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- The Third Step in the Mental Discipline: Control of Thoughts - by Submitted on Jun 19, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe inner control of thoughts is a further development once the poise of the witness consciousness has been attained. As the seeker observes the thoughts, he can also determine their effect in the being, and see if they lead to uplifting, widening, and harmonizing results, or whether they shrink ...
Views: 509 - The Three General Forms of Response to the Touches of Nature - by Submitted on Oct 30, 2024 from santosh krinskyEndurance can be trained and developed. There are entire philosophical programs that have developed to systematically help an individual face the pressures and circumstances of the world with a sense of equality and equanimity. Some of these disciplines rely on acclimating the body to handle ...
Views: 250 - The Three Gunas and Spiritual Practice - by Submitted on Nov 28, 2021 from santosh krinskySpiritual aspirants, just as all others in the world, are impacted by the play of the three Gunas the qualities of Nature. These qualities are always in movement, constantly combining, jostling one another, becoming predominant, and then being suppressed as the next movement arises. We can see ...
Views: 582 - The Three Gunas, the Operation of Prakriti in the External Nature, and the Exercise of Will - by Submitted on Mar 17, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe actions that take place in the external world are controlled by the action of the three Gunas, or qualities, of Nature. This includes not only the physical nature, but also the vital nature and the mental nature. There is what we may call a ‘machinery’ of Nature that drives the creation ...
Views: 321 - The Time Needed for the Transition of the Ego-Consciousness to Become a Conscious Instrument of the Divine - by Submitted on Oct 18, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen the seeker becomes aware of the need for consecration and the aspiration awakens within him, he can become very impatient with the obstacles put up by the ego as it works to maintain and enhance its position. After all, the ego has developed over long periods of time as a stage toward ...
Views: 651 - The Total Change of the Nature Cannot Be Done in a Day - by Submitted on Oct 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyModern life moves at high speed. We expect things to take place virtually instantaneously. As a result, we judge things in the light of the time it takes to accomplish them. If we have to expend an effort, we hope and expect that we will immediately begin to see palpable results. We want an ...
Views: 107 - The Transcendent Divine, the Cosmic or Universal Plane of Consciousness and Material Existence - by Submitted on Mar 21, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe seer of the Taittiriya Upanishad identified various planes of ever more subtle and powerful consciousness, with the most subtle and powerful being the ultimate causative agent of the denser and lower formations of Matter, Life and Mind. If we look at the experience of the vedic seers, we ...
Views: 321 - The Transformation of the Mind - by Submitted on Oct 16, 2021 from santosh krinskyit is typical of the mental intelligence to believe that reading and remembering something implies that we have realised the truth of what we have read. Those who have taken the time to reflect on this make it clear that ‘reading a book about swimming’ does not mean one knows how to swim! ...
Views: 579 - The Transformation of the Sex Centre and Its Energy - by Submitted on Jan 10, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor the practitioner of the integral Yoga, energy is utilized to redirect and shift the standpoint away from the ego-personality into the divine standpoint, and then to effectuate actions to carry out the divine manifestation in the world. Energy dedicated to the enhancement or satisfactions of ...
Views: 681 - The Transition to the Soul’s Guidance of Mind, Life and Body - by Submitted on Sep 09, 2021 from santosh krinskyWith the development of the mental being in evolution, we can observe the central leadership role that the mind plays in dealing with the vital and physical levels of our existence. The mental being, however, is limited by its strict framework and sequential process, and thus, is something like ...
Views: 532 - The Tree Embraces Its True Nature - by Submitted on Apr 14, 2013 from Moreen DuFermontThe Tree Embraces Its True Nature The secrets of creation may be found within the infinite wisdom of a tree. A tree can teach us much more than we may even come to know. When we are challenged by situations that seem insurmountable to us, the tree provides a gentle comfort through its ...
Views: 926 - The Triple Aspects of the Divine Presence - by Submitted on Mar 30, 2026 from santosh krinskyIn order to carry out the complex creation, the Supreme Divine Consciousness has ‘distributed’ the awareness through a series of steps. The first step is the development of the Jivatman, the Divine Presence that does not involve itself directly in the individual beings of the manifestation, but ...
