Pravritti

3 Types of Speech

2010-08-28T16:33:00.002-05:00

3 Types of speech for general use. The first is Informative, where you are conveying information. The second is Directive where you are trying to instigate action. The third is Transitive (not to be confused with the linguistic concept of transitivity) and is spoken to induce a state of consciousness.

There are three kinds of speech for general use.

Show examples of all three kinds.

We could say that all types of communication fall into these three categories. The last one is the most challenging to detect unless you are good at being your own witness and notice the fluctuations of consciousness in real time. For instance if you see a sign, let's say a billboard. This billboard has a picture, it's designed for men. This picture is of a woman with long black hair and deep wide eyes and she is lying across the length of the billboard wearing nothing to speak of except a very small, and almost unnoticeable bikini. It's wine red and not much bigger than her hands, and you can see rather vividly just next to her is a bottle of vodka.

Now the idea of the sign, is to put you into a state of consciousness, it is not a simple association. It is not trying to associate all almost naked women, at least as almost naked as the community will allow on a billboard overlooking the street. The naked woman, we'll call her, the one with the long black hair and wine red bikini, is there to invoke a response. It is good to notice in your imagination whether she is smiling or what affect she has, and also if there is any story about her that has come to mind via the power of the imagination. The dark haired woman will of course invoke a certain response, and this sexual response will put you into a state of consciousness in which the desire to drink will be aroused also, or one may notice that a sexual response of your mind makes you more prone to suggestion. It is not Vodka equals women, it is desire mind, what to desire? What increases the feeling of desire?

So in TriYoga part of the art and science is to speak the flows with the directive, telling you the breath and where we are flowing. This is mixed with the informative as to what details of alignment can be incorporated, and this is done with a voice that is designed to keep you in a calm meditative state where you maintain the flow of breath. Notice that is not a barrage of alignments, where it is difficult to breathe, or having the teacher yell encouragement over the music which tends to make it a competitive emotional activity.

It is simple, calming, and focused.

The emotional element of speech is a very powerful part of the state of consciousness. The other aspect is the ability to draw upon the senses, and the pacing. If an explanation is very quick then the ideas, the real mental vibrations have difficulty in penetrating, provided that the speaker has real connection to them. This also applies to the use of Sound Form, and Name Form types of speech. Mantra and music enter into the mix as well. The state of consciousness is lowered very easily by the use of fuck, or fucking, or using stupid gibberish. The power to direct and impact thought also has a reverse application in that various forms of speech are more reflective of the state of consciousness of the speaker. This is better understood as forms of discourse. It is easy to see talk shows as based on indulging in emotions, capturing a Jerry Springer moment, is a lucrative art. With religious groups it is often telling you what it means to belong to the tribe and who to hate. "You can't be a christian and vote for ...."

The purpose of course is to have a feel for how things effect consciousness and to always come from the highest or deeper parts of the being. I often notice myself consciously formulating what I am saying in real time to match the goal, of whether I am trying to be directive, informative, or convey some state. This also works to stop speech. When one has the experience of connection, one can sense through Receptivity whether someone has the realization, with the small r, of some idea, or whether they would not be able to understand without experiencing, or without work to lay a foundation. Often a question is not about what you know or think, because it cannot always be conveyed.

For example having a math person explain some specialized aspect of mathematics might go well over my head, however I can also feel where the consciousness is coming from and enter into a kind of mental world. That shift of consciousness doesn't necessarily enable to me to grasp the mathematics, but it does give the transitive effect, you are, as the Free Dictionary would say, Late Latin trnsitvus, passing over. If you have this experience then you will begin to understand the real connection to idea as opposed to knowing what the word means, or the mental formulation of the idea alone.

Caturvarnya

2009-07-29T00:44:00.003-05:00

4 types of soul experience loosely speaking, equated with the social dharmas, the laws and codes of conduct, the Knowers, Warriors, Merchants, and Servants. Each implies a kind of drama of situations and circumstances, qualities of chararacter, and even though they are all present in each person, one tends to be more obvious.

Insight developes and expresses through seeing these forms and roles just as people incarnate in them. This is a kind of power of knowledge, and one can spot when other people or other systems of expression have this power, by seeing the subtle real idea behind it. The knowledge will appear behind the words. Broad and particular vision as to the activity of development, the spiritual lesson of an individual or groups life is expressed. Self revealed..

One gains a feel of the shaktis involved and can recognize the flavor of their presense and action.

The knowledge can spontaneously arise, or one can work for a perfection of that knowldge. The expression may be limited due to the needs of the lesson. Self Illusion!

Point Concentration 2

2009-02-25T11:45:00.003-06:00

Focus your awareness on a point. Experience the mind at that level. Recognize and then return to that level until it is stable.

The difficulty is most in being able to be self aware enough to recognize the experience of a higher level, and to be persistent.

Point Concentration

2009-02-11T11:55:00.006-06:00

Techniques are endless, but practice is profound. Levels of consciousness and states are many, you already are experiencing them, but they may not be organized and named. One way of becoming aware and reorganizing yourself is to practice meditation and get a measure of calmness from which you can see what is going on. I tend to use physical and energy practices because my awareness is developed in these areas. People can be expanded or narrow in their consciousness. Breathing exercises tend to expand and allow the consciousness to be moved and directed. If you are expanded you may lack a coherent self-center. Centering practices help to build up awareness of the many levels of your own consciousness, its many personalities, and movements from these levels. Our spiritual and personal sense of self tends to be too dependent on lower mental formulations without the integration of the emotions and without the higher faculties of intuitive judgment and vyapti, the ability to Identify with something so as to know it. Another way of describing this is the surface consciousness predominates not the inner consciousness. Or there are genuine deeper movements, but they are still controlled and they are covered by a disorganized surface.

To do point concentration, or focusing on a chakra, then the prerequisite is some form of mindwatching. My favorite comes from Swami Radha whose description of this timeless technique is to focus on some object for a few minutes and then after wards write down everything that happened in your mind during your concentration. We our not so concerned with getting it right or what the content was, but rather with the act of being aware of the mind while focusing with it. This can be practiced with different objects of focus for longer times. For instance gazing, or listening, or even reading. The awareness will increase as well as seeing patterns and subtleties of the consciousness and it's movements through the thoughts, emotions, sensations, imaginations, memory, etc.

The first step in point concentration is to concentrate on a point. This leads to Connectedness, that is to feel the point as a center for the body/mind. The body here means the energy body, however at first this is really felt more as a physical sensation of the body volume and an awareness of space around the body.

When you are able to have connectedness then the we go into either light, an inner vision of light, often very bright and not initially very vivid, because it is so bright, or we go into a flavor of energy. This flavor can be felt as weight, whether the energy is heavy and thick, or whether it is light and airy. You may experience both. When this is maintained then we move on to experience of the Frequency.

The Frequency is how the consciousness operates at the chosen level of the point. The things happening in the mind begin to reflect the frequency of the point being concentrated on, and with practice you can distinguish these movements of the mind at this frequency. You recognize the state of consciousness, you are aware of where you are centered and that the mind is operating from there. So at the third eye the mind will begin to act differently in a consistent way and you will recognize it. This recognition has two aspects, the content and the form. So for example you will recognize a more luminous type of thought and you will have a feeling of the state of consciousness that you are in. Note that there is a higher and a deeper, a higher consciousness can act through a lower level by taking up the instrument, the path of involution, or you can also deepen the experience by having a more subtle connection to the worlds of consciousness at the chosen level. You will notice that lower levels influence higher ones also, so for instance an argument can be a mental rational activity or can be an emotional vendetta that takes up the reasoning for its own justification. You can have a pure heart that will come to influence the higher mind as you purify and go deeper. There is however what can be thought of as a native action, what that level of consciousness is, and the principles by which it operates. Mental formulations have doubt. Survival consciousness is predominated by lack.

Then we seek Stability, stability has two dimensions, the first is the ability to center on the point itself, calling in the consciousness of that level, and the second is the dynamic active side where you act from the consciousness of that point. From this you move into Abiding where you have stabilized to the point of requiring no concentration in order to maintain the central dynamic.

You already have many areas where you are stabilized. Your work personalities are a good reference as you become aware of them and name them, after all they are all too familiar and you live them. Then of course there are lower movements, ignorant one, that you also have that you want to move out of or refine. Peronalities are a mix of knowledge, will, trained reaction, and centered activities. So someone at a Starbucks has an identity, more or less defined that is the respresentation of them, the name of what they do. The personality is how they live the knowledge of their job, how to make drinks, what's in them, how to operate and clean various machines, and how to fill out paperwork, work a cash register, how the scheduling works, their benefits, the small wills that carry out these, the underlying motivations, and habits of the body, the list is endless. They also have interconnected interpersonal relationships with their coworkers and customers. The emotional dynamic they have at the counter with customers is often the measure of their quality. As one works with point concentration one will begin to see the movements of the mind in these various personalities. So they may be very cheerful with customers, but very cyncial about paychecks, or towards their medical benefits. They may have a work ethic that stands behind what they do that is a self-measure, or they may be more like an automaton having simply ended up in the situation without much awareness.

As the awareness grows, then for instance point concentration at the third eye will begin to change their interaction with customers. They may get sudden insight into the people at the drive up window, and spontaneous conversation becomes more meaningful. The mystical aspect of life become more prominant. They may find they have accurate perception of what will happen at work before they arrive. They will also feel that lower emotions such as complaining are more powerful, lowering their energy, even being very unpleasant and they will start to shift their views. Stabilizing at the heart may change not only their own feeling, but the ability to project cheerfulness, to relax people and create harmony around them. They will learn to call in the deeper higher heart movements, and reject the lower distortions and mental interference.

Spending time refining doesn't mean being critically aware of everything, that is actually a mental process coming in to try control everything. That will not really yeild much growth. That is a pitfall to be avoided. Better is to get a feel, energetic, emotional, or via inner sense, or inner vision of light as to the right movement in the consciousness. Best to be calm and receptive and allow things to flow....

Nei Jia and Spirit

2009-02-04T15:42:00.003-06:00

"Once you have these basic patterns, then the thing that you need to feel is the connectedness. This means that the energy is flowing through the body out to the extremities. At first energy may be something that you confuse (it's an over used term until experience grows), but instead of thinking of it as energy feel it as the body's momentum. You can feel that when you handle objects, feeling their, weight, knowing where they are space by touch. As you feel your momentum and your sensitivity grows then you can find areas in your body where there are dead spots, or dead weight, blocks of tension. You want to work to smooth those areas out.

When you have the energy connected then you will begin to differentiate the yin and yang, and all that means for now is the plyometric response. You can feel the build up and focus on how to build up the energy in order to release it more powerfully. You will also gain the ability to shock, or confuse the yin and yang of the opponent, so their intention lacks clarity, momentarily.

The breathing is essential as this will give you a much greater sensitivity and allows for relaxed activity, relaxed intensity. Over time you build up your capacity to feel the body and maintain your awareness on the body. This has has two dimensions, one is the feeling of your own momentum and the other is feeling the environment, whether that be the earth at your feet, or the opponent's force. You will differentiate the energy/power/movement from the intention.

In the end you will be able to shift where you are coming from emotionally. Negative emotional spaces will effect the movement, and you can become quite sensitive to them. As the emotions emerge you can feel them moving through the body, and you will see the imagination linked with them, things like fear, anger, etc. These then can be removed at their source and as a consequence you will less effected by others, and more calm, able to focus your intention in conflict or stressful situations. Produce great confidence and a powerful intention that communicates around you."

