Spontaneity, Enjoyment, and Service

Show Notes

Welcome to our weekly Satsang with Shambhavi podcast. Shambhavi and the Jaya Kula community gather for intimate, courageous, heartfelt, and often humorous conversations about spirituality, politics, culture, and pretty much everything. Published each Wednesday here and wherever podcasts are found.

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Shambhavi Sarasvati is the spiritual director of Jaya Kula, a nonprofit organization offering opportunities to practice in the traditions of Trika Shaivism and Dzogchen.

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Thanks for listening! And much love to you, wherever and however you are.

What is Satsang with Shambhavi?

Join Shambhavi Sarasvati for a weekly exploration of self-realization, death, love, devotion, and waking up while living in a messy world. Satsang is an ancient spiritual practice from India. It means "being in reality together." During satsang, people gather with a teacher to learn, ask questions, find community, chant and sing. Shambhavi gives satsang in Portland, Oregon and elsewhere. The dharma talks offered here are recordings of the live satsang.

Shambhavi is the spiritual director of Jaya Kula, a nonprofit organization. Her training is in the View and practices of Trika Shaivism from Kashmir and the Dzogchen tradition of Tibet. She is a householder sannyasini and a devotee of Anandamayi Ma. Visit jayakula.org for her full teaching schedule and more information.

Shambhavi's books include Mother Poems and A Crack in Time (2025), The Reality Sutras: Seeking the Heart of Trika Shaivism (2018), Tantra: the Play of Awakening (2012), Pilgrims to Openness: Direct Realization Tantra in Everyday Life (2009), Returning (2015), and No Retreat: Poems on the Way to Waking Up (2016). All of Shambhavi's books are available on Bookshop.org and on Amazon.

[music] Hi, this is Shambhavi.

Welcome to my weekly podcast about spirituality,
love, death, devotion, and waking
up while living in a messy world.

The Satsang with Shambhavi podcast is recorded
live each week with students of our
nonprofit community, Jaya Kula.

For more information and to find out
about attending a Satsang, visit jayakula.org.

Thanks for listening.

Much love to you wherever and however you are.

STUDENT: I have a question.
Today we were talking about karma and kriya.

I was just thinking how, like, all of my actions
that I have access to are just karmic.

Like I can see that, I can feel that.

I just have no idea what would kriya actually
feel like, or maybe what's the spectrum?

Or I know it's not like karma's gone,
now everything's kriya.

Like, there's little bits,
but I just have no clue.

SHAMBHAVI: Well, I can tell you
something about that.

When we're being more spontaneous and natural
and relaxed, so our activities are just happening
naturally without as much conditioning,

let's just say. The sense of urgency
goes way down.

There's much more of a sense
of you're meeting the moment.

You're just meeting the mandala of whatever
circumstance you're in.

And there's more of a sense of, I mean,
this is just my private language, but

a volume of life rather than a path or
a trajectory or trying to get
from one place to another.

It's more of a sense of a volume.

You know the way that mandalas
can be three-dimensional?

There's more of a sense of that,
that you're in this volume of circumstances,
like a mandala, and you're just responding.

Then the sense of space and time really changes.

I wouldn't say that I'm not experiencing linear
time, but definitely my experience
of time has changed radically.

Everything feels more oceanic.

You understand more about how things work,
so you understand more that spontaneity
is built into everything.

You just have that perception of the spontaneity
that's built into things, to circumstances.

It's not just you being more spontaneous.

You're just being more like reality
when you're being spontaneous.

And so the attachment to things like planning
and trying to fix and make
things happen also goes way down.

A lot of the things that propel people through
the days, through their days when they're more
conditioned, particularly by the sense of linear

time and a sense of urgency that comes from,
I think, a few different places.

One of them is that our culture just hammers it
into us or injects it into us
that we have to get somewhere, right?

But the other thing is the relaxation
of the sense that anything's wrong.

And I would say there's just more
enjoyment of the foibles of everyday life.

I'm not claiming to be an enlightened person,
but I'm just saying this does happen,
even if you're not totally enlightened.

Maybe you've noticed.
You've been practicing for a long time now.

Have you noticed any kind of relaxation
around these everyday things?

I mean, maybe it's not extreme, but...

STUDENT: Yes, here and there.
[laughs] But I'm not great about in my daily life

just like getting up, brushing my teeth,
going about my day-to-day, it does

really feel like autopilot a lot of the time.

Like, I've noticed, I guess,
sometimes just not feeling as rushed, where, like,
I have to get to the next thing,

or I have to check something off my to-do list.

SHAMBHAVI: Well, think about your level of
enjoyment of those small, repetitive tasks
that you do.

