Guru-Shishya Series-2: Eastern & Western Environment Effects

23 December 2022

Houston, Texas

At this birth of the physical body, I happened to be in both the eastern and western hemispheres. So, I have been advantaged and disadvantaged by both cultures.

Background of Eastern Culture (India):

There were several Indic spiritual schools of thought with endless permutations & combinations, for example:

1. 6 major philosophies with sub-variations (Nyaya, Sankhya, Mimamsa, Yoga, Vedanta, Vaisesika),
2. theistic & atheistic schools of thoughts
3. several Indic religious systems (Shaivism, Vaishnavism, Buddhism, Jainism)
4. Several sects and lineages within each system   

All of these were organically growing, multiplying, and also constantly subtracting each other and some infighting was going on rigorously until at one point all of them paused or postponed their infighting for a few centuries.  

A challenging point in history for all Indic spiritual systems was during the 15th-16th century.

Religion and cultural Transfusions in India:

In the last 500-600 years due to several invasions from Moghuls and Middle-eastern countries charged India, several cultural, food and religious transfusions happened in the last few centuries. Some invaders from Iran, Iraq, and Turkey who invaded 10-20 times within one lifetime clearly show their karmic attachment to the Indian subcontinent. The partial truth is, yes, they were obsessed with the Indian wealth of gold and treasures, but there is more than that when looked at from the subtle side. Many of them established their dynasties and stayed there for the next 600 years till today. This clearly shows their karmic attachment to that soil, along with dynamic factors of Prakriti or subtle nature's forces and fate. As in every country throughout history, the kingdoms have waged several over several decades, some win & some lose, and most of the exuberant winners resort to genocide and war crimes, thinking they have eliminated the enemy and that is the end of the story. That is a lack of insight into the reincarnation concept, the defeated kings will take birth somewhere and avenge their humiliating defeat at the right time. It was just a matter of time, resentment are building up in the air.

These Middle Eastern invaders must be the defeated kings whose clans, palaces, and dynasties must have been erased or genocided by the victorious kings during the battles. Without the opportunities to get bodies within their lineage and lack of resources to be a king or aristocrat again, they were forced to look out of the window for other options. 

So, these disembodied battle-defeated souls carried their resentments with them and took their next bodies at the right location, time, and with battle-ready resources to avenge their defeat in their previous lives and to rule the same land again and complete their desires. After some time, the Mughals weakened around the 18th century, and the British filled that void!

British came to India for business reasons in the 17th century and slowly they ascended to power by the end of the 18th century and ruled India for another 200 years. Several more changes and varieties were introduced into the spiritual landscape of India.

After-effects of Transfusions:

Several new devotional sects started arising during these challenging times from 1500-2000 AD to keep the people charged up and renew their enthusiasm for their Indic spiritual or religious systems. Some intended and unintended amalgamations of 6 independent philosophical systems happened due to fate. Swami Vivekananda tried a melange of spiritual systems with Vedanta on top of all, and Chaitanya Maha Prabhu (a God Incarnation himself) to revive the Krishna consciousness again also stressed certain things more than others, the compromises and deletions of other critical things were inevitable due the social, religious, economical pressures and challenges of their respective times. 

The remnant energy from this spiritual systems transfusion from the last 500 years is still running its course, in time it may get better or it may get even more complicated. Time will decide!

Even before this challenging 500 years, there were several in-fighting and other challenges, it wasn't all roses and lilies but definitely a little better than now in some avenues.

Modern Spiritual Landscape in India:

Liberation can change with each school of thought, some define liberation as going to Brahman effulgence, some to Krishna Loka, Sivaloka, and some to the no-perception plane.

2 things are critical for liberation, arithmetically we can express:

Deity's Grace thru Devotion (Anugraha) + Practice/ Austerities/ Purification of Psyche (Sadhana) → Liberation (Moksha)

This is the formula!

Math will be crude here with basic arithmetic, for simplicity reasons I am not adding fate, karmic reactions, and other factors.

Deity's Grace thru Devotion+ Practice/ Austerities/ Purification of Psyche → Liberation (Moksha)

Now, there are 3 main cases here, which are commonly seen:

Case 1: Balanced approach, investing in attaining both Deity's grace and self-practice

• 50% (Devotion →Grace) + 50% (Self-Purification Practice) → Liberation

Case 2: Completely endowed with practice with no direct regard to Deity (Advaitic and other similar systems follow this)

• 0% (Devotion →Grace) + 100% (Self-Purification Practice) → Liberation

Case 3: Completely endowed with devotional practices to achieve deity's grace with no self-purificatory practice (several devotional sects are engaged in it)

• 100% (Devotion →Grace) + 0% (Self-Purification Practice) → Liberation

In all the 3 above cases, there are enlightened beings who successfully traversed their respective paths. Exceptions are not ideal examples, one has to closely examine which path will take to the next stage of incremental development.

