Q&A with Swami Mukundananda

In our ancient scriptures the Samvaad or the process of asking questions to seek answers between the Vakta (speaker) and Shrota (listener) have been the foundation for passing on ancient wisdom and knowledge from generation to generation. In our Sanatan Vedic Tradition, for these Samvaad to take place the Vakta and Shrota had eligibility and qualification by the virtue of authentic knowledge and the deep thirst for it.

The progress in any desired stream of knowledge is possible by asking relevant questions and clearing our doubts from the right source and moving ahead in the proper direction.

We are fortunate that Swamiji not only answered specific questions put up by the participants but also enlightened all of us on certain key aspects of spiritual importance. All the participants who are part of various JKYog online sessions, expressed their deepest gratitude to Swamiji for bringing about transformation in many facets of their lives through his inspiring videos, messages and the host of numerous online sessions which have had such an outreach to global audiences in the current times.

The JKYog Academy which has been offering amazing content through its free online sessions with the support of its dedicated team of volunteers has in fact set exemplary standards of selfless service in uplifting the spiritual consciousness of aspirants. The sessions like JKYog Online Yoga, Daily Sadhana, Happiness Challenge series, Life Transformation Challenge series, Recharge sessions, Satsang sessions, Patanjali Yoga Sutras, Bhagavad Gita Study Session and many more cater to holistic growth of individuals. Being part of these JKYog online-sessions, participants have shared testimonials of their experience, how immensely they have benefitted and undergone inner transformation within such a short span of time.

JKYog Academy Online Sessions

Let us look at the various interesting questions and words of wisdom shared by Swamiji pertaining to them.

Q1. How do we prepare our mind during conflicting situations and to come up with the right decision?

Life is all about making the right choices. At every moment we have a choice, what to think, what to do? Your choices will depend on your knowledge. If you have the proper knowledge, you can make a more informed choice. Your value system. If you wish to choose well and don’t have the proper value system, it will not happen. So finally, your beliefs. Let us start from here. Start with this knowledge, what is the purpose of my life. Second is to be able to follow up with our values. That would require training and Sadhana.

Let us listen to Swamiji, how then to develop such values and beliefs that would enhance our decision making capabilities manifold.

Our Values make Us Who We Are | How To Make Better Decisions - Swami Mukundananda

Q2. God is one yet, why did so many religions come into existence in the world?

God is one but, in that oneness, there is infinite variety. Like, if you just check a tree, you will find that every leaf is different even though they belong to the same one tree. Similarly, all the souls in this world, they are all parts of God.

In the Bhagavad Gita Lord Krishna says: “One who views with the same vision, a Brahmin, a cow, an elephant, a dog and a dog eater, that is a person of knowledge”.

vidyā-vinaya-sampanne brāhmaṇe gavi hastini

śhuni chaiva śhva-pāke cha paṇḍitāḥ sama-darśhinaḥ (Chapter 5 , Verse 18)

So, within the diversity there is unity but within the unity, there is diversity. So, all souls are at different levels of realization in their journey which is continuing since endless lifetimes and that is why based upon the level of consciousness in a place, God sends a saint to teach them in such a manner that they would move ahead in their journey. So, no religion is actually teaching anything wrong, every religion is trying to help the souls upwards and forward based on the time, place, and circumstance in which that religion came into being. But at the same time, we have this belief that the Vedas are not describing religion that came into being one day. They are describing Sanatan Dharma. So, they don’t say we are teaching you Hinduism, they are telling you, we are teaching you the eternal knowledge. Just like God is eternal, His knowledge is also eternal. And when you access it, you find them so systematic, so scientific, so amazing. We are so fortunate in this culture to have access to this wonderful source of knowledge, which is teaching us the Sanaataan Dharma, the eternal religion.

Q3. What is the difference between Jaapa and meditation?

Jaapa refers to the chanting of the names of God. So, it is a way for taking your mind to God. It has been highly recommended in our scriptures and by the saints. The easiest way of taking the mind to the Lord is to take the name. You can do it while standing, while sitting, while walking alongside with all the activities. It is an easy way of remembering the Lord. However, very often people do Jaapa and they forget about the remembrance. So, it becomes a mere empty physical exercise.  That is why Saint Kabir said,

Maala pherat yug bhaya, phira na  mann ka pher

Karka manka daari de, mann ka  manka pher

He said, doing the Jaapa on the rosary beads, the whole age has gone by and the mind still remains the same. Now put down the Jaapamala and start doing the mala of the mind.

So, what Saint Kabir was emphasizing was that the mind is very important. Until you engage the mind, it will remain an external exercise. So Mahrishi Patanjali says,

Tatt jaapas, tadarva vaavanam

Whatever you do, create the bhaav, create the sentiment.

How will you take the mind to God while doing Jaapa, you bring the image of the Lord.You would have come across in the Daily Sadhana, the technique I teach is Roopdhyan meditation.

Let us delve deeper into this technique of Roopdhyan meditation and hear it from Swamiji himself about its significance and why it is so elevating and purifying.

