# God Talks With Arjuna  ## Metadata - Author: [[Paramahansa Yogananda]] - Full Title: God Talks With Arjuna - Category: #books ## Highlights - The true way to understand scripture is through intuition, attuning oneself to the inner realization of truth. ([Location 500](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=500)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Note: Lotus sutra intuited - When disciples and students sought instruction from the Yogavatar, he used to close his eyes and read aloud from the book of his soul-realization. ([Location 530](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=530)) - Tags: [[orange]] - A siddha is a perfected being who has attained complete liberation in Spirit; he becomes a paramukta, “supremely free,” and can then return to earth as an avatara—as did Krishna, Jesus, and many other saviors of mankind through the ages.8 As often as virtue declines, a God-illumined soul comes on earth to draw virtue again to the fore (Gita IV:7–8). An avatar, or divine incarnation, has two purposes on earth: quantitative and qualitative. Quantitatively, he uplifts the general populace with his noble teachings of good against evil. But the main purpose of an avatar is qualitative—to create other God-realized souls, helping as many as possible to attain liberation. This latter is the very personal and private spiritual bond formed between guru and disciple, a union of loyal spiritual endeavor on the part of the disciple and divine blessings bestowed by the guru. Students are those who receive only a little light of truth. But disciples are those who follow completely and steadfastly, dedicated and devoted, until they have found their own freedom in God. In the Gita, Arjuna stands as the symbol of the ideal devotee, the perfect disciple. When Sri Krishna incarnated on earth, Arjuna, a great sage in his previous life, took birth also to be his companion. Great ones always bring with them spiritual associates from past lives to assist them in their present mission. Krishna’s father was the brother of Arjuna’s mother; thus, Krishna and Arjuna were cousins—related by blood, but bound together in an even stronger spiritual unity. ([Location 602](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=602)) - innumerable). Some of the more recognizable offspring of the blind mind are as follows: material desire; anger; greed; avarice; hate; jealousy; wickedness; lust; sex attachment, abuse, and promiscuity; dishonesty; meanness; cruelty; ill will; desire to hurt others; destructive instinct; unkindness; harshness of speech and thought; impatience; covetousness; selfishness; arrogance; conceit; pride of caste or social birth; racial pride; false sense of delicacy; high-handedness; saucy temper; impudence; ill feeling; quarrelsome attitude; inharmoniousness; revengefulness; sensitive feelings; physical laziness; lack of initiative; cowardice; absentmindedness and mental sloth; spiritual indifference; unwillingness to meditate; spiritual procrastination; impurity of body, mind, and soul; disloyalty to God; ungratefulness to God; stupidity; mental weakness; disease-consciousness; lack of vision; littleness of mind; lack of foresight; physical, mental, and spiritual ignorance; impulsiveness; fickle-mindedness; sense attachment; enjoyment in seeing evil, listening to evil, tasting evil, smelling evil, touching evil; thinking, willing, feeling, speaking, remembering, and doing evil; fear of disease and death; worry; superstition; swearing; immoderation; too much sleeping; too much eating; dissimulation; pretense of goodness; partiality; doubt; moroseness; pessimism; bitterness; dissatisfaction; shunning God; and postponing meditation. ([Location 871](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=871)) - When read as the allegory intended by its author, the great sage Vyasa, it introduces the basic principles of the science of Yoga and describes the initial spiritual struggles of the yogi who sets out on the path to kaivalya, liberation, oneness with God: the goal of Yoga. ([Location 914](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=914)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The timeless message of the Bhagavad Gita does not refer only to one historical battle, but to the cosmic conflict between good and evil: life as a series of battles between Spirit and matter, soul and body, life and death, knowledge and ignorance, health and disease, changelessness and transitoriness, self-control and temptations, discrimination and the blind sense-mind. ([Location 991](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=991)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The centers of life and consciousness from which these powers function are the astral brain (or “thousand-petaled lotus” of light), and the astral cerebrospinal axis (or sushumna) containing six subtle centers or chakras. ([Location 1075](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1075)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The soul consciousness can say with the awakened Christ in Jesus, “I and my Father are one.” The deluded ego consciousness says, “I am the body; this is my family and name; these are my possessions.” Though ego thinks it rules, it is in reality a prisoner of the body and mind, which in turn are pawns of the subtle machinations of Cosmic Nature. ([Location 1093](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1093)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - Under King Soul, the creative “Mother Nature” in the coccyx is calm and controlled, bringing health, beauty, and peace to the kingdom. At the command of the yogi in deep meditation, this creative force turns inward and flows back to its source in the thousand-petaled lotus, revealing the resplendent inner world of the divine forces and consciousness of the soul and Spirit. Yoga refers to this power flowing from the coccyx to Spirit as the awakened kundalini. ([Location 1214](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1214)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Under Soul’s rule, Prince Controlled Creative Impulse rightly guides the sex inclination, enabling parents to bring on earth, by the law of attraction, other noble spiritual human beings like themselves, who will by example guide matter-entangled souls, inspiring them to retrace their footsteps toward spiritual blessedness. ([Location 1374](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1374)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Very seldom does man realize that his health, success, and wisdom depend in great part on the issue of the battle between his good and bad habits. ([Location 1466](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1466)) - Tags: [[orange]] - You can know all matter to be thought only when you are able to withdraw life force and consciousness to the medullary plane, and can enter the spiritual eye—doorway to the highest states of consciousness. ([Location 1661](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1661)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - The superman’s body is the universe, and all things that happen in the universe are his sensations. ([Location 1713](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1713)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The superman knows births and deaths only as changes dancing on the Sea of Life—even as waves of the ocean rise, fall, and rise again. He cognizes all past and future, but lives in the eternal present. For him, the conundrum of the why of being is resolved in the singular realization: “From Joy we have come. In Joy we live and move and have our being. And in that sacred perennial Joy we melt again.” This is Self-realization, man’s native state as the soul, the pure reflection of Spirit. ([Location 1733](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1733)) - Tags: [[orange]] - tendencies: “Archers of discrimination, like unto the masterful Arjuna (Self-Control) and Bhima (Life Control), mighty swayers of the bodily chariot, are all arrayed to destroy my soldiers of sense activities. They are Yuyudhana (Divine Devotion), Virata (Samadhi), Drupada (Extreme Dispassion); Dhrishtaketu (Power of Mental Resistance), Chekitana (Spiritual Memory), Kashiraja20 (Discriminative Intelligence), Purujit (Mental Interiorization), Kuntibhoja (Right Posture), Shaibya (Power of Mental Adherence); Yudhamanyu (Life-Force Control), Uttamaujas (Vital Celibacy); son of Subhadra, i.e., Abhimanyu (Self-Mastery); and the sons of Draupadi (the manifestations characteristic of each of the five awakened spinal centers).” ([Location 1990](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=1990)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Within the sushumna is the second astral spine called vajra, which provides the powers of expansion, contraction, and all activities of motion of the astral body. The vajra extends upward from the svadhishthana chakra, or sacral center. Within the vajra is hidden the chitra astral spine, which controls the spiritual activities (those related to consciousness). ([Location 2048](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2048)) - Tags: [[pink]] - centers of divine consciousness, leading through the chitra, vajra, and sushumna. When the life and consciousness have been reversed inward in deep meditation, here is where the devotee merges in the stream of brahmanadi and enters the finer causal realm of the soul, the last encasement through which the yogi must pass before he can, by still deeper meditation, ultimately ascend through brahmanadi to Spirit. When Arjuna, the power of self-control in the lumbar center, rouses the fire of meditation and spiritual patience and determination, he draws upward the life and consciousness that was flowing downward and outward through the lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal centers, and thereby gives the meditating yogi the necessary mental and bodily strength to pursue the course of deep meditation leading to Self-realization. ([Location 2143](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2143)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Patanjali begins his Yoga Sutras with the definition of yoga as “the neutralization of the alternating waves in consciousness” (chitta vritti nirodha—I:2). ([Location 2208](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2208)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Patanjali continues: “Then the seer abides in his own nature or self” (I:3). This refers to his true Self, or soul. That is, he attains Self-realization, oneness of his soul with God. ([Location 2215](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2215)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - These yogangas, or limbs of yoga, have come to be known as Patanjali’s Eightfold Path of Yoga. They are enumerated in his Yoga Sutras, II:29: Yama (moral conduct, the avoidance of immoral actions); niyama (religious observances); asana (right posture for bodily and mental control); pranayama (control of prana or life force); pratyahara (interiorization of the mind); dharana (concentration); dhyana (meditation); and samadhi (divine union). ([Location 2294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2294)) - Tags: [[orange]] - “The leaders of my sense army are thyself (Drona, Habit or Inner Tendency), Bhishma (Inner-seeing Ego), Karna (Attachment), Kripa (Individual Delusion), Ashvatthaman (Latent Desire), Vikarna (Repulsion), Somadatti (son of Somadatta, i.e., Bhurishravas, representing Karma or Material Action) and Jayadratha (Body Attachment).” ([Location 2436](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2436)) - Tags: [[orange]] - God’s mayic power of visualization has been inherited by man in the form of avidya. ([Location 2477](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2477)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The yogi, on the other hand, is ever conscious inwardly of the sole Reality, Spirit, and sees maya and avidya—universal and individual delusion—as merely a tenuous web holding together the atomic, magnetic, and spiritual forces that give him a body and mind with which to play a part in the cosmic drama of the Lord’s creation. ([Location 2501](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2501)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - “Just as the long-caged bird, when offered freedom, is afraid of it and is reluctant to leave its enclosure, so even great men whose wisdom is constant are nevertheless subject to infatuation about the body at the time of death.” ([Location 2585](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2585)) - Tags: [[orange]] - When the ego or “I” consciousness has sided with the materialistic forces of creation, it is said to have six faults (doshas): 1. kama (lust); 2. krodha (anger); 3. lobha (greed); 4. moha (delusion); 5. mada (pride); and 6. matsarya (envy). ([Location 2677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2677)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - Kama, or lustful desire, supported by the other Kaurava forces, can corrupt the sensory instruments of man to expression of their basest instincts. It is taught in the Hindu scriptures that under the strong influence of kama, sane learned men act like asses, monkeys, goats, and swine. ([Location 2696](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2696)) - Tags: [[orange]] - mild greed, often labeled “harmless indulgence,” but which is never so. ([Location 2729](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2729)) - Tags: [[pink]] - It makes one forget his true duty, those actions that are correct for his own soul evolution, and creates in him longings to imitate the position of others—that he might be or have what has roused envy in him. To destroy this consciousness, one should disassociate himself from his own personality and in his imagination identify himself with others. ([Location 2800](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2800)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Without ego consciousness the entire army of evil and temptation vanishes like a forgotten dream. If the soul dwelt in the body without being identified with it, as do the souls of saints, no temptations or attachments could keep it tied to the body. ([Location 2840](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2840)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - the meditating devotee becomes adept in the proper pranayama techniques, Bhima, the inwardly turned life force and resultant life and breath control, leads that victorious yogi to divine consciousness. ([Location 2858](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2858)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The soldiers of the soul, present in man’s seven cerebrospinal centers, are: (1) Sahadeva, the power to observe the negative rules of morality (the “thou-shalt-nots”), in the coccygeal or earth center; (2) Nakula, the power to follow the prescribed positive spiritual rules (the “thou-shalts”), in the sacral or water center; (3) Arjuna, or divine fire-force, and the power of patience and self-control, in the lumbar or fire center; (4) Bhima, soul-controlled vital breath and life force, in the dorsal or air center; (5) Yudhisthira, or King Calmness as divine discrimination, in the cervical or ether center; (6) the Soul or superconscious samadhi, intuitional oneness with God, in the medulla; and Krishna or the Spirit as Christ Consciousness, in the point between the two eyebrows, directly connected and interrelated with the medulla center; (7) Pure Spirit, in the sahasrara or “thousand-petaled lotus” in the brain. Supporting them are the metaphysical warriors described in verses 4–6: Yuyudhana–Divine Devotion (shraddha), Uttamaujas–Vital Celibacy (virya), Chekitana–Spiritual Memory (smriti), Virata-Ecstasy (samadhi), Kashiraja–Discriminative Intelligence (prajna), Drupada–Extreme Dispassion (tivra-samvega), Dhrishtaketu–Power of Mental Resistance (yama), Shaibya–Power of Mental Adherence (niyama), Kuntibhoja–Right Posture (asana), Yudhamanyu–Life-Force Control (pranayama), Purujit-Interiorization (pratyahara), Abhimanyu–Self-Mastery (samyama—dharana, dhyana, and samadhi), and Draupadeya or the manifested spiritual vibrations, lights, and sounds of the five spinal centers, which are focal points of meditation. The Mahabharata describes the divisions of the Pandava army as facing east. East means wisdom. In the body, or field of Kurukshetra, the east is inward, in the all-seeing spiritual eye. ([Location 2943](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=2943)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Daily in sleep, every man becomes a renunciant, sloughing off all his sham titles; and once in a while he even becomes a saint. But because of sense habits during the conscious state, he cannot preserve that nonattachment while actively engaged in duties. If man can for a sufficient length of time remain unidentified with his thoughts and sensations, without being in a blank or unconscious state, he will know his true Self through undistorted pure intuition. ([Location 3066](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3066)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The