Embracing Calm Equanimity
Namaste, and heartfelt greetings to the SRV Sangha and its many friends and supporters:
A message for any issue of Munda Mala is always a joy to write, for one of the best aspects of life entails finding and experiencing an authentic Guru, sincere aspirants, and dharmic teachings along the spiritual path. Lord Kapila, early on in our tradition, pointed out this trio (guru, dharma, and sangha) as three of the Eight Great Accomplishments. Tibetan Buddhism, more contemporary, calls them “The Triple Gem.” If you have them, you are both fortunate and oriented towards divine life.
One of the long-standing slogans of SRV, coined early on, states “I said dharma, not drama.” It came to me while working with people as a spiritual guide along the path for over thirty years now. So much of trauma, so much emotionalism, so much sensationalism festers here in the West. The Zen Buddhists and the Vedantists both have teachings around overcoming emotionalism. In Zen, the person caught in this trap is said to have contracted “Zen sickness,” called “Zembyo.” In Vedanta, the Sanskrit word that indicates the happy absence of this odious and debilitating presence is “akshobha” – defined as emotionless, undisturbed, and free of agitation.
In the societal, psychological, and humanitarian circles of the day, it seems that one must have and demonstrate emotions in order to prove that one is a human being. In spiritual circles, however, mastery over emotion and the attainment of even-mindedness in all matters proves one to be divine. It is time for all of us to leave behind the overwrought, upset, teary-eyed hell of the unripe mind and ego and embrace the calm equanimity that is identical with the nondual atmosphere of the Soul. Only then will spiritual growth be at all possible.
For, how can harmony and a well-balanced happiness ever come to individuals with turbulent minds, to families who fight amongst themselves constantly, to politicians who contend bitterly with one another in a search for power and fame, to a society that allows violent war and its horrific karma to continue to exist, and to a narrow, fundamentalist religion that supports such violence in the name of a victorious personal God?
All of the above-mentioned aspects of worldly life are blissfully absent where guru, dharma, and sangha are the focus. Each spiritual circle that maintains itself and its salubrious operations in the face of these backwards perspectives is a living model of how to conduct divine life, and is therefore both a prime example and a revelatory solution to all the ills of relative existence.
When they are born, consciously, on Earth, taking up a human body, the luminaries beat a swift and hasty path to the spiritual preceptor that suits them, and who reminds them of the crucial nature of remaining close to the dharma, and to like-minded souls. Such has always been the case, throughout the ages, and in all the different religious traditions of the world. We are not talking about politics and its dirty scheming; we are not referring to the intelligentsia and their dangerous meddling with physical matter; we are not speaking of pleasure-loving societies where time is callously wasted, waiting for the onslaught of war, suffering, and death. We are pointing to authentic spiritual life, pure and natural, and its benefits untold, and to the recent expression of it with the advent of the Kali Avatar, Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa and His precious spiritual family – now totaling some five million souls and counting.
There is war, all-consuming and all-destructive. But there is also “The Peace that passes all understanding.” Where true sanity still exists, the choice is obvious……
Om Peace, Peace, Peace.
Babaji Bob Kindler
Spiritual Director
SRV Associations