Light of the Spirit Blog

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…]

Watch Our New “Christ of India” Video Trailer

June 30, 2018 by Light of the Spirit Monastery

You have heard of video trailers for movies. Did you know that there are trailers for books?

We have created a video trailer for Abbot George’s book, The Christ of India: The Story of Original Christianity, which we have shared on Youtube, Vimeo, and Facebook.

The video is only 3 minutes long. We hope you will take a short moment and watch the video, and give the video a “thumbs-up” on Youtube, and share your thoughts in the Youtube comments. We hope you enjoy it.

(Watch it on Youtube here.)

You can get the book as paperback or ebook here at Amazon.com.

God as Infinite Light: The Mystical Experience

June 24, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

Infinite Light of God Q: Are these statements right: 1) Christianity expresses that God is not within His creation. He is out of His creation (materiality). 2) Contrary to the idea of Upanishads, in the Western there has been a tendency to assume that the phenomenal or transactional world possesses a reality of its own. Upanishads say that the world has no absolute reality; the world is relatively real. It is created by Brahman. So, its reality is dependent on Brahman.

These statements are correct in relation to contemporary exoteric dogmatic Christianity which developed after it became a state religion in the fourth century.

But…

Before that the followers of Jesus (Ishanath) believed exactly what the Indian rishis knew to be true, for he taught them what he had learned in India.

Even though official, political Christianity held these materialistic views as you describe them, whenever a Christian developed as a mystic, they saw things in the original manner of the Indian sages.

For example, Saint Bernard of Clairvaux in the eleventh century described seeing that the entire universe was a single beam of light, and that light was God. The author of Theologica Germanica in the fourteenth century wrote that the world around us is illusion if we believe it as we see it through the senses, but that it is the presence of God, one with God.

In the fourth century Saint Athanasius of Alexandria, Egypt, wrote that the world is an illusion, that only God is real. (He also wrote that evil did not exist, but was a twisting, a corruption, of good.)

The Infinite Light

Even until the Middle Ages, the only mystical experience considered legitimate in Europe was threefold:

the vision of infinite Light;
the knowing that the Light was God; and
the experience of being one with that Light-God.

So awakened Christians (who were persecuted and even murdered by Churchianity) saw just what the rishis saw, which is why our website was created: to show that original Christianity was the teachings of Sanatana Dharma which Jesus brought back from India.

Further Reading:

The Infinite Light of the Self—from a commentary on the Upanishads
Seek out the Way—from a commentary on Light on the Path
Saint Ambrose of Optina’a experinece of the Infinite Light, from a commentary on The Gospel of Thomas

The Dark Night of the Soul: What It Means and How to Deal With It

June 17, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

dark night of the soul-agony in the garden Q: Could you explain “the dark night of the soul” to me?

First I should tell you that it is a very simple thing. It is a stage in the evolution of a highly evolved human being when he is at a pivotal point in his development.

All that has gone before, although it was of value in earlier times, is to be recognized as limited and something to be laid aside in order to enter into a higher segment of the aspirant’s life. The character of the state of development he is to enter is vastly different from prior stages and is a tremendous leap forward. This is a very real watershed in his evolution and the rupture between past and present is drastic, even violent, and is a period of great pain, confusion and even despair.

The need to press forward, leaving the past behind

Because he does not realize the need or the nature of this utter cutting off of the past, which includes things to which he has dedicated himself as most sacred and which he cannot conceive being without, this process is nothing less than traumatic.

In fact he feels at least subliminally that he is moving toward death, which it is: a death of all that went before and a birth of things of which he cannot begin to conceive. No one reaches this point except through dedication to things of the spirit, and that means total loyalty to religion(s), to a path he has traversed through many lives, but all of a limitation and defect he does not perceive and which he would regard as blasphemy if someone spoke to him of it.

No consolation in the dark night

Therefore everything in his soul and heart goes dark and a state of utter deadness or numbness results which is worse to him than any torture he could conceive. It is as though the world and every thing and everyone in it is as dead as he feels, and therefore he has not a single thing to hold to for assurance, what to say of consolation. He feels nothing but emptiness and hopelessness.

Even God becomes nothing but an empty idea. Yet he does not stop believing in God, though he seems to have lost any relationship he thought he had with God. God is there, but does not respond to his reachings out toward him, so to him God is not there. It is as though there is no God, but he knows there is, and that can only mean that God has closed himself from him, turned away and become indifferent to him.

