me a lot. Unfortunately, Politics is just a business to those people. They've studied, they've learned, they've become... but Very few politicians are Gundis. Very few politicians are really out to do the right thing.
Speaker: Part of it is their belief of what's right. But then, you know, there's no there's no room for compassion and understanding.
Speaker: They just sort of start... playing the game of their belief. And I think a lot of it is also fear-based, right? Because we're coming to all these roles and we're like governed by our desires and our wants.
Speaker: And, you know, most people are just trying to get ahead they see other people lie and they see other people get ahead. And we think, why can't I do that? And we bend our reality into what, you know, fits us and what we want it to be.
Speaker: But then when that doesn't really sync up with to reality that everyone else is in, you know, it becomes problematic. That's why I said it's business.
Speaker: yeah but Politics is their business. It's the business they're in And unfortunately, most businesses, I think all, are done to succeed.
Speaker: You know that in Sanskrit, actually, vak means communication. But in Tantra, they broaden that much, much more. And it's not just speech. It's a way of really communicating energy. yeah And vak in Tantra is said to be like the manifestation of Shakti and the female energy. So speech becomes much broader Tantra.
Speaker: More of an energetic practice, really. And so the speech, when you your speech comes from your chakras, and and from your the motivating force, the Shakti, which is in you.
Speaker: So it's just, it then goes through your brain, you process it, and then it goes through your vocal cords and your breath, but it starts deep down, in your heart center.
Speaker: So it's always interesting to read different kind of interpretations of the word satcha and how they define it because it is important how we interpret it.
Speaker: So, and one of the biggest tantric texts really that exists is one called kuinna the Kulinava Tantra. And they define satcha as that which is beyond the reach of thought and formlessness and that is untainted.
Speaker: That is satcha. Mm-hmm. So, And that's what I was sharing with you earlier. So those are words. And I said, if you could feel, if you sit and feel unconditional loving, it's loving.
Speaker: When you're feeling loving, you're in the moment. There's no thing, there's no thought. You're just in prison in presence, in being, in tune with a consciousness that's bigger than as it's not limited.
Speaker: And one of the few things that you can express is what spiritual meditation feels like yeah because a lot of people don't understand well i must be doing something i'm needing to meditate on my breath on a mantra on something but it's only when you get beyond something yeah and experience no thing which is genius but it's the people can comprehend that the only thing that you can come close to is the feeling of love.
Speaker: and Not the lover, not the lover, just the loving. and that's so true. When you can just feel loving, it's not about somebody or something. That means you're in the moment, you're in truth.
Speaker: And when you're in truth, then you're seeing things clearly and correctly.
Speaker: So there's an interesting interpretation of satya and tantra that I quite like, actually, which is actually that it's more of a vibration that you tune to rather than being a rule of law.
Speaker: It's love. It's truth. it's the and That's why, remember, guys, I told you, my dad used to say, Manny, used to say, psychology is the science of lies And people would get a little agitated at that, right?
Speaker: But what he was trying to show is that your mind is is just ah a bunch of beliefs. It's what's coloring your truth.
Speaker: Thoughts come in and they color your truth. And so whatever's coloring the truth, you could say is just a lie. Be in the moment.
Speaker: Learn to capture truth.
Speaker: When you capture truth, it's love. It's samadhi. It's feeling beyond anything that you could understand.
Speaker: So if you immerse yourself in that in the morning and then come into life, all the yamas and niyamas are practiced automatically.
Speaker: And you even achieve Santosha.
Speaker: Contentment. Yeah, yeah. Like Katrina. We got that reference. I don't know if the listeners will get that reference. It's a bit of an inside joke.
Speaker: Well, we've explained before that's my yogi name ah hi that you initiated me with. Yeah. So that I can be happy. and all So that you can realize. Be content.
Speaker: Yeah, to realize, Katrina, that your happiness is just in Yeah. Be content, accept it all, understand your karma and dharma, and just flow through it. I mean, i kind of feel like I am content. to learn Everything is good. sure So I guess it worked.
Speaker: Since I gave you that name, look what happened. Yeah. Wow. Manifesting. Sure. That's why you got it.
