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Articles from santosh krinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- The Light and the Shadow in Each Individual Being - by Submitted on Sep 30, 2022 from santosh krinskyIt is easy to see the failings of others, while overlooking the issues within oneself. Jesus in his famous Sermon on the Mount, recounted in the New Testament of the Bible, exhorted his followers to not judge others but to look within, and noted ‘And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy ...
Views: 360 - Causes and Avoidance of Accidents - by Submitted on Jul 12, 2023 from santosh krinskyAn accident avoided. An individual related the following incident. He was driving with a passenger through Yellowstone National Park in the USA some years ago during the summer season in a van late in the afternoon. He had a sense or feeling of an impending accident involving a bison, although ...
Views: 359 - Following the Right Path to Divine Realisation - by Submitted on Nov 13, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe very easily fall into the mistaken idea that the path we follow is the best way to approach the Divine or achieve spiritual realisation and that other paths are either less effective or do not provide the complete liberation from the ego-personality. We also tend to accept the idea that ...
Views: 359 - Overcoming Hopelessness and Depression by Tuning the Consciousness Towards the Light - by Submitted on Oct 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyMany people, including those who are treading a spiritual path, feel depressed and hopeless when they see all the negativity, violence, and destruction taking place in the world around us. The mass media focuses on, and emphasizes, all this negativity, with the saying ‘if it bleeds, it leads’. ...
Views: 358 - To Read, or Not to Read, That is the Question for the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on Jan 04, 2023 from santosh krinskyIntellectual development is not the same as spiritual realisation. The essence of spiritual development lies in the living experience of the truths of the spirit, not in the mental understanding of concepts. Thus, preeminence is placed on experience, not reading. The sages of the Vedic and ...
Views: 358 - General Limitations and Options for Methods and Applications for Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Jan 03, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn any technical field, there are both a general statement of goals and principles, as well as specific steps that should be applied to achieve those results. In many endeavours, particularly those involved in dealing with the physical world and the science that operates in that world, the ...
Views: 357 - Impatience and the Practice of Yoga - by Submitted on Jan 14, 2023 from santosh krinskyImpatience is endemic to modern day society. We expect everything immediately. If it does not come, we exhibit frustration, annoyance, anger and a disturbed energy which impacts the the body, the life-energy, the nervous envelope and the mental state. Impatience, therefore, creates an energetic ...
Views: 357 - Kindling and Increasing the Psychic Fire - by Submitted on Dec 17, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe flame of aspiration is the force that powers spiritual growth. Many people believe that the association of a fire or flame with the psychological stance is purely some kind of poetic device, without any underlying reality. Yet, human experience shows us that various modes of emotion, for ...
Views: 357 - Organising One’s Life Around the Ideal - by Submitted on Sep 17, 2022 from santosh krinskyObservation and reflection eventually can lead to focus of the life and attention to achieve a specific aspiration. The process of reviewing with care in the light of the higher aspiration allows the individual to then choose which things to do, and which things to avoid, sculpting, if you will, ...
Views: 357 - Visiting the Symbolic Transcription of One’s Inner Being As Displayed to the Conscious Awareness - by Submitted on Sep 19, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor those who are anchored in their outer external awareness of the world and of themselves, there is no understanding or acceptance of the reality of inner occult states of awareness. Thus, they deny the reality of the inner experiences, until perhaps they happen to have a near death ...
Views: 357 - Opening to a New Consciousness Through the Revealed Word - by Submitted on Dec 31, 2022 from santosh krinskyA seed in the plant kingdom remains inert and non-developing until such time as it is placed in the proper conditions and pressure from outside, in the form of heat or moisture primarily, is exerted upon it. A corollary process takes place in the animal kingdom, of course. Once the encoding ...
Views: 356 - What Technique or Practice Is Prescribed in the Integral Yoga? - by Submitted on Feb 12, 2023 from santosh krinskyit is a frequent inquiry: ‘Tell us what technique we should use to reach the spiritual goal?” Many ask what specific technique Sri Aurobindo or the Mother recommends for everyone to follow. They point out that other paths of spirituality offer specific actions one must undertake to succeed. ...
