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Articles from santosh krinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- Distinguishing Various Types of Symbolic Visions - by Submitted on Aug 20, 2021 from santosh krinskyAs the seeker interacts more with the inner levels of consciousness, there are often various types of visions and symbols which are perceived. These visions, however, are not all from the same source, and do not all carry the same weight or significance. It is another element of the research and ...
Views: 515 - The Action of Karma and the Nature of Suffering - by Submitted on Mar 03, 2022 from santosh krinsky“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: 515 - The Process of Establishing Equality in the Being - by Submitted on May 23, 2021 from santosh krinskyAs Sri Aurobindo has indicated, the practice of yoga is a science of applied psychology. The normal and habitual patterns of response that we exhibit need to be both understood and modified, energies redirected, and new forces allowed to intervene and exert their influence in our lives. ...
Views: 515 - The Three Transformations of Consciousness in the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Feb 19, 2021 from santosh krinskyIn The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo provides a detailed explanation of what he describes as the “triple transformation”. The first two, the psychic and spiritual transformations, are well-known steps in the spiritual journey and thus, for a good portion of the way, the traditional paths of yoga ...
Views: 515 - The Vital Nature and Its Role in Ordinary Life and Spiritual Life - by Submitted on Oct 26, 2021 from santosh krinskyIn the ordinary life in the world, the action of vital desire, and the attempt to fulfill the desires is accepted to such a degree that it is not even consciously noted or treated as anything other than ‘human nature’. Society sets certain customary restraints or limits in order to build a civil ...
Views: 515 - Overcoming the Impulse to Anger - by Submitted on Jul 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyMost people believe that both the impulse of desire and the impulse to anger are both inherent, deeply established reactions that are either completely impossible, or virtually impossible, to overcome and remove from one’s life. They say that one may succeed in controlling outer expressions of ...
Views: 514 - The Human Dilemma: the Underlying Cause of Anxiety - by Submitted on Jun 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyBeing human is uncomfortable. We do not have the innocence of living that we find in the animal kingdom. We struggle with the pressure of growing knowledge about ourselves and our world, and an awareness of past, present and future that haunts us all the time. For many, this pressure is so ...
Views: 514 - The Knowledge of the Mystics - by Submitted on Jul 16, 2021 from santosh krinskyWe generally rely on the information provided by our senses to understand the world we live in. This information, however, is subject to misperception and misinterpretation, leading us to vastly distort the truth of what we ‘know’. For countless years, most of humanity believed that the sun ...
Views: 514 - The Nature and Action of Faith in the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on May 06, 2021 from santosh krinskyOne of the great reported examples of faith in the spiritual path is the inspiring story of Tibet’s great yogi, Milarepa. Briefly, his family was cheated out of their inheritance when his father died, and put into a condition of extreme suffering. He left to learn Black Magic to take his revenge ...
Views: 514 - What Is Meant By the Concept of Mental Health? - by Submitted on Apr 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor the most part, Western psychology is focused on treating what is considered ‘abnormal’ in order to help an individual fit into society and act ‘normally’. Much focus is put on external causes of various forms of disturbance and how the individual can adjust, adapt or respond to those ...
Views: 513 - 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: 512 - Religion, Fanaticism and Divine Truth - by Submitted on Mar 13, 2022 from santosh krinskyAdherents of virtually all religious traditions want to believe that their own religion is the one “true” religion, and all others are false, mistaken or imperfect. This belief reinforces their own faith and thus, enhances the satisfaction of the vital ego. In some cases, however, this belief ...
Views: 511 - The Role of the Emotions in the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jul 06, 2021 from santosh krinskyEmotions tend to be hard to deal with. Spiritual seekers recognise that emotions can disrupt the focus and lead the seeker into undesirable vital entanglements. Many spiritual paths counsel cutting off the emotional outlets and renouncing the life in the world. They ask the seeker to abandon ...
Views: 510 - The Intellect Does Not Have Direct Knowledge - by Submitted on Oct 16, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe mental intellect receives impulses through the senses, organises them, and trues to determine what is true based on that. It then builds hypotheses, theories and ideation around its assortment of perceptions, memory, and experience based on various principles of symbolic logic that it has ...
