Kyle Woodruff's Blog: TheDevoutHumorist - Posts Tagged "hinduism"

If one should desire to live in this world a hundred years, one should live performing Karma (righteous deeds).

Thus thou mayest live; there is no other way.

By doing this, Karma (the fruits of thy actions) will not defile thee.

Isa-Upanishad, Verse 2
(Translated by Swami Paramananda)
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Hinduism is the world’s oldest religion--dating back to 5,000 BCE by some estimates--but the wisdom is as timeless now as it was back then. Today it’s the third most practiced religion worldwide. 95% of those practitioners reside in India, but there’s no doubt the rest of us have much to learn from their ancient texts.

In his commentary, Swami Paramananda says, “Karma here means actions performed without selfish motive, for the sake of the Lord alone. When a man performs actions clinging blindly to his lower desires, then his actions bind him to the plane of ignorance or the plane of birth and death; but when the same actions are performed with surrender to God, they purify and liberate him.”

This concept can be applied by anyone, as the place from which your actions come from mean everything. I recently came to realize that although I’ve been walking the path God intends for me, I’d been doing so with reluctance, not from a place of surrender. I’d been doing everything I’d been asked, but the manner in which I was doing it came from a place of wishing I wasn’t, instead of being happy to serve.

I felt a lot of resistance from what The Universe kept putting in front of me, to the point I felt forced into submission. But when I gave in and made this subtle shift in mindset, everything seemed to change with me. With submission came a release of emotion and what felt like a weight lifted off my shoulders. Now I try to walk the path with gratitude and trust in what God has in store for me.

The wise man beholds all beings in the Self,
and the Self in all beings;
for that reason he does not hate anyone.

To the seer, all things have verily become the Self.

What delusion, what sorrow, can there be
for him who beholds that oneness?


Isa-Upanishad, Verse 6-7
(Translated by Swami Nikhilananda)
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I got into a minor argument with someone recently, and in the heat of the moment I could recognize how our frustrations mirrored one another. Each saw the other as stubborn in their ways, and the discussion was going in circles. I hate interactions like this, but they’re important to reflect back traits about yourself, or perhaps repeating stories from childhood. In this one I could feel a trigger from a parental relationship bubbling up from adolescence. Fortunately, in this case, this person and I could agree to disagree and end the conversation with love and respect. It was not so much the case back then.

Anyway, I’ve scratched the surface reading stoic philosophy over the years, and I believe in the importance of being in control of your emotions, but there are still times when I allow mine to get the best of me. Whenever this occurs, I immediately try to dig into why it happened and resolve the underlying issue that lingers beneath the surface. This practice has allowed me to mature from the state of a leaf in the wind toward that of an immovable stone. I’m not quite there yet, but it’s the recognition when it happens and ability to reflect upon it that’s important.

I’ve seen this concept of others providing a mirror for what you love and hate in yourself floating around as new age internet memes, but here we can see the concept dates back thousands of years.

I strive to be this seer of self in others and others in self, and hope to one day be the wise man who feels no anger, no sorrow, no delusion arise. The realization of oneness melts away the sense of diversity and therefore the cause of misery along with it. For as Eknath Easwaran translates the last line above to, “How can the multiplicity of life delude the one who sees its unity?”

They enter into blind darkness
who worship Avidya (ignorance and delusion);
they fall, as it were, into greater darkness
who worship Vidya (knowledge).

The first leads to a life of action,
the second to a life of meditation.

But those who combine action with meditation
cross the sea of death through action
and enter into immortality through meditation.
So have we heard from the wise.

Isa-Upanishad, Verse 9 (Translated by Swami Paramananda)
Isa-Upanishad, Verse 10-11 (Translated by Eknath Easwaran)
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The path of selfish pleasure without the pursuit of something higher is a dark one, but the path of acquiring knowledge for the sake of intellectual pride is even darker. Finding pleasure in the pursuit of knowledge applied with unselfish intentions is the most fulfilling path. At least that’s what I’m gathering.

I suppose immortality could refer to a clearer conscience and purified soul connecting with the everlasting Spirit of The Universe, and the realization you are one with the immortal God. But the practical application of this gem applies to this here and now concept I’ve been adopting of trying to be the light for others.

Last night I was walking down the beach after a swim and came across a middle-aged woman sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees looking troubled. I said hello and she seemed receptive so I asked what she was in such deep thought about. It was amazing how quickly she opened up to a complete stranger about what was bothering her. (But then again, maybe it’s easier to tell someone you’ll likely never see again what’s upsetting you than it is to tell someone who’ll remain in your inner circle.)

