Avi Gordon
So, Swami Karunananda, first of all, thank you for taking the time to do this. I always love spending time with you. I wanted to start to see if we can get some of your your history, and ask if you can share anything you know about your birth story, like where you were born, and anything you know about your birth,

Swami Karunananda
my birth, Brooklyn, Brooklyn, where so many people on this spiritual path seem to originate from my birth story. What comes to mind? If that’s the question you’re asking, my parents told me that I started speaking when I was six months old, and when I look at six months old babies now, I don’t know how that’s possible, and they also tell me that when I was three years old, I picked up a newspaper and started reading it out loud, never having been taught how to read. And they asked me, How are you doing this? And I just said, I don’t know. I just know, I think they thought I was an alien being who had come in the form of their daughter. But I think from a yogic perspective, those samskaras were probably very close to the surface, and God knew I was going to have a lot to save his lifetime, so he or she got started early.

Avi Gordon
Do you have any kind of like intuition into why you were able to do that? I mean, does it just feel like it was something from a previous life or something with your skill set that you were able to pick up language very quickly? It

Swami Karunananda
just was, I wasn’t analyzing much back then.

Avi Gordon
What I mean like now, knowing yourself, yeah, what I

Swami Karunananda
said the samskaras, those samskaras, were close to the surface, and they just expressed themselves.

Avi Gordon
How about an early memory that you have?

Swami Karunananda
You know, before coming here, I just spent a few minutes thinking, considering that you might ask me a question like that, because I never think about that time of my life. And what came to mind was, if you would have asked me, what was the beginning of my spiritual journey, I think I would point to a walk I took when I was in sixth grade. So I was about 10 years old. It was on my block in Brooklyn. That’s what we call the streets in Brooklyn, our blocks. And I asked myself the question, what do you want to do with your life? And the answer that immediately came was, I want to help people. So the next question that came was, well, what’s the best way to do that? And immediately the answer came, I want to help relieve their suffering any way I can. And then the final question was, well, what do you think the best way to do that was? And the only thing I knew was what I had seen in my short life, of people who remove other people, suffering doctors. So then and there, that moment, I decided that is what I was going to do. And I think it was about 10 years old then, and I began writing. I said, Well, how am I going to begin studying? I have to begin preparing. Now. I am somewhat of a planner, so I began writing to all the medical and disease associations I could think of to send me all their literature, because it would always include descriptions of the problems and the treatment protocols that were available. And that’s how I began my self education. And I never wavered. In college, I was in a pre MediCal program. I majored in chemistry in a pre med program, and I followed that for three and a half years. At the time, I was in New York City and. At the time Gurudev arrived in New York City, I knew nothing about yoga. I had never heard of him, but my interests began to shift. And it is only in more recent years that it has occurred to me that it was the proximity of his presence that either contributed to or directly caused the shift in me, the subtle influence, because I didn’t live far from him. I was attending Barnard College, Columbia University, and he was right in the area there. And so my interest shifted from science itself to the philosophy of science. Okay,

Avi Gordon
I want to go back though, because I think the original seed that was planted is very interesting, right? So, okay, this walk that you were taking, were you by yourself? Yes, you’re by yourself. Do you remember, like, what you were doing, where you were going? I

Swami Karunananda
had been playing with my friend, and I was going home for dinner,

Avi Gordon
and this question just occurred to you, what do you want to do with your life? Yes, isn’t it amazing how powerful that question is? Yeah, and I think it’s possible to not even really ask it like to me, it’s like, that’s amazing that you were clear at that age, and that question, like, what even a gift that that question came to you? But it’s so simple, but maybe the most important one, right? Like, just, what do I want to do with my time? We have this time here. What do I want to do with it? So I think that’s beautiful, that you received that question at that age. And do you think there was like, a shift that occurred afterwards? Like, did any part of you maybe, like, relax and knowing like, Okay, I have a plan now, whereas before that didn’t, that wasn’t there,

Swami Karunananda
I’ll tell you, there was another line of inquiry that I had at that time that did cause a shift. I was, I was very good, both in, I guess you could call it academic studies at that age, and also in athletics. It might be hard to believe looking at me now that was really good in athletics, and I analyzed, and I said, again, part of what I want to do with my life, it seemed clear to me that I couldn’t do both and do them well, that I had to choose and I chose academics because I thought that would be more useful For people. I could be of more use that way. And I’m thinking now as I’m relating this to you, that was probably the primary inquiry. And from there, I probably pivoted into Okay, so what do you want to do with your life? So I made a shift in my focus. I made a clear decision. This was going to be my track.

Avi Gordon
So athletics, yeah, right. Like, what did you What did you play? What did you enjoy?

