Points of Interest

By now it’s well documented that many Eastern traditions have known things which the Western is only just now beginning to recognize. Certain examples might include the nature of matter and energy, the shape and structure of the universe and space, and certain features and functions and compositions of the human being. Likely falling under the last of the list I just made would be the images shown below. I don’t rightly know if I’m “allowed” to share these images and diagrams with the world via our wide web, because in every path there are many things (often of an esoteric value) which paths don’t typically let anyone and everyone to see and which instead are reserved for the initiates.

However, whispers coming from The Hierarchy in the Brighter World have indicated that change is happening – at an unprecedented rate and in unprecedented ways. That alone, I think, is enough so-called “wiggle room” for me to be able to share the information below and not to be breaking any rule. But even if it isn’t, those who know me personally will know that I often live my the motto of it being better to ask forgiveness than to ask for permission. So… Imma do what I think I should, regardless of what’s technically allowed or not.

For those already walking the path of Sahaj Marg or Heartfulness, this content might be nothing new to you. Depending on what Sahaj Marg / Heartfulness books are in your home library, you may well have seen these diagrams already – and if you have, then you probably already have read the surrounding information which does a better job explaining foundational and peripheral knowledge related to these images. If that’s you, then you are a bit ahead of the game and these will make more sense to you.

For anyone very new to this path, or who maybe has a home library which doesn’t include the books detailing this information, this might be content you haven’t before seen. That’s fine. For you folks, you’ll want to keep in  mind that these diagrams are (to say the least) digest versions of deeper knowledge relating to our path. Take from these whatever you can, and don’t worry too much about anything you aren’t super clear on or places where you think you see holes in the information presented.

Regardless of whether or not these diagrams are new to you, feel free to leave your thoughts in a comment below or through contacting me privately. (If you haven’t commented here before, then your comment will require my approval – so leaving a first-time comment IS a way to contact me privately if you can find no other way. Just FYI.)

Aum Shri Mahaganeshaya Namaha | Aum Shanti

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Holy Rut

Image taken from Google Image search

I belong to a closed Facebook group that posts a lot of really interesting things that I might otherwise not see. I’m grateful for this and for the group, and a lot of the posts I’ve seen in it, but I feel like it’s also shown me something I suspect is terribly prevalent throughout humanity and am disappointed by – in fact, more than once I’ve considered leaving the group because of this thing (among others). This thing is our addiction to externality.

We love our rituals and religions. For those inclined toward suchery, a huge chunk of one’s identity can be placed into religious practices. For many, indeed most, this is a natural part of one’s development. There’s no harm in this. One, however, can become trapped in this and what eventually happens is that religion and its rituals stick around long after they’ve gone dead. To share a quote I placed on my Facebook page recently by Chariji, “In fact, all spiritual traditions speak of religion as the kindergarten through which we have to pass.”

Sri Parathasarathi Rajagopalachari, who comes from a Vaishnav family and is the third and current master of my Parampara / Sampradaya, has said a lot on this matter. He tells us that every religion in the world says the same thing, “Seek within,” but that we have mostly lost sight of this and that our rituals have instead become the aim. He also cautions us about becoming too religious saying, “Religion enforces an externalization of the mind in man’s search for God. Mysticism or spirituality internalizes the search and directs the mind to the heart of man where the search really should commence.” (These words and others are surprisingly “bhakt” considering the history of this lineage.) Beyond these words, he went on to say that he’s not suggesting religion is dead, but that it should instead evolve “like I evolve, you evolve, like my child evolves.”

While speaking to a friend about this, it was mentioned that there’s a time and place where religion and ritual are needed. I fully agree. Certainly, for each of us, there’s a time and place where we’re the most benefited from this. But I would assert that we still have to be on guard. People are often fools, after all. People are often asleep behind the wheel – as any study of the ego will reveal. And this is the Kali Yuga, a period of time when we’re most likely to become misguided. I personally have known and currently known a number of people who could be (and eventually will be) even “more” than they are because they refuse to budge in their growth. I think this is why I’ve ranted more than once about folks being lazy. We tend to find a rule book we like, and then get comfortable.