devotee, therefore, who aspires to develop steadily in spirituality must calm the mind by the practice of the right techniques of concentration; must keep the breath quiet by pranayama and proper breathing exercises; must preserve the vital essence (generally the most abused of the senses) by self-control and by seeking only the company of good people; and must free the body from restlessness and aimless motions by conscious control of the life force, and by keeping the body in good health and training it by patient discipline to sit absolutely still in meditation. ([Location 3165](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3165)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Pranava, the sound of the creative Aum vibration, is the mother of all sounds. The intelligent cosmic energy of Aum that issues forth from God, and is the manifestation of God, is the creator and substance of all matter. This holy vibration is the link between matter and Spirit. Meditation on Aum is the way to realize the true Spirit-essence of all creation. By inwardly following the sound of Pranava to its source, the yogi’s consciousness is carried aloft to God.” ([Location 3205](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3205)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - Furthermore, because his masculine good judgment and self-control have given way to feminine emotionalism of unwise sympathy toward the enemy forces, this epithet also means he needs to be reminded that he should behave more like a true son of the noble Kunti (who represents the ardent devotee’s power to invoke the aid of spiritual energy in his sadhana). ([Location 3723](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3723)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Therefore, self-control is not self-torture, but leads instead to soul happiness. By withdrawing the mind from indulgence in lower kinds of paltry pleasures of the senses, man enters a vast kingdom of unending joy. It is the arrant chicanery of the malevolent ego that tells man otherwise. ([Location 3745](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3745)) - Tags: [[orange]] - it. Materially minded people suffer from conflicting desires and remain in a mire of suffering. Saints, on the other hand, are well aware that true and undying happiness can be found only in the inner perceptions of the Blissful Source of unalloyed eternal joy. ([Location 3831](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3831)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Whenever the mind feels a longing for the forsaken sense pleasures, the devotee should instantly picture to himself the end of his pleasure-loving body—its eventual entry into the earth or the crematory flames. ([Location 3848](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3848)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When this mental state arises in the devotee—when he thinks that he would rather die in sense indulgence than look for an unknown happiness in the bleakness of self-control—he should reason in the following way: “I lack spiritual imagination and spiritual experience; that is why I think that the present sense happiness is the only happiness worth possessing. Let me rather believe in the truthful words of the scriptures and of my guru. Let me meditate deeply and attain cosmic consciousness; then I shall see the difference between everlasting divine happiness and the temporary enjoyment of sensory entertainment. I shall then reverse my present judgment and say that I would rather die for spiritual happiness than yield to the false promises of the senses.” ([Location 3907](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=3907)) - Tags: [[blue]] - They promised him happiness, yet planned to give him only worries, insatiable longings, broken hopes, disillusionments, and death! ([Location 4254](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4254)) - Tags: [[orange]] - To be unmanly is to be either negative or indifferent.2 The devotee in a negative state of mind has lost sight of his manly, positive will factor. Without the positive action of will, the devotee succumbs to unmanly neutrality, the condition that has overtaken Arjuna. The Spirit therefore warns him not to be neutral; that state is worse than negativeness! ([Location 4421](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4421)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - To take the mind from the senses by meditation means the devotee must involve his self-control in a psychological war in which the retiring life force and concentration act as arrows to destroy the venerable, ignorantly worshiped physical ego and the inner habitual tendencies that keep man in a state of delusion. ([Location 4501](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4501)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Sense delights, in reality, are felt as pleasurable only through an act of imagination by the soul, created by the interaction of the sense mind with the objects of the senses. Man can be truly happy only within his soul nature of bliss, omniscience, and wisdom. He can never be contented by imagining himself to be happy because the senses are happy. ([Location 4550](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4550)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - The life energy that flows outwardly in the nerves to the five senses makes sensory experiences attractive to man. When he is asked by his guru to reverse that flow of life energy and to withdraw his mind and energy from the senses, that instruction appears to be bizarre, impractical—and perhaps even irrational! Man moans: “Oh, what is the use of living at all, if I have to deny myself the tangible joys of sense indulgences?” Only a sense slave finds it torture to eat moderately, to control the sex urges, to abstain from intoxicants. Even a well-balanced worldly man, not to mention a saint, knows from practical experience how necessary for well-being is a discipline of the senses. The sense slave eats to satisfy his palate and ultimately finds himself the victim of disease. The soul urges man to discipline the palate; after a short period of demonstrations of outraged dignity, the palate gives no further trouble! Like a good servant, the sense of taste learns to be satisfied with the wholesome decisions of its master, the soul. ([Location 4620](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4620)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The test of man’s wisdom is his equanimity. Little stones that are pelted into the lake of consciousness should not throw the whole lake into commotion. ([Location 4779](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4779)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - They master the restlessness that is synonymous with mortal life, and experience consciously the complete calmness, or silence, accompanying freedom from identification with the body.8 When such a devotee reaches this immutable state of perfection, he witnesses all the changes of life and death without being moved by them. Identification with the waves of changes leads to misery, for to live and find pleasure in the changeable is to be separated from the Eternal. The wise, therefore, are not tossed with the ups and downs of the waves of happiness and misery. They dive deep into the Spirit-Ocean of Bliss, avoiding the storms of delusion, the waves of change that rage on the surface of human consciousness. ([Location 4795](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4795)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Krishna, the Spirit, asks the devotee to rise above the law of causation and mortal desires, which chain man to a series of inherently painful incarnations, and to become established instead in the eternal freedom of his immortal soul. ([Location 4853](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4853)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The wise do not expect to reap everlasting happiness from friends, beloved family, or dear possessions! The forms of loved ones are snatched away by death. Material objects turn out to be meaningless when one becomes used to them; or when, in old age, the senses grow unappreciative, powerless. Concentrate on the immortal Spirit through meditation and find there a harvest of eternal, ever new peace! ([Location 4869](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4869)) - Tags: [[orange]] - “O devotee, as you are the son of Kunti, born of nature, striving to call forth the power of renunciation and divine ardor, the feminine quality of feeling still grips your consciousness, making it susceptible to dualities. But within you, awaiting divine arousal, is the positive masculine power of cosmic consciousness, your ancestral inheritance as a descendant of Bharata (Spirit)—your true manliness of unconquerable equipoise and transcendence.” ([Location 4882](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4882)) - Tags: [[pink]] - titiksha, “endurance with firmness of mind.” ❖ Yoga discipline of rising above sense slavery ❖ The yoga system of bodily discipline and endurance is not intended to be a method of self-torture, but a necessary mental conditioning for lessening the disturbing effects of sensations by developing the resisting power of the mind. ([Location 4919](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4919)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - Of the unreal, there is no existence. Of the real, there is no nonexistence. The final truth of both of these is known by men of wisdom. ([Location 4994](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=4994)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Those God-realized souls who earn entrance into the secret vaults of Spirit know the wonder of this mystery of immortality. ([Location 5082](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5082)) - Tags: [[orange]] - This Self is never born nor does it ever perish; nor having come into existence will it again cease to be. It is birthless, eternal, changeless, ever-same (unaffected by the usual processes associated with time). It is not slain when the body is killed. ([Location 5087](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5087)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - The following analogy gives an illustration of the nature and immortality of the soul. (No analogies are perfect in expressing absolute verities, but they do help the mind to image abstract concepts.) The moon is reflected in a cup containing water; the cup is broken and the water runs out; where does the reflection of the moon go? The reflection of the moon may be said to have returned to its inseverable identity in the moon itself. If another cup of water is placed under the moon, another reflection of the moon would be reincarnated! ([Location 5113](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5113)) - Tags: [[blue]] - The physical body may be said to be dependent on food; the astral body is dependent on energy, will, and evolution of thought; the causal body is dependent on the ambrosia of wisdom and bliss. ([Location 5137](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5137)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - bird long confined in a cage may return to it even when set free; so also, a man much attached to bodily existence desires to return to a physical form even after being released by death. Long imprisonment in a cage makes the bird forget its free home in the skies; similarly, the soul consciousness of man, confined in the bodily prison through many incarnations, forgets its free blessed home in vast space. It takes a long time—many incarnations of right action, good company, help of the guru, self-awakening, wisdom, and meditation—for man to regain his soul consciousness of immortality. To reach this state of Self-realization, each man must practice meditation to transfer his consciousness from the limited body to the unlimited sphere of joy felt in meditation. By continuous unity with Spirit in samadhi, and by nonattachment to the body, the devotee realizes the body as a temporary place of confinement; he looks forward eagerly to return to his home of everlasting blessedness in Spirit. Devotees who are not rudely hurled out of the flesh by Death, but who depart in conscious dignity through meditation-acquired power, find their way back to oneness with Omnipresent Bliss. ([Location 5274](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5274)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The body emanating from the soul is not conscious of the soul, but the soul is aware of the body. Just as a person can watch through a screen a crowd of people in front of him, without himself being seen by them, so the soul through the screen of intuition watches all its thoughts, but the unenlightened thoughts cannot know the soul. That is why the Gita speaks of the soul as imponderable—beyond thought. ([Location 5380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5380)) - Tags: [[pink]] - It is more profitable and in keeping with his true nature for the devotee to concentrate in a positive way on destroying the subconsciously stored prenatal and postnatal reincarnation-making impulses by exercising his will force and determination, and by identification of his mind with the blissful soul. ([Location 5442](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5442)) - Note: Reharmonization - During bereavement caused by the death of a loved one, he understands, and thus feels and appreciates, the nature of the loss he has sustained. But inwardly he remains neutral and unmoved, because he perceives that the nature of all material things is impermanent, and that it is thus foolishness to expect permanent happiness by clinging to material forms and objects. ([Location 5673](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5673)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - In India, those possessing spiritual understanding never speak of an individual’s death. They would not say, “Rama is dead.” Instead, they say, “Rama has left his body.” The ordinary expression, “John is dead,” is misleading and a very saddening thought. It presumes the annihilation of the owner of the body along with the death of the body. The wise do not grieve for a soul who has gone from one bodily residence into another, just as an understanding person does not grieve for someone who leaves one residence to move into another house. Grief is born of ignorance, attachment, and selfish love, because the ordinary man sees only the present frame of existence. ([Location 5677](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5677)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - We should never ignore or forget any kindness or service extended to us by a friend. Ingratitude and indifference wither even the stoutest oak of friendship. ([Location 5727](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5727)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The religion of the soul consists in the manifestation of this true spiritual happiness, gained by constant efforts of deep meditation. After having earned this soul joy by waging many wars with restlessness, the devotee should be perpetually vigilant, never jeopardizing his joyful kingdom by becoming careless and negative during the invasion of cosmic delusion through the channels of sense disturbances. ([Location 5958](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=5958)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - A poet or philosopher may imagine this cosmos to be only mind. But that imagination cannot help him overcome death and attain immortality. The yogi, on the other hand, wins an unshakable knowledge that all matter is Spirit by daily employing a technique that uproots from his mind all the delusions implanted in it by maya, the cosmic delusive force. He thus beholds the universe as a dream of God—a dream from which one awakens only when he is conscious of the omnipresent Spirit. Anyone who uses the yoga techniques is a yogi-practitioner, but he who attains the final union with Spirit is a perfected yogi. Self-realization consists in experiencing the different states of intuitive consciousness attained by meditation that lead to this ultimate union. ([Location 6206](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6206)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - “The ordinary man’s mind is usually identified with external possessions and sense pleasures connected with the surface of the body....The yogi reverses the searchlights of intelligence, mind, and life force inward through a secret astral passage...to reveal finally the soul’s presence in the highest center (sahasrara) in the brain....He experiences in the sahasrara the ineffable bliss of his soul.” ([Location 6313](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6313)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The real spiritual aspirant, single-pointed on God alone, quickly recognizes a true guru and a true path of Self-realization; he occupies his time with the guru-given technique of meditation that leads to God. Thus, without difficulty, steadfast in his aim, he reaches the pinnacle of spiritual emancipation. ([Location 6338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6338)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - The devotee should concentrate not on astral phenomena or miraculous powers, but only on the attainment of joy in God. ([Location 6367](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6367)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Heaven is not a “happy hunting ground”—a land where, without satiety, earthly sense pleasures will continue to be enjoyed! He who desires any other heaven than oneness with God—the very Source of Bliss!