Swami Karunananda
I was good at running. I was good at skating, the kids, things kids did, biking, different ball games, and

Avi Gordon
you felt like you could just pick them up quickly, and you can become I just had

Swami Karunananda
natural skills, hand to eye coordination, speed, balance, things like that. I remember once, when I was in junior high, we were playing, I think it was volleyball, and I did an assist. The volley came our way. I haven’t thought of this in decades, and I somehow swiveled and jumped. And I don’t know what I did, I did an assist that must have been quite remarkable, because the gym teachers came over afterwards and they placed me on some special honor guard in the school that was, you know, a real privilege to be on. I have no recollection of all that, and I remember too. I once went to an athletic club in the same age range, and I had never played ping pong before, but I saw people playing, and I thought, okay, me too. I’ll try it somehow. I had an unreturnable serve. It would go and then it would like, turn backwards, hang in the air, you know, one of those crazy sort of things. And I dominated the table for a couple of hours. And. Until I got tired and I left. So I’ve never thought of these things, but you’re plumbing the old memories. Yeah,

Avi Gordon
and, you know, we’re leaving suffering like even at that age. Yes, I kind of have this hypothesis a little bit that, that if all, if every one of us stops to ask that question, like, what? What do I really want? That there’s, that’s the similarity between what we all really want like we all really want to serve that like we’re kind of like made for that, and each of us gets to choose our unique way to serve. Like, then the process, okay, like, first it’s like, I want to help, you know? And then I get to choose how I want to help. And there’s an endless variety of different ways to serve. Yes,

Swami Karunananda
I totally agree with what you’re saying. I think it’s a primary need of every human being to to feel like they’re making a valuable contribution during their time here on Earth, just like it’s a primary need for a baby to be touched or it won’t thrive. Baby will die if it isn’t touched as we mature, the need to serve is stronger and more important than we realize. Do

Avi Gordon
you ever consider that because, like, in a way, because of technology that the world has gotten much larger, right, like we’re connected to what’s going on places very far from where we live. And we’re connected to a lot of things that people are doing on social media, whatever it is, and that, as a result, may be a common reaction response to that is to feel small, like, I even think about this living in a city, when you’re in a city and there’s all these people around you, right? Like you kind of can forget your value, you know? And then that feeling, then, then it’s like, kind of the opposite of that, like, oh, like, I have something to offer. I can serve other people. I can make a difference. The the other side of that spectrum is like, what can I do? Like, the world’s so big, the problems are so big. Like, I feel like a lot of people fall into that, right? I think it’s

Swami Karunananda
unfortunate and in a way wrong. Thinking. On the one hand, each one of us is very tiny, and our time on this planet for any lifespan, is just a blink of an eye. At the same time, though, the power of the Divine is pulsating within us, that infinite potential to do good in this world. I sometimes tell a couple of stories to inspire people in that way, one is a story from the Ramayana, when Rama is building a bridge to rescue Sita, and all the great bears and monkeys have come to assist him, and they’re carrying huge trees and boulders. In the midst of all this, there’s this little chipmunk running around, scurrying around, grabbing a stick a leaf, and adding his little contribution to the pile. And after a while, the great monkeys and the great bears look at this little critter and go, What do you think you’re doing? You’re so tiny you can’t do much. And the little chipmunk looked up and said, I’m helping Rama build his bridge. And they laughed and laughed. And then Lord Rama came, picked up the little chipmunk, stroked him, and they say that’s why the chipmunk has stripes today. It’s the blessing of rama’s touch. And when I thought about that later, yes, the great monkeys and bears were grabbing these huge things and stacking them all the little leaves and twigs and whatnot, was probably the mortar that held it all together,

Avi Gordon
right? But even if it was like the smallest thing that hardly had any effect, or even just like the poly. Publishing of the bridge or something like that, right? Like, I wonder if maybe the cause of some suffering, of feeling meaningless in a way, is a focus on result instead of process, right? So if I’m focused on process, it’s more about what is the experience going to be? For me, is it going to be healthy? Right? Like, what you were talking about in terms of how we’re wired is to serve, right? Like, just like needing food and water, we need to serve. We need a purpose. Like, so to me, there’s a shift that happens there to the experience itself that I’m having while I’m serving, not like the outcome of, you know, building the whole the whole bridge.

Swami Karunananda
I go a step further. It’s not about the result. It’s not about the process, because it’s not about us, you just dissolve into the moment as an instrument of what is occurring. I don’t think about the process when I do something, I don’t think about the result. I just think. I don’t even think I focus and then let something flow through. That’s one thing I learned when I was really focused on hatha yoga. Back in the day, I probably taught 1000s of hatha yoga classes at all sorts of venues, and when I first started like everyone else, I was very nervous, you know, am I going to do a good job? Are they going to like my class? You know, those sorts of thoughts. And then it didn’t take too long, and I came to realize it wasn’t about me at all. It had nothing to do with me. Somehow, the universe provided me with this preparation, this knowledge, this skill, and it’s just being shared with others. That’s its purpose. I’m just a vehicle, an instrument for it. To this day, for decades now, whenever I go to teach, I stand before my altar and I have one prayer, please make what I have to say be useful. Make it be useful. That’s it. Well,

Avi Gordon
maybe, maybe your experience is different than mine, but my experience is that there’s movement between levels. So sometimes I’m at that level of pure focus, where there is no me, okay, and if I’m putting a label on it, maybe I’d say that’s the most wonderful, or I love that that’s, in a way, the goal to be in that place. But for me, at least, that’s not sustainable. I can’t be there all the time where there, there’s no me, and I’ve come to believe that, like all the levels are okay, like they’re a part of the process, right? And I want to clean up all the different levels, right? So sometimes there is taking care of the plan, or even one level that I actually get, I’ve gotten great benefit from is seeing it as my responsibility to take care of Avi, like when I look at it like that and that, if each of us saw it as our responsibilities to take care of ourselves, and why am I cleaning up this instrument in order to serve and then I’m clear On that, right? But it’s so easy to get distracted on other things, and if the whole world is operating that we all saw, and why? Because I have more direct control over this being than I have of any other so it’s just a very practical thing. I can feel frustrated or happy what’s happening in the outside world, but I don’t control that. I do control this one. So I think about that, it’s like, you know, just the different the different ways of being and what each different way. What does it mean?

