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As the three Gunas continue to rotate their action in the external personality, there are times when Rajas presides and there is potentially a sense of ambition and with it, a sustained effort. When Tamas presides, however, there is a tendency to fall into despondency or depression, seeing ... Views: 88
We frequently identify success, as defined by our minds, as an indicator of divine Grace; yet this is driven in many cases by the ego, not by the larger viewpoint of the Divine. In a complex world that is undergoing evolutionary transformation driven by the manifestation of a new power of ... Views: 599
The vital worlds are generally unseen and unrecognised by us, as they do not take physical forms in the same way as our external world within which we live and act. This does not imply, however, that they do not have interaction with our world and the beings, including ourselves, that inhabit ... Views: 306
An individual reaches an absolute low point in his life. He may be suffering under intense grief, he may have made mistakes that led to catastrophic consequences, he may be faced with exposure and embarassment for actions he has undertaken, he may be in intense pain and suffering from a terminal ... Views: 81
Within the framework of our mind and the experience of our vital existence, we are inculcated in the belief that everything is subject to duality, good and bad, happy and unhappy, light and dark. We cannot generally conceive of an existence that is not subject to these pairs of opposites. We ... Views: 475
When an individual takes up religious or spiritual practices, he becomes aware of the force of desire and the need to curb it. In some cases, particularly in religious pursuits, there are a set of moral rules or monastic rules that provide set guidelines for the practitioner. Usually these ... Views: 75
The first impulse of religious or spiritual paths with respect to the sex impulse has frequently been to simply suppress and deny it. When any form of energy is forcefully suppressed, it acts like a coiled spring, storing that energy and building up its potential power, until such time as it is ... Views: 82
The great religious traditions of the world virtually all relate a battle between Powers of Darkness and the Powers of Light. Regardless of the specific names and forms each tradition adopts, the similarities speak to a human experience of a supraphysical reality that impacts life on ... Views: 507
For 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
Dear friends,
We have two more aspects of Yama and Niyama to cover, Svadhyaya (self-reflection) and Ishvara Pranidhana ( surrender to God).
When we have completed these two aspects we will move on to discussion of other aspects of yogic teachings such as karma, samskara, the five ... Views: 1427
In July of 1992, the summer between my senior year in high school and my freshman year at Stanford, I got invited to play in the U.S. Junior National Baseball Championship tournament in Boise, Idaho. It was a pretty big deal. Some of the top high school players in the country were there, ... Views: 1630
Symbolic dreams are common and in many cases, similar thematic elements show up for most people. These dreams attempt to raise up from the subconscious levels some underlying need, concern, fear, or persistent issue that remains unresolved in the external life. Sigmund Freud, in his work on The ... Views: 50
There are innumerable devotees of Hanuman all the world over who admire this majestic one in several forms. One of the much-revered forms is the extremely Panchmukhi Hanuman. Five faces are gazing in various directions, frequently operating the witness in reverence. The Panchmukhi Hanuman or the ... Views: 705
There are innumerable devotees of Hanuman all the world over who admire this majestic one in several forms. One of the much-revered forms is the extremely Panchmukhi Hanuman. Five faces are gazing in various directions, frequently operating the witness in reverence. The Panchmukhi Hanuman or the ... Views: 621
There are innumerable devotees of Hanuman all the world over who admire this majestic one in several forms. One of the much-revered forms is the extremely Panchmukhi Hanuman. Five faces are gazing in various directions, frequently operating the witness in reverence. The Panchmukhi Hanuman or the ... Views: 719
There are innumerable devotees of Hanuman all the world over who admire this majestic one in several forms. One of the much-revered forms is the extremely Panchmukhi Hanuman. Five faces are gazing in various directions, frequently operating the witness in reverence. The Panchmukhi Hanuman or the ... Views: 723
There are innumerable devotees of Hanuman all the world over who admire this majestic one in several forms. One of the much-revered forms is the extremely Panchmukhi Hanuman. Five faces are gazing in various directions, frequently operating the witness in reverence. The Panchmukhi Hanuman or the ... Views: 735
Today lets discuss the relationship we have to ideas like selflessness, self-sacrifice or selfless service. Ideas like self-sacrifice or selflessness have become associated for many people with letting yourself be stepped on or over run by others, of being a kind of dish rag, moping up others ... Views: 1823
We are very much creatures of habit, and thus, when it comes to our intake of energy, we tend to habitually turn to a preferred method of reception. For most people, the primary source is food. Most people engage in vital interchange with others, and there is a subtle interaction that can both ... Views: 501
