Yes! We are back with another Daily Reflection on the Daily Vedantic, and today's episode is on hope. And it probably ain't gonna be what you think it's gonna be, because hope in the Western world, especially in cultures dominated by Christianity, is seen as a good thing. But within Vedanta, hope is a mild form of anxiety.
It is a desire for some outcome in the future. And it is a selfish desire. Hope is actually something to be transcended, just like a desire, a selfish desire, and any other realm within our lives. The goal is to transcend it.
But it's actually in Bhagavad Gita. Renouncing all actions in me with thoughts resting on the self. Me being the self. The supreme.
The vast. Brahman is often the name given to the infinite. The divine. The supreme.
God. And yet Brahman is just Sanskrit for the vast. Krishna, the charioteer, talking to the warrior prince, Arjuna says, Renouncing all actions in me. He's the symbolic embodiment of the divine.
The infinite. With thoughts resting on the self. The self being the divine. Infinite within.
And without our individual self. Who we really are is the cosmic, universal self. Free from hope and attachment. Fight without mental fever.
This is the charioteer talking to the warrior prince that has just completely broken down. He's the world's greatest archer and he can't even pick up his bow because he is so fraught with fear and anxiety. With interrupted desire for what he wants to happen. It does not feel like it's going to happen.
He wants to win this war and he and his brothers, five brothers, are fighting 99 evil brothers who are their cousins. It is righteousness fighting what seems like an unwinnable battle against unrighteousness. And he wants to peace out. His hope and all of our hopes are mild forms of anxiety.
Anxiety is greed. His desire. Potentially interrupted. This hope that we're going to win is a personal, selfish desire for some outcome that you feel like you'll benefit from.
So the idea that it's, that we are hopeful that it's all going to turn out well. Hope that God comes and helps us that whatever divinity you're praying to is going to solve the problem for you. That is antithetical to two major, major principles within Vedanta. One, to be self-sufficient.
To not lean on some cosmic, ornate design that's going to save you from your situation. But for you to save yourself. To do that, it is a whole lot of reflection, a whole lot of questioning. A whole lot of discovering who you really are.
And that is the philosophy of Vedanta. And two, every time someone mentions hope, they're talking about a selfish desire that they have. And that selfishness is the root of all agitation and all suffering. So their attempt to transcend suffering is by holding on to the very burning coal that is causing them suffering.
To transcend it, you have to let it go. To transcend the scenario in which you're hoping you're going to transcend, you have to let go of whatever desires we have for certain outcomes. Especially those that are egoistically driven. Just driven around, how do I make sure I turn out okay?
Or this scenario happens where I get this promotion. Or this thing happens for work that saves my company. I hope that I find someone special. These are all mental reinforcements of selfish desire.
It is the root of our suffering. That's the Buddhistic Four Noble Truths. All life is dissatisfaction. Sometimes translated as suffering.
All life is dissatisfaction. And all dissatisfaction and suffering is caused by desire. This is one of the oldest concepts under the sun. And yet, our antidote, especially here in Los Angeles, is let me grip on tighter.
Let me hope, hope, hope. Let me pray. Let me utilize every resource I have to reinforce this desire, this selfish pursuit. Krishna is saying, renouncing all actions in me.
Meaning the self, because Krishna is the symbolic embodiment of the self. Free from hope. Free from hope. Not full of hope.
Not hopeful. But beyond hope. Oftentimes, hope is confused with faith. Faith.
And a deeper version of this would be shraddha. Shraddha means a determined faith. Meaning that you don't just have this faith in what you can't see just yet, but a determination in bringing it about. A participation in that faith.
A participatory faith. That can be beautiful. In fact, that is absolutely needed in our spiritual and practical lives. But that is very different than hope.
I'm in the bottom of a well and I just hope someone else is going to get me out. Determined faith is, okay, I don't know how I'm going to get out, but I'm going to put one foot in front of the other. I'm going to put one hand on each stone. I'm going to do everything Arjuna and his four brothers.
They look across the battlefield and see that they are massively outnumbered. They were all excited for this battle to happen. And when they had notions of being outmanned and then when they're shown just how outmanned they are. Arjuna freaks.
That enthusiasm, that excitement, that faith went by the wayside. When he made it as personal, hope-filled, anxiety-ridden pursuit for selfish gain, he folded like a lawn chair. Faith is the antidote for even needing hope. Shraddha is that determined faith, that determined belief, that participatory belief where, okay, I don't know how this is going to work out and we are absolutely outnumbered.
I'm going to do what I ought to do completely detached from the results. Not needing to know how I'm going to benefit. I'm just going to do what I ought to do and we'll see what happens. As they say in the military, hope is not a plan.
In fact, it makes for the worst type of plan and the worst type of preparation when you think some external force is going to come along and do it for you. No one would or should go into a battle thinking, you know what, we didn't need to prepare. This is all just going to work out. I've run companies like that where I was running on Hopium just thinking, I just think it's going to work out.
It's, yeah, we prepared, we put a little bit of our effort into it but I just have a good feeling about this. That is a disaster waiting to happen. And to round out this episode on hope, I'll touch on one of Swami's favorite quotes, which is, to expect the worst is pessimism. To be prepared for the worst, that is philosophy.
Hope is the antithesis of preparedness, of philosophy. You can have a determined belief but that determined belief is not set on requiring some outcome that you've outlined for your personal benefit before you can be happy or needing certain things to go a certain way and hoping that some cosmic force will just make it happen because you want it that way for your own personal gain. That is a recipe for disaster, a recipe for dejection, depression, sadness, frustration, and anxiety, all starting with its mild cousin, hope. That's today's reflection on the daily Vedantic.
And if this doesn't hit you in a really comfortable way, I will say that so much of the time we consume media, we read something for confirmation, for what we already believe, what we already think. But the timeless principles are not to be consumed that way, read that way. They are read for transformation, not confirmation. Which means they'll hit you and it might feel like a square peg in a round hole that just doesn't fit.
And it's because it doesn't. Not yet. But try sitting with it for a while. Kick the tires, question the hell out of it.
See if it applies to a situation or two in your life. And over time, maybe it's the only thing that fits. We'll see you next time. Thanks for listening to the daily Vedantic.
This reflection is part of a free repeating two-year course in Advaita Vedanta. Rooted in the timeless wisdom of the Upanishads, arguably the oldest philosophical text on earth, you can begin with episode one, which gives the 15-minute overview of the whole philosophy of Vedanta. Or you can join the journey with any episode at any point. But the critical aspect of this course, of understanding and mastering anything, is to study and reflect, even for 10 to 15 minutes on the timeless each day, preferably at the start of your day.
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