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So, what is the first step then to go into spirituality?
The first step in spirituality is to find a person who knows what is spirituality, who can teach what is spirituality, who can guide one. So that is the first step.
Just like if you want to learn music, suppose you want to know how to play a guitar, or in India we call it sitar...
- So what is the first step? Get a good teacher. - Not the guitar?
What will you do with the guitar if you don't have a teacher?
- Improvise. - That is useless, you will learn wrong things,
so don't improvise without the teacher, because you will get into some wrong habit,
then teacher has to work on you to get the habit out of you. That's what happens in spirituality.
In the age of Internet, is the age of "how to do it yourself".
- In five minutes... - Yeah, so people learn some things about spirituality and then they come here and then we have to break our heads to clear their stuff from their head.
So, let's say if you want to learn good classical Indian music, sitar
then you need a very good teacher who knows music well. What is the quality of a good teacher?
Means he had also had a good teacher himself. He has studied, he has practiced it, he has adapted it and he can teach.
So similarly if you want to learn spirituality, you find a nice teacher,
which means the teacher must have had a teacher himself. And studied under a teacher and has practiced, learned it well and is able to teach.
Because sometimes people know, but they don't have the ability to teach or they don't have the experience.
Cause there are two things to spirituality, there is a understanding of it - means theoretical understanding
and second is the experience, which is very important. So a teacher must be educated, must know theory well
must be experienced and must be practicing it himself or herself
and must be capable of teaching and also willing to teach. Cause some people don't like teaching.
They don't have interest, they just want to be with themselves and practice. There are some teachers like that in India, who just want to stay aloof and they don't want anybody around them.
So these are the qualities of a good teacher and one should find that and then learn to request to study from such people. So this is how the spirituality begins.
Alright. A question when you're like eighteen, today, there is a computer desk and you've just seen a video about spirituality and the difference between, like we talked yesterday on drugs and spirituality
and you say OK I'm interested, into it - so what do I do, is there any facility to find you a good teacher?
Yeah, if you know some people who are into spirituality, you can meet them you can take their advice, maybe they can guide you,
there are some other students practicing it. Just like if I want to learn guitar what do I do?
You find or somebody who is studying it or who has studied it, I can take guidance from him or I can search through Internet
these days a lot things are available on the Internet - so that's how you find.
What is that force that's pushing someone to actually harm himself?
They need to like understand where did it start, right? So what was the cause of... what was pushing them towards unhealthy lifestyle?
That is basically ignorance. We do not have proper understanding, proper knowledge
and therefore we are unable to make proper decisions, and when you make wrong decisions
which is usually by wrong association, because you have friends or companions, who are pursuing that kind of unhealthy life,
you come in their company, you become influenced by that,
because you yourself have no idea, no understanding that this is unhealthy and not beneficial for me.
So either you start practicing or following what they are doing and then, if you are fortunate, you may come to realize that actually it's not good for me - but most people may not realize it.
So because of ignorance about proper understanding of life and it's purpose and how actually I should live
then if I have wrong association then I become influenced by that
and then I get into wrong lifestyle, so that is the cause.
So basically it is ignorance and lack of guidance - whether it's from the parents or from the society or from the teachers.
So that's what leads one to wrong or unhealthy lifestyle.
Well, alright.
So we cannot always blame those people who are into wrong or unhealthy lifestyle, because they actually don't know.
If they know, if the knowledge is given to them, probably they will give it up - because nobody really wants to suffer knowingly,
but when I don't know then I do all kinds of things in ignorance,
I experiment, especially as a youth - you have energy and you have inquisity to an answer,
you want to know all kinds of things, so you also, just out of curiosity, experiment,
then you maybe get used to it and you cannot get out of it.
So if we understand and if we know, then we can also try to help others, especially if there is someone willing to know it.
Also... experiments and improvisation is one of the very valuable things.
Yes, it is very valuable, but if it is done without any guidance then it can also be dangerous.
