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Consciousness and Awareness Articles
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- The Initial Liberation of the Mental Being from Servitude to the Physical Body - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe can learn much from the quite commonly related phenomenon called the ‘out of body’ experience. Many people have had such an experience where they resided in their awareness outside the body, in some cases from above the body and from that vantage point could observe the body as different and ...
Views: 123 - The Mental Purusha: the Witness Awareness of the Mind - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs the seeker attempts to achieve the separation of the witness consciousness from the external nature of the being (which is comprised of the body, the vital being and the mind), the first phase is generally the separation of the mental awareness from the body. This brings forth the awareness ...
Views: 127 - Balancing Detachment, Indifference and Caretaking of the Body - by Submitted on Aug 29, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we hear that we must cultivate detachment and indifference to the physical body as the instrument of our external interactions in the world, we tend to immediately jump to the idea that we must renounce everything and simply let the body do whatever happens without any care or concern for ...
Views: 125 - The Separation of Purusha and Prakriti: The Soul and the External Being - by Submitted on Aug 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyMost people identify themselves with their external being, their body-life-mind complex. They assign a name to that being and they answer to that name. They are totally immersed in the needs, wants, and directions that that external being is taking. When they awaken to a deeper spiritual urge, ...
Views: 124 - Finding the Inner Balance of Non-Attachment While Living in the World - by Submitted on Aug 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn his epic poem, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo writes: “He who would save himself lives bare and calm; He who would save the race must share its pain: Renunciation of the world, avoidance of interacting with the objects, actions, events and needs of the external life, is ...
Views: 127 - The Bliss of Non-Possession - by Submitted on Aug 27, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn the Taittiriya Upanishad, there is an interesting chapter often referred to as the "calculus of bliss". It starts from the measure of one human being who has everything, health, strength, all human opportunities fully available to him. That is the measure of "human bliss". The recitation goes ...
Views: 128 - The Power of Rejection in Gaining Mastery Over the Nature - by Submitted on Aug 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyOperant conditioning is a phenomenon identified in Western psychology by B.F. Skinner. His experiments showed that by the results of carrying out specific actions, they can either be encouraged, through positive reinforcement, or discouraged through negative reinforcement. One of the principles ...
Views: 121 - The Cycles and Causes of Recurring Difficulties in Relation to Spiritual Development and Progress - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is a limitation of our normal mental mode of understanding that we do not tend to take into account the impact of time and the cyclical nature of development. We expect things to move in a straight line. We expect progress to be continuous and in a single direction. When we overcome a ...
Views: 124 - Understanding and Managing the Subconscious Part of the Being - by Submitted on Aug 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe idea that significant events or forces can take place within us during sleep or in the twilight range between sleep and waking is something that has been part of human understanding for thousands of years. In particular, dreams, a particular form of the sleep state where the consciousness is ...
Views: 128 - Understanding Desire and the Absence of Desire - by Submitted on Aug 21, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen seekers take up the spiritual path, they try to follow the guideline to reject desire. They will frequently say “I don’t desire anything”. In many cases, however, this is an obfuscation by the vital nature manipulating the mind to accept something which is not entirely accurate. Let’s break ...
Views: 135 - The Difference Between Suppression and Self-Control of the Force of Vital Desire - by Submitted on Aug 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen it comes to the question of control, rejection and mastery over the vital nature and its desires, there is considerable confusion. For the most part this confusion is caused by a lack of clear definition between the different modes of observation, response and action that the seeker can ...
Views: 137 - Indulgence of Desire Does Not Lead to Rejection - by Submitted on Aug 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyIf we reflect on how we learn, how we gain skills, we find that one of the key elements is repetition. We train our muscles through repetition of an exercise regimen. We train our minds through repetition and we train our responses through repetition. At some point we embed the results of the ...
Views: 126 - Neither Suppression, Indulgence, Blame-Shifting Nor Avoidance Solves the Issue of Overcoming the Vital Force of Desire - by Submitted on Aug 18, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen a spring is compressed, it builds up a tremendous power of potential energy, which gets released when the force that is compressing the spring is released. This is essentially how the vital force of desire operates when we try to suppress a drive through will power or other forms of ...
Views: 135 - Overcoming the Force of Desire - by Submitted on Aug 17, 2025 from santosh krinskyIf we reflect on the course of human life, it is easy to determine that we fixate upon different things at different stages of life. As a child, our desires tend to be centered around physical and vital satisfactions. We may desire a specific food, or a specific toy, or a specific form of ...
Views: 141 - Changing Human Nature Rather Than Abandoning the External Life - by Submitted on Aug 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyOur mental process tends to take us to extremes. We want simple answers, without a lot of nuance. Thus, when we seek spiritual liberation, we tend to take the concept of renunciation or rejection to mean that we abandon the external life to focus on our spiritual pursuits. If our vital nature ...