The Future Themes

2008-07-13T21:22:00.003-05:00

Part of the coming change in the over all consciousness of the planet will begin to reveal itself in the major themes of movies. With the rise of feminism there has been substantive changes in labor roles based on gender. With these changes we have passed through a phase of changing sexual relations. The understanding of sexual relations is still undergoing change, as genuine knowledge of the effect of sex and spiritual growth becomes more well articulated in modern experience. The conflicting view points, of Christianity, of modern attitudes, and of ancient spiritual science will become reconciled and a new basis for truth accepted. One aspect of this has been that marriage has changed, and many people go through several relationships in their lifetime. The economic dependence of women on men, something which is still understood in our social memory, has shifted and both genders have had to adjust their roles. Strong motivation around the ideal relationship will begin to lose its force, especially sexual desire as the basis for a meaningful substantive ideal. The motivation and appeal of characters will be less focused on who they are going to fuck, or marry, or get to know and be with. Though we might be able to imagine Harrison Ford defending his family from death by the hands of criminals motivated by greed. These strong motive forces are primal, it will be harder to interest people in sexual relations as the basis for stories as the consciousness rises because these too are merely strong lower drives.

Imagine advertising not dominated by sex, or movie glamour not based on physical appearance. It is getting harder to imagine, outside of the coming of age story involving a character motivated solely by love. Even in a story of an adolescent coming into adulthood, these stories of young love are mixed with the seeds of finding their true identity, usually pictured as a job. But their identity, their dream, a mixture of social economic circumstances, recognition, or sense of being based on what they do, will have to have a self conscious awareness of their spiritual growth. Now there is a focus on the problems of social and parental expectation, angst, with a the suggestion that perhaps the character has a special talent, a complex set of forces that set up drama. In place of these problems, authenticity will take on a new dimension as the creative focus for the play of events. For instance the movie High Fidelity, starring John Cusack, has a number of elements about a search for some different basis of living that isn’t primarily motivated by relationships.

The new themes will be more involved with the discovery of the inner being of the person and the seeing of how the person is unfolding in their evolution. Why did the person create this situation and why do these relationships work? What in them attracted these people in their lives? The main way of creating identity with the character will come from the qualities they offer and the types of relationships they attract, the sets of problems to be solved as a growth of their being. Not a goal to fulfil a role. This will be set off by the amount of consciousness, the cooperation with growth that the character gives. Under the present conditions, this type of movie would seem dull and boring, because there is not enough suffering. More than the transformation of the character, there will be a common element of what is the limit of this power of transformation, and how their own self conscious development is involved. Not simply looking back at the change, but looking forward to it consciously and understanding. Stories will not be as problem oriented as solution oriented. Stories that have an element of wisdom, a more intimate truth will gain in value.

This is visible at this time, as a foreshadow, though it can only be glimpsed. There may be moments of the forerunners, but the fullness of this is still years away. There maybe people working on these stories, realizing this new movement, but they will not yet be in fashion able to be seen and appreciated. Their stories, inspired from something higher will not yet be able to take form. Also, the view of the combination of talent of a performer, and the quality of story will become separated in vision from the personal power of the person. A woman with a certain set of traits that make her physical appearance attractive, may have a talent for acting. A woman who is not a valued natural physical beauty may be able to use makeup to make up for less than pleasing physical features and thus use her talent. But part of the change will come when the makeup, and talent will be evaluated with a new element. The power from which the person is able to create their circumstances from their own being. The self they bring. This will be realism. It will be easier to see through the physical appearance to the quality of the inner being of the person in the role, their use of their instrument, what we call talent. Their physical characteristics will begin to diminish in its importance, even how well they act as a skill.

It is hard to imagine. It is easier to imagine that a primarily physical appeal will seem cardboard, false. It is easier to imagine that you can sense the superficial quality, no matter how trained and practice that the lift of an eyebrow is, if there is not a real person creating the situation, bringing themselves to play the role of that part in that story, a special affinity to that part. Their acting will appear technical, and lack an essential quality of beauty, of truth, of art, of the SELF beyond the individual. Stories that lack a wider and deeper spiritual contact will not satisfy. They will not have the universal elements and themes that people find meaningful if the actors and producers and the people behind it aren’t really apart of it. That special feeling that comes to some productions when they all share a common bond, will be magnified. They will not only feel the special bond, but they will be aware of why that bond exists and why they needed to be in that place and experience that unfolding. The audience will recognize it.

The quality will be that everyone will aim to rise, and that ability to rise and to help others will be the value, THE value.

This of course will only be a reflection upon the greater changes…

Inner Experiences

2008-05-02T23:19:00.004-05:00

Where the energy is working determines what types of experiences come.

Having been through various cycles of occult and spiritual experiences the first thought is that when the experiences end that there is some loss in the level of consciousness. I would typically find myself looking back at a time when I was more silent or somehow higher. However with more distance the glaring imperfections are more obvious and the growth that came from those experiences more intricate.

The idea of a higher state is not so much the case, the idea of a fall from a state, though those happen also, not so much the truth as a lack of the ability to be conscious as to where the yoga is occurring. Abilities such as sudden insight and foreknowledge of events is not really lost, it is just the energy is not working there. It may be given to see the dead for awhile, but then the energy has to work out other areas where desire may be unrefined, the experiences will then unfold that are needed for that working. Hence the need not to evaluate the progress, but rather to aspire to be more receptive to the divine will.

Ineffectual Sentiment

2007-10-18T12:03:00.001-05:00

Ineffectual idealism is something that is common. It is the mistake of thinking that ideas are knowledge rather than tools. Knowledge is not an end point. Knowledge is always progressive, it is always part of action. It is truth force. Although it might appear that knowledge as formulated in mathematics or physics seems to have no action, it is really always part of a wider web of being in the world. Look at all in the science community with technology and effects on our culture that Einstein has wrought.

The same is true of ineffectual emotional sentiment. This is a position of speech where the person is always adding the sentimental ideas of including everyone, proceeding from an emotional appeal. An appeal is different from a flow of feeling, either sensing or projecting force. It starts from that position of an emotional appeal rather than sensing and responding to what is really going on. It wants to be helpful which is to say that it wants to indulge the emotions of feeling helpful, to feel favorite known feelings. Known as comfortable.

It also is a strategy to avoid other feelings, including confrontation, conflict, anger, etc. This is ineffective. Compassion is a higher or deeper feeling that comes with knowledge and identity and leads to real action. A genuine compassion is receptive, sensing where people are suffering, and responds with the faculties to relieve or transform that suffering. When there is no available means or time, and processes must work out, then it proceeds from that basis. There is a sense of the endeavor of removing that suffering as being a common one, but that is an idea that arises from the feeling and the action of the force. That idea is descriptive of the experience of being compassionate. It proceeds from the real sense, not from the wish to feel a certain way or a wish that things be a certain way, if we could just all come together.

A ineffectual emotional sentimental journey begins with such statements as, “We all…” It tries to gather a group identity and proceeds with recognition of commonly shared truths or values and takes comfort in them. That is the gist of ideas when someone speaks. The person saying these things is often setting their own emotional tone, speaking to themselves rather than being focused on the actual topic, or the people present, or even beginning with discriminating the quality of the ideas which their mind is coming up with. There is superficial quality where the topic is not being identified with as a body of experience, or as the subtle body making conscious contact with the object or occasion being focused on.

Energy and time are squandered in this realm which is largely ideas about the world being influenced from the sense mind. The world as pleasant.

Serious Compression

2007-10-10T00:35:00.001-05:00

Once you have a basic awareness of energy you can feel any emotional event, outwardly, or inwardly such as a memory, causes a change in the energy. When one focuses on the outward perception of the energy field one can feel how the energy expands or contracts based on the outward or inward contacts.

Walk down a mall and the people you pass will cause different changes and configurations in your energy field. You will feel yourself taking on emotional shapes. The lower emotional forces will cause you to condense, and the higher ones have an expansiveness that keeps some receptivity. The quality and refinement varies. If for instance you are working with some dangerous tool, you may find that the stress produces a very careful and deliberate attitude. If someone appears threatening you may shrink to avoid them, or build up a condensed force in order to control the situation. The trick is to feel the field around the body and gain insight into the proper use of the heart. Many times we have unrefined emotional reactions. Lower forces may predominate, which will tend to constrict one but these emotional reactions can be widened. You can teach yourself to remain open to the higher forces.

Most fears are imaginary.

There is also a confrontation with one's vulnerability at being open, but this is often a passing stage as the higher knowledge that comes from the more illuminated forces will clearly show the flow. In the past there may have been instances where we were open and receptive to the wrong movements, and wrong forces. For instance we may have fallen in with the wrong crowd. Or got sucked into dramas. With the energy awareness comes a different sense of value and the right movement is more easily recognized.

It is better to give than to receive. Some people seek attention, others shy away. Still others try to project an identity or associate themselves with another. You can give people what they need if you have no need to be anything other than open and you have access to the source. Simply saying hello can transfer very positive energy.

Vijnana Chatusthaya

2007-04-26T11:07:00.000-05:00

From Sri Aurobindo's Record of Yoga II

Shakti Chatusthaya

2007-04-20T22:01:00.000-05:00

From Sri Aurobindo's Record of the Yoga II

Overmind Gradations to Mind

2007-04-19T13:27:00.000-05:00

From Sri Aurobindo's Record of the Yoga II

Know

2007-04-09T00:11:00.000-05:00

The important thing with knowledge is having contact with the higher planes of knowledge. It’s not about thinking, or reading, but about receptivity. Speech is an expression, one that contains a mix of elements. For instance there is what is being said and the quality of the expression, word choice, rhythm, effective grammar, aptness of metaphor, as well as the emotional tone in which speech is delivered. This is apart from the content of the speech.

Then there is effect of the speech, the intent behind it. Its force. If you are being intimidated by someone, saying “Please, don’t touch me.” Is probably less effective then “Don’t touch me leave me alone!” Effectiveness of speech also enters into the broader spiritual action behind the speech.

This is also true of spiritual knowledge. A teacher may not impart all of their knowledge, but rather say what is needed and most effective to the audience. It is obvious in the flow that we use economy of words, and rather than expound ten or more alignments on each pose, we use one or two with an eye to making corrections. A student’s ability to act on more than one or two cues and remain with the breath is the governing principle.

A theoretical physicist working with quantum mechanics may or may not be able to talk to another physicist working at a super collider. Their areas are too divergent. Pretty simple, but there needs to be a common basis of understanding built up over time. In spiritual matters this relates to experiences and realizations including fine sentiments. Emotions such as compassion and blissfulness can be demonstrated, the feeling shared if their is sufficient development. A yearning in the heart for bliss is awakened as a teacher delves deep, but there needs to be an opening, just as we become more intimate with friends over time.

With knowledge there are gradations. Simple mental knowledge is limited to discussing what words mean, the logical coherency and the consistency of the play of ideas. With higher mental knowledge it reflects spiritual ideas. There is an appropriateness. We may talk about timeless knowledge, but the knowledge enters into the relative world for the purpose of acting as a force upon it. Knowledge is an instrument of the divine will, the divine word is speech.

In listening to someone speak about spiritual understanding there is often a play of light involved. The subtle level of speech can involve all sorts of phenomenon. One common one is people who are mentally focused, who live in predominantly mental world are used to the constant polemics. They actually pull mental energy out of the atmosphere making it difficult to think. This makes them appear smarter as you can not process or respond to what they say because they disrupt the contact, the receiving of the energy of the mental worlds. They will have ideas that can seem brighter than they actually are. Partly this is do to the need to win. If you live in a world of competitive ideas, competitive voices and are under pressure to produce thoughts…

Many people encounter the experience of hearing or reading a spiritual discussion and feel like it is expression what they all ready know. That is because they are already in contact with the spiritual idea, or the spiritual plane, whether it be a higher mental plane or above where that idea comes from. Contacting the plane will lead to the flow of consciousness that generates the ideas and puts them thought like into your head.

When the mind is silent and receptive you can begin to feel where the speech is coming from. It is not a process of understanding categories, and then assigning them. It is more a feel and intuitive discrimination of the energy. You can sense the power of the truth of an idea, and its limitations. Someone can in the course of discussion use the same idea, but when they are connected to its realization it will appear bright and lifting, and then later use the word as a reference and it appears to be a mental idea. You can feel the difference, distinguish the plane of origination and sense the potency or limited action.