Sri Chariji Maharaj (Sri Parathasarathi Rajagopalachari) says where religion ends, spirituality begins, and where spirituality ends Reality begins. He goes on to say, “…and where Reality ends, then commences that stage of the ultimate existence which for the lack of better word he calls Bliss. Now it is clear from this that religion has to have a definite end in the pursuit of our goal.”

I don’t plan to cease adoration of my beloved Ganapati. In fact, here soon, I’ll be observing the monthly Sankashti which follows every full moon. Although I no longer am as steadfast as I once was, I’ll continue my japa sadhana. I’ll continue abstaining from meat and will still go to temple. These things, of course, are all religious observances for me (well, except for the vegetarianism) and although I don’t “need” most of them (hell, sometimes I don’t even want some of them), I’ll still enjoy them. My lesson here is that we can too easily end up identifying with and clinging to things that are meant eventually to be left behind. I fully believe that most humans linger behind in certain areas long after they should – long after they’re actually able to transcend. It’s like staying in kindergarten long after you have mastered your ABCs and 123s.

Aum Sri Mahaganeshaya Namaha
Aum Shanti

Dhrishti and the Divine Goose

I’m fond of being in the middle of reading about 9 books, and then purchasing 20 more for when I finish the first 9. I realize I have a problem. But I’ve also realized that bookcases are more handsome when they’re filled with books. Plus, I find myself with an ample supply ready for the sharing, should I encounter someone who needs or wants one of these gems. A recent purchase of mine, “Methods for Immortality, Death: Beginning or End?” has proven to be mostly yawn-provoking, but did center around a very simple meditation/mantra technique that virtually anyone can benefit from. I intend to share suchery presently.

The author of this book, Dr. John Mumford (aka Swami Anandakapila Saraswati) calls this meditation the “Gayatri Meditation,” or “Gayatri So Hum,” and insists (as may be implied by the book’s title) that its ultimate purpose is to help strengthen the meditator in such a way as to facilitate a very conscious end of one’s current human life, which he alternately refers to as death and transition. He admits that this technique is not the only way of dealing with the life/death intersection, but finds it to be a very valuable contribution and that many will find it suitable.

This Gayatri Technique is founded on the breath, about which Mumford says, “Breathing is, for the human, the most basic biological rhythm that consciousness can attach itself to, and this process of respiration goes on automatically, twenty-four hours a day, to the end of life.” Another word for death is expired, which seems to be connected to our word for breathing: respiration. When a person dies, he exhales (ex-spirates, as it were) and does not inhale (in-spirate) again. Since the beginning of human history, there has existed a perpetuated belief that the soul exits the body with the final breath. Romans actually attempted to catch the essence of the dying by inhaling his last breath.

Most people aren’t aware that one breath actually consists of four parts: Inhalation (caller puraka in yoga), retention/momentary pause (this phase is called kumbhaka), exhalation (called rechaka), and finally suspension/momentary pause (this time called sunyaka). For other 1,000 years Yoga has centered on either controlling or becoming aware of all four phases of a respiratory cycle as a means for transcending the physical body or experiencing altered states of consciousness.

Sometime around 1200 A.D., a yoga master named Goraksha authored a yoga text called Goraksha-Samhita, wherein he detailed observations that correlate with modern knowledge. He observed that a full respiratory cycle takes place every four seconds, or about fifteen times a minute. He then calculated that within one full rotation of the Earth we breathe automatically 21,600 times. Goraksha then noticed that the in-breath and out-breath make subtle subliminal sounds, which translate into a mantra, thus the name of this technique: Gayatri So Hum. Gayatri is attached to this because a Gayatri is a hymn or mantra that confers freedom from bondage, or liberation from the wheel or death and rebirth. This practice is alternately known as Ajapa Gayatra, on account of its mantra being voiceless. What Goraksha noticed, and what has been passed on through his lineage, is that the exhaled breath makes a subliminal sound “haa” and the inhaled breath makes the subliminal sound “saa.” This continuous unconscious mantric vibration, often written as “Hamsa,” or “Hansa,” beginning at birth and ceasing at death, has special qualities including piercing the veil between life and death. Although we’re starting with the in-breath (so/saa), when you string the two sounds (so/saa & hum/haa) together end-to-end, you end up with a “hansa” sound, the middle n being mostly nasal. “Hansa” is the divine goose (Anser Indicus), a beautiful white bird often eulogized in Hindu scripture as a symbol of the Soul and its ascent into heavenly places. The Gayatri So Hum is the Hansa, or divine bird, carrying us from beyond life and death into the center of the transcendental Self.

