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- The Need for Persistent Energy and Focus to Live the Spiritual Life - by Submitted on May 12, 2022 from santosh krinskySpiritual progress is an ongoing process that requires patience, persistence, endurance and strength of purpose, along with the focus of energy needed to achieve any substantial realisations. Some people believe that spirituality is something weak and ineffective, that leads people to abandon ...
Views: 423 - The Need for Preparation of the Being Before Exploring Occult Worlds and Domains - by Submitted on Jun 05, 2024 from santosh krinskyWhen an individual leaves the relative safety of the physical being and traverses other domains and interacts with other beings, including vital beings both beneficent and maleficent, he is faced with the reality that the vibrations which he carries with him, or that resonate with him, draw to ...
Views: 223 - The Need for Serious Review of Other-Worldly or Supernormal Experience - by Submitted on Jun 29, 2024 from santosh krinskyIt is convenient, and perhaps comforting, to simply deny reality to experiences that people have, rather than to grapple with the implications of those experiences. We stick convenient labels on certain phenomena and believe by doing so, we have understood and defined those phenomena. Delusion, ...
Views: 227 - The Need for Silence of the Thinking Mind for the Spiritual Transformation - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2021 from santosh krinskyFor most people, the mind is always active with an internal commentary or dialogue running as people react to situations or try to solve various issues. As the mind is trained to undertake intellectual processes, it follows a process of logic and organisation that is used to understand and act ...
Views: 422 - The Need for Spiritual Discrimination, the Ability to Distinguish the Pure from the Impure - by Submitted on Apr 18, 2023 from santosh krinskyAs the spiritual seeker develops the sadhana over time, eventually he is confronted with lights, voices, and energies that come to him. It is not sufficient for him to simply accept that whatever comes is to be seen as valid and supportive of his spiritual aspiration. Spiritual discrimination, ...
Views: 318 - The Need for the Persistence of Faith to Succeed in the Yogic Endeavour - by Submitted on Jul 15, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe often do not recognise that there are different parts of our being that may be at different stages in terms of the spiritual focus, the dedication, the faith and the commitment. Thus, when our mind gets distracted or concerned, or when our vital nature goes off in another direction, we may ...
Views: 11 - The Need for Time to Assimilate the Descent of the Divine Force - by Submitted on Sep 30, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe vital nature craves excitement and signs of progress. It feels like time spent reflecting, relaxing, or contemplating may be ‘wasted time’. This is similar to the mindset that sees a vacant piece of land, with just plants, flowers and trees on it as ‘wasted’ as it has not been ‘developed’. ...
Views: 433 - The Need for Transformation of the Vital in the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jul 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyCan human nature be changed? We are exhorted to be kinder, more compassionate, less egoistic, more rational in our relationships with others and our actions in the world. When we try to actually carry out these things, we find that, for the most part, our vital instincts and drives still control ...
Views: 408 - The Need for Understanding the Power of Thought Formation - by Submitted on Sep 08, 2024 from santosh krinskyWhat is thought formation? For many people, the constant stream of haphazard ideas, thoughts, reflections and perceptions represents thought. Their minds are constantly bombarded by thoughts of all types without a consistent flow or theme. They jump from one subject to another without even a ...
Views: 170 - 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: 47 - 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: 530 - The Need to Develop New Powers of Knowing - by Submitted on Feb 18, 2024 from santosh krinskyTo explore the hidden forces, both in our own lives, and in the larger framework of the universal manifestation and the evolution of consciousness over time, a new way of ‘knowing’ needs to be developed, one that can experience and interact with these hidden forces on a more direct and aware ...
Views: 241 - The Need to Employ the Searchlight on Every Aspect of One’s Being - by Submitted on May 19, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn its essence, yoga is a form of applied psychology. The practitioner of yoga is attempting to redirect the focus, the responses and the reactions of the being, in many cases having to overcome deeply rooted and embedded instincts, habits, and trained responses, as well as the forces of desire, ...