Views: 356 - Difficulties, Obstacles and the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Mar 13, 2023 from santosh krinskyEvery individual faces difficulties during his lifetime. They may be difficulties imposed due to external circumstances attendant on one’s birth, cultural or societal position, opportunities, or economic prospects. They may be difficulties that arise due to climate or natural disasters. They may ...
Views: 355 - The Complementary Aspects of Aspiration and Prayer - by Submitted on Dec 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyJust as there is a debate between science and religion, there is a corollary argument that encompasses aspiration versus prayer. Aspiration for growth, development, knowledge, progress, expansion is acceptable to those in the “science” camp. Prayer is relegated by these individuals to the ...
Views: 355 - The Yogic Practitioner and the External World - by Submitted on Mar 24, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe generally live under an illusion of separateness from other beings and the rest of the world. We believe our individual personality, individual body, life, mind are independent from everyone and everything else. This fixed idea, however, is part of the confusion we experience that misleads us ...
Views: 355 - Visualization as an Aid for Entering into Contact with One’s Psychic Being - by Submitted on Sep 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor those who have the power of visualisation and who are ready and willing to concentrate in this way, there can be tremendous progress in developing the relation to the psychic being. The mind transcribes the energetic relationships of the various parts of the being into different rooms and ...
Views: 355 - How To Change One’s Consciousness, Part 1: The Initial Experience - by Submitted on Dec 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyThrough long habit and through a process of socialisation, we desire and expect that a specific path of development can be placed in front of us to guide us systematically along a pre-determined track, and that this path is suitable for everyone. We therefore believe that our accepted form of ...
Views: 354 - How to Change One’s Consciousness, Part 3: Observing and Being Attentive - by Submitted on Dec 08, 2022 from santosh krinskySpirituality is not about having an intellectual understanding. There are methods described in various paths of spiritual growth, in books, or in other forms of instruction which have their potential benefit, but they are not a replacement for an actual inward experience that changes the texture ...
Views: 354 - The Nature of Bhakti - by Submitted on Mar 08, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe heart of devotion opens spontaneously with a deep sense of reverence, aspiration and love. It is based on soul-contact with the Divine. External signs of worship, prayers, songs, rituals, repeating words of devotion are not indicators of the soul status necessarily and they cannot replace ...
Views: 354 - Overcoming Vital Reactions of Attraction and Repulsion in Action - by Submitted on Mar 03, 2023 from santosh krinskyThere are numerous activities we undertake in our lives that engage us with more, or less, interest. Some we treat as purely mechanical, some we detest but do them because we ‘have’ to. Some elicit very positive and focused interest from us and we tend to like those activities. Our vital nature ...
Views: 353 - Setbacks in Sadhana Due to Incomplete Purification of the Nature - by Submitted on Jan 24, 2023 from santosh krinskyWith careful observation we can understand that an individual’s greatest weaknesses and difficulties represent the opportunity and specific need for progress for spiritual growth. Each individual faces his own unique challenges. In many cases, the confluence of the soul’s pressure, the outer ...
Views: 353 - The Difficulty in the Process Required to “Know Thyself” - by Submitted on Sep 12, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature is so deeply intertwined with the mental nature in the current state of human development, and has such a force of desire that it tries to satisfy, that, for most individuals, it is very hard to take an objective view about the thoughts, feelings, actions, reactions, emotions or ...
Views: 353 - The Faults We Observe In Others Are a Reflection of the Faults We Carry In Ourselves - by Submitted on Oct 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyIt is much easier to see and criticise others for their ideas, behaviour or habits, than to see in oneself potentially those same issues. Jesus raised this issue in his Sermon on the Mount: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in ...
Views: 353 - Understanding the Path of Devotion, Bhakti Yoga - by Submitted on Mar 10, 2023 from santosh krinskyDevotion is not something measured externally by how an individual sings, dances, prays or manifests various signs such as ‘speaking in tongues’, although any one of these activities may indeed be expressions of a deep inner devotion. The measure of devotion is one that reflects the internal ...