I’d like to point out here, briefly, that the goal of any Hindu is not to make it to Heaven. Heaven and Hell are seen to be temporary, at best. Each lasts only as long as an individual’s karmas warrant. The definition of salvation for Hindus is to step off of the wheel of Samsara -the wheel of death and rebirth.

The author sums up in four steps how to begin this Gayatri So Hum/Hansa Meditation technique.

1. Sit comfortably. Make sure all parts of the body are comfortable and supported, with the exception of the head. The head needs to be free so that you can notice if you nod off to sleep. Mumford says this isn’t a bad thing!
2. With your eyes closed, begin to consciously become aware of your breath. Do not interfere or try to control it, just watch it.
3. Proceed to synchronize your inhalation and exhalation with mental repetition of the Gayatri So Hum. Silently say “So” as your breath flows in, and similarly silently say “Hum” as your breath flows out.
4. Continue this for a minimum of 20-30 minutes. Anything less is useless.

Physical Signs and Symptoms of Successful Meditation

• Relaxed Wakefulness: Subjective contentment with warming of hands and feet, slowing of respiration, and lowering of blood pressure as well as raising of GSR (galvanic skin response) threshold.
• Dreaming: REM and sudden flaccidity of the neck muscles, producing head nodding.
• Deep Dreamless Sleep: Often accompanied by  snoring; it is possible to retain consciousness in this state -Yoga refers to it as Turiya.

In addition to the aforementioned four steps of this technique, one last factor comes into play.

1. Move the left ring finger toward the fleshy pad at the base of the thumb as the breath flows in, and move it away as the breath flows out.

Why the left hand? The left hand is used to ensure a “slight initial dominance,” or at least a direct contact, with the right hemisphere of the brain. The right hemisphere of the brain encourages holistic, nonverbal, spatial integrative experiences. Why the ring finger? When we focus on the ring finger, we tap into psychic and psychological inheritance that is both East and West. the ancient Egyptians believed a special cord or nerve ran from the ring finger directly to the heart, and many have attributed this to the custom of placing a wedding ring on the ring finger. Symbolically, the ring finger represents the Shiva Lingam and the wedding ring is the Yoni. since Roman times the ring finger has been identified as the healing finger or Digitus Medicus, and in contemporary India it is still the prefered finger for anointing the forehead with kumkum powder.

Mumford indicates that it may be useful for the student to utilize the Gnana Mudra, i.e. gently touching the tip of the left forefinger to the tip of the left thumb, forming a circle. This mudra carries profound significance and in itself signals the mind to prepare for meditation and accept absorption within universal consciousness. Mumford also says that as the meditation deepens, you may find that the movement of the left ring finger slackens or drops away entirely. This is acceptable. If you find yourself surfacing from the meditation prematurely, you can resort to the ring finger movements again. You’ll find this little addition taking up an amazing amount of slack and mental restlessness that people often experience.

… And there you have it. The Gayatri So Hum/Hansa pranayama (breath-centered) dhyan (meditation). It’s simple, but effective, and makes -if nothing else- a good foundation for additional meditation styles. If you try it, I want to hear about it.

Om Shanti

752

Life is about learning. No? From the lowest level of conscious life on this planet, learning is a must – and it’s a blessing. In life forms that are “below” the human level, consciousness of differing degrees is found. And, in many cases in direct proportion to the degree of consciousness, there are degrees of learning capability.

In virtually every sub-human existence, pain in some form is an absolutely necessary part of the learning process. 12-stepping addicts everywhere would agree that this is true in every instance, never mind sub-humans. Most of the animal kingdom operates on a majority instinct level, and learning happens as a matter of survival for the most part -either to avoid pain altogether, or to lessen current pain. When learning for survival provides an organism (or a population of organisms) enough of an “edge” in its existence, sometimes consciousness begins to expand. I have a feeling that this is a foundational element of nature’s evolution, and is also a huge part of why evolution is, typically and literally, painfully slow. In “A New Earth,” by Eckhart Tolle (a book everyone should read, at least once) this “blossoming” of consciousness was first evident in flowers. His words on this, which I think I recall coming early in the book, are very eloquent and powerful, and enlightening. (Through his own dedicated effort, Tolle is certainly a modern living Jnana Yogi. Believe it.) There are many sub-human forms of life on Earth that don’t learn ONLY in this way. Many mammals and some bird species (among an entire host of other life forms) are known to have “deeper” components to their lives. These components point to a level of consciousness much closer to that of humans, although these beings are still primarily governed by instictiveness.