Views: 28 - The Need to Gain Control Over the Action of the Vital Mind and Its Function - by Submitted on Aug 08, 2023 from santosh krinskyEveryone has had the experience, at some time or another, of imagining themselves doing something extraordinary, or at least fulfilling some dream about how their lives could develop or turn out. It may be a fantasy about winning a lottery, or gaining fame or recognition, or finding the right ...
Views: 273 - The Need to Integrate the Realisations of the Yoga of Knowledge With the External Life of the Seeker - by Submitted on Dec 22, 2023 from santosh krinskySome spiritual seekers follow the path of knowledge, utilizing deep meditation in a trance-state called Samadhi, to put aside all interaction with the external world and focus intensely on the unification with the Supreme Truth, and liberation from the life of the body. Their goal is thus for a ...
Views: 212 - The Need to Keep the Temple Clean - by Submitted on Oct 28, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe body-life-mind complex is the nexus and the container for the divine force in manifestation. The force, when it descends into the conscious awareness of the devotee, requires that the instrument be stable, pure and ready to receive and transmit the force without diminution or distortion. ...
Views: 244 - The Need to Maintain Balance Between Waking, Dream and Sleep Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 27, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe operation of the Gunas of nature, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas is noticeable in the spiritual quest as in everything else. The result is that when something new or exciting occurs, it tends to provoke the rising of Rajas and an attempt to grasp and enhance the ego-gratification of the event. ...
Views: 482 - 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: 41 - The Need to Master the Sex Impulse for the Sadhak of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jan 09, 2022 from santosh krinskyReligious and spiritual paths throughout the world have recognised the need to gain control over the sex impulse. Similarly societies have recognised that in many cases the sex impulse can create disruption in the orderly processes of the society. Traditionally, certain mores or rules of conduct ...
Views: 398 - The Need to Organize and Arrange the Actions of the External Being Around the Aspiration of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Nov 06, 2023 from santosh krinskyTo transform the life into one of spiritual focus and purpose, the various parts of the being need to be organized and ordered systematically to match the aspiration with the outward action. The thoughts, emotions, feelings, responses should be both coherent and arranged to present an harmonious ...
Views: 254 - The Need to Overcome the Subconscious State of Sleep - by Submitted on Jan 22, 2022 from santosh krinskyNormally when we sleep, the body goes into a state of tamas and with it, the consciousness loses the thread of the progress of the preceding day. While the progress is not ‘lost’ in the long run, it does mean that we tend to have to re-establish what was done previously time and again. Something ...
Views: 429 - The Need to Overcome the Tendencies to Self-Deception and Self-Justification in the Nature - by Submitted on Oct 27, 2023 from santosh krinskyThere is the aspiration and dedication that the seeker recognises and treats as his true identity. Then there are all the thoughts, motives and actions that undermine or contradict in some manner that aspiration and dedication. Many people fail to recognise that this contradiction exists, as ...
Views: 249 - The Need to Prepare the Being to Receive, Hold and Utilize the Influx of the Higher Forces - by Submitted on May 26, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe raw power generated by an electricity power plant is far greater than any single house can sustain. Thus, the utility company utilizes step-down transformers to systematically bring the power down to a level that the homes and the wiring to the homes can sustain. A similar principle is at ...
Views: 239 - The Need to Remain Undisturbed by Outer Circumstances - by Submitted on May 20, 2021 from santosh krinskyOne of the great obstacles to the reception and activation of the higher forces of consciousness are the pre-existing habits of action and reaction in the mind-life-body complex. We are constantly pulled in one direction or another, we react to events and circumstances from our narrow ...
Views: 489 - The Need to Shift the Consciousness Beyond the Ego - by Submitted on Feb 27, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe ego-consciousness has its evolutionary purpose. The distinction of the individual from the mass of existence led to the ability to move beyond the instinctual and habitual patterns of the species. With this consciousness, variation and innovation became more easily possible. Observation from ...
