Diana talks with Swami Satyadharma Saraswati in our house in Bela Rechka
I had the great honor of being her student at the European Satyananda Yoga Academy. In May 2009, she visited Bulgaria for the first time as a lecturer at the European Yoga Academy and gave three lectures and practices in Sofia on the topic of meditation.
I took her on a walk to the mountain around Bela Rechka and to our house. I was a rainy May day. . My father was still alive and treated her to wine from the cellar in the yard. Aunt Deshka had cooked vegetarian rice with sorrel. We sat on the porch while hailstones pelted down outside. This conversation is from that time.
Swami Satyadharma Saraswati was an Acharya (senior yoga teacher) and Director of Yogic Studies Courses at Bihar Yoga Bharati, the institute for advanced yoga sciences in Bihar, India. Born in the USA, she was practicing yogi and yoga teacher. For 30 years she has been teaching yoga in India and many countries around the world at the express recommendation and blessing of her spiritual teachers Swami Satyananda Saraswati and Swami Niranjana Saraswati in India. She passed away in 2019.
Why is simplicity important in life?
Because we used to be simple and because this simplicity is in our nature. And because when we were simple and ordinary, we were also happy. We didn’t think we needed as many things as we feel we do now. Now we have lost ourselves. When we were simple, we had ourselves, our unity with ourselves and the community around us. But now things have become very complicated. We think that we don’t have enough, and if we don’t have enough, then we are not good enough. Other people have more than us, and we must have it too. And when we think like that, all our mental energy goes out, searching for this or that. And we never find what gives us happiness and satisfaction. This constant searching will drive us crazy, but it will never make us happy. But we used to be different, simpler, and we can go back to that time, see it in a new way. We used to be happy. So we can be happy again. Let’s try to simplify our lives. Simplicity is also a sign of spirituality—look at monks and nuns—they live simply, they have devoted themselves to having less. To living simply. Which makes the mind simple too.
Is simplicity a goal in yoga or a method for achieving the goal?
Simplicity is a quality. It is neither a goal nor a method. A quality of the mind. A quality of our personality. To develop it… Look, the people in this village, for example – they don’t have all these opportunities that distract the mind, they can’t become too complicated, and their life is simple, ordinary. But people in cities have all the opportunities, all the variety. And then they have to make decisions. And then they can realize what is simple and what is complex. And when things get too complicated, they have to go back to simple solutions. When they start to possess too much or when they identify too much with the outside world, they have to return to simplicity in order to understand what they really want.
Many people, even when they come here, really like the simplicity they feel here, but they don’t know how to go back, they don’t know how to achieve that for themselves. Are there certain, I don’t know how to say it – rules maybe…
It’s good to have good examples. To have around you a connection with people who understand and who also strive to make their lives simpler, to return to what they were. There are many reasons why a person should live simply. Living simply is an art. Through it, you can understand yourself much better, find inner peace, a deeper meaning that people who live their lives only outwardly cannot find. So it is important. It is especially important in a place like this, where there is a smaller population and a lot of natural beauty. So if a person becomes simple, they will become much richer because of all the natural resources around them that are still accessible to the people here.
How can yoga help us on this path of returning to our own simplicity?
Yoga teaches simplicity. In yoga practices, you learn to be aware. Only when you have awareness can you have discernment regarding simplicity and complexity. If you don’t have awareness, how will you know whether you want your life to be simple or complex? Take, for example, the woman who prepared our lunch (a woman from the village treated us to rice with sorrel and yogurt and pumpkin pie). She is a very simple woman. It’s not that she doesn’t understand things and ignores them; she is intelligent in her own way. She knows a lot. But she has not had the opportunity to understand how complexity develops and what the difference is between complex and simple. It’s just that her circumstances were like that. And take another example of people in the cities that you know, yourself for example. Life is much more complex, you live it with much more variety. Why? Because you follow what is happening around you, and that is much more. And you follow it. Why? Because everyone else is doing it, so I will too. And we think that this is necessary for a good life. We are not aware of what we actually want and what we need. We don’t think about it, we just do it, almost automatically. From activity to activity, from job to job. And then, yoga comes at a certain stage in our lives, at a certain stage in our evolution, and tells us, “OK, keep doing what you’re doing, but be aware of it, see how you do it every day, every minute, try to understand the process, just be aware of what’s going on.” And then, when you can develop that awareness, you have a choice. Only then can you make a choice. The normal, ordinary person does not have that awareness. Like the woman who cooked our lunch. She couldn’t make that choice. She couldn’t choose the life you have in the city, she just couldn’t. Her circumstances limit her to the simplicity in which she lives. But a person in the city who lives with awareness can make a choice. They can choose to be simpler. And they can do something like what you do. Go to a quiet place, spend part of their time doing peaceful activities, reading, writing, listening to music, resting, and so on. They can make such a conscious choice. They can choose to engage in fewer external activities. They can choose not to buy so much from the consumer market. To be happy with fewer possessions, with simpler transportation. And to use the time that is freed up for other pursuits. Simplicity actually gives you much more time for yourself. But most people don’t know how to use the time for themselves. If they have such time, they don’t know what to do with it. For example, how to find time to express themselves and understand themselves through drawing, writing, and so on. When they have free time, they waste it watching television or talking too much. In fact, they create problems for themselves. To become simple, you first need to become very complex. And then develop awareness of what you are doing. That is evolution. And then you reach the moment of conscious choice.