I didn’t even have to say anything, just listen. At one point I tried to offer insight but she cut me off to keep talking so I figured that was all she needed. I was only there for five or ten minutes before the sun was disappearing and I told her I wanted to go before it was dark, but I could already see a major shift in mood after a brief conversation with someone who stopped to genuinely listen.

Did I gain anything from hearing her woes? Not really. But to ease the pain in her eyes, even if just for a moment, felt worth the time. It cost me nothing, and all I had to do was nothing.

They who see themselves in all
and all in them
help others through spiritual osmosis
to realize the Self themselves.

Katha Upanishad - Part 2, Verse 8
(Translated by Eknath Easwaran)
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Say that five times fast!

But man, I’ve been watching this Jeffrey Dahmer docuseries on Netflix. Talk about practicing this “seeing yourself in others and others in yourself” crap. Now THAT pushes the limits of sympathy right there.

I will say, though, they’ve done a wonderful job of dramatizing the impact of everyone involved. There was this father-son moment after Dad found out his son was eating people, and boy, a part of you starts to go, “Aww. Isn’t that swee—”

Then there’s a pause as you wonder if you should really be feeling that way toward a brutal murderer.

Meanwhile I’m over here studying all these lessons on love and compassion, now trying to put myself in the shoes of Jeffrey Dahmer and debating whether or not there should be space for any of that.

Not to mention “Hannibal” was another recent favorite of mine. And you’re lying to yourself if Mads Mikkelsen didn’t make you at least a teensy bit curious about a good leg steak. Did you see all those fresh ingredients??

(“Find out if I dabble in cannibalism next time on ‘Make Religion Great Again’!” 📺 👨‍🍳)

Jokes aside, trying to put yourself inside the mind of a cannibalistic serial killer is a darkeningly enlightening exercise. After pushing those boundaries, though, it’s much easier to sympathize with that person you bump heads with at work, or that guy who was rude in line at the bank. Much easier to brush it off and assume they’re having a bad day if there’s not a legitimate fear they might chop you up into bits and eat your liver later.

Let’s bring it back to what may be my new favorite term, “spiritual osmosis,” and help others to realize the Self by seeing ourselves in others first.

Nachiketas said, “That which thou seest,
which is neither virtue nor vice, neither cause nor effect,
neither past nor future (but beyond these), tell me That.”

Yama replied, “I will give you the Word all the scriptures glorify,
all spiritual disciplines express, to attain which aspirants lead
a life of sense-restraint and self-naughting. It is OM.”

Katha Upanishad - Part 2
Verse 14 translated by Swami Paramananda
Verse 15 translated by Eknath Easwaran
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How can the Infinite be bound by a finite word?
But then again, how do we conceive or speak of anything without giving it a name?

In Hinduism, the unnameable is pronounced “a-u-m”: the first letter the natural sound made by all when the throat is first opened, the last letter the sound made when the lips are closed, and the middle letter the sound made when moving from open to close. These sounds cover the field of possible articulate sound and therefore represent God in the auditory realm.

The Eknath Easwaran translation goes on to say:

This symbol of the Godhead is the highest.
Realizing it, one finds complete fulfillment of all one’s longings.
It is of the greatest support to all seekers.
Those in whose hearts OM reverberates
unceasingly are indeed blessed
and deeply loved as one who is the Self.

But Om, God, Allah, Yahweh, Tao: These are all names for the same great and unnameable Spirit (in my humble opinion). My belief is that all of mankind has been praying to, worshiping, and being guided by the same underlying force within the universe for all time, but our ego gets in the way with this “my God” vs “your god” little squabble.

Is it so far-fetched that the one Spirit may have revealed Itself to different people through different messengers in different ways with different names at different times?

Did you ever stop to consider that [Om/God/Allah/Yahweh/Tao] is playing all sides?

Perhaps the whole thing is some kind of test to see who’s willing to kill each other and who is willing to put their differences aside to live in harmony.

Maybe humans are nothing but chess pieces used as a means to achieve some almighty goal.

(Or, what if… God is really an Ancient Alien!?)

Your move.

The wise who know the Self,
bodiless,
seated within perishable bodies,
great and all-pervading,
grieve not.

Katha Upanishad - Part 2, Verse 22
(Translated by Swami Paramananda)
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I started a documentary called “The Alpinist” about a guy who’s been ascending his way up history’s boldest climbers lists. Fella spent most of his “career” dead broke, living in a stairwell, doing nothing but enjoying a free-spirited lifestyle.

As someone who’s afraid of heights, I barely had the balls to watch, never mind consider getting out there. But it led me to wonder how many of us partake in any activities in our lifetimes where a single false move could mean our demise. Other than driving, I suppose, but that doesn’t come with the zeroed in bliss described by Marc-André Leclerc while he solos snowy, icy, rocky peaks that other climbers wouldn’t even dare. He puts his life on the line on a daily basis, just for kicks.

