How To Be Spiritual But Not Ridiculous

Namaste.

I am recording this at 11:11 because it is a direct download from Source, from my angels and light beings. Wait, what? What was I just saying? Sorry, I don't know what came over me. I think, I think I've been living in Los Angeles too long. Welcome to Spiritual But Not Ridiculous, a podcast that explores the world of spirituality from a grounded and clear-eyed perspective. I'm your host, Jaya Dev, a yoga teacher, Vedic astrologer, attorney, and technologist. Welcome to season 2 of the podcast. Today I wanted to talk about discernment— what it is, why it's so important right now, and how to cultivate it. But first, a little update about me and what's going on in my life since the last episode a while back this year. I've enrolled in a master's program at the California Institute of Integral Studies. Focusing on philosophy, cosmology, and consciousness. So it's a very cool program. I'm going to talk about it for a minute, and I'm just so excited about what this means for the podcast. First of all, it's going to, I think, generate a lot of new ideas for episodes, new guests, new discussions, new ideas. It's going to be amazing. So that's, um, that's the big news, I guess. You know, you know, I'm also, um, kind of moving Right now I'm in Tulum, Mexico, but I'm also moving to Venice, Venice Beach in California, in Los Angeles. So that's happening. And, you know, I think living in Los Angeles for this past year has also gotten me thinking about discernment for different reasons. So we'll get into that. But yeah, I'm also launching a bunch of new offerings. I talked about some of those at the beginning of the episode, but, you know, I've got my meditation course coming back. again in October, which is going to be great. 4 weeks, we really, really dive into the different aspects of meditation, the mantra aspect, the kriya aspect, that kind of thing. And then I'm offering spiritual mentorship, which is a more long-term program where we work together on your evolution through your astrology and using meditation and kriya and all these other techniques. So you can find all that on the website. cosmic.diamonds. And then I'm also working on some training modules and mantra and kriya, and I'm working on a Dasha Mahavidya classical tantra wisdom initiation that's going to be really powerful. So look for all that. But, you know, with, um, with school, uh, yeah, I just wanted to give you a sense for what is— what I'm studying and what the kind of ethos of the school is. So this program, this Philosophy, Cosmology, and Consciousness program, is inspired in part by Alfred North Whitehead's view of education in the university context, that the function of the university is to enable the future to appear, first in thought and then in action. And so I love that that's kind of the starting point for this program. And so all the faculty and students all sort of subscribe to 3 fundamental goals within that. The first one is to expand consciousness through learning and imagination and different approaches. It's a very sort of interactive program in some ways. And the second goal is to analyze the current devastation of planetary life and to liberate ourselves and our communities from the underlying causes of this devastation. And so I love this goal because this is something I've been thinking about for years and trying to find a way in and How I can best be of service in this way. And so this program, I think, will lead to a lot of ideas in that area. And so some of the causes that we're already talking about in the course, in some of the courses, include anthropocentrism, like sort of prioritizing the human over the non-human, the patriarchy obviously, and capitalism, and the kind of the tyranny of reason that I've been talking about on the podcast as part of it, this sort of mental ego. The way we think, our worldview, all that stuff is kind of feeding into our current situation. So that's the second goal. The third goal of the program is to draw from the deep wells of philosophical and religious and spiritual wisdom and scholarly and scientific insights to bring forth a profound vision of a new planetary era. And so, as you can tell, this program is very innovative and progressive and holistic and I just couldn't be more excited to be in it. Just to give you a sense for some of the courses I'm taking right now, I'm taking one called Cosmos and Psyche that's based on the work of Rick Tarnas primarily and Stanisław Grof. And this course examines sort of, you know, the connection between the cosmos and individual soul and how archetypal astrology kind of plays into that. And then I'm also taking a course called The Great Turning, which looks at our current situation in terms of our crisis. And he kind of breaks it down into 3 grand narratives. There's the great unraveling, which is kind of just a description of how we all feel like things are getting worse in a certain sense. And then the response to that oftentimes is business as usual, which is where everyone just kind of continues doing what they're doing. working at some job making widgets or whatever, because what else are you going to do? And then there's the third narrative, which is the Great Turning, which is a phrase that Joanna Macy has coined. And this is the creation basically of life-sustaining societies and cultures that are in harmony with the longer-term interests of the wider Earth community. And it's kind of related to a concept that I've been talking about on the podcast a lot, which is This kind of oncoming consciousness or wisdom revolution. So it's very connected in that way. And what I love about this Great Turning is that we're reading a book called Act of Hope where we kind of learn that hope is not something that you have as a result of the situation around you, but something that you can actively kind of put into the situation around you in a sense. And so that book is in part based on this system that Joanna and others have developed Called the Spiral of the Work That Reconnects. And it's a 4-stage kind of spiral that kind of goes around through these 4 stages repeatedly. And the 4 stages are coming from gratitude, honoring our pain for the world— very important stuff— seeing with new eyes, and going forth and, you know, being of service or being relevant in the world as a result of this ongoing process. So it's a very action-oriented course. There's a lot of exercises and sort of reflection and that kind of thing. So anyways, just to give you a sense for how amazing and powerful and just relevant this program and some of these courses are to me right now, and I think to all of us really, is how I feel. Okay, so let's talk about discernment. You know, I posted an Instagram reel a few days ago about this and how I wasn't sure that it was a topic that people were interested in or that it would be too dry or something. But I feel like it is interesting for a lot of people, and I got some good feedback. And so I'm going to try to keep this short. I know I tend to go long on these episodes, and part of my intention for season 2 of the podcast is to have Shorter episodes ideally, although I have a feeling this episode is probably going to be about an hour, so hang in. There's a lot of good content here hopefully, and I think you're going to really like it. So my intention of talking about discernment primarily today is to motivate you to practice or to think differently about your practice perhaps, and maybe practice more, you know, because my vision is to have discernment kind of Sweep the planet like a positive pandemic, you know. Um, I mean, not that I'm going to be the leader of that or anything like that, but just that I, I want to inspire some more people to think about it, talk about it, and hopefully increase the amount of discernment that's out there in the world. Uh, you know, for me personally, yoga and plant medicine are the 2 primary ways that I've been able to develop and refine my own discernment, and I want to share some of those experiences here because I think they're relevant for everyone. So let's talk first about— let's try to define or explain more what I mean by discernment. On one level, discernment is simply being able to see and understand and recognize increasing values of truth. Now, that's a little abstract, right? So let's— how else can we define it? Well, discernment can be a way of being self-aware enough to avoid projecting ego distortions onto reality, onto situations, onto people, onto yourself. And it's sort of knowing intuitively that something is true because you are relatively free of things like craving and aversion Or having strong preferences. When you're in that state, which is kind of the state of yoga, then truth just kind of shimmers in front of you. So basically, you're no longer projecting your personal preferences onto things, and so you can see things more clearly as they are. And so part of this process is being able to evaluate things without being critical or judgmental or dismissive, but seeing that some things do have greater values of truth. There's no good or bad. There's no more or less worthy. There's no sort of positive, negative in a certain sense. There's just more or less truth. I think we see this, and we'll explore some examples, but this is kind of the idea I'm getting at. It's a very nuanced way of thinking. It's not black and white. So we're going to have to be able to draw fine distinctions. For example, between like sacred geometry and numerology, which are valid spiritual pursuits and approaches. And then this thing we see oftentimes of just seeing repeating numbers, right, which we'll get into more. But, you know, so it's just, it's like, we're being discriminating, we're being discerning in a way that's still allowing new information in and still allowing us to evolve. Actually, I found an interesting definition in the dictionary. One dictionary that I've seen has this definition of discernment: in Christian contexts, perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual guidance and understanding. So I thought that was interesting because it's a pretty good definition. So good job, dictionary. So why is discernment so necessary? I feel like it's especially necessary right now, you know, but it's like, why am I talking about it? You know, why do we care? Why does it matter? I mean, I feel like on almost every episode of the podcast I say something like, this requires discernment, or discernment is really important, but I never really unpack it, you know. So I thought I'd finally take the opportunity to talk about discernment. First of all, I think if you look around, you can see that people everywhere are being taken in by misinformation and lies. We're kind of like swimming in a sea of information, and a lot of it is misinformation, and as you can see in our current political situation or pretty much anywhere, there's all this division because everyone has their own set of facts, right? And it's like, I feel like in that so many people are not thinking critically. They're just kind of, you know, glomming onto one set of facts and then just like holding on as tightly as they can, right? We see this unfortunately too often with the alt-right or the far right in this country, in America. Um, you know, you've got people like Alex Jones and it's Infowars, Newsmax, OAN, Fox News. Tucker Carlson, and then Jordan Peterson, people like, you know, in the kind of self-help world, QAnon, conspiracy theories. All these things are symptoms of this problem, this lack of discernment, this misinformation issue that we have. And yeah, I mean, I'm not trying to make it political, but unfortunately, the political right in America has made itself into the party of fear. Ignorance, aversion, judgment, and authoritarianism, you know, and I think all of these are the opposite of discernment. You know, in addition, I've been watching a lot of YouTube videos lately that sort of systematically debunk people like Jordan Peterson, and they're good examples of discernment and the ways that discernment can come in, but then The problem with those videos and the problem with that approach is that they are still coming from this like pure reason, and they're letting their discernment kind of swallow itself, you know, so they're pointing— they don't have a sort of overarching ethos. They're just kind of deconstructing things, and then there's nothing left to really hold on to, and so I hope in this episode to offer you, you know, not just a way of Deconstructing things, but a discernment that is spiritual and that still offers some evolution and some positive sort of qualities.

