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Articles from santosh krinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- Becoming Aware of Our Faults Is the First Step Toward Overcoming Them - by Submitted on Mar 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is difficult for an individual to see his own shortcomings or faults. Many times we see them reflected in others and we externalise them to such a degree that we take exception to the other person, not recognising that we are seeing our own faults displayed in front of us. If we have a ...
Views: 180 - How Do We Determine Our Destined Role in the World? — Part 1 - by Submitted on Apr 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyDannion Brinkley told the story in his book Saved By the Light. He was a mercenary, a hired killer. He was struck by lightning. He was pronounced clinically dead. He returned to life. He knew, at that moment, that he was ‘sent back’ to accomplish a task, a mission. He left behind his prior life ...
Views: 180 - The Law of Attraction and Spiritual Practice - by Submitted on Mar 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn recent years there has been a lot of focus on what is called the ‘law of attraction’. It has been mainly used to act as some kind of a ‘wish-fulfilling action’ that one undertakes by focusing on specific affirmations or visualizing results which then are ‘attracted’ to your focus and create ...
Views: 180 - The Power of a Quiet Mind - by Submitted on Jun 09, 2025 from santosh krinskyModern civilization puts a premium on the mental process. We educate our children with a focus on the mind. We want them to learn verbal skills, reading skills, logical skills and measure them on their abilities in these areas with various forms of standardized tests by which we then classify ...
Views: 180 - A True Measure of Faith - by Submitted on Jul 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual takes up the spiritual path, he normally starts by desiring peace, knowledge, power or some kind of solace or comfort. But what if he actually is faced with an unending series of obstacles, challenges, threats, and various forms of physical, vital or mental suffering? In such ...
Views: 179 - Distinguishing an Attitude of Equality From One of Indifference - by Submitted on Apr 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe mental framework frequently wants to find an “either/or” option rather than looking at the nuance needed to resolve multiple views of pending questions. Thus, when we are asked to consider achieving a poise of equality in the face of provocation of any sort, positive or negative, we will ...
Views: 179 - Understanding Faith and Its Role in Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Jul 14, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere is a long history of debate about what we believe and how we know what we know. Science and religion have historically taken opposite positions in this debate. Science takes the view that the mind must be able to ascertain objective facts, and draw conclusions based on them. This includes ...
Views: 179 - Weakness of Limitation or the Power of Omnipotence Depends on the Status of Consciousness - by Submitted on Apr 15, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we are feeling weak or limited, we become unhappy, we react with frustration and are discontented with our lot. We feel in many cases oppressed by circumstances. We can become depressed if things are not going the way we expect or want them to go. We can become angry with ourselves, with ...
Views: 179 - Balancing the Spiritual Practice Between Positive Focus and Addressing Faults and Weaknesses - by Submitted on Mar 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere is a tendency among human beings to react with extremes. Something is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ‘black’ or ‘white’, ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. This occurs due to the linear nature of the mental consciousness aided by a vital nature that wants to assert itself by being ‘right’. For the ...
Views: 178 - The Human Power of Discontentedness Helps Open the Door to the Inner Consciousness - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe drive in the human individual to find out who he is, what he is here for, and how he can grow and become what he is intended to be in the creation sets him apart from the animal. Even in the midst of an almost complete immersion in the external life and its lures, somewhere deep inside, the ...
Views: 177 - Understanding the Higher Guidance That Directs Our Actions Towards Our Spiritual Destiny - by Submitted on Mar 15, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we rely on our surface impressions, which are very much based on and influenced by our background, family, society and the values inculcated into us by those relationships, we only are able to truly understand a fraction of what is actually occurring, and generally this is conditioned by ...
Views: 176 - The Need for a Sleepless Vigilance in the Yogic Sadhana - by Submitted on Aug 06, 2025 from santosh krinskyVirtually everyone has had the experience, at some point or another of finally overcoming a particularly difficult internal issue, whether it is the force of desire, or not responding with anger to things that do not go as anticipated, or any number of other activities that take place in the ...
Views: 174 - Inner Peace Is the Foundation and Basis for Spiritual Growth - by Submitted on Jun 27, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen the spiritual seeker begins to recognise all of the difficulties and obstacles in his own external being, and understands the need to reduce and remove these obstacles if there is to be any permanent and major progress, he may begin by struggling with the desires, the movements that arise, ...
