Jun 4th 2009

From The Economist print edition

Pattabhi Jois, a yoga teacher, died on May 18th, aged 93

Govinda Kai

ONE sure sign that yoga has entered the mainstream of Western society, or at least the urbane bits of it, is that its practitioners have splintered into separate and sometimes competitive tribes. In spas, resorts and studios from Byron Bay, Australia to Big Sur, California, and wherever else one might expect Priuses on the roads and organic kale on the tables, the question is less likely to be “Do you do yoga?” than simply “Ashtanga or Iyengar?”

If the answer is Ashtanga, that has everything to do with Pattabhi Jois—“Guruji”, as his disciples called him. The word Ashtanga, “eight limbs”, originally meant the eight stages yogis must traverse to reach enlightenment, only one of which, asana or “postures”, is the sort of thing Westerners associate with yoga. But used in Mr Jois’s way, which is how most Westerners understand it now, Ashtanga meant stretching, balancing and swinging to the relentless rhythm set by a little, smiling, potbellied man in an undershirt and Calvin Klein shorts, crying “Ekam, inhale! dve, exhale! trini, inhale! catavari, exhale!”, until every member of the class was breathing like Darth Vader and running with rivers of sweat. This was just how Mr Jois liked it. The intense internal heat generated by his sort of yoga was meant to purify and cleanse the body. For him, yoga was “99% practice and 1% theory”, as he liked to say in his squeaky, mischievous voice. Though he was the son of a Brahmin priest, and knew the teachings, anyone asking him for deeper philosophy would get a smirk in reply, or a scrap of his famously broken English. Why, for instance, did he insist that one must enter the Lotus position right leg first? “Practice and all is coming,” Mr Jois would say, and leave it at that.

He disdained the fastidious and perfectionist alignment of postures that some of his rivals practised in chilly yoga studios. He scorned Iyengar, the careful and medicinal branch of the art which, like his, arrived in the West in the 1960s, in which middle-aged ladies spent an eternity studying how to spread their toes properly while standing, before building complex poses with straps, blocks and chairs. His Ashtangis were younger and fitter, more likely to have Om tattoos and rippling shoulder muscles, and to start their exercises with a chant of “Guruji!” to a portrait of him pinned up on the wall.

His yoga poses came in sets and sequences that never varied. Do the same sets again and again, Mr Jois believed, and the body would, over time, supply its own grace. The poses did not change when he taught his daughter’s son, whom he was grooming to carry on the tradition after losing one son to death and growing distant from another. Nor did they vary for new, pale, stiff arrivals from the West at his school in Mysore, in India; nor for the Hollywood celebrities, from Madonna to Sting and Gwyneth Paltrow, who made the pilgrimage to catch Guruji on one of his world tours.

What changed was only how many of the six sequences—in theory, one for each day of the yoga week—the student was able and allowed to do. Each set had a theme, and they got harder and harder. The first, with many forward bends, was cleansing and calming; the second, with lots of back bends, was stimulating, and so on. The later ones were otherworldly in their contortions. It was said that only a handful of people could do all six.

Mr Jois first saw these yoga postures performed in one connected sequence in the 1920s, when he was 12. He was watching a demonstration by Tirumalai Krishnamacharya, a charismatic guru who would teach all the principal yogis who later brought yoga to the West. Electrified, he became Krishnamacharya’s student the next day. His teacher made him start at daybreak, with sun salutations towards the east until he was sweaty and hot. Then followed postures, shoulderstands, headstands, deep breathing in the Lotus position and meditative rest. Strong, flexible and easily bored, the boy had found a discipline that challenged him.

After running away from his village with two rupees in his pocket, Mr Jois eventually managed to study at Mysore and then began to pass on what he had learnt. At first he taught in obscurity, in one small room with a grubby carpet, and only other Brahmin men. But from the late 1960s onwards, as the perfume of joss sticks drifted over Western civilisation, yoga caught on there too. A hippie fan brought him to California for a visit in 1975, and his fame spread.

Among his followers, Mr Jois inspired a cultish devotion. But his students were not unaware of their teacher’s contradictions. What had happened, for example, to the yogic principle of ahimsa, non-violence? A good number of Mr Jois’s students seemed constantly to be limping around with injured knees or backs because they had received his “adjustments”, yanking them into Lotus, the splits or a backbend. And what about the yogic principle of brahmacharya, sexual continence? Women followers, it was said, received altogether different adjustments from the men. Most mysteriously, why had Mr Jois himself apparently stopped practising his sort of yoga decades ago? Was that another instance of the wisdom of the East?

Shivalan’s comment Common sense is hard to beat, yet why is it called so when it’s not too common? Yoga must be about balance, and what’s balanced about the kind of nonsense described here. See the post sometime back in this blog re the writings of Patanjali and compare them with what’s described here. So many scoundrels came to the West and most of them haven’t been sussed. If you really want to know what real yoga is, check it out here:

http://onlinemeditation.ca/category/class1/

admin Awareness, Knowledge, Spirit, Truth, Understanding, human brain, ydig yoga, Yoga rip off

Patanjali

The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali
The Threads of Union
Translation by BonGiovanni

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1. on Contemplations
2. on Spiritual Disciplines
3. on Divine Powers
4. on Realizations

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Before beginning any spiritual text it is customary to clear the mind of all distracting thoughts, to calm the breath and to purify the heart.

1.1 Now, instruction in Union.

1.2. Union is restraining the thought-streams natural to the mind.

1.3. Then the seer dwells in his own nature.

1.4. Otherwise he is of the same form as the thought-streams.

1.5. The thought-streams are five-fold, painful and not painful.

1.6. Right knowledge, wrong knowledge, fancy, sleep and memory.

1.7. Right knowledge is inference, tradition and genuine cognition.

1.8. Wrong knowledge is false, illusory, erroneous beliefs or notions.

1.9. Fancy is following after word-knowledge empty of substance.

1.10. Deep sleep is the modification of the mind which has for its substratum nothingness.

1.11. Memory is not allowing mental impressions to escape.

1.12. These thought-streams are controlled by practice and non-attachment.

1.13. Practice is the effort to secure steadiness.

1.14. This practice becomes well-grounded when continued with reverent devotion and without interruption over a long period of time.

1.15. Desirelessness towards the seen and the unseen gives the consciousness of mastery.

1.16. This is signified by an indifference to the three attributes, due to knowledge of the Indweller.

1.17. Cognitive meditation is accompanied by reasoning, discrimination, bliss and the sense of ‘I am.’

1.18. There is another meditation which is attained by the practice of alert mental suspension until only subtle impressions remain.

