Q: How do I exhaust all my vasanas totally in this life before death, so that I will no longer transmigrate/reincarnate totally?
Even if you do not exhaust all your vasanas in this life, if you have been constant in your sadhana you can be freed from returning to earthly embodiment. Instead, you will go to a higher world (loka), and if you continue in sadhana there you will gradually ascend from level to level until you transcend relative existence altogether. You need only have the needed determination and persistence.
“Therefore be a yogi” (Bhagavad Gita 6:46).
I have heard that on the path of sadhana a sadhak reaches a stage where he experiences samadhi. Then it is very difficult for him to maintain himself in his body and so he leaves his body forever; he dies. Is this true? I’m a little afraid of this situation.
There are a lot of silly things said in the contemporary yoga world, and this is one of them.
Sadhana is the path to mastery, and those who attain genuine samadhi (not some pathological state produced by a false method learned from a false teacher) will easily maintain the body, only leaving it at the right time consciously and intentionally.
So keep up your sadhana diligently, remembering the motto Swami Trigunatita, a disciple of Sri Ramakrishna, hung on the wall of his ashram in San Francisco: Do Or Die. But You Won’t Die!
What is the meaning of the term “Mahakaal” as associated with Lord Shiva?
Mahakala literally means great or endless time. It can also mean cosmic time; undivided time; timelessness; and Shiva in his aspect of dissolver (not “destroyer”). Brahma creates, Vishnu maintains and Shiva dissolves the universe at the times of Pralaya. Shiva never destroys, he liberates. But those who cling to what he dissolves accuse him of being destructive. Sri Krishna himself says in the Gita: “I am mighty world-destroying Time” (11:32).
I have heard terms like “bliss beyond intoxication,” “supreme bliss” etc., with regards to meditation. What is this?
They are nonsense, basically: the propaganda of the yoga cults who peddle their guru and his “yoga” to their dupes.
There is, however ananda, the bliss of the individual atman, and paramananda, the bliss of the Paramatman. This we must seek.
Does a person really become very powerful if he has mastery over his senses?
If a strictly disciplined person masters the senses, he has power over them. If a yogi masters the senses then he is able to go beyond the senses into atmic consciousness which is beyond power or shakti. This second way is the way of the wise. Certainly power can be gained, but that is not the way to moksha, only to further egoic bondage.
More Questions and Answers:
- Who Is to Blame: the Deceiver or the Deceived?
- What Was Jesus’ Real Name?
- Reincarnation and Memory: Where Do Our Memories Go?