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The recognition of the separation of the Purusha, the inner witness consciousness and the Prakriti, the active nature that operates in the mind, life and body, is an important step in the practice of yoga, whether for total abandonment of the outer world and liberation of the being, or as an ... Views: 452
At a certain stage of spiritual development, seekers tend to go through a phase where the world, its actions, objects, goals and results seem to be an illusion. The philosophical path of Mayavada resulted from just such an insight and experience. The seeker sees that everything is transitory and ... Views: 373
We 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: 476
Humanity has tried countless ways to solve the existential questions and crises that we face living in the world around us and interacting with all other beings who share the space with us. Religion, law, social development, economic development, technology, and others have each had their chance ... Views: 414
Spirituality is about attaining a unique awareness. Spiritual growth happens when one gains higher consciousness or awareness of his Self which is beyond the awareness of the five senses and the mind-ego-intellect. For the ones who want to grow in a higher spiritual realm and be spiritually ... Views: 353
For the individual who has a spiritual experience, one of the most notable characteristics is the absolute and incontrovertible ‘reality’ of the experience. Yet, people who live primarily in the surface consciousness tend to treat such experiences, when related, as somehow less real or even ... Views: 452
For the individual who has a spiritual experience, one of the most notable characteristics is the absolute and incontrovertible ‘reality’ of the experience. Yet, people who live primarily in the surface consciousness tend to treat such experiences, when related, as somehow less real or even ... Views: 428
The Upanishads describe an aspect of reality that is generally blocked from the external awareness of the body-life-mind complex. The Isha Upanishad states: “The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid; that do thou remove, O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth, for sight.” (Isha ... Views: 403
Just as we cannot see electricity, but we can observe its results, or we cannot see the mental process objectively (although one can indeed observe thoughts processing internally), but we can see its impact in the world, so with the spiritual development, which is more subtle than the mental ... Views: 424
When we experience something in the physical body, it is a sensation that carries a nervous impulse to the brain, which interprets whether it is cold or hot, dry or wet, painful or pleasurable, etc. Similarly, vital reactions and emotions are experienced through the release of various hormones ... Views: 427
For most people, their lives are focused on their external relationships, their own individual self-satisfaction and their ability to manipulate their social and environmental reality to achieve objectives set by their ego-personality. Many do not have any meaningful relationship to any inner ... Views: 444
In Need of Deepening
Paul Dunion
Sometimes, we settle for knowing what we experience by having an understanding of what it isn’t. So, it may be with the idea of depth. Typically, we know it isn’t about being superficial, shallow or mundane. We use the language of depth ... Views: 466
The physical body (actually the entire material world) is subject to habits, and change tends to come slowly. Our being, however, is made up of a series of sheaths which progress from the subtle to the gross physical and thus, any attempt to make a change to the more outward sheaths, the ... Views: 524
When we flip a light switch, we have faith that there is electricity flowing through the wires and the lights will turn on. We do not actually know or perceive the electricity, but we can see its effects in operation. Similarly, our surface being may see effects of the Divine Force at work in ... Views: 384
How do we distinguish what is an actual spiritual experience? We have an inherent bias towards believing and accepting perceptions and reactions to outer stimuli, the objects of the senses, and the reactions that arise inwardly from those stimuli. When it comes to an inner feeling or experience, ... Views: 397
Our vital nature crazes ‘excitement’ and to gather ‘experiences’. It is no different for the spiritual aspirant than for the rest of humanity in this regard. Spiritual experiences tend to be extraordinary in the sense that they go beyond the everyday perceptions or sensations and tend to have a ... Views: 386
Surveys done of young people today indicate a strong movement to reduce the role of the mainstream organised religions with people claiming to be “spiritual” not “religious”. What is spirituality and how does it differ from being religious?
Religions tend to focus on a fixed belief system and ... Views: 433
The integral yoga takes as its goal something far different than most of the individual yogic paths. The goal here is not liberation from the world, dissolution of the individual, or renunciation of action. Rather, the integral yoga calls for the liberation of the nature and the transformation ... Views: 433
The inner life-force behind any action is more important than the outer form which it takes. Japa and Mantra can become habitual and repetitive, and if that happens, the outer shelf remains, but there is nothing alive within. Such japa sadhana has little value. The living energy needed is either ... Views: 386
There are tales of devotees reciting various mantras millions of times in order to achieve some boon or result in their spiritual progress. The mantra, or the recitation of a name of God, is the sound-body of the form or deity and thus, the theory goes, continued repetition of that name or sound ... Views: 405
Practitioners of mainstream religions are very familiar with ritual worship. Much of the activity of religion is scripted around a set formula of external worship that has developed from perhaps an initial experience or, over time, as a result of habitual action. The intended purpose of this ... Views: 409
Everything we experience is based on vibrations that impinge upon us and bring about a response in the substance of our being. All matter is created by energy, which consists of vibratory waves. All energy is created by consciousness, which provides the specific impulse of vibration to be ... Views: 429
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.
... Views: 427
Every living being loves their life. Everyone wants to be happy. The deer in the field wants to be happy. The wolf, the coyote wants to be happy. The plants, the trees want to be happy.