Views: 484 - The Need to Transcend the Intellect in the Search for the Truth of Existence - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2021 from santosh krinskyOnce we acknowledge that Truth cannot be ascertained through intellectual prowess alone, that the mind is not an instrument of truth, but rather an instrument for seeking, filled with doubt, confusion and limitation, we can no longer rely entirely on the mind to be the arbiter of what reality ...
Views: 587 - The Needed Balance of Spiritual Development and Mental Development - by Submitted on Mar 23, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere has been a long-standing debate between those who believe in the power of mental development, under the rubric of ‘science’ and those who believe in the power of faith and spiritual aspiration, under the general terminology of ‘religion’. A similar debate rages between the position of ...
Views: 431 - The Negative Effects of Misusing Your Power of Thought - by Submitted on Aug 30, 2017 from Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)“Thinking about sense-objects will attach you to sense-objects; grow attached, and you become addicted; thwart your addiction, it turns to anger; be angry, and you confuse your mind; confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience; forget experience, you lose discrimination; lose ...
Views: 1701 - The Object of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jan 29, 2021 from santosh krinskyPeople take up the practices of Yoga with many different objects in mind. Many do so from the viewpoint of the individual ego, seeking for fitness, health, energy, prosperity, fame, or for individual spiritual realisations, spiritual experiences, acquisition of special powers, conquest of death ...
Views: 691 - The Obstacles to Exercising the Will - by Submitted on Jan 14, 2024 from santosh krinskyWhatever experience an individual has in life, there come moments when he determines that he needs to exercise his will-power. it may be related to overcoming habits of laziness or procrastination, or overcoming a form of addiction, undertaking a diet to manage his weight, restraining the ...
Views: 235 - The Occult Action and Power of Vital Beings and Forces in Human Activities and Institutions - by Submitted on Jun 16, 2024 from santosh krinskyFor the most part, people live on the surface of their being, and do not see into the occult or hidden beings and forces that exist and act upon them, unseen, invisible and essentially unregarded. Many things that occur in the world are hard to explain without an understanding of the occult ...
Views: 166 - The One Thing That Should Never Be Done - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2021 from santosh krinskyAfter intensive mental awakening, vital experiences of spiritual significance, and the emotional uplift and fervour of devotion, there comes a period when the work shifts to the physical mind and framework, and change, that seemed to be so close and real, now seems to be illusory and just about ...
Views: 551 - The Opportunity of Life's Challenges to Awaken and Grow - by Submitted on May 30, 2023 from Maetreyii Ma NolanFor hundreds of thousands of years, humans have lived on this planet. They have each struggled to exist, to survive, to have a good life - to live. And in this time throughout history, people have encountered various obstacles, difficulties, and struggles in life. These struggles are a natural ...
Views: 345 - The Origin of Joy - by Submitted on Jul 01, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere is a difference between ‘joy’ and ‘enjoyment’. Enjoyment is a more or less passive state, such as when we enjoy some form of entertainment. Joy, on the other hand, is an active status, which rises spontaneously through involvement and action. If we observe children, we see that they ...
Views: 483 - The Outer Mental, Vital and Physical Consciousness of the External Being - by Submitted on Jun 08, 2023 from santosh krinskyModern-day Western psychological researchers are finding that certain portions of the brain are related to higher cognitive functions, logic, reasoning, extrapolation, imagination, projection, analysis and classification while some parts are in charge of the purely mechanical control of things ...
Views: 310 - The Parable of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2022 from santosh krinskyRobert Louis Stevenson wrote what is one of the classics in Western literature, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The tale is one of a scientist who experiments with potions, one of which releases the dark side of his being, the suppressed inhibitions and dark urges of murder, lust, ...
Views: 397 - 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: 41 - The Paradox of Practical Spirituality - by Submitted on Aug 01, 2013 from Norma CasasI don’t usually speak or write about religious matters. I have learned that it is a sensitive topic for many who feel insulted or threaten so if I have to, I always state that I respect and honor all religious beliefs as well as the believers. Today, however, a memory landed in my mind and I ...