I don’t get the impression Marc is a Hindu sage, but he seems to have found his way toward realizing the body and Self are separate entities. Diagnosed with ADHD as a square child forced into a round public school, he found a hobby that cleared his “squirrel mind.” Ascending deadly rock faces was his meditation to achieve inner silence.

After a climb that had him dangling off a cliff by one arm, an interviewer asked, “How was it?”

Marc’s reply was, “Super fun!”

“Scary?”

“Not really.”

“Are you dead inside?” I hoped the interviewer might ask. Or has he realized such a level of non-attachment that fear no longer exists.

But where is the line between foolish and brave, bold and stupid, free and insane? This is what I wondered as I shoveled more pre-popped popcorn into my face on a comfy couch. I’m not even sure if those questions were answered because I turned in like a good little cog in the wheel to be well-rested for my 9-5 the next day.

I don’t think we should all abandon society to live in a stairwell, but there is something to be admired about such a free spirit, and perhaps a lesson to be had about not fearing mortality that we can apply to our lives.

Although, Marc did mention dropping six tabs of acid at a party once, so maybe all this can be chalked up to a fried circuit. We’ll never know.

Fools dwelling in ignorance,
yet imagining themselves wise and learned,
go round and round in crooked ways,
like the blind led by the blind.

Katha Upanishad - Part 2, Verse 5
Swami Paramananda
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I stumbled upon this quote and wanted to expand on yesterday’s post regarding the, “Who are you to be such a committed advocate of a faith that’s so complex that there’s no way that someone like you could understand it?”

The question doesn’t just apply to religion, but any topic, really.

I see it in my personal life, professional settings, during Covid. People are willing to take a stance on a topic whether they have a wealth of supporting evidence to back it up or not.

That fascinates me.

Belief systems for many people seem to be built on a shaky foundation of buzzwords, phrases, platitudes, or things they heard from someone else. The best part is they don’t even bother to further reinforce this foundation by looking into their stance any further. But challenge them with a few probing questions and they’d rather dig their heels into the dirt of ignorance and double down on enthusiasm for their “team” than search for truth.

Me? I’m a truth seeker--and that’s truth with a lowercase ‘t,’ thank you very much ;)

My approach to an argument (or stimulating conversation with differing views, as I like to call it) is this: “I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just asking you to show me why you’re right.”

I’m more interested in finding out why you’re holding onto your beliefs than proving one of us “right” or “wrong.”

Most people aren’t even willing to play the game, though. It’s deflect or shut down or point behind you and look over there.

Why are people so afraid to claim ignorance about a topic they’re unknowledgeable over? Never made any sense to me, as I have no trouble taking an at least partially neutral stance on a topic on which I know little about.

Maybe I’d just rather stand my ground in a field of ignorance than wander round and round like the blind leading the blind.

In the secret cave of the heart, two are seated by life’s fountain.

The separate ego drinks of the sweet and bitter stuff,
liking the sweet, disliking the bitter,
while the supreme Self drinks sweet and bitter,
neither liking this nor disliking that.

The ego gropes in darkness, while the Self lives in light.
So declare the illumined sages.

Katha Upanishad - Part 3, Verse 1
(Translated by Eknath Easwaran)
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When my bag was “stolen” (story in prior post), my immediate emotion was anger. Oftentimes when my emotions are triggered I can revert to journaling as a way to let them loose. Once they’re off my chest and down on paper it gives me a chance to view them objectively from a bird’s eye view and reflect upon the situation. I find that often the first step to moving past an emotion is to look it square in the eye, and writing things down over the years has helped me do just that.

Here, after the blah, blah, blah, complain, complain, complain, I was able to process what happened from a more centered state of being and see that, “I still have my health, a bed to sleep in tonight, and the means to replace the items I lost. Tomorrow I’ll begin that process and life will go on.”

Today I happened to read one of Robert Greene’s meditations in his book “The Daily Laws” where he described this process perfectly: “It might be wise to use a journal in which you record your self-assessments with ruthless objectivity.” I loved that, ruthless objectivity. He goes on to suggest finding “a neutral position from which you can observe your actions, with a bit of detachment and even humor. Soon all of this will become second nature, and when the Emotional Self suddenly rears its head in some situation, you will see it as it happens and be able to step back and find that neutral position.”

