Is Spirituality Practical? with Murali Venkatrao

Good morning, everyone. So, today’s topic is practical spirituality. Is it possible to be practical in your spirituality? Should we even try or should we separate the two?

There is a very good friend of mine who loves money. I got the reaction I expected, but let me refine his character a little bit. He doesn’t like to be wealthy or really want anything that comes with having money. He’s just one of those people who genuinely likes money for what it purely is: a piece of neutral barter that allows you to have anything. He just likes the whole concept. There is not even much desire or attachment to possessing it. He just likes it and he talks about it. He looks at everything through the eyes of the money that lies behind it. He always follows the money, and it gives him great joy to look at the world through this particular lens. When I’m with him, I enjoy how he looks at the world. I can’t say it’s refreshing, it’s novel.

Now, in life without particularly wanting to, he has accumulated a great deal of money. And the people around him don’t say that he’s weird. They don’t say that he’s doing the wrong thing or that he should like something else instead. His obsession with money as a concept is accepted because they say, look at how well he has done in life. To be successful in anything requires that kind of single-minded pursuit in thought, deed, and action. We have to always think about this, and I assume this is not a particularly controversial statement to make. You really need to be always with it at all times. The name given to that in our teachings is magnetism. The more energy you put into it, the more you attract that outcome.

So, like my friend, he just thinks about money, so money comes to him. But when it comes to spirituality, we tend to take a slightly different view of things. Even though what we seek is in many ways just as elusive and subject to so many wrong turns, and therefore needs all our effort, all of our concentration, everything we can offer to it, we tend not to think of it that way. And the story you heard in the reading just now about Yogananda, whose teachings we follow here, his brother challenges Yogananda to go to a new town, which is about three hours away by train. Remember, in those days, trains were as advanced a mode of transportation as airplanes are today. So, think about what’s reachable by three hours from Seattle—maybe San Diego or Denver—without any money. He has to go, get himself fed, and get enough money to come back by return train. In the conversation, Yogananda’s brother says, “Money first. God can come later. Who knows, life may be too long.” Always saying, “Make some money. If you live for too long, you’ll probably need it to take care of yourself.” Yogananda replies somewhat snappily, “God first. Money is His slave. Who can tell, life may be too short.”

Now, this particular exchange codifies several aspects of what I’m going after today. The first is that impending mortality always awakens us to God, or at least it should. That’s kind of the nuclear option that God takes, right? He says, “Well, you know, this will all go away. Awaken to me.” It doesn’t for some people. Then they’ll come back in the next life, and eventually, they’ll awaken to Him. Impending mortality, disease, and things like that awaken us to God’s presence. But until some such thing happens, most people, for the most part, take the view that they need to get their practical things sorted out first. This could be financial security, developing good healthy habits, making sure their family is taken care of, maybe knocking off a few items on their bucket list. Then they are able to dedicate themselves fully to God. Implied in this is that until then, it’ll be a dalliance. They’ll get there if they have time, or perhaps they’ll really go there if they’re going through a bad time in life, seeking some instant fix or solace, and then come back to pursue whatever they were pursuing. This is accepted behavior, not just accepted behavior, but perhaps expected behavior.

Now, all great religions beg to disagree in the strongest possible terms about this accepted behavior. Jesus says, in the Sermon on the Mount, a little past halfway, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.” ‘All these things’ he is referring to are precisely the practical considerations for which we postpone our full commitment to spirituality. I want to read for you those particular passages in the Sermon on the Mount. This is Jesus speaking in what is widely received as one of his most inspiring sermons. So, close your eyes and listen:

The King James version says, “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Mammon means money or wealth. He goes on, “Therefore, I say unto you, take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, what ye shall drink, nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not life more than meat and the body more than raiment?” Raiment means clothing. He continues with an illustration of this concept: “Behold the fowls of the air, for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?” And just in case you missed the point, he goes on to say, “Why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin. And yet I say unto you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” He repeats, “Therefore, take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘Wherewithal shall we be clothed?’ But seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

I read that simply because it is such a wonderful passage—so inspiring, there is little to add on top of it—but also to point out the fact that the claim here is that seeking God, meaning making, and picking all threads of life from the God’s eye view is not only the most practical of things, it is also the best that you can do. No matter what we perceive, what we seek, picking it up from this particular thread is the most efficient way of doing it.

