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ARTArticleThe Role, Nature and Action of the Physical MindIf we reflect on the amount of time and focus we give to organizing and living our exte
al physical lives, dealing with food, shelter, clothing, comforts of various sorts, entertainment, travel, family and friends, it becomes clear that a considerable part, indeed the greatest part, of our time and attention is spent on addressing the outer life.ARTArticleThe Seeds of Thought, Emotion, Feeling, Action and Reaction Reside in the Subconscient Level of ConsciousnessThe yogic trance state called ‘samadhi’ has several levels, including one that is known as ‘with seed’ and one ‘without seed’. The difference essentially is that the level ‘with seed’ means that it still retains the capacity to be broken by the intrusion of exte
al stimuli and internal reaction or awakening of suppressed items in the consciousness.ARTArticleThe Self — the Atman and Individual LiberationOne of the primary objectives of traditional paths of yoga has been the liberation from the bondage of the world of illusion, the phantasmagoria of the creation and the individual’s fixation on success and failure, gain and loss, pleasure and pain, happiness and despair that occurs as a result of the ego-personality’s attachment to these transitory results.ARTArticleThe Separation of Purusha and Prakriti as a Powerful Tool for Shifting the Standpoint Out of the Ego-Personality and into the Divine StandpointAs long as we remain rooted in the ego-consciousness, we identify ourselves with the mind, life and body and their needs, demands, and habitual ways of responding to the challenges of existence. Within this framework, we are trapped by the definitions and boundaries that circumscribe our awareness. There is literally no way out as long as we stay within this limited perspective and we thus face struggles and suffering.ARTArticleThe Silence of the MindWe are so used to the constant internal dialogue that we have no conception of what it means to have ‘silence of the mind’. We strive to fill up any silence with sound, whether through conversation, consumption of media, music or even treating television or radio as ‘background noise’ for our daily lives. We fear silence in our interpersonal relationships and work to ‘make conversation.’ While we are waiting on the telephone, we hear music. When we ride in an elevator we hear music. Sound is constantly blasting at us wherever we go. Just the idea of silence is terrifying to most people.ARTArticleThe Soul’s Journey Through Life, Death and RebirthOne level of the deep ignorance within which we live and act is our bondage to the specific individual life, personality and situation that we inhabit. We are generally unaware of anything prior to our birth or which occurs after our death. Some even take the view that there is no “meaning” and that birth and death are simply beginning and ending points of a meaningless existence. If that were true, however, we would be left with the question of how and why this enormous mechanism of the universal creation exists and why we need to experience, learn and grow at all.ARTArticleThe Source and Cause of IllnessWestern medical science holds that illness has several potential causes. Failing to digest food properly is one such cause. Stress on the body and its organ systems is another. A third is failure to obtain proper nutrition or fluids. Aging is considered a contributing factor in the breakdown of the bodily systems and reduction of the ability to withstand stress and exte
al attack.ARTArticleThe Source and Nature of the Thoughts an Individual ReceivesIf we ask almost anyone where thoughts come from, they will say that they are produced in the brain. The brain is some kind of thought-factory. They don’t know how. They don’t know why. They don’t know what causes certain thoughts to develop. They recognise that sense perceptions influence the thoughts; in other words, that the vibrations that we receive from outside our individuality through our senses provoke some process in the brain and this leads to the creation of various forms of thought.ARTArticleThe Source and Origin of Desire and the Mechanism of Its Action in the BeingAn individual experiences a craving, an urge, a desire and automatically tries to fulfill it through some action. If it is hunger or thirst, the individual wants to eat or drink. If it is a more complex desire, something that cannot simply be accomplished, the mind is brought into the picture to determine a way to succeed in that desire’s accomplishment. We rarely reflect on where and how these desires arise, and what the mechanism is that makes them conscious within us, at least to the extent of pushing us into action.ARTArticleThe Source and Significance of VisionsSeeking visions has been a part of what has been called a “spiritual journey” by countless individuals around the world throughout history and in all religious and spiritual traditions. The “vision quest” is a well known and accepted activity among seekers. Christian mystics, for instance, chose to go out to the desert or into a monastic order to focus on their religious life and seek for a vision. Native Americans would go out to a sacred spot for a vision, to discover one’s totem animal and path forward.ARTArticleThe Sources of Disturbance and the Process of DetachmentWe tend to internalize and “own” our weaknesses or internal struggles. This is the ego-consciousness at work. We also fail to recognise that there are multiple different sources of pressures on us, some of which are ingrained habits we have accepted into our surface being, others are seeds we have dormant in our subconscient levels, and yet still others are pressures from the exte