Human life, on the other hand, has allowed its animalistic components to atrophy a bit in favor of a more developed consciousness. An unfortunate aspect of this trade is a simultaneous increase in ego, but that’s for another post. One of the biggest benefits of this swap, however, is the developed capacity for humans to learn without the aforementioned pain so often necessary for other animals. In truth, there are a number of animal species who have been discovered to have this capacity, too, but only in humans is this particular evolution of consciousness so well-developed and potentially (depending on the human individual) so finely tuned. Here, precisely, is where human consciousness has one of the greatest gifts. We can learn by the usual and common method of pain, but that mustn’t be the only way we learn. Indeed, we’re one of the only animals on the planet who are able to learn solely by observation, and we’re certainly the only organism on the planet to be able to learn so thoroughly in this way.

At this point, I’m recalling a common saying among my Nichiren Buddhist friends. I think it comes from the Daishonen’s sayings somewhere, but the idea is that through chanting we’re able to tap into “Myoho,”  and transmute our karmas into something more, thus elevating our life state. I’ve known these great and optimistic humanists to be fond of speaking about “turning poison into medicine.” To me, this points at even deeper component to the human existence. We’re not only in control of our learning, but we’re responsible for it.

As we find ourselves in the middle of the yearly holiday season, many of us would do well to take a look at our “poisons” and search how we might turn them into medicines for our betterment. A poison might be defined, superficially, as anything that seems to rob us of happiness. Anyone who’s followed my writing at all, might be aware of how deeply I adore my parents. For me personally, few things in my current existence are likely to be as painful (…potentially poisonous…) as the eventual death of either of my parents. Certainly, I anticipate very few things with as much dread and immense pre-emptive sorrow as either of these two events.

With this in mind, my heart and thoughts go out to anyone who’s lost a parent, and faced such (potential) poison. Sadly, I’m able to list a number of acquaintances who fall into this group, from this year alone. For this post, and for sake of a wonderful example, I’d like to mention someone who is perhaps surprisingly, and definitely increasingly dear to me. And that’s my mom’s brother’s wife, Wendy. What I know about Wendy tells me that she’s a truly great human. Without spilling everything about her, I can surely say that she loves her family and friends and is loyal to them. She works hard in her career, like so many others. She does her best to enjoy life. And she fights her battles as best she’s able and keeps moving, knowing she has to be strong for the next. One of these battles, recently, was the loss of her own mother.

 

Three days from now will be Wendy’s first Christmas holiday without her mother. Without a doubt this season will be a trying time for her. Certainly, Wendy has experienced ups and downs in her time managing her grief. You can find her story about the poison she faced here.

One thing I’ve noticed is that she’s consistently able to “turn poison into medicine.” She could easily be paralyzed by her loss. I know I would be. She didn’t have much time at all to prepare for the poison she was about to face. Instead, she continues moving forward. She still works. She still loves her family and friends. And she’s investing more of her time in pruning her internal landscape in very practical and hopefully effective ways, which will be the surest sign that the poison she’s experienced has been transmuted into very powerful medicine.

As humans, we don’t need pain to learn. Ideally, we’d be gifted with both the foresight and the time to prepare and learn on our own so that the Universe and our karmas don’t have to facilitate this learning for us. For those of us, like Wendy, who aren’t allotted ample time for preparing for what we don’t want to come, it’s my hope that we can at least enter into such unfortunate experiences with a fully human awareness and, like Wendy, with the capacity to take that experience and turn its poison into our medicine.

As this year and holiday season comes to a close, my prayer is that your awareness and mine will expand and cause our hearts to swell. Realize what an incredible boon you have, being born a human. What an immense opportunity has been awarded to you to assume the responsibility for your own growth. Face the poison in your life, and let the divine with you change it into medicine for your betterment and healing.

In the coming year, all the grace that is mine to give I gladly forward on to you.