Views: 509 - The Kundalini, the Tantra and the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Sep 25, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe opening and activation of the subtle energy centres described in the Tantras and known generally as Kundalini Yoga, differs from the practices of integral Yoga as to process, but not necessarily as to the end result. In both cases, the subtle centres, or chakras, are opened and energy is ...
Views: 509 - Personal Effort and Surrender in the Sadhana of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Apr 28, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe “either/or” limitations of the mental processes leads us generally to believe that spiritual progress either comes with individual effort, or alternatively, through ‘surrender’ of the ego and letting the Divine, or the Guru, bring about the progress. Thus, there are individuals who undertake ...
Views: 508 - The Action of Divine Grace - by Submitted on Apr 18, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe difference between our human understanding and effort, and the action of Divine Grace, is the standpoint from which the result flows. The human ego standpoint tries to evaluate everything in reference to itself at the center, and thus, looks to “my effort”, “my results”, “my progress” and ...
Views: 508 - Understanding the Witness Consciousness — the Separation of Purusha and Prakriti - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2021 from santosh krinskyWe tend to identify with the perceptions, sensations, desires, feelings and thoughts we experience and through the ego-consciousness, we take ownership of them and believe that they are what makes up our unique individuality. When we sit quietly, and turn our attention away from the outer world, ...
Views: 508 - Spiritual Experience and Psychoanalysis - by Submitted on Nov 14, 2021 from santosh krinskyHumanity has a tendency to try to judge everything by its existing level of perception and knowledge. Thus, for most of human existence, people ‘knew’ that the sun rotated around the earth and that the earth was the center of the universe around which everything else moved and upon which ...
Views: 507 - The Source and Origin of Desire and the Mechanism of Its Action in the Being - by Submitted on Dec 26, 2021 from santosh krinskyAn individual experiences a craving, an urge, a desire and automatically tries to fulfill it through some action. If it is hunger or thirst, the individual wants to eat or drink. If it is a more complex desire, something that cannot simply be accomplished, the mind is brought into the picture to ...
Views: 507 - Anger and Depression - by Submitted on Apr 17, 2022 from santosh krinskyDepression and anger represent two types of response to a vital impulse or desire which has been thwarted, or to external pressures which try to overwhelm the individual. When we understand the action of the 3 gunas, or qualities of nature, sattwa, rajas and tamas, it is easy to see that when ...
Views: 506 - Developing and Expressing the Flame of Divine Love While Avoiding the Misappropriation of the Energy for Lower Vital Gratification - by Submitted on Jul 08, 2021 from santosh krinskySuppression of the vital being and the emotions is often prescribed by those following a spiritual or religious discipline, due to the mixed nature of the expression that occurs in an untransformed and unpurified vital being. It is also true that there have been a number of cases, including high ...
Views: 505 - Methods for Quieting the Activity of the Mechanical Mind - by Submitted on Feb 24, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe mind seems always to be busy, and we seem to have a constant inner commentary about sensations, perceptions, memories, anticipated activities, hopes and dreams, and worries about situations we need to address. Then there are the drives and cravings such as hunger, thirst, or sensations of ...
Views: 505 - Yogic Concentration - by Submitted on Feb 21, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe power of concentration is well-known. It is a power that we utilize daily to accomplish the various tasks set before us, or to achieve some goal that we have set for ourselves. In yoga, also, the power of concentration is required. The focus and intention behind the concentration is the ...
Views: 505 - Save the Oceans to Save the Planet, Part 4: Tough Choices to Achieve Real Solutions - by Submitted on Apr 05, 2021 from santosh krinskyThere are numerous vested interests, spanning the entire globe, which make the issues surrounding the degradation of the ocean and the ability of the planet to sustain human life and civilization, virtually impossible to resolve from our normal perspectives. Any change that seems necessary or ...
Views: 504 - Helping Others in the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Feb 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere is an impulse to share something that we find valuable in our own lives. This impulse is oftentimes harnessed by religious organizations or spiritual groups to become a method of proselytizing and conversion, and in some cases, it can become a situation filled with pressure on the ...