—is in delusion. ([Location 6370](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6370)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The devotee is then counseled to rise above the perceptions of the coccygeal, sacral, and lumbar regions (corresponding to the three lower Vedas that deal with the material side of life) and to concentrate on the regions of the dorsal, cervical, medullary, and cerebral centers (corresponding to the Rig Veda, the highest and most spiritual of the Vedas).43 ([Location 6443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6443)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Man should think of the body as a divine animal that God has given into his charge; therefore, he takes proper care of it.46 He should harbor beautiful thoughts just because the mind is a temple of the Lord; man is merely a custodian of that mental temple. He should honor his soul and contact its superconsciousness by meditation just because the soul is an image of the Heavenly Father. The actions of the body, mind, and soul, when performed with egotism, induce one to concentrate on the fruits of actions; these lead to complex karmic reactions and desires, which, in turn, give rise to rebirths. But he who lives in and cares for a body, mind, and soul just for God and not for his ego, is devoid of all reincarnation-making desires; at death he is liberated in Omnipresence. ([Location 6525](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6525)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - Thus, even the highly developed yogi is reminded that he should meditate only to find God and to win His divine approval, and not to satisfy any latent egotistical desires for spiritual powers and phenomenal experiences. ([Location 6575](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6575)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Endowed with free choice, man has misused his independence and identified himself with a transient body and a cosmos of antithetical organized chaos. He should train his mind away from restlessness to the perception of changelessness. The ordinary individual, through restlessness, perceives only the tumultuous universe. The man following the art of yoga (inner calmness) perceives the immanent-transcendent ever tranquil Spirit. ([Location 6611](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6611)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Therefore, O devotee, strive above all else to become merged in constant divine union; in oneness with the transcendent wisdom of God perform all your actions. To work united with God is the greatest art to be mastered in this world. To carry on all activities with God-consciousness is the supreme yoga (nirvikalpa samadhi yoga). ([Location 6659](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6659)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - The deeply meditating devotee ascends to this realization by several steps: First, by practice of a specific yoga technique of meditation on the Cosmic Vibration (the Aum, or Amen), he ceases to “hear” the voice of the senses as he rises above all physical sounds and distractions and concentrates within on the spiritual vibratory sounds emanating from the astral body. He must go beyond the astral “music” and listen to the Cosmic Aum. Within the Cosmic Aum he perceives the Spirit as Cosmic Light. He must penetrate the Light and contact Cosmic Consciousness. He then unites his soul with Cosmic Consciousness, becoming one with Spirit. ([Location 6735](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6735)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - After attaining union with Spirit, a devotee’s consciousness never descends. Once established in God-consciousness, the devotee remains in samadhi-union. His plane of activity changes; instead of working in the world while looking toward God, he feels himself in God while working in the world. His discrimination is merged with the Spirit, even when he sleeps, eats, or works. He realizes that God has become his nature, his little self, as well as all other selves. He beholds the entire material world as a God-saturated cosmos. Even in the wakeful state he enjoys nirvikalpa samadhi or the state in which the devotee perceives both Nature and God. To be in divine ecstasy and simultaneously to be actively wakeful is the paramahansa state; the “royal swan” of the soul floats in the cosmic ocean, beholding both its body and the ocean as manifestations of the same Spirit. ([Location 6777](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6777)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - Renunciation of the world without practicing a definite yoga technique of meditation, which controls the life force in the senses, is not only unlikely to yield the desired spiritual benefits, but often places the monk in an awkward hypocritical position. Outwardly a renunciant, inwardly he is tormented by temptations. Yoga says to fill the mind to the brim with the joy of God! In that overwhelming bliss can one still long for sense pleasures? Yoga is thus the true royal road to salvation. ([Location 6947](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6947)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Thus the wise man should introspect and find out whether his greed, sex temptation, love of physical beauty, desire for flattery, and so forth have been actually slain by wisdom or whether they are only feigning their demise. ([Location 6969](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=6969)) - Tags: [[orange]] - All the miseries and ghastly terrors of civilization have their roots in indiscrimination, which is the gradual ripening of the evil that sprouts unwittingly in the mind of man through the stages of attraction and attachment, longing and desire, anger and passion, delusion and recklessness, and impropriety from loss of memory of man’s true divine Self. Thus does yoga adjure man to maintain an iron grip on the thought system of his mind. Self-control must not be lost even at the greatest provocation. When evil exists within, then what appears without is its double. He who conquers the mind, conquers the world. ([Location 7067](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7067)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The power of maya that keeps all beings engrossed in the wakefulness of attachment to material objects induces in saints only the slumber of nonattachment. ([Location 7184](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7184)) - He must practice meditation and lead a life of self-discipline, service, and active kindness to all. ([Location 7200](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7200)) - Tags: [[pink]] - (Noble inclinations and spiritual ambitions that are free of ego and selfish interest, and are motivated solely by a wish to please God, are desireless desires and carry no binding effects.) ([Location 7278](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7278)) - Tags: [[pink]] - He who can disconnect his mind at will from the body realizes the difference between the pure soul made in the image of God and the soul in bondage to the body—the ego. ([Location 7282](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7282)) - “He who rejects the usual worldly duties can justify himself only by assuming some kind of responsibility for a much larger family.” ([Location 7296](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7296)) - Tags: [[orange]] - “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out (will reincarnate no more),” ([Location 7337](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7337)) - Tags: [[orange]] - But mere theoretical study of scriptures is detrimental to real attainment of wisdom if it produces egotism and the false conviction that one knows when one does not know. ([Location 7491](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7491)) - Tags: [[orange]] - he rouses the wisdom samskaras (karmic propensities) already within him, and attains God-union without further application of a formal technique of meditation. ([Location 7498](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7498)) - The renunciant should not be satisfied with living idly as a recluse. He should learn to practice breathlessness and heart control by which he can switch off the life force from the five sense-telephones of sight, hearing, smell, taste, and touch. By such intense spiritual activity, devoid of laziness, the devotee learns to disengage his mind from the invasion of thought-creating sensations. When the mind is disconnected from the senses in deep sleep, it is free from the disturbances of sensations and thoughts. In deep meditation the mind is consciously liberated from all sensations and their train of multifarious, disruptive cognitions. ([Location 7552](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7552)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - The aspiring devotee should heed the warning of the Bhagavad Gita: Though wisdom is superior to activity, still ultimate knowledge cannot be attained without activity. Social, moral, religious, and meditative actions are all spiritual activities. ([Location 7576](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7576)) - Tags: [[orange]] - he rides the bodily chariot to the supreme Goal. ([Location 7708](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7708)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Mind in conjunction with the senses has to work. Mind drawn into God becomes inactive and transcendental like the Spirit. Anyone who can gradually transmute the work of the life current in the body, by switching off the life force from the nerve-telephones and disconnecting the mind from the senses, attains the true inactive state of the Spirit. When the yogi by this method has reached savikalpa samadhi he can keep his body indefinitely entranced in God, if he wishes to do so—remaining above all activities. In the highest state, nirvikalpa samadhi, the yogi is consciously united with God without the necessity of suspending the activities of the body. Being one with the Supreme, and having no personal desires, he performs all of his actions only to please God; hence, they are termed inactive actions (nishkama karma, desire-free actions that produce no binding effects). When one acts only to please God, he has achieved the real or spiritual inactive state that is free from both obligatory duties and from karmic bondage resulting from actions. The highest dutiful activity, therefore, consists in practicing those methods of meditation through which the devotee is ultimately freed from worldly karmas. ([Location 7754](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7754)) - Tags: [[orange]] - But the yogi (monastic or householder) who does his duty to God, and also to the world through some form of uplifting service, is the most highly evolved type of being. He becomes a master (a siddha) when by such dutiful action he attains the supreme inactive state (nirvikalpa God-union), which is free from karmic effects of actions and is filled with the bliss of Spirit. ([Location 7778](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7778)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Exoteric meaning: desireless action offered to God ([Location 7826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7826)) - The true exoteric fire rite of life—by which the bodily life is united with the Cosmic Life, and the human mind and soul are united with the Cosmic Mind and Spirit—consists in offering right actions to God, without desire or attachment. These followers of right actions performed as yajna do not remain tied to the earth, but are liberated. The blessed state of the jivanmukta (one who has overcome delusion and recovered his divine Identity, becoming freed while still incarnate) cannot be won by neglecting or running away from the duties of this life; by such unworthy conduct a man ignores God in His aspect of Lord of the World. The true jivanmukta therefore makes a “sacrifice” of his bodily powers in God’s service, and thus works in sinlessness, his actions creating no new seeds of earth-binding karma. ([Location 7827](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7827)) - Joining the ranks of these God-manifested angels and deities are the souls of liberated human beings who when freed choose not to dissolve their natures in the Infinite, but to remain in the higher realms of creation to work for the upliftment of still-evolving souls. Communion with these devas or “shining ones” is not to be misunderstood as the spirit communion of spiritualists.22 Truly divine ones cannot be contacted by this means. Only by lifting one’s own consciousness, through the right method of meditation, to the higher spiritual realms of the astral heaven—home of the divine forces that uphold the material world—can such attunement with the deities be realized. ([Location 7985](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=7985)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - center in the forehead are two poles that act in conjunction, and are thus often referred to as one center, the ajna chakra.) The yogi who has reached his goal, the Kutastha center, is then able to unite himself with Cosmic Consciousness, perceived in the brain as a starting point. He then feels his mind united simultaneously with Kutastha (Christ) Consciousness—present throughout all vibratory creation—and with Cosmic Consciousness, which exists beyond the limits of any vibratory phenomena. In the superior spiritual withdrawal, even though the yogi may perceive lights and astral beings, he dissolves them in the different states of consciousness in the spine. He first unites his mind with semiconsciousness, subconsciousness, and superconsciousness, in the three lower spinal centers—coccygeal, sacral, lumbar—then lifts his mind to unite it with a higher state of superconsciousness present in the dorsal and cervical regions. Then he unites himself with Kutastha (Christ) Consciousness (the Omnipresent Mind in creation) and finally with Cosmic Consciousness (the Absolute Spirit in the vibrationless realms beyond creation). ([Location 8013](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8013)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - The intelligent Cosmic Vibration has two properties, cosmic light (Yajna, creative fire, or light—“Ethereal, first of things, quintessence, pure”31) and the cosmic sound of Aum. The Aum or Amen or Holy Ghost—all are significations of the Cosmic Vibration, all are the “witness”32 or evidence of the Creator in His creation. ([Location 8231](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8231)) - Tags: [[pink]] - After spiritual initiation by a guru, a devotee learns to open his spiritual eye, and by cultivating wisdom he enters the caste of a Vaishya; and then by fighting the senses he rises to the higher caste of a Kshatriya. Eventually, attaining God-realization, he becomes a Brahmin (one with Brahman, Spirit). ([Location 8550](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8550)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The wise look upon childhood, youth, old age, life, and death as passing dramas; hence everything entertains them. When one becomes momentarily identified with a tragic picture, he feels miserable; but when he realizes that it is only a part of an entertaining variety show, he feels happy. God wants man to behold the changing pictures of personal and worldly life as a sort of variety entertainment. Often at the end of a plotful melodrama the audience feels: “That was a good picture!” ([Location 8601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8601)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The mental clan (the Kurus, or offspring of Dhritarashtra, the blind sense mind) includes jealousy, fear, hate, greed, anger, attraction, repulsion, egotism, delusion, pain, pleasure, shame, envy, pride, repentance, worry, complacency, hope, desire, etc. ([Location 8667](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8667)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Since the senses and their objects all spring from the attributes of primordial Nature (Prakriti), a man of Self-realization does not deem himself the doer of any action, and therefore cannot be attached to any ensuing effect. ([Location 8723](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8723)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - The consciousness of soul, the true substance of the Self, is individualized ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. The pseudosoul, ego or ahamkara, is identified with twenty-four ever changeable attributes of