On November 9, 2016, the day after the national election in the U.S., Shambhavi Sarasvati gave this satsang about how spiritual practitioners can work with Donald Trump, impermanence, and our collective changed circumstances. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi.
FIRST WORDS FROM THE PODCAST
Let’s try to remember that even though the players in particular roles might appear to be unwise or even stupid, or dangerous, or unsavory, that the person playing those roles is pure wisdom. There’s nothing here but wisdom. So, our job when we have largescale events like this, which seem to be tragedies, our job is to not just think about what the wisdom is, but feel it in our bodies and in our emotions and in what realizations come to us, or what insights come to us.
One of the main methods in this tradition is the use of shock. So you could say, in a sense, that God just played the part of a crazy wisdom Guru and gave us a big shock. What happens when we feel shock? It clears out our stale ways of experiencing things and opens the way for wisdom to find a place to make itself known. If we’re too distracted and engaged with our habitual patterns of body, energy and mind, and of thoughts, we become like a wall. Wisdom can’t get in. Fresh wisdom can’t get in.
Sometimes wisdom is in the form of something that is creative and new that builds something, that causes something to appear—a new form, a new configuration, a new circumstance that feels creative, like something has been added to our lives. Sometimes wisdom appears in that form. Other times wisdom appears in a form that helps us to maintain our lives, to have continuity, to have routine, to keep something going. And many, many, many, many times, wisdom appears in a destructive form. And, in fact, those are often the times of biggest growth. And even though they’re upsetting and destabilizing, destruction is really at the essence of spiritual practice.
