Vedanta provides an answer to many existential questions about our self, our world, and the Ultimate Reality behind both. This knowledge can guide and support our spiritual quest. Truth is not realized, however, by just acquiring knowledge. Knowledge can at best only undo our ignorance. Truth must be reached by living in that knowledge. That is, the Truth proclaimed by the knowledge should be constantly in our mind’s vision even while engaged in worldly activities. Vedanta, we may say, should be constantly working inside us like the operating system of a computer. The operating system works silently in the background as the computer processes multiple-tasks. The tasks typically relate to problems of the world unrelated to the computer. A good operating system would enable the computer to complete its tasks efficiently and without suffering any unintended damage to the computer itself. This is what Vedanta can do for us. It enables us to perform the tasks presented by the external world efficiently but without bringing suffering upon ourselves. “Yogaḥ karmasu kauśalam”- efficiency in action is yoga, says Gītā (2.50). The key to doing this is to always remain aware of the Truth while seeing the world and interacting with it. As sage Ramakrishna often remarked, a young mother is always aware of the whereabouts of her infant baby while busy doing other things in the house. This comes naturally to the mother. Remaining aware of the Truth while engaged in worldly activities should become equally natural to the spiritual seeker. This is a colossal task requiring a major overhaul of our usual “Operating System”.
The default Operating System we habitually use -in which we falsely identify ourselves with our Body-Mind-Intellect complex- has many grave vulnerabilities. The system may work well and keep us calm and collected in the company of noble souls, when listening to a Sunday morning sermon, or when alone in our room in meditation. But it is less dependable when interacting with a complaining spouse, rebellious teen, autocratic boss, or some officious bureaucrat. In such situations the system can fail causing the B-M-I to crash, leaving us frustrated.
You cannot, however, avoid transacting with other people in life. It is not easy to keep calm and poised through all the worldly encounters unless we adopt a vastly different perspective to look at the world. We need Vedanta as a guide not just for achieving moksha, or release from the world in some future date; we need it right here and now to cope with the daily life too. A principle we learn from Vedanta is that the world, with its many people and things that we encounter, is totally governed by nature’s laws and Īśvara’s will. This knowledge should be constantly working within us during our daily transactions. There should be the awareness that behind all voices heard there is but the voice of Īśvara and behind all actions performed there is just one actor, Īśvara. In this view of the world, there is really no multiplicity of people to deal with. There is only God whose will is manifested through everything and everyone you meet. A person fully functioning with this understanding does not search for God. That jñāni remains ever in peace seeing only God in everything, everyone and everywhere. “There is only One Will, One Voice and One Actor” is the mantra that should be sounding in the back of our mind as we contact the world, no matter how harrowing the contact may happen to be.
This is no doubt a steep mountain to climb. Nevertheless, we could start somewhere in the gentler foothills. We could begin this practice at a more comfortable setting, namely while watching TV for entertainment. We may call this practice as the “TV Yoga”. We are not talking of TV shows where they teach difficult physical postures. All we need to do in the suggested TV Yoga is to watch our regular shows but with a different mindset. Its purpose is to make us adept in one of the highest yoga there is: “sakshi-bhava” or the abidance in the witnessing-self.
A TV Yoga for the Digital Yuga: Suppose you are watching a movie with an emotionally gripping story. There are heroes and villains, tragedies, thrills, and chills to fill for two to three hours. Soon you find yourself sympathizing with a helpless young mother on her misfortunes or getting angry at the bad bullies for their despicable behavior. You laugh at times, cry a bit at other times, and nervous at all times that something awful is about to happen. You experience happiness, fear, anger, and every other emotion in the book. Should the movie end with the bad guys celebrating, you feel cheated and criticize the playwright and director. Your reactions to the movie are personal, reflecting your particular life experiences and the impressions they have left in your mind. The emotional roller-coaster is caused by your unconscious identification with the persons and events in the movie: The stronger your identification, the more pronounced your reactions. The more pronounced your reactions, the more memorable that movie is to you! Normally this is the way we watch and judge a movie.