Views: 503 - Human Love and Divine Love - by Submitted on Jun 28, 2021 from santosh krinskyHow do we understand the term ‘love’ in the context of spiritual sadhana? We bring to the term a large number of impressions, ideas, and conceptions based on our cultural background, educational upbringing and socialization in our society. We have no direct experience, for the most part, of ...
Views: 503 - The Price of the Transformation of the Earth-Consciousness - by Submitted on Nov 09, 2021 from santosh krinskyOnce the yogic sadhana moves to the physical consciousness, it runs into the nature of the physical and material world that predominates in the quality of Tamas, with its characteristics of darkness, sloth, indolence and dullness, inertia and slowness to change. In the physical world itself, ...
Views: 503 - Approaching the Transition from Human Love to Divine Love - by Submitted on Jun 28, 2021 from santosh krinskyThere has been a strong impulse among many spiritual or religious traditions to reject all manifestations of human love as flawed and imperfect expressions of what love is intended to be in the Divine viewpoint. It is of course evident that most of what passes for love in the world has its ...
Views: 502 - Human Motives and Divine Motives in Action - by Submitted on May 26, 2021 from santosh krinskyThere is a difference between action undertaken with the usual motives in the normal course of human life, and actions undertaken by the spiritual seeker attempting to achieve spiritual growth and realisation of the Divine. The outer form of action, in and of itself, does not make an action ...
Views: 502 - Developing Receptivity to the Action of the Higher Force for Transformation of the Nature - by Submitted on Apr 24, 2021 from santosh krinskyWe turn our attention and focus normally to the needs of the body, the desires and ambitions of the vital being, the impact of perceptions and the thought processes of our minds. Even when we take up a spiritual path, we try to find a practice that may involve the body, the life-energy and / or ...
Views: 501 - Integral Yoga: Answering the Call - by Submitted on Apr 21, 2021 from santosh krinskyFor many, the idea of Yoga is physical postures and breathing techniques, to attain fitness and flexibility. This is not the whole story, however. Hatha Yoga, which has been popularized world-wide over the last 50 years or so, is one element of the much larger understanding of Yoga which we find ...
Views: 501 - Occult Powers and the Secret Knowledge - by Submitted on Aug 15, 2021 from santosh krinskyThere are many who seek after various powers, and study occultism and mysticism with the purpose of achieving unique ‘super powers’. Traditional practices of yoga, while acknowledging that certain powers may result from the practices, make it clear that they are not the object and, indeed, ...
Views: 500 - Safely Transitioning Between the External Physical Consciousness and the Mental, Vital and Subtle Physical Realms of Inner Experience - by Submitted on Aug 10, 2021 from santosh krinskyWhenever an individual enters into a new situation or circumstance, there is a period of disorientation, which may involve misinterpretation of what is being experienced, as well as failure to understand the rules, laws or protocols that may apply in that new situation. In society this may lead ...
Views: 500 - Yogic View of Beauty - by Submitted on Mar 17, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe are trained to appreciate external beauty of form, whether in life or in art. This training internalizes cultural preferences. Thus, the ideal of beauty changes depending on which culture is providing the cultural background and which time-frame encompasses the judgment term. Based on ...
Views: 500 - Becoming Conscious and Effecting Change in the Nature - by Submitted on May 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor the most part, we react to things without considering the source of the impression that sparks the reaction, the process of the reaction or the manner in which the impression is converted into a response. These things simply “happen” and we tend to accept them as ‘human nature’ or, in some ...
Views: 499 - Comparing Current General State of Human Consciousness With More Evolved States, Part 7 Separative Ego Versus Universal, Transpersonal Awareness - by Submitted on Nov 03, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe default standpoint for almost the entire human race is that of the ego. There are tribal societies that try to reduce the predominance of the ego through a collective mindset, but even in such societies, pride, rivalry for dominance, and other forms of ego persist. In the West, a premium is ...
Views: 499 - Distinguishing the Realisation of the Atman and the Higher Planes of Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 03, 2021 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual begins the spiritual quest, there can be considerable confusion about different directions, objectives and methods of attainment. In many cases, divergent goals are lumped together, while in other instances, there can be confusion about the sequence of the steps. Sri Aurobindo ...