Swami Karunananda
Yeah, getting back to what you were saying before about people feeling hopeless when they look at the whole world and what you’re saying now as well. The thing to remember is we are part of the world. You know the phrase Be the change that you want to see if we take the time to do what is necessary, to support our own peace, through our practice, through our service, with proper attitude. At least this little area of the world is peaceful, and that’s so much more powerful than we realize, because the reverberations go out. I

Avi Gordon
love that you brought this up, because to me, it’s like the. Most important thing to talk about. And I had this thought during meditation. Tt too, because, you know, the different techniques are wonderful. And another technique occurred to me, you know, related to what we’re talking about. So first I consider, okay, do I believe this? Do I know this, that I’m connected, that I am a part of something larger than myself? That’s like, first step is to get clear on that, okay? Because in the past, at least for me, and I think for many people, it’s like, I don’t really believe that, or maybe that’s like, a nice spiritual notion that we’re all one or connected. So like, is this true, or is it not true? So for me, it’s true, and there’s no doubt about it, that I’m linked up. Okay, so now going from that premise, that kind of that’s a game changer, that changes everything, because however I’m feeling inside is going to have an effect on the external environment. So right there, that’s giving me purpose beyond anything that I probably ever experienced before, coming to that realization, right? So in a way that, like, kind of whips me into shape, of like, everything that I’m doing to further my own growth is also helping the world at large and in meditation, in a way, like calling it like purpose meditation, right? This isn’t just and you touched on this too. I remember during the training is like, what we’re doing is not just something to diminish as not being like important or something I should do to, you know, relax my mind, or something like that. No, it’s way more important than that. These vibrations, if we’re entering into a place of love and oneness and these things and feeling them genuinely in our being, those vibrations are going out to the world to have an effect. So meditation, even like the thought is, is like meditation itself can provide this purpose that I think so many people are looking for. If you don’t have, like, you know, oh, I want to be a doctor or something like that. Well, you can still meditate so on, like, even the level of the breath. And I’ll tell you, for years now I’ve been focusing on giving that was the easy one for me to do. Like, send it out. Okay, you’re connected. Send it out. But I didn’t realize how much more there was for me to receive, you know, and that has been very profound as well, because the more that I take in this energy, and it feels like nature wants me to take it in, breathe in all this goodness, all this strength, then my capacity for giving Huygens as well. Do you have a similar Have you had a similar experience to

Swami Karunananda
that? I don’t think about it so much. I’m really at this stage in my life. I think I just am and I show up and let what needs to happen or flow through me do so and try to grow with each passing day.

Avi Gordon
How do you grow?

Swami Karunananda
I think nature itself, the divine plan, sees to that by placing us in certain situations and environments that impel us to reach deeper within, to come To good solutions.

Avi Gordon
So like life itself is teaching

Swami Karunananda
absolutely all the time, every moment, every moment. Guru Dev used to say the universe is the great universe city, and I believe we’re put into classrooms that are divinely choreographed to have the lessons we need to learn, and as soon as we learn them, we’re moved out. I remember once, I was living at our ashram in Northern California. We had a lot of problems with the sewer system, and it was going to take millions of dollars to correct it. So we were all sent out to see if we could get jobs, like real jobs. And of everyone at the ashram, I think I was one of five that actually managed to get a job. So I was the office manager for the county newspaper. Paper the Clear Lake observer. So I would just show up every day, do what I was asked to do, and then go home at night to the ashram. And I served there for about a year. And one day I went to the job, and I looked up and I looked around me, and it was like, I got it. And I sometimes do this, I talk to God. I looked up and no, I always opened up the office so there was no one else there. And I said, you know, I get it. I know why I was placed here. I understand the lessons I was supposed to learn, and I want you to know I got it. If you want to keep me here, I’m fine with that, but I know you usually don’t like to waste time. I’m just letting you know, I get it. I went home from work that very day, and I was told to quit my job that they had decided to sell the ashram because there was no way our little what $100 weekly paycheck five of us was going to pay for this enormous renovation that was needed the chipmunk. Yeah, but the chipmunk helped us to fulfill whatever purpose we had there. We had a purpose in being there

Avi Gordon
so. So do you think the same lessons or similar lessons will continue to present themselves until we we get it. Oh,

Swami Karunananda
absolutely, absolutely, no doubt you can’t run away from yourself.