1.19. For those beings who are formless and for those beings who are merged in unitive consciousness, the world is the cause.

1.20. For others, clarity is preceded by faith, energy, memory and equalminded contemplation.

1.21. Equalminded contemplation is nearest to those whose desire is most ardent.

1.22. There is further distinction on account of the mild, moderate or intense means employed.

1.23. Or by surrender to God.

1.24. God is a particular yet universal indweller, untouched by afflictions, actions, impressions and their results.

1.25. In God, the seed of omniscience is unsurpassed.

1.26. Not being conditioned by time, God is the teacher of even the ancients.

1.27. God’s voice is Om.

1.28. The repetition of Om should be made with an understanding of its meaning.

1.29. From that is gained introspection and also the disappearance of obstacles.

1.30. Disease, inertia, doubt, lack of enthusiasm, laziness, sensuality, mind-wandering, missing the point, instability- these distractions of the mind are the obstacles.

1.31. Pain, despair, nervousness, and disordered inspiration and expiration are co-existent with these obstacles.

1.32. For the prevention of the obstacles, one truth should be practiced constantly.

1.33. By cultivating friendliness towards happiness and compassion towards misery, gladness towards virtue and indifference towards vice, the mind becomes pure.

1.34. Optionally, mental equanimity may be gained by the even expulsion and retention of energy.

1.35. Or activity of the higher senses causes mental steadiness.

1.36. Or the state of sorrowless Light.

1.37. Or the mind taking as an object of concentration those who are freed of compulsion.

1.38. Or depending on the knowledge of dreams and sleep.

1.39. Or by meditation as desired.

1.40. The mastery of one in Union extends from the finest atomic particle to the greatest infinity.

1.41. When the agitations of the mind are under control, the mind becomes like a transparent crystal and has the power of becoming whatever form is presented. knower, act of knowing, or what is known.

1.42. The argumentative condition is the confused mixing of the word, its right meaning, and knowledge.

1.43. When the memory is purified and the mind shines forth as the object alone, it is called non-argumentative.

1.44. In this way the meditative and the ultra-meditative having the subtle for their objects are also described.

1.45. The province of the subtle terminates with pure matter that has no pattern or distinguishing mark.

1.46. These constitute seeded contemplations.

1.47. On attaining the purity of the ultra-meditative state there is the pure flow of spiritual consciousness.

1.48. Therein is the faculty of supreme wisdom.

1.49. The wisdom obtained in the higher states of consciousness is different from that obtained by inference and testimony as it refers to particulars.

1.50. The habitual pattern of thought stands in the way of other impressions.

1.51. With the suppression of even that through the suspension of all modifications of the mind, contemplation without seed is attained.

End Part One.

Part Two
on Spiritual Disciplines

2.1 Austerity, the study of sacred texts, and the dedication of action to God constitute the discipline of Mystic Union.

2.2 This discipline is practised for the purpose of acquiring fixity of mind on the Lord, free from all impurities and agitations, or on One’s Own Reality, and for attenuating the afflictions.

2.3 The five afflictions are ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion, and the desire to cling to life.

2.4 Ignorance is the breeding place for all the others whether they are dormant or attenuated, partially overcome or fully operative.

2.5 Ignorance is taking the non-eternal for the eternal, the impure for the pure, evil for good and non-self as self.

2.6 Egoism is the identification of the power that knows with the instruments of knowing.

2.7 Attachment is that magnetic pattern which clusters in pleasure and pulls one towards such experience.

2.8 Aversion is the magnetic pattern which clusters in misery and pushes one from such experience.

2.9 Flowing by its own energy, established even in the wise and in the foolish, is the unending desire for life.

2.10 These patterns when subtle may be removed by developing their contraries.

2.11 Their active afflictions are to be destroyed by meditation.

2.12 The impressions of works have their roots in afflictions and arise as experience in the present and the future births.

2.13 When the root exists, its fruition is birth, life and experience.

2.14 They have pleasure or pain as their fruit, according as their cause be virtue or vice.

2.15 All is misery to the wise because of the pains of change, anxiety, and purificatory acts.

2.16 The grief which has not yet come may be avoided.

2.17 The cause of the avoidable is the superimposition of the external world onto the unseen world.

2.18 The experienced world consists of the elements and the senses in play. It is of the nature of cognition, activity and rest, and is for the purpose of experience and realization.

2.19 The stages of the attributes effecting the experienced world are the specialized and the unspecialized, the differentiated and the undifferentiated.

2.20 The indweller is pure consciousness only, which though pure, sees through the mind and is identified by ego as being only the mind.

2.21 The very existence of the seen is for the sake of the seer.

2.22 Although Creation is discerned as not real for the one who has achieved the goal, it is yet real in that Creation remains the common experience to others.

2.23 The association of the seer with Creation is for the distinct recognition of the objective world, as well as for the recognition of the distinct nature of the seer.

2.24 The cause of the association is ignorance.

2.25 Liberation of the seer is the result of the dissassociation of the seer and the seen, with the disappearance of ignorance.

2.26 The continuous practice of discrimination is the means of attaining liberation.

2.27 Steady wisdom manifests in seven stages.

2.28 On the destruction of impurity by the sustained practice of the limbs of Union, the light of knowledge reveals the faculty of discrimination.

2.29 The eight limbs of Union are self-restraint in actions, fixed observance, posture, regulation of energy, mind-control in sense engagements, concentration, meditation, and realization.

2.30 Self-restraint in actions includes abstention from violence, from falsehoods, from stealing, from sexual engagements, and from acceptance of gifts.

2.31 These five willing abstentions are not limited by rank, place, time or circumstance and constitute the Great Vow.

2.32 The fixed observances are cleanliness, contentment, austerity, study and persevering devotion to God.

2.33 When improper thoughts disturb the mind, there should be constant pondering over the opposites.

2.34 Improper thoughts and emotions such as those of violence- whether done, caused to be done, or even approved of- indeed, any thought originating in desire, anger or delusion, whether mild medium or intense- do all result in endless pain and misery. Overcome such distractions by pondering on the opposites.

2.35 When one is confirmed in non-violence, hostility ceases in his presence.

2.36 When one is firmly established in speaking truth, the fruits of action become subservient to him.

2.37 All jewels approach him who is confirmed in honesty.

2.38 When one is confirmed in celibacy, spiritual vigor is gained.

2.39 When one is confirmed in non-possessiveness, the knowledge of the why and how of existence is attained.

2.40 From purity follows a withdrawal from enchantment over one’s own body as well as a cessation of desire for physical contact with others.

