BIPOLAR SOBER / SPIRITUALITY / HINDUISM

YOU ARE MORE THAN THIS MOMENT.

SELF. DHARMA. KARMA. YOGA.
ACTION WITHOUT CLINGING TO THE OUTCOME.

01 / THE BIG FUCKING PICTURE

THERE IS
MORE TO
EXPLORE.

In Hinduism, you encounter a vast family of traditions, philosophies, sacred texts, rituals, and spiritual practices. You will find different understandings of the divine, the Self, and ultimate reality.

You can explore spiritual life through knowledge, ethical action, meditation, service, and devotion. Different traditions place different emphasis on these paths and where they lead.

WHO ARE YOU? HOW WILL YOU LIVE? WHAT ARE YOUR ACTIONS CREATING? WHAT DO YOU HOLD ONTO? WHAT WOULD FREEDOM MEAN?

02 / BRAHMAN & ATMAN

WHO THE
FUCK
ARE YOU?

Your thoughts, emotions, body, and circumstances change. Through the teachings of the Upanishads, you can investigate the nature of the Self and its relationship with ultimate reality.

BRAHMAN

ULTIMATE REALITY

You encounter Brahman as the ultimate reality underlying existence, understood differently across Hindu philosophical schools.

ATMAN

THE INNERMOST SELF

You investigate a Self distinct from your changing body, thoughts, emotions, and social identities.

In Advaita Vedanta, you explore the teaching that Atman and Brahman are ultimately identical. In other traditions, you encounter qualified unity or an enduring distinction between the individual soul and the divine.

WHAT DO YOU MEAN
WHEN YOU SAY
“YOUR SELF”?

03 / AVIDYA

LOOK BEYOND
THE LABELS
YOU CARRY.

Avidya refers to ignorance or misapprehension, especially concerning the nature of the Self and reality.

You may identify so completely with your achievements, possessions, appearance, or emotions that any change feels like a threat to your entire existence. Your sense of worth becomes tied to conditions you cannot permanently preserve.

Self-inquiry invites you to examine those identifications. What are you taking to be your whole identity? What changes when you look more closely?

HOW MUCH OF YOUR IDENTITY
DEPENDS ON SOMETHING
THAT CAN CHANGE?

04 / DHARMA

WHAT IS
YOURS TO
FUCKING DO?

Through dharma, you consider right conduct, duty, responsibility, and your relationship with the order that sustains life.

Your circumstances and obligations matter. You examine what honesty, compassion, and integrity ask of you in the situation you actually face.

WHAT RESPONSIBILITIES DO YOU HAVE? WHO WILL YOUR DECISION AFFECT? WHAT DOES HONESTY REQUIRE? WHAT ACTION CAN YOU STAND BEHIND?

You may need to act while feeling uncertain, disappointed, or afraid. Your immediate preferences are part of the decision, alongside the commitments you want to honor.

05 / KARMA

YOUR ACTIONS
LEAVE
A TRACE.

Karma concerns action and its consequences, including consequences understood across lifetimes in many Hindu traditions.

In everyday reflection, you can examine how your intentions and actions influence your habits, relationships, and the circumstances that follow. What you repeatedly do helps shape your direction.

You cannot infer someone's moral worth from their suffering. Treating illness or hardship as deserved punishment overlooks the complexity of their life and can become an excuse to withhold care.

CONSIDER YOUR INTENTIONS.
EXAMINE YOUR ACTIONS.
ATTEND TO THEIR CONSEQUENCES.

06 / THE BHAGAVAD GITA

DO THE WORK.
LOOSEN YOUR
FUCKING GRIP.

In the Bhagavad Gita, you encounter a dialogue between Krishna and Arjuna, a warrior overwhelmed by a moral crisis.

Through their exchange, you explore duty, spiritual knowledge, devotion, and action without attachment to its fruits.

Applied to your life, this invites you to act sincerely while recognizing that your effort cannot guarantee a particular result.

YOUR PARTICIPATION

ATTEND TO THE ACTION.

Prepare carefully. Examine your intentions. Act honestly. Consider consequences. Follow through where you can.

YOUR ATTACHMENT

RELEASE THE DEMAND.

Notice when you require success, recognition, or a specific response before your effort can feel worthwhile.

Through karma yoga, you practice action as service and spiritual discipline. You remain attentive to consequences while loosening your dependence on personal reward.