Okay.

So, you know, not only do we see this misinformation in the news and in media, but during the pandemic especially, so many of my friends, spiritual friends, spiritual teachers, were taken in by conspiracy theories of different kinds. And, you know, I watched this happen, and I was a little surprised because I always assumed that people who are sort of, especially spiritual teachers, are, you know, discerning. And of course, everyone has their own viewpoint, but I think conspiracy theories are a good example of where discernment is so necessary, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. But it's clear to me as a society, as a humanity, that we need to develop the ability to think for ourselves. You know, it's not easy. It's not We're not taught how to do this. Nobody teaches us this in school, for example. I think maybe if you go to university for journalism or, I don't know, philosophy or law school for sure teaches you how to be discerning in certain ways. And law school teaches you how to sort of think like a lawyer, which is what I learned when I went to law school. And it definitely helped me, but But again, that's an example of where there's a kind of thinking where the skepticism and the criticism becomes like the overarching kind of mental model, you know, and you find yourself like finding faults with everything. And I certainly found myself doing that as a lawyer, and that's part of why I left the law.

Yeah.

And I felt like it was polluting my mind, this kind of finely parsing everything and being overly critical and judgmental and all that. So it's hard. Nobody teaches us how to be discerning in a healthy, balanced, holistic way. Okay, so combating misinformation and conspiracy theories is one reason that it's important to talk about. Another reason is that it's the antidote to being ridiculous, which is my whole thing, right? So what do I mean by that? Basically, when I say ridiculous, I mostly mean spiritual bypassing, spiritual materialism, that kind of thing. And, you know, spiritual bypassing is where you subscribe to certain spiritual concepts without embodying them. You know, it's all a concept, it's all kind of mental models, but but not— no actual integration. Or it's clinging— it's like clinging on to, uh, the light very tightly and only wanting to be in the light and not doing any of the shadow work. You know, that's another form of bypassing. Um, it's looking— you know, maybe it's like looking spiritual and going to spiritual places. Like me right now, I'm in Tulum. Um, and, you know, just doing all that because it's cool and trendy, you know, like wearing a wide-brimmed hat and, uh, A flowing shirt or whatever. I mean, I'm wearing mala beads. Am I being ridiculous? I mean, it all depends on how you look at it, what your intention is, what the purpose is behind it. And so all these things, the hats and the whatever, it's only ridiculous if there's no substance behind it. So hopefully the content of what I'm saying And hopefully the Shakti of it is, uh, is all that matters. It shouldn't be how I look or anything, you know. And so part of one way this manifests— I see this in Los Angeles quite a bit— is you see signs and portents everywhere, you know. This is part of the kind of spiritual bypassing. Um, for example, this repeating numbers thing, which I encounter quite a bit in Los Angeles. You know, people love saying, oh, it's 11:11, or, you know, the address is 2222, that must mean something, you know. And everything is sort of imbued with meaning, which is, which is a nice intention, a nice bhava, a nice way to be in the world, you know, finding meaning everywhere. But, you know, people see these repeating numbers as like messages from their angels and light beings and all this stuff, and from source. And I don't know, I looked into it, I was curious, so I looked into it. And there isn't really any spiritual tradition underlying these repeating numbers. It seems like it's a late 20th century phenomenon. Maybe it started with this psychic Uri Geller, but it's not clear. And I don't know, I find it really interesting and entertaining. And of course, I think one explanation is that there's only 10 digits in our system, and so it's just very common for them to repeat. Whether it's a time or an address or whatever, like, that's a very common thing. So yeah, actually, that reminds me of this app, uh, Gematria, that the MAGA people and the alt-right people are really into now. Uh, actually, let's, let's just watch this clip. Uh, this gives you some sense of it.

Everything's coded, and I've been learning Gematria.

So what's Gematria?

Can I pull my phone out for a second?

Sure.

Okay, so it's called the Gematria, and it's a calculator.

Gematria is a mystic numerological key and an app which allows believers to type in words and get back meaningful numbers.

You type it in the calculator, you get these numbers. And so Michael Jackson's last concert was This Is It. Comes to 113.

You know what that means? Do you? I don't know what that means.

So 113 means not true.

So Michael Jackson, that wasn't his last concert.

And he's alive.

Michael Jackson's alive. People are talking. Is bin Laden still alive?

Tim, um.

Are you doing math right now?

No, I'm trying to remember his real name.

Tim Osama. Osama bin Laden.

Yeah, Tim. Tim someone. I forgot his his last name.

Tim is not the most Saudi name.

And he wasn't Saudi. He was from the CIA.

How does Maga and Trump fit into all this?

Well, Trump, eighty-eight.

Help me out with that.

J. Kennedy, 88.

So they're the same person?

I don't know. That's what Gematria says.

Type this. America is in a bad place.

146.

What's 146 mean?

Let's go Brandon, 146.

That's it, right? That means—

Let's go Brandon's 146.

Let's go Brandon's 146, and so is America is in a bad place?

Yes.

Let's go Brandon.

Do we want to connect those 2?

Well, we are connecting it. That is connected.

It does feel connected.

It does.

Does it feel good?

Do you have goosebumps yet?

I'm getting goosebumps right now.

I have goosebumps too.