So, it’s not just a return to your roots, but a return with your new awareness?
Yes. And you don’t need to practice yoga to realize this. But yoga can help you realize it much faster. Otherwise, it may take much longer to understand it. And you can spend a lot of time outside, trying to enjoy yourself, to get and take more. Which turns you into a nervous wreck. Entertainment is a very fleeting and deceptive thing. What one person enjoys, another can hardly stand.
Why is simplicity so difficult for us today? And is it the same everywhere in the world where you travel? When you compare Bulgaria with other countries you have been to?
Because I think we have to reach a certain point in our evolution. The point when we have achieved and possessed many things, learned everything. And if we then realize life, what is happening to us, then we can make the change. And that is the moment when we embark on the spiritual path. You have to reach the point where you truly understand that the external, material world cannot give you any more. And then you will turn inward and backward. That is why it is very useful for people to practice yoga, even when they are completely turned outward toward their identifications with the world—their work, children, and so on. They can start yoga right in the midst of all that. And they will progress faster than they would otherwise. They will begin to realize what they are doing and make distinctions, simplifying their lives. So yoga is a very good aid. Yoga is very useful for people who are in the midst of an active and full life. It can give them an incredible amount. It is not just a path for people who give up an active life. Yoga is a good path for everyone. Even the woman who brought us lunch will benefit from some yoga exercises, a few simple pavamuktasana (postures to prepare the body and joints) or pranayama (breathing practices). Anyone can learn these things. But they will be especially useful for people in the active world. Because they are very aware externally. But they are not aware internally. So yoga can give them balance. And it can give them direction in life. A new idea about themselves. Like, for example, “I have a lot of work now, but I will simplify things in the future, I will make them simpler. I will become happier, more focused on myself, I will try to understand things better.” I think this direction of thinking and development is very close to you, to Bulgarians. You know deep down that this is how things are. Even if you don’t know it and don’t do anything about it, somehow a part of you knows this. That’s why I think yoga is very good for people here. Even Sofia, if we put it in a global context, is a small city. What is a million people? And if you look at this background, how many people are interested in yoga, come to the lectures of the yoga association – this is a very large proportion of interest in yoga. And if you look at India, the people who come to study yoga there, a very large proportion of them come from Bulgaria. This is interesting in itself. I feel it now during this visit. I didn’t know it before, but now I feel it very strongly. I think that you Bulgarians are simply different. Of course, all people and nations are different. When I came to Bulgaria, since I don’t know much about Eastern Europe or Europe in general, having been here very little, I thought, “They are all the same. How can Bulgarians be different from Serbs, or Serbs different from Czechs? They should be the same. They all have Slavic roots, they were in the orbit of the Russians… That’s what I thought, because I didn’t know. But now I see that I was wrong. Wrong thinking. The people here are very special.
What you say is interesting to me because I am trying to understand my own interest in yoga in the political and social context of Bulgaria, of the people who practiced yoga during communism and before that.
Many of the people who come to the ashram in India from Eastern Europe come from families who secretly practiced and spread yoga during communism. This is quite common in Eastern Europe. Yoga was illegal. But Russia, Eastern Europe, Greece too, historically speaking, are the mystics of the world. They had this mystical temperament that helped them connect with God. Some of them became extremely pure, enlightened. There are cases, which you probably know about, of people who died and their bodies did not decay. Can you imagine what that is? It is incredible.
That is the root, the foundation that you have. Since we are talking about returning to the root. This level of simplicity is the foundation of your culture and of the people here. And it was hidden during communism. But it could never be destroyed. It just became inaccessible to people. Look, something similar happened in India, but there these ideas could never be completely covered up. So people have always been able to touch their foundation, which is spirituality. But somehow this happened under communism. Communism is actually a very materialistic system. Communism is materialism. A materialistic culture. Entirely outward-looking. Everything is based on the material. Back then, the idea was to give more goods, more material goods to poor people. So the spiritual, psychological side of people was covered up, left in the background. And now it is difficult for people to go back and touch that foundation, that part of themselves that was so developed before. That is what you are looking for. You know there is something else, but you still cannot reach it. It is not difficult to do. You just have to make it a priority.
May 2009, Gorna Bela Rechka
This conversation was first published in Magazin EDNO
