Raghunath Cappo Explains Karma, Dharma, and Rebirth

Yeah. By the way Joe, this is an interesting thing I want to talk to, mention to you too, because you brought up this point where like, I like living my life. I live a great life. Why wouldn't you want to do that again? No. Because, and I don't know, and I didn't sort of challenge it a little because you were saying in retrospect, back to Helio. The idea of doing it over and over and over again. Because the whole Buddhist and Hindu thing is that I don't want to take birth again. Yeah. And since we were talking about these higher planets and higher beings, they say that planet like earth, and they say there's other ones like this as well. There is some pleasure and some pain. There's people who live in a penthouse, and there's people who are sleeping on the streets. Or you can be on the hundredth, whatever floor it was with the World Trade Center, and be a CEO, and then a plane can be wrapped two floors underneath you. You can go from pleasure and pain, the most excruciating plane, and the most incredible highest of pleasure in a moment. So in this sort of, I mean, we've got places that are like, places in the world that are like the rape capital of the world. And then you've got places that are sort of like, you know, go to Switzerland or Norway where the currency is strong, and the people are beautiful, and everything you see is like, it's from like a postcard. So we have like great amounts of pain and great amounts of pleasure on this planet. In such a condition, you could start to question like, why am I here? What is life about? It gives you a window to even ask those questions. Now if there's just so much pleasure in your life, they say that higher beings don't have the impetus to evolve, because there's so much pleasure. Higher being. Higher beings. So according to the Vedas, there's higher planets. Like, there's higher planets. Okay. Now I don't want to say Ganesh, but there's higher planets with higher beings who just living a high life. And therefore the impetus to get out of samsara, you know, this word repeated birth and death, there's no impetus to get out. Sometimes people are suffering so much, there's no impetus to even see a spiritual light. People are suffering tremendously, maybe go to prison or they get caught up in more degrading activity. Sometimes people will have so much. So I'm like saying, in your life, you have so much good karma, so to speak. But because you're still embodied, there'll always be sort of like a pinprick, because that's part of having a body. Right. But my point was, this journey is enjoyable. And that I- For you, you got good karma. Is that all it is? Because I've had bad moments. I mean, is it all just- I mean, if you look at yourself like an autobiography- Karma is it choices? It is choices. Karma is like- Is it the direction that you choose to push forward and the understanding of the push and pull, the understanding of the discipline and the work and then the kindness and the generosity and that all these things are connected together and then also the expression, the ability to express yourself through podcasts or through standup comedy. Sure. And that it's enjoyable and that there's a pursuit in that and that the real benefit of it is that other people get entertainment out of it and that- No, your choice is perpetuated, obviously. But there's other people who've done podcasts, who've done comedy, and they're just not successful at it. Yeah, but it's a puzzle though. It's like- It is. It's like saying other people sing songs, but people don't play them back. Yeah, there are bands before Green Day. You're sure. Like the Buzzcocks from the 70s, who my opinion was better than Green Day, but they just weren't at the right time historically to be that popular. Sure, they didn't have the right publicist. Yeah. Look, there's always going to be that, but my point is like you don't have to be famous to be happy. It's just life is interesting. Life is enjoyable. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's emotionally devastating, for sure. But the idea, if you are alive and enjoying life, the idea of doing it forever is terrifying to people. That was what my point was. Like why is it terrifying? If it's not terrifying to do it now, why is the eternal existence so disturbing to people? Right. Unless they have had a traumatic life. Which a lot of people have. Yes. A lot of people have had a traumatic life. Yes, a lot of people have. I don't think my life was so traumatic. I think I got some life lessons. Well, let's leave them out of that equation and let's just talk about people who have not had a traumatic life, who have a fair- Look, if you're in America and you're not sick and you have friends, you're doing infinitely better than most people on planet. Sure. That's just- We're really fortunate in terms of the environments that we exist in. If you're not being abused and you have a job and you have hobbies and things to do, god damn are you lucky. You could be born in Afghanistan. You could be living in the Congo, suffering from a host of different pathogens and bacteria and viruses. But your thing is, according to that person, was it Helio who made up that idea? Yes. Well, I don't think he made