Avi Gordon
And the more that it opens up, like, like your situation, like I got it, yeah, what I needed to learn. I shifted. Something changed, and then there’ll be something else. Oh, there’s always something else. There’s always something else, endlessly. Well,

Swami Karunananda
if we’re here on Earth, we have lessons to learn. When we make mistakes, I always think it’s not a failure. It’s arrogant to think we won’t make mistakes because we’ve been sent here to learn lessons, part of learning lessons is making mistakes. So it’s part of the process of the evolution of the soul. In the Yoga Sutras, it says prakriti nature has two purposes to provide experiences to the soul and ultimately, liberation. The Liberation comes after the experiences refine, purify and elevate the Soul so it can be a recipient, a vessel for that highest experience. So that’s nature’s purpose.

Avi Gordon
So I think even about this relationship to mistakes that we have right like, I can make a mistake and then afterwards I can kind of be mad at myself, about making the mistake, or disappointed with myself, or whatever it is, and then that can happen again and again again, and that itself maybe is the lesson, right? It’s like it’s not even the actual mistake. It’s the response to the mistake. That’s the lesson. And then that will keep repeating itself. But this one I feel like is so common that you bring up like, mistakes, right? And and how much fear there is to make a mistake, like it’s so natural, right? Like mistakes, like you said, are going to happen like a child learning to walk, right? How many mistakes does it make, trying to to get up or move its legs? It’s like, that’s the way of things. But we almost treat it like it’s not. And I wonder why that is, and I’m wondering if it’s this is where the ego comes into place, and we almost like take ourselves too seriously, like, this identity, this being, like, can be like, obsessed with its performance, and what do other people think about me? And how are they analyzing me? And all that is that the one of the major traps, yeah, yeah.

Swami Karunananda
Guru Dev used to speak often from the tutu girl, our three main scriptures of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, Bhagavad, Gita and tutu girl. Tutu girl has just little couplets. And one of my favorites is never regret anything, never do anything that you will regret later, but he knows we’re going to. So the second part is, but just you, just in case you do, it’s better not to do the regretting. In other words, you learn the lesson. And move on. Regretting is like you’ve fallen into a hole, and then you take a bat and you bang yourself down further in. You take the lesson, but not beating yourself up for having slipped. Gurudev once was speaking to me about the spiritual path, and he said, If you were to plot the spiritual path of anyone’s life, he says it’s very similar to plotting the path to healing from a serious illness, in a way, the spiritual path, healing doesn’t go straight up. No one gets to the goal like that. It doesn’t even go up on a gentle incline. It’s on a gentle incline, but you’re constantly cycling like four steps forward, two steps back, three steps forward, one step back and you slowly learn the lessons and proceed to the goal. This is revolution. This is evolution. Revolution comes and goes. Evolution is a trajectory in a definite direction. Yeah,

Avi Gordon
that feels totally on point to me. That’s how it is, yeah. Okay, so going back to this transition that you had so you were in medical school in Yeah, in Barnard,

Swami Karunananda
not medical school, pre med, pre med,

Avi Gordon
okay, and so how were you introduced to Swami Satchidananda to begin with?

Swami Karunananda
Okay, so getting back to that. So my interest began to shift, and I realized it was shortly after he had come to reside in New York City, from the actual science, to the philosophy of science, to the nature of the world, understanding that the nature of the mind, how they interact, the purpose of language in communicating What the world presents. And from those questions, I became interested in a group of philosophers known as the pre Socratic philosophers, who were very much yogis, people like Heraclitus. He said something to the effect, you can never step in the same river twice. You know, the only constant is change. There was permenities, there was Pythagoras, all these great thinkers. So my thinking began to flow in another direction. I decided to go an extra year of school and do an intensive major in philosophy. I wound up graduating with more questions than answers. So I graduated from college, and during the college experience the stressors living in New York City and being in such a demanding program and a very high caliber school as well, began to take a toll on my body. So at one point, I went to see a doctor. I had hardly ever seen any doctors in my life, and he handed me some pills, and he told me, come back in a couple of weeks and we’re going to do some tests. So this is a fancy new york city doctor. I came out of his office. I’m standing on the street. I take the bottle of pills that he gave me. I poured them into my hand, and I stood there for a while looking at them, I just contemplated them, and then out loud, I said, No, no, no, this is not going to be what my life is about. I threw them in a trash can across the street was a bookstore. I crossed the street and got my first yoga book, a book on Hatha Yoga by Indra Devi. That’s how it began. And so I graduated college. I was getting into yoga. My mind was exploring these other teachings, and we’re talking now the late 60s, where it was happening was the Bay Area in San Francisco. That was sort of the womb of the New Age movement. So I decided to go there. But I will say. Before that, even I went there in this in the summer, but in the spring, a friend called me and said there’s a swami who’s going to be speaking at the University Chapel tonight. And I got this funny feeling when I heard that, and I said, What’s the Swamis name? And the person said, Swami Satchidananda. And it was like everything inside of me just stopped. And at this point, I was living out of state, so I couldn’t go but I knew in that instant that life as I had known it would never be the same again.

