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The more reactive we are to people and events, the more dispersed our awareness is and this draws away from the ability of the practitioner of the yoga to create and maintain the inner connection to the spiritual force that is pressing to manifest the next phase of the evolutionary development. ... Views: 474
30 years ago, if you mentioned you believe in life after death, religious people might have agreed with you, but many others would have laughed at you. But now, with so much credible evidence that the soul survives death, all but the most skeptical among us at least consider the possibility.
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The history of spiritual and religious communities has witnessed numerous approaches to interpersonal relationships. For the most part, monasteries, cloisters or ashrams have tried to focus the attention of their members by maintaining strict rules, in many cases including vows of silence, ... Views: 474
If we observe our mental space for some time, such as when we sit for meditation, the first thing to be noticed is that the mind tends to jump around from one thought, idea or perception to another, seemingly randomly and impacted by sensory data coming to us through our sense organs. Some call ... Views: 474
When an individual being is under extreme pressure, whether through illness, emotional or mental distress, stress of living in the society or dealing with events and people, the natural reaction at the physical-vital-mental level is to contract, to curl up, to close off, to withdraw into a ... Views: 473
Whatever we focus on intensely becomes stronger. If we focus entirely on the lower nature and its weaknesses, we actually are empowering them and giving them energy. In order to effectuate change in the lower nature, there must be an awareness of the areas that require change, of course, but not ... Views: 472
Practitioners of Yoga speak of the opening of the Kundalini and the energy rising up from the base of the spine, through the various chakras and issuing out of the 1000 petalled lotus at the top of the skull. The experience of the rising of the Kundalini is a core development in many yogic ... Views: 472
The vital mind is the dominant process for most people in the world today who live an external life and work toward some form of fulfillment, success, progress or development in their lives and in their relations to family, friends, community and their society. Very few, comparatively, are those ... Views: 472
The integral yoga works to shift the standpoint from the ego to the divine consciousness. As that is accomplished, the focus on the ego-personality and its suffering and difficulties and the feelings it is experiencing are reduced or entirely removed. The being is absorbed in the divine ... Views: 471
What causes an individual to ‘like’ or ‘dislike’ someone they meet. Some obvious reasons include similarities or differences in temperament, responses to situations, idea-sets, lifestyle, and, based on acculturation, accidental characteristics such as religion, social standing, career, or ... Views: 471
There are times when we feel a total lack of inspiration and energy. Dullness pervades, there is no initiative or interest in anything. These times come in the ordinary day to day life, but they are covered up with distractions, entertainment, intoxication, and vital forms of enjoyment. The ... Views: 471
Access to the universal vital force and the renewal of one’s energy follows basic principles that can be seen in the action of another universal force that allows the creation of results in the external world, symbolised by what we know as ‘money’. In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo states ... Views: 470
The divine Force that descends is not a theoretical event, but a real experience with consequences for the mind, life and body of the seeker. The seeker must be prepared mentally, vitally and physically for the action of this force in the being. The story of the unbaked jar, which cannot sustain ... Views: 470
Development of the inner attitude of dedication, and remembrance of the Divine in work is a progressive process. Initially, most people are unable to actively keep the focus and remembrance while concurrently concentrating on the work at hand. Sri Aurobindo introduces two methods to begin to ... Views: 470
When the idea of becoming conscious in sleep is raised, many people try simply to find ways to remain awake somehow in sleep. This process generally leads to exhaustion, and imbalances in the physical, vital and mental complex of the outer nature. Sleep is restorative to their processes, and any ... Views: 469
The general definition of sincerity as understood in society is the quality of unifying one’s intention with one’s words or actions. This definition is a good starting point for understanding sincerity in the yogic sense. The major difference between the two is the level of inward review and ... Views: 469
Practitioners of spiritual and religious disciplines inevitably are confronted with the habits and expectations of the physical mind in day to day life. There is a constant pressure to provide regular meals that suit the taste of the individual, comfortable surroundings to support the day to day ... Views: 468
When a Westerner takes up a serious yogic practice, they frequently hear that they must be Hindu souls born into Western bodies. They are then viewed as somehow anomalous to the cast of mind, vital force and emotions that tend to develop through life-long exposure to Western culture, educational ... Views: 468
When they were asked how they develop their most inspired concepts or inventions, noted personalities such as Albert Einstein and Nikola Tesla made it clear that it is not through some laborious process of thought, but through an inspiration, a vision, a process of understanding that is outside ... Views: 467
In our modern world, we see the wide dissemination of yoga, primarily as a means of gaining some measure of control over the body, through the postures developed and taught under the rubric of ‘hatha yoga’. In many instances, teachers of hatha yoga have taken the step of teaching their students ... Views: 467
People throughout time and around the world, from all different backgrounds and religious or spiritual traditions, have developed a number of ways to integrate their religious or spiritual beliefs and practices into their lives. Some simply disregard these things and live a life of satisfaction ... Views: 466
The mind is always active, jumping from one input source to another, depending on the senses and their objects, the various forms of media we are consuming, including radio, tv, music, reading, social media, etc.; but also on a variety of internal factors including nutritional factors, ... Views: 466
If we look at the spiritual and religious traditions of the world, we find that a recurring theme is the need of the true seeker to disassociate himself from the outer life of the world. This is done to focus the attention on the spiritual quest and to avoid the distractions, disruptions and ... Views: 466
We spend a large percentage of our lives in the realm of sleep, and the dreams that accompany the sleep state. We have very little actual knowledge of what takes place during our period of sleep, although scientists do extensive studies on the electrical activity in the brain during sleep and ... Views: 466
