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Consciousness and Awareness Articles
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- Wielding the Torch of Perfect Sincerity — the Way of Realisation on the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Jul 02, 2025 from santosh krinskySome years ago, there was a movie coming out of Hollywood that was based on the premise that someone was ‘cursed’ with having to tell the truth at all times. The premise was developed as a comedy with the idea that rather than using flattering terms or avoiding any harsh statements, the ...
Views: 132 - Understanding the Masks, False Fronts and Deceptive Appearances We Present to the World and to Ourselves - by Submitted on Jun 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is relatively easy to recognise that we are putting up a false front in our dealings with society. We greet people with a smile while in our minds, we may be having an opposite feeling about the person. We flatter people to get ahead in society, knowing that the flattery is not based on ...
Views: 144 - 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: 147 - Sincerity and Spiritual Sadhana - by Submitted on Jun 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyFor most people, the concept of ‘sincerity’ is connected with how they relate to other people, in an open, natural and honest way, without duplicity or hypocrisy. The idea that sincerity can relate to oneself and one’s inner life is something that spiritual aspirants grapple with. Sincerity is ...
Views: 140 - The Spiritual Seeker Needs to Live Within His Own Spiritual Atmosphere Not Dependent on Outer Circumstances - by Submitted on Jun 26, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual takes up spiritual practice, he naturally will try to find a space that is calm and quiet to aid his contemplation, aspiration or devotion. The hustle and bustle of the external life is distracting to the concentration and all of the noise, and all of the pressures of that ...
Views: 201 - 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: 143 - The Quality of Rajas and Its Impact on the Spiritual Sadhana - by Submitted on Jun 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe quality of Rajas, when it predominates in the action of the individual seeking spiritual growth, can have quite disruptive effects. A certain amount of focus and energy is required for any spiritual endeavour, to be sure, but there is a fine line between too little energy and too much. Rajas ...
Views: 140 - 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: 142 - 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: 140 - The Most Helpful Attitude for Spiritual Progress - by Submitted on Jun 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature, in particular, is addicted to ‘drama’. It seeks attention and excitement. An added complication is that in modern society, with our fixation on all types of electronic stimulation, internet, mobile phones, radio, television, cinema, along with neon signs, blaring ads and ...
Views: 139 - Overcoming Suffering and Changing the Future of Our Karma - by Submitted on Jun 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyMany people believe that there is some kind of inexorable law of reward and punishment being doled out by God or some other all-powerful, all-observant being. In the West children are taught this lesson through the myth of Santa Claus, when they are encouraged to be “good” because Santa Claus is ...
Views: 138 - Exceeding the Limits Set By Our Minds to Harness Powers of Health and Fitness - by Submitted on Jun 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe generally remain locked within the framework of our past training and experience. We create walls around ourselves that circumscribe what we believe we can accomplish, what we can do, what is ‘real’ and what is possible. As long as we remain primarily fixated on the past, we limit our ...
Views: 175 - Causes and Prevention or Elimination of Illness - by Submitted on Jun 13, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe physical body has an ingrained response, for most people, to vibrations that precipitate illnesses. The vector carrying that vibration (whether one calls it ‘germs’, ‘bacteria’, ‘virus’, or ‘suggestion’) strikes the protective vital envelope, or aura, surrounding the body. If it finds an ...
Views: 164 - 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: 145 - Periods of Apparent Emptiness or Dryness in the Spiritual Practice - by Submitted on Jun 10, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn the external life we are trained to desire visible signs of forward movement, progress, constant development. We believe if we are not moving forward, then we must be retrogressing. We value action over quiet times. When we are relieved from action, such as during a vacation, or at the stage ...
Views: 143 - 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: 165 - 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: 144 - 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: 148 - 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: 153 - Dealing with Anxiety and Worry - by Submitted on Jun 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyMany people express the idea that simply living life without any form of planning or care about organizing one’s activities is the ideal ‘worry-free’ way of living. This conflates reasonable planning in the outer life with the internal process of worrying. Worrying is basically an inability ...
Views: 205 - Facing One’s Difficulties - by Submitted on Jun 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asked Sri Krishna to place him between the two armies ready to engage in a civil war, with massive numbers of troops on each side, so that he could view the scene before the actual fighting started. At that moment he was struck by the magnitude of what was about to ...
Views: 142 - 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: 146 - Aligning the Inner Being With the Psychic Aspiration Overcomes the Pressure of Despondency and Depression in the Course of the Spiritual Sadhana - by Submitted on Jun 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyTaking the right attitude when feelings of failure or depression arise in the course of the spiritual practice is essential to navigate through these moods with the least disruption. Sri Aurobindo implies that the standpoint should be in the separate witness consciousness, which he distinguishes ...
Views: 134 - How to Deal With the Feeling of Unfitness for Spiritual Progress When It Arises in the Sadhana - by Submitted on Jun 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is perhaps a virtually universal experience. An individual takes up a spiritual practice, and for a time, particularly when Sattwa is in the forefront, he has unique insights, experiences and a sense of progress. At some point, however, these experiences tend to recede and the individual is ...
Views: 127 - Depression and Spiritual Progress - by Submitted on May 31, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe are all subject to the action of the three Gunas or qualties of Nature. They are always shifting. As they shift, our outlook, mood, physical responsiveness, vital energy and mental framework all undergo corresponding changes. None of the three Gunas remains constantly in the forefront, so ...