Avi Gordon
See, I have to say, I’m fascinated by experiences like this that you’re sharing like with with the pills, you know, the message that come through, and just hearing Swami such a denud name, yeah. And so it seems to me that you are very linked up and you, we can call it intuition, whatever it is. But it fascinates me, because I, my mother has been telling me this my whole life, about the importance of following, you know, your gut, your instincts, all of all of that which I get and I honor. And it’s beautiful, you know, for me and probably for many others, it’s not so easy. Like, I wish that messages came through so strongly like that. You know, it’s it just doesn’t happen. You know,

Swami Karunananda
would I think Avi? I think the universe is continually giving us those messages Our minds are too busy to receive them. But if we just can stop, and if we have the eyes to see, the ears to hear, the heart to receive, we’re receiving all the time exactly what we need. I totally believe that, totally but

Avi Gordon
it’s, you know, I think it’s like, maybe, like, some kind of conditioning that’s deep in there that says to me, like, that’s crazy. Like, if you do this thing that, like, if, just because you heard a voice or something, you totally redirect your life and make, like, this big change because of this, you know, this moment like that. There’s like fear there that that path to go down that path like, okay, there’s this one decision, but now, am I just going to start to make decisions like this? And who knows what’s going to happen? And if you have a family and commitments, are those all just going to go like that one day because you’ve got another message?

Swami Karunananda
Now, I don’t believe in being reckless. I don’t think intuition is about recklessness. I’m a very thoughtful person, but you learn from experience to recognize that true voice within you. It has a certain tone. It has a certain feeling. There’s no demand in it. It’s It’s soft, clear, decisive and present. And you learn from experience when you follow and when you don’t. I remember once I was staffing a retreat in Colorado. So we started in Denver. So I came from San Francisco, so I’m already one mile high, and the retreat was about 10,000 or more feet. It was really high up, but most of the people were Denver, you know, citizens, so they’re used to living at an elevated level. I just came from San Francisco, so we’re at the retreat, and the day before the staff gathers, and everyone says, let’s go take a sauna. You know, let’s all have a nice sauna together. And I’m thinking me too sure, and I heard that voice within me as clear as a bell, don’t do it. But I wanted to, because it was going to be fun. So anyway, I had an episode. It was, you know, the air was very thin for me. All of a sudden, your heart always beats faster when you’re in the sauna. Anyway, anyway, I just all my systems went sort of screwy, and they quickly rushed me. The Mountain to in. They had all sorts of things hooked up and plugged into me and whatnot. And my good fortune was, I’m in the waiting in the emergency room, waiting to be seen, hooked up to all these things. The doctor comes in, and I learned afterwards, he happened to be a Zen practitioner, and he just stood there staring at me for a few moments, and he said, remove all that stuff. And it’s sort of by the power of his focus, knowledge and intention, in a way, and I guess my receptivity to that everything came into order. But I would, I will say, also, for a year afterwards, I couldn’t go up into high elevations without getting vertigo, so there was still that sensitivity for a while, but I heard that voice, and I remembered afterwards, it was a good lesson. So that’s how you get to learn what it sounds like. You don’t listen to every crazy idea that the mind creates. This comes from a deeper place.

Avi Gordon
So how often does that voice show up? I don’t count. But like, and also, have you found is it, is that relationship with that voice, does it enhance as time goes by? Like, does it show up now more than it used to in the past?

Swami Karunananda
Again, I don’t measure in that way, but I would say it’s the way I move through life, very intellectual, externally, very analytical. But the way I move through life is more feeling based. I feel it, I sense it. And that’s part of this. I guess you could say inner knowing of sorts,

Avi Gordon
is there is humility necessary, Absolutely,

Swami Karunananda
in fact, it’s interesting. You brought it up for me, the two outstanding requisites for spiritual life and profound growth are humility and faith. Faith, faith in your goal, faith in your teacher, faith in the teaching, faith in your practice, faith in yourself, faith in the process. The faith can take any number of forms, according to the individual, and then the humility to accept that. You don’t know everything, and not only that, you don’t even know what you don’t know you know, and with the trust of a child in a way that you will be shown and guided every step of the way as your unique path unfolds, because everyone’s path is unique,

Avi Gordon
it almost seems to me that the humility is necessary in order to have faith, right? It’s like when I when I really realize that I don’t know, yeah? Like, I really don’t know, yeah, the faith is like, right there for me, in that in that opening,

Swami Karunananda
that unknowing, yeah, sometimes we have to be pushed to the limit of our understanding to really find our faith in a more profound way. It’s like when the heart is overwhelmed, when the mind is confounded, where action needs to be taken, but all you see are smoke and mirrors and confusion. We turn to a higher wisdom, a deeper knowing for help,

Avi Gordon
for help. It’s almost, it’s so it’s a big deal. I think to be able to do what we’re talking about genuinely like, I think something inside of me even has to die. I would say, you know, like that part of me that takes my opinion really seriously, like my outlook on the world, and I know what’s right and what should happen all all of that, that is, I’m holding on to it very tightly, like that has to die, like, that’s a there’s that’s a death of something inside of me. It’s