Yeah, so you can see, I mean, you can see with this woman, there's a desire. I think it's this desire, you know, to find some certainty in what feels like a very uncertain world. You know what I was saying earlier about Us going through the Great Unraveling. People are really wanting to grasp onto some kind of explanation, some kind of certainty, and that can come from any source. And I think it's also, again, it's nuanced because I think, for example, critics of something like astrology might not see a difference there. You might think like, oh, people who are into astrology are doing the same thing. They're looking for some kind of certainty in a very uncertain world, but it's not real. But actually astrology is. And this is where discernment comes in in a different way, right? So critics of these systems, they need to understand the system they're criticizing first, you know. So, um, anyways, so I get it, I get it. Being spiritual is a form of kind of a form of rebellion in a certain sense in our world, you know. And so it means rejecting the mainstream oftentimes and rejecting societal conditioning, rejecting the worldview of your parents or whatever it is. And so when you do that, you're naturally needing to open yourself up to alternative viewpoints. And you start to realize that all of these things that are rejected by mainstream society are actually valid. And so then it becomes this kind of like another form of black and white thinking where you're like, well, anything that's alternative must be true. You know, like anything that's rejected must be true becomes the litmus test. But actually, it's another place where you need to exercise independent thinking and critical thinking and discernment. So what's the big deal? Why is it so important to not be ridiculous? Well, first of all, there's nothing wrong with being ridiculous. There's nothing wrong with being any kind of way. There's no bad people. There's no lesser people. You know, everyone's doing the best they can. But I think it is important. I think there are immense benefits to discernment and not being ridiculous, in my framing of it anyways. First of all, it's an antidote to misinformation and conspiracy theories, like I've already talked about, but also it's a way of avoiding spiritual bypass, and there's all sorts of reasons to do that. And once we get into other ways of being and knowing, like intuition, for example. It's an important part of being intuitive because if you're not discerning, you will think that your desires are your intuition. So you'll say, like, oh, I need to get a massage. Maybe you just wanna have a massage. It's not an intuition, it's just a desire. So I think when you start talking about your intuition, you need to to be discerning when it comes to these more subtle sort of ways of knowing. Another example is when you start interpreting astrology or tarot cards or numerology, it's so essential in those practices to, to not be projecting your desires or your cravings and aversions or whatnot, your conditioning, onto what you're looking at, right? Um, Rick Tarnas in his book Cosmos and Psyche makes this point. As you're practicing astrology, it's so essential because you're dealing with archetypal forms and things that are less precise. And so doing this requires a self-critical awareness of unconscious tendencies towards, for example, narcissistic distortions where random or peripheral events are transformed into signs from an egocentric universe. Like the repeating numbers I was talking about. So we need multiple faculties of cognition. We need intuition. We need empirical ways of being, rational ways of being, emotional, relational, and symbolic. There's so many different ways, but when it comes to moving in these different areas, we still need to bring the discernment with us. And so another way this can be helpful is as we go on the spiritual path and we look for teachers, we look for guides, you know, this will help us to not sort of follow a false guru or a teacher without integrity, or even in the worst case, to join a cult. I mean, you know, you think about like, how did people join cults? You know, how do the people in Wild Wild Country, you know, the Osho cult, how did they end up in that situation? Or even Bikram, you know, or— Any of these cult examples, you know, how do people— NXIVM, you know, is another example. You see these people, you see the documentary, and you think like, how do they— how are they so easily duped? And, you know, I think obviously the first thing is they're receiving some benefit, you know, whether it's evolution or, or some kind of transcendent experience or something like that. But the problem is they're getting these benefits, but then they're not questioning anything, you know. They're just kind of surrendering and trusting completely, which is relevant at a certain point, but you need to— it needs to be flavored with discernment, right? There's a way that you can trust too much. I talked about this on the episode about the guru sex scandal a few episodes ago, on episode 8, and how Mariana Copeland talks about this. You know, there's sort of like a— there's a way of trusting that's not Complete and more healthy. Yeah, so this is another— so, you know, it's a benefit of discernment is not joining a cult basically, or, you know, like I was saying earlier, not falling victim to conspiracy theories. I mean, I get it, you know, in terms of conspiracy theories, when it seems like the whole world has gone haywire, it's easier to think that you're powerless to change anything than it is to try to take action, so I get the appeal of a conspiracy theory. But, you know, if you think that a global cabal is drinking the blood of babies and, you know, secretly running the world, then maybe you should try to find some hard evidence of that first, you know. So another benefit of being discerning is that you experience less suffering and you experience more joy for you and for everyone else, you know. So it's like, if you're a spiritual materialist, there, you're actually suffering more because even though it feels like it's all love and light, you know, there's this unresolved kind of unexplored shadow that's, that's still there sort of leaking out in all your interactions and all your experiences. And so this enjoyment is very, you know, very surface, very superficial, and very frail, you know, very conditional. Whereas when you're discerning and you're kind of, you're becoming more whole, Then you're a lot more secure and stable in your, uh, your evolution and in your joy and in your fulfillment and happiness. And you're authentic. This