Namaste

11062012/2

Today is Election Day in my country. My beloved had the entire morning’s activities planned out for us when the sun set days ago. You see, he intended for us to awake very early, be out the door only minutes later, and among the first in line at our local voting location. The fact that this week happens to also be the week during which he’s due into the office an hour earlier than usual made this particularly painful. However, much to his relief, I’m sure, everything went virtually exactly as planned. We were, indeed, among the first in line at our voting site and everything went really well except for the machines didn’t work at first. Apparently, the voting machines all over my county (Hamilton) were giving the operators some kind of error when they tried recalibrating them. I have to admit, after hearing about some Ohio machines being owned by Romney’s son, it wasn’t too comforting to know there was a “problem” with the machines in my own majority-conservative locale. After about twenty minutes, though, things were somehow ironed out and the voting began. Within seventy-five minutes’ time my vote was cast and my tired butt was headed to work.

After all of this, and because I wasn’t able to rest my eyes, I pulled my phone out and began seeing what Facebook might be looking like already. At that time, still rather early, there wasn’t much going on. By the time I’m writing this, it seems the rest of god and the US population has awakened and are posting. One of the earliest posts for today that I noticed was a call from Sister Unity Divine. Her post was a simple request that folks recite the Rudram today while the election is in process. Her post carried a photo of Shiva Nataraj before a background of the American flag.

 

 

I’ve heard of the Rudram before, but I’m mostly unfamiliar with it. Since I arrived at work so early, I decided to take the extra time before other arrived for a little sadhana, and meditated on all Shiva means, focusing on His aspect as the embodiment of pure consciousness. It makes perfect sense to perform Shiva pujas and do other sadhanas pertaining to Lord Shiva, like reciting the Sri Rudram Chamakam. In an attempt to access a little knowledge about the Rudram, I used my work computer to Bing the Rudram and, as would be expected, found a Wikipedia result high on the list.

(Allow me to offer a slight disclaimer on using a source like Wikipedia. Certainly, it should never be cited as credible in academic writing. Beyond that, however, it should be noted that Wikipedia has upped its security requirements in regard to who is able to post/amend their entries, hopefully meaning there’s less actual crap to be found. Also, whether one considers an entry on Wikipedia as credible or not, anyone serious about their inquiry would do well to scroll to the very bottom of the result’s page to view the “Notes,” “References,” and “External Links” sections. Even if the entry itself contains pure bologna, which is very possible, one can usually find valuable information –or sources to such –at the bottom.)

Here’s what I’ve learned about the Sri Rudram Chamakam on this Election Day.

1) Rudra is a name for a fierce manifestation Shiva dating back to Vedic times, and during that period was associated with storms, wind, and thunder. A translation of Rudra is “The Roarer.”

2) The Sri Rudra, as a text, is a hymn pulled from the Yajurveda.

3) The Sri Rudram is an early example of sahasranama.

4) Although Shiva is viewed as the Supreme Godhead by Shaivites, Shiva is understood to be a non-sectarian aspect of Brahman who manifests in “myriad forms for the sake of diverse spiritual aspirants.”

5) Within the Sri Rudram, one can find the Shaivite Panchakshara((OM) Namah Shivaya) as well as the mantra Om Namo Bhagavate Rudraya.

6) Dating back to Vedic times, Rudra is assigned the number 11, and of the thirty-three deities named in the Vedic pantheon, 11 of them are attributed to forms of Rudra.

The Shri Rudram seems to be associated with sacrifice. The sacrifice is meant to be external and/or internal. I find this terrific on account of the association between our consciousness (Shiva) and our external, material-based form. The external sacrifice referred to is one offered in a havan/homa/yagna, although in modern times everyone makes sacrifices in other ways, often much more personal in nature than a community coming together to toss oblations into a holy fire. The notion of internal sacrifice is something I’m very keen on. Humans (especially in Kali Yug) operate from a largely emotional and egoic place internally, the two often working together to create an immense and complicated cycle that proves instrumental to our entrapment in Maya and prolonging our journey toward Moksha. I recognize the value of external rituals, but for me personally the value of internal sacrifice has always been of greater value, although exponentially tougher to perform.