it up. I think Helio obviously was a great warrior as well as a great jujitsu teacher, but he had this philosophy on existence and that you had to live your life and do the right things always. And if you didn't, you would come back again and do it all over again. Well, the Vedic system is similar, but it's not the exact- You don't get born as Joe Rogan again living a parallel life and like, oh, I didn't take out the garbage that day. I should have taken out the garbage. It'd more be like, according to your desires and your activities and your thoughts and the people you associate with, you moved up psychically, you got a little more degraded. Either upgrade or degrade basically. It was similar. Do you think of yourself like that? Do you think- Like when you think of yourself and your fortune and the interesting life you've carved out, do you feel like your past life has had some sort of an impact on who you are right now? For sure. For sure, huh? For sure. Really? Why are you so sure? Well, it's just sort of like my worldview is that there's not a randomness that everything is building upon something. In the same way I'm building upon tomorrow today. So you feel like- And I'm building on next week by act this week and it could take it bigger and bigger and bigger. In that sense, it makes sense, but there's a little bit more of a leap of faith. And I'm building up to a climax where it will take another body or I'm coming from a place where I have some talents. We call them your God-given gifts or my daughter is a gifted artist. But the idea is that it's been a practice that we've been practicing and bringing with us for lifetimes and both good and bad. And this is a belief system that you just sort of adopt because there's not really any evidence. It's not that I've adopted, that's how the yogis view karma. I understand, but you taking this in yourself as well. I take it myself because I see it in this lifetime. Now like I said, there's blind faith and then there's reasonable faith. So my reasonable faith lies in this lifetime, I've witnessed my body change. I witnessed my mind change, my intelligence change. I've witnessed myself cultivate desires that heal me, make me stronger, make me lighter, make me more connected. I've witnessed myself choose bad choices, things that are addictive, things that are defiling my consciousness or my body or my health. So in this lifetime, I know I can steer my karma. And at the same time, there's certain things that are out of my hands. Like you and me are on a flight to San Diego. And the plane's going to San Diego. What we do on that plane, the plane journey is our karma. What we do on that plane, that's our free will. So that's the difference between free will and destiny. There is a difference of the two. Just because there is karma doesn't mean you're bound to it. You can move it. But the yoga system is to bring us to this, I'm trying to keep it simple, to this, it's called satva. Or it's a state of self-control, of peace, of balance. So all the things of the whole culture is based to keep the mind peaceful. And when the mind is peaceful, I act less on impetus and more from a higher chakras or higher thoughts or higher intelligence. For example, if I slap a panther, panther's going to bite me. Why? Because panthers bite when you slap them. If I slap Joe, you could act from a different place. Hey, man, what's up? Or you could be like immediately. And sometimes I feel that also. I feel like I'm acting from a lower place. I'm angry. I want to kick that guy. And sometimes I feel like I do this with parenting. Sometimes I get angry at my child. I say, don't you understand? He's just trying to talk to you. He's just trying to share how he experiences it. I have to pull myself back and let go of any way I was parented and try to like, um, act from a higher place. So there's always, they say in the human species, there's always this chance to either upgrade your activities or degrade your activities. And they, and they, and they snowball off of each other. Like every good choice helps to make a better choice. You know, we, we said that with diet, with exercise. Um, how do we get talking about that? Joe? Is this, we're talking about, is this just massive detours that we're taking? No, no, no. It's we're getting into places where we were talking about your belief that your karma is connected to what you've done in the past life. Sure. So that's a, that's a bigger leap of faith, but I, and you say, I see it in this life and you see it in other people as well. So when you see people, you look at their life and you think this person, the w where they are right now is directly connected to what they've done in the past life. Yeah. Yeah. Um, it's an interesting philosophy. It's an interesting, interesting ones. And you know, it's, it's an honor. You know, it's nice about it. Even in Western psychiatry, if I go and complain about my husband or my wife, the, a good psychiatrist will go, well, what's your responsibility in this? Is it all your wife or is it you? They take you back. And when you really study this Vedic thought, you realize that there is no more blaming anybody. Yeah. I've just got what I've got for whatever reason. Now what am I going to do with that? Yeah. What