authentic state is then better for everyone, for the collective. And then people take you more seriously too. I mean, it's important, you know, especially because part of my mission is to try to bring spirituality, like, to, to people who don't identify as spiritual. And I think part of that is making us seem as spiritual people like seem more level-headed, you know, and discerning, and so, you know, when you're discerning, you don't turn people off. You know, intelligent people aren't turned off by that. People want to see that there's some intellect and some wisdom in their spirituality, I think. And that was the case for me. And when you're discerning, you then start to manifest and cultivate a more authentic and beautiful spiritual community. You know, your sangha is more authentic and deep as well. And then you become more grounded and secure and whole in yourself, and you evolve more quickly. Not that there's any hurry. There's no hurry to evolve. But, you know, The more you evolve, the more you reduce your own suffering and the suffering of others. So there's so many benefits to being discerning. And, you know, there's an argument— we'll get into this a little bit later— but there's an argument that being discerning is kind of like yoga. You know, yoga is discernment in a certain way. And it's also called polishing the mirror of our minds. That's another way to put it. It's another phrase you hear in spiritual, um, discussions is polishing the mirror of our minds. This is a good way to think about it because we can only perceive relative values of truth from our own state of consciousness. And so when the mirror of our mind is smudged, is tarnished, then what it reflects, the reality of the world that it reflects, is going to be distorted. And so if what we see and hear and experience is filtered by a relatively dense state of consciousness, then almost nothing is really seen or heard or understood purely as it is. I think we've all experienced this, right? So part of what I'm talking about here is becoming like a spiritual scientist. This is something I've talked about in earlier episodes, but it's like we're examining all new information, all new theories, with a certain kind of— it's a certain kind of skepticism that's tempered by a constant willingness To have your existing ideas and beliefs challenged. This is the kind of discernment that I'm talking about. It's observing, examining, testing, and refining. But of course, even scientists often fail at this crucial aspect of keeping an open mind because they become attached to whatever theory that they've been propounding or whatever it is. It's only natural. So, you know, it's crucial To be self-aware and to examine your own beliefs as well. It's very— it's a very nuanced process. So it's hard in terms of, like, in terms of science and empiricism, you know, it's hard to objectively measure your state of discernment, right? It's a very subjective, personal thing. It's not like asana where you're working towards scorpion pose and Somebody else can say like, oh, your form is fantastic and it looks great. You know, it's like only you really know. I mean, there's maybe there's ways people can tell, but, uh, it's like, how do you know? How do you know if you're being discerning? How do you know if you're being more discerning than not? Well, there are ways to tell. One is that you're evolving without getting sidetracked by toxic people or deceptive people, gurus and all that, you know, stuff I was talking about earlier. And you feel more confident about what you know and what you believe is true. It's not just blind faith anymore. It's like it's been tested in the, like, laboratory of your own awareness, right? And your own experience. So you feel more self-reliant, more confident, more focused and clear. And then you fluctuate less. And again, your spiritual community starts to become more sattvic, you know, more elevated. And you have integrity. You have spiritual integrity where what you say and what you do are the same. That's integrity. You become very consistent in your speech and your action, very transparent, very direct, but also kind. You know, there's still kindness. There's still, you know, elevated conversation. There's still like lack of judgment. You're very accepting of other people, you know. So you're not like going around flaunting your discernment or brandishing your discernment against people or anything like that. So you're maintaining your compassion and your open-heartedness, acceptance, loving awareness. You know, it's, it's all there. And I think, I think a really good way to, to test a level of discernment is like, do you have a sense of humor? You know, are you able to laugh at yourself? You know, that really, that really shows a level of security in your own, uh, sort of knowledge and wisdom. You're relaxed about it, basically. Uh, yeah, you know, you know that you know what you know, and you know why you know what you know, and all that, right? It's not just because you heard it from some teacher, so you can joke about it. You know, it's not— again, it's not brittle. It's a very solid wisdom. The, the wisdom that's generated by discernment is like totally solid, but also adaptable, right? Maybe there's not good language for it. I don't know. Okay, well, what is the process? How do we become more discerning? I'll start by summarizing briefly, and then we'll go into some of the details. So it's this kind of self-reinforcing spiral of yoga that I like to talk about, you know, it includes meditation. Meditation is a huge part of cultivating discernment. But also there's this idea of correcting the intellect or refining the intellect that comes out of like Patanjali's Yoga Sutras and the Bhagavad Gita and these ancient spiritual texts from the Yogvedantic tradition. So within that, there's svadhyaya, which we'll talk about. There's like self-study, self-awareness. There's studying these ancient texts can be a part of the process. And having a teacher who's wise, you know, a guru perhaps. Again, we'll talk about the complexities of that in a minute. There's having spiritual community as part of the process. And then there's, you know, working with plant medicine potentially, or sacred plants. And a huge part, in my experience, of becoming more discerning is learning how to feel your feelings, because In yoga, we talk about how it's basically like the mind is actually the heart-mind. It's like one unit, one atomic unit. And that's because every thought has an emotional component and every emotion has a thought associated with it. So, you know, we'll talk about this