07 / PATHS OF YOGA

MORE THAN
FUCKING
STRETCHING.

You can approach yoga as spiritual discipline, with paths involving action, devotion, knowledge, and meditation. These approaches can complement one another within your practice.

01 / ACTION

KARMA YOGA

Serve and fulfill your responsibilities while releasing attachment to personal reward.

02 / DEVOTION

BHAKTI YOGA

Cultivate love and relationship with the divine through prayer, worship, chanting, and offerings.

03 / KNOWLEDGE

JNANA YOGA

Study, contemplate, and inquire into the nature of the Self and reality.

04 / MEDITATIVE DISCIPLINE

RAJA YOGA

Develop ethical discipline, concentration, and meditative awareness.

You might study a teaching, offer a prayer, help someone, and spend time in meditation. Your practice can involve several ways of learning and participating.

08 / THE THREE GUNAS

NOTICE THE
QUALITIES
AT WORK.

In Samkhya and related Hindu teachings, you encounter three gunas: qualities of nature that combine in changing proportions. You can use this framework to contemplate the qualities influencing your experience.

SATTVA

CLARITY & HARMONY

Notice qualities of illumination, balance, understanding, and calm.

RAJAS

ACTIVITY & PASSION

Notice movement, striving, desire, restlessness, and agitation.

TAMAS

INERTIA & OBSCURITY

Notice heaviness, dullness, resistance, and lack of clarity.

You cultivate sattva to support discernment and spiritual understanding. In the Gita, liberation ultimately involves going beyond identification with all three gunas.

Use these as philosophical concepts. Your bipolar symptoms require their own clinical understanding and care.

09 / AHIMSA

PRACTICE
WITHOUT
CRUELTY.

Through ahimsa, or non-harming, you consider how your conduct affects yourself and other beings. Your words, intentions, and actions deserve attention.

You can practice restraint, maintain boundaries, and take responsibility while respecting your own dignity. Discipline can develop through patient, consistent care.

CONSIDER THE HARM YOUR ACTION COULD CAUSE. SPEAK WITH HONESTY AND CARE. RESPECT YOUR LIMITS AND OTHERS' BOUNDARIES. MAKE REPAIRS WHERE YOU CAN.

10 / VAIRAGYA & EQUANIMITY

CARE DEEPLY.
HOLD
MORE LIGHTLY.

Through vairagya, you cultivate dispassion toward the objects and rewards that keep pulling your attention outward.

In your daily life, you can examine where love becomes possessiveness, effort becomes obsession, or enjoyment becomes a demand for more.

Equanimity develops as you learn to meet success and failure, pleasure and pain, with greater steadiness. You can remain committed while allowing circumstances to change.

YOU CAN CARE WITHOUT OWNING.
YOU CAN TRY WITHOUT GUARANTEEING.
YOU CAN ACT AMID UNCERTAINTY.

11 / SAMSARA & MOKSHA

WHAT DOES
FREEDOM
MEAN TO YOU?

In many Hindu traditions, you encounter samsara as the cycle of birth, death, and rebirth, connected with karma, attachment, and ignorance.

SAMSARA

CONTINUED BONDAGE

Explore how karma and ignorance bind the individual to repeated birth and death.

MOKSHA

LIBERATION

Explore freedom from samsara, understood through self-realization or relationship with the divine in different traditions.

Your understanding of liberation will depend on the tradition you study. You may encounter realization of nonduality, enduring communion with the divine, or other accounts of spiritual freedom.

12 / EVERYDAY PRACTICE

BRING IT
INTO YOUR
ACTUAL LIFE.

Give your spiritual practice a place in your responsibilities, relationships, study, devotion, and quiet moments.

01

Ask what integrity requires in the situation in front of you.

02

Separate the effort you can offer from the outcome you hope to receive.

03

Notice an identity, possession, or expectation you are holding tightly.

04

Make room for prayer, an offering, contemplation, or meditation.

05

Practice ahimsa through one deliberate act of care or restraint.

06

Offer service without requiring recognition or repayment.

Let your practice develop through repetition, reflection, and learning. You can keep asking deeper questions while attending to the responsibilities of your life.

YOUR INTENTIONS.
YOUR PARTICIPATION.
YOUR PRACTICE.

DO YOUR PART.
LOOSEN
YOUR GRIP.

Act with integrity, cultivate understanding, and make room for what you cannot determine.

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