opponents of Dharma have always been there regardless of which age we live I've been advised not to say the word sonan DH because it will turn me as rightwing now we see all these photos and videos of bhagan shiv with Chas and whatever else and if someone says shiv used to smoke so I want to smoke we should ask them shivji also consumed poison you willing to consume poison a pujari who performing these pujas and Havens what changes in that pujari's reality that havan is very interesting lose track of everyone apart from the Puja and the when you look at the picture of the Divine you will see that form in the fire clearly the same form of Davi in the photo is the same form in the fire to truly see bhagan we need knowledge so this deep philosophy is embedded in the process of Puja this answers the age-old question that children ask their parents while we're performing puas why are we doing this and the parents usually say this is the actual answer yeah there is a deep core of sanatan bhat that wants to hear the word sanatan that live it in their heart but are afraid to say it on their lips that's so true [Music] Goosebumps we've had so many spiritualists come on the show and talk about ancient Indian culture very few people have openly spoken about what is referred to as sanatan DH a lot of people fear speaking about sanatan DH that was the core of this episode but if you've seen any of our episodes with om dutar you know what an articulate human he is he's able to explain extremely complex Concepts in the simplest of ways so if you're someone who enjoys chatter about ancient Indian wisdom this episode is also going to be one of your favorites it's om dkar on [Music] DRS [Music] we are back baby om dutar in the house is the baby addressed to me or to everyone in general it's to the universe to all of what DH encapsulates very good to be back thank you for having me thank you for being back in the studio I think for me while I will extract a lot of information from you because you had a very eventful year um this is just kind of a catch up for me like I didn't talk to you outside I didn't talk to you much here so that we can speak on camera uh the things you're forced to do as a podcaster I love these public therapy sessions they're the best actually you say therapy sessions they're actually satsang I love it satsang yeah what is the word satsang satsang is the combination of two Sanskrit words sat means truth s means company and actually satsang can be the path through Liberation as well the great spiritual Master ad shankara said that in the course of SATs you get out of Bad Company this as a result of getting out of Bad Company this you get out of Mo or delusion n as a result of getting out of delusion we are firm in our convictions our spiritual convictions and as a result of being firm in our spiritual convictions MTI we are liberated in this lifetime itself so satsang is the path to Liberation but it's the elimination of Bad Company that begins this process it no it keep good company Bad Company falls on itself what does that mean it means that if we want to detach ourselves from the lower one way to do it is by trying to throw everything away getting rid of things but it's difficult because even if I may know that something is bad for me I still have attachment to it I still like it I might have friends who are not right for me they're not right for this chapter of my life they're not right for where I want to go but I still have some great memories with them I still have some form of attach attachment to them and if I reject them then it's hurtful at both ends it'll hurt me it'll hurt them the right way to do it is to attach to something that is greater and then the lower attachments Fall Away on their own if you think about in our childhood when we were four five years old we all had some toy some car some stuffed bunny that was our favorite thing you could not live without it used to go for birthday parties also there was one you know half dead little stuffed animal with us but everyone thought it was you know dirty but we loved it it was our best thing what happened at some point at age 8 9 10 we attached to other things and then this thing that was okay for one period of our life but inappropriate for the next period of our life fell away this is the same thing good sa achieves that now there are some real really transcendental puranic stories about what sa can do but we'll see how the conversation goes and we can share them at the right time I wonder what the stories are you want me to go through them now yeah because I think friendship has become a priority for me at this point in life I think for the longest time throughout my late 20s yeah because of just how life went about and what Society was telling me I thought romance is the priority and even through the show I've realized that it's actually friendship that's the priority uh like I probably have three or four close Bros in the world who've been there for donkey years and uh I probably value them more than I value even a potential romance that could come into my life because uh you know the romance may come and go you might even get married and divorced but those Brothers will stay there so I think friendship is a very important truth even from a bit of a spiritual perspective even from a bit of a sanatani perspective uh I spoke about this to rajash nandi as well uh the thing is he spoke about how when you die technically your marriage also dies cuz one of the partners is dying correct uh so even something as pure and ultimate as marriage eventually collapses yes but what stays with you throughout life are your friendships possibly you'll carry that into your next birth as well yeah maybe you'll carry a friendship with your wife from this birth into the next birth as well but friendship trumps Romance see the more we evolve spiritually the more important Association becomes good company they could be friends they could be partners they could be anything and Association sa company friendships are probably the most ignored aspect of spiritual life see if we are progressing spiritually what do we need we really only need three things shastra sadhana s shastra scriptural knowledge study wisdom shastric wisdom can come from anywhere we now sharing it on YouTube shastra sadana some practice needs to be there to allow that wisdom to take root but what is it that keeps you on the path what keeps you on the path is s we need relationships in our life that nurture us we need relationships in our life that calm us when we are going through difficult things we need relationships in our lives that soothe us we we need relationships in our life that give us the opportunity to serve them when they are going through their challenges and yes a romantic relationship or partner is extremely important and finding the right partner is getting more and more difficult these days but there's no fear certainly not as much fear in friendship as associated with finding a partner you find a friend you're never like is this the one H okay cool uh let's talk about the stories so the stories of s oh there are so many so many there's one really um there's a story that really touched me that um we I recently studied how to do very specific pujas in that there is the navaga Puja nine planets or nine Celestial beings there celestial bodies Center of that is Surya and then you have Chandra shukra and so on so all of the celestial bodies that we recognize Shani that everyone is so scared of just we C Sun Moon Venus Mercury Mars Saturn Mars Saturn rahu ketu Jupiter yeah so um Sun Moon Mars Venus um Saturn Jupiter rahu and ketu and and there's one more which I'm missing Mercury Mercury huh Mercury yes so rahu and ketu are very interesting what are rahu and ketu celestially speaking so celestially speaking they don't have a visible presence which is what makes them very interesting because all of the other entities are entities that are there in the solar system and solar system is now a western phrase but sya mandal predates the idea of the sun being at the center of the solar system by several thousands of years now in the SAA mandal we have rahu and ketu rahu and ketu were um originally one being that ended up being headless so the head became one being and the body became another being and this incident occurred during the churning of the ocean so in shuran there's an episode where auspiciousness everything that is good disappears from creation not just from the earth so both the dasas and asuras need something to bring it back and they are facing into their own anihilation so they