more, but the more you're in touch with your feelings, the more you're letting them flow, the less they're coming in and kind of coloring your thinking and your discernment. So we're moving away from decisions that are driven by unconscious emotions, you know. And so some of the practices that can help with feeling your feelings are these kriyas that are part of the practice I teach, you know, elemental yoga. And plant medicine is very helpful in, in helping you feel your feelings. And then traditional psychotherapy too is very, very helpful in that way. So we'll talk about those 2 in a few minutes. Yeah, we'll talk about Patanjali's Yoga Sutras for all the yoga teachers in the room, the nature of the mind and how to release our conditioning, samskaras and kleshas and all that. And yeah, I mean, one way to say this is that the process is basically just practicing what we call a full-spectrum holistic yoga, right? So it's not just asana, but pranayama, meditation, kriya. And all the different sort of styles of yoga, so to speak, too. So it's not just Raja Yoga, you know, it's not just asana meditation and all that, but there's Karma Yoga, being of selfless service in the world. There's Bhakti Yoga, devotional yoga. There's Jnana Yoga, which is the yoga of wisdom, which is a lot of what we're talking about today. This episode is more in the Jnana Yoga tradition. And then classical tantra has a lot of practices that can help with Discernment as well. The ancient tantric yogis from 1,000 years ago in Kashmir thought long and hard about discernment and had a lot to say about it. So let's talk about the theory of mind. It sounds a little bit kind of boring, right? But it's kind of cool. It's an important sort of foundational framework, I think, for this discussion. So the first thing we learn in yoga, of course, hopefully you've all experienced this, is that you're not your mind, right? You're so much more than your mind, and you stop identifying as the mind. You stop identifying as your thoughts, right? So the mind is just one sort of part of you. It's like a tool that you can use, but it's not you. The larger container is this chitta, this, this pure consciousness that we are. And, you know, as Krishna tells Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, because you have this mind that's not you, but it's in the toolbox, you can actually master the mind. That's what yoga is essentially, is mastering the mind. But you can't be a master of the mind if you live entirely inside of the mind, right? So part of the process is this disidentification and then this kind of expansive experience of your larger self. And so in the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna is talking about 3 aspects of mind. There's manas, buddhi, and ahamkara. So manas— and you know, Patanjali talks about this too— so manas is this basically like the part of the mind that's taking in information from the sensory organs, right? It's, it's the sponge of the mind. It's just, it's taking information in, and then as it's processed by The buddhi, the second part, this information is then stored in short and long-term memory. And so the second piece of the mind is the buddhi, the discrimination quality of the mind or the discerning quality of the mind. And so the buddhi is kind of the crux of what we're talking about today in a certain sense. And it comes from the root buddh, which is the same root where the word Buddha comes from. And so really the Buddha, You know, he was called the Buddha because he was supremely discerning. You know, so, so the buddhi is this kind of discerning function of the mind. And so that's what we're kind of focusing on today. But the third part is the ahamkara, the ego part of the mind, the sense of self, the kind of sense of the separate self. And the ego is a crucial part of this process too. I mean, it's a whole other topic, but, you know, this is like this kind of like fictional, in a way, sense of yourself that's kind of an accumulation of all of your past experiences and your identity and everything is all in this ahamkara. And it's oftentimes the ego is coloring the buddhi and the manas, you know, it's coloring our discernment and our memories, and it's coloring the way we take in information. So if our ego is not refined, is not corrected, then we can't see clearly. We can't take things in, uh, on— in an unfiltered way, you know. We can't, we can't truly be discerning, right? For example, if your identity, your ego identity, is like a white supremacist, then you can be very educated and you can, you know, you can be very discerning in a certain sense, but then there's a certain unexamined set of, set of assumptions that are coming from this ego identity that you haven't looked at, right? And so this is creating— it's creating an obstruction to truly being whole. So, you know, in yoga we refine the buddhi and the ahamkara, and that's what we'll talk about next. Okay, so that's the theory of mind. Now we'll get into, uh, the nature of the mind in the sense of like the different types of thoughts and emotions and feelings and memories, right? So So as we learn in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, there are vrittis. So the 2nd sutra is yogashchitta vritti nirodha, and what that means is yoga is the cessation of mental modifications, or the cessation of these vrittis. And so vrittis are just like basically thoughts or disturbances in the mind. And so one way to look at that is that yoga is the quieting of the mind, right? But also it is The quieting of the mind process is happening by addressing these vrittis, a certain kind of vritti. And so there's a kind of vritti called a samskara that is a big part of the problem, right, in a certain way. So it's these samskaras that we're working with in this refinement process as we develop our discernment. Now, a samskara is basically like a mental impression that's stored in the subtle body, you know, because the The mind is actually a part of this continuum in the subtle body. And these samskaras are like archetypal impressions on the, on the mind. They're like memories of, of the past that have been kind of unprocessed, like they're unnoticed by the, the awareness. And so they're there, you know, kind of behind the scenes influencing your discernment. They're, they're creating all these impulses and trains of thought that you're not in control of, and impressions that do not fit into your sort of current view of yourself. And so these samskaras are very powerful and very important to, to address. Part of yoga is making these samskaras conscious, and then we can release them.

