Monday, 16 July 2018
The Art of Cultivating Spiritual Awareness
Speaking Tree in India,
Spirituality | TOI
By Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati
The Yoga Sutras tell us how to modify or fine tune our ideas, thoughts,
convictions and beliefs to help in spiritual development. The yamas and niyamas
have to be lived. You might not practise all five yamas or all five niyamas,
but it is important to master one yama or niyama.
The highest practice is Ishwara pranidhana, divine will, which is the
final, tenth niyama. It means ‘let thy will be done’. Allowing oneself to be a
recipient of the divine will is the highest virtue, it is the highest state of
mind, the culmination of jnana, bhakti and karma. Being Number 10, Ishwara
pranidhana indicates that a certain amount of preparation has already taken
place and you are experiencing the divine will.
The mind says, “Do this” and we do it. The mind says, “Say this” and we
say it. The mind says, “Desire this” and we desire it. The mind says, “Reject
that” and we reject it. We have become slaves of our mind. The real meaning of
surrender is surrendering to the cosmic divine nature, becoming master of the
mind and tuning oneself with the higher Self.
Ishwara pranidhana is identifying with the inner, pure nature. That is
the turning point in an aspirant’s life. Everything is guided by ego. Our
thoughts and expectations, efforts, responses, reactions and identifications
are associated with the ego.
If you have a confrontation with someone, do you react to the person or
to the ideology that person conveys to you? There is a clash of egos, you both
have different viewpoints, and the person and ideology become separate. So most
of the time you will react to the person because there is no acknowledgement of
the ideology. If there was, then, the person would be redundant, and become the
follower of the ideology. But we always watch the person and we respond
accordingly.
We don’t respond to the person, but to the reaction that we feel within
us for that person – anger or hatred. So we are responding to our own emotion,
to our own anger. These are the traits that a psychoanalyst tries to discover
about the cause of a disturbance and imbalance. Again, it is so coloured by the
ego that it becomes impossible to know where we are reacting, with what we are
identifying.
The practice of Ishwara pranidhana is identifying with your inner
nature. You have to let go of the identification with jealousy and anger, with
desires and passions, with all the so-called ‘normal’ responses. Once this
identification is gone, you are no longer self-centred. You are now focused
outwards like the beam of a torch.
For Ishwara pranidhana is not only a mental sadhana; outer changes also
help to attain it. What made St Francis of Assisi a saint? It was not his
realisation of God, or his compassion and love. It was the vow he had taken of
poverty and chastity. To move from a life of luxury to a life of poverty and to
maintain discipline is difficult. A vow means a change in lifestyle. By
adjusting to certain situations and disciplining yourself slowly, you will find
that your lifestyle will influence your mind and mental receptivity. (Bihar
School of Yoga)
DISCLAIMER : Views expressed above are the author's own.
Quote from the True Charm and Power of Vedanta
These are obstacles to Samadhi ; but they are powers in the worldy
state.
To the Yogi knowledge of the enjoyments of the world comes by the
junction of the Purusha and the mind. If he wants to make Samyama on the
knowledge that they are two different things, nature and soul, he gets knowledge
of the Purusha . From that arises discrimination. When he has got that
discrimination, he gets the Pratibha, the light of supreme genius. These powers
, however are obstruction to the attainment of the highest goal, the knowledge of
the pure Self, and freedom. These are, as it were to be met in the way; and if
the Yogi rejects them, he attains highest. if he is temped to acquire these ,
his further progress is barred.
When the cause of bondage of the Chita has become loosened, the Yogi, by
his knowledge of its channels of activity (the nerves) enters another’s body.
The yogi can enter a dead body and make it get up and move, even while
he himself is working in another body. Or he can enter a living body and hold
that man’s mind and organs in check and for the time being act through the body
of that man. That is done by the Yogi coming to this discrimination of Purusha
and nature. If he wants to enter another’s body, he makes a Samyama on the body
and enters it, because not only is his soul omnipresent, but his mind also , as
the Yogi teaches. It is one bit of the universal mind. Now , however, it can
only work through the nerve currents in this body but when the Yogi has loosened
himself from these never currents, he can work though other things.
But, if He exists?
I drive joy There was a
doctor in Benaras who spent 7 minutes in the morning and evening for mediation
on God. Knowing this, his colleagues and friends laughed at him. One day they
argued that he was wasting ten precious minutes on something, which he had been
misled into believing. The doctor replied, “Well, if God does not exist, I
agree that I am wasting ten minutes a day. But, if He exists? I am afraid you
are wasting your entire lifetime. I prefer to waste ten minutes rather than a
lifetime. Why should you grudge me the 10 minutes joy that I derive 4m.
ILLUSTRATED REVIEW : 7th Heaven
moment of the week Antoine Grizman no 7 scored a goal in fifa final, in fifa world cup no
9 Hary keane got Goldn boot, no 10 got Golden ball
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