No Excuse For Bad Behaviour

So,

Tonight I was going to speak on the topic of there being no excuse for bad behavior.

And this is actually a very deep spiritual topic that requires some very serious consideration.

It's not a lightweight thing that we're talking about.

And we're not speaking about things from a social perspective.

We're talking about things from a purely spiritual perspective.

So I hope you will give me your attention and kindly consider what it is that we're talking about.

So one of the things that we see in this world is that people really have a tendency to make excuses for their own behavior,

Their own way of dealing with things or responding to things.

And this response or the way in which people deal with things is actually often not at all mature and definitely not dealing with things from a really spiritual foundation.

So one of the things that you notice in our lives,

If somebody has somehow treated us badly or somehow hurt us or done something,

Then there is a tendency for people to then react or begin to deal with others based upon how they perceived or how they experienced a particular interaction or event.

Just making a little bit of an adjustment here.

Just bear with us for a moment.

So what happens is that we might have been offended by the way somebody spoke with us or reacted to a situation or how they dealt with us in a somewhat aggressive or hurtful sort of manner.

And then because of that,

That begins to shape our own personal dealings with them and how we are relating to them or responding to them or it can create a situation,

I mean even within families and close friends,

Where this really goes on for an extended period of time and people are like really,

They hold on to these hurt feelings and hold on to the anger that they may be experiencing as a result of something that has happened to them.

And then that really colors all their dealings with this other person or in these particular types of situations.

From a purely spiritual perspective,

What is happening now is that people are relating from a material platform and any interaction or anything that they are doing as a result of this interaction or based on this interaction is now become an activity or something that is perpetuating material entanglement.

Now from the yogi's perspective,

The big picture,

The yogi's,

They understood that I am an eternal spiritual being.

And the nature of material entanglement is that I become deeply illusioned by certain types of ideas and things where I become utterly covered by this misconception that my body is me and of course with that my mind and the state of my mind,

I see that all as being who I am and connected to me.

The path of spiritual liberation is to become free of this entanglement because this entanglement only leads to more and more suffering,

More and more unhappiness.

If I become highly emotional and as a result of these rising emotions in my mind,

I begin to speak to people in a certain way.

I develop certain types of thinking and ideas.

I may even develop certain types of desire that all inspire me to act and to speak and to do things which in nature are karmic.

These activities,

These reactions,

Even though I may feel justified in what I am doing or saying,

These activities and things end up binding me further to material existence,

To material life,

Which then entangles me in this path of perpetual bondage where lifetime after lifetime I'm just taking on one lifetime.

I live that lifetime,

That body dies,

I leave,

I go on to the next birth,

I bring with me my load of karmic fruit and it just goes on and on and on and on.

So in order to be able to break these connections,

To break these links and to become actually spiritually liberated,

To become happy,

Then it is essential that somewhere,

Somehow there is going to be a break in the way that I am thinking,

In the way I am responding to things,

In the way that I am acting.

This break is really absolutely essential.

So the life of a yogi,

One category of yogis,

They were called vairagis,

They adopted a position of really deep and profound renunciation and they went off to the mountains or to some cave somewhere or far,

They separated themselves from society in an attempt to attain a transcendental position.

But there were another category of yogis who remained within social environments but sought to purify their existence,

To purify their relationships and purify everything that they were doing and to set themselves on a completely spiritual course.

So that process involves two things.

You have to engage in an activity that is going to purify the consciousness and make it so that you can increasingly connect with your inner spiritual being and begin to relate to the world and to others on that platform.

So that process is the process of course of meditation upon spiritual sound.

But we can also do things that purposefully we can engage in types of thinking and types of action that accelerate this change,

That become practical manifestations of a growing realization.

And this environment that I've spoken of,

The way in which we react to hurtful or sad or emotional sort of exchange with others or events,

That is something that is within our power.

We spend so much of our life trying to control things that are beyond our control,

That are outside of our power.

We always want to change how somebody is dealing with me,

How things are coming to me,

Rather than focusing on what is truly within our power.

And that is being able to make decisions and to process things and consider things from the reality that it is only the way in which I respond and react and interact with things that is actually within my control.

So in this situation that I'm speaking of,

If a person feels hurt or offended or betrayed or something by someone,

And then I allow that to shape how I am going to speak,

How I am going to think,

How I am going to react,

What is happening on a practical level is that it is my mind and my emotions and this false conception of the self that is actually taken over and is in the driver's seat.

And now I,

The living being,

The eternal pure spiritual being,

Are being driven by that which is not actually part of me,

Eternally part of me.

It is a material covering that has become animated or energized because of my presence and connection with it,

But now I'm allowing that to take over.

How we respond to others is purely within our domain of responsibility.

How someone else acts towards me,

That's not my responsibility,

It's not within my control,

It's not something that I'm capable of really doing anything about because every person is completely individual.

They can do,

You know,

They have their own free will.

So we must become increasingly focused on our own being and the way in which we are either exercising control over or being controlled by our mind,

Our emotions and things related to their physical existence.

And it's on this basis that we have a personal responsibility to really endeavor not to be controlled by how our mind or the emotions playing out in it,

How it reacts to an interaction with someone else or something else.