Chapter Eleven - “What the Universe is All About”
Then the stranger and the apprentice went on their way, moving through the desert, across great sand dunes and into peaceful valleys. And soon they came upon a suitable place to bed down for the night near a small spring so the camels could ... Views: 2194
Chapter Twelve - “Mans Awakening is Coming Soon”
And the next morning the stranger and the apprentice start their way across the desert with rested camels and quiet minds. They start their way up high mountains and at the base of the mountains left their camels behind in exchange for horses ... Views: 2135
Suggestions are not just directed at the mind; nor are they restricted in their impact on just the mind. We are used to the process of people making suggestions to us constantly about what we could, or should, do or how we could, or should, respond to a situation. We weigh these suggestions not ... Views: 533
There are several points worth considering with respect to utilizing imagination and some of the unanticipated issues that are based primarily in the lag between formulation and accomplishment of the imagined form. Visualization and use of the imagination can act to turn a vague idea or sense ... Views: 351
“What goes around comes around” and “karma” both basically indicate that there is a factor in existence that rewards good deeds and punishes bad deeds. But do we really see that things work this way? Is there some divine entity sitting up in the clouds, watching our good and bad actions, and ... Views: 636
We tend to operate under the fallacy that any spiritual force that is operative will automatically, and completely, achieve its intended result without difficulty. We forget, thereby, the way forces actually work in the world. There are always starting points, conditions, limitations, and ... Views: 295
In the classic methods known as Kundalini Yoga, and more generally in traditional yogic practices that seek to open and energize the subtle energy centers, or chakras, the experience is described as one of the energy starting at the lower chakra center, the Muladhara, and then rising up until it ... Views: 577
When the higher spiritual forces begun to enter the being through any kind of opening, they interact with the existing framework of the body-life-mind. Any time energy is introduced into a system, it activates the existing patterns of response, so that the mind begins to create its thoughts and ... Views: 83
We normally judge things based on our own individual egoistic standpoint, basically, how a particular event or circumstance affects us in the moment. We build up expectations and plans, and suddenly, something gets in the way and destroys or diverts those plans. We naturally become disappointed, ... Views: 171
Matter, prepared and encoded with the dataset required to bring forth Life, does not spontaneously, on its own express the life-form for which it is encoded. The seed, or the egg, remains potential, latent, until it is acted upon by a force external to it. In the case of the seed of a plant, the ... Views: 304
Each level of consciousness acts on its own native level independent of any single individual person or embodiment. There is a subtle physical plane, a vital plane, a mental plane, and various spiritual planes beyond that characterize and represent further levels of the evolution of ... Views: 374
Just as forces and vibrations act upon us that vibrate below our normal human level of perceptive range, and bring in much of the past, subconscient, dark and ignorant reactions that drive much of our human life, so also there are forces and vibrations that enter us from above our perceptible ... Views: 460
The 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
Human beings love subjecting others to practical jokes. But very likely, we are not the only beings who suffer from this malady. Many people have had the experience related here by the Mother about searching for things, sometimes looking in the place where those things are, but not finding them. ... Views: 322
The ego-personality, particularly the vital ego, feeds upon feelings of being special, having new and exciting experiences that are not part of the ordinary external consciousness. Spiritual seekers are allured by tales of meeting spiritual beings on subtle planes, traveling without the physical ... Views: 445
Every new evolutionary development of consciousness has brought with it changes in the material forms and activity of those forms to accommodate the new powers that are manifesting. It is therefore expected that as the supramental manifestation takes place, it will also bring about changes in ... Views: 606
The aim of spiritual seeking and yoga, historically, has been the liberation of the individual seeker and achievement of enlightenment. In many cases, this has involved making a choice between living “in the world” or abandoning the worldly life. Some traditions, such as the Buddhist Mahayana ... Views: 692
There are days when our work-desk is loaded and so is our mind. Human brain is efficiently designed to do multiple tasks with minimal number of errors. However, when it comes to thoughts, it is not that easy. Most of the times, there is a long-hours traffic of our own thoughts that blocks the ... Views: 893
One of the single-best ways to “see” whether or not your thoughts have a creative influence on the reality around you is to begin thinking about something in particular, and then observing its reflection in your immediate environment.
