My Takeaways from the Spiritual Experiences of a Lifelong Monk 2024
Sacinandana Swami has kindly been sharing spiritual wisdom with the Upbuild community every April and May for the past few years through the medium of personal storytelling and Q&A. He recently completed his second series of “Spiritual Experiences of a Lifelong Monk” after having spoken with us about his near-death experiences (all of which were also spiritual experiences) in 2021 and 2022. All of these “episodes” are available here and here so you can watch all that you may have missed and rewatch them again and again to immerse yourself further in the wisdom Sacinandana Swami has shared.
After the last episode a couple of weeks ago, Michael noticed that I had been taking a lot of notes and asked me if I would share my takeaways from Sacinandana Swami’s 2024 series with our community. I was inspired by his request, so here we are. (For clarity, I won’t be retelling or summarizing the adventurous stories Sacinandana Swami shared with us, which I would encourage you to hear directly from the source himself at the links above, but my intent is to crystallize my takeaways from this year’s series on the “Spiritual Experiences of a Lifelong Monk” that are directly applicable to my life and hopefully to yours as well.)
“Stories are told to children so that they can go to sleep, and stories are told to grownups so that they can wake up!”
Sacinandana Swami shared this aphorism at a retreat Michael and I attended with him in Rishikesh, India in October 2023, it immediately resonated with everyone, and it’s the perfect frame through which to view the stories he’s been telling us about his experiences. He is trying to wake us up! Wake us up to the spiritual reality. And take concrete steps so that we may have our own such spiritual experiences. I find it beneficial and inspiring to view Sacinandana Swami’s storytelling in this regard.
April 10, 2024 – Divine Reciprocation
Now, for my takeaways. In his first episode this year, on April 10th, Sacinandana Swami shared the idea of “divine reciprocation.” That what you look for, looks for you. So, one’s ability to experience a divine presence is directly related to one’s search for it. And what gets in the way? Our egos. Sacinandana Swami shared a quote: “The intelligent man who is proud of his intelligence is like the condemned man who is proud of his large cell.” How is our pride keeping us imprisoned in the large cell of our material existence?
In response to Michael’s question about how we know something has come from God (as opposed to a mental concoction), Sacinandana Swami shared three parameters:
Parisanu – a direct experience where you see the Lord or the Lord’s hands (not necessarily in the form of hands, but his arrangements)
Bhava – a certain feeling that accompanies the experience of being touched by divinity, which is so palpable and so different than being touched by anything else
Vairagya – a healthy state of detachment from material life when you have such an experience
Sacinandana Swami then shared that the ultimate indication that something has come from God is that it always has a very transformative effect on the person who experiences it. In Sacinandana Swami’s case, the story he shared about surviving a near-death experience and seeing the hand of God in that experience made him very fearless in his life, and that fearlessness is still with him. As Sacinandana Swami concluded, “A spiritual experience at its core is about the transformation of consciousness.”
In answering a question Sacinandana Swami offered one more insight for those seeking our own spiritual experiences, encouraging us to spend more time in solitude: “Divine experiences happen when you have time alone with God.”
April 17, 2024 – Genuine Spiritual Experience
In his second episode this year, on April 17th, Sacinandana Swami opened with the question: “What is a genuine spiritual experience?”
He offered four characteristics from his experience:
It defies expression by words; it must be experienced
It has a noetic quality (an inner knowing, a direct knowing, that this is true, this experience is real)
It is short, but you remember it
It happens to you; you don’t make it happen (“you become a receiver, not an achiever”)
Sacinandana Swami shared a beautiful parable to illustrate this fourth point and the importance of preparing oneself to receive:
A monk asked his spiritual master, “What can I do to be enlightened?”
“As much as you can do to make the sun rise.”
“But then why are you giving me all of these spiritual practices?”
“I’m giving you these practices so that when the sun rises, you will be awake for it.”
In response to a question about what to do when our spiritual practices go through a “dry” phase (and we feel demotivated), Sacinandana Swami encouraged us to give up control. We’re so conditioned to think in terms of cause and effect, but that’s not how “the traffic rules of the spiritual world” work. He shared that spiritual practices usually go through three phases:
Get familiar
Work harder
Give up control
Finally, in response to another question about how not to get attached to admiration of others, Sacinandana Swami shared another important aphorism: “Praise is like a cup of nectar when given to one’s teacher, and like a cup of poison when drunk oneself.” Pass the admiration on. Acknowledge what you’ve been given. And recognize the giver.
April 24, 2024 – Blessings of Saints
In his third episode this year, on April 24th, Sacinandana Swami shared that we are often good at knowing what to do, but bad at doing it. There’s a disconnect between what we know and what we do. But the powerful blessings of saints can actually help us close that gap.
He shared three ways to receive the blessings of saints:
Offer our services to them
Put relevant inquiries before them
Cultivate a general attitude of submission and wanting to learn from them
Now, what if you don’t know any saints? I think if you seek people with genuine spiritual knowledge and experience, they will introduce you to saints. And if that feels intimidating, you can start by reading about the lives of saints with an attitude of wanting to learn from them, and put your inquiries before them in your mind’s eye and see what you receive over time.
The sacred Vedic text, the Srimad Bhagavatam, consists of 12 books and 18,000 verses, and there is only one verse that is repeated verbatim. That verse’s translation: “Even a moment’s association with a pure devotee [of the Lord] (a saintly person, in other words) cannot be compared to the attainment of heavenly planets or liberation from matter, what to speak of worldly benedictions in the form of material prosperity; association with pure devotees is the highest benediction.”
So, find those saintly people and associate with them. Even a moment with such a person can change your life.