Right?

And you can see why these samskaras are making it so we can't discern, because they're influencing our ability to do that from, you know, the unconscious, basically. And then, you know, our mind, as we start to release these samskaras, our mind can then naturally become more quiet and still. So that's samskaras. There's a certain kind of samskara that Patanjali talks about called aklesha. And so Patanjali highlights these kleshas because it's important to, you know, the more we can think about them specifically in certain categories, the easier it is to let them go in a certain sense. So in Sutra 2.3, Patanjali says, अविद्या अश्मिता राग द्वेषः अभिनवेशः क्लेशः। And so he's giving us a list of five kleshas or types of samskaras. So the first one is Avidya, which is just ignorance or lack of wisdom. And this is a lot of what we're talking about in terms of discernment, you know. It's— and Patanjali talks about how it's the root cause of a lot of suffering, this Avidya. And through discernment, we can start to let go of Avidya. And, you know, this ignorance in this context can include confusing the mind with the unconscious, or suffering it with happiness, or You know, a guru as a teacher, or the impermanent as permanent. You know, it's all these different ways that we confuse things, right? And so this is one type of klesha, one type of samskara that we start to directly address, right? This ignorance. And then the second and third klesha are craving and aversion, you know, raga and dvesha. So you can see how with craving and aversion, you know, You are not discerning because you're like, oh, I don't like this, and so I'm going to push it away, or, you know, I want that, so I'm going to bring it closer. But it's clouding your judgment because, you know, in the grand scheme, you should not be doing that. You know, like, this is why, you know, a classic example would be like, um, falling into old patterns in terms of romantic relationships, let's say.

Yeah.