Nature. The nature of the Self, perceiving Spirit, is bliss; the nature of the ego and the senses, manifesting Nature’s attributes, is ever-changing excitement. Man should concentrate on the immutable divine bliss of the soul and not on the mutating ignorant perceptions of the inimical senses. The neutralization in Kriya Yoga meditation of the good, bad, and activating qualities of Nature harmonizes the natural attributes in man. He then manifests the true Self, beyond the entanglements of the threefold qualities and their twenty-four attributes. ([Location 8951](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=8951)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Desire and anger can never be appeased by fulfillment, not even by control over all matter. Every material desire leads man farther away from bliss, delaying his task of finding the way back to his native state of absolute peace. The unfulfilled longing of desire and the obstructed longing of anger, therefore, are disastrously inimical to the recovery of bliss. Lord Krishna warns that this duo-force is man’s great enemy. ([Location 9045](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=9045)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - “Coercive materialistic desire is the instigator of man’s wrong thoughts and actions. Interacting with the other forces that obstruct man’s divine nature—influencing as well as being influenced by them—lustful desire is the consummate enemy. The perfect exemplar is Duryodhana, whose unwillingness to part with even an inch of sensory territory or pleasure was the cause of the war of Kurukshetra. Only little by little, with fierce determination in battle, could the Pandavas win back their kingdom.” ([Location 9062](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=9062)) - Tags: [[orange]] - This knowing of truth by direct perception is called aparokshajnana. Some people say this is mystical. It is not mystical; it is most practical, and a natural faculty of man’s true Self. ([Location 9261](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=9261)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The pure soul, the atman, is called the jiva when it is identified with its mortal coverings—body, mind, senses, and other principles of Nature. ([Location 9535](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=9535)) - Tags: [[orange]] - He makes Himself known to a seeker in a measure commensurate with that person’s mentality and capacity to receive. Devotees worship the Lord variously—as the Infinite or Heavenly Father or Divine Mother, or as Divine Friend (like the relationship between Krishna and Arjuna), or as Divine Lover, Divine Beloved, Divine Master, Divine Child. God responds to the devotee in whatever aspect he holds dear. To the true monist He reveals Himself as the Infinite; to the sincere dualist He appears in the desired finite form. ([Location 9930](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=9930)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The earnest devotee, renunciant and householder alike, meditates intensely at night when he is free from the interruptions of the world, and at daybreak before he begins his duties; and works throughout the day just to please God and His true servant, his guru, whose only wish is to help the disciple find God. One should feel the Divine Presence, and, inspired by It, work in obedience to the spiritual guidance (the sadhana) given by the guru; one thereby follows the surest way to live and work without misery. To do what one wants to do is not freedom; but to do what one should do, guided by the wisdom of a true guru, leads to complete emancipation. ([Location 10150](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10150)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The difference between good action and ill action can be recognized if one keeps a constant vigil during the wakeful state. For example, a hungry yogi begins to eat a meal (nothing wrong here). But as he eats, his mind becomes concentrated on the taste (“dangerous curves ahead!”). Finally he overeats (incurs a karmic debt to Nature). Thus even a wise man may forget to distinguish the almost indivisible dividing line between self-controlled eating and uncontrolled eating; and, in general, between soul-identified actions and body-identified actions. ([Location 10171](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10171)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Performing good actions, even with an egotistical motive, is better than performing evil actions. Both types of actions, however, keep the soul confined by the law of karma. An action performed only to please God produces no karma, whether “good” or “ill”; it is thus superior to any action, however good, that is referred to the ego and thus calls into play the law of karma. The man of good karma is still subject to cause-and-effect fetters of the phenomenal world, while the man of no karma is divinely free! ([Location 10344](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10344)) - Tags: [[pink]] - All karma, or effects of actions, completely melts away from the liberated being who, free from attachments, with his mind enveloped in wisdom, performs the true spiritual fire rite (yajna). ([Location 10421](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10421)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - When the yogi switches off the life current from the nerves, he finds his mind disconnected from the senses. This act of withdrawing life from the body and uniting that energy with the light of God is the highest yajna, the real fire rite—casting the little flame of life into the Great Divine Fire, burning all human desire in the divine desire for God. Then the yogi takes his sense-withdrawn mind and casts it into the fire of Cosmic Consciousness; realizing, finally, his own soul as something entirely different from the body, he casts that Self into the fire of Eternal Spirit.” ([Location 10429](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10429)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - By the inner illumination of divine awakening, the yogi ceases to be a mortal being with gross perceptions of the universe; he realizes that the whole cosmos is a cosmic motion picture. His body is only “a dream walking.” ([Location 10482](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10482)) - Tags: [[orange]] - In Revelation of the Christian Bible, we read that God has “seven angels” before His throne.35 The Hindu scriptures also mention these supreme deities (power aspects of God), and identify them as follows: The macrocosmic ideational (causal) universe is created and governed by Ishvara, “Lord of Creation,” the omniscient reflection of Spirit as Creator. The law of causation begins with Ishvara, the First Cause of all matter.36 The macrocosmic astral universe is maintained by Hiranyagarbha, who forms the “blueprints” of the causal ideas. The macrocosmic physical universe (the materialization of the causal ideas and the astral blueprints) is controlled by Virata. The microcosmic ideational form of man and of all objects is governed by Prajna. The microcosmic astral form of man and of all objects is controlled by Taijas. The physical form of man and of all material things is maintained by Vishva. These six deities governing the six states of the cosmos are in turn transcendentally guided by the creative intelligence and manifesting principles of the seventh “angel,” Maha-Prakriti—the Great Mother Nature, or the Holy Ghost, the active expression of Kutastha Chaitanya or Christ Consciousness, which is the reflection of Cosmic Consciousness. These are the seven angels before the throne of God. ([Location 10495](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10495)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - A devotee in need of healing may pray to the god Vishva: “Manifest in me as health!” Those seeking a stronger life force may say: “Good Taijas, recharge my energies!” Those wanting insight and wisdom may pray to God as Prajna: “Reinforce my wisdom and guide its determinations to its goal.” Devotees who want a perception of the whole physical universe may pray to God as Virata: “Make me feel Thy presence in all the cosmos.” Those who would know God as the Cosmic Life Force may pray: “O Cosmic Astral Engineer, Hiranyagarbha! manifest Thyself to me as Cosmic Light.” Seekers of the supernal wisdom of the First Cause of all being may pray: “O God as Ishvara! implant in me the omniscience of Cosmic Intelligence.” Those who want release from maya, cosmic delusion, may direct their prayer to Maha-Prakriti, the Holy Ghost, the active divine conjurer of all illusory manifestations: “O Cosmic Mother, show me the One Reality behind all Thy veils of delusion.” Devotees who desire union with the Universal Intelligence of God omnipresent in the seven-aspected phenomenal world should pray to the immanent Kutastha Chaitanya: “O Christ Consciousness—O Krishna Consciousness—be Thou manifest in the ecstasy-expanded cup of my consciousness!” Those, finally, who want God, the Absolute beyond creation, should pray: “O Cosmic Consciousness, reveal Thyself! Reveal Thyself!” ([Location 10517](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10517)) - Certain devotees offer, as oblations in the fire of inner control, their powers of hearing and other senses. Others offer as sacrifice, in the fire of the senses, sound and other sense objects. The first rite referred to in this stanza describes the symbolical fire ceremony practiced by all brahmacharis (self-disciplinarians). By pratyahara (interiorization) the man of discipline withdraws his consciousness and life force from the auditory, optical, olfactory, gustatory, and tactual nerve centers, casting sensory perceptions into the flame of controlled inner awareness of peace. By deep meditation (samyama, self-mastery through dharana, dhyana, and samadhi), the yogi of inner self-control succeeds in freeing his mind from the tug-of-war with the five senses, and is able to dissolve all perceptions of the five senses into the one indivisible perception—that of the bliss of the Self. This is the state of the devotees who win the true victory in the battle between the senses and the God-aspiring mind. In the earlier stages of meditation the five senses attempt to distract the attention of the inwardly moving devotee; imaginary, invisible perceptions are presented while the devotee, with closed eyes and ears, is seeking perfect at-one-ness with the Self. ([Location 10581](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10581)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - There is a difference between “self-control,” and “the fire of control in Self” referred to in this stanza. Self-control often signifies the limited power of will used in subjugating a certain sense; or it may signify the power of self-control possessed by an average man. But “the fire of control in Self” refers to the supreme and unlimited power of mastery that the Self possesses as a true reflection of the Spirit. ([Location 10702](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10702)) - Tags: [[pink]] - twice daily practice of Kriya Yoga from 14 to 24 times, and thereafter increased in increments of 12, up to 108 (as advised by the guru). By Kriya Yoga one scientifically marches toward God, quickening his evolution by step-by-step methods and by a greater or lesser number of correct practices of the Kriya Yoga technique. When the yogi by years of practice of Kriya Yoga makes his body and nerves adaptable, he can manifest within his body—ecstatically, easily—all the current generated by the practice of 20,736 Kriyas, and much more. The adept Kriya Yogi concentrates the ecstasy-producing power not in the numbers of Kriya, but in each Kriya. After years of intense practice, and through the blessing of my Guru and Paramgurus, now when I do only one to three Kriyas my consciousness enters the blissful samadhi state. My Beloved Lord is never more than a Kriya away. In Kriya Yoga ecstasy, the body is perceived not as flesh but as electro-lifetronic energy. The body thus realized as life force becomes one with Cosmic Energy. The ego consciousness is transmuted into the inconceivable bliss of the soul. The soul and its bliss commingle with the cosmic blessedness of Spirit. In the state of ecstasy the yogi knows the body to be a motion picture of divine energy, which in turn is a dream of God’s consciousness; and he, the Self, is an eternal part of that dreaming Consciousness. ([Location 10754](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10754)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - The yogi then assumes any correct posture and practices life-force control (pranayama) by a technique such as Kriya Yoga. With this technique he disconnects his mind from body consciousness by switching off the life current from the senses, and unites mind and life force with superconsciousness in the spine and brain. He thus reaches the state of true interiorization, or withdrawal of the mind and the life force from the senses (pratyahara). After the yogi becomes strong in body and mind by self-discipline, posture, life-force control, and interiorization of consciousness, he devotes his newly mastered body and mind to concentration on the Infinite (samyama: dharana, dhyana, and samadhi), conceiving Spirit as the cosmic Aum vibration. Not satisfied with listening to the Aum vibration, he begins to expand with it—feeling the vibration not only in his own body but in the vast cosmos. The yogi is then able to attain the ecstasy of oneness with God—vibrating in the universe as Cosmic Sound or Cosmic Light—the Holy Ghost vibration. Inherent in this Vibration he finds the Christ or Krishna (Kutastha) consciousness, and through that he merges with the Lord as Cosmic Consciousness. ([Location 10793](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10793)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - A man without scriptural knowledge or inner realization is sadly ignorant. A person with a theoretical knowledge of scriptures but without Self-realization is like a man who eats much food but cannot digest it. The man with divine realization, even if lacking scriptural knowledge, has attained God and is a worthy example to society. A man possessing both scriptural knowledge and Self-realization has not only attained God but is an admirable teacher for imparting God-consciousness to others. ([Location 10820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=10820)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Yoga, the highest knowledge of mankind, is not a cult nor a dogmatic belief, but rather commends itself to the greatest scientists of the East and the West. True kumbhaka, or the retention of the breath mentioned in enlightened yoga treatises, refers not to the forcible holding of the breath in the lungs, but to the natural breathlessness brought about by scientific pranayama, which renders breathing unnecessary. Kriya Yoga is referred to obliquely in several scriptures and yoga treatises as Kevali Pranayama or Kevala Kumbhaka—true pranayama or life control that has transcended the need for inhalation (puraka) and exhalation (rechaka); breath is transmuted into inner life-force currents under the complete control of the mind.46 Of the various stages of pranayama breathlessness (kumbhaka), Kevali is extolled by adept yogis as the best or highest. Though in principle it may be equated with Kriya Yoga, Kevali Pranayama is not as explicit as the specific Kriya Yoga science and technique revived and clarified for this age by Mahavatar Babaji and given to the world through Lahiri Mahasaya. ([Location 11016](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11016)) - Tags: [[pink]] - When breath ceases in the Kriya Yogi, he is suffused with an incomparable bliss. He realizes then that it is the storm of human breath that is responsible for the creation of the dream wave of the human body and its sensations; it is breath that causes body consciousness. ([Location 11037](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11037)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Meals should be eaten at regular hours and in a contented frame of mind. Some texts say: “Stokam stokam annakhada”—“Little by little eat many times, but never eat much at one time.” Various forms of diet may be followed with benefit, according to the counsel of a guru. Proper diet and occasional fasting51 help destroy unnatural cravings for sex experience, and bestow the blessing of a healthy body. ([Location 11108](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11108)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Health faddists seem unable to discuss intelligently any subject on earth except the body and food. A wise man discovers a simple diet suited to his constitution, follows it religiously—and forgets it! Endless preoccupation with diet ties the health faddist to intense body consciousness. Advanced yogis learn to keep the body alive, free from disease, and free from the bondage of reincarnation, solely through development of God-consciousness. ([Location 11160](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11160)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - At the