Satsang
PODCAST
EPISODE NO.
229

Exhaustion, Caring, and Criticism

Exhaustion and Caring by Cooking for Others
February 24, 2021

A student asks about exhaustion during difficult times. Shambhavi talks about the sadhana (aka spiritual practice) of caring for each other and dropping self- and other-criticism. A podcast from Satsang with Shambhavi

Podcast First Words

Student: Can you talk about exhaustion and spiritual practice? The sequester kind of feels exhausting.

Shambhavi: It is exhausting. Yeah, I agree. So one of the things that’s most exhausting is not feeling cared for. We’ve been living in a circumstance where we don’t feel cared for for a long time because the American system of governance is not caring. Capitalism is essentially not caring, and so that’s a drain on everybody.

We’ve had this very slow influx over time of many people in power who don’t care. They have no ability to empathize and literally don’t care what happens to other people. And then we have their appointed king, their representative at the top of the government, who is the craziest example of that. This is someone who is spectacularly unable to care about other people and have any empathy for anyone.

And then we have COVID. This is an ever present situation that’s also thrusting into our awareness that we’re not cared for properly. We’re also not able to go to our usual places to feel more cared for. Some of us are lucky to be in caring families. Friends and being in community are also very, very important. One thing I’ve noticed in Jaya Kula is that not being able to have as much physical contact with people and intimate conversations IRL is exhausting.

ABOUT THE PODCAST

Satsang with Shambhavi is a weekly podcast about spirituality, love, death, devotion and waking up while living in a messy world.