3 Cold Hard Truths from 28 Years on the Spiritual Path
Tales from mystical India
“Damian, aren’t you eating? Are you sick?” my mom had a shocked look on her face.
This was the first time she had seen me in over 2 years. She had just got off a plane from Australia to visit me in India.
I survived 7 years of living a monk-like existence in ashrams in India. I am still traumatized from living on minimal food, 6 hours of sleep a night (3.30am starts), the oppressive heat (and cold), my body constantly covered in misquote bites, in a hospital on a drip, no familiar faces and living at mercy of the guru.
These 3 short stories from my years living with swami’s (Indian monks) give learnings on how to live with ease and happiness.
Rich swami
Rishikesh is the spiritual capital of India. It’s packed with ashrams. All the wealthy gurus are here.
I had been living at the Swami Dayananda Ashram in Rishikesh, India for 2 years. I was studying Advaita Vedanta (a school of Indian philosophy) and Sanskrit.
There were always lots of swami’s from around India visiting the ashram. I would keep my eye out for the special ones — pure in nature and willing to impart helpful knowledge.
Once in a while, I would find one.
“If you pile up books on a table but the legs of the table are not strong. What will happen Damian?” asked Swami Brahmavidyananda, in a thick Tamil accent. I thought he was asking a trick question because the answer was so obvious.
I nervously grinned like a dumb teenager.
He looked at me like I was a simpleton.
“Won’t it collapse Damian?” he gently said.
“Yes”
“I have seen over many decades now young people study the highest spiritual knowledge India has to offer but it doesn’t work. They are emotionally immature, so they are unable to digest these subtle teachings.”
I was studying a non-dual Indian philosophy. Considered to be the highest philosophical knowledge. However before I left to go to India, I was getting angry at my mom for trivial things.
Emotionally, I was at the kindergarten level. But arrogantly, I considered myself to be above my real stature.
Spiritual seekers can be prone to trying to walk before they can crawl.
Clear up your emotional baggage before moving on to learning higher intellectual and spiritual truths.
Be honest with yourself, when you assess where you at in life. And strategically move forward from that point.
Lesson: Heal and resolve past trauma.
Egg swami
While living in Rishikesh, India I had become good friends with a young swami.
He loved to gossip.
“You see that swami over there?” Swami J gestured with his eyes for me to look to my left.
There was a ragged old swami in orange robes, standing out the front of a small café. He was twisting and turning his head around very quickly.
I wasn’t sure what he was looking for.
“Yeah I see him, so what?” I replied.
“He eats eggs!” my swami friends exclaimed.
I looked back towards the café and he had disappeared.
Swami’s takes vows to be vegetarian. This type of vegetarian is where you cannot, under any circumstances, eat eggs.
We went over and sat inside the café. Swami J brought over to our table some biscuits and chai.
The swami I had seen outside, had disappeared out to the back of the café to eat some eggs.
The café owner would hide swami’s who liked to eat eggs out the back away from prying eyes.
There is nothing wrong with eating eggs per se. But if you take vows to live a lifestyle that doesn’t allow it, then it is.
Lesson: When you have strong desires that don’t match with a major life choice, something needs to change.
The angry yogi
The way you treat yourself will determine the type of teacher you will attract.
I did a type of yoga that was aligned with a big guru that had its main yoga center in Maharastra, India.
The way he taught was strict and demanding. How we practice yoga is through pushing ourselves hard and with force. At times practitioners went beyond what we were capable of or wanted to do.
This teacher behaved dominantly towards his students. His teachings were delivered with a lack of love and compassion.
I had invested 5 years and thousands of dollars into doing teacher training in this method of yoga.
But the harsh truth was this teacher and style of teaching was reinforcing negative aspects of how I behaved towards myself.
- Doing things in my life that I didn’t really want. And feeling unhappy as a result.
- Pushing myself beyond my limits. And being emotionally and physicality tired
- Having critical and self-judgmental thoughts
My general demeanor was cold and ridged. Like this teacher. At work, I displayed dominant behaviors.
I failed the final teaching part of the teacher training. It was a blessing in disguise. As it provided me with a time to reflect.
- I didn’t like forcefully practicing yoga
- I struggled to relate to people because I was rigid and a control freak.
I always thought it was this yoga guru and other yoga teachers in this tradition who were having a bad influence on me. And I hoped THEY would change their ways.
But this situation had more to do with me. I went to this type of yoga because it fitted in with the way I negatively related to myself.
This was a light bulb moment.
As I then started doing things I valued and were best for my well-being.
Six months after stopping this yoga, I met a man who went on to be my yoga teacher and mentor for 8 years. He was a compassionate, loving, and kind man.
Lesson: You attract teachers and spiritual practices into your life that reflect how you treat yourself.
Swamis are a strange bunch. Living life on their own terms.
They reflect back to you aspects of yourself that you cannot readily see.
I learned life-long lessons from living with the Indian monks:
- The importance of healing my past trauma
- Ensuring my major desires and goals are aligned
- I attract those people into my life in the way I treat myself
For that, I am eternally grateful.
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