2.41 As a result of contentment there is purity of mind, one-pointedness, control of the senses, and fitness for the vision of the self.

2.42 Supreme happiness is gained via contentment.

2.43 Through sanctification and the removal of impurities, there arise special powers in the body and senses.

2.44 By study comes communion with the Lord in the Form most admired.

2.45 Realization is experienced by making the Lord the motive of all actions.

2.46 The posture should be steady and comfortable.

2.47 In effortless relaxation, dwell mentally on the Endless with utter attention.

2.48 From that there is no disturbance from the dualities.

2.49 When that exists, control of incoming and outgoing energies is next.

2.50 It may be external, internal, or midway, regulated by time, place, or number, and of brief or long duration.

2.51 Energy-control which goes beyond the sphere of external and internal is the fourth level- the vital.

2.52 In this way, that which covers the light is destroyed.

2.53 Thus the mind becomes fit for concentration.

2.54 When the mind maintains awareness, yet does not mingle with the senses, nor the senses with sense impressions, then self-awareness blossoms.

2.55 In this way comes mastery over the senses.

End Part Two

Part Three
on Divine Powers

3.1 One-pointedness is steadfastness of the mind.

3.2 Unbroken continuation of that mental ability is meditation.

3.3 That same meditation when there is only consciousness of the object of meditation and not of the mind is realization.

3.4 The three appearing together are self-control.

3.5 By mastery comes wisdom.

3.6 The application of mastery is by stages.

3.7 The three are more efficacious than the restraints.

3.8 Even that is external to the seedless realization.

3.9 The significant aspect is the union of the mind with the moment of absorption, when the outgoing thought disappears and the absorptive experience appears.

3.10 From sublimation of this union comes the peaceful flow of unbroken unitive cognition.

3.11 The contemplative transformation of this is equalmindedness, witnessing the rise and destruction of distraction as well as one-pointedness itself.

3.12 The mind becomes one-pointed when the subsiding and rising thought-waves are exactly similar.

3.13 In this state, it passes beyond the changes of inherent characteristics, properties and the conditional modifications of object or sensory recognition.

3.14 The object is that which preserves the latent characteristic, the rising characteristic or the yet-to-be-named characteristic that establishes one entity as specific.

3.15 The succession of these changes in that entity is the cause of its modification.

3.16 By self-control over these three-fold changes (of property, character and condition), knowledge of the past and the future arises.

3.17 The sound of a word, the idea behind the word, and the object the idea signfies are often taken as being one thing and may be mistaken for one another. By self-control over their distinctions, understanding of all languages of all creatures arises.

3.18 By self-control on the perception of mental impressions, knowledge of previous lives arises.

3.19 By self-control on any mark of a body, the wisdom of the mind activating that body arises.

3.20 By self-control on the form of a body, by suspending perceptibility and separating effulgence therefrom, there arises invisibility and inaudibilty.

3.21 Action is of two kinds, dormant and fruitful. By self-control on such action, one portends the time of death.

3.22 By performing self-control on friendliness, the strength to grant joy arises.

3.23 By self-control over any kind of strength, such as that of the elephant, that very strength arises.

3.24 By self-control on the primal activator comes knowledge of the hidden, the subtle, and the distant.

3.25 By self-control on the Sun comes knowledge of spatial specificities.

3.26 By self-control on the Moon comes knowledge of the heavens.

3.27 By self-control on the Polestar arises knowledge of orbits.

3.28 By self-control on the navel arises knowledge of the constitution of the body.

3.29 By self-control on the pit of the throat one subdues hunger and thirst.

3.30 By self-control on the tube within the chest one acquires absolute steadiness.

3.31 By self-control on the light in the head one envisions perfected beings.

3.32 There is knowledge of everything from intuition.

3.33 Self-control on the heart brings knowledge of the mental entity.

3.34 Experience arises due to the inability of discerning the attributes of vitality from the indweller, even though they are indeed distinct from one another. Self-control brings true knowledge of the indweller by itself.

3.35 This spontaneous enlightenment results in intuitional perception of hearing, touching, seeing and smelling.

3.36 To the outward turned mind, the sensory organs are perfections, but are obstacles to realization.

3.37 When the bonds of the mind caused by action have been loosened, one may enter the body of another by knowledge of how the nerve-currents function.

3.38 By self-control of the nerve-currents utilising the lifebreath, one may levitate, walk on water, swamps, thorns, or the like.

3.39 By self-control over the maintenance of breath, one may radiate light.

3.40 By self-control on the relation of the ear to the ether one gains distant hearing.

3.41 By self-control over the relation of the body to the ether, and maintaining at the same time the thought of the lightness of cotton, one is able to pass through space.

3.42 By self-control on the mind when it is separated from the body- the state known as the Great Transcorporeal- all coverings are removed from the Light.

3.43 Mastery over the elements arises when their gross and subtle forms,as well as their essential characteristics, and the inherent attributes and experiences they produce, is examined in self-control.

3.44 Thereby one may become as tiny as an atom as well as having many other abilities, such as perfection of the body, and non-resistence to duty.

3.45 Perfection of the body consists in beauty, grace, strength and adamantine hardness.

3.46 By self-control on the changes that the sense-organs endure when contacting objects, and on the power of the sense of identity, and of the influence of the attributes, and the experience all these produce- one masters the senses.

3.47 From that come swiftness of mind, independence of perception, and mastery over primoridal matter.

3.48 To one who recognizes the distinctive relation between vitality and indweller comes omnipotence and omniscience.

3.49 Even for the destruction of the seed of bondage by desirelessness there comes absolute independence.

3.50 When invited by invisible beings one should be neither flattered nor satisfied, for there is yet a possibility of ignorance rising up.

3.51 By self-control over single moments and their succession there is wisdom born of discrimination.

3.52 From that there is recognition of two similars when that difference cannot be distinguished by class, characteristic or position.

3.53 Intuition, which is the entire discriminative knowledge, relates to all objects at all times, and is without succession.

3.54 Liberation is attained when there is equal purity between vitality and the indweller.

End Part Three

Part Four
on Realizations

4.1 Psychic powers arise by birth, drugs, incantations, purificatory acts or concentrated insight.

4.2 Transformation into another state is by the directed flow of creative nature.

4.3 Creative nature is not moved into action by any incidental cause, but by the removal of obstacles, as in the case of a farmer clearing his field of stones for irrigation.