Views: 130 - Divine Realisation and the Uplifting and Perfection of Life in the World - by Submitted on Aug 15, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe ancient sages of India, as we see in some of the texts that have come down to us through the course of time, understood the balance between the internal and the external, between individual liberation and a balanced activity in the world. They recognised the individual role as part of the ...
Views: 129 - Detachment, Liberation and Mastery - by Submitted on Aug 14, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe question of detachment, renunciation, is frequently interpreted as one of avoidance and a rejection of the external life in the world. It most often turns to austerity. If one follows this line of approach to its logical conclusion, the only solution is to renounce all action, renounce all ...
Views: 124 - Liberation From and Mastery of the External Nature of Man - by Submitted on Aug 13, 2025 from santosh krinskyMany religious and spiritual traditions focus on the idea of ‘liberation’ from bondage to the illusion of the external world and its enticements and attractions. In some cases, this takes the form of a vow of austerity and a focus on achieving redemption and access to heaven after one dies. In ...
Views: 131 - Developing a Power to Perceive and Understand Ourselves and Our World By Minimizing the Distortions and Biases That Are Inherent in Our Human Instrumentation and Process - by Submitted on Aug 12, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhenever we try to understand something, we are met with various types of inherent biases that skew the determinations we make. Not only are our senses, our perceptions and our thoughts subject to various forms of filtering, but they are also skewed by our past experience, the fact that our ...
Views: 137 - The Experience of the Witness Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe standpoint of the witness consciousness, separated from the external being, is not something that is acquired through thinking or the exercise of will-power based in the mind. Many people have developed approaches or systems to not react to outer circumstances, such as stoicism, various ...
Views: 136 - The Shift to the Standpoint of the Observer of the External Nature - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe Purusha, the witness consciousness, resides in each of us. Why then do we have to seek for liberation? If we examine our psychological standpoint, we can see that we tend to identify with, to become, the external ego-personality that we have assumed. It is as if we put on a suit of clothes, ...
Views: 136 - Development from Witness of the Nature to Master of the Nature - by Submitted on Aug 09, 2025 from santosh krinskySankhya philosophy, also referenced in the Bhagavad Gita and certain Upanishads with respect to its understanding of the respective roles of the Purusha, the witness consciousness and Prakriti, the active nature, provides a guiding light for those seeking liberation from bondage to the external ...
Views: 137 - Isolation, Introspection, Introversion and the Witness Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyA young person, around 20 years of age, reported an experience he had while visiting a beer hall in Munich, Germany with some friends and acquaintances. As could be expected, there was a lot of noise, clinking of glasses, singing, laughing, story-telling among his friends, as well as generally ...
Views: 135 - 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: 151 - 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: 156 - Vigilance - by Submitted on Aug 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe ancient texts, such as the Upanishads or the Dhammapada, focus on distinguishing the true and eternal, from the transitory and illusory existence upon which most people spend their time and attention. Thus, the term ‘vigilance’ means something entirely different than what a person, awake in ...
Views: 141 - 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: 141 - To Be Conscious - by Submitted on Aug 03, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we reflect upon what we really know about our existence, our lives, our purpose, the forces at work in the world and in us, the influences to which we are being subjected constantly, and the way we respond to these influences without conscious awareness, it becomes clear that we act out of ...
Views: 140 - We Tend to Take Ourselves Too Seriously - by Submitted on Aug 02, 2025 from santosh krinskySeriously, we get all wound up about things that have no real significance in the larger picture of life. Whether it is someone cutting in front of us in a queue or on the road, or whether someone says something about us which we do not like, we tend to get revved up and stew on what happened. ...
Views: 123 - The Psychic Being Brings Cheerful Focus to the Spiritual Sadhana - by Submitted on Aug 01, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn his novel Martin Chuzzlewit, Charles Dickens exposes us to a character who is perpetually cheerful, Mark Tapley. We meet him in a comfortable situation working at an inn, with a warm relationship with the proprietor of the inn, with whom he is in love (and who is in love with him). He ...
Views: 133 - Spiritual Awakening: Moving Away From Disillusionment to Finding Meaning in Life - by Submitted on Jul 31, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs we grow and experience life, there may come a time when we become disillusioned. We may feel like there is no meaning or significance to what we do. We feel like we are running in a hamster wheel, or on a treadmill, always striving to earn money to survive and maybe have a bit of enjoyment. ...
Views: 131 - The Sunlit Path in the Yogic Endeavour - by Submitted on Jul 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we see deeply religious or spiritual people, we expect to see people who are serious, reserved and who carry an air of distance from the things of the world. This expectation has been so deeply embedded in the human psyche that we almost unconsciously take up this attitude when we tread the ...