end of meditation each day the disciple should concentrate at the point between the eyebrows and visualize his guru. Thinking of him with love and devotion, the disciple should ask the questions he wants answered. If visualization of and concentration on the guru are deep, the chela will invariably receive silent answers to his questions in the form of accruing inner perceptions. In this way the advanced disciple can contact the guru even after the master has left the mortal flesh for invisible Omnipresence. ([Location 11253](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11253)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Devotion in this sloka is referred to as shraddha, the natural inclination of the heart quality to turn toward its Source in faith and surrender.59 ([Location 11385](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11385)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Unidentified with the ego, egotistic actions, and the body, these devotees become free. The relinquishing of actions by yoga signifies that the yogi performs actions only for God. The Gita again and again points out that literal “renunciation of actions,” relished by “spiritual” idlers, is not the true renunciation. Acting for God and renouncing the fruits of action—not actionlessness—mark the true man of renunciation. Such a devotee is a yogi and a man of renunciation because he is united to God and has renounced the fruits of action. This ([Location 11484](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11484)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “The path of performance of right actions without desire for their fruit, plus meditation on Me by yoga technique, is superior to the life of meditation without outer activity.” ([Location 11564](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11564)) - This teaching of the Gita is not a philosophy of negativeness or of negligence. Man has his proper duty to the body. The devotee should practice titiksha—imperturbability. This discipline allows for the removing, without inner impatience, of pain or causes of pain. The physical temple should be protected until final salvation is reached; the body should be sensibly guarded as long as God wants to work through it. ([Location 11604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11604)) - Tags: [[orange]] - When the yogi in ecstatic meditation withdraws his life force from the body’s trillions of cells and from the nerves, he beholds the life-force currents like little streams trickling back from the shores of the flesh through innumerable small channels into the large channel of the spinal cord. All the currents of the body thus withdrawn into the spine then pass, successively, into and through the three luminous nadis (subtle tubes or channels of life force) of the astral spine (the sushumna, the vajra, and the chitra) and become one current as it passes through the innermost channel, the brahmanadi, the “spine” of the causal body.5 The brahmanadi is so called because it is the primal channel through which Brahma—the Spirit as soul, life, and consciousness—descended into the body and through which the yogi attains ascension into Spirit. ([Location 11723](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11723)) - Tags: [[blue]] - The God-united yogi, abandoning attachment to fruits of actions, attains the peace unshakable (peace born of self-discipline). The man who is not united to God is ruled by desires; through such attachment he remains in bondage. ([Location 11798](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11798)) - Tags: [[blue]] [[favorite]] - The man identified with his body finds by self-analysis that the consciousness of egoism and the egotistical performance of all actions with the desire to enjoy their fruits originated in his error in responding to the influence of cosmic delusion in Nature. Not blaming the immaculate Lord as the Originator of his troubles, the wise man sees that all evils result from misuse of free choice, by which he has responded to Nature rather than to God. ([Location 11857](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11857)) - Tags: [[orange]] - God did not create man to suffer, but to overcome all bodily and material limitations by the unconquerable power of the soul. ([Location 11869](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11869)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The devotee should understand that the purpose of God in creating the world and Delusion is to develop perfect beings. ([Location 11886](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11886)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Eternal perdition, or final immersion in delusion, is impossible. A piece of gold, though hidden under debris as large as the Himalayas, will remain always gold. When the dirt is removed, the gold in its true nature shines forth. Similarly, a mountain of sin covering the soul cannot change its intrinsic nature as an image of Perfection. ([Location 11921](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11921)) - Tags: [[pink]] - In India the most popular quotation from the Bhagavad Gita about the origin of evil is this part of stanza 15: “Wisdom is covered by ignorance; that is why people are deluded.” ([Location 11941](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=11941)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Devotees whose bad habits are strong easily become discouraged when confronted with the apparent unstability of spiritual experiences. Doubts arise, and the faithless may relegate spiritual experiences to the realm of impractical mysticism. The fault lies in the practitioners’ lack of perseverance to make permanent their spiritual gains, the attainment of the third or established state of divine communion. ([Location 12031](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12031)) - Tags: [[pink]] - A man of God-consciousness learns to dream at will, perceiving then his dream world as reality. He learns, too, to dissolve his dream at will, realizing then that his dream creation was a mere mental phenomenon. All illusory nightmares gone, he merges his consciousness with the Divine Dreamer, ever witnessing the colorful premieres of “super-colossal” spectacle plays. ([Location 12100](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12100)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Without suffering, mortals would not make the effort to know that they are immortals who cannot suffer. The spiritual aspirant is thus advised to conquer his emotional reactions to the inevitable dualities of the phenomenal universe, and to remain, like his Creator, in an even, ecstatic state. How easily body-identified man is moved by the dualities; but at death his beloved body cannot be emotionally stirred. The yogi accepts the hint given by Death; and so while occupying the body, he treats it kindly but impersonally like a total stranger. ([Location 12126](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12126)) - Tags: [[pink]] - A saint therefore speaks of all pleasures that arise from sense contacts as generators of grief; they often create unhappiness in the beginning and in the end. Even the desire for sense enjoyments and the process of indulging in them involve some form of suffering; if not in conscience or body, then in the thought that they must end. ([Location 12161](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12161)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - Even an advanced yogi may occasionally feel in his active life the impulses of lust and anger (owing to karmic impulses of the past). If he steadfastly perseveres in his yogic path, resisting up to the end of life the occasional “surprise visits” of undesirable emotions, he will attain the final union with Spirit. The Gita instructs the devotee to die fighting his evil impulses rather than to succumb to them and again be enmeshed in the miseries of incarnation. ([Location 12191](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12191)) - Tags: [[pink]] - So long as a man has any material desires, he has to work out his karma in a physical body. When he is able to extricate himself, by nonattachment and the practice of Kriya Yoga, from all fleshly delusions and bondage, he then finds himself confined in the astral body and entangled in his astral karma. By deeper immersion in ecstasy, the devotee escapes from the astral body and becomes lodged in the causal or ideational body, vibrating with the original subtle seeds of all past karmic impulses. When God thought out the complicated labyrinth of man’s life, He really put His mind to it! ([Location 12219](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12219)) - Tags: [[pink]] - One who on earth has destroyed all desires and all karma—past as well as present—is truly “freed while living.” That jivanmukta is then known as a siddha, “a perfected being.” Such souls are the “renunciants” referred to in this verse—those who have abandoned forever all inner and outer causes of bondage. ([Location 12269](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12269)) - Tags: [[pink]] - He gradually finds that these two spinal currents become converted into one life force, magnetically drawing reinforcements of prana from all the bodily cells and nerves. This strengthened life current flows upward to the point between the eyebrows and is seen as the tricolored spherical astral eye: a luminous sun, in the center of which is a blue sphere encircling a bright scintillating star. Jesus referred to this “single” eye in the center of the forehead, and to the truth that the body is essentially formed of light, in the following words: “If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light.”20 ([Location 12338](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12338)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Note: Jalos - that devotee who combines the two—thinking of God while working for Him, and also seeking Him in deep meditation—is the one who quickly knows God; he is both a sannyasi and a yogi. ([Location 12533](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12533)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - yoga practitioner’s main object in meditating deeply—which should be solely to know God—is ([Location 12588](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12588)) - Tags: [[pink]] - It is optional whether the yogi follows the path of outer renunciation or carries on a family life with inner nonattachment. ([Location 12604](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12604)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - Thus, the path of yoga is superior to the path of renunciation, for the sincere desire and meditative effort to attain God-communion, roused by even a little inner contact with God, are of paramount importance to any attempts at practicing renunciation. ([Location 12613](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12613)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Remember that he who rejects the usual worldly duties can justify himself only by assuming some kind of responsibility for a much larger family.” ([Location 12631](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12631)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Thus yoga, or perfect evenness of consciousness, is precluded. Patanjali, in his Yoga Sutras, defines yoga as the dissolving of the scintillations or vrittis (alternating waves of thoughts, desires, emotions) in the chitta or primordial feeling (the totality of individualized consciousness), arising from the likes and dislikes produced from the contact of the mind with the senses.4 Yoga has also been defined in the scriptures as the forsaking of all desireful thoughts, and as the attainment of a state of “thoughtlessness.” These definitions fit the achievements of both the man of renunciation and the yogi. Real renunciation consists in the ability to dismiss thoughts and desires at will. Supreme yoga ecstasy bestows the “thoughtless” state. It is not a mental coma (in which the mind is unconscious of external sensations and internal perceptions), but is a state of divine ([Location 12669](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12669)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[orange]] - The ego acts as its own best friend when by meditation and the exercise of its innate soul qualities it spiritualizes itself and ultimately restores its own true soul nature. Conversely, the physical ego serves as its own worst enemy when by delusive material behavior it eclipses its true nature as the ever blessed soul. ([Location 12792](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12792)) - Tags: [[pink]] - This follows the Gita allegory described in chapter one: Krishna (the soul) is the friend and guide of the spiritual endeavors of the devotee Arjuna, along with the Pandava army of divine qualities; Krishna (the soul) is therefore an enemy (an opposer) of Duryodhana’s Kaurava army of materialistic inclinations, which is under the guidance of Bhishma (ego).8 The soul, ([Location 12798](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12798)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The devotee should begin his meditation with the practice of the techniques of Kriya Yoga, by which he can disconnect his mind from the outer sensory world. Many nonmeditating individuals think that it is impossible to do this, not realizing that they accomplish the feat every night in sleep. ([Location 12868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12868)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Deeply meditating disciples should concentrate on their guru, or meditate with him if possible. Those who are spiritually advanced do in fact meditate with the guru by visualizing him in the spiritual eye and tuning in with him, whether or not they are in his physical presence. During meditation the spiritual vibration of a great master silently works on lesser yogis who may be meditating with him or who are in tune with him, regardless of distance. It is sufficient for a disciple to think strongly of his guru before meditation. He will then find his meditation on God to be reinforced by the Lord’s power flowing through the direct tangible channel of the guru. ([Location 12891](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12891)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The successful yogi first takes his ego, mind, and life force through these three lower centers that are connected with material consciousness, and lodges his consciousness in the centrally located (“neither high nor low”) heart center. ([Location 12948](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=12948)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - One should sit in a comfortable posture with the spine erect. The lumbar region of the spine (opposite the navel) should be gently crooked forward, the chest up and shoulders back (which places the inner edges of the shoulder blades closer together). Each hand, palm upturned, should be put on the corresponding thigh at the juncture of the thigh and abdomen to prevent the body from bending forward. The chin should be parallel to the floor. While maintaining this correct position, undue tension in the muscles should be relaxed. When the yogi holds the spine in the form of a bow by the above-mentioned posture, he is ready successfully to engage his reversed mind and life force in a battle with the outwardly pulling senses. Without any strictures or pinching of the spinal nerves, the mind and life force are easily directed upward by the yogi. ([Location 13007](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13007)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The dividing line between the upper darkness and the lower material light of the half-closed and half-opened eyes is called “the horizon of superconsciousness.” A person meditating with closed eyes may fall asleep; trying to meditate with open eyes he may be thwarted by the stubborn visions of matter. That is why the yogi is advised to avoid the total darkness of closed eyes and the full light of opened eyes. Instead he concentrates his vision on the superconscious horizon. ([Location 13051](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13051)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Holding his eyes half open and half closed, and concentrating at the spiritual eye, the devotee can at will, and for as long as he chooses, enter and remain in a state of superconscious ecstasy. Thus just by opening or closing his eyes or keeping them half open, the advanced yogi can transfer his concentration at will from the physical world to the subconscious slumberland or to the superconscious state. Summoning or dismissing these states at will, he becomes master of the conscious, subconscious, and superconscious worlds. ([Location 13102](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13102)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Aum, being a spiritual vibration, is not heard physically, but felt spiritually. ([Location 13168](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13168)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The yogi, one with the Ocean of God, watches It and his little bodily wave