want the nectar of immortality as the ultimate goal so they go to shiv Vishnu and say we need to find this nectar of immortality so Vishnu says okay I will be I will take the form of a giant daus on my back place a mountain on that around that mountain wrap a snake on one side of the snake are the devatas the other side of the snake are asuras and start churning so this Shir sagur which we visualize as the ocean of milk which sometimes is referred to as the Milky Way as as well as a cosmic Celestial wow presence and Arrangement um in that the churning starts so one said the deas are pulling the other side the asuras are pulling so this sort of movement and what ends up happening is from this ocean through the process of churning a number of things start to emerge now what is this bhagan in the form of kurma the um toris is the underlying reality that gives on which everything takes place the mountain is our body the snake is a spiritual possibility Kini that is yet to rise dasas and asuras are the higher and lower tendencies in us that are pulling and that churning that is happening in the ocean is the process of Med meditation from which things are starting to emerge so the first thing that emerges is poison Halal and that poison is so terrible so terrible that it gets into the eyes into the lungs you know nobody can breathe at that time bhagan shiv comes and he consumes that poison and it is limited to his throat tells us two things one is when we going through the meditation process the first thing that comes out is our inner poison and most people get distracted at this point because they're like oh I can't believe this is in me I thought I was a good person and all these things I'm trying to do something good I can't do it and they give up but you must know and through these stories we know first thing that comes out is poison and that poison is choking us when when we experience it what to do with it give it to bhagan bhagan is the only one who can consume it without being consumed by it so offer it when the poison come when the thoughts come when the Tendencies come in the seat of meditation give it to bhagan that is one thing second thing it teaches us is that now we see all these photos and videos of bhagan shiv with Chas and whatever else what a ridiculous image what a ridiculous idea and if someone says shivji used to smoke so I want to smoke we should ask them shiv also consumed poison you are willing to consume poison most people will say no so that is part of the episode as things go forward other uh other things come out danant the de of aured comes out through this process one of the pre-planned questions for me for this episode was about dant okay we might talk about it cool that bringing it supposed to be in this podcast anyway go on and when danant comes he's holding a kalush a pot which has the nectar of immortality okay now now when that nectar of immortality is uh brought up Suddenly everyone wants they throw the snake they throw the chy they just rush after it so Bagan Vishnu assumes the form of moini and holds that nectar moini is one who enchants the entire universe anything that is created is Enchanted by moini so in enchanting everyone moini says to the assuras hey you were going how can you just have this go have a purification bath and then come so they go to have a bath amongst them one person stays back and disguises himself in the D and when and starts to Thea start to consume that Amit and this person gets one drop and as soon as gets one drop Vishnu realizes that it's not a de and he sends the chakra cuts the head off but that that one drop by the time has gone it and that assura head that is removed becomes one of them becomes rahu and one becomes kuu yeah what does this tell us and what does this have to do with s that we are talking about it tells us that a assura can be elevated to the level of a daa and can get immortality how not by not by cheating and getting into the line but by keeping the company of those was evolved beings as a result of being in that company rahu and ketu that was born as an Asura has been elevated now one may believe that there deas asuras head was cut off nectar of immortality but the fundamental idea is this good company can transform Our Lives we have to only seek it out okay uh whose company were you in for the past one year you had something eventful that happened in your life there's a lot that happened in the last one year um again some small context on what you are professionally yeah uh for people who are seeing you for the first time we've done two episodes but there may may be audiences who've not seen the older episodes yeah and it's been a moment and the channel has grown so much so I um work as a managing director at a bank in the UK uh a headup strategy for the UK's largest Commercial Bank uh it's a lot of and um I've lived in the UK for the last 18 years last few weeks in India have probably been the longest that I've been in India since I was a since I was in my teenage years uh alongside all of that I have been uh a practitioner of uh Hinduism in its most General sense uh all my life but specifically since I was at University so that process is also now 16 or 17 years old um and it has made a huge almost I would say fundamental contribution to who I am today both in my inner space as well as the work that I do and what I have achieved professionally so to put it in very simple terms I am there I am here professionally because of Dharma and it's the service of Dharma that has made me so one interesting thing that happened this year is that that service of Dharma took a outward facing form in the sense that whatever insights that I had from my practice and life experiences I used to absorb in myself and keep to myself and in covid there was a small bhagat Gita group that we started and that group then encouraged me to start putting it on Instagram at which point we had a conversation I think in September of last year uh and we had another conversation at the end of last year when I was in Mumbai and then off of the back of that we launched a new YouTube channel speaking about first the bhagat Gita going in depth exploring it from a very practical perspective how can Millennials how can genzi people apply this knowledge in their lives and we found indepth scriptural references to challenges that we have today like anxiety like anger like NOAB brahmacharya we made three videos with exact detailed scriptural references from bhagwat Gita so the idea was let's not make this text intimidating let's make it accessible and let's make it as an entry point so people understand if they want to go deeper there are many organizations that can take take it deeper but it's intimidating so we started with bhagat Gita and earlier this year we also started Hanuman Chalisa so one one Chayo of the Hanuman Chalisa we are explaining in detail and linking it back to the fundamental ideas the foundations of Hinduism who is bhagan who am I what is my relationship with the Divine what is the nature of karma how do I evolve how do I manifest how do I overcome the challenges in life so that's been a very very wonderful Journey why were you in Kerala so you've jumped a few months ahead so I've spent the last two and a half months in Kerala uh I've taken a sabatical from work to be able to do this uh I was at an ashram that is maintained by chin Mission been associated with the chin Mission many years my spiritual journey in one sense 17 years ago started with them and um I they used to run this course to teach you how to become a Pandit for six months they used to teach you all the pujas all the VIIs in detail now this has been an area of interest for me for pretty much my entire life let's take a small pause how many pujas are there as many as you want there to be so I'll give you a basic um idea there are multiple manifestations of the Divine that are woried in specific ways okay now ADI shankaracharya who is one of the foundational pillars of Hinduism as we see it today had um proposed a path called Shan mat where there are six manifestations of the Divine that are worshiped as access to the highest Shiva Vishnu Davi ganapati kumara and Surya what is Kumar kumara is scanda okay kika kika exactly so six uh these are and of course they have their own manifestations so each of these deities have their own specific pujas in addition to these pujas you have navaga pujas that are undertaken for um for any auspicious activity right and that includes rahu and ketu as we were talking about in addition to that you have what are known as Havens or homas now Havens and