Since God is the only thing that is ultimately real, he has entered into a condition beyond death in its terrible void. And there is no change in that condition, just complete stagnation or stasis, abandonment to nothing.

Patience and Perseverance

He never stops yearning for it to end and for some form of divine communication to come.There is only one course open to him: remaining in that state, not seeking to leave it or change it. Just being in it. But he never stops yearning for it to end and for some form of divine communication to come. Jesus said: “By your patience possess your soul” (Luke 21:19).

He does not know it, but in his holding fast and refusing to let go of his desire for contact with God he is developing mastery of his spirit. His resolve is like that of Isaiah: “I will wait upon the Lord, that hideth his face, and I will look for him” (Isaiah 8:17). So this he does, though without hope. He hopes hopelessly. Yet there is nothing else for him to do, and he considers nothing else.

And finally…

And then it suddenly ends as an undreamed of dimension of life appears and opens before him and he enters it as in a dream, beginning to awaken into a reality that before he would have thought impossible, even a delusion.

He dares to think what before he would never have dared to think. He dares to learn and know what before he would have considered insanity and blasphemy. He becomes what previously he would have prayed to die rather than become.

He sees all his previous light to have been darkness and his beliefs about God to have been an indefensible joke. And that is just the beginning of “being transformed from glory to glory by the Spirit of the Lord” (II Corinthians 3:18).

The situation for the yogi

Though they may have minor ups and downs in the beginning, true yogis never go through the dark night because they have already gone through it, often in a previous birth, for yoga is the dawn after the dark night.

Divine Incarnation: Which is Your View of Avatars?

June 9, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

Q: Would you explain the incarnations of the Hindu faith and how we should reconcile Krishna and Jesus?

There are two views about divine incarnations in India.

The most common is the idea that God incarnates and lives in a physical body. Some say, however, that the incarnation is in a chinmaya body, a body formed of consciousness and not vibratory matter, that such an incarnation is just an appearance, and a play of consciousness. But since everything is a play of consciousness, that is not saying much. Whichever is believed, physical (anumaya) or chinmaya, this is the view of the scriptures known as Puranas.

The yoga/sankhya view of incarnation

The other view is that of the yogis, those who ascribe to the Yoga Philosophy or Yoga Darshan of Patanjali, which is itself based on the Sankhya Philosophy attributed to the sage Kapila. According to this view, if a person has evolved through all the levels of relative existence and attained the transcendental state of perfect liberation (moksha) and entered into total union with Brahman, the Supreme Consciousness, and elects to return to any of the levels of relative existence, including that of earth, to help others attain liberation, that person, when he incarnates, is an avatar, an incarnation of God.

As it was said of Jesus: “In him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). Since the individual spirit (atman) and the Supreme Spirit (Paramatman) are one in the avatar’s bodily vehicle, we can say that God is incarnate in that body. Such a being is truly an intermediary between God and humanity.

The body is the vehicle of the liberated being, a siddha, and the siddha is himself the vehicle of God. As the prophet said: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel, which is translated, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:23). When we speak with an avatar we are speaking with God who speaks back to us through the avatar–not like through a telephone or a medium, but through the illuminated consciousness of the avatar.

Supernatural births

Is a supernatural conception and birth a mark of an avatar? This is a question I have not come across in the Indian scriptures. However: Rama, Buddha, the Virgin Mary, Jesus, Ramakrishna and Anandamayi Ma were said to have such conceptions and to have absolutely painless births: they just appeared outside the mother’s body rather than being born in the usual manner. Further, they had full consciousness from the very moment of their birth.

Why would a supernatural conception be necessary? Perhaps because the kind of body for a liberated being to incarnate in needs to be of a higher order than that produced by human intercourse. When we realize that the body of an infant comes from the body of the mother, but its blood comes exclusively from the father, then the blood of an avatar would actually be a spiritual or divine manifestation. It might be speculated that this is why God could be called the Father of an avatar.

Naturally, there is no proof of these supernatural conceptions and births because essentially they were spiritual, not physical, events, though testimony exists from witnesses of both the conceptions and births.

Krishna and Jesus

There is no need for a reconciliation of the avatar of Krishna and Jesus unless someone believes that Jesus is unique in supernatural conception and birth. But that is a purely personal matter of opinion and “faith,” and what does that really affect in the universe? You cannot argue or even discuss these things intelligently with bigots.

But what about us?

