"I just want to live in a world of sensible people": an interview with Evgeniy Syshchenko

15 min read · Meditation · by Александр Хмелевской

A conversation with a subscriber and speaker of the project about key aspects of practice. Evgeniy shares his experience and advice on how to start meditating, and not give up.

We talked with Evgeniy Syshchenko, a subscriber of Urokimeditatsii (Meditation Lessons).

We discussed how to build up concentration and why beginners, whose practice is not yet steady, should not skip meditation during their first three years. Evgeniy told us how the birth of his child affected his practice and which books make meditation better.

We also talked about whether one should force oneself to become vegetarian, why it is worth going on retreats, why we leave the spiritual path, and how to follow the moral principles of and perfectly.

— Most subscribers of the "Meditation Lessons" YouTube channel see Dada Sadananda only through a computer or phone screen, but you know him personally. Tell us, what is he like in real life?

Like any person, he varies: sometimes he smiles, sometimes he is silent. My relationship with him is that of a student with a teacher, so most of the time he is strict with me. When we talk, his eyes turn into lasers. He looks at me intently, senses and notices my shortcomings, in order to make me better.

— How did you come across the Urokimeditatsii project?

In 2018 I moved to Saint Petersburg and happened to find Dada's lectures on YouTube. I liked the way he looks, what he says, the stories he tells. But most importantly, I understood what had been missing for me in the Buddhist philosophy I had studied before.

— Will you tell us?

In Buddhism there is no term "Supreme Consciousness," and I was an agnostic: I understood that God exists, but I could not find any proof. Also, in Buddhism the emphasis was on developing the mind, not the body, so there is no practice of .

— Have you always been a believer?

No, as a teenager I was a fierce non-believer and as irreligious as could be. I think this has to do with my grandmother. My childhood coincided with the period when she had just discovered Christianity and wanted to convert everyone to it. That pushed me away strongly.

— What is your relationship with your grandmother like now?

Good. We easily find common ground, even though we use diametrically opposite terms. The words are different, but the essence is the same.

— You say you had lost interest in spirituality, so why did you decide to start meditating?

There was nothing leading up to it. I happened to overhear some acquaintances discussing meditation, and I felt a kind of call, a pull. I knew absolutely nothing about it before, but I had an incredible desire to learn, so I practiced five to six hours a day: three hours in the morning and three in the evening, or three times two hours.

— Impressive. Where did you find so much time?

I was a student, and all my free time I either meditated or watched Buddhist lamas. It was a golden period when I was quenching my spiritual thirst.

— How did your family feel about your daily routine?

At that time I lived in another city. When I returned home, I began to practice less intensively, but my parents were still wary of my new interest.

I remember my mother constantly disturbing me when I meditated. She would come into the room, say nothing, but stand over me and watch. At such moments I felt uncomfortable; I had to struggle with my own fetters of the mind, shame and doubt.

— Did this adjustment period last long?

No. They watched me a little and saw that I had remained a sensible person. They were more worried that I had become a vegetarian.

— How did you switch to this kind of diet?

For me it was easy. I am simply a good student. Since Dada Sadananda said that tamasic foods should be cut out because they have a bad effect on meditation, I believed him and gave them up in a single day. But sometimes old layers of the mind would rise up, and fried chicken legs would float before my eyes 🙂

— Have you felt in your own experience how these foods affect meditation?

Of course 🙂 For example, when I accidentally eat something with garlic, a fog immediately appears before my eyes. Once I sat down to meditate and could not concentrate; it felt as if someone were hitting my head with an anvil. Later I found out that there had been egg in the salad.

I recommend that everyone try an experiment: for a month, eat nothing harmful, then deliberately eat it and get your own vivid personal experience.

— So does every spiritual seeker have to force themselves to become vegetarian?

No, it should happen naturally.

— Explain.

For example, we meditate regularly, begin to taste the practice and want to go deeper, but our weak nervous system does not allow it. To overcome this, we begin practicing ásanas and switch to a vegetarian diet, and in the end we realize that by giving things up we gained more than we lost.

— While preparing for this interview, I learned that you do ásanas twice a day.

Not anymore; sometimes I even skip them altogether. But there was a period when I inspired others by my example.

— Why did you stop?