You can listen to someone and start to pick out areas where the ideas are mixed in quality. For instance they may have a profound insight into compassion or the energy, but not have the same fullness in the idea of attachment. One can also surrender and be guided in reading or surfing the net coming across that which is needed.

What is important is not who is coming from the higher plane, but rather the effectiveness of fulfilling the work of transformation. You can have wondrous insight and see clearly, but be limited in your expression, not because of lack of skill in writing or speaking, but because of the audience. You can also have profound understanding, but communicate only rudimentary ideas. Symbols and poetry may have the ability to fix and build up a structure for further advancement. They may speak more effectively across levels of knowledge and development. They can more easily invoke experience and contact with real ideas existing in subtle form in their native planes.

All the time though this has to over come the obstacles of the need to be recognized, and taste. For instance you can be distracted while speaking by the power of your own words, or have anxiety about whether you are saying things well. You may also have a need to be heard for the attention that it gives or the place you feel you must establish among others. Often being silent and not speaking is a first step towards the witness. The same is true if you feel the energy coming through in an area that does not appeal to you. The sense of taste blocks us from listening to others as well as our self expression. If you don’t like country music you can not hear it for what it is. People can be very passionate about defending their tastes. They confuse their own impulses for being open and letting the divine come through. It is not enough to control and be discriminating in taste, one has to find the divine in all that is.

Give the need to be recognized in speech to others. Be the spiritual action. There is nothing to be accomplished through talking or writing, no idea that you don't have or to be mastered, only the spiritual flow of existence, vast, conscious, blissful.

Iraq

2007-04-05T12:57:00.000-05:00

Many arguments point to intent on the part of leaders. However there are not many voices on the subject of transformation.

It seems obvious to anyone looking at the history of the global system, let's start with the European expansion into the new world and the colonial period, that as they entered into the eighteenth century enlightenment, things had to work themselves out.

This represented the forces of the mental powers. Reason as a basis for authority taking hold of various forms of government. Legal systems, moral culture, the whole of our social institutions, and the rise of science, all came forward.

T'were it a matter for reason then Napoleon and the Great World Wars would not have been necessary. National Socialism, Communism and other ideological movements, including feminism and labor, ideas entailed in little red books, would have been so much talk, and the Meiji Restoration would have had no consequence to the military classes.

In short the growth period of the West and East and all the violence that went with it would not have occurred. Even India in the age of Gandhi had to slaughter with Pakistan. Unfortunately the old ways resist and that struggle plays itself out. To think that the Baath movements would sweep over the Arab world and maybe the Persian one with a miraculous transformation is to have a wonderful vision, but in reality it seems that the Middle East will not make take this step towards a higher realization in all their social and political institutions any better than the Europeans.

Understanding the spiritual forces behind this kind of transformation has long ago been mapped out. The Ramayana represents such a change in the civilization as Ram destroyed the old world of Asura, with Hanuman burning down whole cities with a flick of his tail. The Gita provides a key to the Mahabharata. Environmental forces and the spiritual aspect to the transformation of the biosphere, including the advancement in genetics is where the knowledge is starting to dawn, and the real yoga is taking place.

Swamiji's interest in Bonsai gardening.

Sri Chakra 9

2007-03-20T11:41:00.000-05:00

Medtitation Teacher 10

2007-01-30T10:07:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Water

The water moves in a cycle from rain to river and ocean and then returns to the sky. Imagine yourself floating on an ocean that extends infinitely in all directions. Feel the ocean as consciousness, as bliss, and go down into the unfathomable depths of the Great Mystery below. Know the vast vistas of peace and clarity above. As the sun, source of all light, the truth, radiates eternity. Seek to move beyond. Know the great, the vast, the true.

There are many flavors to the energy, Shakti. The Devi takes on different forms of action, working with a multitude of powers. As you become more aware you can begin to recognize the Devi's forms, Lakshmi, Durga, Saraswati, Kali, the divine personalities. All have their moods and moments. Maheshwari the transcendent action of Shiva is the connection to the vast. You feel the great expansiveness and it moves through you as with the All. She is the ocean...

Gradations

2007-01-26T21:41:00.000-06:00

Two ideas at play. 1) That there are gradations to spirituality. 2) That this is measurable as value.

So there are several claims to be able to measure or determine how lofty an achievement one has. This is usually based in some form of testing that is scientifically based. Such as with measuring the ability to be present in the moment. There are other methods that rely more on intuitive assessment. There is certainly some truth to this. However with the scientific method one has to wonder how far that detection has really progressed. Given the history of scientific understanding. (Of all the matter in the universe most is largely unknown and only recently assumed to be detected indirectly.) That seems more like an attempt of science to enter into the field, of taking over the spiritual knowledge and putting on some sort of sanction of approval. The other aspect is that if we take the idea of an avatar as a descent of the divine power, then we end up with a question of, though it may be measurable how realized the being is, or we may question the capacity of the shell the being is operating from, there is a larger set of circumstances in which that being operates.
So can we compare the Avatars of Vishnu and measure the degrees of their realization in terms of the powers manifested by their shell? If Krishna were to manifest things from the subtle elements of a flower, and shape it into a magic weapon for Arjuna and Matsya the Fish does not, is Krishna more realized than Matsya?
When a person becomes realized how much of that can be measured in terms of the individual qualities and abilities? One can see stages of evolution in one's own growth. One can see understanding dawn, powers awaken, knowledge illuminate and transform parts of the being. The gunas at play will show us moving towards a more sattvic way of being, but at the same time the Guru who is realized is also advancing. However there still seems to be a question of what is needed by those who are progressing on the path hewn by the Guru and what their needs are and that of wider humanity. Maybe the Guru moves from the lower level to the mid-level because that is what is needed by their community rather than it being an individual spiritual achievement of that particular soul.
A common understanding is that there are beings who descend only for teaching a few disciples. Their need to display the ability to manifest objects or to levitate may not be needed. Nor does their physical body seem to support super sensual activity as being able to see the individual frames of a movie as it is projected, nor to they have exacting knowledge of a person's circumstances, past and future. As the people they came to teach already see beyond what is normally considered the physical laws of the universe and have no need of some individualized instance of knowledge. Having a powerful Deva descend and transform the knowledge of the world through an Einstein doesn't seem to me be connected to the spiritual/scientific evaluation of the vibratory level of the Einstein.
A powerfully realized being working through a traditional western religion may not be cranking out teachings that lead to the enlightenment of the people who turn out for confession, however that spiritual action may be very helpful and seems to act from a more universal concern. If we assume enlightenment or realization to be the Divine working through a person, or a light shining through a window, measurement seems to be locked into duality and be a creation of the mental, at the highest level there is no real level. The divine can work at any level and not be touched by the level. The divine that manifests as the great being also manifests the subatomic particle. Neither of them seem discreet entities of actual existence that can exist separate from the rest of us.
It seems more appropriate to look at where one is and follow what one needs to for advancement. And look to the highest as something acting through all existence, within it, behind it, above it. Rather than to rank. Though if presented with the question of two teachers which one do I spend my time on there seems to be a very basic need to evaluate the teachers in this manner.
It would also be very appropriate if one had a graduated system of teachings and realizations on the path of enlightenment as with Tibetan Buddhism. A system of instruction and a way to determine where one is and what one needs to do. Though this seems to some extent to be more individualized than a scientific system could generate. If one were attempting something that would not be subject to the changing circumstances of the advancing world. Which might be following the modle of physics or another hard science. Coming from science is different than the intuitive expression that utilizes science or or ideas as a tool of expression.
There are many teachings and methods that have come and been abandoned. Lineages that are continuous outpourings of light, but seem to reflect more the current master rather than a teaching that has an uninterrupted continuity. It also seems to be the case that many teachers and teachings goes into the life of a given Saint. They all seem to teach for the students and that it comes from insight into their being rather than following an assessment of measurable characteristics.
In following physical methods one can asses the ability of the student to sustain a large numbers of rounds of Bhastrika Pranayama. One can see if someone is ready for a handstand. Or one may see a commonality of experiences that come in meditation such as with the piercing of Chakras, or the ability to enter into the deeper levels of the Sri Chakra. If they reach contact with specific energies they will either go deeper or be caught in that experience. And one can see when others sometimes lack a certain realization. But it is different if spirit is looking back to science and utilizing it. If someone is generating a scheme that allows them to guide and give direction and goals who has traversed the path and has the vision/knowledge/light they will not need a test, they will see. The transcendent is transcendent and the relative is relative.

Notes from Kriyavati

2007-01-24T09:54:00.000-06:00

Lead by the example of being...

This seem to come up in several conversations. People describing other people in social gossip and not making this connection. Drug users such as with alcohol learn behavior from the drug use itself. Discipline of taking it, but also emotional personalities while under the influence. These continue after the drug is gone, for instance the sociability, humor and alcohol, the emotional dramas and manipulative lower vital with meth, and such.

It makes it interesting to look at diet and the gunas.

When you are not being heard, do not share, be receptive to the higher. Interesting to watch the energy and vibration. More than once a question would come up about a level four flow that I knew well. The person asked didn't know. I would demonstrate. The person who asked would get it wrong and it didn't feel right after I showed them, but rather than listen to my alignment or movement correction they again asked the person who didn't know. It seemed to be a habit of roles within the group, clique!@. I want to look in the mirror at that one. It may have been the voice of delivery that the person didn't recognize. It clearly felt as if they were not receptive, but they could see me doing it.

I have a balance between the time spent on practicing teaching and the time in practice. Less time on how to teach more effectively there are not the people receptive to it. (The answer to my question to Kaliji.)

Kaliji was very aware of when people were responding to her energy, as the other person had this wave of extra joy, and needed to express it to her by talking about themselves and what they had/were been doing. She would affirm them "that's wonderful" and the effect of the energy.

Congruency-express joy...

Kaliji made a point of saying it was all in the mind and that was what stopped us in some postures. I noticed that all the level four/five postures that she introduced I could do. In particular I wanted to fly through the air as lightly as the angelic Gabriel did from Mountain to Crow. At the workshop I managed it, with effort. On getting home I couldn't stay balanced for a few days do to apprehension. However this was very much in the flow, because I could identify the difference in the flow of the energy and the emotions, the mind. Isolating that vibration, I could remove it and land well and balanced. The amount of effort was the result, less energy wasted on emotional noise. Now I can look for that same vibration in some of the other challenging flows. (It's in the mind. Where?)

Pranavidya Notes

2007-01-10T11:07:00.000-06:00

Please grant me a fearless control of desire with a strong vitality, openess to universal love, inspired creativity, intuitive knowledge, and perfect liberation.

PV manual chakra associations (It's on the test).

This simple affirmation contains within a wealth of means to practice.

Awareness of fear is the first goal. Many fears are simply a result of the mechanical action of our mind. We see a situation and the possible threat. For instance someone tailgating you in traffic. A large number of these fears are so habitual that we simply react to them without them being noticed or felt as fear. Some are useful, some are groundless. The imagination is filled with fear possibilites. There are ones that arise effecting our behavior in limiting ways. They need to dealt with and removed. For instance social fears. A certain type of dress or hairstyle may lead us to be defensive. Baggy panted teenagers traveling in groups may cause unoticed fear. Here an easy remedy is to actually percieve what is going on rather than to have perception colored by the fear so that we are reacting to our internal image rather than the external reality. Or for instance if you have a lot of credit card debt, someone who displays obvious wealth may make us fearful because of our own undealt with issues. Or we may be fearful of encounters with the mail or the bank. These fears have to be felt to be dealt with by feeling them so they are in our awareness and then thinking clearly with acceptance as to what needs to be done. If they are groundless (as most fears are) then rejected. If they are based in some actual situation then we need to be clear as to what steps to take.

One of my favorite adaptations to social fear is to walk into the social gathering and look for the person is standing alone and isolated (I am that person) and talk to them.