You know, so you're, you know, you're sort of falling into these things through desire, but you're forgetting that you have this pattern, you know, that you need to address and that sort of thing. So these are other kleshas. And then asmita is the 4th klesha, and this is identification with the ego, which we already touched on. You know, this ego, this collection of like self-images that are kind of a fictional thing, you know. So it's like we don't want to be attached to a story about ourselves. It's this contraction of our larger being that we're, you know, wanting to let go of, right? And this is related to the 5th klesha, which is abhinavasā. And this is like clinging to our way of life, essentially, you know, it's like holding tightly to our current identity, and so that when new situations present themselves, we don't see them clearly, because it's unknown, you know, and we're wanting to Hold on to the, to the known. And so that's another version here, you know. So it's like when we go deep in yoga, whether it's a kriya or meditation or what have you, or plant medicine, then we burn through these kleshas, we burn through these samskaras, and we prevent new ones from forming too. And so this is the process we're basically talking about in, in more detail. Just a couple more, a couple more examples from the Yoga Sutras that are helpful. In Sutra 1.7, Patanjali talks about this thing he calls basically like correcting the intellect. And he says this arises from, you know, direct perception, from the state of yoga, and from reliable sources. And, you know, when he says direct perception, I think part of what he's getting at is like we're more conscious and aware of what we're exposing ourselves to. So we want to, in life, we want to think about the kinds of information, the kinds of people, the kinds of situations that we're exposing ourselves to, because the things that occupy our mind and our awareness most consistently become our consciousness. And so we don't want to watch a lot of reality TV perhaps, or a lot of 24-hour news channels, that kind of thing. Of course, if you want to have guilty pleasures or You know, mindless entertainment, that's fine, but just be aware, I think, of what you're exposing your awareness to. And then the state of yoga, you know, your experience arises directly out of your state of consciousness. So the more, more that we're practicing yoga and having the experience of yoga, you know, which is basically unity, the more we're starting to have that experience that's coloring our awareness. And that's helping us to correct the intellect. And then again, reliable sources, he means ancient texts, reliable teachers with integrity, spiritual community, and that kind of thing. I guess the last thing I'll say about Patanjali, there's a lot to say about Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, you know, one of the niyamas in Sutra 2:32 and other sutras is svādhyāya. This is self-study, and here he's telling us more about this This niyama, and he's saying this is one of the limbs of yoga, right? And without this ability to basically turn our discernment back onto ourselves, we can fall into this trap of thinking that we're discerning, but that's actually an identity structure that we're creating instead, you know. So it's very important to turn the light of our awareness and our discernment back onto ourselves. So sometimes the only way to do this reliably is to have a teacher who can point you to where your blind spots are. So let's talk about that in a minute. But the other ways we can do this is through just contemplation, just, you know, reflection, self-observation over time, you know, self-practice, that kind of thing. It's this capacity to observe yourself without judging or analyzing, you know, without applauding yourself or critiquing yourself. You're just observing, just neutral. The more you can do that, I think the more you start to develop your discernment as well. It's a kind of self-honesty because we want to avoid like not admitting things to ourselves. We want to start admitting things to ourselves even if it hurts, right? Or it might bruise the ego. And I think part of this process is just like forgiving ourselves And being soft with ourselves. This is part of this process of being self-aware, I think. It's like making space in our lives for just self-acceptance and, and, uh, self-love. You know, I talk about when I teach meditation, I talk about how in a way meditation is just this practice of fully accepting yourself. You know, I think that's, that's I think a big part of the journey here, you know, and Krishna talks about this in the Bhagavad Gita. You know, he talks about the benefits of, of self-study and, and cultivating this like sattvic state, basically, you know, moving beyond the ego. And so in the Bhagavad Gita, in a sense, Krishna is teaching Arjuna, you know, how to master his mind, and discernment is a huge part of that. In terms of gurus, it's a big topic, and again, I refer you to episode 8 of the podcast, but, uh, I personally have I've immensely benefited from the ways that different teachers of mine have corrected my intellect, you know, have helped me to see the blind spots, and I really feel like I wouldn't have seen those things without that person's help, you know. So this is a— it's a huge asset if you can find a teacher that is wise and has integrity. I mean, There's no replacing that, really. Yeah, I mean, in one sense, this is the whole purpose of a guru, is to correct your intellect and to give you practices for doing that. But yeah, there's risks, you know. You might have somebody who's trapped in some kind of ego identity or doesn't have integrity or, you know, is abusing students or, um, taking advantage of people, you know, all that stuff. So It's complicated. But just to give one example of like a simple way, I think I've talked about this before, but, you know, in India, I was living at the ashram at one point, and I was training teachers. And, and I had this situation where I was, I was training some, some students in a class setting, and some other teachers came in the room and started practicing asana and kriya in the back of the room. And it was very distracting. And very disruptive. And so I, you know, I asked them to leave and everything, but I went around for a couple days sort of waiting for them to apologize, and, uh, they never did, you know. So I went to my teacher and I said, uh, you know, when is it appropriate to expect an apology? And he kind of laughed and he said, uh, never. And I was like, oh yeah, that is true. And it's like, it's just funny because the role of a teacher is almost like To point out things you already kind of know, but just need someone else to say. So, you know, if you can find a teacher, it's definitely hard. In some ways, it's like harder than finding a good therapist, you know? And that's why people like Terence McKenna, who I know I've quoted extensively on the podcast, but, you know, Terence McKenna at one point said, follow plants, not gurus, right? And I think there's some wisdom in that. And let's talk about plants then. So, you know, some of my friends think that plants are the ultimately the best way to cultivate discernment, and I don't disagree. I think especially ayahuasca or these sacred plants that can be used in a ceremonial setting are immensely helpful for cultivating discernment. I mean, they help you to see your own blind spots too, like a teacher would, in my experience. And, um, In those— in these ceremonies, you know, like your samskaras are bubbling to the surface and you're releasing them basically. You know, it's— you see all your conditioning and you see all these unprocessed thoughts and emotions, and you're able to sort of face them in a way that's in a container that's very safe and very healing. And, you know, as a result, ignorance and fear and incorrect knowledge are all burned away, and we get in touch with our emotional body and our intuition and We start to tune into our higher self and, and, uh, we learn to listen, you know. And yeah, it's, it's like a very effective form of like swadhyaya or, or, um, yeah, burning through these samskaras. And so what's happening, I think, is that our higher self or, or the grandmother or the cosmos or spirit or what have you, you know, they're— it's bringing all these unprocessed samskaras to the surface and you're— and helping you to like release or integrate them. And then the shaman, or the curandero, or the vegetalista, is there, you know, as part of the process too. So it's like not just the plants, but it's like it's the shaman, it's the ícaros that they're singing. They— it all works together to serve as a kind of mirror and an intellect correction device in a more subtle way, like with the ícaros especially. Like, for example, it's like the ideal form of a guru in a way, because you might be having an energetic experience, and the shamans are trained to pick up on that. So they'll tune in, they'll see, you know, in a sense that you're having an experience of releasing something, and then they'll sing an icaro that's designed to, you know, maybe like exacerbate it, push it, you know, intensify it, and then get it out, right? And then to soothe as well. So, you know, for example, I had the experience once where I was dealing with some childhood trauma, and the shaman came into the room and said, hey, I was just singing this icaro for metabolizing childhood trauma. Would you like to hear it? And I said, yes. And it was so perfect. And so it's like, yeah, it's like, in a way, these ceremonial Sacred plant experiences can be like, like working with a guru, but like even better, right? Without all the guru games. So plant medicine, it's awesome. And then, you know, and I think like I touched on before, spiritual community, sangha, is— it's like having a guru in a certain way, in the sense that it's, you know, you have people who you trust and feel Safe with, and they're all walking on the path with you, and they can gently and gracefully call you out when you're deceiving yourself. They can point out your blind spots. I mean, they might, you know, individually they might not be as wise as a so-called guru, but collectively I think they would be, you know. And yeah, in a sangha, a spiritual community is not fraught with all these power dynamics and sex scandals and all this stuff, right? And the extent to which you might be disappointed in one person doesn't overwhelm your whole experience. So you want to find spiritual community that can provide the right balance of support and the correction of intellect. A community where people are honest and direct, but loving and nurturing and caring and practicing. You want a community where people are practicing. So it's been nice during the pandemic to have more online community where we can do this together, but it's also good I think especially in this situation in terms of like discernment. It can be good to be together in person as well, and I'm looking forward to doing that more often. It's part of why I moved to Los Angeles. You know, I'm trying to cultivate several different communities and build community in certain ways, and so yeah, I find Increasingly, the community is one of the most essential pieces to helping with this process. And I touched on this before, but therapy, traditional psychotherapy, can be immensely helpful for cultivating discernment in the sense that that's another example where you're getting sort of like unfiltered, unbiased feedback. But it is hard to find a good therapist. I got lucky in the past, and I worked with a therapist for years that was amazing and immensely helpful. You know, it's not always that easy. And it's a very slow process. It doesn't offer any practices or any experiential things that can help you kind of move through samskara or that kind of thing. Although, we're in a kind of very, you know, exciting time of this renaissance of entheogenic, you know, psychedelic-assisted therapy. So definitely seek that out. I haven't tried that myself, but—