as one and the same thing. Such a yogi is spoken of as having attained the supreme state of nirvana or complete ego extinguishment. The soul does not vanish, but, retaining its individuality, expands into the Spirit. Nirvana signifies the final extinction, by destruction of all rebirth-making unfulfilled desires, of the karmic causes that compel a soul to reincarnate. ([Location 13241](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13241)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The illustration of an unflickering flame of light in a windless spot may be used in reference to a yogi who has conquered his feeling (chitta) by the practice of meditation on the Self. ([Location 13334](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13334)) - Tags: [[pink]] - He becomes one with Spirit —“enthroned, never again to be removed”—never again to come down to the painful sphere of body identification. ([Location 13394](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13394)) - When the soul of the yogi is forever united in nirvikalpa samadhi to Spirit, it cannot again experience any physical or mental suffering. This state is spoken of in Sankhya philosophy as the “permanent extinguishment” or “uprooting” of all physical, mental, and spiritual causes of suffering. The true definition of yoga is given in these stanzas. The purpose of yoga is to furnish a practical means for uniting the body-identified ego or pseudosoul with the true Spirit-identified soul. Yoga also means the complete union of the soul with the Spirit—the Source from which it emanated. ([Location 13410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13410)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - A man planted a flower seed in his garden. He looked after it, steadfastly weeding and watering the soil around it. A robust plant appeared—but, for years, no flower. He thought of destroying the plant, but finally decided: “My business is to look after the plant; it is for God to produce the flower. I will keep myself busy in tending the plant and not in concentrating on my flowerless labors.” Years passed; he contented himself with the care of the plant and forgot all about the flower. One sunny morning, when a breeze was gently blowing, he smelled a strangely attractive fragrance. He ran to his plant and stood speechless in joy—there in front of him was the gorgeous flower! The aromatic beauty had always been present in the plant, a hidden potential awaiting the right moment of blossoming made possible by his labor of love. The yogi should similarly keep himself busy nurturing his plant of Self-realization; if he is not impatient, he will find (one day when God in His infinite wisdom deems it proper) the amaranthine flower of eternal freedom. ([Location 13430](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13430)) - Such a beginner yogi, watching aghast his unsettled and disobedient thoughts, is cautioned in this stanza not to abandon meditation in despair, thus denying himself all chance of mind control. Rather, he should patiently await the settling-down of his restless thoughts. Their commotion is just a prelude to their dissolution by yoga. The undiscouraged yogi will find his mind finally free from all distractions. Gradually identifying himself with his “witnessing” intuitive discrimination, adroitly bypassing the intruders of restless thoughts, the yogi attains the unshakable divine tranquility. ([Location 13481](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13481)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Every yogi should therefore refuse to succumb to the invasions of restlessness during meditation. When he is able to hold his concentration steady in the state of inner calmness, he perceives the soul. By further perseverance he enters into ecstatic bliss and realizes the Spirit. The fully accomplished yogi can move about in the world of relativity unstained by its dualities, remaining steadfastly in the blessed state of Brahmasamsparsha, the bliss of the touch of Spirit. ([Location 13524](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13524)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - This stanza of the Gita definitely points out that the illumined yogi does not lose the individuality of his soul; instead he finds his being extended into the Being of the Spirit. An ordinary person perceives himself as separate from God. The advanced yogi feels his soul as a wave in the ocean of Cosmic Consciousness. But the completely liberated yogi beholds his soul-wave as a manifestation of the Cosmic Ocean. Such a yogi never says, “I am God,” for he knows God can exist without his soul; but, if he wants to, he can say: “God has become myself.” ([Location 13548](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13548)) - He who perceives Me everywhere and beholds everything in Me never loses sight of Me, nor do I ever lose sight of him. ([Location 13569](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13569)) - But he will also realize that even though habits of sense pleasures are very strong, they are not stronger than is the eternal perception of divine bliss present in the soul—the inextinguishable inheritance from Spirit. ([Location 13692](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13692)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Dispassion” (vairagya) is the act of disengaging the mind from all forms of sensory pleasures as found in this world or to be found in heaven (the astral realms). Many persons believe paradise (as described in the scriptures) to be a place where they can enjoy unlimited, glorified sensory pleasures. The yogi is warned to keep his mind away from everything that reminds him of impermanent worldly joys and that causes him to forget the everlasting bliss of his soul. ([Location 13699](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13699)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The sense addict, similarly, seeking the fragrance of bliss in every place except the soul, perishes in trying to find pleasure. Had he concentrated his attention within, he would have discovered the longed-for happiness. ([Location 13747](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13747)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.”31 ([Location 13782](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13782)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Beings who dwell on certain stars, for instance, absorb life energy directly; they do not breathe air like earthly beings. ([Location 13826](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13826)) - Tags: [[blue]] - As the yogi proceeds in the path, he finds his mind passing through the various stages of concentration—of being once in a while calm and most of the time restless; of being half the time calm and half the time restless; of being nearly all the time calm and once in a while restless; of being all the time calm without ever being restless. ([Location 13900](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13900)) - When the yogi in the highest ecstasy perceives his soul united to Spirit, and no longer identifies himself with the ever-changing dream inhalations and exhalations of the dream body, that devotee has received salvation. ([Location 13922](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13922)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - When the yogi learns superconsciously to contact his soul and to transcend his breath and body, he finds the Infinite reflected in his being. All finer subconscious or superconscious experiences take place without the consciousness of breath. Therefore, when in ecstatic meditation the yogi learns to remain in his soul without the mortal breath that causes rebirths, and when he can retain the unity with his breathless, God-united soul when his consciousness reenters the physically active breathing state, he is spoken of as one who has liberated himself. ([Location 13927](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=13927)) - Kriya Yoga, or the indirect reference to it in the scriptures as Kevali Pranayama,41 is the true pranayama, in which the inhaling and exhaling breath has been transmuted into interiorized life force under the full control of the mind. By distilling prana from the breath, and by neutralizing the life currents that control the breath, all the cells of the body are vitally recharged by the reinforced bodily life force and the Cosmic Life; the physical cells neither change nor decay. ([Location 14029](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14029)) - My manifested nature (Prakriti) has an eightfold differentiation: earth, water, fire, air, ether, sensory mind (manas), intelligence (buddhi), and egoism (ahamkara). ([Location 14220](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14220)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - The yogi with closed eyes dismisses his thoughts and sensations through the proper technique of meditation. When he is able to do that, he finds within himself the knowing, knower, known—all converted into the one perception of ecstasy. ([Location 14408](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14408)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - The Lord is consciously present in all higher beings and in their devotees. It is He who is Chintamani, “the jewel that grants all desires.” ([Location 14820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14820)) - Mortals are not aware of God because of their identification with His cosmic dream. Only liberated yogis, united with the Lord, are aware of Him and know all the past, present, and future happenings ([Location 14910](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14910)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Those who perceive Me in the Adhibhuta (the physical), the Adhidaiva (the astral), and the Adhiyajna (the spiritual), with heart united to the soul, continue to perceive Me even at the time of death. ([Location 14976](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14976)) - Tags: [[pink]] - An ordinary man usually leads a reckless life, little understanding its purpose. He does not realize that his whole life is a spiritual military training school in which he should discipline his body, mind, and emotions to achieve victory at the final battle of death on the last day of his earthly sojourn. ([Location 14995](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=14995)) - A yogi thoroughly trains himself throughout his life, practicing nonattachment to the objects of sense, and harmoniously uniting his ego with his soul by disconnecting life force and mind from the senses. Thus he can withdraw his ego at will from the material world. Then, by sensory-motor relaxation, he learns to withdraw his ego, life force, and mind from the physical body into the inner organs and spine. By voluntary relaxation he withdraws his ego, life force, and mind upward through the seven cerebrospinal centers and unites them with the bliss of the soul. Finally he withdraws his soul (detached from its ego nature, his bodily operative consciousness, his life force, and his astral and causal bodies) and unites it with Spirit. Thus an expert yogi who can merge his soul at will in God and who is free from all material desires does not ordinarily feel, at the approach of death, any physical or mental agony, or the tug-of-war between death and the physical desires. Finding his karmic term in the bodily prison over, he gladly makes a “grand exit.” He does not again return to this world, unless he is so commanded by God, for he has learned all the lessons that this earth was created to teach. ([Location 15015](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15015)) - Tags: [[orange]] - processes, objectify universes from subtle divine thought forces. Through pure soul intuition, an accomplished yogi can behold the physical cosmos and its beings as the cosmic dream of God. Or he can project his consciousness into the astral world and perceive its panorama of indescribably beautiful island universes and beings made of ethereal blendings of various colored lights. Or he can lift his consciousness into the sublime causal sphere, with its galaxies upon galaxies of dazzling wisdom-objects and beings and their interactions—a glorious diadem in the eternally still, endless skies of Spirit. The yogi who has attained complete control over his consciousness can behold the physical, astral, or causal worlds, or go beyond to the transcendent vibrationless region of God. He is able to perceive one portion of the Lord’s consciousness as the transcendental eternal peace, and another portion as the ripple of cosmic dreams—the worlds of creation. It is the vibrationless, blessed consciousness of God that in the last analysis is the causative and omniscient Supporter of the dream cosmos and all its forces, subtle and gross. The manifestations of the Divine are in evidence in the cosmic dream, but He—the Ruler—remains hidden. ([Location 15348](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15348)) - The ideational or causal body contains the seed thoughts of man’s physical and astral bodies. When by deeper ecstasy the yogi dissolves his chronic thoughts or delusions that have caused him to be encased in physical and astral bodies, his soul then moves through the seven idea-knots or plexuses of his causal body out into the vibrationless Transcendental. ([Location 15393](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15393)) - Tags: [[pink]] - He who closes the nine gates of the body,11 who cloisters the mind in the heart center, who fixes the full life force in the cerebrum—he who thus engages in the steady practice of yoga, establishing himself in Aum, the Holy Word of Brahman, and remembering Me (Spirit) at the time of his final exit from the body, reaches the Highest Goal. ([Location 15410](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15410)) - Yoga should not be practiced mechanically or from an oppressive sense of duty, but with joy and perpetual zeal, ([Location 15434](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15434)) - Striving yogis should pragmatically view this world as a school. The highest lesson set for each man is the realization that he is not a mortal, beset by pain and mutability, but a free son of God. The good student who is successful in the tests of earthly life and who passes the “final examination” has no need to return for further instruction. He has earned the divine Ph.D. ([Location 15444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15444)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - The more the yogi is able at will to gain the elevated states of consciousness, and the longer he is able to hold on to them in meditation and after meditation, the more he diminishes his binding karmic reflexes and dream delusions. When these are vanquished, the yogi dissolves the body-conscious ego into the soul and takes his soul, with its astral and causal bodies, out of the physical body; he then takes his soul and causal body out of the astral body; and, finally, his soul ascends from the causal form and merges into the transcendental Spirit, from which there is no compulsory return to the vale of distressing dualities. ([Location 15465](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15465)) - In the blessedness of divine communion between soul and Spirit, he realizes his causal body as a concentrated matrix of God’s thoughts, and that his astral and physical bodies are the subtle and gross dream manifestations of these ideations. By continuous ecstasy throughout life, he transcends the circumscriptions of a body-bound ego and lives solely as the immaculate Self, the pure image of God incarnate, able to perceive and express through his astral or physical body-dreams or to dissolve them at will. In the early stages of Self-mastery, the yogi is able to dissolve the perception of his dream body in the realization of his oneness with God, but the dream body itself does not dematerialize. After he loses the wakefulness of his ecstasy, he again perceives as a definite reality—too hard to forget—his physical dream body and the astral dream body encased within it. Only by deeper ecstasies, when the yogi secures unbrokenly his soul union with the transcendental Spirit, can he consciously dissolve the cosmic dream of his physical, astral, and causal bodies and then re-create them at will, forever realizing them to be naught but dreams of God, with whom his soul and its conscious dreaming are one. Whether awake in Blissful Transcendence or consciously dreaming with God the cosmic fantasy of being, the liberated soul suffers no more the ignoble confinement that binds the majority to the ceaseless cycles of Brahma’s Days and Nights. The Wheel rotates forever, but, one by one, wise men slip away from it. ([Location 15593](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15593)) - The sole gift a human being may present to the Infinite Giver is love. To bestow that gift on God, or miserly to withhold it, is man’s only private power. All else already belongs to the Maker of heaven and earth. By pure humble bhakti man becomes fit to enter even the ultimate haven, the Immutable and Unmanifested. ([Location 15633](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15633)) - then