Practical Wisdom | 3/19 | Original Christianity and Original Yoga

How Karma Affects Our Thoughts and Actions

July 21, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

How Karma affects our lives Q: Would you address the interaction of karma and bad choices (for example, self defeating, free will choices in life possibly made from a poor sense of self esteem). If they do affect each other, how does one affect the other?

Simplistic statements are usually not very trustworthy, but I believe we can safely consider that our experiences within relative existence from beginning to end are a single thing: Karma. That is, karma is the seed from which the phenomena of our many lives result. Continued existence in relativity is the fruition of karma. That is why karma has to be ended to transcend relative existence and enter into perfect liberation (purna- or kaivalya- moksha).

Solomon expressed it this way: “That which is has already been, and what is to be has already been” (Ecclesiastes 3:15). What is the present is really an extension of the past, and the future is an extension of the present which then will be the past. It is all one in actuality.

As a consequence, when we make a decision it is made from either a clear or cloudy state of mind and that cloudy or clear condition is a result of past thought and action: Karma. And when that decision is carried out in the form of action that makes new karmic force. And so it goes on perpetually. Karma, too, “reincarnates” as further karma. All of relative existence is completely interrelated because even duality is unity.

Further Reading on Karma:

Anandamayi Ma’s Instructions on Diety Puja (Image Worship)

July 14, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

Mother Anandamayi on puja Q: Could you tell me the procedure to perform the standard Deity Puja as it is done in India?

I can tell you something much better than that. I will tell you how Ma Anandamayi told me to do puja.

During a conversation with Ma I asked her if the basic form of doing puja by making offerings with simple mantras was suitable for use in our ashram. To my surprise she told me that there was no need for mantras at all. She was very insistent about this.

She told me that she had long ago instructed the way puja should be done, but after a while all the Anandamayi ashrams (and the individual devotees, apparently) had abandoned that way and taken up the usual puja rituals. When I asked that she tell me the way she preferred worship to be done, she gave me these very simple but wonderful instructions:

Ma’s instruction on puja

Prepare the offerings and keep them to the side.
Take the first offering, place it before the deity and bow.
Close your eyes and imagine the deity present before you in a living form and visualize yourself offering the same thing to the deity. Your mental offering(s) can be as simple or elaborate as you like. Then bow again.
Put the offering to the side by the deity.
Place the next offering before the deity, bow, visualize yourself making the offering(s) in the same way, bow and and continue in the same manner with the other offerings.
After the final bow before the deity you are done.

The real puja, Ma said, is the mental puja, though material offerings are made. Otherwise, without the inner puja, it is not puja at all but just playing with dolls. She was very insistent about this.

[Read more…]

Tantra: The Extreme Dangers of the “Path of Power”

July 8, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

tantra text Q: You have written that Tantra is dangerous, having seen half a century of people harmed by it. Could you expand on this? Why is it dangerous? Which practices for example are dangerous? How was it harmful in your observation?

The “path of power” is always dangerous, whether yogic or occult/esoteric. Our nature is consciousness, not shakti, and obsession with and cultivation of shakti leads to delusion.

But the ego, being energy itself, naturally loves it because it will increase the ego and eclipse the Self whose realization puts an end to our involvement in prakriti and the various worlds formed of it. One former Christian (Franciscan) monk who had become deeply involved in a tantric/occult tradition told me: “I feel like I am dying inside.” And he was. There was no way to help him because he was deeply enmeshed in his self-disintegration. It pleased his ego.

The difference between Yoga and Tantra

Tantra is not Yoga, though of course it seems to be so since they appear to have elements in common. But they are opposites, for Tantra is involved with shakti and Yoga deals with consciousness (chaitanya) alone. For example, they both work with mantra and breath. But the mantras and the breath modes are completely different because they do not at all have the same purpose. They are two different paths and do not lead to the same result.

It is the nature of Tantra to alter the configurations of the subtle bodies and the mind rather than to resolve the awareness into Self-awareness. Oh, of course tantrics talk about realization, but it is only talk. Sincerity on their part in no way protects them from the harm they inflict on themselves ignorantly.

Tantric distortion

Just as there are drugs that so distort the mind that the addict is not even aware of the distortions until the drug wears off, so tantric practices do the same. I have met people who lived on the edge of mental collapse from the practices given them by a tantric guru. (Suicide is not unknown among such people.) [Read more…]

Demons and Dunces, Part 1: Why Spiritual People May Encounter Negativity

March 10, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

Negativity: Demons and Dunces Q: I have just finished reading two books about Christian ascetics whose major activities seemed to be “fighting the demons” and being frightened or tormented by evil spirits throughout their lives. Does this really happen to those who try to attain higher consciousness and know God? Even yogis?

Everything that happens to us externally is a matter of karma, the result of past life action. Everything that arises from within us is a manifestation of samskaras, habit patterns and impressions (including memories) from past lives. So everything in our life comes from, and in one sense is a continuation and reaction of/to, our past deeds and mental states.