Views: 27 - The Trouble Based on the Nature of the Vital That Needs to be Overcome - by Submitted on Jul 22, 2022 from santosh krinskyIt is a universal human experience that the vital force in the being is either extremely reactive to situations, particularly when it has a desire or craving to fulfill, or, if not given its desire, it can sulk or withdraw its energy and the being goes into a state of torpor or indolence, ...
Views: 542 - The True Attitude of Sadhana - by Submitted on Oct 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyMost people act under the impulsion of their vital desires, physical wants, and mental opinions, which are colored by the society within which an individual lives and its established norms and expectations. When an individual takes up the spiritual life and attempts to live according to the ...
Views: 101 - The True Condition of Progress in the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Jan 15, 2023 from santosh krinskySri Krishna taught Arjuna the lessons of the Bhagavad Gita on a battlefield. The setting is an important aspect of the teaching itself. The inner growth is not dependent on outer events or circumstances. Conditions will always be ‘imperfect’ if not absolutely terrible! Sri Aurobindo and the ...
Views: 452 - The True Condition of Spiritual Progress - by Submitted on Oct 03, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe frequently hear from people who say that they cannot focus on their spiritual practice as they don’t have a quiet space in which to meditate, or they live in a crowded, noisy city, or they are overwhelmed with all their duties relating to education, career, family, etc. They focus their ...
Views: 105 - The True Foundation of the Yoga - by Submitted on Nov 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe are generally so tied to our external ego-personality that we identify with it as what we consider to be our ‘self’. We then refer to this body-life-mind complex as our reality and we say that we ‘have a soul’. The reality is far different. The reality is that the soul, the psychic being, ...
Views: 82 - The True Nature of Rest - by Submitted on May 10, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor most people, rest is a state of lowered consciousness in which we recuperate from the fatigue generated through our various activities. If we reflect on how we respond to fatigue, we find that we have different modes depending on whether it is mental fatigue, vital exhaustion or physical ...
Views: 578 - The True Soul and the Desire Soul - by Submitted on Sep 22, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe confusion about the soul is pervasive at virtually every level of our being. Sri Aurobindo identifies what he calls the ‘desire soul’ which is a formation of the vital being, living on the surface of the consciousness and seeking gratification of desires for the external being. The amalgam ...
Views: 402 - The Truth About Lie - by Submitted on Feb 14, 2017 from Mitra ShahidiA lie can travel halfway round the world while the truth is putting on its shoes. A single lie discovered is enough to create doubt in every truth expressed. If you tell the truth, it becomes a part of your past. If you lie, it becomes a part of your future. We all know how difficult it ...
Views: 1634 - The Truth About Religion Today - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2014 from Albert WagnerWhat do you think? You might be pro-religion or anti-religion, but either way you might notice a decline in religious values in America today. This is a spiritual blog and the changes might impact you in some way. This post looks at the decline of religious influence in contemporary ...
Views: 1319 - The Truth About Your Divine Purpose - by Submitted on May 14, 2019 from Scott & Stephen PetulloSpiritual notions abound today regarding finding your calling, and the typical message can be summed up like this: Follow your heart to align yourself with and find your divine purpose, and you’ll find happiness and all the abundance you want, while avoiding life's challenges. We love ...
Views: 1162 - The Two Beings of Man: the External Self and the Inner Self - by Submitted on Aug 29, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs long as we focus our attention on the surface perceptions, events and actions, we respond to the vibrations associated with those things. We may focus on our physical needs, our vital desires, our mental interests, our emotional states, or on our aesthetic and artistic sensibilities, or on ...
Views: 365 - The Two Most Important Actions for Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Sep 18, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe integral Yoga does not depend, as many yogic paths do, on physical asanas or breathing techniques, nor on chanting of mantras, nor singing and dancing in ecstatic states of trance, nor deep philosophical inquiry or strict mental techniques. Nor does it depend on austerity or any kind of ...
Views: 525 - The Two Most Powerful Levers to Enter Into Contact with the Divine in One’s Psychic Being - by Submitted on May 04, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual begins to recognise the existence of his soul, and seeks for a way to come into contact with it, and begin to thereby understand the purpose and significance of his life in the larger creation, the first question that comes to mind is ‘how do I do that?’ This leads to a ...