If we examine closely our mental state when we undertake activities with which we are familiar, experienced and educated, we see that our minds are sharp, our perceptions are detailed and our understanding is precise. We find it easiest to achieve this status with external things, although some ... Views: 466
Whatever an individual focuses on takes on a large, central position and other aspects shift into the background. This is the secret not only of concentration of effort, but also on an understanding of the issues surrounding practices such as psychoanalysis in relation to a practitioner of yoga. ... Views: 466
While they are not a substitute for spiritual sadhana, art, music and literature nevertheless have a role to play, both as a means to access and express the inner aspiration and as a way to bring to the external being some of the force of the spiritual development taking place internally. Those ... Views: 465
Sri Aurobindo considers yoga to be, in a certain sense, applied psychology. The review and understanding of one’s own actions and deeper motives and motivations is essential if one is going to overcome the limitations and habits of the lower nature and eventually receive and manifest new ways of ... Views: 465
When we first met, I told my husband I was very adaptable. I didn’t realize the price of being a chameleon until I started recovery and my journey of individuation. By then I was dead inside. I’d spent years adapting to abuse and belittling that I’d absorbed. I was detached from my feelings and ... Views: 465
An important principle for the practitioner of yoga is to recognise that the old habits and ways of acting and reacting need to be removed in order to open up the capacity to receive the new powers of consciousness that are in the process of manifesting. Yoga is more or less a process of applied ... Views: 465
If we observe ourselves carefully, we find that as a natural consequence of the distractions and the dispersion of the consciousness, we have little if any calm and peace in the being. We experience not only the more overt forms of anxiety and concern, but the more subtle forms of nervous ... Views: 464
The mind is not an instrument of knowledge. It is an analytical and organising tool, but is unable, on its own, to establish truth or certainty. It also maintains a certain arrogance in its own powers, and thus, when confronted with something beyond its own capabilities, it doubts the veracity ... Views: 464
We are used to superimposing our higher intellectual control on the physical mind and its operations. The physical mind still acts, but we generally limit its application through this process. At the same time, however, we do not consciously pay attention to its action or the impact of that ... Views: 464
It is a virtually universal experience. One sits for meditation, trying to quiet the mind, and the thoughts keep surging and seem to have more intensity than before! Every sensation seems to provoke some activity in the mind, pent up issues or concerns take that time to come to the fore, ... Views: 463
There is a general bias in our society that holds that someone who has a developed mentality, and who is ‘well-read’ is smarter or more intelligent than those who cannot read or who have limited reading capacity. Yet it must be recognised that intelligence cannot be measured, as is done in the ... Views: 463
If we examine our attitude towards relaxation, we find, generally, that people look at relaxation as a type of reward for efforts made. They work hard all day, or all week, or they finish a major project they are focused on, and then it is time to “relax”. In the West, there is an institution ... Views: 463
We are so used to the constant internal dialogue that we have no conception of what it means to have ‘silence of the mind’. We strive to fill up any silence with sound, whether through conversation, consumption of media, music or even treating television or radio as ‘background noise’ for our ... Views: 463
Due to what we may call ‘observational bias’ we tend to attribute intention and motive to others that we ourselves have internally and project our internal response onto the other party, without knowing exactly what the cause of their action may be from their standpoint. Some of this is due to ... Views: 463
There is considerable confusion about meditation and concentration. They are, however, not quite the same. Achieving a meditative state inwardly can aid in the development of concentration. Certain forms of meditation utilize techniques that lead to concentration. Yet meditation can be calm, ... Views: 461
Sri Aurobindo makes a clear distinction between development of the mind and the heart through various intellectual or artistic pursuits, or through music or devotional activities, and the practice of Sadhana, which is the primary need and focus for the spiritual aspirant. While any of these ... Views: 461
The Bhagavad Gita proclaims that ‘yoga is skill in works’. The type of focused concentrated effort that comes about through a yogic practice is an essential aspect of completing any task skillfully. It does not imply, however, that all ‘skill in works’ is necessarily yoga, unless by that one ... Views: 461
Development in our world of existence takes place in a sequential manner, systematically developing the physical framework, the body, and then manifesting the vital, life-force and developing its powers, adding in thereafter the mental layer and subsequently, we see the signs that further stages ... Views: 461
At a very basic, rudimentary level, less developed in the evolutionary scale than the physical mind, lies what is termed the ‘mechanical mind’. This level relies heavily on programmed repetition. It is programmed to have a simple instruction set, to repeat continuously whatever ‘sets off’ its ... Views: 461
In the field of medicine, there is a practice known as ‘differential diagnosis’ which examines symptoms and looks at the variety of potential causes before suggesting a remedy or curative action. The classic example is one of headache, which can have innumerable potential causes, including ... Views: 460
Prospective massage therapists and massage therapy graduate students often struggle to pass the national MBLEX certification exam. The MBLEX is a certification test and exam that all aspiring massage therapists must pass before receiving a license. Most of the 50 states are now accepting MBLEX ... Views: 460
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: 460
The objective of the integral yoga is to support the evolutionary process of the development and integration of the next stage of consciousness, beyond the mental consciousness. This step is necessary to overcome the limitations of the current mental framework which have helped create the ... Views: 460
Fear arises in the lower vital, in some instances, as a direct vital response to an energy that threatens health and safety of the individual; in other words, it is part of the survival instinct. But it also arises through social acculturation, such as in issues of stage fright, or through ... Views: 459
During daytime, we see the sun, the atmosphere and the world around us, and our thoughts and activities, for the most part, are focused on the life of the world. At night, we see the vast ranges of space and the myriad of stars, and can thereby recognise that our world is a small part of a much ... Views: 459
The mental consciousness likes to frame issues in terms of black and white determinations, as ‘either/or’ considerations. So we tend to swing from one extreme to the other. Either we try to indulge ourselves in fulfilling desires, in some cases with the idea that by satisfying the desire we will ... Views: 458