May 1, 2024 – Not a Spectator Sport
In his fourth episode this year, on May 1st, Sacinandana Swami opened with the declaration: “Spiritual life should not be a spectator sport. We must make an experience of it.” The whole series has been attempting to wake us up to the need for us all to cultivate our own spiritual experiences. And as Sacinandana Swami has made clear, we must be active in the process.
In this episode, Sacinandana Swami shared what he called “his most transformative spiritual experience,” which happened in Tibet while circumnavigating Mount Kailash. I won’t retell the story which you can watch here, but a couple of sentences in particular struck me. Sacinandana Swami said, “I was filling myself with the admiration of others. I was committing the cardinal mistake of inflating myself.” I wrote down these sentences because of how often I do this myself. Fill myself with the admiration of others. Make the mistake of inflating myself, inflating my ego. And how strong Sacinandana Swami’s language was in calling it “the cardinal mistake.” It made me realize that I treat this mistake in myself way too casually.
For Sacinandana Swami, this cardinal mistake led to an experience that made it clear to him that he is not his body nor his mind. It was such a profound experience that he would never make the same mistake again. And he posed a question for us to contemplate: “What if it is true that you are not the body?” And later during the Q&A, another related question: “Who are you when everything that is not you falls away?” One could spend their entire life pondering these two questions alone, and it would be completely worth the discovery.
Later in the episode, Sacinandana Swami shared three reasons why people don’t experience spiritual growth:
They’re too busy
They’re too proud
They’re too complacent
What is your reason?
Sacinandana Swami also made the following comment about balance: “Your life is out of balance when you suddenly find yourself with free time and you don’t know what to do with it.” He was asked for his guidance by someone for whom this was true, and he said you need a prayojana — an ultimate spiritual goal. When we have an ultimate spiritual goal, we’ll have a long list of To Do’s in service of that goal, and whenever we have free time, we’ll be enthusiastic to tick through our list and make progress on our goal.
May 8, 2024 – Q&A
The fifth and final episode this year was dedicated to Q&A with Sacinandana Swami. He opened by revealing that “Spiritual experiences can be had by everyone. You simply have to look again with the eyes of spiritual knowledge.” And how do we look with the eyes of spiritual knowledge? Sacinandana Swami has instructed us to engage in the 3 Ps many times before: People, Philosophy and Practice.
People — Associate (actively) with people who are farther along in their spiritual journey and who inspire you
Philosophy — Read and study sacred texts, write down your questions and your doubts, and inquire humbly of the people above
Practice — Cultivate a daily spiritual practice, such as meditation, to connect with the reality that’s much bigger than yourself
At the end of the Q&A, I asked the following question: “Sacinandana Swami, you had shared that after your experience in the Ganga (episode #1) you had no fear. That line really struck me because most of us are not aware of how much fear we are operating with all of the time. Would you please share more with us about what it is like to live with the fearlessness of having realized the reality of a divine presence?”
Sacinandana Swami answered: “You can live from a place of no fear any longer when you don’t believe but know. As long as you only believe, you have a concept which you want to hold onto somehow or other. But the moment you know, you are resting your life on something that is not just a mental concept; it is something that has become part of you. I want to encourage everyone to [migrate] from the platform of belief…to the point of knowing.
“I have a simple practice which I wish to suggest to all of you, and something that can bring you to a level of fearlessness based on [your] experience and inner knowing. And that simple practice is to ask yourself from time to time, ‘What do I actually already know?’”
And then he gave some examples from his own life:
“I, Sacinandana Swami, know that when I read the wisdom texts of the Bhagavad Gita, it resets my mind in a different way from the resetting I experience from any other subject I put into the mind.”
“I know that there is a higher power that moves my life.”
“I know that inside my changing body…throughout all the changes which I undergo, I am there as a spiritual witness and observer.”
“I know that it’s good to control my mind when it’s impulsively acting…I become more happy.”
“I know that when I meditate on the mahamantra, it has a profound effect on my consciousness.”
He closed by sharing that just as doubt paralyzes us in our material pursuits, doubt also paralyzes us in our spiritual life. For the doubting soul, there is no fearlessness, and there is no happiness. So he admonished us, “Therefore, don’t [remain] a believer!”
I followed Sacinandana Swami’s instruction after the class, and this is what I wrote about what I actually already know:
I know that when I’m in your presence, Sacinandana Swami, I feel uplifted.
I know that when I receive a new spiritual insight, I feel more enlivened than I do with anything else I experience.
I know that when I’m in the company of bhakti yoga devotees, I feel their care and their love in the way that people are meant to be loved.
I know that I feel so happy when I’m with the Upbuild team.
I know that after the immersive experience of a spiritual retreat, I feel really inspired to talk with Krishna in my japa meditation practice.
I know that I want to read the Bhagavad Gita over and over again until I fully realize its wisdom.
I know that when I memorize a Gita verse in Sanskrit, I feel compelled to keep singing it again and again.
I know that when I’m sitting in kirtan, I sing with an abandon that I don’t sing with in any other context.
I know that my beliefs with respect to spirituality have changed a lot over the past ten years.
I know that some of what I would previously categorize as beliefs are now firmly in the category of knowing.
What do you actually already know?
If we track our answers to this question over time, we will be able to see our own spiritual journey more clearly. And we will likely be inviting more spiritual experiences into our life as well.
A Final Note
Sacinandana Swami shared peak, transformative spiritual experiences with us to wake us up to a reality that is different from the one that’s visible to our senses, the one that feels real and tangible to us, the one we’re so invested in. He told us that spiritual experiences can be had by anyone, but what he was really telling us is that they must be had by everyone if we want to go beyond the limits of our material existence. And he gave us many tips both to cultivate such experiences and to locate what is getting in our way. Now, it’s up to us.