homas are performed again in worship of these deities and you also have yagas which sometimes are used interchangeably with H and H but they're not they are much more detailed there's a there's a very very uh deep and rigorous process that goes into performing a yagya that takes multiple days multiple people which one person doing a hom can never achieve yeah and so like a havan is a micro yagya in one respect yes both involve fire and invocation of fire and offerings into the fire but a yagya can take multiple days a yagya requires the yans to be married hom doesn't require the yans to be married yaj yans are the people who are participating who are yeah who have sponsored it for lack of a better phrase okay H doesn't require for the yans to be married yagya requires for them to be married h you can take the Agni from your Dia or you can even not that people do it that much normally you just take it from your Dia and lie from there yagya to produce AG there's a very specific process and instrument that is required you have to Kindle that wood and create that flame you cannot just take it from somewhere else in a proper yagya the entire yagala is burnt at the end of it the entire yagala the entire venue and which has bamboos and touched roofs and everything and it's huge it's got multiple spaces that whole thing is set all right and people assume that this no longer happens in India because so Del so detailed but it does where does it happen is there wherever there is very detailed Tantra practice in particular there this type of yagya takes place I know of one that took place in Kerala not too long ago unfortunately I wasn't able to visit because I was in London but my dream is to go once at least to experience that um speaking about Tantra practice now I think even the listeners are actually kind of educated on it because of all the rajash nandi episodes but basically when someone does a normal Mantra you're getting some sort of spiritual progress when you meditate using that Mantra you get deeper spiritual progress and there are certain Manas which are even more powerful so is it fair to say that a hav is a much larger bomb of progress and then a yagna how do you say it yagya yagya uh is a an atom bomb of progress you can say that you can say that and what I will say is these are processes that are worth experiencing rather than understanding it theoretically because then what the words that we use just now they actually become an inner experience the level of opening that takes place inside is very very different so for example I've been performing pujas for many years now but I learned how to perform a hav recently and I'll tell you the experience of performing a hav is very different from the experience of performing a Puja not that I'm saying it's more advanced it's just the level of connect and the presence of the Divine that is much much more palpable in a hav than what you experience in a Puja why because we invoke the deity in the fire now the fire is not something that is visualized the fire exists the fire is producing a certain amount of heat the fire is producing a certain amount of light the fire is creating an immediate reaction in us because we are sitting next to it we are also sweating we are also we achieve that luster of that sweat and you know the light of the fire starts to reflect in our face and inside the energy of that fire catches root and what takes place inside is is very difficult to describe you're saying the same energy of the fire that causes all these external Visual and feeling based changes reaches whatever is inside your mind and heart as well yes and creates changes there almost like it's cooking up your soul then in some way the ultimate truth in Hinduism is visualized as a flame as light as lifegiving and this isn't just me making it up in the kopan that is said that I am not able to see the sun the moon the stars none of these lights are visible to me until and unless I have touched that Light Within and having touched that I am able to see experience know everything so if in Hinduism the true truth is a flame of knowledge or knowledge is a flame and that flame is burning Bri in front of us and we get to experience in the process of a h okay um little tangential question a pujari who's performing these puas and Havens and yagnas regularly sorry yagas regularly yeah uh what changes in that pujari's reality so firstly you can say yagya you can say yag also because it's Sanskrit it's so people some say yagya some say yya I say yagya just because it's easier to pronounce in English but in Sanskrit if you speaking in Hindi I would say yagya yagya what changes for the pujari what changes for the pujari is I mean they can achieve the highest reality as a result of these processes if that is their goal sometimes we we do the karma we do these puas we do the havans purely to you might do it as a means to an end you know if I'm doing one for you and you are paying me I be like CH let's do it and then I get paid and then I can do whatever I want to do with that money or it might be that I'm so familiar with it I just do what needs to be done get done with the process and and move forward but someone who is doing it properly to achieve the right energetic outcome one has to invest a certain amount of our energy into the process and one cannot invest the energy without having a clear idea of why we are doing this and that why needs to be aligned actually with the purpose of the Puja I cannot do this Puja for say say for example if someone's having a health problem and they ask me to do a Puja for them I cannot just say I'm getting money for this that's why I'm doing it no for the Puja to have an effect I have have to connect with solving the health problem for that person it's not that I am going to solve the health problem but I have to create the energetic preconditions if I don't create that energetic condition and I take the payment and I just do the Puja then I Am AC crewing Bad Karma so anyone with a decent understanding of karma won't do that H okay you can continue on your pujari 101 so uh chinma Mission used to do this course for um for 6 months it used to be and they had only really done it twice to the best of my knowledge in the last sort of 15 16 years but the teacher is a true master of this and for many years I wanted to do it and I used to keep looking at their website their Instagram pages when will they announce then finally at the end of last year I somehow managed to pull the contact details of someone in that Ash and I got in touch with them and said look I live in London I'm very interested in this subject you don't look like you're having a course for some time can I just come and stay at the asham and I will serve in the asham but just please teach me and that person said oh by the way we are having a two-month course we're not going to do the six Monon version we'll do it over two months why did you want to do it so the why in me is a really difficult question to answer because it comes from a place that is not in a conscious mind it's not a thought that oh I want have this plan then I'm going to do this I'm going to it's just a inner calling to do something and actually my connection through Hinduism is through Puja used to have we have still Ganesh Puja at home every ganeshi and I'm very blessed to be born in a family that has been performing this Puja in not in the decades but in the centuries it's been more than 100 years in Mumbai at least and a long time before that when our lineage was or originally in Goa so when I was uh 2 years old um this Puja was happening at home and I wanted to participate I was watching it and so obviously people held me back cuz you know you can't let a 2-year-old in front of lights and lamps and all of that so I was held back from this Puja and in the afternoon when everyone went to sleep I decided now is my time to do my own Puja so I took the flowers put it in the oil took the water offered it took the chandan you know just threw it everywhere and I was and when they woke up I was just sat in there surrounded by flowers with chandan on my head and everything absolutely delighted in myself and that's when my family realized my parents realized that next year onward so I was 3 years old when I started doing Ganesh and then it reached a point about uh more than six 6 years ago or something thing that I started doing it on my own but what had happened is I had this knowledge of vanta of the scriptures that I had obtained about starting about 16 17 years ago and then I had a separate understanding of Puja and the process and I