He also mentions your greatest danger being your ego, and how it makes you unconsciously maintain illusions, which I thought tied into the above quote perfectly, in reference to disliking the bitter aspects of life in preference of the sweet. But the supreme Self drinks in the bitter and sweet of life all the same, to avoid groping in the darkness of angry emotions and living in the light of observing life for what it is.

This line of thinking parallels the Taoist philosophy of wei-wu-wei, going with the flow of life, and I love to see the similarities between religions.

Know the Self as lord of the chariot,
the body as the chariot itself,
the discriminating intellect as charioteer,
and the mind as reins.

The senses, say the wise, are the horses;
selfish desires are the roads they travel.

When the Self is confused with the body, mind, and senses,
they point out,
he seems to enjoy pleasure and suffer sorrow.

When one lacks discrimination
and his mind is undisciplined,
the senses run hither and thither like wild horses.

But they obey the rein like trained horses
when one has discrimination
and has made the mind one-pointed.

Those who lack discrimination,
with little control over their thoughts and far from pure,
reach not the pure state of immortality
but wander from death to death.

But those who have discrimination,
with a still mind and a pure heart,
reach journey’s end,
never again to fall into the jaws of death.

With a discriminating intellect
as charioteer and a trained mind as reins,
they attain the supreme goal of life
to be united with the Lord of Love.


Katha Upanishad - Third Part, Verses 3-9
(Translated by Eknath Easwaran)
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I’ve been feeling angry and irritated quite often lately. Part of it could be bullshit at work, part of it could be the nonsense life throws at us, part of it could be things compiling as I burn the candle at both ends, but mostly it just seems to be, well, there, lurking at the core.

Myofascia is a weblike membrane that separates and contains every muscle of the body. Myofascial release is a manual therapy that can relieve chronic tension created by this connective tissue. I’ve found good results when it comes to emotional trauma release while receiving treatment from a practitioner. For me it serves as a meditation in listening to whatever memories arise as tensions in different parts of the body are worked on.

The more I peel back layers of the onion in the process of healing, though, the more this anger seems to come bubbling up like lava through a thinning crust of earth. But after 90 minutes of work on the same pec minor (the one over the heart), I was able to dust off a chain of memories of feeling neglected or unimportant as a child. Internalized anger at others became a protective mechanism during spells of vulnerability.

“It can’t be me,” said the frightened ego, “so it must be them!”

Shedding light on this stored reaction allowed me to let go of a childish (i.e., youthfully ignorant) need for controlling my surroundings that way.

“So what if I was unimportant in the eyes of another,” I thought as the physical and emotional tension dissolved. “There’s nothing I can do about it now!”

All this to say that sometimes a wheel of the chariot is bent out of shape, and focusing on fixing that first can allow the charioteer to run a smoother ride.

Now, while this metaphor is cute to read, I believe until you revisit the original memory and release the tension it caused in your body, mantras and meditations can be useless in creating lasting change on a subconscious level. So take hold of the reins and steer your chariot down those challenging paths. Or perhaps, let them go.

See how it was with those who came before,
how it will be with those who are living.

Like corn mortals ripen and fall;
like corn they come up again.


Katha Upanishad - Part 1, Verse 6
(Translated by Eknath Easwaran)
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I sat down at a chicken joint last night and in the booth beside me was a mother and daughter. The girl was high school aged, crying over something in pitch and tone that sounded like the end of the world, but in words and reality was quite trivial.

There’s a podcaster I like that says, “The worst thing that ever happened to you is the worst thing that ever happened to you.” It really clicked seeing these two generations side-by-side. Whatever some other girl said to the boy this girl liked was the worst thing ever. Meanwhile her mother, with four times the go-rounds on earth, has probably been through divorce settlements, health complications, financial woes, or a hundred other things that would put this high school drama to shame.

Fortunately for the daughter, the mother had the patience to sympathize with this social tragedy. I myself might have reached across the table to grab her shoulders and give her a good shake as I yell, “There are so many worse things coming down the line!” but that’s just me.

It’s amazing to look back a number of years that felt like yesterday, though, and realize that might’ve been the worst thing that ever happened to me too. Perhaps this mother could recognize herself in her daughter, going through the same cycle of trials she once went through before.

But life keeps pushing the threshold of “worst” further, making our tolerance higher. I’m sure in every painful situation we go through in life we wish it wasn’t happening. But if it didn’t, we’d be sitting across from our daughters crying over boys and they’d be reaching over a chicken sandwich to give us a violent shake.

That’s all for now, but I’ll leave you with this: Endure the trials of today knowing you’ll look back tomorrow and think they weren’t so bad.

Or maybe you will. As a friend’s dad once told us at an impressionable young age, “Life sucks and then you die.” So eat as many tasty sandwiches as you can between now and then because it’ll all be over soon.