transition through the three astral spines of light (sushumna, vajra, chitra), freeing the yogi from the astral body; and, lastly, ascension through the causal “spine” of consciousness (brahmanadi), whereby the soul is liberated in Spirit. ([Location 15701](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15701)) - The Unmanifested Spirit is the Supreme Cause, the Ancestor of God the Father of Creation (Sat, or Cosmic Consciousness); God the Son, His reflection in creation as the Preserver (Tat, the Krishna or Christ Consciousness); and God the Holy Ghost (Aum, the Mother or Cosmic Nature, bringing forth the worlds through Her creative vibration). Spirit as the Sole Reality is the One Object of Knowledge, comprehending which man will simultaneously understand all other knowledge. Spirit is the Sanctifier that purifies man of sin and delusion; and It, too, is the Source of Vedic or eternal wisdom. ([Location 15946](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15946)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - I bestow solar heat, O Arjuna, and give or withhold the rain. Immortality am I, and also Death; I am Being (Sat) and Non-Being (Asat). ([Location 15965](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15965)) - Those who desire celestial fruits of actions and who therefore purify themselves by Vedic rites (or any other scriptural rituals or injunctions), and by right living, receive the satisfaction of their hearts’ aspiration: entrance into the holy astral abodes. But that “entrance” leads inevitably to an “exit,” because such devotees did not desire God but only His gifts. ([Location 15982](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15982)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Confinement in beautiful dream-prisons has no lure for him. Oneness with the Ultimate Reality is his sole goal. ([Location 15991](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=15991)) - Tags: [[pink]] - God says: “Great yogis are rare, so I seldom receive from earth-dwellers the most precious gift—complete soul surrender to Me. Therefore I accept happily even a little flower, tear-sprinkled and devotionally fragrant, from those who have little time for Me, though I give My time and gifts to them.” ([Location 16047](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16047)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - The reverent presentation to Me of a leaf, a flower, a fruit, or water, given with pure intention, is a devotional offering acceptable in My sight. ([Location 16061](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16061)) - Tags: [[pink]] - On Me fix thy mind, be thou My devotee, with ceaseless worship bow reverently before Me. Having thus united thyself to Me as thy Highest Goal, thou shalt be Mine own. ([Location 16119](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16119)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Arjuna therefore sought the answers to the final enigmas from the “Lord of all creatures”—He who abides in each heart as the Divine Teacher. ([Location 16349](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16349)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - In addressing Arjuna as Gudakesha, “Conqueror of Sleep,” the Lord implies that divine truths are known only by the man who has awakened from the maya-trance of delusion. God here assumes total responsibility for all living things. He dreams the procession of created beings, He preserves them in their existences, and He merges them in the state of cosmic dissolution. A liberated man attains the true Finality by realizing that his only Life has been ever present within him as the Immutable Self. ([Location 16381](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16381)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Among wielders of weapons, the greatest—as was Rama—is the vanquisher of one’s inner enemies of delusion, using the bow of calmness with its taut bowstring of a straight spine in meditation, fitted with unerring arrows of self-control and concentration. ([Location 16745](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16745)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Success or prosperity (sri) is the auspicious power that promotes and sustains well-being and all forms of success. ([Location 16845](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=16845)) - Tags: [[orange]] - When a restless person, for example, assiduously performs scientific meditation techniques without a preconditioned expectation of results, he meditates better; he will not be disturbed and distracted by any frustrated craving for rewards. ([Location 17760](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=17760)) - In the words of my guru, Sri Yukteswarji: “To know God, don’t expect anything. Just launch yourself with faith into His blissful Presence within.” ([Location 17767](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=17767)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - It is thus evident that Vyasa used the historical war allegorically, and that the real battle alluded to is an inner one: the spiritual war between wisdom and ignorance, the psychological combat between intelligence and mind (sense consciousness), and the bodily war between self-control and harmful sense indulgence. The conflict is delineated throughout the eighteen chapters of the Bhagavad Gita. ❖ ([Location 18001](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18001)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The word Gita means song. Bhagavad Gita signifies Song of the Spirit. ([Location 18016](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18016)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - The potentials or principles to produce the many from the One through interacting relativity are God’s creative power, or shakti, Maha-Prakriti. The conglomerate workings of these principles are collectively called maya, the cosmic delusion of multiplicity. ([Location 18303](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18303)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The Lord in His transcendental or inactive aspect in creation (Purusha, the Kshetrajna or Witness) and the Lord in His immanent kinetic aspect as the Creator of the universe and beings (Prakriti) are not two but One: the Supreme Spirit, Ishvara, Para-Purusha. ([Location 18537](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18537)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - To behold the Self in the self (purified ego) by the self (illumined mind), some men follow the path of meditation, some the path of knowledge, and some the path of selfless action. ([Location 18644](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18644)) - Tags: [[pink]] - He who sees that all actions are performed in their entirety by Prakriti alone, and not by the Self, is indeed a beholder of truth. The true seer perceives his soul as the silent witness, aloof from the body—the microcosm created by the cosmic vibratory force, Prakriti or Mother Nature. She alone is the performer of all physical and mental activities. The soul is actionless, the reflection of the transcendental, nonvibrational God the Father beyond creation. ([Location 18698](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18698)) - For instance, when a person eats with only the thought of nourishing the body as the temple of God, he is incurring no karma—not even good karma. To eat with this purpose is to act in the service of Divinity; the greed of the ego is not being catered to. ([Location 18861](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18861)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - As good men come nearer to perfecting themselves, they become saints, sages, yogis, highest rishis, angels, archangels; and ultimately, during full liberation from the triple qualities, they merge in everlasting oneness with Spirit. ([Location 18980](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=18980)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - Arjuna had asked (stanza 21): “How does a man rise beyond the gunas?” Lord Krishna now answers that question. “By Bhakti Yoga,” he says. “By unswerving devotion to God, by love for Him so complete that one’s mind has no room for thought of self.” A ([Location 19158](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19158)) - Tags: [[pink]] - their purity to see themselves as souls encased in a wondrous triune body of consciousness, life force, and atomic radiation was replaced by identification with the limitations of the gross physical form. ([Location 19294](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19294)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Because of this, the ashvattha tree is referred to as representing samsara,9 “worldly illusion,” which is the entrapping cause of the cyclic wheel of reincarnation. ([Location 19352](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19352)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Only a sage determines to wield the strong axe of nonattachment, nondesire, to destroy the ashvattha tree within him, deeply rooted in the habits of material living. He alone attains the Divine Goal. The worldly man, living under the thick-leaved tree of sense pleasures and egotism, does not perceive the skies of liberating Cosmic Consciousness. But the sincere devotee, by discrimination and yoga practice, strikes a mortal blow to material desires and past-habit-instigated activities rooted in his conscious, subconscious, and superconscious minds. ([Location 19369](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19369)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Stanza 8 refers to the subtle or astral body, linga sharira, the abode of the mind, sense perceptions, and other life principles. The subtle body of each man accompanies the jiva in its rounds of reincarnation, endowing each new physical form with life and intelligence. With the departure at death of the linga sharira, the body reverts to its natural state of inert matter. ([Location 19439](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19439)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - It is man’s mortal attitude that is the cause of reincarnation. As soon as the devotee understands by inner experience that life is a dream drama of God’s, he ceases to reincarnate. He has learned the final lesson of life. ([Location 19461](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19461)) - (18) I (the Lord) am beyond the perishable (Prakriti) and am also higher than the imperishable (Kutastha). Therefore, in the worlds and in the Veda (the intuitive perception of undeluded souls) I am proclaimed Purushottama, the Uttermost Being. (19) Whosoever, freed from delusion, knows Me thus as the Supreme Spirit, knows all, O Descendant of Bharata (Arjuna). He worships Me with his whole being. (20) Herewith, O Sinless One (Arjuna), have I taught thee this most profound wisdom. Understanding it, a man becomes a sage, one who has successfully fulfilled all his duties, and yet continues in dutiful actions. ([Location 19676](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19676)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The Blessed Lord said: (1) Fearlessness, purity of heart, perseverance in acquiring wisdom and in practicing yoga, charity, subjugation of the senses, performance of holy rites, study of the scriptures, self-discipline, straightforwardness; (2) Noninjury, truthfulness, freedom from wrath, renunciation, peacefulness, nonslanderousness, compassion for all creatures, absence of greed, gentleness, modesty, lack of restlessness; (3) Radiance of character, forgiveness, patience, cleanness, freedom from hate, absence of conceit—these qualities are the wealth of a divinely inclined person, O Descendant of Bharata. ([Location 19722](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19722)) - The profound purpose of tapas is to change in man his “bad taste” in preferring transient sense pleasures to the everlasting bliss of the soul. ([Location 19809](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19809)) - man of nonviolence neither willfully gives nor wishes harm to any. He is a paradigm of the golden rule: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” ([Location 19839](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19839)) - passage in the Mahabharata is as follows: “One should forgive, under any injury. It hath been said that the continuation of the species is due to man’s being forgiving. Forgiveness is holiness; by forgiveness the universe is held together. Forgiveness is the might of the mighty; forgiveness is sacrifice; forgiveness is quiet of mind. Forgiveness and gentleness are the qualities of the Self-possessed. They represent eternal virtue.” ([Location 19963](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19963)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Christ had perfect understanding that each human being is essentially a soul, a child of God, whose evil conduct is no expression of his real nature but is caused by ignorance, “knowing-not”—the dread, but not eternal, state of delusion into which men fall when they forget their true identity. ([Location 19976](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=19976)) - known. The yogi may see his rainbow-hued astral body with its subtle spine of the fiery sushumna and its intertwining nadis of ida and pingala currents. ([Location 20295](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20295)) - Tags: [[blue]] - The person who indiscriminately opens his mind to receive whatever messages may come to him through “spirits” is not able to tell what sort of contact he is making in the astral spheres; and by becoming receptive to any astral vibration he runs the risk of getting into “bad company.” He may also become engrossed with phenomena of the lower astral worlds and thus fail to make any spiritual progress toward the only desirable goal: inner illumination, salvation. ([Location 20444](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20444)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Sattvic foods, in general, are sweet fresh fruits and vegetables (raw or properly prepared), whole grains and legumes, fresh dairy products, nuts, natural sweets such as honey and dates (minimizing refined sugars), and nominal amounts of fat from dairy or vegetable sources only. Prepared foods should be combined and cooked in a manner that retains or enhances their nutrients. They should be aesthetically pleasing to the eye and tasteful to the palate (mildly seasoned), and agreeable to the body’s constitution. ([Location 20529](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20529)) - Tags: [[orange]] - There are three kinds of sattvic gifts: material, mental, and spiritual. On the physical plane, to give food and money to a poor man is good; to give him a job is better. To help him become well qualified to obtain work is better still. Continued material aid to a man makes him enslaved and dependent, so it is laudable to encourage him to remedy his ills by self-help. On the mental plane, to aid in enlightening an ignorant person is good; and to offer further education to an intelligent man is better, for he can in turn be more helpful to many others. On the spiritual plane, to give elevating instruction to a willing man, whose life has hitherto been sunk in materialism, is good. To impart divine wisdom to an ardent seeker is better. To aid an advanced devotee so that by his own enthusiasm and knowledge he can win emancipation is better still. To bestow God-consciousness on a worthy disciple by the transmission of ecstasy (samadhi) is the best of all. Only illumined gurus can transfer their divine realization to those of their dis- ciples who are ready for the sublime experience. ([Location 20694](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20694)) - Tags: [[orange]] - A guru is, among all men, the best of givers. His generosity, like that of the Lord Himself, knows no boundaries. ([Location 20713](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20713)) - But the yogi who through meditation attunes himself to the intrinsic shraddha of the soul, finds that this devotional faith ultimately rewards him with the wondrous fulfillment of God-realization. ([Location 20877](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20877)) - Tags: [[orange]] - The Blessed Lord said: Sages call “sannyasa” the renunciation of all actions done with desire. The wise declare that “tyaga” is the renunciation of the fruits of activities. ([Location 20923](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=20923)) - (5) The action involved in yajna, dana, and tapas verily ought to be performed, and should not be forsaken, for the holy fire rite, philanthropy, and self-discipline sanctify the wise. (6) But even these activities ought to be performed, O Partha (Arjuna), forsaking attachment to them and the desire for their fruits. ([Location 21000](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21000)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The truly wise inculcate the doctrine of performing the inner holy fire ceremony of casting material consciousness into the fire of inner