The Gospel According to Eric

In Chapter 13, verses 8-12 of the Bhagavad Gita, 20 qualities of a supreme human being are listed.  One of these qualities is “Service of the Preceptor”.  Why would serving your teacher be a quality necessary to become enlightened?

Let’s start by looking at what a Guru is.  Guru, in Sanskrit, is the same as teacher in English.  The first part of the word gu means dark and ru means light.  A Guru helps one transform his darkness (ignorance) into light (knowledge of the self).  Guru can be broken down further by saying G. U. R. U.

Ultimately, this is what any Guru worth his weight in gold tells his students. You are “you,” meaning that on a terrestrial level we are all unique.  Each individual has his own distinct nature and is driven by it throughout his life.  Only self effort can stop us from being a slave to our own personality.

However the Guru is not around to deal with the common bullshit that fills our lives (well mine is).  For those issues, we can go to 12 step meetings, therapists, friends, families and yoga classes.  The Guru is around to reveal the transcendental reality: that we are all the same.  The entire world is all The Self.  All births and deaths along with every species were born out of ignorance of The Self.

I know, now you want to know what is The Self.  You will have to come to a Yoga Shelter Teacher Training or read the Vedanta Treatise for that.  Actually, if one could find The Self that easily, I would be a millionaire.

Only one who is enlightened can share Realization with us. The Guru is completely fulfilled, totally self-sufficient, is devoid of wants and desires and has complete bliss.  This person does not want to be “served”, nor does he need to be.  We serve the Guru to save ourselves.

When we are grateful, our mind is at ease because we have or feel we have received.  Gratitude automatically manifests itself as service and when serving, we lose our self-centered mindset. Serving our teacher is the ultimate because he is giving the ultimate to us… Knowledge!  Knowledge is the only thing that can break the veil of ignorance, serving the person who has that knowledge is just plain smart. 

Home is not a place where ignorance is bred, fed and served every day. Home is a place where light shines in every corner, where love is present regardless of circumstance, where it is safe to admit our insanity and where we are held in the bosom of pure consciousness. 

Home is where your Guru dwells!  I surround myself with Swamiji in one form or another every day.  I stay in touch with those whom he teaches as well and whenever possible, fly to the ends of the world to be in his physical presence.

There has never been a place where I have felt so insignificant and so huge all at once. Never have I been shown such graciousness, compassion, acceptance and a good kick in the ass like I have at home with my Guru. 

Hari Om, EP

The Only Person to Control Is My Self

It is common for us to want to “control” other people, places and things.  We often get caught up in a mental set where we are actively trying to control or believe we are controlling our surroundings which encompass others. 

Control actually means to exercise restraint or direction over; to dominate, command or rule.  Many believe that if we can control “things,” then we will be stable and have piece of mind. 

Sound familiar? 

The problem with this way of thinking is two-fold. First, and probably most important, it has a human being looking outside of himself to create inner harmony. 

It has us fixing, fidgeting, adjusting, and manipulating all to get the results we want from others so that we feel good about ourselves. 

The problem with this scenario is that the world keeps changing. People have their own individual nature, which can’t be changed, and we all have our own agendas. How, then, can we control anyone? 

So much of the tension and stress humanity suffers from is due to the enormous effort in trying to control our external environment.  What a thankless and exhausting job! 

Secondly, since the beginning of man, we have had countless examples of humans searching for happiness and failing, when it is based on just external factors. 

We have seen kings conquer nations only to want more.  Presidents leading nations, but still riddled by the passions of their loins.  Rich men clamoring for more riches. Women and men finding their soul mates and then losing their mind when their soul mate leaves them and the family unit. The dream of having a family come true, only to realize that it brings along a ton of work and often many problems. 

So trying to govern, rule or dominate to get things just right will never work. If this was the way, then those with the most power would be the most happy.

We know that is not true; just ask Tiger Woods. The world bows to his talents. He does as he pleases and has what he wants. But his wanting more may have destroyed his family.

Now that we understand that trying to control others is exhausting and fruitless, let’s move on to how to use it and on whom. 

One of the greatest wonders of life is that there are so many things outside of our control: weather, traffic, making everybody like or love us, controlling our own children, what people say to us and how they say it, the economy, and our death, to name but a few. 

Now we have a part to play in some of these things, yet we can’t control it all.  But what we can control is the only thing we need to in order to have a perfect life -  and that is ourselves. 

Isn’t it fascinating that there are an infinite amount of things that we can’t control?  Yet the only thing we really can control is ourselves in order to have peace and prosperity.

Viktor Frankl was a Jew living in a concentration camp during World War II.  He was a psychologist before he was taken into the camp.  He watched his friends and family brutally tortured and killed almost everyday for years.  He realized he could not control what the Nazis were doing, but he could control his response!

He came up with a therapy where one becomes responsible for his/her own thoughts and actions completely free of the environment, even one like a concentration camp.  He became so empowered by being able to control his mindset that, even with the daily threat of his own life, he kept an attitude that nobody could control him except him. 

How beautiful! 

It is so great to be able to control ourselves in such a way that even in the worst circumstances, we can be at peace. 

Why bother trying to make anyone else anything other than who they are, when we can make ourselves into a supreme being, one who has complete dominance over his/her own desires, thoughts, emotions and actions. 

“Work on ourselves, we find transformation and salvation; work on others, we find friction and frustration”. EP

I was listening intently to Swamiji lecturing during a small gathering at a man’s home in New York.  The setting was intimate; an informal lecture, where he spoke a few words and answered some questions before sitting down to a big feast in his honor.  He started to speak about “the” road map for happiness.  He spoke briefly about the three Yogas: Karma, Bhakti and Gnana.  As always, his words were powerful.  But if one did not listen closely, they were easy to lose because of their simplicity.  I took notes feverishly.

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