The Ultimate Meditation that Brings Mind to Instant Focus

One of the participants Robin from Australia shared his sentiments.

My heart says, share this knowledge with everyone as others will get benefitted, mind hesitates to do that. What I feel and think is, they might not value it as much as I do.

Q4.What is the best thing to do and how do I overcome this attitude?

This knowledge is divine knowledge and it has two aspects attached to it. One is the theoretical aspect and the other, the practical aspect. Now if the theory is correct, then there is a greater chance of doing the practical in a more effective way.In this case the knowledge is so reliable, the divine wisdom, if you just accept it and implement it, it makes that huge difference which one experiences. It is a natural sentiment, that we would like to share it with others. It's like if you have come to know of a wonderful mango garden somewhere, you want to tell the others about it too.

But the problem here is that the knowledge is not comprehensible to everyone. If it were, the Saints would have taken all the souls with them to Golok. But so many Saints came, the Lord himself descended and it made a difference to the lives of a few. Because it’s not just dependent on the teacher, the student must also be ready. If the student is not ready and we share with them the highest gems of wisdom, it is possible it may be damaging to the student. That is why Saint Kabir said,

Heera tahan na kholiye jahan kunjaron  ki haat

Chaat se bandho potli chalo aapne baat

So, a great way to bring people on to this now-a-days is to share the videos etc. and then slowly the interest builds up and they start joining for a deeper study. The aim of JKYog is to distribute this knowledge, so if you are just helping JKYog with little seva here and there, your work is assisting in the dissemination of the knowledge. Just like the soldier in the army does not know military strategy, he just follows the General’s instructions, but his effort becomes beneficial for the nation. So similarly, all the JKYog volunteers, whatever little bit they are doing, is contributing to the distribution of this wisdom for everybody’s benefit. So that is one way you can help out by being a sevak, by being a volunteer and assisting.

The importance of Seva as a part of Sadhan Bhakti is elucidated by Swamiji in this video and let us all get inspired  to engage in selfless service to grow spiritually.

Significance of selfless service | Sadhana vs Seva | Balancing Service with Spirituality

One of the participants, Chitra Subramaniam who was part of the Life Transformation Challenge put it to practice sessions and who is also a Principal of an International School, was so inspired with this knowledge that she passionately took up the task of sharing it with her students and parents. Interestingly she did it outside of school hours for students from grade1 to 10. Her question pertaining to the experience she shared with Swamiji was,

Q5. The younger students are enjoying the meditation process so much but, how to inculcate this natural and divine intelligence in today’s teenagers?

Your spirit of taking this knowledge to the young ones is most commendable because they are in the foundation stage of life and whatever values we create in them makes such a difference to their entire journey. Your sharing of your experience of meditation with children is remarkably interesting because it only validates that children have such imaginative abilities. When it comes to visualization, they are even better at it than the adults and our technique of visualization as a meditation Roopdhyan, they are able to do it more easily than the adults .So ,this is such a powerful way for children to connect with God and those images that get planted,  form basis for devotion for life. Those children who have heard these stories and visualized them as Krishna, Radha, Ram, Hanuman, they get the paraphernalia for lifelong devotion.

When it comes to the youth, what is happening is by the time children come to the age of 12 years, a radical kind of shift in their belief system starts happening. One of the reasons for this is the educational system. When they are told the whole world got created by a bang, then they say, there is no God. When they are told we are a bunch of chemicals and there is nothing beyond it and science knows everything and whatever science doesn’t know is unscientific, then, they say there is no soul. These questions arise in the teenagers and in today’s culture they are not willing to blindly accept what the parents say. But today you have to be able to convince them.

Now fortunately for us, we do have the arguments in our Vedic tradition, such amazing arguments that if they are presented in a proper manner ,those teenagers will find that it makes sense, there is reason to believe .One has to have  the ability to convince them on the basis of logic.I have written a book called, ‘Essence of Hinduism’. The idea of this book is exactly this, to convince the teenagers and to convince those who did not grow up in this tradition about the beautiful knowledge here.

Essence of Hinduism

Watch the Most Eye Opening 12 Minutes for Students & Young People

Purpose Of Life by Swami Mukundananda

Through such inspiring and impactful videos by Swamiji, the younger generation can be motivated as these logical arguments resonate with their young minds.

Q6. Is God realization and love to God mean to detach from worldly things, then how can one fulfill their duties to their family, profession, and community?

Fulfilling duties is one matter, getting attached is another matter. Attachment means the object we are attached to or the personality has clasped our mind. Now, it's possible somebody is attached to her child while she is performing her duties in the office. Somebody is attached to the dog and is doing duties to the world. So, people have attachments in one place, and they are working in another. Veritably if they analyze themselves, they will discover most people’s attachment is to their family members and to the whole world they are only doing their duty. Now that duty gets polished up as etiquettes, the external behavior. This is what people keep doing all day long and the mind is clasping on to the few members at home.

Now God says don’t be attached to the family as well. You just do your duty to them like you are doing to the whole world. Your mind will then become free. With that free mind, then you can think of God. So factually if you can give up that attachment, you will discover that you are able to do your duty to the worldly people even better than before.