al environment that attempt to gain entry and acceptance within our being.ARTArticleThe Static and Dynamic Aspects of the Higher Spiritual SelfWhen the seeker initially passes the limits imposed by the body-life-mind complex and the ego personality, the experience can be one that is totally disorienting, raising fear and a shrinking back within the limits of the outer being. This is the experience of the boundary where the ego must lose its definition as the consciousness ascends into a wideness and power far beyond that of the individual personality.ARTArticleThe Sublimation and Transformation of the Sexual EnergyWestern psychology has been fixated on the idea of sexual energy being at the root of all creativity. Beginning with Freud they have discussed the sublimation of sexual energy into creative pathways of art, and intellectual effort. The sexual energy stems from the root chakra and provides a powerful and basic force however it gets applied. Sublimation, if we examine the concept carefully, represents the shutting down or constricting of the expression of this energy in its original native form at the base of the being as direct sexual expression.ARTArticleThe Sunlit Path of Yogic PracticeThe integral yoga works to shift the standpoint from the ego to the divine consciousness. As that is accomplished, the focus on the ego-personality and its suffering and difficulties and the feelings it is experiencing are reduced or entirely removed. The being is absorbed in the divine standpoint, and sees all activities as part of that consecrated expression of its aspiration, its devotion, and its fulfilled surrender to the divine Will.ARTArticleThe Supermind and the Transformation of the Physical BodyWith the advent of the supramental evolutionary principle in the physical world, certain expectations arise as to the physical body and its capacities. Supramental consciousness, infused into the very cells of the body, clearly would make the body more adaptable, more powerful and more able to withstand the causes of illness, decomposition and death; in other words, one could expect enhanced health and longevity to result. This prospect obviously captures the imagination of seekers and practitioners.ARTArticleThe Supramental Evolutionary Development Engages With, Rather Than Renounces, Life in the WorldMuch of the history of spirituality in the world is focused on achieving an inner, or subjective, realisation, and avoids addressing the outer life to any great degree. Most paths try to simplify the outer life. The intention is to avoid distractions that can take one away from the immense effort needed to achieve spiritual realisation or liberation.ARTArticleThe Supramental Force and the Quest for the Conquest of Disease, Decay and DeathIn his book Autobiography of a Yogi, Paramahansa Yogananda describes the ability of various yoga practitioners to extend the capacities of the body far beyond what we consider to be normal, including prolonging the life span dramatically. One example he described was of Babaji, a yogi who reported lived and acted in the world for hundreds of years. This example was not an isolated case, as other yogis have been reported to extend life span or cure disease. Sri Aurobindo related a tale about his brother who at one point was desperately ill.ARTArticleThe Surface Personality Is Not the Real Self of Our ExistenceDevelopment in our world of existence takes place in a sequential manner, systematically developing the physical framework, the body, and then manifesting the vital, life-force and developing its powers, adding in thereafter the mental layer and subsequently, we see the signs that further stages of evolutionary development follow after the framework is in place. This implies, however, that these further stages, the spiritual consciousness, the supramental powers, are inherent aspects in the growth and development of consciousness in the world.ARTArticleThe Test of Yogic EqualityThe setting of Sri Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, symbolizing the ‘battle of life’ is an essential message to all who seek to progress in their spiritual growth and development.ARTArticleThe Third Step in the Mental Discipline: Control of ThoughtsThe inner control of thoughts is a further development once the poise of the witness consciousness has been attained. As the seeker observes the thoughts, he can also determine their effect in the being, and see if they lead to uplifting, widening, and harmonizing results, or whether they shrink the being back down into the ego-consciousness with all of its turmoil, disruptions and limitations. For the yogic practitioner the issue is not one of an artificial exte