4.4 Created minds arise from egoism alone.

4.5 There being difference of interest, one mind is the director of many minds.

4.6 Of these, the mind born of concentrated insight is free from the impressions.

4.7 The impressions of unitive cognition are neither good nor bad. In the case of the others, there are three kinds of impressions.

4.8 From them proceed the development of the tendencies which bring about the fruition of actions.

4.9 Because of the magnetic qualities of habitual mental patterns and memory, a relationship of cause and effect clings even though there may be a change of embodiment by class, space and time.

4.10 The desire to live is eternal, and the thought-clusters prompting a sense of identity are beginningless.

4.11 Being held together by cause and effect, substratum and object- the tendencies themselves disappear on the dissolution of these bases.

4.12 The past and the future exist in the object itself as form and expression, there being difference in the conditions of the properties.

4.13 Whether manifested or unmanifested they are of the nature of the attributes.

4.14 Things assume reality because of the unity maintained within that modification.

4.15 Even though the external object is the same, there is a difference of cognition in regard to the object because of the difference in mentality.

4.16 And if an object known only to a single mind were not cognized by that mind, would it then exist?

4.17 An object is known or not known by the mind, depending on whether or not the mind is colored by the object.

4.18 The mutations of awareness are always known on account of the changelessness of its Lord, the indweller.

4.19 Nor is the mind self-luminous, as it can be known.

4.20 It is not possible for the mind to be both the perceived and the perceiver simultaneously.

4.21 In the case of cognition of one mind by another, we would have to assume cognition of cognition, and there would be confusion of memories.

4.22 Consciousness appears to the mind itself as intellect when in that form in which it does not pass from place to place.

4.23 The mind is said to perceive when it reflects both the indweller (the knower) and the objects of perception (the known).

4.24 Though variegated by innumerable tendencies, the mind acts not for itself but for another, for the mind is of compound substance.

4.25 For one who sees the distinction, there is no further confusing of the mind with the self.

4.26 Then the awareness begins to discriminate, and gravitates towards liberation.

4.27 Distractions arise from habitual thought patterns when practice is intermittent.

4.28 The removal of the habitual thought patterns is similar to that of the afflictions already described.

4.29 To one who remains undistracted in even the highest intellection there comes the equalminded realization known as The Cloud of Virtue. This is a result of discriminative discernment.

4.30 From this there follows freedom from cause and effect and afflictions.

4.31 The infinity of knowledge available to such a mind freed of all obscuration and property makes the universe of sensory perception seem small.

4.32 Then the sequence of change in the three attributes comes to an end, for they have fulfilled their function.

4.33 The sequence of mutation occurs in every second, yet is comprehensible only at the end of a series.

4.34 When the attributes cease mutative association with awarenessness, they resolve into dormancy in Nature, and the indweller shines forth as pure consciousness. This is absolute freedom.

End Part Four
The end of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Knowledge, Meditation, Understanding, human brain, ydig advice from the really stupid, yoga

“Sahaja” doesn’t mean only that you get spontaneous Realization, it also means you get spontaneity, the whole nature gets spontaneity. All those subtle things that I have told you, they all get spontaneous and they work it out. Of course there are angels and there are ganas who are helping you. But you need not worry about them just now. Main thing is you must realize what you are, what you have got and how much you have faced it, you have got it and how it has worked out. I have seen every time I just have a little problem of something, immediately it works. It works in such quarters and such people that I never expected, just comes in. Everything works out. But whatever works out is for your good, is for your growth, for your understanding that you are a Sahaja Yogi; you have entered into the Kingdom of God, but this you have to develop. Also introspection can tell you that are you working out all those things, or not? If you take to introspection, you’ll be surprised to see, yes, you have these powers, and you can do wonders. So I bless you all. Please develop those subtle things within you. They are already there; you don’t have to do anything, only understand and locate.

(conclusion to: 1998-1216: Subtle Forms of Five Elements in us, Talk before music program, Delhi)

So I bless you all. Please develop those subtle things within you. They are already there; you don’t have to do anything, only understand and locate.

So like one pitcher which is in the River Ganges, you are like a cell in the body of the (primordial feminine energy) Adi Shakti. Your entity, your personality is preserved. Despite that you feel the (creative power of the primordial feminine energy) Brahmachaitanya through your senses and you can give realizations to others, but you are in the body of the Adi Shakti. As long as you are in the body of Adi Shakti you can do all that.                                            May 1987, Australia

Something special has happened to you that the whole of Brahmachaitanya, the whole ocean has taken the form of a cloud – that’s Adi Shakti – and has come on this Earth to shower the chaitanya (subtle energy/power) on you people, enrich you, nurture you, develop you, by manifesting the love in such a manner that you have entered into the body of the Adi Shakti.                                                                                                                                                                                              May 1987, Australia

This Mother Earth has to teach us …
Whatever is outside is also inside.
If you want to exploit your Mother inside
or if you want to trouble your Mother inside,
you can also trouble this Mother Earth.
Now what has replaced our understanding is very simple.
It is that we are paying more attention to money.
If you can cut a tree to get money, then it is hurting the Mother.
But if you are cutting a tree for beautifying Her, then She’s happy.
Her discretion is so great….
It’s very remarkable how nature is so much within us
and how this, whatever it is within us,
guides outside and receives the blessings.
We are not something separate.
This Mother Earth is our home.
We have a home in Her
and She has a home within us.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             September 1997

Every leaf, every branch tries to give a chance to another leaf and another branch, that they all get the sunlight. If you have to see collectivity, really you see it in a jungle, how they live together and with such happiness, with such unity.
5 April 1994

Every individual has to work it out for himself so that the whole can be all right.
16 January 1983, Vaiturna

The feeling is that the other is myself. Be kind and gentle. Try to improve and help in that manner.
“Mother Earth”

Without recognition, you cannot see the play. Without the play, you cannot have confidence within yourself. Without confidence, you cannot become a guru. Without becoming a guru, you cannot help others. And without helping others, you are not going to be in any way happy. So to break the chain is very easy, but to build the chain, one after another, is what you have to do.                                                                                                                                                                                           July 1979

This is the best way to bring non-violence: in violent places you go and stand steadily there, facing all the things that are happening and that witness state acts – acts and stops that kind of a violence that is going on. But the witness state is not a mental state. It is a state of a spiritual ascent where you become a witness. The best way to practice the witness state is not to criticize anyone.                                                                                                                                                                             August 1998