Control of desire is necessary for any progress in the yoga. Desire is a constant force. Media studies ways to manipulate via desires. The society creates mechanisms for the fufillment and regulation of desire. Everyone at some time or another will have to look at diet. Regulation of your food desires and establishing a good direction for what you eat takes time, study and change of habits. Anyone who had done the flows and pranayama regularly will notice the changes in the consciousness, how some desires and habits fall away. Self inquirey is a tool. We become clear. We can feel the impulses and desires and chose to act on them or reject them. Just like becoming smooth and graceful in the flows, eliminating the wobble missalignments, we reduce the background noise. Our life habits are the same as we eliminate desires we are reducing the noise so that we can have a mind filled with calmness and concentration.

A strong vitality is neccessary to accomplish anything. We need the energy. Things that sap of of energy include negative emotions, tension, poor diet...Having a positive attitude, clear direction, satisfaction of accomplishment all lead to abundant energy. Increasing the flow of prana through the flows, and pranayama lead to incredible energy and stamina. Kaliji travels the world for months with little sleep, always working, and is always postive and in the moment and ready to help others giving freely of the energy with love and devotion. (most people would complain)

Universal love, following the physical practices will open the nadis and awaken the heart. Looking for and seeking the divine in all things and situations, in all people and events. This means rejecting negative tendancies. For instance there are three levels of argument. The first is to seek truth, when one speaks or logically thinks about something to find truth. In the second level one is seeking to use logic and argument to agrandise oneself or an extension of the ego such as your country. In the third level one is seeking to destroy and tear down someone or something. If you constantly seek the truth and reject the other motivations the mind becomes clearer and one can more easily open the heart to feeling, for the spirit is behind everything. In truth everyone is seeking to be happy even if they are using ignorant means to achieve it.

Inspired Creativity...Swamiji has written thousands of bhajans. When you need ideas your mind unfolds the joyfull possibilities and things come together and organize as an expression of love.

Intuitive knowledge comes from the breathing. One can have sudden insight into the yoga, and even for see the coming events. One has to be aware of the quality, the sattvic nature of the contents flowing into the mind and reject the rajas and tamasic elements.

Liberation...the divine is not limited to the momentum, the samskaras of nature. The divine can move freely according to the divine will and the universal need of the spirit.

Meditation Teacher 9

2006-12-12T11:12:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Gas Station

We measure out our energy and restore it in different ways. Rest, vacations, taking a break. Meditation restores our energy and begins to awaken us to a universal source of energy. We first notice this by understanding how much the emotional part of the being supports the physical and mental energies. When we are depressed we have no energy and conversely when we are excited there can be a restless over abundance. As we tune into the flow we slowly realize the universal source of the energy. When you are practicing the flows and the breath is harmonized there is abundant energy even in areas where the strength is challenged. As we learn to keep the heart open and flowing then there is support, devotional, peaceful, wondering, enthusiastic, emotions for each unfolding moment. When the mind is calm and quiet we receive inspiration. In life situations we can go to touch the flow and move from that space, giving us abundant energy.

One way to control the emotions is the mood modification of music. A strong beat will give you energy. Music is an art, but it is not also without deep knowledge. Swamiji's music is balanced in the elements just like you can tune into the balanced tattwas of a natural place and appreciate the beauty. By listening to Swamiji's music you can open up the nadis, tune into the flow and then begin to have songs pop in your head with the right space of the heart for that situation. You move to a different rhythm you voice picks up an elevated song. One of our meditation methods is to become absorbed in music. Kaliji always has Swamiji playing the background at the Ashram, it's amazing.

Three things that weaken our energy are, taste, judgement, and wrong doing. Many people for instance are blocked by there sense of taste from actually seeing clearly or bringing to bear their awareness to something. For instance if you only eat what you like and not seek foods that are beneficial. If your constantly judging others then you are not really seeing them, or seeing the flow behind it. For instance supporters from another spiritual tradition gave space for Triyoga and someone was worried about the other tradition. They judged it and didn't see the fruit, they simply caused drama and negative emotions that had to be resolved by others. This is very common in all traditions of people trying to "protect" or keep thing pure. It revealed the tamas guna at play in the working of nature. Wars are fought. Spirit needs no protection and does not need to be purified, it purifies you, and moves you in the flow.

The last one is wrong doing. If you know something like gasoline is bad for the environment then it slowly drains you if you have to use it. Every time you go to the pump you are aware of it. However you may have to accept it for the time being. You may not have the resources or the life situation to change the way you live or the kind of car you drive. The heart can aspire to the higher truth and better way of being. As the heart feels this you enter into a flow where the greater truth and power of the divine can begin to move things through people and events towards realization. If you deny it, or stuff the feeling at the pump you hampering the flow of the energy. To always be in the right place at the right time with exactly what is needed for that moment doesn't change the universe, you are that universe in that moment.

Meditation Teacher 8

2006-12-05T13:08:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Washing Machine

A washing machine works by agitation. This is what removes the stains. It is an action and a chemical process with the water and detergent. Meditation acts to clean clothes. The clothes represent our self and personalities, the identities we have in the world. When we do pranayama our energy is increased and the subtle nadis, the currents of energy are cleaned. This is like the detergent and water. The stains we are cleaning are sometimes very visible and sometimes they are more ordinary grime. Meditation washes them clean. When we are agitated, or the mind is out of control we can immediately see the need to return to calmness. Sometimes when we sit things come into the mind, old agitations, old traumas. These come to our mind in order for us to feel them through and release.

There two ways, the first is that we tend to distract ourselves from feeling pain and negativity. So we escape or do things to that put our mind somewhere else. We need then to bring our awareness into the pain and feel it in order to remove it. The other way is that we need to change the source of the pain. Sometimes we know pain and that is more comfortable then change. For instance we may cling to old habits such as overeating because we know that habit well and inducing change brings fear. This way involves not feeling or following the old habit but instead rejecting it. Just as sometime we must toss clothing that is too stained, or too worn.

Acceptance and rejecting must come from the light and truth.

Meditation Teacher 7

2006-11-28T10:48:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Interior Designer

Your home is a reflection of the inner self. We spend time creating environments both beautiful and functional, or messy and frustrate. In meditation we become the interior designer of our mind by entering into the peaceful sublime.

The breathing exercises that prepare one for meditation bring a silence and for many they find that silence at no other time. In the same way we do not leave a TV on 24 hours a day whether anyone is watching or not. We don't want the mind constantly churning out thoughts meaningful or habitual, or just to fill the space. Brining quietness, silence to the mind is cleansing.

Just as we get into stale habits in the house, we can find that our mind occupies itself with old thoughts, often unexamined. For instance we often make our minds up about something, or someone, and that thought is held even though life moves on and change occurs. We hold the judgments and ideas with supporting emotions and our personal relation and identities.

We may have a habit of the mind that when we realize that we are holding old material we feel a need to analyze it to death. We may even avoid dealing with something because of the effort, or spend time imagining dealing with something as a large task. We may wait in order to talk to someone about it. However when one is in a peaceful state of mind one can feel the stale lifeless ideas and old judgments, recognize them and let go. One has a sense of the quality of the feelings, ideas, and judgments. The intuitive discrimination awakens, and new inspiration can come in.

This letting go includes the releasing the need to analyze something as a habit of controlling our own thoughts. We are taught to make judgments about thoughts from an early age. When one has experienced this it becomes possible to simply stand back as the witness and open ideas and movements of the mind to expansiveness and peace. One watches the creative flow of inspiration transform our thoughts and emotions.

If we are not judgmental and dependent on maintaining our old positions it frees this energy for growth. When we are in the present moment our thinking, reasoning and rational is clear and precise we move from emotional reacting, to feeling. We don't identify with the mood of the moment or this or that particular emotion such as anger, but we have calmness as our foundation.

Meditation Teacher 6

2006-11-27T08:49:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Dancer

Dance has many components. One can simply surrender to the feeling of the rhythm. The universe has its own flow and rhythm that springs from the oneness of being felt as Ananda. This is often pictured as the Nataraja, Shiva in the form of the cosmic dancer. When the Nataraj stops dancing the universe is destroyed. Just as when the song stops the world of the mind, the flow of the imagination and emotions, sustained by the music transitions. Dance too can also be structured with comprehensive training of the mind, body and emotions. Dance can be a social activity as display, part of the rituals surrounding marriage or as a religious expression. It can be an expression of companionship and intimacy.

When we come to meditation we want to enter into the flow. Not as a compulsion, a duty, a chore, but as joyful entering into the flow. Meditation is a natural expression of joy.

Meditation Teacher 5

2006-11-07T14:05:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Conductor

This is about learning to orchestrate, the mind, in order to perceive the inner nada.

Sounds...

This is a typical Kaliji saying that seems simple to the point that it goes in one ear and out the other. To orchestrate the mind to me means to brings things into the flow. The mind, at least the one that I use is filled with voices, images, memories and sense data, not to mention thought and emotions. Getting my self to a point of silence has not been without deliberate practice. Creating a space for practice and as with any musician, working on a variety of skills requires dedication and setting priorities, but not as a grim task or forced servitude. There has to be a joy and passion for the art. Then there is putting the skills into action in order to focus the aspiration, the silence and peacefulness so that one can hear the ever sound from which emerges all.

A conductor not only has many skills, and has to manage many dimensions, the people, the equipment, the resources, the conductor has to have a love and a feel for the music.

Meditation Teacher 4

2006-10-31T11:16:00.000-06:00

Learn from the Real Universal Studios

Manas is the screen upon which the contents of the mind is projected. It also refers to the world of the senses. We use the senses gather knowledge of the world. Buddhi is the higher discriminating faculty. At a higher level there is direct judgment of right and wrong, that is intuitive. The Mahat is the universal mind from which all knowledge is drawn. In meditation we can receive answers to questions, concentrate on something and come to know it, even when it is not present or is distant in time and space. The expansion into the universal mind leads to spiritual knowledge. You witness the manifestation of the world from the universal mind.

One area of knowledge is the different levels of consciousness and mapping out the various aspects of mind. But when one begins to get into contact with the universal mind then there is a mixture of higher and lower. When the mind is calm it is easy to distinguish. One can see the mechanical thought patterns, working like hypnotic suggestions, the desires that hardened into their own habits of indulgence, the sense of taste that stands royally presiding over all, not allowing in the new or the different or allowing you to directly experience something rather than its own preconceived notions.

Entering into the Mahat is partly a surrender of the mind to the greater openness and creativity, partly a matter of letting go of the habitual clutter and business, partly a matter of enjoying the play of Devi as she moves through your being. Above all one stands as witness. Perhaps tempted to rush out and explore the riches, perhaps denying them or seeking to use them. As meditation deepens one sees the wisdom of unfolding, of the flow. The flow moves from the universal mind and all is blissful lila.

2006-10-24T13:51:00.000-05:00

This is Aurobindo's Sapta Chatusthaya (7 divisions of four.) Presented in the Record of Yoga, this was taught to the students of the Ashram. It also is worked into the Synthesis of Yoga (http://www.aurobindo.ru/workings/sa/20-21/index_e.htm) . When I put this up on my website it will have links to each bubble that will go into depth.

Meditation Teacher 3

2006-10-23T13:50:00.000-05:00

Meditation Teacher 3 is to Learn from the Mirror.

Kaliji says this is cleaning a mirror and that we should see where the thoughts are coming from. This is the basis of self inquiry.

Reflection

Taking time to reflect.

I find in my mind, that there are a variety of voices, imagination, memory, emotional movements, and sensory data.

As the mind becomes quiet one begins to sense the quality of thought. In thinking there is a focus on an object, it may be a mental object such as an intellectual topic, it may be involved in a situation and expand into an imaginary object, a world of the mind. As your attention is placed on these then you will involve the emotions, via judgment or emotional reaction, and the memory brining up similar situations, associations. Further you will begin to work with imagination either by contrasting or creating a possibility.

The above shows how much is going on.