Views: 173 - Is Every Man Capable of ‘Sinful Behavior” Under Certain Circumstances? - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyCultured and educated people often believe that they could not stoop to certain actions or be guilty of certain motives in their actions, or simply react to circumstances in a way other than that of their predominant mental view of themselves. They may look down on those who appear to them to be ...
Views: 173 - The Difference Between Suppression and Removal of a Vital Reaction, Part 2 - by Submitted on May 21, 2025 from santosh krinskyMost people simply “live” their lives and carry out whatever feeling, mood or impetus may be impacting them at the moment. They “become” that movement, whether it is happiness and joy, hunger, anger, ennui, fatigue, or some concentrated state of mind, etc. Their awareness, their conscious ...
Views: 173 - The Excuses We Make to Justify Indulgence - by Submitted on May 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe make resolutions to change certain behaviours. Our minds are made up. We are certain that we can make the needed change. Many people make ‘new year’s resolutions’ to change something, perhaps to lose weight, to discontinue some habit, to avoid expressing anger, or some other intention we ...
Views: 173 - Let Endurance Be Your Watchword in the Yogic Endeavour - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2025 from santosh krinskySuccessful people, in whatever field, tend to highlight their ability to keep going. They indicate that no matter how many times one falls, one must get up, or in the local vernacular, ‘keep on keeping on’. Reactiveness, an inability to hold one’s peace under provocation, is considered to be a ...
Views: 172 - Receiving Spiritual Shocks and Trials With Humility Through a Shift of Standpoint Away from the Ego-Consciousness - by Submitted on May 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe way we respond to setbacks or difficulties is conditioned by how deeply we are embedded in the ego-consciousness. The individual ego judges everything from its own very limited viewpoint. What it interprets as a negative result or as an obstacle may actually be part of the larger process of ...
Views: 172 - The Parable of the Mote and the Beam and Its Relevance for the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on Apr 01, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe spiritual seeker often finds that he can see weaknesses and faults in others. If he fails to recognise that his reaction may be due to harboring those faults and weaknesses within himself, he can take an attitude of hostility toward the other person who is exhibiting those things. He may try ...
Views: 172 - Understanding and Persevering Through the Darkness and the Delays in the Process of Spiritual Realisation - by Submitted on May 09, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we are confronted with difficulties, we employ several different types of responses, mainly depending on instinct, habit, training and the play of the three Gunas, the qualities of Nature, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas. Sometimes we respond with more effort, sometimes we lapse into depression and ...
Views: 171 - A Positive Focus Is More Productive Than a Negative Fixation for Spiritual Growth - by Submitted on Mar 31, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe go wherever we focus our attention. If we focus our attention on difficulties, we wallow in those difficulties. If we focus our attention on growth and development, then we draw to ourselves those opportunities that support that growth. There are examples. Certain traditions make the rooting ...
Views: 170 - Humility and Self-Confidence - by Submitted on Mar 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe play of the three Gunas is active at all times in the life we live here. We may believe that the aspiration, or an act of consecration overcomes this play, but if we examine closely we can see that, in actuality, even the quality of our sadhana, our spiritual effort, is very much controlled ...
Views: 170 - The Need for Patience and Perseverance - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn today’s modern societies, people expect instant results. They want things to be fast and easy. They respond to ads claiming they can lose weight easily in a few days’ time. They want deliveries from stores to be overnight, if not ‘same day’. They would prefer to receive their enlightenment ...
Views: 170 - Gaining Perspective On Our Desires and Focus Within the Grand Canvas of Time and Space - by Submitted on Jun 06, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe spend most of our lives fixated on the external life we are living, including our internal reactions to that life, such as our feelings, desires, sense impressions, thoughts, ideas, motivations and physical comforts and discomforts (among other things). We focus on earning our livelihood, ...
Views: 168 - The Change in Standpoint That Puts the Seeker in Harmony With the Divine and its Intention in the Universal Manifestation - by Submitted on Mar 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe frequently hear people complaining about how they are locked into and trapped in the lives they are leading. They feel like there is nothing they can do and nothing can change it. This was exemplified in a motion picture called ‘Groundhog Day’ which told the story of an individual who ...