We are all made in such a way that we get used to good things very easily, and I am no exception. After I had done them twice a day for six months, it began to seem to me that if I neglected them a couple of times, nothing would happen. Then life swept me up and spun me around, and it is hard to come back.

— What is the difference in effect between not doing ásanas at all, doing them once a day, or twice?

When you have not practiced for a long time, after just one set you immediately begin to feel better and life becomes easier. If you start doing them twice, you get not even a double but a triple effect. You keep track of correct performance and breathing, and you train your concentration, which will later be useful to you in meditation.

— You touched on the importance of concentration in ásana practice and meditation. You oversee this topic at the online intensives with Dada Sadananda. Tell us, how did you become a lecturer?

I started giving lectures at the Urokimeditatsii center in Saint Petersburg. The previous speaker was leaving and asked me to fill in for him, since I had not missed a single lecture. I was very surprised and stunned, but it was pleasant and interesting for me.

Since then I have given lectures at the center every weekend, and recently the team of the Urokimeditatsii project invited me to give a lecture at an intensive.

— What motivated you to start giving lectures?

A phrase of an older friend of mine struck a chord with me: "I just want to live in a world of sensible people." At that moment I thought that if everyone came to understand themselves, they would also be able to understand others and build harmonious relationships.

— Where do you get ideas for your lectures?

I read a lot of spiritual literature and the works of elevated personalities or their disciples. Of course, this cannot be compared with the experience, grace and wisdom that disciples received directly from a spiritual master, but even this touch helps you save ten years of development.

— Which books would you recommend?

For complete beginners: Jiivan Veda: A Guide to Human Conduct. It is devoted to the moral principles of yama and niyama.

For lovers of mysterious stories and those who want to understand how the spiritual world works: Journey with a Mystic Master.

For those who want to understand the essence and purpose of human life and how the world around us is arranged: Elementary Philosophy (in Russian also called Fundamental Philosophy). Despite the title, it is a very difficult book, and it is easy to get bogged down in it.

— Tell us, how did your first lecture go?

I remember that it was one cosmic flow. I was very nervous and anxious while preparing. I arrive, and the hall is full.

I began the lecture, and then a mystical process happened: it was as if I were switched off, and then switched back on in the corridor, already asking for feedback. People were satisfied, but I do not remember what I talked about. At that moment I was a channel of Cosmic Consciousness.

— What do you do when there is no flow and no desire to give a lecture?

Sometimes I feel lazy and want to stay at home. That is where discipline and the responsibility I have taken on come into play. This helps not only in life but also in moving along the spiritual path. I advise everyone to take on some kind of service: intellectual, physical, material or spiritual.

— When you have a responsibility to other people, it seems easier to discipline yourself. But what if you have no desire to meditate? After all, we do it alone; there are no obligations.

In that case we are responsible to ourselves. This is hard to feel, and you have to be a mature person to understand what consequences turning away from spiritual development can lead to.

The struggle between light and darkness goes on every second, and every second we choose a side.

I believe that beginners, whose practice is not yet steady, should not skip meditation during their first three years. It is essential to practice at least 20 minutes twice a day and to attend group meetings. This builds a foundation and an unbreakable dam for the inner, true "I." If there is no support, then when subtler, trickier and almost imperceptible spiritual tests begin, it is easy to lose your way and go off in the opposite direction.

— Why do you think people stop meditating?

We have not learned to enjoy the process of searching for ourselves, and we start blaming the tools we use. We shrug off responsibility and expect the practice to solve everything for us. It is like training at the gym where, instead of making an effort, we started blaming the dumbbell because we did not manage to build our biceps.

— Let's come back to concentration. The quality of meditation depends on it, as does how much joy and lightness we get from the practice. Tell us, is it an innate talent?

I am an excellent example that it is not, and it can definitely be trained. Before meditation I was not a focused person; as a child, my parents compared me with the hero of Samuil Marshak's poem "The Absent-Minded Man from Basseynaya Street." I was always losing my other shoe, could forget my backpack at home or take the wrong road to school.

— Tell us, how can this skill be built up?

What is needed is total concentration on Supreme Consciousness, the energy that connects all objects and phenomena in the universe, throughout the whole space that surrounds us. Then the question of how to concentrate does not arise, because every free second is devoted to the object of your love.