Like, when you go to brush your teeth,
you're using made objects.

You're running water.

You're tasting things.

You're hearing things.

It makes it easier if you have things around you
that you would already enjoy in ordinary ways.

Even if you don't, it doesn't
mean you can't enjoy those things.

I don't know what kind of toothpaste you have,
but, like, how it comes out from the tube,
and the shine on it, or the way it curls,

or the way it tastes, or the texture.

There's, in every minute moment,
there are things to enjoy the sensory way.

Or even just appreciate in a bigger way,
like when you have things around you
that were made with care and kindness.

I think that really helps, too.

When you can feel the goodness kind
of in different levels of the things that you're
using every day, even if you're using them

repetitively, there's more, like, a craft-like
feeling rather than a rote, boring feeling.

A big part of the enjoyment of God is aesthetic
enjoyment of all the colors, the textures,
and forms, and ways that things show up.

I've always been kind of attuned to that,
but definitely I'm way more attuned to it.

Now than I used to be.

But sometimes I'll just stare
at the grain in a table.

I'm not trying to do that,
it just transfixes me in some way.

So part of that is letting go of what
you think is important in the moment.

If you think planning your day or figuring out
what you need to do or working through some
problem is more important than enjoying the grain

in the wood on a table, then you're
gonna choose not to enjoy that grain.

That's the conditioning really.

There's a sense of which, like being
arrested by the variety and beauty of things.

And I've always been particularly attuned
to texture, so that's just my thing but, you know,
there's lots of other things to

get transfixed by or arrested by.

STUDENT: I think when you said the
slowing of time has changed for you, I do feel
like in those moments where it does feel

a little more spontaneous, don't feel rushed.

SHAMBHAVI: Have you put more things in your
living space that attract you, that magnetize you?

STUDENT: Yeah.
SHAMBHAVI: That's good.

I have this kitchen island that I bought,
and then I have all cooking equipment
on shelves underneath it, like pots and things.

Every time I look at those
shelves, I feel enjoyment.

Like, just looking at the roundness
of a certain pan.

I mean, every time.

I don't know how to tell you
to slow down and just enjoy that.

STUDENT: I do that with my knives
when I'm cooking.
SHAMBHAVI: Yeah.

STUDENT: Like, I love the feel of the wood
handle and like how shiny they are.

SHAMBHAVI: Yeah. Well, you should have
more things like that around you.

And that's another reason to have altars too,
'cause we make our altars beautiful.

And artwork and whatever we can have, but it
could be ordinary things too, like toothpaste.

You just illustrated beautifully
that when we have karmas running that are telling
us it's urgent to have a plan,

anxiety and urgency are kind of the same thing,
then we're off on this track where just being
there and enjoying things is on this other track.

How are you gonna have a better life?

Getting things done or enjoying things?

Like, do you wanna just be on your
death by going, I got it all done? [laughter]

Or do you wanna be on your death bed:
I really enjoyed a lot of this? Right.

STUDENT: That is actually really helpful.

SHAMBHAVI: We are so unimportant.

The stuff that we think is so urgent
to get done, it's really laughable. [laughs]

STUDENT: It is.

STUDENT: Doing things feels like being of
service to me sometimes, and so I'm just wondering
if you could speak more,

'cause I don't think that's what you're meaning
like that you're always gonna enjoy things
and that's separate from being of service.

But somehow in my head I feel like doing things or
finishing my to-do list is a way to be of service.

SHAMBHAVI: Well, doing things isn't
separate from enjoying things.

Let's just lay that one down.

[laughs] I mean, even if I'm enjoying
my toothpaste, I'm still brushing my teeth.

[laughs] We're always doing something,
and this is one of the lessons that Krishna
gives Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita.

You can't choose to not do anything.

We are gonna do stuff all the time,
even if it's just sitting there breathing.

We're gonna be doing something.

Our bodies are gonna be metabolizing something.

Our brains are gonna be sending signals.

We're here as doers.

But the question isn't what we're gonna do,
it's more how are we gonna do what we're doing.

And a desire to be of service is a good desire,

but it also feels like some sort
of moral imperative, which it's not.

The more you are like Lord Shiva,
the more awake you are,
the more you are going to naturally be of benefit

without having to think about,
without having to have a to-do list necessarily.

Although we might need one anyway,
but the more it just happens that you're
of benefit in very small ways.

Not necessarily big ways,
but some people have sort of the configuration
in this lifetime to do things in a big way,

but most of us are just doing small things.

But that is something that's gonna come naturally.

The real important thing is how we do things.

Are we doing them while we're feeling devotional?

Or are we doing them as a sense of obligation?