Views: 352 - How to Prepare Oneself for the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Oct 25, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn the biblical story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, we find human beings innocent and acting out of their natural instincts, predilections, and their basic intelligence as human beings. They have no social setting or training to which they need to conform. They are essentially ignorant ...
Views: 351 - The Subtle Higher Forces of Existence Create Our External Being and Action - by Submitted on Nov 07, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen looked at from the outside, it seems that Matter came first and out of Matter arose Life and out of Life arose Mind. What is not addressed here is how material forces were able to create life and intelligence, in a seemingly random fashion. This is why some religious traditions posit that ...
Views: 351 - Focusing on the Dedicated Action, Not the Immediately Visible Results - by Submitted on Jan 16, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn the Bhagavad Gita, Sri Krishna teaches Arjuna that he has the right to action, but not to attachment to the fruits of the action, i.e. the results. In our world today we are fixated on the destination, not the ‘journey’ and we measure everything by the immediate results we obtain. This ...
Views: 350 - Spiritual Realisation Through Concentration in the Heart Centre - by Submitted on Sep 23, 2022 from santosh krinskySri Aurobindo distinguishes between a “mental seeking” and a “living spiritual experience”. While those who are intellectually-minded frequently confuse ‘knowing’ with “KNOWING”, there is actually a clear distinction between the ability to read, hear, memorize and repeat back a teaching, which ...
Views: 350 - The Aspiration Must Be Kept Alive and Constant - by Submitted on Dec 19, 2022 from santosh krinskyChanging 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: 350 - The Supramental Society Is Based in a New Consciousness of Realisation of the Divine Reality of Oneness with Diversity - by Submitted on Apr 15, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe “master race”, the “white man’s burden”, “white supremacy”, “manifest destiny”, the “superman” of Nietzsche all represent past attempts of the mind to translate the urge to transcend the limits of the human mind-life-body and assert power and control over the society through what may be ...
Views: 350 - The Attempt to Develop Tolerance and Understanding to Avoid Quarrelling - by Submitted on Oct 19, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen 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: 349 - Accessing the Inner Subliminal Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe Upanishads describe 4 states of consciousness, the waking, the dream, the sleep and the state beyond these 3. Sri Aurobindo points out that these are meant to symbolically represent the state of awareness in the outer world (waking), the state of awareness in the subliminal world (dream), ...
Views: 348 - Religious, Mechanical and Psychological Methods of Inner Development - by Submitted on Feb 13, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual awakens to the inner need for significance and meaning in life, he generally takes up one or more methods to try to understand the purpose of his life. Religious worship and belief systems tend to be quite external in their nature, trying to find a relationship between the ...
Views: 348 - 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: 348 - The Development of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Nov 10, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe can identify a systematic evolution of consciousness in the external world. Life evolves out of Matter, Mind out of Life. We do not, however, thereby determine either a significance or purpose to this evolution nor any causative factors that involve mind and life into matter such that they ...
Views: 346 - The Power of Visualisation Can Aid in Overcoming the Limits of the Logic-Bound Mental Consciousness in Achieving Realisation in the Spiritual Endeavour and the External World - by Submitted on Sep 20, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe mental being tends to accept that if it has an intellectual understanding of something, that it has ‘accomplished’ that thing. It does not tend to concern itself with the vital or physical world per se, and thus, if it ‘knows’ that it is one with the rest of the universal creation, or if it ...
Views: 345 - Dealing with Periods of Dryness or Dullness in the Yogic Sadhana - by Submitted on Mar 25, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is a frequent and universal experience that when an individual takes up the practice of yoga, there are periods of great enthusiasm, aspiration is active and progress is palpable. It is however virtually impossible to maintain the intensity of the sadhana all the time, so as the action of the ...
Views: 344 - Every Yogic Practitioner Must Develop Along His Own Path and Face His Own Difficulties - by Submitted on Apr 09, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe like to have certainty, safety, and fixed map that provides us directions, steps, milestone markers and which will lead us to the goal of our seeking. Spiritual development, however, is not quite the same as an automobile or train trip from one city to another. The complex nexus that is ...
