Am I Breathing Yet?

Isn’t it rather insulting to pay to attend a class that teaches you how to breathe? Haven’t you been doing that rather steadily now for a few years?

But that’s the problem: we fall asleep. Breathing is natural and so integral to our life that we no longer notice it. It’s just like our habits in food and relationships: our problems arise when we “fall asleep” and live on auto-pilot. We get overweight or unhealthy because we are not paying attention. We may find ourselves in divorce proceedings because we didn’t pay attention.

The act of breathing signifies we are still alive! It is the beginning (and its cessation, the end) of life in a human body. Yogis put it this way: breath is that which connects our mind to our body. Yogis view “mind” in a much broader way than western culture and language. Mind is, in yoga, synonymous with consciousness and individuality (at least as far as “we” are concerned).

To be more clear, mind is divided into four parts: buddhi, mon, chitta, and ahamkara. Buddhi is described in various ways to include intellect, perception, and intuition. These three are different but share in common the aspect of consciousness that we call “knowing,” or gnosis. We can see a horse and “know” that it is a horse. We can experience the astral light in meditation in the forehead and “know” that it is not our own imagination. We can “know” that a friend is in trouble before we get the phone call.

Mon is that aspect of consciousness that depends upon and works in tandem with the senses: receiving sense stimuli and “re-constructing” those signals in the “mind” in some orderly way. It is pre-cognitive in the sense of one looking out the window and seeing objects in the field of vision prior to labeling those objects. For example: smelling an odor before identifying it. This is a lower function of mind but one necessary to survival in a physical body. It is also dependent upon the healthy functioning of sense organs.

Chitta is our feeling nature. This can range from our emotions and emotional reactions to either sense stimuli or our own thoughts and perceptions, all the way to a deeper level of feeling that is unconditioned by either but at least as powerful (if not more).

Ahamakara is consciousness identified with oneself: one’s body and personality. This is our sense of individuality and separateness from all other objects in our field of vision and perception. This is commonly labeled our ego.

Yogis teach that there is a deep and abiding connection between our breath and our consciousness. Try noticing that moment when you “fall” asleep. It’s while nigh to impossible, but do-able. When we are busy with rapid fire thoughts or actions, we virtually cannot notice our breath (unless we really practice — enhanced by long and deep meditation).

Your awareness therefore of your breath under all conditions (from sleep, to action, to meditation, during emotions and any intense state of being or activity) will bring to you awareness of your own state of mind. (I like to joke that we begin meditation with being mind-full, but seek to go beyond so that we are mind-less: in a state of non-verbal, intense inner awareness)

If while sitting still with eyes closed you observe the flow of breath within you, especially for an extended period of time (no less than ten minutes) with continuous and unbroken awareness, you will find your powers of observation, concentration, and baseline level of deep and enjoyable feeling greatly enhanced.

Why don’t I leave at that, for now?

Breath in joy, exhale peace!

The Holy Science - The Last Chapter

This is my final blog post on Swami Sri Yukteswar's (only) book, The Holy Science. I've never encountered a book so abstruse (meaning deep but requiring depth to plumb) by one who I accept as Self-realized. Many a book can be found that seems abstruse or deep but only by obfuscation imitating realization. This is not one such book. While Sri Yukteswar's greatest disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda wrote and lectured in ways more transparent and attuned to modern culture and hence I recommend those writings (and those of his direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda), I can still appreciate the timelessness and the culturally transcendent vibration of The Holy Science. One can glean from its reading, therefore, a wisdom that touches the "cells" and the higher Self, bypassing the intellect's obvious inability to rationalize his writings into a "system."

In the last chapter of the book, Chapter 4, THE REVELATION, Sri Yukteswar pulls the veil from the eternal truth ("Sanaatan Dharma). He begins by describing three stages of "adeptship." The publisher's English translation uses this term "adeptship" which is rarely employed these days but which we can assume as "mastery" (self-mastery or becoming a "master").