The entire Vedas are filled with direction that people need to learn to become equipoised.

Equipoised means that you sit on a very stable platform or position no matter what is going on and so they talk about the dualities in extreme heat and extreme cold,

In honor and in disrespect,

In all types of environments when we are faced with these dualities.

We are not meant to be following them and going on this emotional roller coaster and allowing this to shape the direction of our life and determine how our life is going to be lived and how we are going to make decisions,

How we are going to do things.

We absolutely need to begin to exercise control.

It always saddens me with even people that may have been endeavoring for many years on the spiritual path who are deeply engaged in meditation and this chanting of these spiritual sounds,

These holy names.

That we don't come to this point of thinking,

I need to redirect my life.

I need to gain more control over how I respond to people.

People can be engaged in this process in different ways over an extended period but then you hear them just because they had a bad encounter with someone,

Therefore they are going to justify their own bad behavior,

Their own responses,

The way in which they choose to react and deal with things based on how somebody has dealt with them.

We must come to this position where how we are acting or interacting with someone,

How we are perceiving any kind of situation,

It comes from a spiritual place,

It comes from an actual spiritual platform.

So this is the actual responsibility of every spiritual aspirant to the degree that you are responding in a wrong way,

In a bad way,

To the degree that you are exhibiting bad behavior in relationships.

That is an indication of the degree in which you are still separated from your own spiritual being and separated from your own Lord within your heart,

The Lord Paramatma.

One of the great visions of the yogis was this recognition both of the spiritual existence of an individual within a body and the fact that the Supreme Soul also resides alongside them within the core of their heart.

And because they had that vision,

Even if that person was totally controlled by their mind and emotions who was going off and saying crazy things or angry things or being envious or jealous of them or,

You know,

Just expressing all kinds of negative things,

The transcendentalist,

It's not like they don't get hit by those things,

But they make the conscious choice that I'm not going to be moved by this.

I'm not going to allow what's going on in my mind to be the foundation for how I respond,

How I deal with things.

And the more a person progresses down this path of true spiritual mindfulness,

As the more that they grow in their spiritual understanding of themselves and of others,

To that degree,

A person will become peaceful and a person will become happy.

So this is a really important spiritual message.

It's a very important spiritual idea.

And I would really like to encourage you all,

And of course myself more than anyone else,

To be reflective upon these spiritual principles,

This idea that bad behavior,

There are no excuses for it.

You cannot use the excuse that the way you're reacting is because somebody else has said something or done something.

That does not justify,

That does not nullify the karmic reaction that you will have from your own words,

Your own actions,

And the way in which your thoughts will continue to entangle you in the material world.

So it is our responsibility,

This path that we follow,

Which is founded on the path of karma,

Karma yoga,

This means action in spiritual consciousness,

To begin to actually seek to attain this platform where my entire life is lived in the consciousness or awareness of my own spiritual being.

And my entire life is done as an offering to the supreme,

The supreme soul.

When I have to bear the slings and arrows,

As they describe it,

You know,

Of attacks and things,

It becomes easier when I am actually focused upon the offering of my own life,

How I will choose to deal with others,

How I will speak with them,

I make an offering of that.

And when one is absorbed in that consciousness,

They become actually immune to the way in which people may be dealing with them.

So I would very much like you to encourage you to please actually really contemplate upon this,

Really contemplate upon it.

Of course,

It opens up a whole bunch of other things,

You know,

About,

You know,

Seeking forgiveness to both forgive others and to be,

To forgive them and to seek yourself forgiveness for inappropriate speech or action.

Doesn't matter what they did.

Doesn't matter what they said or what they did to you or whatever.

If my own actions and my own speech was not compassionate,

Was not based upon love and genuine concern,

Then it's inappropriate.

It's bad behavior.

So please contemplate upon this.

It's a very important spiritual principle and by applying it to our life,

We can all benefit tremendously and we can come to experience true happiness and peacefulness.

So what I'd like to do,

And now that we're moving online during this period,

I'd like to invite people that if you have a question that you would like to ask or something that you want to hear about,

I really encourage you to put it in the chat or to send a message to Montrenite on their Facebook and we will try and allocate some time for that.

If we get certain,

If we get questions or things that people want to hear about or some explanation of some spiritual truth or principle,

Then what we'll probably try and do going forward is to allocate a certain amount of time for the subject that we'll deal with,

But we'll deal with some Q&A.

We'll have like a Q&A section so we can read the question and try to answer it for not just your own benefit.

I mean any question that you have,

There's probably going to be a lot of people that also have similar questions.

We will try to address it going forward.

So thank you very much for your patience and your time tonight and I will close out by chanting,

Mi Om Hari Om.

So please do join in with the response and utilize this time.

Now that we're not running these events in public,

You may be in your home alone or with a couple of other friends and watching this and do use this time and opportunity to seek to become more absorbed in the transcendental sounds as we meditate upon them by this kirtan,

This chanting of these sacred sounds.

By just resting one's heart and mind,

If your mind wanders somewhere,

Just gently bring it back and in the same way that a person immerses themselves in one of the holy rivers of India,

Feel that you are doing the same thing,

Immersing yourself in these spiritual sounds.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

Mi Om Hari Om.

So thank you very,

Very much.