Views: 418 - The Two Most Powerful Levers to Enter into Contact with the Divine in One’s Psychic Being - by Submitted on Jan 26, 2024 from santosh krinskyEnthusiasm and gratitude. They represent the powers of aspiration and receptivity in the being, along with the impulse to surrender of the ego and widen to embrace the Divine. For those interested in the transformation of life in the world, it is not sufficient to simply have a direct connection ...
Views: 310 - The Two Uses of the Mind and Its True Role in the Manifestation - by Submitted on Aug 02, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe primary functionality of the mind is to organize and classify, breaking down and fragmenting the reality into component parts. We see this easily in the classification systems for flora and fauna, in our detailed review of the genetic structure of life, gene sequencing, and in our ability to ...
Views: 403 - The Ultimate Focus of Concentration - by Submitted on Oct 06, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe genius of the Rishis of ancient India was their ability to focus on the essential core of knowledge, will and existence. They reminded us that we can obtain many forms and types of knowledge, but each of these is but a fragment, an isolated fact or event, if we have not identified that ...
Views: 268 - The Ultimate Guide to Addiction Recovery 2019 - by Submitted on Mar 06, 2019 from Addiction AideWhat is Addiction? Addiction is a complicated disorder and chronic dysfunction, which changes the operating function of the brain and body, which can also create dangerous damage to families, relationships between couples, workplaces, schools, and communities. When a person is addicted to any ...
Views: 1036 - The Ultimate Importance and Value of a Human Birth - by Submitted on Nov 19, 2023 from santosh krinskyThere are tales in the Puranas that indicate that even the Gods, if they want to evolve and develop, must take birth on earth in a human incarnation. If we look broadly at the evolution of consciousness from the gross material, to the vital, to the vital-mental and eventually to the mental ...
Views: 387 - The Unconscious Drivers of Human Decisions and Actions - by Submitted on May 17, 2026 from santosh krinskyMost people believe they are in control of their actions, their decisions and their circumstances, at least until they find things not turning out the way they expected or wished for! When an individual takes up the spiritual path consciously, he begins to examine this assumption. First, he ...
Views: 4 - The Unconverted Vital Nature Must Not Be Permitted to Divert the Psychic and Spiritual Force to Its Own Limited Satisfactions - by Submitted on Jan 18, 2026 from santosh krinskyThere is a substantial and well-known danger of the vital nature taking advantage of the force that comes down through the psychic aspiration and using it to advance objectives of the vital rather than those that carry out the intended purpose of the Divine Power. There is a well known ...
Views: 68 - The Undercurrent - by Submitted on Jan 26, 2014 from Debra PayneWhat drags you down? I'll share what does it for me. My negative thoughts can attack me on even the best of days. They are so persistent and so effective that I have come to call them The Undercurrent. The Undercurrent is a quiet, unseen, and vicious tug that is always running just beneath ...
Views: 1487 - The Unified Field of All Consciousness and Existence - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2024 from santosh krinskyA powerful technique for inner growth and understanding is to sit quietly and simply observe one’s thoughts and feelings as they arise. Then, trace back any of them to where and how it arose. What triggered it? Where did it come from? Initially it is difficult to successfully carry out this ...
Views: 291 - The Unique Truth of Each Being in Relation to the Divine Manifestation - by Submitted on Dec 16, 2023 from santosh krinskyRecently the question arose about how and in what form the witness consciousness survives death. This is not a question for either philosophical reasoning or religious dogma. Regardless of the opinion that these general approaches put forth, it is between the individual soul, as a unique ...
Views: 340 - The Universal Tendency Moves Toward the Expression of Free Will - by Submitted on Feb 20, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe can identify the direction of the evolutionary development of the universe towards the expression of free will, despite the fact that at our current state we can recognise that there is apparently very little free will operative in our actions. In the physical world, Matter operates under ...
Views: 338 - The Universal, the Individual and the Evolution of Consciousness - by Submitted on Feb 04, 2026 from santosh krinskyWe see the world from the individual standpoint and place ourselves at the center of it. We believe we originate the thoughts, feelings, emotions and responses we give. This, however, is very much the illusion of the ego-sense. Consider that for the longest time, human beings believed that ...