The three stages are aligned with the physical body, the subtle (astral) body, and the causal body of the mind. Natural living can help purify the body. "Penance" (another somewhat out of date term) describes the purification of our feeling sense, or astral / electrical body. Patience is the way to purify the astral body. It is the art of remaining even-minded and cheerful under all circumstances. A yogi might say it is the calming of the chitta (the emotional and reactive processes). Sri Yukteswar uses the term "magnetic body" to describe the causal body and says that purification of the mind comes through the power of mantra. Wow: how are we going to understand these simple but incredibly deep solutions? Mantra is not just repeating a word formula. It is a vibration of consciousness. Mantras as we know them are portals to higher consciousness and should be used intelligently, with will power and devotion. True mantra is not merely recited but actually heard in meditation. A great of reverence and sacred tradition accompanies the giving of mantras from the guur or teacher to the chela, or disciple. Indeed, Sri Yukteswar says simply that one must learn these practices from one's guru.

This purification process is greatly aided by control of the breath and through techniques that would reveal to one the inner sound of Aum. Aum can, he writes, even arrest the decay of body cells. He says that the Aum sounds appears in different forms as we progress spiritually.

Through the development of the heart's natural love one magentically draws the blessing of a true guru. By practice of the do's and don'ts (yama and niyama of Patanjali), the eight meanesses of the human heart. He uses several terms for different stages: "pravartaka" is one who has begun his sadhana (spiritual disciplines) under the guidance of his guru. As the heart opens one becomes a "sadhaka" and becomes fit for ascetic posture and other practices given to him by his guru. As the devotee progresses and hears the Aum sound and grows in advancement he becomes a divine personage, a "siddha."

After this he passes through the seven centers of the spine (the chakras). In time and with depth one achieves supremacy over the seven "swargas" (or heavens) or spheres. By dissolving the four original ideas (see first blog) or the four manus, one achieves self-mastery and achieves oneness with God.

Certain powers may manifest in a master: the power of making the body (or anything else) small, or large, or light, or heavy, or achieving any object sought.

Swami Sri Yukteswar, the cold, calculating sage of wisdom, then concludes love is the ruling principle of spiritual growth and without out it, no progress on the spiritual path can be made.

I invite you to our four-part class series (4 Wednesdays) beginning September 7. We expect to have a streaming option for those at a distance. Please contact us right away if you would like to attend whether in person or virtually.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

THE HOLY SCIENCE - PART 4 - THE PROCEDURE

We come now to Chapter 3 - The Procedure in our overview of Swami Sri Yukteswar's (only) book, THE HOLY SCIENCE. Swami Sri Yukteswar is best known as the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda who is the author of the world famous spiritual classic, "Autobiography of a Yogi."

Sri Yukteswar's (SY) book was written at the behest of the deathless avatar, Babaji and it shows the underlying universal themes of spirituality especially as between the Christian bible and the teachings of Sanaatan Dharma (the revelations of the rishis of India). Throughout the text he proffers quotations from the Old and New Testaments in juxtaposition to the sutras that he quotes.

In Chapter 3 (this is our fourth blog article), SY gives the necessary attitudes and practices that lead to the goal (see prior blog article). In sutras 1 - 4, SY enumerates the basics: even-mindedness under all circumstances, the study and intuitive contemplation of truth, and inner communion with the Holy Spirit in the form of the AUM vibration.

In sutras 5 and 6, SY states that Aum is heard through the cultivation of the heart's natural love. (There are specific meditation techniques that can hasten and deepen one's experience of Aum.) To commune with Aum takes courage, concentration, and devotion (and self-offering: an aspect of devotion).

It is most curious that a sage of "cold, calculating" wisdom would aver that the heart's natural love is the "principal requisite" to salvation. This divine and unconditional state of consciousness removes the fluctuations of desire and emotions, including giving strength and vitality, and expelling germs and viruses! The heart's natural love allows one to achieve true understanding and, most importantly, it magnetically draws to one the Godlike company of "divine personages."