Swami Karunananda
not inside of you. So it has nothing to do with what’s inside. It’s what’s running around in your mind. And it’s interesting. You bring up the term opinions. I think that’s one of the problems in today’s society. Everyone has opinions about everything, like you mentioned. You know how the world is connected more and opinions begin to masquerade as facts, and as we see, a web of confusion is fun. That’s what so the image that occurred to me years ago is that if you think of the wheel of life, each one of us is positioned at a particular and unique position on that wheel and based on where we are, which is based on our prior experiences and conditioning. We see things in a certain way. We have opinions about the direction that should be taken. So just picture this simple wheel, and let’s say the question is getting to the center. You’re here at North. I’m here at East. Based on our lives experiences. You say Swami, coronana, we definitely must go south. And I’d say, Avi, I appreciate your viewpoint, but you’re missing the point. We should go west. And then if we’re like everyone else in the world, we fight because we think we’re right, and it’s so important that we do that, and then what happens in the fullness of time? The wheel turns, because nothing stays stationary. So now you’re east and I’m south, and you go this, the same problem still exists, getting to center, and you say, Swami karunan, you were absolutely right. We should go west. And I say, Thank you, Avi for saying that, but I no longer think that’s the way we should go. We should go north. That’s I think that really describes what happens. Because our minds are not pure, clear vessels. They’re conditioned by all our prior experiences. And we go on that on to everything we experience. I like so much Swami Vivekananda description of perception. He compares it to an oyster making a pearl. The way an oyster makes a pearl is a little bit of grit or a little parasite, falls into its shell, and then the oyster immediately throws its own enameling around that to protect itself from the irritation. Perception is like that. The truth, the fact is, like something falling into our mind, all our past experience and conditioning is like the enameling we glom onto that. And then he goes on to say, all that we do know, all that we can can know through the instrument of the mind, are the pearls that we ourselves create our vrittis. This is another quote from him, are our known universe, and that’s why, when you think of it, even in those terms, the importance, the power, the meaning, the greatness of going beyond the mind becomes ever more apparent. To see things in truth as they are.

Avi Gordon
Yeah, I love it. Like, if you ask me, like, what do I know and how do I know it? Yeah, like, the things I really know, like, if can feel that, like, this is the truth, I think it’s only possible for me to really feel that way about anything when I am in that place beyond the mind and dwelling in that place, a message comes through, and it’s not mine, and just comes and everything in my being says,

Swami Karunananda
this is true. That’s the voice. That’s the voice we’re talking about. It has a certain tone. It has a certain clarity. It’s not aggressive. It just It just is. And

Avi Gordon
it’s like offering it as a gift. Serious truth is a gift for you. It’s

Swami Karunananda
an expression of ISness, not business

Avi Gordon
or busyness, but the. Conditioning itself, I think, has something to do with lack of humility. Like, I need to have this identity, this surety of my opinions, like this, like, okay, like, I know for sure that we should go north right now. You know, there’s no humility in that. But when I ask, like, Well, why is that? Because it’s so obvious that I don’t really know that we should go north most of the time, unless what happened, what we’re talking about, what happened, like that message comes through in a clear mind. But it almost seems like in order to fit in, we have to play this game of, like, really holding on to opinions and facts, and, like, pretending like, like we know it. And maybe it has to do with, like, covering up a fear that the unknown is scary, like that this world is so big, and I don’t really, I don’t know how I got here, and I’m not sure where I’m going or what I’m supposed to do. So in order to avoid that, I’m going to pretend like I really know

Swami Karunananda
I think knowledge of basic Raja Yoga is So much more helpful for navigating today’s world than people realize, especially the basic types of thoughts I’m thinking of two in particular now. One is misconception. The other verbal delusion. I’ve read that misconception is considered the most frequent activity in the human mind, in right knowledge, the first type of thought form, simply put, there’s something out there, and the Vritti that forms in your mind corresponds to it. So you’re looking at something, you think it’s a rope, and it is a rope, misconception. You’re looking at it, but you think it’s a snake, and it’s really a rope based on your prior past experience. That’s all pervasive. When you see it operative in your own life, you get a way to understand it in a bigger context, the context of the world, in the situations we find ourselves in, also verbal delusion. I think that’s the thought form for the modern era. It has to do with words not corresponding to reality. That sounds bad, but it’s also good. It’s bad in a way, when there’s lying, gossip, rumors, fake news, whatever. When we fall into one of those patterns, when we see the effect on us, we see the effect that we cause on others. When we get into those powers, then magnify that, multiply it, you see its effect in the world, okay, but good uses of this thought form when words don’t correspond to reality, it speaks of the creative power of the Divine within us. Every new creation, every invention, every plan, begins with someone thinking and speaking about something that doesn’t exist. It’s a portal. When we understand how it functions within ourselves, we can understand how it functions in the world, and how to use the power of the mind, the power of intention, to create peace, harmony, Healing, instead of discord, corruption, greed, plundering, whatever it all begins here the power of the mind to create so we learn about it. We see its effects, good and bad, within ourselves, with that as our basis. Yoga is all about using our own equipment as a laboratory, an experimental lab to learn about the cosmic laws, where a microcosm the universe is the macrocosm. The same laws are operative on both levels. We learn how it functions within us. We can see how it functions in the world and we. Be a more potent and useful force for good?