By quieting the mind one becomes more sensitive to the flow of consciousness and one begins to train the mind to be open and receptive to higher guidance. The mirror becomes clear to reflect accurately that guidance, to see clearly what is really going on, creating a space for intuition and deeper movements of the heart to arise.

It is one thing to look in the mirror it is another to see the self.

If we have a tendency to avoid the unknown, or to avoid painful things then we may distract the mind, and those contents will have a secret agenda. They will mask the real intent. For instance let's suppose you were attracted to someone, but that person or yourself was unavailable. Rather than confront your own feelings, you harbor a secret desire, at the same time you have a feeling of inhibition. This ambivalence may show up in your mind via remembering the Bee Gee's song Night Fever. As you sit in meditation your mind is filled with the song, and try as you might it won't enter into a quiet state until you examine the song and confront the feelings. Then the reason and will can be applied and you can act on the higher wisdom.

It is often the case that people will busy themselves never having time for reflection in order to avoid feelings. Or to act always on the known compulsion rather then enter the unknown territory of the mind. People will also end up in a state of overwhelm where they are unable to decide, which is an emotional act of judgment, even though reason may be thorough, because they don't understand their emotional situation and not able to form clear intent, or set priorities. Here self inquiry and the ability to accept, to clear the mirror are gifts.

The flows bring the body and breath to into harmony allowing the prana to flow. This will purify your mind, life, and body. It will invigorate and strengthen your will, your capacity to feel and concentrate. In turn one can accept what comes and take that as part of the flow, moving onward, letting go, and entering into the bliss.

Meditation Teacher 2

2006-10-11T10:11:00.000-05:00

The second of the 29 teachers is "Learn from the Child."

This means to follow wisdom. You can recognize the wisdom voices because they are quiet and peaceful.

What I notice from people is three things.

One there is a maturity that hardens ideas and thoughts. That means that we are so habituated to or thinking processes that we don't realize that knowledge doesn't just accumulate. The faculties of knowledge continue to grow.

Two that training the heart is as important as the mind.

Three that people quote "believe in yourself" instead of "believe in the Self." There is a lack of understanding of self knowledge and the availability of the all knowing.

Being like a child means that we still have growth, and that as we grow we are still open to the guidance of the Mother. The Devi provides all we need as we are not seperate from her or the universal flow.

There is a hierarchy of voices as we move in the ranges of the mental and beyond. There are also deeper levels of the heart's sensitivity.

Notes to Workshop

2006-10-09T11:17:00.000-05:00

1) Forward Salute also includes Padma mudra before Purna.

2) Visual Pace, visual pacing involves coordination of word, movement, including a pause of the movement for emphasis, and the bringing of the consciousness to the part of the body that is being displayed. The consciousness of visual display has three components, 1) Dampening, used to not be seen. One can dampen other parts of the body to emphasize the area to display. 2) Projection, here the energy is projecting an image of self, a quality, for instance when one is showing strength. (Ranjabati Sircar's power is reserve, achieved with joint compression). Energetically this is felt in the same way that one has authority, joy, calmness in the voice. 3) Display as beauty, used to attract mates or to communicate a delight of the body consciousness, or scoptic pleasure, Ananda, Prema.

Visual Pace is noticeable in two modes, negative and positive. One can feel when one is being watched, and this routinely can be a self conscious feeling, when one makes a mistake in the flow. Visual Pace requires we be able to catch the feeling of the body consciousness at the moment of self consciousness. Also when we try to hide something, for instance when we are weak and shaky in a pose and hoping no one sees. The separation of the insecurity and the display is required. In positive mode receiving and projecting can be practiced with a mirror. Our having the idea of being watched, or observing some part of the body admiringly. If we do this with our hand for instance, we don't focus on the feeling of the gaze from the eyes, but on how the energy of the hand responds. This is similar to expansion and contraction of the aura in order to harmonize the energy field to the space, to lower defenses, making people feel comfortable, etc. Or expanding to remove a vibration in the space by creating an overall mood, establish the Flow. For most visual pace can be established in the face first and spread to other areas. Women often have a developed visual pace, but it can be caught up in issues and identity. Hence the usefulness of the skill also is a kriya. Dancers should have this by training. It is a useful tool for teaching.

I saw a play performed. During a break one of the stage hands came out to move the prop, even in the darkness with their black clothes you could feel them for the tremendous presence they were radiating. (talent) They should have also dampened. I also saw a huge group of people on stage to demonstrate an Indian folk dance. One women caught my attention, you could see her face out of forty or more people. I could tell she had classical training, sure enough she turned out to be an accomplished Bharatanatym artist. (training!)

3) Aurobindo's Sharira Chatushaya, the application of Utthapana, stage 1 and 2, noticing the energy and flow of prana in relation to the lightness and lack of exhaustion or tiredness during the flow. The application of Saundarya, being beautiful, bright, sweet and beautiful. This has a subtle component in the lower centers as sexual attraction, the subtle appearance of display, the idea of make up comes from trying to reproduce the state of subtle beauty that is seen when the sexual energies, arousal is strong...but beauty comes from the heart expressing through the energy of the body's consciousness and the recognition of a highly developed pranic flow, open channels.

4) Measure the physical consciousness by comparison to become more aware of it within. Kashi was very physically consciousness, much more than many of the other teachers. But I could sense in her that this was partly the result of long hours of training the body. It was a higher energy that comes from harmonizing the heart with the body through the bhakti, ananda in the body. Training coupled with spiritual development/accomplishment. The role as teacher helps to keep it established, (the dream of the dog). Different also from some of the people who are really dense in the body as a protection from outside forces. Some cops/veterans I have met and some in the medical profession.

Kaliji doesn't seem to be physically consciousness in the same way, her body doesn't seem to have a central location, but rather each part seems self conscious, aware of the divine and responds in harmony. For instance her foot/toe mudras seem completely undirected by Kaliji. Like many hands of the deity reflected a many faceted consciousness being able to work on many things at once each with their own head, their own personality, knowledge, etc. Her feet express the divine on their own giving.

5) Strong Vyapti between Kashi and Kaliji. Jai Guru Devi.

6) Look for the reverse roll from head down the spine.

7) Be more conscious of the tuck.

8) Alternative mudras for trinity breath.

9) Pyramid Lift includes a sway. Careful with cue of local action, try to relate when teaching to other accomplished movements when something seems out of place.

10) 9 joints of movement in connecting the limbs to the action of the spine.

11) Order of Arrival, versus Path of Motion (internal, awareness and sensitivity)

12) ... the suggestion as prevention, rather than descriptive.

13) The roll exists even when full extension or natural alignment isn't possible due to flexibility. (me)

Meditation Teacher 1

2006-10-02T11:04:00.000-05:00

"I'm a space cowboy. I'm sure you know where it's at.
It's obsticulous, baby that between my feet, a cat."

In the Kaliji's Pranavidya Manual there is a section on the 29 Meditation Teachers.

The first is to Learn from the Thermometer.

It says to take your mental temperature. Realize that just as when you take your physical temperature as a sign of health or illness, so too with the mental temperature. If you sit to meditate there should be peace and inner guidance and when there is not self inquiry is involved. I relate this to the feeling exercise and the act of being aware of the emotional feeling. Realizing that mood can be controlled, for instance through music, then we learn to tune in, or to establish a foundation of quietness and right flow of the mind instrument.

We distract ourselves to avoid unpleasant thoughts, or feelings. The mind has a habit of indulging in emotions, or being overstimulated by the external environment. We do not take time to reflect and digest our experiences. We don't have a habit of self awareness.

This involves the mind being able to sense when the words of thoughts are actually connected to something. Is the memory or imagination really giving you a message, or is it just an association and play of emotions that are unfocused? Is this song in my mind covering up, suggesting indirectly something else? Are you really using the instruments of sense, such as taste?

There is a feel to the flow of thought, inspiration when the mind is calm and focused, concentrated and clear. Just as in the Triyoga flows we come to tranquility and learn to relax and feel surrendered to the deep state of relaxation, so to we can feel the mind in a deep state and train it so that we can stop and enter the silence, tune into the flow, open the heart. Heat is agitation (lower emotions, or those bordering on physical reactions such as cravings or impulses, inertia, or colored by emotions such as anger, desire, avoidance of pain or the unknown, being overwhelmed.)

Self inquiry can be as simple as realizing the present moment, tuning in to how we actually feel in the present moment, or asking what is really going on. One can find emotional or thought material that needs to be dealt with. One can simply notice the need to adjust the physical posture to reduce tension. The key here is we are aware of where we are. Meditation at first gives the peaceful feeling. As we become more aware of contents, then we may also experience things we have been avoiding. We also clear the clutter of thoughts. At some point we become aware of the inner being which has access to guidance and the silent self that is witness and master of actions.

Three Stages

2006-09-24T00:40:00.000-05:00

There are three stages of movement; establish, flow, dissolve. To establish we have the direction, the balance, and the timing. We intend to go in more than one direction, for instance out the hands and feet. We need to know where the balance point is and feel that, and we need to know when they occur. In the flow then we to know what kind of movement, such as a roll, or a forward bend, a twist, jump or a surrender. For the dissolve we release the excess tension, expand and arrive at the goal and focus on the breath.

In establish we are establishing at least two directions of movement. This also means to get to base of movement. The flow of movement can become refined by knowing where the transition point is, the place where you are balanced. When moving from Mountian to Swan, you tuck the chin and press with hands and the rooted foot (establish) you bring the shoulders almost over the wrists as felt by the weight coming evenly into the hands (establish the balance point) and then you step. This is the flow of movement as you roll through the spine. Then there is the release of any tension, in this case the hips relax down and forward.

Sometimes this can apply to a longer flow, for instance Pyramid Lift is the establishment to the flow towards Triangle 2. Names mark transition points as we don't necessarily pause in each position.

When you work with these ideas they help to find the Continuity of Movement, the elemental flavor, and you find areas where one or the other are missing. For instance many new students do not establish well in the beginning. When moving from Side Warrior, to Runner, they do not wait till the heel is lifted before releasing the hand, because they are not intending to establish the pose then they lose the flow of the spiraling motion and wobble. The surrender of the hips down and forward and the resulting stretch is lost. Once you have a feel for the three terms then you can also see it in others when teaching, and when analyzing you have something to focus on.

Name

2006-09-11T15:36:00.000-05:00

Use of the noun and the confusion of ideas.

Nominalism holds that the name of something bears no relation to the thing itself, and it only connected by the convention of language. Sounds nice...

Most people when questioned will probably agree with that. However I would follow a more Platonic tract and divide language into three categories.

1) Name Form, in which the name of something bears an energetic relation to the thing. So as something comes into manifestation there is knowledge of it, the word which the becomes a subtle manifestation and then comes into manifestation. So if we take the word Kleem, a seed syllable it represents the action of attraction, Kleem attracts the things that surrounds it. If one were to use Kleem with Prem, love, then one would attract love. The original word, a distinguishable power the same as gravity is distinguishable, underlies all manifestation, hence the idea of a seed. Para Vak, is a word that has will to existence from the Absolute. Pashyanti Vak is the word that has knowledge and specifics of the manifestation, the subtle word, and the manifest word is the Vaikhari Vak. On can say Kleem Prem and reverse the process from the spoken word, one can move from the physical body to the subtle body and attract love, in terms of situations/actual events organized for experience (karma, kriya). Sanskrit is a name form language.

2) Sound Form, is the idea that the sound moves the energy. In the name form the vibration of energy that manifests is duplicated by the word. In sound form the word directs the flow of energy in the subtle body. So using the word guru directs the flow energy down to the root, which is the manifestation equivalent of the Para Vak. The consciousness becomes effected by the flow of subtle energy and manifests the effects. Gurumuki is an example of this and blends the name form and sound form languages. Many languages have elements of this especially in the emotional qualities of the words. For instance the English exclamation YEAH!!!