It is like the romantic period, when all your thoughts are connected with your other half: what gift to give, where to go, what to talk about. At that time we do not think about how to concentrate on her; that even sounds absurd.

— You mentioned your other half. I know that your wife also meditates. Who started meditating first?

I did. She was always wary of all kinds of practices, because she had had a negative experience connected with a close relative of hers. We had a warm relationship, and she trusted me. She liked the basic meditation technique, and we began to practice together. When our child was born, she had less time and energy. She drifted away from the spiritual flow and so far has not been able to return to it.

As soon as the little one grew a bit, I made a point of taking my wife to a retreat so that she would feel the energy of meditation again and remember how good it had been for her.

— What do you think is the benefit of retreats?

It is a necessity. It is easier for us to live in rhythms. They support us and guide us along the spiritual path.

For me, daily practice is air. At least twice a day you need to breathe in and breathe out. The weekly group meditation at the center is water. You can live without it for a week, but after that it gets hard. A retreat is food. I know stories of people who did not eat for a couple of months. And these rhythms keep spiritual life vigorous.

— You mentioned that your wife had difficulties with meditation after the birth of your child. How did it affect your practice?

Like her, I did not have an easy time. Lack of sleep, changes in daily life and in our roles in the relationship. We stopped meditating together, because now all our time is devoted to caring for the baby. I had not even realized what ideal conditions I had been in before: I had group meditation twice a day, the resonance of two minds that synchronized and formed a big wave.

Now I have to learn to divide my time harmoniously between caring for my family and my spiritual development. So the birth of our baby strengthened me, and I came to understand that I will break through in harder situations too.

— What do you think helps to overcome life's challenges?

I remember a story about the spiritual teacher Shrii Shrii Ánandamúrti. When one of the disciples asked, "Why meditate? I like being in the darkness," Bábá answered, "All right, but I invite you into the light. Look, it is even better here."

Difficulties will come anyway; there is no getting away from them. All of life is a struggle for survival, shelter, food and a place in the sun.

Meditation teaches you to struggle effectively and opens your intuition. You become more productive and begin to sense when to be nimble and flexible and when it is worth showing strength and firmness.

— How has regular practice affected your relationships with your loved ones?

Very strongly. For me, meditation is a way to become closer to myself and to feel emotions better. The further we are from ourselves, the more rudeness and negativity there is. This affects every area of life, especially relationships with loved ones. When we have understanding and clarity, it is easier for us to feel and to communicate with others.

Spiritual practice is a choice: which thoughts to think and which emotions to feel, where to direct your energy, which provocations to answer and about what it is better to stay silent. It helps to widen the gap between stimulus and reaction. And the closer you are to yourself, the more room there is for choice.

— While preparing for the interview, I learned from your friends that you often experience a state of deep meditation. Tell us, how do you manage to reach it?

To be honest, I cannot give any specific advice, because I do not know whether I really reach that high state or whether I simply have a weak nervous system that cannot bear the load.

— India attracts spiritual seekers, and you too have traveled to the holy places of that country. Will you share your impressions?

Meditation in those places defies any intellectual explanation. If at home I need to prepare before practice, take a half-bath, sing , do a couple of ásanas, there I simply sat down, and the meditation happened by itself, and I was just an observer.

— What else did the trip to India teach you?

I strengthened a little the foundation of spiritual practice, the moral principles of yama and niyama. I still have problems with them. I believe that the deeper you go into them, the larger and subtler the obstacles that appear.

For example, I am used to cleanliness and order, but in India it is dirty almost everywhere, and it was very unfamiliar for me. So I developed santośa in myself, the yogic principle of contentment. I had a choice: either to walk around unhappy and angry, or to enjoy what there is and accept reality. I chose the second 🙂

— Recently, in the online community Praktikuem Vmeste (Practicing Together), you led a webinar where you shared how you combine service, work and spiritual practice and avoid overload. Could you briefly tell those who were not on the broadcast?

You simply need to have the desire, and the time will be found at once. When you reach a certain level of maturity, you begin to make decisions by choosing only what is important to you. You understand the consequences of your actions and choose what to devote your time to.

— And finally: what would you like to wish the subscribers of the Urokimeditatsii project?

To enjoy life and to listen to themselves.

Interview by Aleksandr Khmelevskoy