Now, let me double-click into this particular thing that I just said, because there is a very deep reason. It’s related to how the universe is built and that reason. And to kind of weave back and forth between the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, we see how the greatest sermon from Jesus, the Sermon on the Mount, and the greatest sermon of Krishna, which is the Bhagavad Gita, reinforce each other at various levels.

Later on, in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Ask and ye shall receive; seek and ye shall find.” Here is the thing: if you seek, you are guaranteed to get it. That sounds like a good thing. The second part, the fine print, is when you seek, you’ll get exactly what you seek. It’s like one of those genie stories—the genie comes out, you ask for something, and the genie gives it to you, but then you realize, darn, I missed something, so I’m not getting what I really want. The universe works that way.

Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita clarifies it as follows. He says, and I’ll read this in Sanskrit, “Yanti Deva Vrata Devan Pitri Yanti Pirti Vrataha Bhutani Yanti Bhuteji Yanti Matya Jino Piman.” This means many things, but the fundamental concept is this: if you seek, you put energy into it, either in the form of thought, actions, aspirations, fantasies, or dreams. All of this is energy. Energy means astral. It’s said that these streams of consciousness we put energy into fulfil whatever we ask. These streams of consciousness whose job it is to fulfil these things are called astral beings or devas. So, when Krishna says, “When you worship the devas,” he means when you seek external things, you will get them. The verse means those who worship lesser gods go to their gods. If you worship money, you are guaranteed to get it, but exactly that. And then Krishna says, “If you worship me, you come to me.” He is referring to himself as an avatar, a spark of infinity.

But then there are two problems with this. The first problem is what Krishna himself notes in a preceding verse. He says that even devotees of lesser gods are worshiping him. In other words, no matter what we put energy into, the fruit is given by the power of God. Even devotees of other gods are worshiping him because he is the giver of all gifts, yet they worship him improperly. When you can get so much more, why are you asking just for this?

The second issue is significantly more concerning. If we know that we will get what we seek, we may get into the habit of asking and receiving, wanting more, and getting it. Desire begets desire. We are children of God, meaning we are never satisfied with anything finite. A little bit is not enough, a little more is not enough, even more is not enough. Lots is not enough because what we seek through our memory of our infinite bliss and consciousness is nothing less than infinity itself. Desire begets desire, and there is no end to it.

There is a very charming story told in India of Ganesha. Perhaps all of you know Ganesha, the remover of obstacles. Ganesha is the son of Shiva, the supreme God, and Parvati, the divine mother, Shakti. He is the son of Shiva and Shakti, meaning spirit and nature. He is the only begotten son of God, so to speak. The god of wealth, Kubera, stays high up in the Himalayas, and he decides to throw a party. When the god of wealth throws a party, there is no budget. Anything goes; he wants some A-listers at his party, and the biggest A-lister he wants is the son of God. So, he invites Ganesha along with many others, and Ganesha comes along. Kubera has built a palace in the Himalayas just for this great big dinner. As Ganesha walks along, he sees hundreds of rooms where cooking is taking place for all kinds of dishes. The cuisines of the entire world are represented there, whether you want unhealthy street food, healthy raw food, or anything in between. It’s all there. As Ganesha walks along, he begins to feel hungry.

The dinner probably starts at five, perhaps a bit earlier in the Himalayas because it gets dark sooner. But Ganesha comes early and begins to get hungry. So, he goes and samples the food, which is very tasty. He eats a little bit more and gets even hungrier. And then he begins to eat more. Ganesha goes into each of the rooms, and pretty soon he has eaten all the food that was prepared and meant for a thousand people. He’s finished the whole thing. Now, his hunger has only increased. He’s even more voracious, but all the food is gone. So, he eats the ingredients for the food—the raw rice, uncooked vegetables, and the spices. He begins to eat those, though they’re obviously not tasty at this point. It’s pretty disgusting, but his hunger increases even more.

He then begins to eat the plates. These are not compostable plates; these are real plates. So, he begins to eat them. He eats the silverware, which in the god of wealth’s home is actually made of silver. He eats them. That’s also gone. He’s even more hungry. He begins to eat the posts and the doors that are holding the palace. At this point, Kubera, who has been a little bit indulgent because it’s the son of God, now gets worried and says, “Okay, I need to put a stop to this. Pretty soon my palace will be eaten. I never really planned for this particular outcome.”