Without the heart's natural love, one cannot live in harmony with nature or with God, SY counsels. This love gives to us courage to follow the directives and counsel of the "sat" (or true) guru. We can recognize, honor, cherish, and love those who dispel our doubts and avoid those who increase our doubts.

While others seek God in images, stones, in the heavens above, or in nature below, the Yogi seeks God within his own Self. To keep company with a true guru goes beyond physical proximity. More important is to hold the guru's presence in one's heart.

Moral courage is also strengthen by observances of the do's and don'ts of spirituality (taught by Patanjali as the "yamas" and the "niyamas").

SY then launches into a discussion of "What is Natural Living?" In this analysis he examines the teeth of humans and concludes that man is a frugivor, or fruit-eating species. This is confirmed by the relationship of the length of human bowels in relation to the length of the human body (as measured from mouth to anus). Frugivor includes vegetables, nuts, and grains.

He writes then of the calming lifestyle that brings the power of sexual desire into natural balance, and which then engenders, in turn, vitality and health. He speaks of the health value and natural instinct for fresh air in our dwelling places.

SY moves then to Sutras 12-18 in which he describes the eight bondages, or meannesses, of the heart. He lists them as hatred, shame, fear, grief, condemnation, race prejudice, pride of family, and smugness. Their removal leads, he writes, to "magnanimity of heart." This allows one to move to the next stages of the 8-Fold Path (of Patanjali): asana, pranayama, and pratyahara.

Asana is that pleasant and health filled state of the body induced by good posture and that, as a result, we can feel and think clearly.

Pranayama is described in way that far transcends the usual descriptions given in raja yoga: control over death. When we can consciously rest the involuntary nerves we can stop the decay of the material body (heart, lungs etc.).

In Pratyahara, SY describes how sense fulfillment never satisfies us. We are left hungry for more. By contrast, when we withdraw our attention from the senses inward toward the Self, we satisfy the heart's natural inclinations immediately.

SY goes on to address the 3 highest stages of the 8-Fold Path which, together, are described by Patanjali as "Samyama." By this latter term, SY means "restraint" or overcoming the egoistic self and the exchange of individuality for universality. This process includes the intuition of the heart to perceive truth, the steady concentration which results in merging with the object of contemplation and the inner communion with God as the Word (or Aum). He calls the latter "baptism" and "Bhakti yoga."

Next is described the castes, or different states of consciousness, of humankind. The dark heart, or sudra (servant) class, thinks the physical world is the only reality. This state is expressed in the evolution of human consciousness in the Kali Yuga (or dark) cycle of evolution. Interestingly, SY skips now to the Kshatriya (or warrior) class as the stage in which man struggles to know the truth and in which he is caught between the higher and lower states.

Next SY describes the states of consciousness prevalent during each of the four cycles of the yugas (described in his Introduction and in an earlier blog). He says that the consciousness of the second age, Dwapara Yuga, includes an appreciation of the finer, subtler forces of creation. In the Dwapara state the heart becomes steady and devoted to the inner world of these finer forces.

In Treta Yuga, the third age, we can comprehend magnetism and the heart, or Chitta. Man is said then to belong to the Vipra, or nearly perfect, class or Treta. Lastly we reach the "great world," or Maharloka, where the heart is clean and we become "knowers of Brahma" or Brahmans in the age of Satya (truth) Yuga.

SY concludes his third chapter (The Procedure) with a description of the 3 highest spheres of consciousness and the achievement of final release, or Kaivalya.

Thus is described the universal path to freedom in God.

Don't forget: our 4-part class in the Holy Science begins Wednesday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. at the Ananda Meditation Temple Register online for a 10% discount at www.AnandaSeattle.org. We are still working on streaming that class for those at a distance. If you are interested in the latter possibility, please contact us.

Blessings,

Hriman