But this thing we must come to know: Since we are all one with God, waves on the sea of Divine Being, in a sense we are all incarnations of God in actuality (not just in potential), and we have come into this world to liberate our consciousness into the realization and manifestation of that eternal reality.

As Krishna said to Arjuna: “Therefore be a yogi” (Bhagavad Gita 6:46).

Understanding the Process of Spiritual Evolution and Reincarnation

June 3, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

lotus opening to sun - spiritual evolution

Q: May I ask you a question regarding rebirth? Does it always follow the principle of evolution and if so how does that work?

The entire purpose of our entering into relative existence is for us to evolve to the point where our consciousness is so expanded that we can awaken into divine consciousness as perfect reflections of God and participate in his infinite consciousness. (This is considered at length in my book Robe of Light. [also available in print and as an ebook here])

This does not mean however, that we always progress from life to life. It is possible for us to regress when we have lived a life unwisely, even negatively. And with many people the progress is often negligible or not at all.

When a person dedicates himself to authentic religion much more progress is made, and when yoga enters the picture and is maintained steadily, then as Yogananda says, it is the beginning of the end.

Q: Will a lifetime of “spiritual” growth be evident in the next rebirth, a sort of mathematically correct cause and effect so that the character and circumstances of the next life will be more favorable?

This is definitely so.

“No one who does good goes to misfortune. Attaining the worlds of the meritorious, having dwelt there for countless years, he who has fallen from yoga is reborn in a happy and illustrious family. Or else he may be born into a family of wise yogis.

Truly, a birth such as that is more difficult to obtain in this world. There he regains the knowledge he acquired in his former incarnation, and strives from thence once more toward perfection. Truly, without his willing it his previous practice impels him on the yogic path.

He who just desires to know about yoga goes beyond the Vedas. By persevering effort and mastery, the totally purified yogi, perfected through many births, reaches the Supreme Goal” (Bhagavad Gita 6:40-45).

Q: Or can a rebirth possibly take place after a lifetime of “spiritual” growth to bestow the next lifetime with positive attributes to address a seemingly hard life of clearing negative karma accrued from previous existences?

This, too, is so. We judge a good or bad birth according to our egoic, pain-avoiding mind. We think a pleasant incarnation is good, when it may really be stagnation brought about by negative karma. It is the same with a painful incarnation. We may think it is unfortunate, but it may be, as you say, a clearing of much negative karma.

Q: So that although evolution is continuing, it’s outer expression is complex as it seeks to integrate the whole flow of reincarnation.

Indeed so. In fact, it is so complex that we can only understand a bit of the whole picture. Also, we romanticize karma, making it dramatic and therefore somehow even glamorous.

For example, if we get in a serious auto accident we might want to think it is reaction from some intense incident in a previous life, but it may just be because we were too stupid to pay attention to a garageman who told us that our tires were so worn they would give out or skid in wet weather.

A lot of karma is just a result of wrong judgment in this life–perhaps only a matter of minutes, days or weeks previously.

The final word on reincarnation is that of Padre Pio: “The only thing that matters is this: Are you seeking God now?”

Further Reading:

Esoteric Knowledge Hidden in the Eastern Orthodox Churches

May 26, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

To someone who wrote asking about some statements I had made regarding the secret esoteric beliefs of many in the Eastern Orthodox churches.

In the heart of the Eastern Church is a vast amount of esoteric knowledge that “must be kept secret” because of the “guardians of orthodoxy” that ruthlessly destroy anything that differs from the official theology.

At the funeral of Metropolitan Anastassy of the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia I heard a conversation between two subdeacons about psychic experiences that would have gotten them in deep trouble with the “guardians.”

The abbot of a monastery with roots in Mount Athos once said to me: “If the Greek Church knew what the fathers of the Holy Mountain really believe, they would send the army onto the Holy Mountain and take them all away.” That is why their beliefs such as the ultimate salvation of all beings and the divinity of the Virgin Mary are kept strictly quiet.

“Heresy” about the Name of Jesus

Saint John of Kronstadt in color If you are interested in the Name of Jesus “heresy,” Here are some quote from Saint John of Kronstadt in My Life in Christ:

“When you pronounce to yourself in your heart the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ, then in that Name you have the Lord’s whole being. It is His infinite mercy, His boundless wisdom, His inaccessible light, omnipotence, and immutability. Approach this all-creative, all-keeping, and all-ruling Name in your thoughts and heart with the fear of God, and with faith and love. This is why God’s commandment strictly forbids us to use God’s Name in vain, because His Name is Himself, an incomplex Being, represented and contained in one single word, although at the same time He is not contained or limited either by it or by anything that exists.”