Like you do experiments in your laboratory or in your college in school - you don't just wildly experiment - you have a teacher who explains to you then you experiment.
Cause similarly if you just experiment without any guidance then you don't know whether the experiment you should do it or not do it, or what will be the outcome.
Because our life is very precious and our time is limited, so if you do some experiments which are known people have already done so many experiments, so there are...
you know, people who learn by themselves, by doing experiments on themselves. There are also people, more intelligent people, who can learn from others' experiments.
So if some people have already done that kind of experience and have understood that this is not good then intelligence says that I should not waste my time doing this.
It's like they say don't reinvent the wheel again. Somebody has already invented it - just use it.
So if somebody has already done the experiment and finds it's not good, so why I have to do it again?
But actually people don't discriminate like that, they don't use their intelligence and they keep on doing the same mistake which others have done.
And their live is gone, by the time they realize they may be forty or fifty then.
It gets too late or they get caught in some circular, they get addicted to certain habits and... you're gone.
- What to do? - So that's what I'm saying. What to do is always take guidance, because nobody is born enlightened, maybe some special cases, but people in general are born in ignorance.
You don't know anything when you're born, you don't even know how to go to the bathroom. Our mother has to teach us even that.
So even if such a simple thing we have to learn, what to speak of life and spirituality and things like that.
- Music. - Music, you know. Everything we need to learn.
So, you want to even be a tennis player you need a good coach.
It's not that you just buy a racket and then start hitting the ball and you think you'll become a champion.
You need coach, you need guidance, you need to study the theory and then you need to practice.
You have to follow discipline in your life to achieve anything.
To be successful in any life - materially or spiritually - you have to work hard and follow some discipline.
All great people in any field they were very disciplined.
But if you say: "well, I'm free" - nobody is free basically. When people say I'm free it simply means - I'm following my mind and I have no control over it.
So basically I'm frivolous and that is taken for freedom.
Nobody is free - you are free if you have control over your mind,
otherwise what is your freedom? You are slave of your mind and your senses.
You see some food, you see cake or you see chocolate and desire comes to you and you go and eat or drink - that's not freedom.
Freedom will be - OK, I need to eat it, I will eat it, I don't need to it, it's not good for me I don't do it - then you are free.
But if you are forced from inside, you are impelled, then you are not free. People think freedom simply means, because there is no one sitting on my head, but the real freedom is inside.
So the discrimination of desires gives you a part of the freedom?
Yes, right. So only those people who have control over their mind, senses, intelligence, they are free even if they are living under somebody.
And those who are so called "free" and they have freedom, because they can do what they like to do they are not free at all.
They are slaves, they are in the illusion that they are free. Even if they are the president of the country they are not free.
Because they're bound, they're chained, they're slave of their samskaras - their past experiences, their past habits.
These are the things which are impelling them to do things - that's not freedom.
So freedom comes in spirituality. Spirituality is that which actually makes you free.
And even free forever, wherever you go, nobody can make you a slave. Even if you are physically under someone's control.
- OK, physically you can bind me, but inside I'm free. - So one of the qualities of the teacher is, he will not misconcept the freedom.
- Yes, of course not. - OK. Cause that's one of the values that youth looks for.
Yes. So the youth do not understand what is freedom, that's what I'm saying.
You shall not just run around in ignorance. Everything has a meaning, even the word freedom, love, friendship, peace, happiness
you should try to understand what they really are. But if we have some misconceptions about these things then I live in some kind of utopia, that I'm free or I'm having love or I'm peaceful.
No, it's just like somebody drinks or takes a drug and hallucinates.
- Whaaa, I'm free! - OK, you can hallucinate, but actually you're a slave of a drug itself, you know?
- So, instead of taking a teacher of freedom you took a drug, basically. - Just because you can take a drug you think you are a free person. No, that's not freedom. That's the misconception of freedom.
So that's the subject to study if you want to know what the freedom is.
- Yes. - Alright, let's finish it here.