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Articles from santosh krinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- Overcoming the Bias of Materialism In Our Viewpoint About Living a Meaningful and Happy Life - by Submitted on Mar 06, 2025 from santosh krinskyWestern civilisation has a distinct bias in favor of what we may call a materialistic viewpoint. Money, possessions, status and power based on monetary power, a drive to own ever newer possessions, and the need to try to increase our enjoyment and satisfaction of life through these factors leads ...
Views: 78 - The Journey from Ignorance to Knowledge Through an Attitude of Continuous Learning and Receptivity - by Submitted on Mar 04, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe live in the world without fully appreciating or understanding it. This is not something new that we are experiencing, but a statement of what we may call the ‘human condition’. The Rishis of the Rig Veda faced these same issues. In the Hymn of Creation, Mandala X, Sukta 129, Verses 6 and 7 ...
Views: 78 - The Path Is Fulfilled Through the Cultivation of Inward and Outward Peace - by Submitted on Mar 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is a frequent occurrence. Someone takes up the spiritual path and tries to follow the dictates set forth in that path, down to the smallest detail. They treat goals and aspiration as a type of ‘rule-book’ that needs to be followed. If, as is to be expected, they do not succeed in each such ...
Views: 78 - Project and Personnel Management From the Viewpoint of the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on Apr 09, 2025 from santosh krinskyBeing a spiritual seeker, and a manager of a business, or a unit or department or program, are not incompatible activities. The question that seekers raise is how to find the proper balance that allows the work, including the management work, that they do, be part of their spiritual sadhana. If ...
Views: 77 - The Sometimes Fortunate Nature of Misfortune - by Submitted on Mar 17, 2025 from santosh krinskyOne of the core principles of spiritual growth is the development of ‘equality’ in the sense of accepting whatever comes into one’s life with equanimity. This does not mean that the proper standpoint excludes action against injustice or oppression; rather, that one recognises that sometimes the ...
Views: 77 - Finding the Right Balance and Spirit in Management - by Submitted on Apr 10, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere is an art to management of people within a company, department or section. Those who are tasked with undertaking this responsibility frequently find it challenging to get the exact right balance to both motivate their team members and keep things moving smoothly forward. If they are too ...
Views: 76 - One’s Attitude to Events Affects the Impact of the Event - by Submitted on Feb 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe tend to evaluate events or circumstances based on their relation to our personal identification with the external ego-personality, and our prevalent idea about ourselves at that point in time. In retrospect, we frequently find that those things which we considered to be ‘bad’ were actually ...
Views: 76 - The Need to Achieve a Calm Equality Not Shaken By Outward Happenings - by Submitted on Mar 18, 2025 from santosh krinskyIf we examine our reactions to circumstances that occur daily in our lives, we will see we generally go through a range of feelings from elation when something we deem positive occurs, to depression when it seems like the house is falling in on us. Major events, such as achievements in school, ...
Views: 76 - The Process for Gaining Equality in the Face of Outer Circumstances - by Submitted on Mar 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe question of how to achieve the status of inner equality to all outward circumstances is one that occupies the attention of spiritual seekers everywhere. In his book Bases of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo devotes the first chapter to the questions of achieving calm, peace and equality, as these are ...
Views: 76 - Dealing with Dualities - by Submitted on Mar 14, 2025 from santosh krinskyOur experience in the world is one of dualities, hot and cold, wet and dry, happy and sad, love and hate, darkness and light, etc. We recognise that we cannot have the one without the other. The Chinese symbol of In/Yang illustrates the intertwined nature of these dualities and that even in the ...
Views: 75 - Inner Attitudes Towards Life, Towards Oneself and Others, Towards Work and Towards Difficulties - by Submitted on Feb 21, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe have previously explored the attitudes of the external, outer being in relation to these various issues. This is the opportunity to compare that view with the attitude of the inner being. At a certain point in an individual’s journey the development takes him beyond his initial fixation with ...
Views: 75 - The Cycles of Social Development and the Swing Away from a One-Sided Focus on Materialism - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe do not usually recognise or appreciate how much influence our environment, our surroundings, the society we live in, the customs and life-ways of that social system impact what we think about, how we focus our attention and what we do with our lives. The Mother puts this also into the process ...
Views: 75 - The Law of Attraction and Spiritual Practice - by Submitted on Mar 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn recent years there has been a lot of focus on what is called the ‘law of attraction’. It has been mainly used to act as some kind of a ‘wish-fulfilling action’ that one undertakes by focusing on specific affirmations or visualizing results which then are ‘attracted’ to your focus and create ...
Views: 75 - Balancing the Spiritual Practice Between Positive Focus and Addressing Faults and Weaknesses - by Submitted on Mar 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyThere is a tendency among human beings to react with extremes. Something is either ‘yes’ or ‘no’. ‘black’ or ‘white’, ‘positive’ or ‘negative’. This occurs due to the linear nature of the mental consciousness aided by a vital nature that wants to assert itself by being ‘right’. For the ...