“The Name of God is God Himself.… As the Lord is the most incomplex Being, the most incomplex Spirit, He is wholly contained in one word, in one thought, being at the same time wholly everywhere, in all creatures. This is why, if you only call upon the Name of the Lord, you call upon the Lord Himself, the Savior of those who believe, and you shall be saved.”

“Thus in the Name of Jesus Christ dwells Christ Himself, wholly, His Soul and Body, united to the Godhead.”

Support from the Holy Mountain of Athos

One of the most renowned and influential elders of the Holy Mountain considers that the higher states of hesychastic prayer are the same as the receiving of Holy Communion. And so do others of the hesychast tradition. They are often accused of that by other monks, but only by those that do not say the Jesus Prayer except superficially. Naturally I cannot name names.

I once spoke quite openly about these various matters to the librarian of a Coptic monastery in Egypt. He said to me: “I have not before heard these things you have said, but I believe every word.”

Heaven to a Coptic Abbot

One Pentecost in a Coptic monastery I was visiting the abbot gave a sermon in which he told the people quite openly that if they wanted to go to heaven after death they would be disappointed: that God had only one goal for man: total union with the Uncreated Light and assimilation (not dissolution) into the Godhead. And that was the real meaning of Pentecost.

If the “infallible” Ecumenical Councils (whoops! I mean the Holy Spirit!) had not propounded their errors as orthodoxy, then Orthodox Christians would not be afraid to speak out the truth.

Related Reading:

Monastic Life and the Way of the East

May 20, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

To someone who wrote about joining the monastery and receiving “monastic training.”

This I tell you very sincerely: monks are born, not made. The idea of “monastic training” gives me the horrors, for it is just brainwashing. The Roman Catholic Church specialized in it for centuries, calling it “formation,” another chilling word. A monk is not a performing animal to be taught tricks.

Here is the real way monastic life works in the true East. Someone visits a monastery and observes. If he feels at home and finds it natural, then he stays (unless there is a space problem), or leaves to settle his affairs and returns. He lives there and follows the routine. He alone can be doing interiorly what he should be doing, and he realizes that it is all in his hands.

Saint Silouan of Athos wrote that after just a few days at Saint Panteleimon’s Monastery. He discovered that he could go to hell just as easily in the monastery as back in Petersburg. No one can make a man be a monk, and only a fool tries to make him act like one, because if monastic life is not spontaneous for him, then living there is a mistake.

And now for something completely different…

I do not mean that a man does not discover that the monastic way is different from anything he has previously known, and that it requires an attitude and outlook completely different from that of “the world.”

I had to learn a goodly bit, but it was just practical, sensible nuts and bolts conduct appropriate to monastic life. (One time I made a suggestion to the abbot and another senior monk about something I thought would be a good idea in our routine, and they laughed so hard the monk had to hold on to a wall to keep from falling. In just three weeks or so I looked back on the incident and laughed myself.) But everything was always easy and freeing. I never was asked to think and feel contrary to the way I did think and feel. Nor was I told to pretend to think and feel differently.

I did have to learn things, but learning them was understanding them. There is never anything unreasonable in true monastic life. If so, then either the monastery is not right, or the man is not right. In either way, the road lies outside the door and should be taken.

Yogananda quote monastic life In a recording of Yogananda he says: “Master always said, ‘The door is always open. Whenever you want to go, go.’” No genuine monastery wants to make slaves, just as no true teacher does. In the thirteenth and fourteenth chapters of Autobiography of a Yogi, the incident of Yogananda’s abortive “running away to the Himalayas,” and Sri Yukteswar’s reaction is the way it should always be. In the same recording I heard him say: “The great masters who liberate do not want disciples.” This is the great secret.

When a person enters a monastery it should be with the idea of living there always, not learning the externals and then going away to make a yoga center or monastery to be a lotus for him to shine in as the jewel. (Through the years quite a few people obviously had that intention but we did not let them into the monastery even for a visit.)

A giver or a taker?

It is assumed that a man can ask: “What benefit can this monastery give me?” A sensible question. But it is a two-way street. The monastery brotherhood asks: “What benefit can this man give us?” A single wrong-headed and wrong-hearted man can disrupt the entire community externally and internally. I speak from firsthand experience.