Views: 168 - The Status of Consciousness Where One Can See Things as They Are - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as an individual is rooted in his own ego-standpoint, he sees and interprets things from that standpoint and cannot, by definition, ‘see things as they are’ in the wider creation. There is the famous story of 5 different observers of a traffic accident, each one observing from a ...
Views: 168 - Freeing Oneself From Responsibility for Oneself By Reliance on the Divine - by Submitted on Jun 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere was a young man who happened to be living at the same place during the 1970’s, who got into his head the idea that the Divine was watching out for him so he could not come to any harm. He walked out into traffic on a busy road and with cars honking and braking, he survived without a ...
Views: 167 - The Vigilance Needed to Ensure That Sattwic Calm, Peaceful Focus Does Not Get Distracted Through the Rise of Rajasic or Tamasic Reactions in the Being - by Submitted on Aug 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere is a dynamic that frequently occurs when an individual starts to actively take up the yogic path. At a certain stage of development, the need to bring peace into the being, and the need for a calm, quiet energy to support the practice of meditation may take center stage. At that point, the ...
Views: 166 - Transitioning From Mental Consciousness to Spiritual Consciousness While Controlling the Vital Nature - by Submitted on May 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe mind provides a filter to manage and control the vital forces to a certain degree. While it is not perfect, without it, an individual can become subject to whatever vital energy is active and rising up within him. At the same time, the mind acts as a limitation on the ability of the ...
Views: 166 - Faithfulness to the Light and the Divine Call - by Submitted on Jun 03, 2025 from santosh krinskyPeople have an inner ‘commentary’ and ‘sound track’ going on virtually constantly in their heads. The ‘sound track’ may be a piece of music they heard which keeps repeating in their minds, what is colloquially called an ‘ear worm’. It may also be something of far less enjoyment such as a ...
Views: 165 - The Greatest Help a Spiritual Seeker Can Give to Others - by Submitted on Apr 17, 2025 from santosh krinskyModern day civilization emphasizes some kind of external 'result' that can be measured. Most frequently this is tied to a monetary value, but the world also appreciates and honors, in some cases, those who do humanitarian work, those who lead countries or fight wars, those who create new ...
Views: 165 - External Interactions Provide the Seeker a Mirror to His Inner Characteristics and Traits - by Submitted on Apr 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhat we see in others in many cases is a mirror to what we contain within ourselves. We understand what is taking place because we are able to receive the vibration and internalize it and translate it into something that resonates in our being. In Western psychology there is a concept called ...
Views: 164 - Understanding the Respective Roles of Personal Effort and Divine Grace in the Transformation of Human Nature - by Submitted on Jul 10, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is one thing to adopt, in one’s mind, the idea that since the Divine is doing the work, we need simply accept the idea and let things take their course. It is an entirely different thing if we actually want to accomplish the transformation needed to bring about a change in human nature based ...
Views: 164 - Spiritual Development Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint - by Submitted on Jul 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyA devotee by the name of Satyakama Jabala approached a respected Guru, in a story related in the Chhandogya Upanishad. He asked for teachings so he could achieve realisation on the spiritual path. The teacher asked him his name and family background, to which the young seeker replied that he did ...
Views: 163 - The Action of the Three Gunas in Relation to the Assimilation of the Spiritual Force - by Submitted on Jun 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe 3 Gunas, qualities of Nature, are active in all beings, including those who are undertaking an active process of spiritual development. The physical being is very much subject to the action of Tamas, generally, because of its dense and somewhat inert material characteristics. It thus may ...
Views: 163 - The Law of Attraction and its Application to Spiritual Sadhana - by Submitted on Jun 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is interesting that people are willing to believe the ‘secret’ of the law of attraction, spend time, energy and money trying to learn it, for the purpose of manifesting wealth, enjoyment and the powers available in the world, but they do not tend to apply the principle behind this ‘law of ...
Views: 163 - The Radiating Power of an Inner Transformative Force - by Submitted on Apr 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere are many methods that have been tried to shift ideas, thoughts, motives and actions in the world. Some of these methods involve subtle, or not so subtle, use of various forms of propagandizing, proselytizing, sermonizing, or dominating others through use of covert or overt force, including ...