In thoughtless awareness nobody can touch you, that is your fortress.                                                                                                                                                                 August 1998

Your own attention is important, not the attention of others.                                                                                                                                                                                 August 1998

Don’t listen to those who say, “Mother said….”                                                                                                                                                                                                               August 1998

Either you lead a life which is luxurious on the material level or you lead a luxurious life of God’s blessings. One of the two you have to choose, the time has come. August 1998

If a lotus is there, it will open. But it must give fragrance. Even the lotus has a responsibility. Then what about you?
Christmas 2001

You must practise to see something without allowing any thought to rise. Then you start sucking through your spirit the beauty, the glory, the fragrance of a flower.
Every flower is poetry.
Easter 1984

This is the greatest joy-giving thing for Me, that one flower can enjoy the fragrance of another flower. It is real poetry.
5 October 1987

I don’t know if you people really are aware of your responsibilities. Sometimes you are only worried on “Where am I catching? What is happening to me? What is this?” So self-centered! Or, you are worried about others: “She should not have done this, he should not have done….” Nobody should think they love me more than anyone else. Nobody should think like that. Some people know more rituals, some people know more protocol, doesn’t matter, but I know who loves me. The one who loves others most loves me the most. I don’t care, your protocols and ritualistic things are nonsense for me. What does it matter to me? The ones who loves others really loves me. Take it from me, I’ve had all these rituals and all that and I have no care for these things. Makes no difference if you say good morning or good evening to me, is not important. What you say to your brothers and sisters is the most important.                                                                                                                                                                                                    05.24.1981 Chelsham Road, London

This criticizing nature comes from a terrible misunderstanding about oneself. What are we? Why should we judge anyone else? Are we paid for it? So why waste your energy in judging others, because in the realm of reality, it is all good, everything fine, everything first class. But if you are trying to see what is wrong with others, then you are not in reality.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           05.05.1996 Cabella, Italy

When you judge others, you should know that you are judged by God. If you are judging others, God has judged you also. So, in His judgment, whatever marks you have given to yourself and to others aren’t going to be consulted (ed. i.e. taken into account) at all.                                                                                                                                                  Bordi, India 01.27.1980

“You cannot know the meaning of your life until you are connected to the Power that created you.”
Shri Mataji Nirmala Devi

One should not be too attached to the body.  As it is we have too many wrestlers and archers. Now what we need are saints.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 V5.26 Mar.85.p41

He gave you freedom to know and this freedom has created all the problems you face, not God. God has not created any problems for you. No. He wanted to make a very smooth ascent. He has made your machine so beautifully.
V5.26 Mar.85.p36

Because of your habits, you may go down again, again you may ascend, again go down. It happens with some people, doesn’t matter. But, if you are steady, it is going to work out.                                                                                                                                                                        V5.26 Mar.85.p37

That is the most important thing, how many are going to be wise, to see to their own advantage, to their own ascent?  Is the only choice.
V5.26 Mar.85.p37

Darkness always disintegrates.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             V5.26 Mar.85.p32

When nobody is the other, where is compassion?  Because, supposing this finger is paining, and if I try to rub it, am I doing any compassion to this finger? Because it is a part and parcel of Me.
V5.26 Mar.85.p25

It is an erratic and funny heart which swells up in ego. Understand that what we lack is disciplining.  And that disciplining has to come, otherwise our caliber cannot improve.                                                                                                                                                                             V5.26 Mar.85.p6

Try to control your speech.  Whether you express temper in your speech or you express your compassion, or are you artificially compassionate?
V.4.21.May84.p11

With ego-oriented people it is more difficult, at the slightest pretext they topple down. And spirit, which is the source of joy, just doesn’t come, doesn’t show. The joy itself is beauty. But that is a state one has to achieve.
V.4.21.May84.p9

Enlightenment of your brain‚ means; the limited capacity of your brain to become unlimited in its capacity to realize God. I will not use the word understand. To realize God. How powerful He is, how miraculous He is, how great He is.                                                                                                                                                                                                                         V.4.21.May84.p7

One candle which is not enlightened can be enlightened by another enlightened candle. Now this candle doesn’t do anything except that; enlightens that candle, and that candle has to enlighten other candles. It’s as simple as that.
V.5.27.May85.p42

You have to run in the way of the roots, of the branches, of the leaves, of the flowers and of the fruits. You have to be the essence of the tree that nourishes and not just the outward leaves with wrong ideas about yourself.  Put the problems of the tree always ahead of the problems of the leaf.                                                                                                                                                                                                 V4.19.Jan84

Be joyful! The entire universe has to receive the bubbling streams of your love.
V.5.27.May85.p19

If there is no duality, what is the attachment?  If you are the light and you are the lamp, then where is the duality?  If you are the sun and you are the sunlight, you are the word and you are the meaning; then where is the duality?
V.4.21.May84.p10

Because there is a difference and a distance between you and yours, that’s why you get attached to it, but it’s Me, who is the other? The whole universe is Me.  Who is the other? Everything is Me. Who is the other?
V.4.21.May84.p10

Why didn’t He do it in our evolution, why did He make us so stupid? One can say to God, why did He create these problems?  But who are we to ask Him questions?  He does what He likes.                                                                                                                                                    V5.26 Mar.85.p37

How can you blame God for fanaticism?  I just can’t understand. He never created it. Actually he never created any difference between people, just a variety, just to make it look beautiful, that’s all.                                                                                                                                             V5.26 Mar.85.p37

Anything that creates such limitations within us, any kind of fanaticism, is dangerous, not only you, but to the whole society, and, if you support even this much, you are supporting that destruction.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               V5.26 Mar.85.p36

So religion is another way to disintegrate you.  You hate each other, fundamentalists fighting. For what?  Is there difference between the spirit of one and another?  Fundamentals are: that God is one.  He has created us.
V5.26 Mar.85.p36

Christ has said, ‘Thou shalt not have adulterous eyes‚, meaning your eyes should be clear and as you know, eyes represent both your ego and your superego so, when He said that about your eyes should be clear, He meant that your thoughts should be clear.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            V4. 19 Jan.84

This kind of myth exists among human being that when you look at something, or you think about something, then you solve the problem.  It’s not true; it’s a myth, because thinking is just an empty process of the mind.
V4. 19 Jan.84.p4

If in the heart there is no living force, then how can you progress?  You must know what to choose. You should grow mature to that point where you know what to choose. This is growth. Then you do not ask Mother, you do not ask anyone.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    V3.15 May.83.p15