Let us then understand how to practice detachment while discharging all our worldly duties by contemplating on Swamiji’s words of wisdom.

Bhagavad Gita - How to Practice Detachment? | Q/A with Swami Mukundananda at IIM

Q7. Raising our children in a foreign country and the challenges around it, how do we make our children appreciate and value our rich Indian culture especially when our children are becoming adults. How should we face this and what should be our frame of mind if they are not acting in accordance with our expectations.

Well, if they did take to this wonderful path, that would have been so beneficial. But we must accept the reality. What to speak of Indian children growing up outside, even Indian children who are growing up in India have no interest in the scriptures, and in this knowledge that is the reality. So, you need to let go of these expectations. We must be willing to be flexible. Your job as parents is to give them the inputs, after that it's their life and the choices that they make. So, when the wind is blowing like this, where people are relegating spirituality, religion to the side, then we should not have these high expectations that our children will be different.

Remember, not to impose your values on them. You only let them know, and after that they decide their values. Give them the freedom to live the life they choose. Just like the birds, they create a nest with so much of affection, the eggs are hatched out, incubated. And when they are hatched, the mother and father get busy feeding the little chicks and the chicks grow bigger and they start flapping their feathers and one day they are outside the nest and onto the branch and then one fine day that baby bird takes a leap never to return. That is how life is. So, your foremost duty is to detach yourself, only then you can make your life a success. And when you share this knowledge, it's possible today they don’t find it appealing but when they come to middle age, they will start wondering, where is the happiness and they may also come to this path. So do not feel disturbed if they are not taking to this now.

Understanding our role as parents from Swamiji can help us to develop the right perspective and to move ahead in life.

The Biggest Role of a Parent in Raising a Successful Kid is this | Swamiji's Interview Radio Caravan

Q8.If the Vedas state that we have 8.4 million species and  we are constantly locked in this cycle of life and death, then why is there an increase in human population every year and related to this is the multiverse concept which is the multi universe and is it the case that divine souls from other universes are coming in to our universe and vice-a-versa.

Well when we talk about the souls increasing or decreasing, we forget that it’s not only the human beings who possess souls. The Vedas say the soul is the basis of life. Matter by itself is lifeless. So wherever there is this symptom of consciousness, the soul is present .In plants, in animals, in birds .That is why  the number of souls on our planet Earth itself is infinite and then this is not the only place where there is life. In this universe itself there are innumerable places. Science informs us that there are 100 billion galaxies and each galaxy has a 100 billion sun. So, imagine if there is a 100 billion sun and one out of 10 million has life, then there are still millions of places in this universe which have got life. So, the souls could be coming from a lower species. Like if a cow dies, that soul could be promoted to human form, the souls could come from the celestial abodes as well within this universe, from other lokas, they could also come down. Now the Vedas say, this is not the only universe, like this there are infinite universes. So, the multiverse theory that science has now started favoring since one or two decades has been there in the Vedas for 5000 years.

Loka loka prativinnah vidhata

Vinna Vishnu Shiva mannadrishi tatta

So, in those infinite universes this is one universe and within that one universe this is one loka the mrittulok the Earth planet. So, the scope of souls coming from all sorts of places is always there.

Q9. At the time of meditation, our mind wanders, and we experience so many negative thoughts and emotions. So how to overcome this and stay focused in meditation?

That is a problem with most people, the reason for the problem is simple. Our mind is made from the material energy maya. So, the material mind naturally drifts to the material world. It doesn’t require effort. Like if you throw something up, the gravitational pull will bring it down. Throwing it up requires the effort not bringing it down. So, taking the mind to God is strenuous work. Taking it to the world is automatic. So, if you find your mind is not under control, do not feel disturbed about it. Focus on the solution. That’s the important point. It’s very simple, there are two aspects to it.One is the theory, other is the practice. Acquire this knowledge as much as you can through the online classes, through the books that have been printed and then the second is the practice. So, the more you practice, slowly you will start gaining a mastery over it.

Swamiji beautifully explains it to us, how then to control our mind during meditation. In this video, by citing the example of a focussed soul like Arjun who too confessed to the Lord regarding this nature of the mind, Swamiji guides us how to hold the reins of our mind and to progress on this path.

How to control your mind during Meditation? Powerful focus technique by Swami Mukundananda

Swamiji's Concluding remarks for the benefit of everyone:

Mind mastery requires self-discipline and by practicing these online courses and continuing day after day, you are on the path of disciplining the senses and your mind. Satsang is extremely auspicious. ‘Sat’ means ‘’Truth” and ‘sang’ means “association”. That association that takes your mind to the truth is satsang. By joining the online session, you are in the satsang, the consequences then are, the faith increases, the interest, inclination gets enhanced and finally you get devotion or divine love. My heartfelt appreciation to all the participants, and also my deepest gratitude to the JKYog volunteers who have with so much of devotion and with so much of sincerity have been pursuing this as a service to God and Guru.