had a certain inner experience from performing those puas but those two was it was difficult to reconcile I mean I could have used my own uh understanding to do that but it's different when you have a author ized Master teaching you this is the process this is the meaning this is the experience that it me it is meant to generate this is the philosophical understanding that one should have when performing the Puja like what for example in any Puja there are three or four stages of the Puja the first stage is purva purvang Puja then you have where you it's a preparatory stage then you have aaham which is the invite of the deity to come where there's a specific process that the pujari has to undergo which involves their own chakra I don't want to use the word Awakening because that now means something very different on the internet but utilization of energy through their chakras wow to be able to invoke the deity in the vigraha in the form that we see in front of us that is the second stage the third stage is the um upachar upar can be five pachar can be 16 Shar or it could be even as many as we want upars are offerings so you offer the Dy flowers pushpa Mala har you offer them clothes vram angavastram you offer them water you offer them chandan and so on each of these offerings are done and the final one is utar Puja which is you know normally when we have arti and kpur arti and pushpanjali and all of these things and we thank the D for coming those are the four broad phases of the Puja now you asked me about the mood in which the Puja is done now the mood is set in the purvang Puja itself there is a part of the process called Atma Puja Atma Puja tells us how the pujari in what Inner Space the pujari is going to be when performing the Puja and it's different for every Puja no it's the same but I'm holding back on giving all the information because some of this has to be practiced to be understood I'll give it in brief your Atma Puja can also be of great depth see each of the stages of the Puja can be done in huge amount of detail you can do a Puja in 30 minutes you can do a Puja in 3 hours you can do a Puja in 3 days also if you want so the Atma Puja step is similar it is can go into as much depth as you want there are very specific processes of meditation where you see the presence of the Divinity in your heart but ordinarily if we are doing Atma Puja there's a very beautiful Mantra that is [Music] chanted body is a temple who is the D in the temple ja individualized ja daa is daa when not now not while doing the Puja not when they reach realization sanatana has always been Divine the Inner Space of the person performing the Puja has always been divine so therefore why is how do they perform this Puja by releasing the waste product of Ayan which is ignorance soam you have been doing this soam meditation for many years soam is I am that I am the Supreme reality with that power I undertake the Puja so a seasoned practitioner will aim to undertake the Puja as a process of connecting their current identity which is you know om ranir whoever else pujari Banker turn pujari they want to connect that they want to almost discard that identity and identify with the Supreme two very simple examples one is when I'm doing a h i lose even when I do a h i always explain what is going to happen at the start of the H and I tell everyone that this is the process some of what I've already shared there's a purvang Puja and so on I share some details about how we invoke the deity Into the Fire and I say to them I'm giving you this information now as we go along I may explain a little but at one point the Kaa will take over and I won't explain and what happens in that process is that um the I lose track of the room I lose track of everyone apart from the Puja and the AG and one interesting thing happened recently when we did a uh did a Haven for Maha ashami in navaratri Duram havan I said to the people who are there that havan is very interesting because we get to experience the presence of the Divine in the Agni that when you offer Neda to a vigraha for example the vigraha consumes that VG is what we normally call a Muti but vigraha has its own meaning vishes graha means the home of the Divine a special home for the Divine is created in that form so that the Divine can reside there and it's energized so when we do vigra Puja and offer Nya to it food to it the vigraha is consuming that food in its pranic form so we say consume this food look at this food we draw its attention to the food and then we offer it each of the pranas when we are doing hav we are actually offering the food into the AG so the de is directly consuming the food not just its planic element and I said this I was like the presence of the Dey can be seen when you sometimes when you look at the picture of the Divine you will see that form in the fire and there was someone there who didn't believe me and then we did the whole Crea they experienced what had to be experienced and at the end of it when someone whoever there was someone who took pictures you know multiple people they taking pictures there was one picture in which clearly you could see Davi in fact it's there on my Instagram there's DAV is there in a photo and in the middle there's the havan and the last remnants of the fire you can see clearly that the same form of Davi in the photo is the same form in the fire with a kga with a sword and sat on a lion and so on so these experiences are there that's and I'm saiding this because other people have also experienced it so that is one thing that happen second thing one uh people say to me that when I'm performing a Puja especially when it goes into the more intense stages of it like you know later in the Puja my face becomes very Stony like it becomes almost expressionless and someone asked me why and this is a person who has watched me do Puja for many years and someone who I consider close to me and I had to share to them that your our experience of who we are l the presence of the deity takes over so much that actually we have to work extra hard to hold ourselves together so when I do Ganesh Puja for example Ganesh chti the day after day before I do it with the idea of communing with bhagan in a way where bhagan comes bhagan is served everyone else who comes they are served but my communion is those two days which Powers the remaining 300 163 days to then come back for two more days of Ganesha the reason I'm asking you about all these things and so much depth is because not every listener who's listening to this is going to perform puas with the intensity that you do but I'm sure that people can gain something for the puas that they perform at home from this conversation definitely at least from an emotional perspective or a intention perspective the point of Puja is not to transact with bhagan people say I'm doing this Puja for this purpose fine we can have intention we can have a sankalpa we can aim to manifest it but we're not transacting that I will give you 100 coconuts give me give me a house people say I'll give you 100 coconuts give me a house what is the value of a house what is the value of 100 coconuts and bhagan has provided everything doesn't need coconuts from us doesn't need sweets from us doesn't need gold from us even what bhagan needs from us is bhava are you willing to give yourself through the Puja Are you a able to recognize the presence of divinity and through that recognition offer that is the purpose of Puja see one need not do elaborate puas if one has the ability to sit for puas has the desire has the love for it is able to take that level of energy please do it but not everyone can do it so the basic Puja is pachara five upachar five offerings okay but those five offerings which are water uh chandan flowers dupa and Deepa light these five offerings have deep metaphysical truths in it and when we offer we are offering not just the object but the meaning behind it so the five offerings puncha pachar represent pcha mahab the five elements and we offer those five elements and we recognize that those five elements have come from the Divine and are merging back so there's the there's an independent divine presence from which five elements arise this entire world comes we offer those back and then the entire creation merges into that Divine so when we offer water jalum five one of the five elements Earth is represented by gandham by chandan by sand wood so when we offer the offer chandan we say that we will work in such a way we might get eroded but we will spread our fragrance and the Divinity and the greatness of the Divine around us