3) Idea Form, languages use words to represent ideas and these are established by convention. They do direct the consciousness in the worlds of the mentality. So for instance concentration on a word in English will produce knowledge of what that word represents. However for the most part it is limited to the inner connection of the person using it. If you say the word kleem it produces a subtle vibration, if you say the word attraction it does not. Attraction however will organize the mind according to the understanding of the user. One will not become a center of attraction as with the word kleem, but will become centered on the idea of attraction. English is an idea form language, though it is based on Latin which in many ways is a name form language.

In England there are different forms of English and though this is confused with social hierarchies there is also some truth as to the proper rhythm and effect of English. Good English will raise the mentality, for instance Latin forms used in science, and poor grades of English, think of rap, and not the words but the rhythm, will lower the mind into more violent emotional states. The social element and resistance to that often make this perception hard to attain and keep clear. It is definitely a power of clairaudiance to hear the vibration level of speech. The Latinate, do you construct or build, do you transmit or send? What about imitate and mock? Just stop and smell the coffee or just desist and partake of the aroma of the java. A strong smell or a delicate aroma?

This paying attention to names is also useful when learning of the different levels of consciousness. Many times we use words without access to experience or realization. For instance we can talk about ananda, but do we feel it? When reading any kind of spiritual writing we have to this awareness that the author may be capable of perceiving or have experiences of which we do not have access. For instance I have heard a Tibetan Lama say that even while being tortured by the Chinese captors he felt nothing, but compassion for his torturer. This is meant literally.

"We may think otherwise, but we are deceiving ourselves; we are making our idea of the Divine, our sense of duty, our feeling for our fellow-creatures, our idea of what is good for the world or others, even our obedience to the Master a mask for our egoistic satisfactions and preferences and a specious shield against the demand made on us to root all desire out of our nature."

Aurobindo, Synthesis Of Yoga, Yoga of Divine Works, p. 222

How much of this quotation is a reference to the experience? Not just reasoning, but the felt expression of egoistic satisfactions, of discovering and witnessing the specious shield? There are times we confuse the abstract understanding of the idea with the actual experience.

This has different aspects, for instance when we start to examine our knowledge of world events, then obviously this is not something in our immediate experience. It would be easy to philosophify our way out or into this problem. But to cut through this problem we need to have a feel for the sense of truth in our perception, the flow of our understanding, and the in the effect and purpose of the knowledge. Assume all arguments are true and that no event doesn't have a purpose and you will find that you will begin to feel all sorts of emotional coloration coming through one's perceptions. Like much criticism is not about the work, but is more telling of the critic.

Many statements are designed to win arguments or to act on the world, effecting people, etc. If we have internalized those ideas and their operations we miss the intent of being open to the truth and the spiritual unfolding. We may be able to gain large descriptive and explanatory power by categorizing and defining, but their still has to be a deeper perceptive faculty of insight with which to support those categories.

"The supreme truths are neither the rigid conclusions of logical reasoning nor the affirmations of creedal statement, but fruits of the soul's inner experience. Intellectual truth is only one of the doors to the outer precincts of the temple.

Satyam mantraha, they who the true thought expressed in the inspired word.
Satya mantra, the true thought expressed in the rhythm of the truth."

Aurobindo

Congruent

2006-09-11T15:34:00.000-05:00

Congruence has two dimensions. The first is the idea that the inner being is reflected in manifestation. What occurs to you is the consequence of your actions, your nature, and also what is required for the spiritual growth. I have been dealing with the mental and physical interaction. How my body is influenced by my thought. As a result people have been brining in things which trigger my thought about the body and the emotional support. On the other hand I had an occasion of meeting someone with an opening into the psychic being, very sincere and humble were the native emotions. This ties in with the obstacles of the physical aspect of the sadhana which triggered my thoughts about the body. The first is the result of concentration the second was a gift of spiritual quality.

The second dimension of congruence is the result of this understanding as applied to practical affairs. This is the idea that you should base your interaction on what you are doing and interact with people on that basis. You interact with someone looking for a shared direction, congruence.

When you grow you will find some of the people around you resistant, some helpful according to where that person is in relation to their own growth. You will tend to create groups around you that support your activities. If you are highly egostical and controlling you will tend find people who like to be controlled. So when I taught classes at the Hospital people would come in and want to use Tai Chi practices for their own direction. For instance I had one student who was overweight and had never been physically active, never done sports and never done exercise activities. She was overweight, and a nice person. However her goal was to have an exercise program she could do. I say HAVE. Not do the exercise program, but have something that she could say to her self I am exercising. Hence when we would do chair based awareness exercises, take the legs out of the equation and it is easy to fell the spine. She wanted to stay in the chair. Unfortunately it is not about being in the chair, the chair is a prop.

Now I could react to this by explaining to her about why we use the chair, or find some way to motivate her, or I could even try to get her to realize why she wanted to sit. However this is not my goal. My goal is to teach people Tai Chi and to gain the many benefits of doing the practice. If I try to get her to change then I am using the understanding model which tries to figure out where the other person is coming from and then speak in terms they can understand. (In other words we need to bond! or shop at the same store.) This produces a level of inauthenticity. I am not longer doing Tai Chi because the other person doesn't want to, they want to do something else. I don't want to make her do it, I want her to do it because she wants to and she doesn't. So I would have to sell her the idea because my goal is not to share, but to keep bodies in classes or make a profit.

I could make a value judgment and react emotionally to it. I can evaluate it with discrimination and use my vivek to see clearly what it is she does want, but none of that will really being doing Tai Chi and the people who do want to will suffer because I am distracted. So on the one hand one might look at it as part of my job is how to figure out how to motivate people, on the other hand, this leads to molding or making people into something. I am not much of a motivator. However I have noticed that when I am doing my thing it flows out of me and then influences other people.

Person walks in and wants to learn Tai Chi weapons. I am not a weapons aficionado. Now I might react by trying to find out whether they really want weapons, or why, and then talk them into what we do. Sell Sell Sell. Or I could send them to the CR Fencing Academy. Or stir them towards Kali/escrima. One the one hand I might get a temporary customer, on the other hand I might help someone to realize their goal. Which is better for me? So on a deeper level, the spiritual side of things, not the mentalization of concruency. The spiritual pursuit is the ultimate goal, and from that we get the truer and higher actions.

So you want to act from the most high in any interaction. You want people to be happy. All of these types of ideals find a place in congruency.

So when you are interacting with someone in business, you really are trying to help them. You really want what is best for everyone. You have to honor their views. You have to act on your discriminating power and clarity of vision. On the one hand the fitness trainer role is a good one. My goal is to help you achieve your goal. I get the satisfaction of having helped someone and get to see and refine my skills by helping you to refine your own. Teaching deepens the practice. When people go to a fitness trainer they often go through a process of being assessed as to what their condition is. How strong, flexible, stamina, even spotting weak areas and measuring body fat and spotting diet habits. Then the person is asked what their goals are in general and the trainer can help set realistic fitness goals and design an individual program to achieve that. That makes congruent sense.

However there is a question as to how much energy the trainer spends on motivating versus letting the person apply themselves. That is a real concern. I have had students come to me for yoga from physical trainers. One common theme is the set establishment of goals and the emotions of having to struggle and endure in order to achieve them. This is not yoga. Having tapas, and a firm will to achieve is an awesome thing. It takes discipline. It is part of our yoga, but in our yoga, this is not foregrounded. We are Devi path so we also require surrender. You have to find the meditation and contact with the inner quietude and delve in the rich bliss of the vast... and that is not a matter of needing to feel the intensity of challenge and being able to get to the goal of a certain pose. There is some of that, but that is not really the path. So these students, who were also injured, wouldn't stick around. Not because it was too easy, but because their goal was emotional indulgence in the survival emotions that interact with the body. They needed a strong person behind them challenging them, rather than a person creating a space in order to be transformed. We were not congruent.

In fact they like to talk a lot about sacrifice. If you run you are going to sacrifice your hamstring. If you lift weights you will pay a price. There inner being was not focused on yoga, and I am not sure at why they came, but they don't stay. Sometimes I can point out to people that this or that is an image, and the emotions with the image are what they want, and sometimes not. Not by trying to reason with them, but because they need to hear what I have to say and recognize the message. My explaining or trying to change what I do would be ineffectual. Better to use/keep the yoga teaching as the outflowing of the practice.

Hence I always try to teach interns in Triyoga to "trust the flow." Don't worry about doing basics with beginners. Let the movements and the breath do their work. They will begin to enter into the flow and if they are ready for it then everything will come out from that. They are either seeking the flow or not. For beginning teachers you often emotionally react to people who drop out. You can take it as a matter of insecurity, did I not do this well? But it isn't what you did, it was a failure of congruency. The yoga wasn't what they were looking for.

Doesn't matter what they think, its not rational, it's more intuitive and emotional. A state of being is not about thinking about it, it is being. You can be a stupid as a toad, but incredibly advanced spiritually. You can have profound experiences and not have the words for it. Or as is more the case, it just feels good and they keep doing it for that reason and don't know or care, or are even screening out the spiritual dimension of it until one day they are sufficiently prepared and the dawn of awakening comes. The ultimate congruency is to act according to the divine will and be completely surrendered to action of the divine self.

See Below

2006-07-28T11:15:00.000-05:00

This post continues from the last.

Opening to knowledge, getting that opening to grow so that one lives inwardly, purifying all the voices and movements that will cloud that opening is an aim of a stage in many disciplines. We know that knowledge and bhakti are related and that the high aim is to dwell with the knowledge of God in complete surrender of devotion.

The aim is to take this knowledge that comes through the higher faculties (distinct from the mental) and apply it in the world. The guidance leads us where? What is this intuition for? How does it relate back to Bhakti? Seeing that the earlier stages of bhakti are very much concerned with refuge in the world, and the giving of what is good. We also see that knowledge seeking is the third level. It is almost that the world becomes knowledge.

In Triyoga we work on the 3 bodies, physical, subtle and causal bodies. The physical includes the flows, working on the diet and lifestyle. The subtle includes the flows, pranayama, mudra and meditation. The causal is feeling the bliss. The three bodies can be subdivided into the five koshas, physical, pranic, mind, knowledge, and the bliss that surrounds the soul.

In this progression, for me, I was aware of the energy and emotional dimension of the physical practice when I came to it. For some this will have to be awakened. Pointing out body language and change of feeling, change of consciousness from doing the flows maybe helpful for them to flip on that switch that gives them the "aha!!!" Realizing the switches of consciousness from the day dream quality to the linear logical or back again as a matter of choice comes from doing sun moon breath is a good nudge.

When we do the flows, and mudras, with the coordinated breath we are opening up the flow of prana in the nadis. This brings growth. The physical flows and breathing stimulate the prana and this changes the nadis. This purifies the subtle energy and this goes more subtle to effect the mind. For instance doing the flows one can experience releases of emotion, such as fear, anger or even the laughing kriya. As we go deeper, aided by the systematic pranayama developed in pranavidya then we begin to gain deeper knowledge, entering into the Vijnana Kosha, knowledge sheath. Here we get streams of inspiration, knowledge about the flows, but also includes insight into others as well as into the self.

Part of that growth is the transformation of the heart. For instance when the breathing is established then the mind quiets. When I talk about the quiet mind, that is easier to grasp then the quietness in the heart. The quietness in the heart allows us to be in the present moment with our feelings, to feel what we feel without the habits of the thoughts racing around, and the imagination setting the drama. This is felt as calmness (quietness is the mind) and leads to peace, and joy. It various with the level/element. For instance it is resting and relaxation in earth, but it is enthusiasm and joy of accomplishment, the happy willfulness and enjoyment of strength, in the fire. The elements are never really isolated. We work them all in any flow, but they are emphasized in any series. Fire is any series three and in level three for instance.

There is also the corresponding subprana and the chakra. For instance series three the fire element deals with the manipura at the navel. The subprana is samana and this is the energy that allows for digestion, the processing of the experiences that are taken in.