Speaker: So as we explained at the beginning of the podcast, your daughter's name is also Satya. And that's that's an an interesting name to to name a child. So could you tell me or tell the listeners why you came up with that name for your daughter? or Was she just very truthful from the beginning or why how did you come up with that name?
Speaker: So Sarah and I were thinking, why should we call Satya? She's born in Brooklyn. Maybe we should call her Brooklyn. And my I told that to my sister, and and my sister told Kriya, my niece, whose name is Kriya, delightful being, and but they called her Kriya.
Speaker: So Kriya called me up and said, you're not calling your daughter Brooklyn? My name's Kriya. How come I'm Kriya? You better call her Satya.
Speaker: Truthfulness. And I thought, oh my God, that's a great name. Thank you. Sarah, we should call our baby Satya. And bear is that was her name.
Speaker: And Satya is extremely truthful, but she so she hasn't quite learned Ahimsa. That comes later, right? That's step two. so Yeah, we're working on that.
Speaker: Did you ever used to teach the yamas and niyamas in classes ever? I've never heard that from you. Well, maybe in some lectures. I don't teach it because it's, to me, an expression of truth of your soul.
Speaker: So, to me, all the yamas and niyamas, I share them with people. I show them how living correctly in tune, that can help a beginner.
Speaker: get to be able to meditate. And as we go through them all, we'll come back more to that when we sum them all up. But I want you guys to live the yamas and niyamas.
Speaker: I mean, i really find it hard, very hard to lie. i find it hard to injure people.
Speaker: I'm jolly all the time, so... And don't steal. i would never steal. But I also think that, sorry, there's something to do with your own kind of personality. Like, Al, you are a jolly, happy girl.
Speaker: And you are, you know, you you do you do have anger occasionally. as you And can be expressing it. But even when you're expressing it, you quickly come back to your baseline happiness.
Speaker: I have to be... careful more careful than you do, I think, when I express anger because I'm so fiery that it comes across too strongly if I'm not aware of myself. You know, Katrina, yes, I agree with you, but it's also the amount of time that you've been practicing.
Speaker: And look at you. You're actually changed dramatically. Before you were judgmental, you used to get fed up. Oh, I still am judgmental and I still get fed up. I mean, to be honest. it Yeah, but much less and you're much more accommodating now and laugh at yourself. Yeah.
Speaker: Before, if I said something and your mind didn't agree, I was on my toes to to dodge the bullets. Yeah.
Speaker: From your words, know. I've mellowed out so much. It's kind of, you Yeah. So that's what happens when you meditate. So I've been doing, guys, 15, 65 years.
Speaker: that's a while of I started when I 15, full meditation, and I'm going to be 79. 64 years, right? 64 years and I've left off eight days in 64 years. So, sure, you know, it's like, yeah, I've molded into it and I see it happening to you guys. Yeah.
Speaker: who And to many of my students, the same student that said to me, oh, come on, Alan, everyone lies, right? Well, I taught him today and it's like it's just amazing to see him becoming truthful and honest and talking from his heart.
Speaker: And he's a very, you know, wealthy fellow and all that. And usually that comes with quite a stigma.
Speaker: and And to see them change and open is quite remarkable.
Speaker: So when Patanjali wrote the Yoga Sutras, he wrote also about the yamas and niyamas. And I think it's easy today when you try to interpret it, that when it comes into our brain, we have this way of wanting to transform a lot of things into rules and laws, for it's easier for us to kind of understand.
Speaker: So what do you think about that? Do you think he actually meant it to be like that? Or do you think he had a deeper meaning of them? Well, well I think that's about, wanted, sorry to keep jumping in, but ah you bring you up such interesting points. Well, I am very interested. You know, it's like the interpretations yeah of Patanjali's writings were through people who took it and made it seem like that.
Speaker: But when I look at what he's saying, I only see the science. never mentions God. I only see it never mentions these are things to do which are righteous or ethical.
Speaker: So before he got to the yamas and niyamas in the sutras, he goes and shows how now is genius. It's the moment. When you're in the moment, you're in something other than thought and mind.