The mastery of your attention will come when you start seeing that it is all a myth that upsets you. Just throw it away and understand that you are the eternal attention, that you are the eternal life.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       V4.20.Mar84.p24

The only thing that keeps you away from the eternal is ignorance, and ignorance is too simple to understand, that you have accepted myth as truth.
V4.20.Mar84.p24

Those who are on the emotional side see the egos of others, while those who are on the ego side see the emotional side of others.  So once criticizes another.  But they don’t see themselves, that they are falling into a trap, into one of the extremes.
V.5.27.May85.p22

People get confused with emotions, they think it is joy.  Joy can only be achieved through complete detachment.  The detachment which is egoless and superegoless.
V.5.27.May85.p22

Some will say that we’ll just go on being austere about it.  Then that will become again another obsession.  Some will say, alright Mother has said we should enjoy, so we will just enjoy.  How to strike the balance is a big problem.
V.5.27.May85.p21

Get out of that mental conception that you know already about it.  You do not know, because what you know is just mental.  That should be a part and parcel of your being.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                V.5.27.May85.p21

What can you give?  That is what one should understand. If you humble down, then it’s yours, is there, it’s just in your heart. There’s a saying that whenever I want to see my God I have to just bend my head towards my heart, that’s all.
V.5.27.May85

Why a complicated human being has been created and so beautifully it is organized within himself, that it is hard to believe that some juggler was not behind the show.                                                                                                                                                                            V.Jul80.p7

One candle which is not enlightened can be enlightened by another enlightened candle.  Now this candle doesn’t do anything except that; enlightens that candle, and that candle has to enlighten other candles.  It’s as simple as that.
V.5.27.May85.p42

There is no need to go through the suffering at all.   When Christ has done it for you – finished. You have to awaken Christ within you.  Just count your blessings one by one. It’s not such serious stuff.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 V.5.27.May85.p40

it is a very common attachment nowadays with all the people knowing about everything and having nothing.  This mental attachment is to be really attacked. Becoming is seeing, becoming is experiencing.
V.5.27.May85.p21

The divine play is not frivolous, it is joyful. And the joy does not have that duality.
V.5.27.May85.p19

(God) has created this universe and you, in a mood of play, you have to see His play. So a kind of mood that is cheerfulness should be really bubbling through you.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         V.5.27.May85.p19

You have the authority of your spirit.  Those in authority never try to show off. Because they are in authority, what is to show off?  Only mad people show off, you see.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          V.5.27.May85.p17

We have to enjoy our bliss within. That is important. Perhaps you are not aware of the bliss that you have. Not at all aware.
V.5.27.May85.p17

People should see bliss working in us. People should feel there is bliss. If a person is blissful, he looks blissful. He emits bliss. He radiates it.
V.5.27.May85.p17

If you have no confidence in yourself, bliss cannot be. And the worst thing against confidence is: Then what should I do? Then how can I get it? Then why do I not have? That’s the worst. You are fighting yourself all the time.
V.5.27.May85.p17

Those who are vain people can never feel bliss. Vanity kills bliss. Ego kills bliss.
V.5.27.May85.p17

Bliss has so many dimensions that you go beyond the realm of cause and effect.  And all the angels are there to help you. When you know that. It works out.
V.5.27.May85.p17

Bliss can only come through gratitude. Only through enlarging your heart with gratitude. Bliss is the reward of gratitude, gratitude of the heart.
V.5.27.May85.p17

What good things others have done to you, what good things there are?  What are the beautiful moments you have had?  Count your blessings. Otherwise you cannot create peace.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     V.5.27.May85.p16

So, to have peace, the best way to put your mind right is to think of good things. Think of the flowers, not of the thorns.
V.5.27.May85.p16

And you must know that you are in one body, active. All the cells of the body are never active, but those who are active have to be at peace with each other, otherwise, what will happen to the poor body?
V.5.27.May85.p16

It is a very subtle enmity that you carry on in your hearts. That cannot be forgiven. If you say sarcastic things to others, you are not in the culture of Universal Religion. You should be respectful. The more respectful you are to each other, the better it will be.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            V.5.27 May 85. p14

Only the peace within can register whatever is auspicious, whatever is nourishing for your growth. So try to make peace with yourself. Do not fight with yourself.                                                                                                                                                                                                       V.5.27 May 85. p14

But it is not what’s wrong with you is the problem. What is right with you is the attitude. Whatever is right with you, put your foot on that and establish yourself on that point. And then develop yourself higher.
V.5.27 May 85. p14

That peace has to be within yourself. You have it. Your spirit is absolutely peaceful.  “Avyagra”‚ without restlessness. There is no restlessness in your spirit. Absolutely peaceful and steady. It is for you to feel it. It is not for anybody else to certify you.
V.5.27 May 85. p13

You have to be compassionate, beautiful, sensible people, who are highest things on this earth. Take out your attention from all nonsense that you have been busy with.  That is how you get possessed. That is how you get conditioned. Small, small things you see.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                            V.5.27 May 85. p9

You don’t have to spend too much time on meditation. But, whatever time you spend, whatever you gain, has to be visible outside. How you radiate and how you give it to others.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 V.5.28.Jul 82. p41

In meditative mood you are alone. No one exists there. You alone. And once you enter into that ocean then the whole world becomes your family. The whole world is your own manifestation. All the children become your children. And you treat all the people with equal understanding.                                                                                                                                                                                                                   V.5.28.Jul 82. p41

You have to enjoy the power of love – that people see you as their protector, as their help, as their support, as their friend, than somebody who is a dominating personality.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         V.5.28.Jul 82. p40

All the beauty that is created by human beings as possessions is exposed before you. And you start enjoying all those things without possessing them. You understand the myth of possession.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           V.5.28.Jul 82. p40

She talks like you, sits like you, She will behave like you, everything will be just like you.  And you would not be able to make out the depth of this woman who is a Mahamaya (The Great Illusion) because She plays such tricks on you and such things in such a beautiful way, that you cannot make it out.                                                                                                                                                                                V.5.28.Jul 82. p34

The first quality of the Mother is that she takes away fear.  The second that She knows your faults and can correct them.  And the third quality of the Mother is that She is a Mahamaya.                                                                                                                                                                   V.5.28.Jul 82. p34

Because, in the West especially, people are over-intelligent and if enlightenment does not enter into their intelligence, they can never overcome their attachments.                                                                                                                                                                                        V.5.28.Jul 85. p26