that people will benefit so that with that b we offer chandan which represents the Earth pushpam flowers represent space Akash how because because they uh space is unmanifest for a period of time becomes manifest and then changes form again in the same way the flower is a bird for a period of time becomes a flower then gets pollinated and becomes a fruit so that process with that bhaa of saying something is there it's not there tomorrow it'll come back the day after with that entire cycle is sustained by the Divine eye off of flowers then you have dupa dupa represents the Vu Vu is the um wind element dupa like agarbati dupa agarbati yeah you get agarbati there's uh dup agarbati very interesting is a type of originally it was called agaru is a type of wood that used to be burnt and used to get used to get fragrance from it that used to be cut into very small splinters so it became it was then called aguti and aguti now has become agarbati and lot of agbes you get are made of chemicals and all that but that's a separate discussion anyway naturally fragrant things that occur in nature that are naturally fragrant when burnt we offer to the Divine see this represents Vu and the idea is again that we will live our lives in such a way that we may get rid of ourselves and our ego it completely disappears into Ash but the process of doing that will benefit others and finally we have AG which we know as knowledge so that AG we take in the form of arti and show and use it to see the Divine and again it's the same principle knowing with this knowledge only I'm able to see the Divine and so it's not just so that you know we offer it and that's an element of it we energize it that's an element of it but it is also to truly see bhagan we need knowledge so this deep philosophy is embedded in the process of Puja and simply five offerings can help us live that okay this answers the age-old question that children ask their parents in India while we're performing puas why are we doing this and the parents usually say this is the actual answer yeah and you know I I used to have that with my parents as well and for one time I sort of resent Ed these answers I said why aren't you telling you know why don't you know if you don't know then you can't tell why and I realized one thing there was no podcast back then yes that's the actual truth see what happened our grandparents generation fought for the independence of bat M they had to do what they had to do to gain freedom for us our parents generation fought to be independent in they were focused on Survival through this entire license Raj and where every every person that stood out was hammered back in the nail that stands out should be hammered back in that was the idea in their generation they could not focus on anything but survival we are the first generation of bhas in hundreds of years who have the opportunity not just to survive but to thrive Goosebumps that's so true and our culture our sanatan sanskriti that is timeless I won't even say thousands of years old that is timeless gives us the means to thrive okay what is sanatan d i I also want to say before I let you begin is that and I hate saying this online but because of the political climate of our times even the word sanatan DH is a dangerous word to use on the internet for a mainstream brand like myself and that's so sad I mean I know what sanatan DH is I'm asking for the sake of the podcast and to obviously increase my knowledge about it but I've literally been advised by media professionals not to say the word sanatan d because it'll term me as rightwing just let me live guys uh the opponents of Dharma have always been there regardless of which Agee we live even in satyug there were opponents of Dharma even in tra y when bhagan s came they were opponents of Dharma in dwap yug bhagan Shri Krishna had to reestablish Dharma because people were hellbent on destroying Dharma and today in the kug we cannot say the word Dharma without someone jumping down our neck and calling us names you I'm literally told I'll lose brand associations if I say the word sanatan there is a deep core of sanatan bhat that wants to hear the word sanatan and understand it that live it in their heart but are afraid to say it on their lips this conversation and conversations like these is intended to empower those bhas okay uh one caveat I want to just place here is that while we're talking sanatan DH uh I hope that it's clear that we're not anti any religion okay because the one thing that I do know about sanatan DH is that it's extremely subjective based on the the life experiences and the mindset of the practitioner of sanatan DH the one thing that I've learned about sanatan DH for me and of course this might be a tickle down of my own personality into my understanding Alam but I believe in universal love even more than I believe in my land and my own culture if I'm talking about sanatan it doesn't mean that I'm looking down upon Islam or Christianity or Judaism or Sikhism or Buddhism or jism or anything like that I was born into a sanatani family I'm just trying to understand my own Roots better with respect for all other faiths and not thinking that my faith is better or worse than any other faith and you know I because I work in banking one of the nice things about banking which I really enjoy I love what I do for work um is that we are very precise in our use of language if something is say if you're talking about growth then we know exactly what is meant by growth There's no distinction between percent and percentage points it's very clear this is what it is if we are talking about profit it is exactly clear what it is we're talking about cost it's exactly clear what it is so the first thing that we need to do in this discussion is Define our terms so before we go into the philosophy of it as well sanatan means Eternal Dharma comes from D that which upholds that which allows things to be enables things to be their essential nature is Dharma and in sanatan Dharma the idea is that the essential nature of everything that is Manifest every person every being being every situation is divine that there is an underlying Divine Consciousness that is both soaked through in this manifest creation that we see and also independent from it it's almost like this creation is a projection on the screen that is this reality this reality is called Brahman in its unmanifest form uh so sanatan Dharma sanatan has its meaning which is eternal Timeless Dharma Dharma and religion comes from the Latin word which means to reconnect so sometimes when we use words in English they lose their essential meaning yeah so say for example if we take the manifestation of Religion Today non dharmic religions okay which in which are born outside of India have a similar structure obviously they have great depth of their own they've got their own um approaches towards the Inner Space and so on but there's a broad structure that is relatively um uh replicable in some ways which is that there's a prophet there is a book or there is a series of sort of directives and there is a theology around that around the meaning of life who is the Divine how how to connect with the Divine what are the meditative processes so there are relatively bounded elements okay sanatan Dharma is not like that sanatan Dharma is I visualize sanatan dhma is like a mother with open arms that Embraces her children in all of their manifestations so in sanatan Dharma we have multiple different theologies and not only do they coexist but they recognize the validity of others what does that mean within Hinduism we have a theology that is called vaishnavism which says Vishnu is supreme within that we will have people who say Krishna is supreme within that we will say people who have Ram is supreme then you have another separate one Chism Shiva is supreme you have separate one which is shaktism shapath says D is supreme but they are not sitting here at war with each other why because all of those multiple different theologies not the best word in the world because it's got its own conations but we are speaking English so use it limitations of the English language exactly all of these different theologies are connected by The Vedas and a wider body of Hindu scripture that includes the upanishad puranas and uh iasas and all of these different theologic theologies will buy into those and as a result they are nourished by it and because this is a Dharma of principles not a religion of rules those principles have been reesta established over and over again based on the time and period in the tra y we needed aama to come in the