Views: 60 - The Universality of the Spiritual Presence in All Existence - by Submitted on Jan 20, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe are educated and habituated to focus on our differences. We see different gender, different class, different racial characteristics, different religious backgrounds, different temperaments, different interests and focus, different value sets, different philosophies of life and living, ...
Views: 199 - The Unseen Societal Conditions That Frame Our Response to Events in Our Lives - by Submitted on Apr 17, 2024 from santosh krinskyEach society, each religion, each culture in the world has its own characteristic ideas and responses to the questions that arise during an individual’s life. Many of these are programmed into the individual in childhood, starting with prenatal conditioning based on the energies of the mother. ...
Views: 323 - The Usefulness of Suffering - by Submitted on Nov 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyDr. Dean Ornish held a webinar on Sunday November 20, 2022 with the Vegan Society of Honolulu, Hawaii, in which he succinctly explained the role of suffering in the progress of humanity. For those who do not know about his work, Dr. Ornish has spent decades studying the impact of diet and ...
Views: 514 - The Utilization of Powers That Arise Through the Development of the Yogic Practice - by Submitted on Jun 20, 2024 from santosh krinskySpiritual seekers are frequently advised not to indulge in or display any ‘powers’ that arise along the way. Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, describes a number of powers that can arise naturally through the practice of Yoga, and seekers throughout the ages have validated the reality of powers ...
Views: 301 - The Value and Importance of Looking from Within - by Submitted on Feb 10, 2025 from santosh krinskyExternal impressions, sensations, impulsions, events all traverse the nervous pathways from the sense organs to the mind, which tends to react to these sensations and thereby remains in a constant state of disturbance. In the modern world, with our addiction to social media, mobile phones, ...
Views: 190 - The Value and Rationale for the Yoga of Works — Karma Yoga - by Submitted on Feb 24, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature of man is a core existential element of our existence. In the past, those who took up serious spiritual practice frequently recognised both the power of the vital and the difficulty of bringing it under some kind of managed and focused control, and thus, they attempted to ...
Views: 677 - The Value of Attaining the Standpoint of the Witness Consciousness in Understanding the Complexity of Interaction of the Parts of the Being - by Submitted on Jun 06, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt has been famously stated that we cannot understand the system within which we are acting until we can shift our view to a standpoint outside that frame. As long as we are immersed within any particular system or standpoint, we are locked into the viewpoint and understanding embedded within ...
Views: 397 - The Value of Enthusiasm - by Submitted on May 03, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we think about what qualities within ourselves are aids to achieving conscious contact with the psychic being, the soul, we would likely not name ‘enthusiasm’ as one of them. The Mother, however, makes the case for this quality. Those things that motivate us to learn, to expand our ...
Views: 415 - The Value of Mental Preparation for the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jan 06, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe mind can be a powerful tool for spiritual growth, or it can become an obstacle under certain circumstances. Many devotees take the position that aspiration, devotion, surrender to the Divine is the only way forward. For those individuals that may indeed be true. Not everyone is capable of ...
Views: 446 - The Value of Mental, Vital and Physical Progress for Future Births - by Submitted on May 09, 2023 from santosh krinskyOf what possible value is the effort at mental, emotional, vital or physical progress to the soul if it cannot carry that progress forward into the next, and future lives. In his epic poem, Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo raises the issue: “But the oblivion that succeeds the fall, ...
Views: 407 - The Value of the Witness Consciousness in the Yogic Endeavour - by Submitted on Nov 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe witness consciousness is an extremely useful mode for the seeker to adopt in any attempt to overcome the limitations and deformations of the external nature, whether to try to attain liberation and release from the world, or, as Sri Aurobindo suggests, to work toward the eventual divinsation ...
Views: 85 - 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 Vital Being: Its Nature, Its Role and Its Mode of Action - by Submitted on Jul 18, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen the vital nature is involved, which individual has the power to control its impulsions and demands and keep it focused on the higher aims of life? The vital nature is a powerful and essential component of life on earth. It animates material nature and functions through the force of desire. ...
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