Ekadesha Rudra (The energy/power of transformation) is extremely powerful, explosive, but it is not blind. It is discriminative and extremely delicately woven. It avoids all the good points and attacks the wrong things. And it hits at the right time
V.5.28.Jul 85. p25

If you are a child of the same Mother, how can you go higher than anybody else?  You will remain always the child of the Mother. How can you be higher than any other child in the eyes of the Mother? You cannot.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p32

In thoughtless awareness nobody can touch you.  That is your fortress.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p24

That relationship with yourself should be tyrannical.  You should lash it up.  You should absolutely make it clear to yourself that I have to perfect myself, if I have to give this, my being, to God, it has to be perfect.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p16

You only have a horrible time when you are not the spirit. If you can watch the whole thing as a drama that is played, then you are not having a horrible time, but the outside of you is having a horrible time and you are watching.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p17

Never fight your ego. The only way is to witness it.You see you should never fight the ego. If you try to fight it, it will sit more on your head. That is not the way to fight it. Never fight your ego. Only way is to see it.                                                                                                       V.5.28.Jul 85. p15

You all have a direct access to me. You all can know your spirits, nobody can dominate you. Everyone has complete freedom to know their spirit.  And the spirit is something cannot be dominated by anyone.
V.5.28.Jul 85. p13

“Now you have become a flower, you cannot suddenly become a leaf. Now you are a flower and you have to live like a flower.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                             V.5.28.Jul 85. p10

“Our compassion, if that is flowing, then only can we get compassion from Mother.  Better give it away, empty yourself a little bit, then I can give you more compassion.  The source cannot flow unless and until it expands the flow of it.”
V.5.28.Jul 85. p9

“I have seen people what want to have compassion from me; they want that I should love them.  But reflect it back; do they love others like that?”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     V.5.28.Jul 85. p9

“Holding on to your source of power, you have to stand firm, courageously, without any fear.  That is the truth you have to achieve the other side of it is, that when this source comes to you, you become the compassion.The truth and the compassion are one thing.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                             V.5.28.Jul 85. p8

‘Like the wick and the oil combine to form the light.  In the same way compassion gives you the truth.  There is no difference whatsoever, only the state is different.  That you cannot see the light which is oil and the oil which is burning.”                                                                V.5.28.Jul 85. p8

“You should not feel disgusted with yourself, nor dejected with yourself, nothing.  But treat yourself as a separate entity. And dedication is actually turning back to yourself and looking forward to the Divine personality in you.”
V.5.28.Jul 85. p6

“Whatever you do, it should be done with the faith that you have in worshiping, the zeal of a warrior and the sensitivity of an artist.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                   Y3.V14.Mar83.p11

“Be joyful! The entire universe has to receive the bubbling streams of your love.”
V.5.27.May85.p19

“What is surrendering? Is nothing, because when you are detached you are surrendered automatically.  When you are holding on to other things, you are not surrendered, that’s all.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                                        V.4.21.May84.p12

“Enlightenment of your brain‚ means; the limited capacity of your brain to become unlimited in its capacity to realize God. I will not use the word understand. To realize God. How powerful He is, how miraculous He is, how great he is.”                                                                V.4.21.May84.p7

“You only have a horrible time when you are not the Spirit. If you can watch the whole thing as a drama that is played, then you are not having a horrible time, but the outside of you is having a horrible time and you are watching.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                      V.5.28.Jul 85. p17

“So, once you start facing yourself you will like yourself, because that is your Self I am talking about – it is glorious, is beautiful, without any Kalanaka (blemish)  But first of all your attention has to accept it, that this detachment is my life.  I am a different personality.  Detachment is my nourishment.”
V.5.28.Jul 85. p6

“Now to blossom, to become fragrant, you have to give up rationality.  That is binding.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                              V.5.28.Jul 85. p6

“This is the mantra for you, for controlling your temper, you have to tell yourself, ‘Ya Devi Sarva-bhooteshu, Shanti Roopena Samsthita’  So Shanti (peace) is the point, the axis point is that, from where you witness everything.”                                                                                                                                                                                                                    V.5.28.Jul 85. p12

Peacefulness can never mean cowardice, nothing can transgress it, nothing can overpower it.  It is never, never possible that cowardice and peace can go together.”                                                                                                                                                                                           V.5.28.Jul 85. p12

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Zen And The Art Of Social Networking

Tara Stiles

I’ve been giving my use (ahem, addiction) of Facebook, YouTube, and now Twitter quite a bit of thought lately. I’ve gone through emotional cycles of distancing and reuniting with my status updates, wall posts and perusing pictures and videos. My conflict is that I have found social networking to be aiding my work, therefore fueling my addiction. I recently Twittered “researching HFCS’s rise to small screen stardom” and I heard back from an unusual Twitterer claiming to actually be HFCS — the substance. (Seriously: read my last post.) Need to find anything out? Post it and one of your “friends” will tell you in minutes! Isn’t that awesome?

Philosophically I pondered: is claiming usefulness of social networking a projecting assertion to perpetuate my addiction, or does it have any merit? Did our grandparents have this same struggle over the television? Is it useful or a waste of time? In my contemplation I decided to subject my addiction to my areas of expertise (health and yoga) to see if I could come up with a solution.

Here are a few starter questions for self-reflection. If you answer yes to more than one you should probably read on for the Zen part.

Do you ever feel like freaking out on someone on Facebook, or Twitter?

Have you ever wrote not-so-nice things about someone or someone’s photo or video on any social network site?

Do you find yourself spilling your latest psychological drama in your status updates or on multiple friends’ walls?

Are you a mood-based social networker and with little control over your typing impulses?

Has anyone had to physically tear you away from your iPhone or blackberry when they are trying to have a conversation with you?

Ok, now that we’ve all been diagnosed with social networking rage it’s time to do something about it. Let’s get acquainted/reacquainted with the Yamas and Niyamsas, often referred to as the 10 Commandments of Yoga. They are the ethical precepts described in Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras as the first and second of the eight limbs of yoga. So basically we are supposed to pay attention to these before we do any downward dogging or social networking for that matter. Having proper ethics will rid us of stress, addiction, and madness, and also classy up your image.

Yamas: Precepts of Social Discipline (Do you think Patanjali knew FB was coming?)

Ahimsa: Non-violence. Not harming other people, oneself, or the environment. Not speaking that which, even though truthful, would injure others.

Social Network translation: When your BFF calls you a cotton headed ninny muggins on FB, resist the urge to smack back. Step away from your mobile device and take 5 deep breaths.

Satya: Truthfulness. Note that sometimes we may know our words are literally true, but do not convey what we know to be truthful. Satya means not intending to deceive others in our thoughts, as well as our words and actions.