Views: 344 - The Mind as a Helper, the Mind as an Obstacle for Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Jan 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyIf we view the vast array of methods recommended by spiritual paths of the world, we find that many of them utilize various forms of mental focus or concentration in order to achieve specific results along the way. Tibetan yoga, for instance, has intensive visualisation techniques along with ...
Views: 344 - Becoming Aware of the Central Will of the Being - by Submitted on Dec 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe decisive spiritual experiences an individual has stay with him throughout his life. Those who are anchored in their external lives undergo countless experiences but these tend to fade, become jumbled or simply blend into one another. Who can, after all, remember what they ate for breakfast ...
Views: 343 - External Worship and the Practice of Bhakti Yoga - by Submitted on Mar 09, 2023 from santosh krinskyMany people are abandoning formalized religions while saying that the external rituals are simply missing any inner spirit or force, that they are simply empty and do not get to the heart of the matter. There is a keen insight here that is useful for those who wish to practice the yoga of ...
Views: 343 - Focusing on the Signal While Eliminating the Noise: Concentration and Purification - by Submitted on Jan 26, 2023 from santosh krinskyConsider briefly that you have a television set that receives all the available channels, but you cannot tune the set, so that all picture and sound from the entire frequency range come in at the same time and mix up with each other, along with the static that occurs between various station ...
Views: 343 - One Should Be Greater Than One’s Experience - by Submitted on Apr 22, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhenever an individual has any kind of powerful emotion or experience, he tends to “lose himself” in that experience. He becomes angry, or lustful, or ecstatic, or joyful and the feeling takes over his entire being and for a time, he “is” that force. The same thing can, and does, tend to happen ...
Views: 342 - The First Movement of Aspiration for the Divine - by Submitted on Dec 18, 2022 from santosh krinsky“Seek thou to know that from which these creatures are born, whereby being born they live and to which they go hence and enter again; for that is the Eternal.” Thus goes the teaching of Varuna to his son Bhrigu in the Taittiriya Upanishad (translation by Sri Aurobindo in The Upanishads, pg. ...
Views: 342 - Why Speaking About One’s Spiritual Experiences Can Be Counter-Productive to the Sadhana - by Submitted on Apr 20, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is a quite natural impulse. An individual has an extraordinary, unusual and in some cases, inexplicable experience, outside of his normal realm of experiences. Either through vital enthusiasm, a feeling of ego-aggrandisement due to the extraordinary nature of the experience, or through sense ...
Views: 342 - Self-Knowledge and Self-Mastery - by Submitted on Jun 03, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe purpose of attaining self-knowledge is not to create an intellectual framework and be able to learnedly expound on a subject; rather, self-knowledge implies that the seeker has a purpose behind the effort. This purpose may be to find a way to gain ‘liberation’ from the existing life, to ...
Views: 341 - The Advent of Inner Experiences and the Unpurified Vital Nature; or Be Careful What You Wish For, Because You May Get It! - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe 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: 341 - The Day and Night of the Vedic Mystics - by Submitted on Mar 26, 2023 from santosh krinskyHowever much we try, we find that we cannot constantly and consistently hold onto any particular focus of concentration, emotional state, mood or feeling for an extended period of time. The constant action of the 3 Gunas cycles us through periods of light and darkness, action and inaction, ...
Views: 340 - The Individual Seeker and the Best Path Forward in the Practice of the Yoga - by Submitted on Mar 11, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs each individual tries to understand his life and purpose, he begins a process of observation, review, and experimentation. At this stage, many seekers have little clue about the path that is best suited for them, and they may try out different approaches. Once a path has been identified, they ...
Views: 340 - Your Greatest Weakness Identifies Your Greatest Strength - by Submitted on Apr 30, 2023 from santosh krinskyA particular propensity arises through affinity with an energetic flow through a particular energy center, or chakra. If the individual is receptive on that level, he is able to manifest the powers that are at play through that chakra centre. At the same time, it must be recognised that a ...
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