am I going to do today? Also, what am I going to do tomorrow? Why the why me shit never happens because I've got what I got. I probably did something and people don't like to hear that, but we don't know our backstory. And to be truthful, I have a blind side, a blind spot when it comes to anything atrocious I've done in this life. I forget all the times I've hurt people, broke people's hearts. You know, it was rude or cruel or thoughtless. So I got to get some karma too. In this life, what to speak of a previous life, more oblivious to. Right. And if I just want to blame the circumstance, here's your option. You can either be free from that, be acceptance and accept that there's benevolent forces that are trying to teach us lessons to get out of the birth and death, or you can just be bitter at the world. Why me unfair. So this idea of benevolent forces that are trying to teach us, do you feel that this spiritual quest is almost like a divine puzzle that human beings are proposed and that you are given this infinite series of options and in choosing the right way of thinking and behaving, you can carve out the righteous path as best you can. You will make mistakes, but that there's a spiritual undertaking that is a part of operating this puzzle correctly. And that this is what all these teachings are about. And that's trying to, we're all trying to relay what we've learned and what we've experienced personally and we're trying to relay it to other people so that they can relate and so that they can also make choices that will allow them to more refine their approach to life to achieve better spiritual balance. Yeah, it's well said. There's, you know, the yogi's called miyamas and niyamas. Sort of like... Say it again? Yamas and niyamas. Do yamas, yamas and niyamas? Yeah, it's like yamas and niyamas, things you do and things you don't do. Oh, okay. It's the equivalent of like sort of guardrails on a road, right? You drive a little bit off too far, you scratch your car because of the guardrail, but if it wasn't there, it'd be complete tragedy. So there's sort of like things that we pull in with our sexuality, with our thoughts, with our words. It's how to use the vehicle in this lifetime. So the vehicle being the body, what we do, what we don't do, what we don't, you know, what to eat, what to think, what to speak, how to speak, how to relate to people, how to relate to juniors, how to relate to seniors. So the whole Vedic culture is carved out like this. That in itself is not spiritual. It just assists you in driving a car. I still got to go north. And so once I can take care of how to like take care of this machine and keep it on the road, then I reach out for connection. And that's the spiritual. There's Dharma, but then there's Dharma that's supposed to get us connected. That's what genuine yoga... What is the effect of Dharma? What is that, the definition rather of Dharma again? Dharma means sort of like a right living. It's not, some people confuse it with, well, doing what you're born to do, because I don't think it's just doing what you're good at, because you could be good at leadership and be a dictator. And you're a great leader. Everyone's going to do what you do, but... Hitler was a great leader. Great leader. Hitler was probably in his chart, but then you also have great leaders like a Christ. It was like a great leader also. So it's not just leadership. It's leading person towards connection so that your activity has a benevolent effect on everyone it touches. That's Dharma. That's Dharma in its true sense. And that's the Dharma of your body. Your Dharma is you entertain. You could say a warrior. You could also say you have also Dharma as a father. These are all type of like, you're carved out for that. If you weren't doing that, you'd always feel like a little lack in your life. But then there's like a Nitya Dharma or what you... And the Nitya Dharma is actually the Dharma of the soul. And that's why in the Vedic system, it's not like you're trying to convert somebody to be of your religion. It's not like a home run to say, okay, I got a Christian to become a Hindu. That's not what it is. The idea is that everybody is a spirit soul. You can change. It's not about joining the same church or the same ashram. It's like a soul is a soul. It's like truth. Truth is truth. There's no... No one's got a monopoly on truth. There's no such thing as a... It's like math. It's not Jewish math or Hindu math or Christian. It's like math is math. So we want to apply truth to the life, to the vehicle. And that's going to give direction to the vehicle. That's going to be the food for the soul. And that's what the genuine meaning of yoga, people say it's a balance of mind. It's not to balance. It's to connect the atma or the soul with divinity, with Bhagavan. That's the real yoga. That's when the yoga means to come together. But in the original text, in the original ancient teachings of Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, it's all about is, here I am lost in the crazy planet. I'm driving my car everywhere. How to keep it on the road and where do I go? That's the classical concept of what yoga is. How do we keep it on the road and where do I go? I like that way of looking at it.