So, he runs to Shiva, the Supreme Spirit, and falls at his feet, saying, “Lord, please save my party.” Shiva comes and sees Ganesha running around like a rat, eating, biting everything. He calls, “Ganesha.” At first, it has no impact. He calls again, “Ganesha, do you hear me?” In the midst of this miasma of hunger and consumption, Ganesha vaguely hears somewhere, “Oh, someone’s calling me. It seems a little important.” “Ganesha, do you hear me?” It becomes louder. Soon, he cannot ignore the call anymore. He pauses mid-bite into a thick, heavy door, spits it out, and walks up, saying, “Oh, Father, it’s you.” He looks at Shiva and suddenly realizes what he’s doing. With tears in his eyes, he says, “Father, I am so hungry. I just cannot stop eating. Please, will you help me?” Shiva does something very simple yet spectacular. He holds out his hand, and in it manifests a handful of roasted rice. He gives it to Ganesha, who eats those few grains of roasted rice and is suddenly very full. Now, Ganesha is worshiped as sitting on the rat of restless desire. He’s sitting on it, meaning he’s overcome it. Because of this, he’s worshiped universally as the remover of obstacles. When we seek something and don’t pick it up from the highest thread, it becomes our biggest obstacle. It’s never enough, and we get lost in seeking outward things.

When you worship lesser gods, you go to lesser gods. The word “Yajna” in Sanskrit means you become one with them. That’s what Ganesha’s story illustrates—that we are children of God. So, the god of wealth is at our service. He throws a dinner party for us and invites us free of charge. As Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.” We are entitled to being fed by the god of wealth himself, except that’s not the desired outcome because we seek infinity. Pretty soon, the thousand rooms of the god of wealth run out of all the food that our craving for infinity desires. You see where I’m going with this? This is the deeper reason why separating spirituality and practicality does not work.

“Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.” That’s well and good, but it’s a very, very hard teaching. After all, what this teaching demands us to do is not have a thought for where our lunch or dinner is going to come from or who is going to do our laundry. How does it get done? Eventually, when we are in the flow, our self-effort melts very seamlessly into all the things that we need to get done. But until we are in that refined state of awareness and consciousness, it’s not possible to immediately take this teaching and apply it right away into life because you really run into problems immediately.

So here are three things that you can do. All of these are very simple. The first one is to talk to God constantly, even in the small things. It’s a very simple and powerful way to take the God’s-eye view of what is going on in your life, no matter what the challenge is in front of you. This part is important. No matter how much it reveals your own culpability or your own imperfection, it doesn’t really matter. Talk to God about it. Make a habit of doing that. Yogananda said that God doesn’t mind our imperfections. He only minds our indifference. In other words, if we don’t ask, He literally has no way to give. That’s another aspect of “ask and you shall receive”—because we are imbued with free will, we have to ask. This entire act of asking and receiving is a very important concept in the Bhagavad Gita, where it is called Yajna.

For those of you who have heard of it, this asking and receiving is called Yajna. The highest form of Yajna is not so much asking God for a particular outcome, but rather asking, “What should I do? What should I feel about what is happening in front of me? Not so much, please make this go away, but rather, what is Your will here? What are You trying to make happen for me?”

When I was preparing for this particular talk, for various reasons and because of how my week was scheduled, it was very convenient for me to be done with this preparation by Friday afternoon. In my mind, I had this little bit of a fantasy of resting much of Friday evening with the nice afterglow of having prepared for all the classes that I had to do over the weekend. I took that into my prayer Friday morning, saying words to the effect, “Lord, Guru, please make me efficient enough that I be done with all my preparation by Friday afternoon.” It didn’t sound right, but it was the best I could do at the moment. Later on, it occurred to me that this was not the most magnetic thing. So, I used words to the effect of, “Bless me that I’m attuned to Your consciousness as I prepare for the class so I can become a pure channel.” This second prayer was saying, “Well, I have to do what I have to do. I have to do it in Your consciousness. Please expand my mind into it so that I can be Your channel.” This was a more magnetic prayer because the highest expression of this kind of thinking appears in the Lord’s Prayer.