One who didn’t belong

When I became a novice there was another novice in the monastery who thought he was clever, talented and a real personality kid. He made everyone miserable with his arrogance, his insistence on being above our discipline, and his outright cussedness. Yet in mercy the monks tolerated him, even when he went into the kitchen where another novice was working and began knocking him around with no provocation other than his discontent with himself. (I witnessed this.)

Finally he chose to leave on a major holy day, upsetting our routine and demanding things he “deserved” to take with him. No one was angry with him, but truly sad at seeing his disintegration. He left in the afternoon, and the resulting peace was astonishing to us all.

Of course he went to another monastery and made tremendous trouble there, even at one point threatening to sue that monastery. Our abbot in an act of colossal mercy asked him to return to us and try to straighten out. He did not, but went home and ended up a Zen priest whose main occupation was abusing all comers in the true psychotic Rinzai tradition. So he remained a misery to all around him for the rest of his days.

In the beginning our abbot had told him forcefully that he should not come to live in the monastery, that he would not find it tolerable, but since childhood he had gotten what he wanted so he came anyway and started his career of chaos. This is an unpleasant story, but I have seen what can result from the wrong person in the wrong place.

Here we get rid of his kind within one or two days, but we know in less than half an hour (more like ten minutes) which way the door is going to swing. It is our opinion that indulgence is neither kindness nor mercy.

9 Obstacles to Yoga Meditation You Need to Overcome

May 11, 2018 by Abbot George Burke (Swami Nirmalananda Giri)

obstacle signpost The following is an excerpt from Abbot George’s soon-to-be-published Commentary on the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali.

Yoga Sutra I:30. Disease [vyadhi], languor [styana], doubt [samshaya], carelessness [pramada], laziness [alasya], worldly-mindedness [avirati], delusion [bhranti-darshana], non-achievement of a stage [alabdhabhumikatva], instability [anavashtitatvani], these (nine) cause the distraction of the mind and they are the obstacles [to yoga].

These are too important to not look at closely. After the definition of each I will give I. K. Taimni’s comments from The Science of Yoga.

Vyadhi: Disease of the body.

“This is obviously a hindrance in the path of the Yogi because it draws the mind again and again to the physical body and makes it difficult to keep it directed inwards.”

Styana: Dullness; languor, debility; drooping state.

“Some people have an apparently healthy physical body but lack nerve power so that they always feel below par and disinclined to take up any work requiring prolonged exertion. This chronic fatigue is in many cases psychological in origin and due to the absence of any definite and dynamic purpose in life. In other cases it is due to some defect in the Pranamaya Kosha which results in an inadequate supply of vital force to the physical body.

“Whatever its cause it acts as an obstacle because it undermines all efforts to practice Sadhana.”

Samshaya: Doubt; suspicion.

“An unshakeable faith in the efficacy of Yoga and its methods is a sine qua non for its successful practice. Such faith is needed in achieving success in any line of endeavor but more so in this line because of the peculiar conditions under which the Yogi has to work. In the Divine adventure which he has undertaken the objective is unknown and there are no clearly defined standards by which he can judge and measure his progress.

“Doubts of various kinds are therefore liable to arise in his mind. Is there really any Reality to be realized or is he merely pursuing a mirage? Are the methods he is using really effective? Are those methods the right methods for him? Has he the capacity to go through all the obstacles and reach the goal?

“If he allows these doubts and moods to interfere with his Sadhana and relaxes his efforts, they acquire an increasing hold on his mind.”“These and other doubts of a similar nature are liable to assail his mind from time to time especially when he is passing through the periods of depression which come inevitably in the path of every aspirant. It is at these times that he needs Shraddha–unshakeable faith in his objective, in himself and in the methods which he has adopted. It may not be possible to avoid these periods of depression and doubt especially in the early stages but it is his behavior and reaction to them which show whether he has true faith or not.

“If he can ignore them even though he feels them, he comes out of the shade into the sunshine again and resumes his journey with renewed enthusiasm. If he allows these doubts and moods to interfere with his Sadhana and relaxes his efforts, they acquire an increasing hold on his mind until he is completely side-tracked and abandons the path altogether.”

Pramada: Carelessness; fault; guilt.

“This is another obstacle which besets the path of many aspirants for the Yogic life. It has the effect of relaxing the mind and thus undermines its concentration. Some people are careless by nature and when they come into the field of Yoga they bring their carelessness with them.