Now, watch the same movie while consciously remembering constantly that it is a movie and that, contrary to appearance, the actors in it are neither heroes nor villains. They act as good and bad characters only as directed by the director. Every word they speak, every gesture and every action they perform is as per the director’s instruction. With this understanding working in the background of your mind, see the same movie. You will now see and react to the show very differently. You will be constantly aware that everyone is only an actor. You will focus on how good (or otherwise) their acting is irrespective of the act itself. You will not get angry at the outrageous deeds of the bad guys, nor shed tears at the humiliation suffered by the good guys. You will not judge any actor by the role he or she is playing. You know they could all be equally good people in their own life. You will not blame the director if the plot in the movie seems to reward injustice or the story ends on a wrong note for you. You know it is all part of a play and that you must respect the director’s choices for the storyline. You will judge the movie the way professional critics do: How well it is directed, the quality of acting, how engaging the story is, and how entertaining it is overall.
Once you have practiced watching movies with this mindset, try to do the same while watching a documentary or news report or political analysis of current events. Here you are likely to see people in action whose views you sympathize with as well as people you are opposed to. The TV news channels present many programs of this genre these days. The heated and at times acrimonious debate among political “pundits” with starkly different opinions are a staple of TV offerings today. Depending on how much you are attached to own intellectual opinions, you can get overworked emotionally by the aggressive self-righteousness and incivility that are hallmarks of these debates. You may find yourself clenching your fist or biting your lips in the heat of the moment. It is not overall a good experience and sadly you may not learn anything useful for all the excitement and noise endured.
A spiritually challenging practice is to try to watch such TV shows as though it is also a pre-scripted show. All life is in fact a play scripted and directed by Īśvara. When we see different people espousing and pursuing opposing goals, we must know that they are but actors who are following a script which leaves no room for adlibbing. They are only playing their assigned roles. Their actions follow the plot and serves the purpose of Īśvara. There is no need to either approve or disapprove of anything anyone says or does. Whatever happens is meant to happen, and nothing happens that is not willed by Īśvara. We simply witness it as we would witness a play being presented for our amusement. It does nobody any good to react emotionally to what we see.
There are good and bad characters in any fiction, but the author loves them all equally. After all, the author knows that both the good and the bad are needed to weave a compelling story. Every character follows only the roles the author casts them in. So too, for Īśvara, the author of the creation, all creatures are equally dear regardless of their character. As the Lord says in Gītā (9.29) “The same am I to all beings; to Me there is none hateful nor dear”. That is exactly what we should do too: Not to hate, judge or unduly adore anyone.
If you are an actor in a play and playing opposite to a dear friend who is cast in a role as your bitter enemy, you can show anger or act against your friend as called for by the script. But at no time will you harbor any real anger or animosity towards him. Instead, while showing anger outwardly, you have only love and respect for your friend and fellow actor.
This in brief is the “TV Yoga” recommended as a useful spiritual exercise to gain the necessary mastery over mind. It can be practiced comfortably any time we are watching TV (or reading a fiction). It may sound easy but do not presume it is a trivial exercise! You will find that it needs genuine effort on our part. It requires us to remain ever alert and vigilant so that we do not fall into the old habit of identifying with what we are seeing. We will slip and fall many times in the beginning, but progressively less so as we continue the practice. When we do fall, we will have to learn how to refocus our mind. In this sense it is not unlike meditation. We can do a self-evaluation to see how often we lose our focus and relapse into identification with the seen. Granted, experiencing real life is not like watching TV, but this Yoga practice can nevertheless help us face situations in our life without getting agitated or overwhelmed. With continued practice, we will more readily remember that we (or more correctly, our Body, Mind, and Intellect) are one of the actors in Īśvara’s play and that the other people are also actors of equal importance. Each one is playing his or her assigned role and as directed. With this thought working in our background, God is always in our thought. We will not hate anyone for their role nor blame anyone for whatever happens in the world. We will learn to stay a witness to this play watching ourselves act as willed by the director. This does not prevent us from actively opposing evil that we may see in the world from time to time. But we will know that the evil is not in the actor but in the action. Therefore, we will find a way to love the sinner while actively opposing the sin. Further we will be a calm witness to whatever actions we find ourselves performing without falling into the false notion of doer-ship or acquiring the self-conceit of being a virtuous person opposed to evil.