Or are we doing them with a sense of pride?

How are we doing things?

So we can brush our teeth in a devotional way.

We can be doing puja to our teeth
with our toothbrush and our toothpaste.

We can have the direct perception that everything
is that self, that solo self,

and we can be feeling a sense of wonder
and devotion no matter what we're doing.

We can be of service with the feeling of

the gracefulness of it, the beauty of it,
and just as an offering,

without any other thought about it.

If we're doing service,
it's not to get anything done.

If we're having the right attitude toward it,
we realize that the service
is being done by this self.

The people served are God.

The result of the service is just
that solo self having that experience.

There's nothing actually being accomplished.

So does that make it not worth it?
No.

Because this alive aware reality is just awash

in feelings of compassion and sweetness,
and that's what we're entering into.

We're entering into a feeling like that.

We're not entering into a mission
of being of service.

So when I urge people to be of service,
it's so that we can discover
that sweetness, that goodness.

Not so that we can accomplish any grand thing.

So it's the feeling of how you're doing it
and what you're getting in touch with while you're
doing it that is important,

and that can happen when you're doing anything.

I'm sure most of you have had this experience.

You feel a sense of enjoyment
when you mop your floor.

Not necessarily from the mopping activity,
but watching the water go on,
watching it, the clean happen.

Stepping back when it's clean and dry
and looking at it and feeling enjoyment.

That's what it's really about.

STUDENT: I'm still wondering where the feeling
comes from of wanting to exert oneself
as proof of service.

Like, that if I'm just relaxing, it's not enough.

SHAMBHAVI: Well, that gets back to feeling solo
without a feeling of completeness.

If you feel like you're separate, then that's just
another way of saying that you feel incomplete.

And just like people get attached to a romantic
relationship as a way of achieving completeness,
people also get attached to offering service

as a way of experiencing completeness.

So your feeling that you should be doing that,
where does that feeling come from?

It comes from the same urge as

anybody looking for anything to make them feel
okay, to make them feel like they're okay in that
very baseline way.

And we might all look to different things for that
but there's a few things that I think we have in
common that we use to try to complete ourselves,

not realizing that we already are complete.

You wanna feel good about yourself, right?

If you're just sitting around,
you feel not good about yourself.

And then if you go do something for somebody else,
you feel better about yourself.

That's an interesting situation,
because we could feel better doing service
for others because it gets us more in touch

with our innate sweetness and goodness.

Or we could feel better doing things for other
people because it assuages our fear that there's
something wrong with us or missing temporarily.

But I could have that feeling
of my own sweetness, and the sweetness.

I mean, I don't even wanna call it my own
sweetness, but the sweetness,
just sitting at home doing fuck all.

I mean, I often do that.

I just sit there, feel sweetness.

So it's not necessary to do good to feel it,
but it is one of our gateways to feeling
that innate goodness, innate sweetness.

Not that we're earning brownie
points to make up for a deficit.

Today, or yesterday I guess,
I was taking some trash out, and there's a new
tenant in my building who lives on my floor.

She's quite elderly and she's,
she uses a wheelchair.

She has an attendant.

I'd run into her on the sidewalk outside
the building, and she introduced herself and I
introduced myself, and I held my hand out

to shake her hand, and her attendant was there.

And then when we shook hands,
I just kind of held her hand for a while.

I wasn't thinking about it.

I mean, that's just what happened,
'cause I'm a hand holder.

But what was happening in that moment,
I wasn't feeling, oh, that's a nice gesture, or,
that's nice, or I did something nice.

I was just enjoying the sweetness
of the moment that I was having with her.

Just the goodness of it.

It's a direct experience.

It's not a thought about an experience.

I think it would be good to just sit in a chair or
on your couch or somewhere, and just see if
you can feel that without doing anything.

This is something I've been experiencing
since I can remember being born, really.

First memories of this experience of sweetness.

So it's really hard for me to imagine, like,
how to tell you guys about it [laughs] other than
to do it and then hope that you feel it

somehow when we're together,
and then can discover it in yourselves.

But you don't have to do anything.

It's unearned.

It's an aspect of who you are.

Since that moment with that neighbor
on the sidewalk

I think I've probably re-experienced it maybe six
times since yesterday, just because
of the sweetness of it.

And I have no definition of that.

I don't think anything,
I wasn't doing anything good.

I wasn't being of service.

[laughs] I was just being
in a moment with another person.

[music] Satsang with Shambhavi is produced by
Jaya Kula, a nonprofit community offering
opportunities

to learn and practice in the direct realization
traditions of Trika Shaivism and Dzogchen.

If you enjoyed listening,
please help us keep this podcast and many other
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