Speaker: It's called samadhi. What stops you from getting samadhi? As soon as there's vritti. How do vrittis start to buzz in our brain?
Speaker: When the first one of the major things is when you when you don't have the ways to stop them is Varagya and Abrasa, where you realize you're in evolution and part of it and doing your role, but there's no result that you're looking for.
Speaker: You're actually just doing your role, what you're in as best you can, and that's it. So when you remove that concern and result, you stop vritti from forming.
Speaker: This guy was a scientist, really. And then he shows, well, these are the things that are going to create you to become in judgment of what you're doing.
Speaker: And the yamas and niyamas form. Then he comes to show yamas and niyamas will help you to not slip into that psychological molding way, right?
Speaker: When Samis, Hindu priests start talking, they talk from a whole religious point of view. i don't because to me, it's all science.
Speaker: It's the science. of enlightenment, of how to be in the now, because the now you're out of your mind and you're a genius.
Speaker: You quoted the Kulanava Tantra earlier. and another thing in the Kulanava Tantra, which is really about exactly what we're talking about, is that you use the mind to free yourself from the mind as you do when you're on the floor and you need to stand up off to stand up from sitting on the floor You have to push yourself up to stand up off the floor, but you use the floor yeah to push yourself up. good analogy. so
Speaker: Sorry? That's a very good analogy. Yeah. And so these things are little bits and pieces to help us push ourselves up off the floor, to help us get out of the mind in which we're trapped.
Speaker: We don't want to give you new beliefs. Yeah. Oh, you shouldn't lie. Oh, you shouldn't steal. ah Come on. Then you just did a new religion. And if you steal, then you must give more money to the ashram.
Speaker: God, if only I did that, I'd be rich.
Speaker: Have you heard the phrase neotantrism? Because I heard that today. and was listening to somebody talking and on a podcast. And neotantrism is, I guess, taking the fundamental tenets of tantrism, but neo, you know, making them new, um bringing them around. Because I don't feel, i mean, we are tantric as a school, but we're not like...
Speaker: They were 2,000 years ago drinking out of skulls and stuff and really, and really you know, like dancing all night in naked and eating like aphrodisiacs. Oh, that sounds great, actually. We don't have anything like that in Ishtar Tantra, so maybe we should. That sounds like a lot of fun.
Speaker: Not the skull thing, but, you know, dancing all night sounds pretty good. That's that's why i keep saying Ishtar Tantra, where we've extracted... from tantric writings and many other writings, in fact, where we've scientific information to understand how we can get beyond the mind.
Speaker: And so, we yeah, we're not at all oh like the original tantric texts, which, you know, did all sorts of ceremonies and things and rituals and all that.
Speaker: You know we've brought it down to this these these incredible teachings. We've brought them into ah modern format. Just to be mildly contentious, why do we even put the name Tantra on it?
Speaker: If it's beyond any kind of categorization in a sense, why do we even name it Because Tantra from Sanskrit means tan and tra.
Speaker: How to expand yourself out beyond your mind and then bring that wisdom tra back in into inspire your living. So I think this is good because essentially we're just using the real meaning of the word, but not as a system.
Speaker: So Al, then of course we come to the question, do you really feel that you know Satya, that you understand it and that you've mastered it? Because the job of the guru is really to you know lead Sishas or students from darkness to light and to help them to understand and the Yamas and the Niyamas. Do you feel like you've really understood them? and You see, that is a trick question.
Speaker: Because if I answer it, I haven't. You picked up on that. So I'll take the fifth. I'll take fifth. Good choice. I won't answer that one because if I say yes, that's my ego speaking.
Speaker: And if I say no, then I'm a Eustace guru. Yeah, exactly. i take the fifth. All right, guys, that was a good one. wonderful Well, be truthful and have a super wonderful, truthful week.
Speaker: See you next week. Thanks, guys. Wonderful. Thank you. Thank you. Namaste. Namaste. See you next week. And don't forget to like and subscribe.
Speaker: Thank you for joining us today and have a super wonderful week. Namaste. Namaste.