Views: 133 - Keep Hold On Your Aspiration Through All Difficulties and Circumstances - by Submitted on May 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe flame of aspiration is the force that keeps the sadhak moving forward in his spiritual practice, regardless of the forces that threaten or oppose that progress, whether from outside or which rise up internally. Everyone goes through changes of mood and energy as the three Gunas fluctuate. ...
Views: 125 - The Spiritual Seeker and the Challenges of Spiritual Growth and Development - by Submitted on May 29, 2025 from santosh krinskyPeople believe generally that taking up the spiritual life involves a form of escapism from the daily obstacles, difficulties and pressures of living an active life in society. Some people in fact take up the spiritual path as an escape, but that is neither the primary motivation nor does it ...
Views: 131 - The Individual Sadhak and His Relation to the Movement of Universal Forces - by Submitted on May 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyForces that operate in the world are not necessarily ‘hostile’ even if their effect on any particular individual appears to be extremely negative. These forces operate on a large scale to carry out their own role and fulfillment, without specific regard to who may be impacted. When an earthquake ...
Views: 124 - Overcoming the Obstruction of Universal Adverse Forces - by Submitted on May 26, 2025 from santosh krinskyMost people are skeptical about the concept of conscious universal forces. Even if they profess a belief in God, angels, demons, and other unseen powerful beings, they tend to reject the idea when it comes down to actual influence in their own actions, reactions and responses. There is an ...
Views: 140 - 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: 143 - The Complex Nature of Our Being Impacts Our Ability to Change and Transform Our Lives - by Submitted on May 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyThose who identify with their mental being tend to believe that if they think in a certain way, that they have succeeded in embodying that. They will take the thought for the accomplishment without necessarily recognising that their physical actions, their vital energies and even aspects of ...
Views: 136 - 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: 148 - Resisting and Overcoming the Negative Universal Forces That Try to Control Our Reactions - by Submitted on May 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyAll consciousness, all energy, all material substance is essential one, although it takes different forms in the external surface consciousness. Vibrational patterns move across the universal creation and forms respond to them if they are able to vibrate within the range of the vibrations. Human ...
Views: 141 - 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: 157 - The Difference Between Suppression and Removal of a Vital Reaction, Part 1 - by Submitted on May 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as we set our standpoint in the external surface consciousness, we do not have the leverage nor the tools to easily remove an embedded reaction. We tend to take steps to suppress rather than expunge the unwanted energy. This may take the form of an ascetic denial, or an avoidance of ...
Views: 140 - The Need to Employ the Searchlight on Every Aspect of One’s Being - by Submitted on May 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn its essence, yoga is a form of applied psychology. The practitioner of yoga is attempting to redirect the focus, the responses and the reactions of the being, in many cases having to overcome deeply rooted and embedded instincts, habits, and trained responses, as well as the forces of desire, ...
Views: 136 - Developing a Strong Power of Knowledge and Will To Manage and Control the Vital Nature - by Submitted on May 18, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhile a reaction may seem to be taking place instantaneously, it is always conditioned by prior acts or events, the chain of cause and effect, dependent origination or the law of karma, however one wants to term it. By adopting the standpoint of the witness consciousness, observing the external ...
Views: 164 - Restraining the Response to the Impulses Attractive to the Vital Nature Is the First Step Towards Mastery - by Submitted on May 18, 2025 from santosh krinskyA lesson in control of impulses was described by Homer in The Odyssey. The protagonist, Odysseus is on his ship trying to return home after the Trojan War. He approaches an area that was home to the Sirens, whose alluring voices would lure sailors to their death as the ships crashed among the ...
Views: 169 - 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: 154 - Dealing With the Reactive Impulses of the Vital Nature of the External Personality - by Submitted on May 15, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe tend to be reactive by nature. Something occurs and we immediately capture the vibration and respond to it. Thus we have outbursts of anger when we are frustrated or feel insecure, or when something gets in the way of some idea, intention or movement we want to undertake. An example of this ...
Views: 174 - Difficulties Provide the Possibility of Progress - by Submitted on May 14, 2025 from santosh krinskyIf we examine the times and phases of our lives, we find that when things seem to be going smoothly forward and we feel great, we want to enjoy and appreciate the good times. We thus tend to slacken our efforts so that we can get the most out of the positive energies we are experiencing. This is ...
Views: 137 - The Spiritual Aspirant Marches to the Beat of a Different Drummer Than Those Who Focus on the External Life - by Submitted on May 13, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe spiritual aspirant necessarily has to change the way things have been historically and habitually done in the world if he is to make progress and move beyond the limitations imposed by the body-life-mind complex and all the traditions, rituals, habits, fixed ideas and vital-emotional ...
Views: 143 - 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: 146 - 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: 158 - 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: 143 - 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: 153 - 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: 143 - Consciousness Exists in Matter and Responds to Caring Good Will - by Submitted on May 06, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we look at existence from the point of view of our material consciousness, we tend to treat material things as ‘inanimate objects’ without consciousness. We attribute to plants, and then to animals, increasing levels of conscious awareness and with the advent of the mental consciousness, we ...
Views: 139 - Overcoming Fatigue and Lack of Energy Through Receptivity to the Higher Planes of Consciousness - by Submitted on May 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyPeople who reside in communities adjacent to the beach regularly see visitors stretched out on the sand, ostensibly sleeping while ‘working on their tan’, in some cases for the entire stay of a vacation. When asked, these people indicate that they are taking a well-earned vacation and just want ...
Views: 135 - 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 ...
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