Views: 74 - The Action of the Higher Grace - by Submitted on Mar 12, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe 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: 73 - The Challenge of Changing Human Nature - by Submitted on Mar 09, 2025 from santosh krinskyThose individuals who take up the practice of yoga for the purpose of transformation of the nature and the development of wider and higher states of consciousness inevitably find that the influence of the physical and vital basis upon which human life is based represents one of the greatest, if ...
Views: 73 - The Human Power of Discontentedness Helps Open the Door to the Inner Consciousness - by Submitted on Feb 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe drive in the human individual to find out who he is, what he is here for, and how he can grow and become what he is intended to be in the creation sets him apart from the animal. Even in the midst of an almost complete immersion in the external life and its lures, somewhere deep inside, the ...
Views: 73 - Becoming Aware of Our Faults Is the First Step Toward Overcoming Them - by Submitted on Mar 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is difficult for an individual to see his own shortcomings or faults. Many times we see them reflected in others and we externalise them to such a degree that we take exception to the other person, not recognising that we are seeing our own faults displayed in front of us. If we have a ...
Views: 72 - Concentration of Conscious Force Through Work Can Bring Deeper Realisations - by Submitted on Apr 29, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn the Taittiriya Upanishad, Sri Aurobindo translates the term tapasya variously as ‘concentration in thought’ or ‘concentration of force’. Elsewhere he aligns the terms chit-shakti as ‘consciousness-force’, co-equal with the principles of sat, existence and ananda, bliss as the supreme ...
Views: 72 - The Change in Standpoint That Puts the Seeker in Harmony With the Divine and its Intention in the Universal Manifestation - by Submitted on Mar 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe frequently hear people complaining about how they are locked into and trapped in the lives they are leading. They feel like there is nothing they can do and nothing can change it. This was exemplified in a motion picture called ‘Groundhog Day’ which told the story of an individual who ...
Views: 72 - Addressing the Tendency to Overlook One’s Defects - by Submitted on Mar 26, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature in particular has a strong hold over the mentality. It uses this hold to find ways for the mind to justify various things that the vital desires. In many cases this occurs through a process of deflection and in others through a process of development of excuses and ...
Views: 71 - The Need for Patience and Perseverance - by Submitted on Mar 29, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn today’s modern societies, people expect instant results. They want things to be fast and easy. They respond to ads claiming they can lose weight easily in a few days’ time. They want deliveries from stores to be overnight, if not ‘same day’. They would prefer to receive their enlightenment ...
Views: 71 - Understanding the Higher Guidance That Directs Our Actions Towards Our Spiritual Destiny - by Submitted on Mar 15, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we rely on our surface impressions, which are very much based on and influenced by our background, family, society and the values inculcated into us by those relationships, we only are able to truly understand a fraction of what is actually occurring, and generally this is conditioned by ...
Views: 70 - The Parable of the Mote and the Beam and Its Relevance for the Spiritual Seeker - by Submitted on Apr 01, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe spiritual seeker often finds that he can see weaknesses and faults in others. If he fails to recognise that his reaction may be due to harboring those faults and weaknesses within himself, he can take an attitude of hostility toward the other person who is exhibiting those things. He may try ...
Views: 69 - Treating All Work As Karma Yoga - by Submitted on Apr 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen the spiritual aspiration awakens in an individual, he often feels like he has to leave his employment and take up some work that is more ‘spiritual’. He tends to equate the type of work with some ill-defined spiritual nature. Thus, we frequently see spiritual people, and organizations, take ...
Views: 69 - A Positive Focus Is More Productive Than a Negative Fixation for Spiritual Growth - by Submitted on Mar 31, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe go wherever we focus our attention. If we focus our attention on difficulties, we wallow in those difficulties. If we focus our attention on growth and development, then we draw to ourselves those opportunities that support that growth. There are examples. Certain traditions make the rooting ...
Views: 68 - Praise, Criticism and Comparing Oneself With Others - by Submitted on Mar 27, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature generally craves praise and becomes upset with criticism. This habit has been increased by the rise of social media with the ‘likes’ and ‘dislikes’ that appear on various posts, videos and blogs. People work hard to increase their ‘likes’ and ‘followers’ and make that almost an ...
Views: 68 - The Spirit of the Yoga of Works - by Submitted on May 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhile we live and act from the standpoint of the individual ego-personality, we measure and respond to everything based on how it impacts us personally and directly, and judge things based on that impact. This leads us to treat as positive, those events and interactions that satisfy our desires, ...
Views: 68 - A Change of Consciousness Is Required for a Change in Human Society - by Submitted on Apr 06, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we look back at the history of human civilization, we can see that many ideas have been attempted to try to develop a fair, balanced and prosperous society. Thinkers, philosophers, political scientists and economists have all weighed in with their dreams and considerations about how to ...
Views: 67 - Distinguishing an Attitude of Equality From One of Indifference - by Submitted on Apr 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe mental framework frequently wants to find an “either/or” option rather than looking at the nuance needed to resolve multiple views of pending questions. Thus, when we are asked to consider achieving a poise of equality in the face of provocation of any sort, positive or negative, we will ...