Therefore the yogi must from the very first realize that whatever happens inwardly or outwardly is a result of his own previous deeds and thoughts. He must understand that his inner and outer life is a revealing of himself, hopefully leading to the revelation of his Self.

There is a Chinese proverb: “When mean-spirited people live behind a door, mean-spirited people come to that door.” The entire universe is a field of vibrating energy, and that energy is magnetic–it tends to gather around itself energies of like character. Our inner and outer experience is determined by our present vibration.

As Yogananda’s greatest disciple, Sister Gyanamata said: “Your own will always come to you. Indeed, you cannot have anything but your own.” This is a fundamental principle that is wise to keep in mind. It means that when something is said or done to us it is an echo of our own speech and action. We say and do it to ourselves. This is very bitter for the ego to face, but unless we do we will never understand anything about our life. It is all karma, and it is our karma.

Now we should consider what could bring about encounters with evil spirits.

Karma

The first cause of such encounters is karma. Those (including yogis) who created karma with evil spirits in past lives by intentionally contacting them in some manner, by practicing witchcraft or magic, or by having it done for them, certainly may encounter evil spirits, but can easily deal with the situation as I outline later.

Religion

A great deal of demonic attack by evil spirits is caused by the very nature of a person’s religion. For example, if much of their beliefs are false such as eternal hell and damnation (especially for others not part of their religion or sect), and they denounce beliefs that are true such as reincarnation, karma, evolution of consciousness and the ultimate salvation of all sentient beings, then they are vulnerable to such misfortune. [Read more…]

What Is True Spiritual Experience?

March 1, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

Spiritual Experience: Why Settle for Less?

Sentient beings–long before reaching the level of human birth and after–are immersed in a chain of never-ending experiences, many of them absolutely illusory with no basis of any kind.

Yoga philosophy goes further and says that all experiences are delusions. Some, such as hallucinations, have no objective reality at all, and other experiences may be based on some degree of actuality, but our misinterpretation of them turns them into delusions as well. “Maya” is not outside us, but an interior condition.

Wandering in illusion

The yogi’s fervent aspiration is to experience the Real, the Truly Existent (Sat) which we call Brahman, the Paramatman. So immediately he is confronted with the crucial question: What is true spiritual experience? This must be answered lest he wander for future lifetimes through delusional experiences he mistakes for realities.

Since yoga deals with the mind–the major source of illusory experience–the yogi is very susceptible to mistaking the unreal for the real, just as he was before becoming a yogi! The masters of yoga have given us clear information as to the nature of real spiritual experience.

Real Spiritual Experience: Pure Consciousness

When Gorakhnath asked Matsyendranath: “What is the abode of knowledge [jnana]?” the Master replied: Consciousness [chetana] is the abode of knowledge” (Gorakh Bodha 21, 22). Shankara defines correct meditation as “meditation established in the perception of the nature of Spirit alone, pure Consciousness itself.”

Yoga Sutra 3:55 tells us: “Liberation is attained when the mind is the same as the spirit in purity.” That is, when through meditation we are permanently filled with nothing but the awareness of pure consciousness, liberation is attained. “That is the liberation of the spirit when the spirit stands alone in its true nature as pure light. So it is.” This is the conclusion of Vyasa.

Pure consciousness alone prevails. True spiritual experience, then, is the experience of pure, unalloyed consciousness that is the nature of spirit and Spirit, of the individual and the cosmic Self. [Read more…]

All You Need to Know About the Chakras (Not Just Seven, Either!)

February 25, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

seven chakras illustration Just as the outer universe is a complex of many interrelated points such as suns and planets, in the same way the material and subtle bodies of the yogi–which reflect and react on one another–are a network of life energy points known as chakras.

Chakras are points in the bodies into which the universal life force (vishwaprana) flows. Without that constant inflow the bodies would become dormant and disintegrate–would die. The chakras are both entrances and exits for the cosmic life power as well as reservoirs of that power and points of intelligent direction of the power.

There are many subsidiary satellites of the chakras called adharas. Adharas are reservoirs of pranic energies, storage units for the energies that flow into the subtle bodies through the chakras, and therefore can be (and often are) mistaken for a chakra.

Seven Chakras and Two More

The Nath Yogi tradition teaches that there are nine major chakras:

The Muladhara, located at the base of the spine
The Swadhishthana, located in the spine a little less than midway between the base of the spine and the area opposite the navel.
The Manipura, located in the spine at the point opposite the navel.
The Anahata, located in the spine opposite the midpoint of the sternum bone.
The Vishuddha chakra, located in the spine opposite the hollow of the throat.
The Talu chakra, located at the root of the palate (opposite the tip of the nose).
The Ajna chakra, located at the point between the eyebrows–the “third eye.”
The Nirvana chakra, located in the midst of the brain: opposite the middle of the forehead, directly beneath the crown of the head.
The Brahmarandhra chakra, located at the crown of the head.