What’s your ‘shraddha’?
Over recent years I found reading to be a great aid in my personal exploration. Having read a great number of books by different authors from many parts of the world and from different times I now see the common themes running through them all..
One of the most important things to do when reading from a multitude of different sources is to translate these texts into our our language. As an example Thich Nhat Hanh the great Buddhist monk, when talking about resolving marital problems, writes In Anger; Buddhist Wisdom for Cooling the Flames..
" My darling wife, I see that you suffer and because you suffer I also suffer. It may be wise for you and I to talk together about our suffering"
Now I don't know about your partner but, if I was to say that to my wife I can only imagine the strange look I would get. If I translate this into my own language though it might read something like
" Listen love, I can see that your head is done in and because your head is done in that is doing my head in. Do you want to talk about that?"
The concept that I want to talk to you today about is 'Shraddha'. It's a concept from The Bhagavad Gita which is an ancient text on Indian Spirituality. Literally translated it is as such "that which is placed in the heart": all the beliefs we hold so deeply that we never think to question them. It is the set of axioms, prejudices, and prepossessions that colours or perception, governs our thinking and shapes our lives.
The Gita goes on to say our "Shraddha is our very substance" and "A person is what their Shraddha is"
There is nothing passive about shraddha. It is full of potency, for it prompts action, conditions behaviour, and determines how we see and therefore respond to the world around us.
Our shraddha is the power to heal or harm that is inherent in our ideas of ourselves.
This is all well and good but where does our shraddha come from? Well, my work has led me to now understand that our shraddha, or our beliefs about ourselves, are in fact learned through our environment i.e. how we were taught to adapt our authenticity to maintain attachment to our relationships that were important for survival.
So when we look at our early relationships - the ones that helped us survive as children, usually our family of origin, we can see how our shraddha was developed. Were we taught to be shy, or to people please, to say 'yes' so as not to offend, to retreat instead of expressing ourselves?
These adaptive behaviours then become our personality and follow us in to our adult lives and, when before they helped us survive; now they prevent us from engaging fully in the world.
Have you thought about you shraddha? Have you ever heard yourself say 'This is just the way I am?' Is 'the way you are' serving you right now? Would you like to understand
your shraddha a bit more?
I ask you these questions because I have found asking these questions of great use. They can be painful to ask in the short term and very liberating to understand in the long term.
If you are interested in your own personal exploration please drop me an email - I'd love to share some book titles with you. In my experience coming to 'know thyself' is a wonderful way to get so much more from the world we live in.
Here is to you and I would very much love to hear your thoughts on anything I write.
much love
Kev