“No one should think of treading this path who has not conquered the habit of carelessness.”“Carelessness is a weakness which prevents a man from achieving eminence in any line of endeavor and condemns him to a mediocre life. But in the field of Yoga it is not only an obstacle but a great danger and the careless Yogi is like a child who is allowed to play with dynamite. He is bound to do himself serious injury sooner or later.

“No one should think of treading this path who has not conquered the habit of carelessness and learnt to pay careful attention not only to important things of life but also to those which are considered unimportant.”

Alasya: Laziness; idleness; apathy; sloth.

“This is another habit which results in a distracted condition of the mind. Although it results in the same kind of ineffectiveness in life as in the case of languor it is yet different. It is a bad mental habit acquired by continued yielding to the love of comfort and ease and tendency to avoid exertion. If we may say so, languor is a purely physical defect while laziness is generally a purely psychological condition.

“A restoration to health automatically cures the former but a prolonged discipline based on the execution of hard and difficult tasks is the only means of curing the latter.”

Avirati: Hankering after objects; non-dispassion; sensual indulgence; lack of control; non-restraint.

“The worldly man is so immersed in the interests pertaining to his outer life that he does not get time even to think about the real problems of life. And there are many people who pass through life without having ever given any serious thought to these problems.

“When a person takes to the path of Yoga as a result of the dawning of Viveka and of his becoming alive to the illusions of life the momentum of the past is still behind him and it is not so easy to shut out the interests of the worldly life suddenly and completely. These hankerings after the objects of the world still continue to trouble him and cause serious distraction in his mind.

“Of course, all depends upon the reality of the Viveka. If we really see the illusions which are inherent in the pursuit of worldly objects like wealth, honour, name etc. then we lose all attraction for them and naturally give up their pursuit.

“But if the Viveka is not real–is of the pseudo-variety–the result of mere ‘thinking’, then there is constant struggle between the desires which drag the mind outside and the will of the Yogi who tries to make the mind dive within. Thus, worldly-mindedness can be a serious cause of Vikshepa.”

Bhranti-darshana: Delusion; erroneous view.

“This means taking a thing for what it is not. It is due generally to lack of intelligence and discrimination. A Sadhaka may, for example, begin to see lights and hear sounds of various kinds during his early practices.

“This incapacity to assess our supernormal experiences at their proper worth is basically due to immaturity of soul.”“These things are very spurious and do not mean much and yet there are many Sadhakas who get excited about these trivial experiences and begin to think they have made great progress. Some think that they have reached high states of consciousness or are even foolish enough to think that they have seen God.

“This incapacity to assess our supernormal experiences at their proper worth is basically due to immaturity of soul and those who cannot distinguish between the essential and non-essential things in spiritual unfoldment find their progress blocked at a very early stage. They tend to get entangled in these spurious experiences of a psychic nature and are soon side-tracked.

“It is easy to see that the unhealthy excitement which accompanies such undesirable conditions of the mind will cause great distraction and prevent it from diving inwards.”

Alabdhabhumikatva: Non-achievement of a stage; inability to find a footing.

“The essential technique of Yoga consists, in the earlier stages, in establishing the mind firmly in the stages of Dharana, Dhyana and Samadhi, and after Samadhi has been attained, in pushing steadily, step by step, into the deeper levels of consciousness. In all these stages change from one state to another is involved and this is brought about by persistent effort of the will.

“Sometimes this passage is easy and comes after a reasonable amount of effort. At other times the Yogi seems to make no progress and a dead wall appears to be facing him. This failure to obtain a footing in the next stage can cause distraction and disturb the perfect equanimity of the mind unless the Yogi has developed inexhaustible patience and capacity for self-surrender.”

Anavashtitatvani: Unsteadiness; instability of mind; inability to find a footing; mental unsteadiness.

“Another kind of difficulty arises when the Yogi can get a foothold in the next stage but cannot retain it for long. The mind reverts to its previous stage and a considerable amount of effort has to be put forth in order to regain the foothold.

“Of course, in all such mental processes reversions of this nature are to a certain extent unavoidable. But it is one thing to lose one’s foothold in the next stage because only practice makes perfect and another thing to lose it because of the inherent fickleness of the mind.

“It is only when the instability is due to the inherent unsteadiness of the mind that Vikshepa can be said to be present and special treatment is called for.”

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