Views: 163 - Addressing the Divergence Between the Inner Being and the External Nature - by Submitted on Jun 29, 2025 from santosh krinskyComplete sincerity, inwardly and outwardly, is something that does not generally happen overnight. There are too many habits, instncts and trained responses that control the way the external nature responds to expect that the mental, vital and physical elements of the being will not only accept ...
Views: 162 - Coming Face to Face With, and Overcoming the Failures, Limitations and Sins of One's Past Life in the Spiritual Quest - by Submitted on May 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual takes up the spiritual quest, he tends to accept certain principles of action which, by definition, contradict the values, principles and life-actions of his past experience. In many cases this causes a considerable amount of doubt and concern as he tries to overlay his ...
Views: 162 - Difficulties Are Blessings If We Know How to Face Them - by Submitted on May 12, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhether we term it divine Will, synchronicity, coherence, quantum entanglement, cause and effect, dependent origination, karma, or the law of attraction (or any other terminology), there remains a truth that the specific time, place and circumstance we occupy in the world is due to a stream of ...
Views: 162 - Overcoming the Tendency to Rehash Past Work or Worry About Future Work - by Submitted on May 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe spent a considerable amount of our time rehashing events and actions that are past, analyzing them, worrying about whether we have done things correctly or not, and reflecting on how we might deal with similar events in the future in a better way. We recount what happened during our day to ...
Views: 162 - Shifting the Standpoint of Consciousness Beyond the Action of the Three Gunas - by Submitted on Jun 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe three Gunas of Nature control the actions and reactions of the external nature and the response to the dualities that present themselves in Nature. As long as we remain fixated at the level of the surface personality, we remain subject to this action of the Gunas. The question then ...
Views: 162 - Addressing Obstacles, Difficulties and Resistances That Arise for the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on May 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyTraditionally spiritual paths have developed guidelines and practices that are applied to everyone as set practices. Thus, some people wind up learning particular forms of meditation or concentration, devotion, or dedicated work, or they practice specific forms of hatha yoga, pranayama or other ...
Views: 161 - Consciousness and Self-Mastery - by Submitted on Aug 04, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs noted, to be conscious is a broadly applicable term, not just to one’s own body-life-mind complex but to all factors in the universal creation, the flow of time, the development of circumstances, the relations between the individual and the society, world, environment and universal forces. A ...
Views: 161 - Establishing the Psychic Being as the Central Organizing Principle and Overcoming the Dominion of the Vital Nature and the External Being - by Submitted on Jul 03, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as we identify ourselves with our external personality, the body-life-mind complex we inhabit and project into the world, we are subject to the responses, reactions and motivations that they express, based on the developments of the entire past evolutionary history of consciousness on ...
Views: 161 - The Individual Action Needed to Implement the Spiritual Path in One’s Life - by Submitted on Jul 18, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature wants to continue its old ways and achieve fulfillment of its desires. It is also very effective at finding ways to convince the mind to carry out its impulses and desires. When an individual takes up the spiritual path, the vital being does not get discouraged, it simply tries ...
Views: 161 - The Nature of True Aspiration - by Submitted on Jun 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyRestlessness, impatience and disturbance of the vital nature are signs of weakness in the vital, an inability to hold the energy that is available to the vital. A strong vital nature will have the ability to remain calm and hold the energy without spilling it. For the spiritual seeker, there ...
Views: 161 - Aspiration, Desire and the Action of the Divine Force - by Submitted on Jun 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyAspiration is frequently confused with a form of vital desire that ‘wants’ some kind of spiritual development, experience or result. Aspiration, however, originates in the psychic being, while desire stems from the vital being. The characteristics of the two are therefore dramatically different ...
Views: 160 - Facing Difficulties and Transforming Them at Their Source Is the Path of Integral Yoga - by Submitted on May 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere are implications for anyone accepting the mission to work toward the evolutionary change of human nature, speeded up by the yogic process. We think we should somehow have amazing spiritual experiences, and live in a world of peace, sunshine and joy. The reality is likely to be far ...
Views: 160 - Spiritual Experiences and the Foundation of Peace and Aspiration Needed As Their Basis - by Submitted on Sep 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature is enamoured of experiences that are new and different, ‘exciting’, unusual. This is the allure of the vision quest, fasting, and the use of entheogenic substances to bring forth experiences, visions, contact with alternative states of conscious awareness, and alternative ...
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