dwapar yog we needed a Shri Krishna to come each our religion survives and remains connected to its foundational Vic principles because we have the ability to regenerate otherwise what attacks Hindu Dharma sanatan Dharma has faced how much has been destroyed you know I said Chism vnm ghapa Shakti part there is SAA part see Surya is the Supreme that what is left of that now is chhat Puja that happens in Bihar and utar Pradesh and that part of the country but and there used to be great Surya temples konar in orisa moda in Gujarat marand in Kashmir but lost over time there is of course the S worship uh I've also learned the Puja when I was in Kerala you know you said the phrase so much has been destroyed the phrase that drops into my head the moment I hear that is so much will be rebuilt I think in our lifetimes I think by people like us our generation of sanatan not to feed my own ego or your ego or our ego through this I just feel it's sanatani Duty almost to rebuild things we when we serve Dharma Dharma nourishes us Dharma protects us people ask me oh you know you're doing Dharma raka said me I don't have the ability to stand in front of Dharma and say I am a r I am doing Dharma SAA yeah and through Dharma Dharma is protecting me and we should understand why we should do Dharma SAA should not do Dharma SAA because just because we are born into a certain um into a certain framework we should do Dharma SAA because Dharma addresses the essential questions of Life why are we here how do we have relationships how do we navigate the challenges that come through how do I deal with anxiety how do I keep focused on my goal how do I deal with heartbreak all of these things are addressed by Dharma and at each level in addressing it it lifts our perspective Dharma is something that is not just spoken in the piece of this podcast Studio it is not just spoken of in the quie itude of the Himalayas in the serenity of an asham in the forest no Dharma is something that serves us even on the battlefield of of kurukshetra where horses are ning elephants are trumpeting conses are blowing swords are rattling in the middle of all of that Arjuna can completely break down and surrender to bhagan and bhagan will deliver the message of Dharma that Dharma will serve him not just in that battle but continues to serve Us in the battles of Our Lives 5,000 years later yeah you know I've had a blessed experience doing this show in general this episode in but I've had palar Inu spoke about Buddhist thought I've not had a j monk yet the intention is to have J monk but I've discussed jism with some of my gen friends I've had some siki experts these are all indic religions they originated out of our land I personally feel in so many ways they're all connected to each other so deeply of course currently there are political differences Etc uh the masses often look at it as you versus me I'm not saying all of the masses but sections of the masses want to fight more than they want to build Bridges uh but in truth the indic religions are all deeply connected to each other there's deep Brotherhood there is a great GI Master by the name of sh rakes B zavi who is based in Mumbai he he's he speaks in Gujarati uh in his prach obviously he can speak English and he's a very udite speaker in English as well but his pravachans on the bhagavat Gita on Narada bakti Sutra on ashab bakarra Gita on Baja goind have helped me understand Hindu texts deeply and actually I I used to listen to his talks on narad bakti Sutra for example then I used to go and read my Guru Swami chinman nanda's commentary and they were the same yeah so yes there is there are doctrinal differences I'll give you one example this Bell that we have here this is a Buddhist Bell right it's a Tibetan Buddhist Bell and what what is a distinguishing feature of this Bell is that there is a space over here in the middle right there are spaces over here this represents shata absence in Hinduism we will even though it's a beautifully created Bell and it has a lovely sound we would not use this for Puja why because we don't believe in shata that shata we see as Pata that where there is nothing there is the possibility of everything now very narrow very narrow spiritual difference but an important spiritual difference right does that stop us having this over here does that stop us appreciating its beauty does that stop us having a meditative experience when whoever gifted this to I think it's palar in when he uses it in his worship no we see that beauty and one of the things that all spiritualists must bear in mind is that the goal of our spirituality is to overcome our ego not to create a new ego that I'm a spiritual person and it's a very sharp Razor's Edge to walk because the moment we start to say I am spiritual we are in danger of losing ourselves M and I'll tell you this from personal experience I there was a period of 3 or 4 days after a long period of meditation where came out I came out of that period of meditation came back to Mumbai came back into the city environment and I for whatever reason I started using the phrase I am a creator with regards to the work that I do on YouTube the sa that I do on YouTube and immediately my entire Focus just it was like someone pulled a plug and everything just drained out why because I us to always use the phrase I am a Seeker the point of doing this is to seek and to continue seeking I'm not even a I wouldn't even say I'm a teacher definitely not a Creator I am a seeker and I am seeking in public and all of us as spiritualists must bear in mind and really walk this path so that we don't create a new spiritual ego because that will get so close to the finish line and hold ourselves back from Crossing it okay I want to go back to that question I was asking about the chakras and the planes I was actually getting to another question but the chakras and the planes thing was just a small context so so we called all of the schools of philosophy of those schools of philosophy yoga is where chakras are mostly dealt with okay okay um the question I was going for was actually about those planes of existence which I believe I've spoken to ganga Das prau about as well and each of those planes is governed by a different dity like the plane from which you get your root chakra is governed by ganpati yeah uh and then I don't remember the exact allocation of different Dees but each chakra is governed by a different D yeah Okay the reason I'm even bringing this up one is that it's a cool kind of thing to bring up the second reason is um through rajash nandi and through all the Tantra conversations have realized how alive the DS are yeah how they have their own thought I would go as far as saying intention or wishes mhm uh they have their own sense of Consciousness okay so my question is take all these daes ganpati Vishnu Shiva Kika you name it they're all definitely conscious of the fact that all the sanatani people in the this landmass that we call India are currently waking up to sanatan DH again the thing is we are possibly waking up to it because of our life experiences you were born in the family you were born I was born in the family I'm born you've had childhood experiences I've had childhood experiences now at age 35 and 30 we are together discussing our own experiences yes but those experiences were also put into our life by the daes that's why we are who we are yeah so parall with India Rising as an economy I know that the daes have had a role to play there as well yeah right because as bhagan says not even a leaf that falls is without my intention so everything that's happening in our material plane right now is happening because something else is happening on all those spiritual planes yeah have you ever wondered about what these dees are thinking about where India is right now now deities are not just just multiple independent beings that are looking down on us there are some philosophical schools that believe that but what I have studied as antic vtin is that the truth is one in fact not only is the truth one the truth alone is that manifests as everything so various and that truth is known as Brahman that Brahman resides in all of our hearts and gives us life and in our hearts it is known as paramatma and based on our requirements our temperament our Tendencies manifests as a personal form of divinity that is known as bhagavan so what Brahman manifesting for me as Ganesha May manifest for you as SRI Krishna that doesn't mean that Shri Krishna and Ganesha are different are separate so there is a Divine play at work that is always bringing disorder to order that