They say one can reach God on four paths: Knowledge (jnana), action (karma), devotion (bhakthi) and meditation/channeling our life energies (kriya). Quite frankly, up to recently, this meant very little to me. I started out thinking that knowledge might be my path, but you cannot help concluding that God is beyond thoughts, so the intellect seemed of little use. Action is often led astray by the ego. Bhakthi is easier said that than done. God has to be held above everything in this world. OK, but what if you do not feel that way. Lastly, meditation just never worked for me. Most spiritual fellow travelers just asked me in amazement, what do you mean it does not work? I just did not work because my thoughts were always in the way. A lost cause one might conclude.
Recently it struck me that the Fantastic Four are actually surprisingly intertwined. As you progress along one, all other avenues suddenly appear as well. Karma and knowledge are two faces of the same coin. If you manage to overcome your ego in your work, suddenly amazing insights about yourself, others and the spiritual path become available to you. It is possible to work selflessly, it requires attention and concentration, but it can be done. By the way, an easy trick is creativity. When you are creative you focus on your project, your baby, the ego is naturally pushed into the background. As your awareness about yourself and others rises you will feel things on a much deeper level - your emotional dimension opens up - the requirement for Bhakthi. Meditation becomes easier as well. By living a more selfless life and gaining spiritual insights along the way your mind becomes less cluttered. Lastly, at least in my case, this period coincided with a resurgence of life energies. It was as if suddenly new pipes opened up in my body.
Will this path lead me to liberation? I do not know, but I was encouraged when I read this story in Sadhguru's Mystic Musings: One day, one Jnana Yogi, one Bhakthi Yogi, one Karma Yogi and one Kriya Yogi were walking together. Usually these four people can never be together, because a thinking person has complete disdain for everybody else. A bhakthi yogi, full of emotion and love, thinks that jnana, karma and kriya yoga is just a waste of time. Just love God and it will happen. The karma yogi thinks that everybody else is just lazy. One must work and work and work. The kriya yogi just laughs at everything. The whole existence is energy. If you don't channel your energies nothing is going to happen. Then it started to rain and they all ran looking for shelter, they found an ancient temple. As the storm grew more and more furious they all moved closer to each other inside the temple. Suddenly they felt a huge presence. Lord Shiva Himself was there. They all cried out together, why now, we have pursued you for years and nothing happened. Lord Shiva replied, at last the four of you got together. I have been waiting for this for a long time.
Showing posts with label self-discovery. Show all posts
Showing posts with label self-discovery. Show all posts
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Sunday, January 27, 2008
Vasana
vasana: tendency or desire
Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, you will probably agree that people tend to be endowed with very different character traits, likes and dislikes. If you have children you will observe that from early days they come attached with completely different personality traits. I admit, it's kind of obvious, but for me this idea that we all have to live with our individual vasana has hit me only recently. We have to develop these vasanas and live them out in most cases, and have to suppress them in some cases, just as we choose.
I started thinking about this theme when I read Neale Walsch's Conversations with God. In it, God explained the process of spiritual self-discovery with the colors of the rainbow. As the intersection of the basic colors give you the color white, you have to literally live through and express all rainbow colors, i.e. everything God is not, in order to discover Him. Just imagine what this implies, you pretty much have to throw all moral standards out of the window. You just don't know what is wrong or right; what you have to ask is whether a particular action is useful for your development or not. Obviously, only your own soul can provide you with this answer.
Consider 3 historic figures, Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Hitler. Only Alexander succeeded with his mission in life to conquer the world. At the end of his short life he had accomplished and seen everything. The world as was known then was pretty much his. I am sure that at the end of his life he was just fed up with the whole conquering business. Napoleon on the other hand tortured himself for the rest of his life in exile. Allegedly his last two words when he died were France ... Grand Army. How sad! Quite frankly, I don't even want to know what went on in Hitler's brain in the hours before he shot himself in the dark bunker. Alexander was done with his rainbow color, Napoleon & Hitler weren't.
Take another example, sex. I re-read Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer for this blog and was surprised to see how boring these sexual episodes were. Already at the age of 40, he apparently was bored to tears with sex. I am pretty sure when he died at the age of 90, he had other things on his mind than sex. This rainbow color was done as well.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you what this all means for you personally. If you conquer the world, sexually exploit others, or aggressively climb the ranks of a corporation you may satisfy your vasana, but you also create bad karma which you have to deal with eventually. Still, if your longing is planted deep in your soul you might not have another choice. Just get it done with once and for all. Go all the way in whatever you do Sadhguru says (Mystic's Musings). Don't judge others and search your soul for your mission in life.
Whether you believe in reincarnation or not, you will probably agree that people tend to be endowed with very different character traits, likes and dislikes. If you have children you will observe that from early days they come attached with completely different personality traits. I admit, it's kind of obvious, but for me this idea that we all have to live with our individual vasana has hit me only recently. We have to develop these vasanas and live them out in most cases, and have to suppress them in some cases, just as we choose.
I started thinking about this theme when I read Neale Walsch's Conversations with God. In it, God explained the process of spiritual self-discovery with the colors of the rainbow. As the intersection of the basic colors give you the color white, you have to literally live through and express all rainbow colors, i.e. everything God is not, in order to discover Him. Just imagine what this implies, you pretty much have to throw all moral standards out of the window. You just don't know what is wrong or right; what you have to ask is whether a particular action is useful for your development or not. Obviously, only your own soul can provide you with this answer.
Consider 3 historic figures, Alexander the Great, Napoleon and Hitler. Only Alexander succeeded with his mission in life to conquer the world. At the end of his short life he had accomplished and seen everything. The world as was known then was pretty much his. I am sure that at the end of his life he was just fed up with the whole conquering business. Napoleon on the other hand tortured himself for the rest of his life in exile. Allegedly his last two words when he died were France ... Grand Army. How sad! Quite frankly, I don't even want to know what went on in Hitler's brain in the hours before he shot himself in the dark bunker. Alexander was done with his rainbow color, Napoleon & Hitler weren't.
Take another example, sex. I re-read Henry Miller's Tropic of Cancer for this blog and was surprised to see how boring these sexual episodes were. Already at the age of 40, he apparently was bored to tears with sex. I am pretty sure when he died at the age of 90, he had other things on his mind than sex. This rainbow color was done as well.
Unfortunately, I can't tell you what this all means for you personally. If you conquer the world, sexually exploit others, or aggressively climb the ranks of a corporation you may satisfy your vasana, but you also create bad karma which you have to deal with eventually. Still, if your longing is planted deep in your soul you might not have another choice. Just get it done with once and for all. Go all the way in whatever you do Sadhguru says (Mystic's Musings). Don't judge others and search your soul for your mission in life.
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