Now, statistically speaking always population skews to one practice more than any, which is determined by the path of least resistance. Practice or austerities are very difficult and the human psyche is naturally resistant to them, so obviously a large chunk of the population would end up taking Case 3 by investing all their confidence in the devotional aspects with less regard for rigorous austerities. 

The natural end stop at Case 3 is piggybacking on deities' or spiritual teachers' backs. And most likely, the odds are very less that it is going to be successful. Sadly, several promises and preaches were done to steer people toward piggybacking on someone's back all the time for something or another and this psyche conditioning has happened to most of us in that landscape. Piggybacking energy in Psyche has leaked to several aspects of the common life too. But things are changing in modern times at their own pace. 

Everybody is benefitted and is victimized in every society in some way or another. Nature might give Opportunities again to correct those deficiencies. 

Western Influence:

One great influence from Western society was hard work and support for genuine work. Nature has set up and supported all the great works of Science and Material science in this western part of the world. 

The piggybacking on someone's work or efforts was completely torn apart from my psyche by my first boss in this country. I generally do hard work, but there was some percentage of piggybacking in my psyche, this American-French Boss monstrously plucked it out from my psyche and cleansed me off. It was quite brutal, but I am enjoying the benefits long term. Worked 12-16 hours a day, office bullying, insults from morning to evening in the workplace, swearing in the workplace, and at last, he threw me out of the office. I was not bad, I was good but not good enough for him, he had certain issues with all people, more with colored people.

A few more instances were reported later on with others too, they removed him. One of the people under him said he felt he was mentally pushed to jump off the building. I was giggling, I survived it somehow with my uncle's death mourning & depression energy in my psyche, the only reason I made it alive was due to Babaji's grace at the end of the tunnel.

He did have both evil and good intentions for me, a mixed bag. I did suffer but nevertheless, the most benefitted person is me. What would have taken me decades or even lifetimes to remove the piggybacking tendencies were done in a few months time and a high work ethic were taught to me by him. Some of them were learned from him, and some of them were rekindled from my psyche which was deeply buried in my subconscious mind. This French-American boss is one of the best effective teachers in my life, it helped my spiritual journey a lot!

Later on over the years in a different company, I produced several good works in my profession. The good side is this western environment supports such work. I am not talking about recognition or rewards, but even such high-end works are let to be done unobstructed by my peers and managers. Some envy and jealousy will be there everywhere, but the subtle environment here has a naturally very high materialistic & scientific push to seek the higher materialistic truths and works which overpower all other dragging forces. 

In the eastern hemisphere, from my subtle perception, this natural materialistic push is completely off or very weak, the envy, jealousy, and resentment energies reign supreme there. 

The profound investigation of Prakriti is also an investigation of "Sat" (the imperishable reality)

There are 2 parallel realities at Sankhya School:

1. Supernatural reality like Brahman Effulgence, Krishna Loka, Shiva Loka
2. Prakriti or subtle/ gross material nature

This material nature is also a parallel eternal reality like Brahman & other supreme personality environments. "Sat", the imperishable reality that pervades all across the universe in both manifested and unmanifested reality is also present in this very material nature. Uddhava Gita states the admixture of Krishna's potency and the mundane material potency create this entire cosmos.

 So, any scientific study of this material nature and physical existence in any form to find the underlying "truth" is also the study of "Sat" or reality in a different form.

In fact, very often several times a day, any truth in any form in the material world or about the supernatural worlds, the cosmic consciousness bursts out from my chest, and all duality is lost and I struggle in bliss for a few seconds to minutes to come back to normalness. It has not only happened while reading Bhagavad Gita or MAdhva's books, it has equal or more often happened even with scientific papers or articles, reading or hearing any underlying truth in any form about anything can touch the cosmic consciousness. If the remnant cosmic crunchiness energy or frequency is in the subtle body, such spontaneous explosions happen anytime any form is the truth is uttered or heard or for no reason. It happens haphazardly.

Truth is Truth, the same essence of truth is there even in the study of shapes of sand particles to the study of black holes to the study of the ultimate spiritual existence. 

Any truthful study of material nature in the field of business, economics, accounting, science, maths, etc will yield the same underlying essence of the truth. This experience of studying the material nature itself is an indirect way of tuning into the "Sat" or Cosmic consciousness energy as "Sat" or "Imperishable Truth" is the underlying current of this world.

The environment itself can be a teacher!

Imperishable Truth itself can be a teacher!

Even a subject can be a teacher!

Teachers can be both personal & impersonal!

Either way, the Teacher is a teacher!

This is a recording of one such experience.