is always bringing Ayan to Gyan and sometimes that is done through the process of Enlightenment sometimes that is done through the process of Dunder punishment and these Cycles continue so we are now in a process I feel of great change and we can see it in our life experiences in the world around us there's so much that is changed changing in a matter of months that would have taken decades to change in previous ages so as that change continues there is divine energy that powers it those who are able to tap into that Divine energy then are potentially the drivers of the change but equally there is an energy that takes us towards chaos that and a lot of of people who prefer chaos to order who benefit from chaos there are players in financial markets that like crashes because they make money when crashes occur and so this has always been a a game from satyug till now okay um for the sake of understanding better I'm going to reference a historical character uhhuh I'm going to talk about duryodhan G if duryodhan was an actual human which I believe he was yes if the AES were creating the path for the pandavs yeah specifically Shri Krishna G if he was guiding the pands what higher energy was duryodhan being Guided by and another way of asking this question is so say for TRS mhm when I'm trying to grow it yeah I know the message and the intention I'm trying to put out yeah I'm trying to popularize sanatani thought in many ways cuz I feel generations of Indians before me were not able to yeah even if they wanted to now I have technology I will amplify Satani philosophy yes because it's helped me yeah I also face opposition yeah I'm not asking you about the opposition I'm asking about the energy that is making the opposition become my opposition yeah we'll we'll do it I'll answer it in two halves we'll do the duryodhan example specifically because this question comes up a lot that's a really good question then talk about TRS and where we are right now I've also spoken about this earlier on the show this is what a lot of people call Satan Satan or evil in the world that where there is light there is also darkness and where light is trying to grow Darkness will try to pull it down yeah and the Sanskrit word for that or the phrase for that is shat vuda there are many barriers wigers in good work okay now if you look at duryodhan duryodhan and Arjun at their core were enlivened by the same Divine principle paramat they were the same Divinity resided in duryodhan as it did in Arjun but duryodhan was a collection of karma that had come down to him as his prabha and were reinforced by the choices that he made in life that took him down that path the Divinity Divine bhagan D is nobody guided him to that in fact what facilities Arjun had same facilities duryodhan also had they had the same Guru dronacharya they had the same bishma pitamaha same bishma Pama was an enlightened Master he gave us Vishnu Sanam so the same access same access to bhagan Sri Krishna parur was also there in Bharat at that time and they also had good relationships with um balabhadra um and so in the same circumstances two people end up in two different ways why because of their choices and because people of influence make poor choices that have M have multiplied impact on society the Divine needs to manifest and set that right not just Zan the same thing happened with raavan same thing happened a number of times dasar and there are other aars of other daes also that have ended up performing the same purpose fulfilling the same purpose so the core is divine but what causes people to act that way is not the de is trying to engineer it like Puppet Masters but the choices that those beings are making making now if you come to the current scenario we have not just been born in this age we have been born multiple times in previous ages in different genders in different countries in different cultures but what has got us to this point is some desire in our hearts as you say to spread the message of sanatan and spread why to spread the sanatan message why because it serves Humanity not because I'm flogging a certain brand of philosophy yeah because truly it has uplifted me it has uplifted everyone I've seen around and is there's evidence to say that it has uplifted generations of people before so that desire has always been there it has grown in our heart and today that desire has fructified into a mechanism that allows us to fulfill that purpose and if you see the most enduring work is those who act without ego some of the most enduring work in humanity was created when there were no podcast there was no communication Christ for example was nailed to the cross and on that cross he was able to say forgive them Lord for they know not what they do you think he was identified with that body that was nailed and because of that lack of identification his thought process continues for thousands of years Krishna when he gave the bhagat Gita did not sign it Off made by Krishna it was given fully identified with the Divine not with this physical manifestation at all and that message of the bhagat Gita resonates still today not just the message but even the activities and so if you look at the Journey of just of TRS of your specific Journey been doing it for 8 nine years now 9 years later yeah yes many ways you are the same person but in many fundamental ways you are no longer that the man that started this journey and because you have been willing to let go of that version of you that no longer serves your purpose in life not only have you been able to grow inside but you have been able to grow outside and not only have you been able to grow outside but you've been able to give other people space and a platform for their own personal growth what is the enemy in this process the enemy is ego and it's a very hard thing to try and understand because we live in a world and our brains are constructed in such a way that we need to see opposites we need to see X versus y but if you see if you go into depth into some of our scriptures you realize that what covered someone's access to the Divine was not that someone was an entirely black entirely uh dark-minded evil person but that they had allowed their own inner Divinity to be shrouded by their ego if you take the example now we spoke about duryodhan and Arjun having the same access another example is Rah and ravan now I'm not one of these people who says that ravan was a you know a good person that has been misunderstood no no no ran is the anti-hero of the story but it's not as if raan was wholly evil in the way that we have been accustomed to hear in in the English language or in that sort of thought that we inherited from um years of colonization but we have to recognize that ran was an accomplished sadaka he had achieved lots of siddhis with his sadhana he had uh achieved D of his Divine Lord imagine we are not in that place where we can do that he had achieved a lot he had done years and years and years eons of penance to achieve some of the strength that he had but what was his downfall his downfall was his ego and when we say ego in its English word context it comes up comes up as Pride yes pride is part of it that's abhiman but in Sanskrit the word itself gives us the meaning ahankar is the word for ego it means what aam Kaa I am the doer the idea that everything that is even my sadh has been achieved by me not because of the grace of the Divine you know this food that I have had has been a you swed the seeds you waited 6 months for it to sprout you collected it you cleaned it you cooked it no it's Come To You Clothes have been bought by me aa you harvested the cotton you were the one who created into cloth you're the one who stitched it packed it no you're not even probably not even the one who washed it so this idea that aam Kaa this whole creation has been created by me is what leads to someone's downfall now how do we get rid of ahankar one very simple way and I don't even say this is a starting point because many accomplished uh meditators and Salas are also benefited by this is to listen to katas because then we get inspiration not just on how great bhagan is but also the journey as Seekers the start of this conversation we spoke about how the process of meditation gives us uh poison releases the poison and what but we also learned what what to do with it that is where that is in the Kata we learned how good s can be transformative and take us from a demonic state to a Divine State where is that that is in the K now in diali there is one of the days is called narakas naraka chaturdashi where narakas was um killed by