The inverted poses and flows of Level 6 transcend duality and the elements. It can bring about strong intuitional movements from the body as it flows without direction of the mind into the poses. My favorite is watching someone in handstand getting the laughing kriya and giggling away...and it gets way cooler than that watching Kaliji!!!

Cultivating/establishing sincerity, calm receptivity, gratitude, compassion, love, all come out of this basic ability to feel the energy expressed by the heart. Bliss dawns.

Having established a flow of guidance, and the movements from the heart one is presented with awareness of the outerworld. The Bhakti and the aspirations provide better movement than the mental mind.

One can talk about the various forms of karma, about the jyotish configuration in your chart and even demographics and class structure. I prefer to refer to internal congruence (http://www.learningstrategies.com).

One has to have reached a level of understanding that acknowledges that our inner world is effecting our manifesting world. We can say we create reality, but this to me always comes across as too mental, like our perspective and the world are one. But let us say that there is a mechanical unfolding of our nature and there is a navigation that occurs due to our consciousness. What we concentrate on we bring towards us. And there is a stream of the Flow that comes from the higher nature of the Devi (femenine form of the energy and consciousness) creating and working in the vastness, and flowing through the millions of lives on the planet, all the varied forms of life on earth with all their interactions down into the foundations of the universe with it millions of galaxies and subatomic particles. And I feel good when I finish an art project, imagine what the Devi feels creating the universe....the causal body, bliss.

I had a friend who I talked with about this subject. I asked if he could find an example in his life of concentrating on something then seeing the creation or shaping of an event. He wasn't to sure at first, but he came back a few months later. He was really into bikes, building a chopper. In fact he was really into American Chopper on the Discovery channel. One of the bike masters on the show had a set of handle bars that my friend wanted for his own bike. He had a few art books on the chopper and in the morning would take a gander at those handle bars at breakfast. He thought about trying to build his own. My friend had the skills, but thought that it would be very challenging to weld and he might go through a couple a sets of handlebars, not cheap! before he got it right. So he waited till he went to Sturgis.

He knew the Bike Master and thought he would get a chance to talk with him about the handle bars at the rally. He arrived at the rally to find the Bike Master in front of some cameras. Discovery was filming a documentary and wanted people in the audience to ask questions. No one was asking any good questions. My friend wanted to know about the handle bars, but in private. But then he thought, here he is, and they want good questions. So the question popped out. As it so happens the Bike Master said rather surprised, that the handle bars were in his new catalog that been released the day before. So he wouldn't have gotten the catalog yet in the mail.

My friend saw how he had focused his energy and received the result. It also works on the level of symbol or metaphor as getting a handle on one's life. Seeing the world as knowledge of the self.

Fate is what you can't change, but destiny is what you create.

have to continue this later...but internal congruence, being in the flow, I am sure it will come out just in time.

Know

2006-07-25T15:17:00.000-05:00

"The methods of the Yogin are also different for he tends more and more to the use of direct vision and the faculties of the vijnana and less and less to the intellectual means. The ordinary man studies the object from the outside and infers its inner nature from the results of his external study. The Yogi seeks to get inside his object, know it from within & use external study only as a means of confirming his view of the outward action resulting from an already known inner nature."

Record of Yoga, Sri Aurobindo

This is another stage of passage. For me this includes two problems. The first is simply refining the faculty by which knowledge is received. Quieting the mind, concentration, give clarity of perception then comes inspiration and vision as you move from the mind sheath into the vijnana kosha. Most people come to a stage of development where they recognize the flow. They see things coming together for more than the externalized mind's viewpoint. This is the realm of flow stories, of signs, etc. From here often begins the journey of following/perfecting, the inner guidance. This involves all sorts of purification, one may think of screening out those inner voices/impulses that lead towards fulfillment of the desires of the lower nature and lack the truth power. One has to recognize, in my case it is by feel, the intuitive. From my experience clear seeing, clairvoyance also looms large and one has to integrate this ability.

On the down side of this is the habit of physical causality. Someone calls you on the cell and you hear their voice and know who they are. Practical enough, but some times you are just thinking of them before they call. Refining the ability to listen to that sense, and know when it is working is more challenging. Inner guidance is the same.

Just making the distinction between the subtle senses such as empathy, the subliminal information, such as from people's body language, vision into subtle realms, and the flow of knowledge from the spirit take time and awareness.

The second thing working against you is the authority of knowledge which is dominated by the mental demons. Small gods if you will. You can know perfectly well something by yogic sight, but all sorts of voices creep in. This cast includes the very popular, doubt, speculation, opinion, judgment, lack of knowledge. So you can see why something is occurring, for instance I know someone who has caused themselves work related medical problems. I know that this was cause by a need to avoid dealing with personal feelings. They learned this from their mother. They work hard in order to distract themselves. It works. They were successful in their career up until their body began to express other things.

However this ability to see into people could easily be retarded. First as the insight comes into thought it passes into the mental realm where one will naturally doubt any articulated statement of cause. That's the mental for you. The second thing is it can be attacked as speculation, one can think that it is being seen as a projection. I am projecting my own viewpoint on the subject matter. Or thirdly I have an opinion nothing more. Fourth, it will be attacked on a moral basis, I am being critical or judgmental of others. Fifth, the view may be correct, but you lack knowledge, you don't know enough or there is more to know. This is by no means an exhaustive list, and some of it is the mental's need to have shifting opinions and to work from thought to counter thought. Some is the emotions dominating the thought.

This purification is only possible when someone excepts the flow of inspiration, the ability to see. Occasionally in extreme situations people have intuitive flashes, but to integrate subtle senses, higher knowledge, foreknowledge, clear seeing, etc.. one has to do the work. For instance there is the impulse to know, and the impulse to go and read (google search.) One involves quieting the mind and concentrating inwardly, keeping that concentration, sometimes over the course of many days or years until all is revealed.

There is also the problem initially of self knowledge. The example I like to use is 911. Having dreams that preceded it, the dreams showed me foreknowledge of the events, but not in a predictable way. The event was only clear in hindsight. However the predictive power was accurate and useful for predicting how I would react to the event and the personality changes that would result. More than a prediction it showed that in the inner self things were all ready being prepared and the evolutionary problems to be dealt with were understood. Self knowledge is not what some are lookin' for. They tend to only see in terms of the external physical knowledge. They want stock market numbers, not insight into one's emotional-mental configurations with money.

All of this has to be purified. Acceptance of sight is a big obstacle for some, especially those who need external validation for their thoughts. If one were to express some of the insights to others they would dismiss them for their own agenda.

One the one hand there is those people working to mend the rift between science and spirituality. On the other hand there is Small Mental Gods that creep in and distort this endeavor. If all it all boils down to a matter of theoretical, or authoritative supremacy, a matter of broadening the mind of science so they use the scientific method to investigate more things, things that might have been considered taboo in earlier times then that is hardly an integration. If consciousness and the tools of consciousness such as the practice of pranayama need to be validated in order for them to be thought of as useful practices then you are still operating from the mental asura rather than from the realm of the spiritual Gnosis. Everything will have to be measured by science first, pass inspection, and this is the way it is now already. Instead of denying spirit, science can open the door to spirit so long as spirit passes the test. This will help science and our world immensely, but doesn't really represent any change. Even if it is part of the work towards integration. The problem not being in the science, like brain wave analysis in meditators, but in the propitiation of the mental gods.

The main thrust of practice is to be able to develop the flow of insight, rather than be dependent on the external. For instance at higher levels of development one can acquire the power to know medicinal plants. Meaning that you can encounter an illness in someone, meditate on that and know what to do. You will know the plant, where to find it, and how to use it. This is different from looking it up in a book, memorizing the properties of various herbs and the like. So one could make a big deal over the writing of words on water and then looking at the snowflakes formed, which I am skeptical about as presented in The Messages from Water by Masuro Emoto (freezing temperature determines the size of snowflakes, a warm day has bigger flakes that a very cold day.) Though as the art of blending science and spirituality, in the same way I like the verisimilitude of Michael Crichton (http://www.crichton-official.com/). It's most wondrous.

You can argue with a fundamentalist and listen to the word belief over and over again, and you can enjoy the same fighting argumentation by reading science. There are things understood, verifiable things even in medicine, but go to more than one doctor and you will get different answers. This is the mental realm of external knowledge. We live in it. We live it.

It is an ancient practice to say mantras over water and then ingest the water. The effect of consciousness on food is a big consideration also. People cooking while chanting mantras is a good thing. I notice differences when receiving prasad from a highly evolved person than eating something at a potluck. Here the knowledge comes from awareness and experience. That is what you want.

To come to know something through putting the will of concentration on it. To hold it in awareness until its nature is revealed has to come hand in hand with the reason for knowing.

At one point in my development I began to use off the body energy work. No one taught me this, and it wasn't something that was popular like it is now, such as with Reiki, or Quantum Touch. I could feel people's energy from doing lots of breathing exercises, chi kung, and internal martial arts, and would begin to balance them, working out blocks, etc. This was valuable for me for several reasons. One it showed me that Pranavidya was extremely important. Doing pranayama to open up energy pathways and increase the flow of energy. The second reason was that as I worked on people they would inevitably start talking about the emotional reason behind their illness. The illness was a symbolic expression of the problem. So this meant that the inner work, on emotional traumas, personality defects, dysfunctional ideas etc could be changed by non mental means. This I already knew, yoga, meditation will slowly transform you, or quickly if you cooperate. If the yoga that you are doing is really working and built upon that knowledge. Just doing poses, or working on your abs won't do it, or it may do it, but be limited in it's effect. Super precise alignments are not necessarily it either since it is a process that incorporates all levels of the being. You could do the exact pose, but the internal alignment, the mindset you are doing it with could be wrong. The aspiration is more effective, see below...

The third thing that became obvious was that improper practice led to imbalances. The most obvious one I could see was over-centering in Tai Chi. Or in Yoga over developing the will with a strong ego that reduces receptivity, often because of insecurity about right knowledge, corrected by an overly mental fixation on alignment details in an attempt to fill in the lack of security. This brings in the need to control and force the body. That attitude to force and control the body is then projected on the students. Knowledge is rajas.

Fourth was discovery that working on peoples' stuff meant that you could pick it up. If you concentrate on something imbalanced you take on the same flow. In the same way we can talk about mirror neurons your body will adapt to theirs. I have a friend who used to come into conversations and we would lose all the spiritual quality. You could feel this inert dropping of the energy to dullness. The friend was working as a blood tech at the VA taking care of severely mentally impaired patients. This meant one needs protection. I found a simple method of protection that is discussed below.

Fifth was the problem of lack of development. I found people that I could see the problem, and alleviate the symptoms, but not be very effective on in terms of healing, because the person needed to resolve the issue and was unwilling. I could see things and the reason. The message was loud and trying to get through. It was having to be loud and trying to come through me because the person didn't want to hear it.

Sixth was the feeling of receptivity. I could feel when I could really help someone and when they were resistant. This is a big time saver. If they are not receptive don't waste time. Why argue with a fundamentalist when it is not about rational thought, it is about emotion?

Now this is where it all sums up, at least for awhile.

Standing

2006-07-20T13:07:00.000-05:00

I found myself having to explain the standing exercises. These are common to most martial arts. For the external styles they are thought of as stance training. In some external styles such as Shaolin they can be more than that.

Internal styles vary from teacher to teacher quite a bit. The way I teach doesn't emphasis standing due to the quality of students that I tend to get. In perfect world people would be doing a lot of standing. The standing has strengthening, of the tendons, of the Yi, and of the internal and external energy. It also promotes chi circulation and trains in the basic shapes. External stance training may overlap, but for most it is conceived of only as strengthening.

Tendon strength is the ability to lock the joints and this can be thought of as leverage. I describe it as three circles. 1) Formed by the legs and hips, this is instrumental in good knee alignment, correct use of the inner thighs which connects the legs to the core strength, and allows for circulation through the legs of the chi, and opens the K1 points. Movement/energy through the feet, ankles and knees, can be harmonized and made precise by understanding/feeling through the shapes of the lower circle.