 

 

Sri Rudram is a useful thing to recommend on a day like today, as Sister Unity Divine has done. Speaking in the context of internal sacrifice, the entire nation would do well to consider this all day. If you haven’t already voted, you should be considering why you plan to vote the way you will. It’s a rare person, indeed, who honestly and objectively is able to look within and discern the ugly details behind the way he or she is planning to vote. Further, in the event that one’s hoped-for candidate isn’t the victor of today’s election, the Sri Rudram and the notion of internal sacrifice is definitely applicable.

It might make for an experience of growth if those who voted for the losing candidate make swallowing their pride into an internally sacrificial ritual. This is obviously easier said, than done.

Om Shanti

Bhakt’

In the last post I scratched the surface on a three-part series I’m planning to write about my understanding of the nature of the Hindu conception of God, and also where I personally have encountered the highest concentration of This in my own life. Before continuing in this post, you’ll want to have read the one before this. Inform yourself here. As mentioned in the post before this, Ganesha deva holds a particular place in my swadharma. In this post I’d like to attempt to explain how trying my hand at devotion (Ganesha = my ishtadevata) brought me to a higher knowledge regarding Truth. Right now, I’m not terribly confident that my thought processes or use of words will serve as I hope, but if you care to continue reading, you’ll have my best effort.

Bhakti, or devotion, was the first component at play in my being transfixed on the Ideal that is Ganesha. I came to know of Him almost the very instant I came to know anything at all about Hinduism. Perhaps love/devotion at first sight? LOL No, but really -probably the first two things I knew regarding Ganesha is that He’s the Remover of Obstacles, and that He’s the son of Shiva, the God of Destruction (among other things and whose name is synonymous with auspiciousness and consciousness. I’ve been meaning to make a post just about Shiva.). With attributes like that instantly my heart was hooked.

As I mentioned in the last post, I find the highest quantity and concentration of divine attributes to be applicable to Ganesha. If Brahman is essentially attributeless, and It is (Neti, Neti, remember?), then it reasons that devotion to anything with attributes best serves as a launch pad for experiencing/merging with something virtually impossible to conceptualize. You have to essentially master the phenomenal world before transcending it and realizing the Foundation of all that is phenomenal. Otherwise you’re trying to go from zero to sixty without really even knowing how to operate the vehicle. Some vehicles come with power windows, but no power seats. Some don’t have power windows, but have power seats, and so on. I want a vehicle with as many bells and whistles as I can find so that operating my vehicle happens as optimally as possible, making that zero-to-sixty acceleration not only more likely, but smoother in the process. And so, as it happens, I found Ganesha.

In my opinion, of all the prominent gods within the Hindu pantheon, Ganesha is the most striking. For me personally, gods like Brahma, Vishnu, Kartikeya/Murugan, Shiva, and just about all forms of Shakti/The Mother are too anthropomorphic. I don’t think this lessens their value in any way, but it makes them less appealing to me. Even one such as Hanuman, who has a human-like form of a monkey, is too human-like to represent something as indescribable as Brahman in my experience. In contrast, Ganesha refuses to fit most moulds. Possessing the head of an elephant, a typically obese thorax and abdomen, and rarely seen with fewer than four arms … the whole mess of which is perched upon a miniscule maushika (mouse) vahana. His form, while full of meaning that I’ll pick apart later, doesn’t fit in. Maybe this pulls more at my own heart strings because of growing up as I did: short, scrawny, unathletic, non-farmer gay kid in the middle of Indiana’s corn fields. Like Ganesha’s misfit head and whacked beginning, I didn’t fit many moulds hoped for me either. On some level, I feel affinity for His image and all it’s various traits may represent.

I think, too, much of what Ganesha is said to symbolize/represent/govern are things I hold dear. This list is actually super big, and I’ll get to that in the next post. I suppose it’s selfish, but finding not only what I hold dear, but much else otherwise kind of makes Ganesha the ultimate in one-stop spiritual shopping for me.