Social Network translation: Stop thinking because you held restraint from calling your BFF out on their childish acts that you are “so much better than them now.” Let it go.

Asteya: Non-stealing. Not taking that which is not given.

Social Network translation: Just because someone’s status says they are out doesn’t mean you can go to their house and raid the fridge. Text first!

Brahmacharya: Sexual responsibility. Regarding others as human beings rather than as male and female bodies. This includes not only sexual restraint, but also protecting our energy. For instance, by avoiding endless chattering with no clear purpose.

Social Network translation: Stay away from the teenagers unless you are one! Stop drooling over and posting skanky pictures of yourself and your friends. Rule of thumb: If you wouldn’t show it to your Mom or Grandma don’t post it or stalk it.

Aparigraha: Abstention from greed. Not coveting that which is not ours. Avoidance of unnecessary acquisition of objects not essential to maintaining life or spiritual study.

Social network translation: Taking pictures of you and all your fancy clothes, parties, and people won’t make you happy. Well, it might for the moment but it won’t last. Your friends like you because of who you are, not what you have. If they don’t they aren’t good friends anyway. Plus it makes you look like a cotton headed ninny muggins.

And now for the Niyamas: Precepts of Individual Discipline

Sauca: Cleanliness. Not only external cleanliness of the body, but attending to internal cleanliness such as avoiding the impurities of anger and egoism. Moderation in diet.

Social Networking Translation: If you spend the weekends in bed on FB, YouTube, and Twitter, take a shower. Don’t get into fights behind your computer screen and put the Cheetos down.

Santosa: Contentment. Not spiritual complacency, but acceptance of the external situation we are allotted in this life.

Social Networking Translation: Don’t be jealous of top Twitters and YouTube users. Be happy with you. You’re awesome.

Tapas: Austerity. Deep commitment to our yoga practice.

Social Networking Translation: Not to be confused with tasty appetizers. Simply, practice yoga. Go to class, practice at home and meditate.

Svadhyaya: Self study. Spiritual self-education. Contemplation and application of the scriptures or sacred text of our chosen path.

Social Network Application: If you feel like you have a problem, you probably do. Think about it and work it out.

Isvara Pranidhana: Surrender of the self to God. Acknowledgement that there is a higher principle in the universe than one’s own self. Modesty. Humility.

Social Network Application: How many pictures of you in your underwear do you need on FB? Do you have to Tweet every time you have done something you want to brag about? Think about shifting your social networking toward a purpose, other than serving and entertaining yourself (At least occasionally, we still have to have a little fun!)

Best name to call someone when angry: Cotton Headed Ninny Muggins. Repeat 5 times and your anger will turn into laughter.

admin Awareness, Enjoyment, Meditation Meditation, yoga

The tall guy has the looks of a movie actor, but says he’s a model. He should be a movie actor, he’s got the presence, the voice and the delivery, but he’s a model. It’s got to be better than working for a living, and certainly better than not working, better than not getting paid. He says he wants to learn to be in the present, not to be caught up thinking, planning, being in the future. He wants to be able to live in the present, not to be stuck in the pst, the world of his feelings and emotions. Well he’s come to the right place. And from the way he speaks, he’s unquestionably a spiritual guy .

You can never tell by looking at people, the most unlikely people turn out to be spiritual, and there’s no such thing as a likely looking spiritual person. An ex friend used to say his Dad was a cop who told him that the best place to catch criminals was to stand outside a church and arrest them as they came out. I say ex because he gave up on me, not the other way around. I’ve had too few friends in my life to indulge in the luxury of falling out with them, and in any case, who in their right mind would decide to be friends with someone as flawed as my good self. So I value my friends and forgive when they turn out to be as imperfect as myself. If they were perfect, why would they bother with me.

There’s a great paradox in being a human being, correction, probably that cooment should be in the plural, but one of the more obvious paradoxes is that we seem designed to think, programed to think, it’s what we do all day and all night, and we do it involuntarily, and we mostly delude ourselves, because we think that what we think is important. Hardly anyone thinks that what they think is worthless. I do, but that’s because I’ve considered the matter more than most and in 66 years can’t remember more than 6 thoughts that were worth the waste of the electrical discharge in the brain that a thought is. This great city of New York could solve its power problems if it could harness the energy that 8 million brains do 24 hours a day plus that pumped out daily in the epidemic of exercise studios one can see from street level.

There are three new people tonight, a young Turkish woman who accompanied a friend who came for the first time last week, and a young woman from Astoria who saw an advertisement in her local health food store. Both were seeking peace, the young woman from Astoria said she’d been practicing Hatha Yoga for some time, she liked the idea of spontaneity and wanted to be able to experience it..

Nicholas, the model, wants a rest from thinking, to be able to enjoy the here and now for a bit. And he does. The faces of the three new people visibly change from the power and subtlety of the meditation, each experiences something unique to themselves. The Turkish woman feels cool on one side of her head, heat on the other, but nothing on her hands, the woman from Astoria feels tingling on some of her fingers, the man is keen to relate previous spiritual experiences from when he was a young boy and in the afterglow of the meditation, he innately appreciates the power of innocence.

The person who was due to lead the meeting couldn’t come at the last moment. I was sitting comfortably, nicely in meditation towards the back of the room, when, out of the blue I was asked to get up and speak. It suddenly hit me that I had no clue as to how to present the information in the new style and I am sure I did it less than well. But I could see from the outset how important it is, and what a challenge it is to us, the people who have stood up and presented at meditation classes for years, mostly relying on the same crutches we always have, and now suddenly, the onus appears to be on us, although that, of course, is another illusion, the paramchaitanya is ready and willing to help us. One could see that the approach is totally right for the new people, for it recognizes and appreciates their individually unique situations, and it enables them to get more out of the meditation without having to immediately confront aspects they don’t initially feel comfortable with.

Certainly, last night, the vibrations were incredibly strong, and they, the people present for the first time, and everyone else too, some twenty plus in total, left the Pearl Studios in a different, improved state of mind to the one they arrived in – a small but important miracle, one that the world at large cares not a fig for. In these terrible times, what does it mean that a group of people from across many tradtions, cultures, social classes and religious traditions, Jews, Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists, come together in a spirit of oneness and love, and experience, without charge or obligation, the connection of their own divine energy with the subtle energy of the universe?

admin Awareness, Knowledge, Meditation, Understanding meditation class, object of meditation, oneness, transformation, yoga