Views: 67 - External Interactions Provide the Seeker a Mirror to His Inner Characteristics and Traits - by Submitted on Apr 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhat we see in others in many cases is a mirror to what we contain within ourselves. We understand what is taking place because we are able to receive the vibration and internalize it and translate it into something that resonates in our being. In Western psychology there is a concept called ...
Views: 67 - Spiritual Development Can Occur Regardless of One’s Activities in the World - by Submitted on Apr 27, 2025 from santosh krinskyFrom early childhood we are inculcated with the idea of achieving success, becoming foremost and occupying a position of power, prestige or wealth in the world. Parents drum this idea into the mind of their children that they need to study, attain degrees, choose suitable (lucrative) careers, ...
Views: 67 - Spiritually Effective Work Depends on the Inner Attitude - by Submitted on Apr 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhenever we act in the world, whether it is a job, or any kind of activity that involves the expression of energy in the external world, whether physical, vital, mental, etc. we generally do so with a particular ambition, motivation, desire or need. It could be based on physical needs for food, ...
Views: 67 - Finding the Balance Between Activity and Rest - by Submitted on May 03, 2025 from santosh krinskyWith the advent of modern society, the instantaneous technological experience, and an external life that puts a value on being active, being productive, we see the increased pressure for people to stay in motion without taking into account the factor of fatigue and the need for rest. People tend ...
Views: 66 - Shifting the Motive Power of Action from the External Being to the Psychic Being - by Submitted on May 01, 2025 from santosh krinskyFor most people the impulsion to action comes from a need, desire or ambition of some sort. If these are removed, the individual can become depressed and fall into a state that lacks motivation and thereby reduces their energy when it comes to doing anything. We frequently see people, (or ...
Views: 66 - 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: 65 - Action According to One’s Own Svabhava and Svadharma - by Submitted on Apr 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyPeople who take up spiritual life frequently believe that they should change their line of work and focus in the external world. In some cases, this is a recognition of the inner being’s guidance as the individual awakens to his true calling. In other cases, however, this is a mistaken belief ...
Views: 64 - How Do We Determine Our Destined Role in the World? — Part 3 - by Submitted on Apr 22, 2025 from santosh krinskyToday’s world provides people with both an obstacle and an opportunity when they try to follow their chosen or cherished path in life. The obstacle is based on societal requirement that individuals take up a productive form of work in the world to earn enough money to support their needs for ...
Views: 64 - Humility and Self-Confidence - by Submitted on Mar 30, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe play of the three Gunas is active at all times in the life we live here. We may believe that the aspiration, or an act of consecration overcomes this play, but if we examine closely we can see that, in actuality, even the quality of our sadhana, our spiritual effort, is very much controlled ...
Views: 64 - The Spiritual Seeker and the Material World - by Submitted on May 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyOne of the habits that has built up over many millennia among spiritual practitioners is the ingrained idea that Matter and Spirit are essentially irreconcilable and that in order to pursue the spiritual life one must be willing to give up and abandon the material life. Material life and a focus ...
Views: 64 - 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: 63 - Self-Dedication to the Divine Through Work - by Submitted on Apr 26, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe ego-personality almost always interprets external activity, work, by an arbitrary measure of value, in many cases, monetary, but in some cases, based on the benefits provided to the society. Religious and spiritual institutions frequently take up work that is considered to be charitable in ...
Views: 63 - The Need to Maintain Calm Equality in One’s Relation to the Circumstances of Life - by Submitted on Apr 03, 2025 from santosh krinskySomeone says or does something we do not like or which we find offensive. They may do things to harm our reputation or our relationships, or they may affect our financial well being, possibly cheat us or interfere with our lives in some other way. The natural reaction is one of anger, even ...
Views: 63 - 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: 63 - 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: 62 - Is Every Man Capable of ‘Sinful Behavior” Under Certain Circumstances? - by Submitted on Apr 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyCultured and educated people often believe that they could not stoop to certain actions or be guilty of certain motives in their actions, or simply react to circumstances in a way other than that of their predominant mental view of themselves. They may look down on those who appear to them to be ...
Views: 62 - 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: 62 - The Status of Consciousness Where One Can See Things as They Are - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as an individual is rooted in his own ego-standpoint, he sees and interprets things from that standpoint and cannot, by definition, ‘see things as they are’ in the wider creation. There is the famous story of 5 different observers of a traffic accident, each one observing from a ...
Views: 62 - The Yoga of Nature, Spiritual Sadhana and the Transformation of Action Into a Conscious Expression of the Divine Will - by Submitted on Apr 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyAll life, our entire existence, whether we are actively involved in a conscious spiritual discipline, or living a ‘normal’ life in the world following the demands of our needs, desires, relationships and ambitions, etc. is a field of growth, experience and develop. We respond to opportunities, ...
Views: 62 - 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 ...
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