Views: 133 - Unflagging Perseverance and Persistence Is Required for the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jul 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyAthletes undergo extensive training routines, logging many thousands of hours with, in many cases, tough physical conditioning and practice, in order to achieve their goals for physical development and to be able to participate in a competitive sporting event. Many who are not athletes undertake ...
Views: 126 - Overcoming Doubt and Fear of Failure in the Yogic Sadhana Through the Shift from the Ego-Standpoint to the Divine Standpoint - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe seem to be always second guessing ourselves. Are we doing the sadhana in the right way? Is there another method or technique i should be employing? Why am I not seeing the results I expect and desire? Am I even cut out for doing sadhana? Maybe this was all just a big mistake and I should get ...
Views: 144 - Sustaining the Yogic Endeavour in the Unique Challenges Posed by the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jul 26, 2025 from santosh krinskyFor those individuals called to take up the integral yoga, there is a unique opportunity and a unique set of concerns that arise. Those paths of yoga which aim at liberation have their own difficulties. It is not simple to escape the lures of the external life, or even to undertake ...
Views: 136 - 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: 145 - The Need for Patience and Perseverance - by Submitted on Jul 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyScientists tell us that human beings diverged from chimpanzees somewhere between 4 and 8 million years ago. Somewhere around 2 million years ago, the line of development that led to human beings appeared and our current formation, Homo sapiens came on the scenes around 300,000 years ago. Each ...
Views: 136 - Faith and Courage Represent the True Attitude For Facing Life and for Spiritual Progress - by Submitted on Jul 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyOne of the qualities that Swami Vivekananda emphasized as ‘fearlessness’. We may wonder why courage and fearlessness are such important elements in living our lives, if we live a relatively ‘safe’ external life and don’t engage in extremely risky behaviour. We may also wonder why they are ...
Views: 142 - 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: 143 - Focusing One’s Attention on the Forces One Wants to Manifest - by Submitted on Jul 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe human being receives vibrations from the universe. They are either accepted and allowed to act upon the individual, or rejected at some level of the being, with minimal impact other than the pressure on the sheath or aura that feels the vibration. If the vibration is accepted, it can not ...
Views: 145 - Overcoming the Distracting Force of Vital Desire to Find and Live the Truth of One’s Life - by Submitted on Jul 12, 2025 from santosh krinskyWind is a metaphor for the vital force. The vital being is moved by desire. When we covet or desire something, we are tossed about as by a great gust of wind. This is the normal state for most people, and they just get tossed about from one focus to another trying to achieve what is held before ...
Views: 138 - What Actually Is Spirituality? - by Submitted on Jul 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe speak of ‘spirituality’ and we have a conception in our minds about what it actually is. We vaguely sense that it encompasses a devotion and focus on something other than our daily external life and relationships. Many people state that they are ‘spiritual, not religious’. We sometimes ...
Views: 134 - 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: 149 - Individual Strength, the Power of Sincerity and the Action of the Divine Grace - by Submitted on Jul 09, 2025 from santosh krinskyParticularly in the West, historically, but more and more a world-wide phenomenon in the modern era, there is a strong bias toward the idea that one needs to be a “self-made man”, implying that it is through individual strength and accomplishment that one can accomplish anything. This bias is ...
Views: 132 - Understanding the Yogic Process and Its Developments Through the Action of Time - by Submitted on Jul 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe frequently overlook the element of time in any inner review of progress toward spiritual fulfillment, surrender to the Divine, or any other aspect of our spiritual path. We want and expect instant results, and thus, when we once take up spiritual practice, we want it to be immediately ...
Views: 144 - Integral Surrender to the Divine - by Submitted on Jul 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe tend to live under the illusion that we are one being and that what we think or feel represents ‘who we are’. We accept the idea that we are dedicated to a spiritual path, or we accept the sense of devotion that we feel as representing our surrender to the Divine Will. Yet, we have different ...
Views: 141 - Spiritual Progress: Personal Effort or Surrender to the Divine Grace - by Submitted on Jul 06, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe see in the legends about great yogic practitioners and their struggles to achieve the spiritual results, a variety of approaches. Two major approaches have been categorised as the “baby monkey” and the “baby cat” approach. The differentiation involves the way the individual participates in ...
Views: 124 - Distinguishing Truth from Falsehood Requires Separation from the Vital Desire-Soul and Its Impulsions - by Submitted on Jul 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyDuring the 1980’s there were a number of scams carried out by US mail. An individual would receive a letter purporting to come from some high official in another country who had access to a large amount of money and needed a ‘partner’ to help take the funds out of the country and invest them in ...
Views: 135 - How to Recognise the Divine Will - by Submitted on Jul 04, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe get prompted inwardly to do somethng. In some cases, we have conflicting impulses or reactions. We wonder how to distinguish the Divine Will from all of the other drives, motives, forces, and options that confront us. Add to this the complications of the vital nature, in i ts attempts to ...
Views: 142 - 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 ...
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