al moral or ethical code, but rather, the consciousness-impact of the thoughts that are permitted to act within the being.ARTArticleThe Three Gunas and Spiritual PracticeSpiritual aspirants, just as all others in the world, are impacted by the play of the three Gunas the qualities of Nature. These qualities are always in movement, constantly combining, jostling one another, becoming predominant, and then being suppressed as the next movement arises. We can see this play in the spiritual sadhana quite clearly. When there are constant spiritual experiences and a feeling of progress, the vital being in the seeker has enthusiasm, energy and joy. We see here a predominant strain of rajas, tempered by sattwa.ARTArticleThe Transformation of the Mindit is typical of the mental intelligence to believe that reading and remembering something implies that we have realised the truth of what we have read. Those who have taken the time to reflect on this make it clear that ‘reading a book about swimming’ does not mean one knows how to swim!ARTArticleThe Transformation of the Sex Centre and Its EnergyFor the practitioner of the integral Yoga, energy is utilized to redirect and shift the standpoint away from the ego-personality into the divine standpoint, and then to effectuate actions to carry out the divine manifestation in the world. Energy dedicated to the enhancement or satisfactions of the ego-personality is therefore ‘wasted’ for this purpose, although it may be, for those not actively engaged in the yoga, a positive effort and activity that they carry out.ARTArticleThe Transition to the Soul’s Guidance of Mind, Life and BodyWith the development of the mental being in evolution, we can observe the central leadership role that the mind plays in dealing with the vital and physical levels of our existence. The mental being, however, is limited by its strict framework and sequential process, and thus, is something like ‘the blind leading the blind’ in terms of its ability to truly comprehend the nature of existence and how to address the complexity of the universal manifestation.ARTArticleThe Trouble Based on the Nature of the Vital That Needs to be OvercomeIt is a universal human experience that the vital force in the being is either extremely reactive to situations, particularly when it has a desire or craving to fulfill, or, if not given its desire, it can sulk or withdraw its energy and the being goes into a state of torpor or indolence, unwilling or unable to do anything productive, and in most cases, wasting time with distractions and various forms of mindless activity or entertainment.ARTArticleThe True Nature of RestFor most people, rest is a state of lowered consciousness in which we recuperate from the fatigue generated through our various activities. If we reflect on how we respond to fatigue, we find that we have different modes depending on whether it is mental fatigue, vital exhaustion or physical tiredness. The usual responses for mental fatigue include distraction of the mind through various light activities, such as game-playing, watching television, or reading light literature, such as mysteries, romance novels, or other ‘page-tu
er’ fare, etc.ARTArticleThe Two Most Important Actions for Practice of the Integral YogaThe integral Yoga does not depend, as many yogic paths do, on physical asanas or breathing techniques, nor on chanting of mantras, nor singing and dancing in ecstatic states of trance, nor deep philosophical inquiry or strict mental techniques. Nor does it depend on austerity or any kind of physical acts of penance such as flagellation or intense fasting. Religious rituals also are not a primary mechanism in the integral Yoga.ARTArticleThe Vital Envelope, the Aura, and Its Protection of the Physical BodyPeople speak about an aura surrounding the physical body. Because many people cannot physically see the aura, they remain skeptical about its existence. This however is not a proof of its non-existence. Occultists and those who have developed subtle sense perception have described the aura around the body over the course of thousands of years.ARTArticleThe Vital Is Attached to SufferingWe frequently hear people saying that this world is a world of opposites and one cannot have joy without sorrow, pleasure without pain. This is accepted basically as an axiom for living in the world. And it is true, that for virtually everyone there is a mixture of positive and negative vital experiences, pleasure and pain, and they always seem to contain the seed of the opposite within the depth of one or the other.ARTArticleThe Vital Nature and Its Role in Ordinary Life and Spiritual LifeIn the ordinary life in the world, the action of vital desire, and the attempt to fulfill the desires is accepted to such a degree that it is not even consciously noted or treated as anything other than ‘human nature’. Society sets certain customary restraints or limits in order to build a civil framework for interaction of people, and it is only when someone goes outside these limits that the action of desire in an extreme form is noted and condemned.