Yeah.

Maybe that's a good— another great option. I think it must be, right? And then in terms of— just to bring it all back, you know, in terms of yogic practices, again, meditation is one of the most essential practices for cultivating discernment. It's a process of going deeper into yourself, into, into silence, into a space where the mind can oftentimes be naturally corrected. Or maybe a samskara comes up. You know, I certainly have had meditations where Things come up, I cry for like maybe the whole time, you know, that kind of thing. Um, and so that can be a setting where the intellect is naturally corrected. Uh, you might start to see— you become more self-aware through meditation, and then, you know, thoughts that are based on incorrect knowledge can be let go of. So, you know, meditation is another way of becoming more sattvic, you know. And Krishna talks about how the sattvic state is a state of of being discerning. And yeah, I mean, I'm offering— again, I'm offering my 4-week meditation course in October, so check that out. I offer it roughly once every season, or at least 3 times a year, so look for that, cosmic.diamonds/meditate. And then there are some amazingly powerful tantric practices, including, for example, there's a Dashamahavidya Matangi who— her primary benefit or like primary, yeah, like siddhi is, is correcting the intellect, you know. And, and so, uh, you know, that's another, another example. I mean, I'm hoping to offer a Dasha Mahavidya Tantric Wisdom Goddess initiation later this year or next year, so look for that too, and I'll be sharing more of that soon. But, uh, but yeah, there's, there's, uh, these visualization and mantra practices that come from ancient India And then devotion. I think devotion and kind of a bhakti yoga is very effective because it's opening you up to the intelligence of the cosmos. You know, part of this devotional quality is like you're opening yourself to other forms of sort of intelligence from nature. And, you know, you're through that process, you're identifying less with the mind exclusively. And so, you know, examples of devotional practices can be sacred rituals, puja, aarti, These other bhakti practices, you know, kirtan, chanting the names of God and goddesses, you know, that kind of thing. So devotion, very effective as well. And then there's a lot of kriyas in our tradition that are great for correcting the intellect as well. There's, for example, Maha Shakti Kriya, which is where we're working with the 3 primary forms of Shakti, the will, The wisdom and the action, kind of Shakti, very effective for this. Garuda Kriya, where we're refining our intuition and our intellect. There's Dream Piercer Kriya, where we're piercing through our illusions, you know, and it goes on and on from there. But Kriya, very effective for cultivating discernment and also feeling our feelings, as we talked about before. So that's discernment. And I know I went on for a while there, but hopefully it was useful and interesting. You know, I just wanted to summarize. I just, I just think, you know, it's a, it's a muscle that we can exercise. And I think people don't, like, focus on it enough, or we don't talk about it enough specifically. And, you know, if you're lucky, it's a byproduct of your, your own spiritual practices. But I think there's a benefit to really focusing on it as a practice. So hopefully this discussion provided some sattvic food for elevated thought and some motivation to recommit to like certain practices. Um, or maybe it inspires you to go work with plant medicine or to find a therapist who's offering, you know, um, sacred plants as part of their therapeutic process. Or maybe it's motivating you to find spiritual community or even to seek out a teacher. You know, uh, they are out there. I, I believe it. So, um, so yeah, so hopefully, you know, discernment can help you become more solid in yourself, more grounded in your spirituality, and ultimately less ridiculous. So thank you for listening. If you have any thoughts or comments about this, please, you know, you can email me, jaydev@cosmic.diamonds. You can message me on Instagram @kriya. Kria Guy, Kria Guy. You can join my Cosmic Collective, which is on the website cosmic.diamonds. And if you like the podcast, please review it on Apple Podcasts. Thank you so much. Hadi om. I'll see you next time.