And human beings want to be happy, want to feel that life is sweet. And it is a burden that even the wise ... Views: 493
Emotions 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: 480
How does an individual come to devotion to the Divine? There are well-known instances that involve some kind of key experience of the Divine, such as the story of Saul on the road to Damascus, or even extreme cases such as Dannion Brinkley who was struck by lightning, declared clinically dead ... Views: 401
The devotee may begin the process of devotional surrender to the Divine with a form of bargaining, expecting a recompense from God for the efforts made to express the devotion. Thus, people pray and expect an answer to their prayers, or they carry out devotional exercises and expect God to ... Views: 430
The path of devotion relies on the heart, not the mind. The seeker who is rooted in his mental process undergoes substantial efforts to achieve spiritual realisation, but may find that the ego-consciousness asserts itself as an arrogant pride of accomplishment, knowledge or understanding. As ... Views: 438
There is an apocryphal tale in the Mahabharata which illustrates the nature of Divine Love and the devotion of the seeker. Narad, the divine sage, came across a yogi who was practicing austerities. The yogi took the opportunity to ask how long before he would achieve liberation. When Narada told ... Views: 414
In 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: 464
Oftentimes, people are their own worst enemy. You may be subconsciously becoming more vulnerable to mind control manipulation without even knowing it. Inner weakness distorts the way you think, act, feel, and behave. As a result, you may find yourself falling into patterns that aren’t in your ... Views: 522
There are 4 kashays (weaknesses) in every human being, namely:
Anger
Pride
Deceit
Greed
Of these, greed is the first to manifest within every living being, and the last to leave. Greed appears to give us immense happiness, but it actually is at the foundation of most of our unhappiness. ... Views: 279
Yearning for someone to come and fill your life with joy and love? What if I told you that loving yourself is the beginning of discovering your right partner?
Self-care messages are so rampant across the internet that even personal branding coaches use this as a major strategy to make their ... Views: 532
A non dual recognition has the potential to trigger massive shifts, on the level of consciousness.
So much of these shifts are discussed quite thoroughly in non duality satsang. What makes it difficult to point to them, is that these descriptions give the mind a way to control the awakening ... Views: 527
There is a famous story in the Upanishads which illustrates both the role and the power of work in spiritual practice and realisation. A youth approached a teacher to learn the spiritual truths of existence. The teacher handed over to him 2 head of cattle and said that he would take him up as a ... Views: 508
The one that is bound, and the one that suffers being bound, is the one that seeks peace, is the one that seeks liberation. Who is bound? It is our ego that is bound and who suffers the pain of bondage, and it is this very ego that wants peace.
So, here are some of the best ways to find the ... Views: 265
We frequently hear about the practice of ‘karma yoga’ in connection with feeding people, or providing medical care and support. These and other ‘good works’ are clearly beneficial to the social body and to the numerous individuals who receive real and substantial benefits from them. These ... Views: 459
Alcohol, drugs, tobacco, and all kinds of addiction have a devastating effect on the quality of your life. Not only does it affect your physical and mental health, but drug addiction could shatter families. Most of us know the impact of alcohol on our lives, but we still find it difficult to ... Views: 609
We bring to the spiritual quest all kinds of mental ideas, emotional expectations and preconceived notions about what is supposed to happen, how it is supposed to happen and what it signifies. All of these things, however, are based in the mind-life-body complex and act as limiting factors in ... Views: 430
Many who take up the practice of yogic sadhana find that they receive some signs of encouragement either prior to starting consciously down the path, through some kind of experience that opens other dimensions and opportunities for growth for them, or through some spiritual experiences in the ... Views: 426
Self-Realization can only be achieved in a human form. This is because only in human form, one can charge (bind new) as well as discharge (leave old) karmas, whereas in all other life forms, one sensed living beings onwards, they only discharge karmas. The ability to charge karmas benefits us ... Views: 230
We live in an age that expects instant success, immediate gratification and results that occur with a minimum of effort. It is difficult, therefore, to appreciate that the spiritual path, whether the integral yoga, or any other path that assumes a change to human nature or a redirection of the ... Views: 416
One 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: 476
In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo concisely outlines the processes and steps of the integral yoga. The progress is based on a two-fold collaboration between the individual Soul and the divine Force, brought about through a tuning process for the human individual through what is called ... Views: 489
The will power is a real and important part of the effort by the individual. Will power can be developed through exercise, just as we develop the physical muscles through exercise and weight training. In our development of the mental will, we frequently become frustrated when something we try to ... Views: 429
Sri Aurobindo identifies aspiration as one of the important steps in the sadhana of the integral yoga. What exactly is aspiration? We can understand it by looking at the operation of a frequency tuner, such as a radio or television tuner. There are numerous channels available, and the tuner ... Views: 432
Practitioners of the integral yoga are confronted daily with the task of balancing between the individual effort required, and the call to surrender to the divine force that actually is undertaking the changes in the nature that are required. We all start with the ego-consciousness and all of ... Views: 441
Our mental logic frequently stumbles over the apparent contradictions that lead us to adopt an extreme position over a more nuanced view of things. The debate about the role of free will in the processes of the yoga which involve the surrender of the ego to the action of the divine Force is one ... Views: 424
The integral yoga relies on the action of a force of consciousness beyond the mind-life-body complex under which we ordinarily function. This involves a self-exceeding beyond the normal framework. Thus, it cannot be accomplished purely by the action of those powers residing within that ... Views: 428
The ego-sense, in its attempt to be in control and glorify in its success, abhors the very idea of “surrender”. The connotation of the term in English is loaded with negative inferences, yet in other languages there are more subtle and deeper meanings to be unlocked. For instance, in Sanskrit, ... Views: 427