Avi Gordon
Yeah, I think this very much relates to what you talked about and what you shared when you were a child and you were going for a walk and asking the question, what do I want? What do I want to do? Because that, to me is that I need to be clear on that before I can do what you’re talking about. Otherwise, the mind is gonna go it’s just all scattered. But once I’m clear on where my allegiance is, yes, now I can look in and say, Were was what was just happening in the mind, useful for where you want to go. If not, then work with that, discard it, look into it, whatever I need to do in order to release it. And then use the mind in a different way towards the goal. But if the goal is not clear,

Swami Karunananda
right? Exactly what you’re talking about, the power of faith plus intention. That’s what I think. You know, there’s the saying from Tennyson where things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of and prayer also. Prayer is intention wrapped in faith. You know, it’s sending out a strong intention, whether it’s asking for something, thanking, praising, it’s a strong, heartfelt intention. The world moves on that. I’ll share something with you. Okay, this may sound Woo, woo, but I don’t care if we haven’t sound woo, woo. I don’t know if this is going to be fit for airing when we’re through, but I used to be a big Chicago Bulls fan. People even provided tickets for me to go to their games when they were playing the wizards in DC. Those guys, they transcended physical laws because I watched, you know, videotapes some of their moves. They had balls suspended in air while someone came and swooped it up. I just saw them do miraculous things. Anyway, Phil, what was his last name, Jackson? Phil Jackson was their coach, and he was a practitioner of Zen. I think he also studied Native American modalities. And before every game, the camera would usually pan the crowd and then focus on the coaches of the different teams. And after watching numerous games, I was able to tell from just looking at his face if the bulls were going to win or not, because he knew that’s what I felt. He read it, he felt it, and I don’t know, and it just it was clear as a day, and when I watch games now, like, what was the recent thing the NFL? The recent things, if you watch the guys on the field, I don’t know anything about football, but I shouldn’t be saying this probably, and I hope it doesn’t sound like I’m bragging, because that’s that’s not the point. But I can go before the TV, watch it for five minutes and tell which team is going to win, because their intention is stronger, their will is stronger. The other team may be favored, they may be bigger, but the team that you can see it in the player’s faces and in their body language. And the people who don’t give up, even if they’re behind, they don’t give up another verse from the Toru, most people give up on the verge of success. And the Dao De Ching puts it this way, most people give up on the verge of success, therefore give as much care to the end as to the beginning, and then there will be no failure. And you can see it. You know when you look to see it. You can see the will and the intention, and that generally carries the day. It draws the backing of the cosmic energy. It draws that backing. Look at us with the Atlantic Coast pipeline. It was like David and Goliath and. But our intention was so one, pointed and firm, absolutely, this will not happen here. And I don’t know if you know this, but we got the message that they gave up the project one year. Guru poornama weekend, as soon as all of our festivities were completed, on Sunday, a notice, a phone tree went out throughout the entire community, the project is dead. No one believed that people such as US would stop a big behemoth that was behind and it was the power of intention, the power of prayer. This is what I believe, the power of faith. And people here mobilize that

Avi Gordon
I wonder about humility and all of that too, though, because I think it has a role to play. So I completely agree, you know, that the intentions we set, yeah, you know, can be extremely powerful, you know, and even setting an intention and not needing to know exactly how it’s going to happen. But this, going to happen, but this is the intention, yeah, and I have faith that it’s yeah, that it’s going to open up, but I always need to keep Yeah, that part that says there’s more at play here absolutely, you know, because I watch sports all the time too, and I find absolutely fascinating what you’re saying. And I find myself having those, those moments, but I pay attention a lot, okay, and I’ve also been wrong, you know, because certain things can come in, yeah, you know that you can never have expected a fan can insult one of that players, and something got under his skin, and all of a sudden his world is turned upside down, or like a call that a referee all these facts, and it’s just like life, there’s more I can set the intention. Yeah, you know that’s where I want to go. But to think that I know for sure, for sure, there’s a very fine line there between still always like giving it to God, yeah, and holding both

Swami Karunananda
at the same time, at the same time, thy will be done, yeah? The little jingle I repeat inside myself, I am thine. All is thine. Thy will be done. Oh, I’m this tiny little thing. I mean, I’m talking fascinated here, and I’m getting animated, but because

Avi Gordon
the messages can come through pure in a moment where it’s powerful and knowing all that, but then I think the mind can take that and run with it, yeah, you know. And then it’s not no longer that thing. It’s that experience that I had before that I’m carrying, and my ego is using it, yeah, to prove a point or something like that. What if I can shift? I’m curious like, do you have an intention for integral yoga, for the future? What Swami sachidananda kind of birthed here and now we’re carrying forward? Can you share any intention you have for for the future?

Swami Karunananda
I don’t have an intention at this time, but I do have faith. I faith. I have the faith that he planted good seeds, and they will, they will bear fruit for generations to come, and those of us who are here now are entrusted to be good guardians. We’re just passing through, but I have faith this will continue for generations yet to come, that the teachings, the practices that integral yoga comprises, are so much needed in the world. They’re so comprehensive, inclusive, accessible, and we have the complete package, in a way, the physical, the mental, the emotional, the spiritual, and there’s a need for it. And I think if we continue on course, on track, doing our best, like the little chipmunk, God will provide what is needed. That’s my underlying belief. I’m

Avi Gordon
thinking about the wheel analogy that you gave, and like, if we’re on this point in the wheel where these teachings are very vibrant, important, influential. In our lives, right? And then there’s other people on different points of the wheel that are not aware, but could potentially also find great benefit in the teachings, you know, understanding and being aware that other people are at different points in this wheel than us. How do I relate to them, you know, and potentially offers in a way serve. I think about this in terms of the future for integral yoga, like our relation integral yoga is relationship with someone who’s never heard of integral yoga before. Right? Like, how to share offer in

Swami Karunananda
in the right way, I guess. Well, Guru Dev never was into proselytizing. You know, flowers don’t have to send advertisements to the bees. We repeated that many times, so just be available when it’s their time to connect with this, if this is the right thing for them, God has set out an enormous smorgasbord of paths to satisfy that spiritual hunger, if this is the right the right menu for someone at the right time, nature, the divine will bring them here and then offer, offer it. Offer everything, and let them select what’s tasty for them.