Views: 499 - How to Sleep Well - by Submitted on May 13, 2022 from santosh krinskyOne of the most frequent concerns raised by people generally is their inability to get a good night’s sleep. Insomnia, as well as restless sleep, seems to be a widespread concern. Among practitioners of yoga, the concern goes even farther, in that they desire to convert sleep into a luminous, ...
Views: 499 - The Four Steps of the Supramental Transformation - by Submitted on Oct 10, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe full manifestation of the supramental consciousness in the world is the objective of the integral Yoga. This does not mean, however, that such a radical change in earthly life is expected to come about quickly or without any preliminary steps to be taken. In terms of the evolutionary ...
Views: 499 - The Impersonal Divine and the Personal Divine - by Submitted on Jun 30, 2021 from santosh krinskyIn our typical linear thought process we tend to fixate on either the Impersonal aspect of the Divine, or the Personal aspect, and we treat them as either mutually exclusive or in competition with each other, with some adherents favoring one and some the other. In reality, both aspects are part ...
Views: 499 - The Need for the Descent of Peace Into the Being - by Submitted on Sep 25, 2021 from santosh krinskyWe see in tales of various spiritual paths of the past, and present, that even a slight opening to the divine Power, Knowledge or Ananda can lead to severe disruptions in the individual being. There are stories of people dancing with ecstasy when they cannot hold the force coming down, as well ...
Views: 499 - Work and Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Jun 10, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe goal of integral yoga is both a shift of standpoint from the individual egoistic view to the divine standpoint, and the transformation of human nature to express the divine force as it manifests new phases of the evolution of consciousness in the world. This involves thus not only a ...
Views: 498 - The Elements of the Psychic Transformation - by Submitted on Sep 05, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe first of the three major transformations of consciousness that Sri Aurobindo describes as required to actually effect the needed change in human nature, is the psychic transformation. With this transformation, the soul comes forward, takes control of the mind, life and body and turns them ...
Views: 497 - How to Make Sleep Conscious - by Submitted on Jan 23, 2022 from santosh krinskyMuch research has been done to monitor the various stages of sleep and to try to determine what is taking place during each stage. People have been experimenting with learning during sleep, and some people actively ‘program’ their minds before they go to sleep to solve certain problems they are ...
Views: 496 - The Emergence of the Psychic Being, the True Soul - by Submitted on Sep 09, 2021 from santosh krinskyEach new evolutionary stage of consciousness takes place within the framework of the previously evolved stages and over a course of time as adaptation of that framework must occur to ‘prepare the ground’ for the new action of consciousness. For example, physical matter, rock, ocean, volcanic ...
Views: 496 - The Need to Balance Meditation and Work in the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Feb 25, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn an ancient Upanishadic tale, a youth approached a sage requesting to become a disciple and achieve spiritual realisation. The sage indicated that he should take two cattle into the forest, and when they numbered 1000 he should return and would undertake to teach the youth. The young man made ...
Views: 496 - Comparing Current General State of Human Consciousness With More Evolved States, Part 6 Subjection to Suffering from the Dualities Versus Equanimity - by Submitted on Nov 02, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe dualities, or pairs of opposites, are recognised throughout the world as a condition of life. Night and day, positive and negative, and all other dualities, can be seen in material nature, as well as in our vital and emotional existence and in our minds. Electricity flows between positive ...
Views: 495 - Man: the Being Who Worries - by Submitted on Jun 20, 2022 from santosh krinskyAnxiety arises when we extrapolate from a current circumstance or event to what we anticipate, imagine or speculate will follow. Some of this speculation is logical, following what we know of the method of Nature and the rollout of events through Time, although there is no absolute certainty ...
Views: 495 - Out of Body Experiences - by Submitted on Aug 29, 2021 from santosh krinskyMost people, embedded in the physical body and its consciousness, find it difficult, if not impossible, to accept or validate the reality of the out of body experience. At the same time, there are countless anecdotes of people who have an out of body experience, or the related ‘near death ...
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