2) The shape of the spine, this circle is formed by the release of the tailbone, the sinking of the chest and correct alignment of the Mingmeng, the center, and ribcage. This is the most important circle.

3) This has to do with the shape of the arms, wrists, hands, shoulders, shoulder blades, head, and mid center at the heart. It is the easiest circle to see as the arms embrace for instance. There are many shapes. Big Circle such as Single Whip posture, or extended circle such as the opening move of lifting the arms in the 48 Form, or lead arm in Single Palm in the Ba Gua.

When the basic shape is grasped from a structural point of view it can be tested to see if the person can bear weight from any direction.

With this is the energetic alignment and when you have proper shape chi will flow. Easiest to feel at the hands and arms it should be moving through the whole body. The flow of energy is part of the concept of shape, which includes the basic idea of leverage, but also takes on the shape of the mind/emotions, as some postures are more projecting and some are more receptive. This is helpful combatively in understanding where the palm should face in various techniques.

I follow the intuitive method so that when one has a feel for the balance of the shape, and has practiced sensitivity drills one will be to naturally use, by feel in real time, the correct shape. Your intention will express itself with a flow of power through the body. I have students what when doing drills end up not using one arm, which takes out half the body from the alignment and they get stiff and tense. This is a matter of more practice, but the standing would make them feel more natural with a connected flow of movement than with a disconnected one. Some people do place to much emphasis on rooting to the point where they have no foot work. They tend to stay in one place and step slowly and rigidly. They use big steps and keep to big frames. I generally like to be quick and agile with my footwork in order to gain superior position. Very small steps alignment adjusting freely to slight changes in angle. The standing needs to be taught with exercises that keep things adroit.

The intention is important. The will to hold the pose will increase intention (Yi). This is important and critical part of the training. If one is weak in intention one can be disrupted emotionally. Fighting is very psychological, the posture of the body both reflects the inner state (body language) See RealFighting.com for some common sense about spotting someone who ready to fight, the elbows and chest for instance. This also works in reverse and the shape of the posture produces a state of mind. You can look at Erle Montigue's http://www.taijiworld.com/Articles/newarticles.html description of Sudden Violence that comes from stimulating the limbic part of the brain. This comes from proper alignment in the training. Having the will to hold the proper shape and putting your time in will increase the will, while still remaining relaxed. Having done low stance training in Shaolin, holding the horse stance for over an hour in regular training, I found the effects are very different.

The external energy builds up around the limbs and torso and provides you resistance to other people's energy. You would have to reach the level of personal development where you can feel the emotions of others as a flow of feeling. If you feel this then you can understand the condensing of the chi around you. Some would lump this in with the aura, which is true, but it a specific feeling we are looking for and not all auric phenomenon are related to goal of condensing the chi.

When we work on the Transportation Chi Kung we learn to move the energy from any part of the body to any other. At first this is felt as weight. Then as you advanced more energy is felt in the movement and eventually you have an internal flow of chi that you can differentiate and coordinate with the outer flow. This also greatly refines the internal motions for striking especially the joints of the wrist and elbow and the shoulder blades. These exercises will produce strong whip power and this blends into coordinating the strike with the chi.

The simple example is the raise the arms and body and then sink back down with arms and the slight bend of the knees. At first you can feel the weight sinking down, then you begin to also "float" or be light going upwards. With transport exercises this becomes a circle up and down and you begin to add so it is always a continuous movement internally and you add the opening and closing.

For me the Internal Arts are still useful in observing the mind/body/emotions and be able to use it as a way coordinating and purifying the lower consciousness. Anxiety, fear, anger, competition, all those lower vital negative states get to "moved out" of the body and the confidence, forceful, peaceful emotions are "moved in." It makes for some clarity when seeing other people use their lower vital emotions and the expressions that come out of it. For instance I can see, because I have lived through and beyond, the survival consciousness and the things people do to indulge in it. The roles that people take on, the personalities and identities that rooted in these emotions.

Shen (spirit) development is another key aspect of Chi Kung. The alignments of the body, proper balance of the energy needs to be brought out to use it for spiritual development. Much of that is beyond most students, because you have to have a sense of what spiritual development is before you can "see." Standing is a wonderful bridge between the body, the mind. Standing is a meditation practice, and works with the energy. It is a very powerful transformative experience when it can be engaged in within the proper framework. The intention with which is practiced is important. If you approach it as only a strengthening practice it will work to do many things but it won't be integrated and key experiences that occur from doing the practice will be overlooked and opportunities lost.

Four Bhaktas

2006-07-18T11:17:00.000-05:00

"...the Gita distinguishes between four kinds of bhaktas. There are
those who turn to him as a refuge from sorrow and suffering in
the world, arta. There are those who seek him as the giver of
good in the world, artharthı. There are those who come to him
in the desire for knowledge, jijnasu. And lastly there are those
who adore him with knowledge, jnanı. All are approved by the
Gita, but only on the last does it lay the seal of its complete
sanction. "

Essays on the Gita
Sri Aurobindo

Several ideas crop up. One that seems common is that India has more bhakti than the west, that there is in Indian cultural life more awareness of devotion. In the west we are more oriented towards the mental life. This idea or its variations is something I can identify with somewhat. Studying Bharatanatym, classical temple dance I encountered the idea of the Navarasa, the nine basic moods. These are used to define characters and each has a collection of supports...Bhava is mental state to be portrayed by the dancer. Sthayi Bhava is the 8 main states, one of which will be carried throughout the drama and all other emotions support of that theme. For instance Rati, love. Sattvika Bhava, 8 in number are controlled by a concentrated mind during the expressional part of the performance and reflect the state of the character, for instance crying. Vyabhicari Bhava is a temporary mental state that is a phase that supports the working out of the Sthayi Bhava, for instance in Rati there can be Vitarka which is doubt and insecurity. Picture the second guessing in the first stages of love before the couple is secure in their relationship. There are 33 of these supporting states.

This shows a very highly developed form of emotional intelligence and power to control and use the emotional faculty.

So for me I had to pass through various stages of mentally coming to know my emotional life. Partly this is learned by life experience and slowly coming to recognize emotional-mental interactions. Most political dialog is emotionally driven. See the Fox news network and ask what is the emotional appeal? Most ignorance serves to allow emotional indulgence. I have worked with many martial artists who were addicted to survival emotions, and it formed the core of their personality.

People generally are more or less developed in this regard. Some people have good languages for describing people and motivations and some do not. Some people know what the word compassion means, but don't really feel it. They are often not aware of the disconnect between the their ideas and the experience. There are also many people who lack the idea of developed feelings, for instance using music to control mood is the Ipod experience, but how many are aware that that is what they are doing? Many people live in a world that is subject to emotions, and at best seek to control/limit the emotions rather than creating them. The main thrust of basic spiritual practice is to remove the avoiding of our feelings. We act and distract ourselves from dealing with feelings. When we speak of purification in spiritual practice this is often one of the first results, the purification of pent emotions, or working through imbalances that cause strong emotions to well up, such as fear, anixiety, anger, laughter.

Out of this realization of this dimension then I can began move upward. But it isn't really a matter of bhakti is not a western thing, it is just that awareness and language of it isn't as well developed. This was the mistake in my thinking; that bhakti wasn't a western thing, confusing the outward forms. If we assume that bhakti, or devotion to the Divine is already there in potential and that has we grow spiritually it will begin to emerge and find expression then we can see it all around.

Mental knowledge can get in the way here. One thing that I find is that I know people who have the idea of Bhakti and will look at the four categories of Bhaktas and they won't relate it to personal experience and begin to see those four possibilities in themselves.

Arta, those who seek refuge from suffering. I have met many people who are involved in Church activities for this very reason. They see the church as their anchor because of loss of loved ones, personal battles with medical problems, etc. These are not people that I interact with much day to day. But talking to people who do hospice for instance... This type of Bhakti is often produced by life circumstances. The world view of these area as its own set of supporting emotions and ideas. I know many people who pray for others or donate some of their mantra practice to helping others, this is bhakti.

Artharthı, those who see the Divine as the giver of good. I definitely have lived this aspect, and I would include those who look to nature with a sense of beauty and a call to peacefulness and purity as in this area. Their bhakti may not be named as such but it is part of their expression. We may not think of sun and snow while cross country skiing as a religious practice, but it can be a connection to spirit. The lord will provide. Thank GOD!

Jijnasu, this is the person who comes seeking knowledge. Providence, one of the great lost words. I find it interesting to note the number of people who I have met who are still caught in the battle between the people who follow the mythology of Christ's resurrection, versus those who follow the teachings of Christ and the battles that gave us the idea that you can't know the mind of God. Some people are very insistent that you can't know why something happened etc. However I would state that many times it if you look clearly you can see intuitively what it was about and see the flow of things. Many people begin to differentiate between nature and spirit by recognizing those moments when people and events flow together. It is not the moments themselves, but the recognition of the flow... Seeking greater knowledge of the self and feeling the gratitude as things become clear is definitely part of bhakti. Using that knowledge to surrender and going deeper into the bliss...

Making a list of supporting emotional states that though temporary support the bhakti of the heart would have to include things like, calm, receptive, peaceful, gratitude, laughter, sincerity, compassion, etc...

Ideas Sinking In

2006-07-16T09:59:00.000-05:00

"...for here no metaphysical truth is brought into expression solely for its own sake. It seeks the highest truth for the highest practical utility, not for intellectual or even spiritual satisfaction, but as the truth that saves and opens to us the passage from our present mortal imperfection to immortal perfection. Therefore, after giving us in the first fourteen verses of this chapter a leading philosophical truth of which we stand in need, it hastens in the next sixteen verses to make an immediate application of it. It turns it into a first starting-point for the unification of works, knowledge and devotion, - for the preliminary synthesis of works and knowledge by themselves as already been accomplished."

Sri Aurobindo Essays on the Gita

for me the long sentence just recaptures in my mind the long train of events in my own life/progress of going through various realizations however dim and vague they started, that allowed me to climb through the first awakening to the spiritual current. Understanding and seeking purpose in the world, and seeking greater knowledge of ultimate reality, of my self, who I am in my nature and beyond, and finding out knowledge of the spiritual practices/disciplines, of metaphysical knowledge that would organize/integrate experiences and further give explanatory power and a framework that would guide the practice practically towards greater growth. And as in the quote above, seeing how Bhakti and devotion which naturally arises was actually the way onward.

To me this is a realization that is hard fought to see clearly and integrate into the ideas that I am actually acting upon.

I see several people in my life who have ideas of spiritual life and the idea that their practices will help them, but they don't practice but are caught in social life that keeps them too busy. I know this place well.

I appreciate Triyoga for being able to start with a base physical practice, and physical habits, getting on the mat are really useful for establishing time and space each day. You can start with the idea of a purely practical physical practice for health even. But then we come to integrating the breathing and taking out the overly talkative extremes of minutiae alignments, the yoga as the image/role of being powerful, the distraction of therapy knowledge or working on specific fitness that lacks knowledge of subtle body. Instead from the basic movement base one has to grown in awareness of the body from movement and entering into the quiet state in the midst of activity in order to get more and more refined. This is the flow and the breath the all important tool. All the while the nadis are being opened. Not only by the breath and movement, but also mudra, the hand gestures, the shapes of the postures, sealing and circulating the energy. Eventually meditation in motion is established, and begins to inspire and inform taking the place of the external alignments (though still useful, especially good verbiage) and laying the foundation for a deeper knowledge that comes from the Devi. This too goes further as the nadis develop, the emotions are cleared, the elements balanced and Bhakti will inexorably arise... or as we fathom the depths of being, we as would say, we delve into anandamaya kosha and experience and dwell in the bliss surrounding the soul.

Upward

2006-07-11T16:37:00.000-05:00

Intensity
Relaxation

Concentration