Views: 1263 - The Paradoxical World of Spiritual Enlightenment: We are nothing but we are everything - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2012 from Dr. Robert PuffWhen we wake up to who we are, something happens. We stop identifying with our egoic selves because we realize they are impermanent and only that which is permanent can be who we are. We aren’t our bodies, we aren’t our memories, we aren’t our thoughts, we aren’t our feelings… We aren’t any ...
Views: 1489 - 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: 49 - The Path to the Attainment of Integral Self-Knowledge - by Submitted on Jun 20, 2023 from santosh krinskyIn The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes at some length what he calls ‘the refusal of the ascetic’. This refusal is caused by the focus on the attainment of the Supreme by disregarding or even eliminating the relationship of the seeker to the life of the external world and society. He eschews ...
Views: 358 - The Path To The Gazebo - by Submitted on Sep 27, 2014 from Moreen DuFermontThe Path To The Gazebo Have total trust in yourself with a strong, courageous faith. After all, we must all live life just one day at a time. Sure we can reminisce and plan as we like, yet its still all about today! Keeping it simply will help you enjoy the process. Our life takes shape ...
Views: 1497 - The Perpetual Effort Required for Transformation of Life in the World - by Submitted on Aug 16, 2024 from santosh krinskyAscent and integration. Relentless effort. What many do not appreciate is that any attempt to achieve individual perfection or transformation is limited by the readiness of the world and the rest of humanity in particular, to accept those changes that are needed for this to occur. Thus, progress ...
Views: 177 - The Phenomenon of the ‘Evil Persona’ - by Submitted on Dec 18, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe are ingrained with the notion that we own both the positive and negative qualities we can identify within ourselves. We work to enhance those we consider positive, and we struggle to overcome those that we view as negative. Through the practice of separating out the witness consciousness from ...
Views: 256 - The Physical Consciousness: Abandon or Transform? - by Submitted on Jul 17, 2023 from santosh krinskyThrough long habit, spiritual seekers tend to look at the question of how to attain spiritual liberation involving abandonment of the external life in the world. Not only spiritual seekers raise this question in some form or another. Anyone involved in aesthetic, mental, artistic, or emotional ...
Views: 300 - The Physical Mind and the Power of Doubt - by Submitted on Aug 12, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe physical mind, which responds to the external objects of the senses and the impact of those external objects, has strict limits within which it can either perceive or understand what it is perceiving. The reality of our existence, however, reaches far beyond the boundaries of response that ...
Views: 294 - The Play of the Gunas and the Difficulty of Effecting True Change in Human Nature - by Submitted on Mar 20, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe do not generally recognise that it is virtually impossible to hold one thought, one idea, one form of concentration, one energetic status for long periods of time. As time goes on, the balance of the Gunas changes and we lose the intensity, shift our focus to something else, and we find that ...
Views: 334 - The Play of the Gunas in the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Oct 02, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe Bhagavad Gita places considerable emphasis on the need to understand the play of the Gunas, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, in all things. Yogic practice is not exempted from this play. Each of the Gunas has a specific set of characteristics, and they are not stable. The Gunas are always in motion. ...
Views: 456 - The Position and Role of the Soul in Human Life - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2024 from santosh krinskyAs long as we recognise the body-life-mind complex and identify with it through the development of and focus on a specific ego-standpoint, we are able to function in the world, and carry out the basics of existence. Yet, as we easily can appreciate, we do not know the meaning or purpose of our ...
Views: 220 - The Potential for Emergence of the Subliminal Powers of Mind - by Submitted on Jan 13, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we begin to recognise the inherent power of the mind, independent of any reliance on the physical senses and the nerve pathways that link them to the mind, the question then arises as to how to become aware of, bring forward and train the use of these powers that are currently subliminal ...
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