bhagan Shri Krishna and Saab Bama now naraka was B was the child not of asuras he was the child of bhagan Shri Vishnu and bhvi and Vishnu was in a vaha he had or he conceived with bhvi this child that was called naraka naraka despite his Divine parentage hung out with asuras basur and mura and as a result of that from Divine went to danhov at the moment of his healing and there's a whole story around what happened why this that at the moment of his death at the hands of bhagan Sri Krishna he looked at bhagan and realized that this is the Supreme Divinity and I'm not going to say all of his sins got washed away no he had to pay but what he said is May this day of my death be the day that people not only love light lamps but burst crackers so that they are woken up from their complacency that there is a Divine principle at play and that Divine principle can consume us at any time so let us live a life in recognition of that that is why we burst crackers not because someone has like there is a Divine principle behind this and katas teach us so there's an element of inner cleansing that happens through listening to katas that will lead us to losen our association with that ego once that happens there are many processes okay um do you pray to Dees other than ganpati yes why if ganpa is your issue uh because ganpati tells me to pray to them simple answer but I'll go I'll go a little bit deeper it's not that simplistic see um we believe that we are choosing whom we pray to m M but we are not the Divine comes into our life in many forms and draws out the love that we have why because they want us to understand something specific but the philosophical element of sometimes when this happens you get a little bit confused because you'll be like oh but I used to pray to Ganesha now I'm praying to Davi or I'm praying to Krishna is that mean I'm being disloyal to Ganesha that's where philosophy comes in and in the r it is said the truth is one the wise Call It by different names this is what this is Brahman Brahman manifesting for my needs what karuna what compassion that bhagan has taken not just one but multiple forms in my lifetime to keep my connection with the Divine and draw me towards them so not just my attitude when I am praying but any otherwi any AD vant practitioner who is worshiping the Divine will worship it with that b but then what's the difference in the outcomes of those prayers see there are many uh okay I'll give you a panic example and then I'll talk about the principle in Dura Puja we celebrate the destruction of mahishasur by Davi by MGA that mahishasur represents all the lower tendencies in us but if you read the duras subha in order for ma to defeat this mahishasur she needed all of the Divine ASAS of all of the deities she needed the chakra of vishno bhagan she needed the veil of kar she needed the Trish of bhagavan shiv she needed Pasha and anush from Ganesh all of these she needed VRA from Indra to defeat this so in the same way if we have a Divinity that is inside us or that is enlivening us that is our essential core nature to overcome this darkness of ignorance we need all of these different say ASAS but really they capable abilities abilities and different deities are able to bestow them on us now you can go all the way through worship of one D as well there no nothing stopping you a heart purified by the worship of Krishna will perceive the Divine reality no doubt but some of us all of us really uh have had layers and layers of ignorance so each layer needs to be wiped off the only question is in this lifetime is it one layer with one deity or multiple layers with multiple deities okay kind of a simplistic question okay sometimes I think after a certain point if your perception has increased to a certain degree please tell me if this happens to you or even if it doesn't yeah if you meet someone you can kind of tell which Dy they are worshiping without them mentioning it because certain characteristics show up in the way they speak perhaps in the way they look uh again this is not for every this is not a conversation which everyone even understands there's a lot of people listening to this and thinking that this is wo woo yeah but people who have practiced sadna yeah know exactly what I'm saying yeah so if you are familiar with the characteristics of that deity that is being worshiped yes so say for example I have a um if I worship uh sh Ganesh okay and I haven't really ever worshiped narim then if someone is worshiping narim I may not be able to recognize it but if I have worshiped narim or I am familiar with what is the energy that narim narim brings into the room then you are able to recognize or at least you when they say this is my Isa you able to see it and you are right you able to see it in the appearance as well like all the escon monks we've had on the show bring this Bliss freshness all my Shiva Bak friends bring a certain level of isolation and Detachment uh and all the Davy worshippers I know are either extremely active like in the head in the thoughts or uh they're very they have this nurturing energy about yeah and the nature of a personality bhagan draws US based on what equipments that we have got or that we need at that stage and that we need at that stage and then they get Amplified through the process of sincere worship okay okay I think that's about the end of the episode is there any topic you want to talk about I I just wanted to I mean it was a reflection not that I've come in with an agenda to talk about this we spoke about bharata and um and uh you know drawing into uh sanatani culture to be able to nourish our mindsets and go into the future I just want to leave people with one thought around that and this thought has emerged from many coaching sessions that I do so one of the things that happened this year is that people start to reach out to me for coaching and I think very very few people a handful of people they tend to be senior Executives uh for a variety of reasons including the fact that coaching these people will be able to get them uh will be able to have a multiplier effect into society but coaching these very very wealthy people uh very very successful people start me one thing many of them are lacking a definition of what success is so you have these highly successful people thinking and experiencing themselves as failures and one of the things that we do in the process is to reorient themselves and see themselves both as a success that they are but also then being able to maximize their potential and being able to know when is enough so these are the three things now why am I mentioning this because obviously I am one person we cannot coach everyone not everyone wants coaching but if everyone is able to take this idea and Define for themselves or at least invest in understanding what success is what success feels like intrinsically to them then we will have a society that is satisfied and not chasing and as a result of that satisfaction they will feel abundant and give more if I'm constantly chasing then even if I have a lot I want more because I'm trying to fill a bottomless bit but if I'm satisfied in myself I feel successful I feel happy I am able to give more and the more we can Orient ourselves from a society that chases consumes and Hoards which historically we have not been but the world itself is right now the less we can go down on the Trap and more we can move towards a sense of abundance and giving the greater the probability is that bhat will become the visha guru that we all wanted to be okay Omar the guru of the podcasting world the Seeker the seeker of the podcasting world thank you for another catch up uh hope to see you soon hope to learn from you again and hope to see more of what that sponge brain of yours has accumulated when it comes to dharm wonderful being here thank you so much for giving me the opportunity for this satsung and I really look forward to our next catchup thank you thank you bro see you soon see you that was the episode ladies and gentlemen om B also runs his own YouTube channel and I will definitely urge you guys to go subscribe to his YouTube channel as well he's been a mentor to me he's been a spiritual guide in so many ways and there's so much more about him that I know because I'm an offline friend of his I've known him way before I even conceptualized beer biceps I urge you to go see the other episodes we've done with omai if you haven't already we're going to be back soon with some deep spiritual episodes just like this one so keep supporting TRS and until next time guys we'll see you very [Music] soon [Music] oh