Shortly after learning of Ganesha I purchased my very first murti. At that time, I was already more inclined toward the Shiva side of things, but a murti of Ganesha is what I encountered first and it was almost like I was imprinted instantly. I’ve included a photo of it above. My first “mandir” was nothing other than the top of a cheap dresser and consisted of hardly more than a cloth covering the dresser’s top, a candle, and the Ganesha above. I’m tempted to say that it was during this time that my bhakti was newest and strongest. I certainly didn’t yet possess much spiritual knowledge, but I knew I loved God and I knew that for me, Ganesha was my preferred image of God. At this time, too, I was familiarizing myself with Yogananda and his autobiography, and with the Bhagavad Gita. Because of the lack of knowledge, including knowledge of the concept of Karma Yoga, bhakti was literally my entire religion. I had known devotion before with earlier religious experiences, but during this time in my life it was quite literally just myself and what I understood to be my god -the connection was palpable and real and it’s from this time of my life that I retain spiritual memories that not only are kept tucked away for my remembrance only, but sealed my relationship with Brahman as Ganesha.

Since those days, I’m become more familiar with the other faces of Brahman. I don’t suppose I could ever fully exclude any one of Hinduism’s god. However, I’ve also become increasingly close to the Ideal of Ganesha and have learned so much about Him -and have learned and experienced so much as a result of learning about Him. This brings me to the next post which I intend to deal with the meaning encapsulated in Ganesha’s form as well as jnana yoga. For now, let it be clear that Ganesha is the source of my devotion and its object, and this has brought me to new landscapes of internal wisdom.

Om Shanti

Star: Three/Seven, The Soul and its universality

The third, official/unofficial start of Hinduism is the Soul.

The basics of this star include:

• Universality of the existence of souls
• All living beings have “soul” -not just humans
• The same life, which is Atman/part of Brahman, exists in all living beings
• Soul is indestructible
• The whole Universe is one(family)

Earlier in his booklet, Thatte mentions Purusha and Prakruti. The soul is the Purusha of a being. Since the soul is essentially a living entity’s Atman, which itself is a small part of the Ultimate Brahman, and since every living thing has soul, all things have the same foundational essence and are thereby connected. Hence the Vedic sentence, “Vasudev’ Kutumbhakum.” Universal Family. Hinduism believes that the whole Universe is an intimately-connected family.

All living things have soul, which can also be called Self or jiva. All soul is part of the Universal Consciousness, aka Brahman. It’s because of this that all that is living must be treated with care and respect. This is the basis of environmental sensitivity which is embedded in Hindu philosophy.

What happens to the Atman when one dies?

You must first understand that a person dies because the Atman leaves the body, not the other way around. Once He has left the body, it is dead. The Bhagavad Gita explains, “Just as one discard old clothes when they get worn out and puts on new clothes, similarly, the Atman discards the body(at the time of death) and is reborn in another physical body.” (It should be noted that while the body is impermanent at best, Hinduism places great emphasis on physical well-being. Patanjali’s Yoga Shastra/Sutra is a great resource for this!)

The life form the Atman takes upon rebirth is determined by a staggering number of factors, not least of which is the Atman’s store of karma yet to be worked through as well as the condition/focus of one’s mind at the moment of death. It has supposedly taken “several million cycles of birth, death, and rebirth” to experience life as a human. Some believe that it’s possible for the Atman to regress to a lower life form, depending on one’s actions/karma. This is something I’m not sure I agree with entirely.

It seems to me that, if there is a hierarchy of life(surely based on the development of consciousness), it isn’t a two-way street. Evolution, whether physical or spiritual, must surely be a process that leads to ever-better states of existence, with no choice of going back really. So, I don’t see reincarnation as a matter of forward/backward movement of the Atman in its development. I see it as a matter of how much or how little the Atman progresses compared to what the potential for progress is. A life lived with intentionally more effort placed on improvement(punya- good deeds, etc…), versus the opposite which would be a life lived with tons of paap(badness) is more likely to know further and faster advancement.

This alone would constitute “heavenly” reward in the form of increased nearness to moksha/mukti/samadhi(freedom from the samsaric cycle of birth and rebirth), as opposed to the relatively hellish “punishment” of another turn around the wheel.

Thatte’s practical take-aways in this chapter include: We all have a soul and it’s because of this that we’re all connected. It’s because of this connection that we should strive to treat others with compassion and empathy. And although he doesn’t go much into these, he also claims as take-aways: You create your own heaven or hell. As well, we can train ourselves to control the desires generated by our senses. Controlling these desires isn’t the same as denying them, rather it means that the intellect is in charge of using the mind to control one’s senses.