Avi Gordon
If you could go back in time and whisper something into, let’s say, your 10 year old self’s ear. What would you say to her?

Swami Karunananda
I don’t know. What would you say to your 10 year old self? I thought about this, relax.

I don’t know. Nothing comes immediately to mine. Yeah,

Avi Gordon
probably a good thing, because, you know, not reality anyway, but I find it to be an interesting question. No, it is, it is.

How would you like to be remembered? I

Swami Karunananda
It doesn’t occur to me to want to be remembered. What occurs to me is, how can I be useful in this moment again, we’re all just passing through so very important and so inconsequential at the same time, we’re part of a bigger plan. It’s not about us, it’s not about us, and we all are blessed if we’re given the opportunity to help others along the way.

Avi Gordon
Do you ever kind of find yourself getting caught in your person, kind of like making it about you, and then, do you have any kind of practice to remind yourself of this kind of deeper truth? Well, what you just said, I’ll share something with you.

Swami Karunananda
This is a little Woo, woo, okay, and we can edit this after. I don’t

Avi Gordon
know if we’re going to want to, but I want to hear,

Swami Karunananda
okay. So this happened within a year or so, I think after Guru Dev passed, and I was serving as Vice President of the Office of spiritual development at that time, and I decided to do a review of all our residential programs. We had a LIGHT Program, senior LIGHT Program, ashram yogi. I think those were the titles then. And I did a three months project, meeting with all the people, having survey questions, doing all sorts of analyzes and everything. And out of that came a revision of all our residential programs, and I would say, identifying four pillars for each the sadhana service, study and support. Those are the four pillars of our programs. So I’m sitting in my room in the monastery one night when it’s finally completed, and my mind is reviewing all that was involved in getting to this point. And then the ego showed up big time, and it started saying no one really knows. How much work you did. No one’s ever going to know how much work this was. You did this, and you did that, and then there was this, and you did that. And once I got on a roll, the whole litany to the beginning of time started rolling. And no one knows that you did this, and what you did there, and what you did. And I was on a roll, and as I was in the middle of this, all of a sudden I was facing the window. It was like a presence entered, came up and wrapped around me, and clear as day I heard right by my ear, hmm, the sound that Gurudev would make. So you’re the one that’s doing all this. And I covered my face in shame. I bowed over and I said, Gurudev, I am so sorry. Please forgive me. I know it’s all you’re doing. It’s all your wealth. And here I am after all these years, forgetting karma, yoga, 101, and then the presence unwrapped. It exited through the window. A little check in refresher course. Yeah, yeah, that’s what for

Avi Gordon
me, it happens all the time where I feel like I’m just checking myself, but the honesty, to me is the most important thing. Am I honest with myself about what’s actually really happening in my mind? Yes,

Swami Karunananda
that’s the first step of a spiritual seeker. I think embracing that self honesty, because without that, we can’t make progress.

Avi Gordon
Yeah? And then it’s okay. It’s just mistakes too, like, when something like that happens, like, okay, yeah, I got caught in myself, probably out of fear, you know, yeah, no problem.

Swami Karunananda
Take the lesson. Leave the blame. Yeah,

Avi Gordon
yeah. A strong message came through to me once that it was kind of similar. Message was like, there’s nothing to take credit for. Yeah, there’s nothing to take credit for. It’s okay. And since then, it’s really changed my perspective on the world, because now I notice how much there’s so much both good and bad, you know, just analyzing, you know, who we like, who we don’t like, just judging, judging, judging, and it’s kind of, it feels like a different way of living without all that.

Swami Karunananda
Yeah, and not only that, can analyze it another way, even you couldn’t have done what you did without eating the food that you ate, and look at all the people whose effort and energy went into producing and getting and preparing and serving that food for you, right? And then we think I did it right,

Avi Gordon
and it doesn’t even take that much analysis, yeah, to look back. That’s what I’m like, fascinated at different moments in life, like the one that comes to mind that you shared was when your friend said, oh, there’s this Swami teaching, right? Yeah, this friend. You weren’t even, you know, aware on that level, this friend. And it completely your whole life is different. And we all have moments like that, but we want to take credit for where we end up.

Swami Karunananda
Ego is. It’s a stinky little fellow. It will try to claim anything for its own aggrandization. You know, God gives you a gift of a little something, and immediately, yeah, it’s like that. It ruins the whole

Avi Gordon
thing. Yeah, we can practice. Thank you so much. Is there anything else you’d like to share? Say, No,

Swami Karunananda
this has been fun. Yeah, thanks for the time. Thank you.

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