For example:
If I set an intention to manifest more ... Views: 1125
It is difficult to both understand and appreciate the apparent regression from spiritual heights to a world in which the physical being and material focus reigns supreme and predominates in the entire world to an overwhelming degree. It is likely that the intellectual and then the spiritual ... Views: 178
For most people, everything that takes place in the mind is simply mental activity. Psychology as a science in the West has only, in recent years, begun to appreciate there are different types of intelligence that, presumably, arise from different sources. The discussion of “left brain” and ... Views: 653
While the mind does not generally recognise the consciousness of the body, it remains true that the body has its own ability to respond to circumstances. For those who have a highly developed mental or vital being, these powers frequently override the natural responsiveness of the body. When we ... Views: 383
Changing human nature is a process of time and effort and is therefore subject to periods of waxing and waning of effort. Human beings tend to relax and enjoy their lives when all things are going well. Thus, it is primarily in times of difficulty and stress when we remember to focus on the need ... Views: 488
It is a well-known occurrence. We have a wonderful experience in meditation and come back filled with light, a feeling of joy or bliss, an open heart and a sense of realisation. Then we go out to act in the world and all the old impulses arise, the feelings of desire, the drive of control, ... Views: 665
When one begins to consider how the faults we find in others are those to which we ourselves are susceptible, and that we see them through the focus and affinity that we have to them, as the synchronicity of the universe brings forward to us those very things that we are naturally attracting, it ... Views: 472
There is considerable confusion, and a resultant variety of ways that spiritual seekers respond, to the question of food. Ordinarily food should not lead to any sense of bewilderment, as it is simply a necessity for the maintenance of the physical body in general. The issue arises when food ... Views: 574
Beings of the vital worlds in many cases interact with and act upon the material world in which we live and act as embodied beings. What is the attraction? Vital beings generally crave energy, excitement, novelty, the ‘food’ of their existence. If they are seeking to harvest such energy from ... Views: 342
There has been a lot of publicity about what is called generally the “law of attraction”. This holds that an individual can focus on something and thereby cause it to be attracted to him. People have used it to try to attract wealth, romance, and other things they desire to themselves. There is, ... Views: 425
Until an aspiration awakens in the being, we tend to go about our lives taking cues from the promptings of family, friends, community, religion, or schools. Most people will not therefore recognise any greater or deeper purpose to their lives, and they simply determine to try to support ... Views: 354
When we consider the ‘awakening of the Kundalini Shakti at the base of the spine, we frequently imagine some kind of dramatic experience, some palpable energy, some noticeable force operating and moving up through the experiential body. And in some cases, this actually does occur this way. For ... Views: 250
The chakras are subtle energy centers, not physical centers in the body, although they generally correspond to various physical capacities ranged along the external body. They essentially act as vibrational ‘receptors’ and transmitters of energies. When they are closed or very much shut down, ... Views: 58