Again, in the Sermon on the Mount, “Thy will be done.” Our prayers are more biased towards that end of the spectrum rather than seeking a particular outcome for ourselves. When we constantly talk to God, it should not be in the sense of chattering and saying, “Please make this happen, please make this happen.” Instead, it should be about what is trying to happen, doing it with some attunement, a lot of attunement, in fact, doing it with sincerity. The best prayer, Yogananda said, is that which simply comes from your heart. It’s greater than the prayer of any of the great saints out there, greater than the greatest of all prayers. In other words, sincerity and honesty. Remember, to err is human. God doesn’t mind our imperfections. Praying in this way, not asking for an outcome, but rather praying with the intention of joining the flow of divine consciousness, is what it means when it says, “Those who seek lesser gods go to lesser gods. Those who seek Me, come to Me.” If I were sincere enough in my prayer, if there was enough energy and conviction behind it, I probably would have been done with the preparation by Friday afternoon. But who knows what I would have talked about? Who knows what I’m talking about now? History will be the judge of that. Nonetheless, I feel this was slightly better than what would have come out of that kind of conviction.

Now, this is not enough, though. There is another component missing here. Through these prayers, this constantly talking to God, Jamuna made these beautiful little cards. If you can’t read it, it says, “Talk to God about everything.” This was a promise that she made when she gave the talk a couple of weeks ago, that she would have these cards made. It worked out perfectly for my purposes. Thank you. You can pick up one of these on your way out. It’s on that little table in front of Babaji back there.

We do talk, but we need to listen to what comes out. Otherwise, it simply becomes chatter. So, developing the habit of listening, which is far harder than you might think—or you probably already know that it’s very, very hard. And it’s not just kind of paying attention and then in the back of your head thinking, “Well, that’s not what I wanted to hear.” Not that kind of thing. But listening with an open heart—receptivity. At the heart of listening is receptivity. This is why, and in many ways, this is only why meditation is important. It completes the circuit between God and us. We have the God-given ability. A very classic statement from the Bhagavad Gita says that in the beginning of creation, when God created all of us, He gave us the ability to fulfil whatever we want through this act of putting out energy into the astral realms. That’s already there. So, these prayers will be answered; of that, there is no doubt. Ask and you shall receive. Listening is the one that says we shall receive God’s answer, not merely to my prayer and getting what I want out of it.

So, the whole thing about seeking the kingdom of God first is the linchpin. There is the ability to listen. The rest of the things are already there. It’s instinctive, subconscious, habitual. This thing needs to be fixed. That’s why in the yoga, when Yogananda came here, and similar reformations happened in India too, the focus was on meditation. In the new age, what is required to complete this is to increase our ability to listen.

One final point is talking to God about everything. Talking to God in a sense that biases us towards “Thy will be done.” And listening to what the answer is. None of this amounts to a hill of beans if our intent behind it is not right. And in the talk that Jyoti gave on the same topic, he noted something very interesting from a semantic perspective. In the sentence, “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you,” Jyoti pointed out that it doesn’t say “so that all these things shall be added unto you.” It says, “and all these things shall be added unto you.” So, the intent with which we seek has to be one of pure seeking, not because of all these outcomes that we want. We seek because we seek. We seek because the love of God is what we desire to the exclusion of all else. Rajarsi Janakananda, who was Yogananda’s most advanced American disciple, mentioned this about five years before his passing. He was a very successful businessman, and I estimated that his net worth would be somewhere in the quarter billion to half a billion range in today’s terms. He was very successful, yet he said, “Having enjoyed the things of the world, I had come to a point of distress. Nothing seemed to satisfy me. If you have had an opportunity to observe the rich, those with vast possessions, you have found that most of them are discontented and unhappy. Wealth without wisdom cannot give joy.” The wisdom he referred to is the one with a capital W—Wisdom is another name for God.

He said, “Wealth without wisdom cannot give joy.” So, this final part in this whole equation is to remove the transactional nature of how we seek. The promise, going back to the Bhagavad Gita, is both very encouraging and unmistakable. It says, “Ananyas chintayanto mam ye janah paryupasate, tesham nityabhiyuktanam yoga kshemam vahamy aham.” Translated, it means, “If you always think about Me in everything that you do, then I will make good your deficiencies and make permanent your gains.” This is applied rightly to the spiritual purpose that whatever we lack in our intent and things like that will be made good. But it is also true materially. The word used there is “yoga kshemam.” “Yoga” means whatever it is that you need, and that’s the common meaning of yoga, not just what we think of as yoga. “Kshemam” means protection—what you need and protecting it. This is why the National Insurance Corporation of India uses this as its slogan, “Yoga Kshemam”—to give and to protect. But outside of that little insurance detour, Rajarsi was also involved in insurance, so it’s not entirely non-spiritual. God is our insurance. He gives and He protects. All we need to do is seek His kingdom first to the exclusion of all else.

Ministers this week are Murali Venkatrao and Nayaswami Hriman.