Mind : ( 24/10/2012. )

                  Swamiji during his Himalayan Upasana in his very early life We can learn a lot from every event in life. Just as the honeybee has the special instrument (proboscis) to extract the very essence in the flowers, human beings have a special faculty (power of discrimination) to maintain the quality of life by learning the art of true listening. Listening is the channel most often used for “learning.” It is a vital communication function; it improves our ability of understanding, self-awareness and self-application. Effective listening is not mere “hearing.” In fact, we all know from our personal experiences that mere hearing – or poor listening – can very well result in: •Frustration •Indifference •Misunderstandings •Misleading judgments •Embarrassment •Poor human relations  •Many other psychological blocks and maladjustments Yes, listening has become almost a forgotten skill. Very often we ar...

(Delivered in California by Swami Vivekananda) Hiranyakashipu was the king of the Daityas. The Daityas, though born of the same parentage as the Devas or gods, were always, at war with the latter. The Daityas had no part in the oblations and offerings of mankind, or in the government of the world and its guidance. But sometimes they waxed strong and drove all the Devas from the heaven, and seized the throne of the gods and ruled for a time. Then the Devas prayed to Vishnu, the Omnipresent Lord of the universe, and He helped them out of their difficulty. The Daityas were driven out, and once more the gods reigned. Hiranyakashipu, king of the Daityas, in his turn, succeeded in conquering his cousins, the Devas, and seated himself on the throne of the heavens and ruled the three worlds — the middle world, inhabited by men and animals; the heavens, inhabited by gods and godlike beings; and the nether world, inhabited by the Daityas. Now, Hiranyakashipu declared himself to be the...

4. The Beauty of God and the Glory of Meditation : (Last part) The apex of sadhana, the final onslaught in spiritual practice, is dhyana, or meditation. It should not be imagined that meditation is an easy affair. It is a penultimate stage of the eight limbs of yoga, culminating in divine absorption. Meditation is not the beginning; it is the end of the spiritual endeavour. We should not take it lightly and be under the impression that we are collected at different moments of our day and are engaged in a religious exercise called meditation. It is a stage, one step below divine communion. Its importance must be clear by the fact of its being proximate to the goal of the practice of yoga. The fullness of achievement that is expected in meditation is practicable only if there is a fullness of aspiration. An overall whole-souled adventure of the spirit within is spiritual practice. When that is done, everything else is done simultaneously. Meditation is not one of the...

                                                                         Swami Krishnananda 3.Understanding Total Action :-     It is necessary to maintain a harmony within and without, and it should be considered as unavoidable. This is so because of the great activity of the universe itself, which is unceasingly operative in the direction of a Self-realisation of itself. The universe is eager to become its own self. This is indicated by the fact that the world of the universe is always regarded as an external object of perception. It is not itself. That which is an outside something is not in its own self. It is not svastha, or identity established in identity with its own self. There is a perpetual evolutionary process going on in the universe, right from the smallest atom ...

                                                               Swami Chinmayananda The Witness Attitude in Meditation : When the mind fully attains the state of a-bhavana and comes to drop its perceptions of sense-objects, at that stage in meditation, mind is really a "no-mind". When thoughts are rushing out in their mad fury to hug objects of pleasure they constitute chittam, a fact we have already explained, and to quieten the chittam is the sacred function of the Yoga of Meditation. Where these outgoing thoughts (chittam) are eliminated is known as the "no-thought" (a-chitta) state, and that condition of the mind (mana) is recognized as "no-mind" (a-mana) state, highest i...

                                                            Swami Krishnananda  2.  Sitting for Meditation In continuation of what I said yesterday, we may here, in the very same context, bring to our memories a famous quotation from the Bhagavadgita: uddhared ātmanātmānaṁ nātmānam avasādayet ātmaiva hy ātmano bandhur ātmaiva ripur ātmanaḥ (Gita 6.5). A very intricate verse, filled with profound meaning, is this passage from the Bhagavadgita. It is a sutra, as it were, an aphoristic saying, which briefly mentions what I explained yesterday in great detail. I pointed out that the conflict which is characteristic of life is due to the apparent irreconcilability obtaining, as i...

                                                          Swami  Krishnananda 1. The Necessity for Sadhana : The word sadhana has several meanings. Literally it means an instrument of action, a means of operation, a methodology in any kind of procedure, or any effort towards the achievement of a purpose; but understood as a spiritual exercise, sadhana means the total effort on the part of an individual in the direction of the greatest of all purposes in life – namely, the attainment of God. Why should there be so much effort in achieving a spontaneously accepted reality, which is God’s existence? Is it such a hard job that we have to struggle in order to make any progress in that direction? W...