wisdom; and the metaphysical fire ceremony, the burning of mortal desires in the cosmic perception of God, or destroying material desires in the fire of divine longings. These acts are symbolized in the external yajna of casting clarified butter into the ceremonial fire. ([Location 21015](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21015)) - The devotee who remains in ecstatic communion with the soul, simultaneously watching the sensory and motor activities of the body without any desire or attachment, attains the highest, or sattvic, state of renunciation. ([Location 21067](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21067)) - Tags: [[pink]] [[favorite]] - But when by continuous meditation he disengages his mind from body consciousness and unites it with the consciousness of the soul, he realizes he should not work any more for that upstart desire-filled ego. It is at this advanced stage that the yogi is able to renounce all desire for the fruits of actions and to perform his obligatory material duties with the transcendent nonattachment of the soul. ([Location 21101](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21101)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - The consciousness of “I” as the doer and experiencer is the basis of a delusive existence cognized as being separate from Spirit. A stroller, watching and feeling his feet as he strides along, believes and says: “I am walking.” A man beholding a tree through his eyes similarly feels and thinks and says: “I am seeing.” But anyone who feels, thinks, wills, and plans activities, believing that he is the unique author and doer of those mental and physical actions, is deluded; he cannot see the truth, that the workings of his body and the cosmos are being operated solely by the Infinite. ([Location 21192](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21192)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Only a yogi of the highest God-realization could in truth behave with such transcendent feeling. A lesser person feigning such spiritual aloofness would be acting in cruel and unfeeling hypocrisy. A truly wise man is able to distinguish temporal mortal dreams from the Eternal Reality; therefore, he is utterly free from all attachment. He is evenmindedly indifferent to both the reverses and the successes that befall him, for he does not see himself as the doer; he perceives the Lord working through him in His world. He who believes he owns any portion of this earth is seized with terrible grief when he loses that which he mistakenly thought was his own. ([Location 21428](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21428)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Even though he wants only to remain in a state of God-realization in samadhi, his body compels him to exhale and inhale and thus forces his mind to remain on the restless plane of the senses. The devotee must therefore exercise his free choice to learn and to practice persistently the yoga technique of transcending body consciousness, so that he can gradually succeed in disconnecting his mind from the senses, body, and breath; then he can attain the coveted samadhi state of continuous God-communion. ([Location 21978](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=21978)) - Such an accomplished yogi is not only one with the Absolute, merging his identity in God; he can also separate himself, recapturing his individuality with no loss of God-perception, and in this state, with his heart full of supreme devotion, enjoy the bliss of Brahman. To paraphrase a well-known allegory, he is then comparable to an idol made of sugar that sought to measure the depth of the Ocean of Divine Nectar. On entering the Sea, it found itself melting. The idol retreated hurriedly to the shore, thinking: “Why lose my identity in order to determine the depth of divine sweetness? I already know that the Ocean is indeed very deep, and Its nectar exceedingly sweet.” Thus the sugar idol chose to perceive the Ocean of Sweetness through the isolated consciousness of individuality. Similarly, a devotee may love to be one with the Infinite, yet love even more the enjoyment of God experienced by retaining his individual existence. The latter is the state of supreme devotion. ([Location 22120](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22120)) - Tags: [[favorite]] [[pink]] - In your past life you were a sense-fighter, Arjuna. That is why, in this life, you were born with the will to battle the sensory passions until the soul’s kingdom of bliss is fully established. Even if you try to remain neutral, you will find yourself automatically and instinctively resisting these body-attached forces. ([Location 22213](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22213)) - Tags: [[orange]] - When a fisherman tries to land a big fish too forcibly, his line usually breaks. But if he alternately plays out the line and then gradually reels it in, he can land the fish by wearing it out. Similarly, the yogi should yield discriminatively to the normal demands of his inner nature when it pulls him forcibly, and then, like a master spiritual fisherman, gradually bring it under his control. ([Location 22266](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22266)) - “O devotee, knowing that every action is instigated by delusive cosmic Nature, get out of her clutches by performing all actions only to please God. ([Location 22301](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22301)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Absorb thy mind in Me; become My devotee; resign all things to Me; bow down to Me. Thou art dear to Me, so in truth do I promise thee: Thou shalt attain Me! ([Location 22380](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22380)) - The Sanskrit word, So’ham, signifies “He I am.” In the initial state, the physical ego of the devotee is not yet destroyed. But when by yoga practice the aspirant becomes advanced enough to perceive in ecstasy the little Myself within himself, he can come out of that state and say, “So’ham: I have found the vast Cosmic Spirit reflected within me as the Soul, the little Myself, one and the same with the great Myself.” ([Location 22437](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22437)) - Tags: [[pink]] - But if you restore your lost memory of My presence in your soul, and remain continuously conscious of Me, I will—by the virtue of that inner oneness with Me—liberate you completely from the sin of nonperformance of lesser duties. Grieve not over any supposed loss of physical or material gratification. It was I who decreed your birth as a mortal being. By your wrong responses to My cosmic delusion, you have imprisoned your soul image in that mortal existence. Your fulfillment lies not in earthly entanglements, but in Me. Find your Self in Me, which can be done only by removing all obstructions in your path.” ([Location 22453](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22453)) - Tags: [[pink]] - For example, as explained in previous verses, the duty of a Sudra or body-bound individual is to be physically active; the duty of a Brahmin is to think of God. ([Location 22498](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22498)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” ([Location 22530](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22530)) - Jesus similarly admonished that one should not cast pearls before swine;40 that is, one should not bestow spiritual wealth on the unappreciative. ([Location 22542](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22542)) - Tags: [[orange]] - To read and attain inwardly the full realization of the teachings of the Bhagavad Gita is to burn ignorance in the fire of wisdom. Those who study this scripture with soul perception, reenacting within themselves the dialogue between soul and Spirit, will be offering God worship by the liberating supreme fire ceremony of wisdom. ([Location 22601](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22601)) - When the yogi first perceives himself to be the omniscient soul, one with cosmic Spirit, in wonder he introspectively asks himself: “So long I have considered myself a human being! Am I now really a God-man? Am I at last free from ignorance and its dualities of cold and heat, pain and pleasure, life and death?” ([Location 22625](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22625)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Each person has to fight his own battle of Kurukshetra. It is a war not only worth winning, but in the divine order of the universe and of the eternal relationship between the soul and God, a war that sooner or later must be won. ([Location 22645](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22645)) - Tags: [[pink]] - Every devotee who unites his soul with Spirit in ecstasy (samadhi) can recall in his mind, after coming down from that state, the unending thrills of communion with the Infinite. Just as the true lover, even after long separation from his beloved, is thrilled in body, mind, and soul when he recalls a momentary meeting with the loved one, so the yogi, long after his ecstasy is over, recalls with unending joy his experiences with the Beloved Spirit. ([Location 22691](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22691)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Thus, when we find in the Gita Bhagavan (God) speaking to Arjuna, we are to realize that God is revealing these truths through the intuition of the receptive devotee (Arjuna). Whenever Arjuna asks questions of God, it is to be understood that the meditating devotee by silent thoughts is communing with God.” ([Location 22997](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=22997)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Space is another dimension: the ‘gates’ of heaven. Through the spiritual eye, which exists within at the point between the eyebrows, you can enter these gates. Your consciousness must pass through the astral star in the spiritual eye to behold that higher realm, the astral world.” ([Location 23715](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=23715)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - The Brain Revolution (New York: Bantam Books, 1973), Marilyn Ferguson writes: “Through myriad transactions in the brain, we perceive; our senses select from the stimuli, cerebral structures in the brain interpret the data, but there is no ultimate model of reality out there against which our perceptions can be measured as true or false....A rose is only a rose because man sees it as such; without him it would be only a pattern of energy vortices.” ([Location 23778](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=23778)) - Tags: [[orange]] [[favorite]] - “Careful analysis suggests that even a mildly impressive living molecule is quite unlikely to form randomly,” Time magazine, December 28, 1992, reported. And an article in Newsweek, July 19, 1993, asked: “How did wisps of gas and specks of clay come to life?…Wherever the ingredients of life first evolved, combining them into something fully alive still seems madly improbable. Fred Hoyle, the British astronomer [founder of the Institute for Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge University], once said the event is about as likely as assembling a Boeing 747 by sending a whirling tornado into a junkyard.” ([Location 23820](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=23820)) - Tags: [[pink]] - In The Immense Journey (New York: Random House, 1957), biologist Loren Eiseley commented on the supposedly blind evolutionary processes of “natural selection” and “survival of the fittest” that fashioned complex living creatures from the earth’s raw materials: “Men talk much of matter and energy, of the struggle for existence which molds life. These things exist, it is true; but more delicate, elusive, quicker than fins in water, is that mysterious principle known as organization, which leaves all other mysteries concerned with life stale and insignificant by comparison. For that without organization life does not persist is obvious. Yet, this organization itself is not strictly the product of life, nor of selection. Like some dark and passing shadow within matter, it cups out the eyes’ small windows or spaces the notes of a meadowlark’s song....If ‘dead’ matter has reared up this curious landscape of fiddling crickets, song sparrows, and wondering men, it must be plain to even the most devoted materialist that the matter of which he speaks contains amazing, if not dreadful powers, and may not impossibly be, as Hardy has suggested, ‘but one mask of many worn by the Great Face behind.’” ([Location 23833](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=23833)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The God-loving Saint Francis of Assisi referred to his body as “Brother Donkey” because of its usefulness but frequent stubbornness. In Saints That Moved the World (Thomas Y. Crowell Co., 1945), René Fülöp-Miller relates that when Saint Francis was building the church at San Damian, he “designated his own body to serve him as beast of burden. He lifted the heavy stones, one at a time, and said: ‘Now, Brother Donkey, carry it to San Damian.’ And when Donkey Body broke down at times under the great burden, driver Francis would encourage and calm him and sternly he would add: ‘Brother Donkey, the Father wills it, we must hurry.’ Then Donkey Body would obey….Francis’ soul was used to sing when it felt happy….Donkey Body chimed in as best he could. And then a very strange thing happened. Donkey Body and the soul which heard the voice of God became one.” ([Location 24433](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=24433)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “If the mind is fixed on God and continues so, the senses will obey it. It is like hanging a needle on a magnet and then another needle onto that, and so on….As long as the first needle clings to the magnet, the rest will hang on to it; but if the first drops off, it will lose the rest. And so, as long as the mind is firmly fixed on God, the senses will obey it; but when the mind drops away from God, the senses drop off from the mind and are unruly.”—Meister Eckhart (a fourteenth-century Dominican monk, and renowned German mystic) ([Location 24490](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=24490)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “The ultimate stuff of the universe is mind-stuff,” stated British astronomer Sir Arthur Eddington. His contemporary, Sir James Jeans, put it this way: “The universe can be best pictured, though still very imperfectly and inadequately, as consisting of pure thought, the thought of what we must describe as a mathematical thinker….If the universe is a universe of thought, then its creation must have been an act of thought.” And the great Albert Einstein declared: “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details.” (Publisher’s Note) 34 Luke ([Location 24585](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=24585)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “When the breath stops effortlessly, without either rechaka (exhalation) or puraka (inhalation), that is called Kevala Kumbhaka.”—Hatha-Yoga Pradipika II:73. “The aspirant who can perform Kevali Kumbhaka, he only is the true knower of Yoga.”—Gheranda Samhita V:95. “One who is adept in Kevala Kumbhaka, which has no rechaka and puraka, he has nothing unattainable in the three worlds.”—Siva Samhita III:46–47. ([Location 24904](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=24904)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - Psalms 46:10. “You need not go to heaven to see God; nor need you speak loud, as if God were far away; nor need you cry for wings like a dove to fly to Him. Only be in silence, and you will come upon God within yourself.”—Saint Teresa of Avila ([Location 24974](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=24974)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Does light give structure to matter?” inquired an article in Brain/Mind Bulletin, July 11, 1983. “Recently Dr. David Bohm, professor of physics at the University of London, spoke of matter as ‘frozen light.’ Mass is a phenomenon of connecting light rays that go back and forth, freezing themselves into a pattern. So matter is condensed light, moving at average speeds slower than the speed of light. Dr. Bohm said: ‘In its generalized sense, light is the means by which the entire universe unfolds into itself. It is energy, information, content, form and structure. It is the potential of everything.’” ([Location 25043](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25043)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - In the entire observable universe there are thought to be a staggering billion trillion (10 21) stars. At this time, scientists can only speculate as to how many of these stars might have planets capable of sustaining life. An interesting discussion on the possibilities, based on logical deductive reasoning, has been put forth by the noted science author Dr. Isaac Asimov in his book Extraterrestrial Civilizations (New York: Crown Publishers, 1979): “After all, the existence of intelligence is not a near-zero probability matter since we exist. And if it is nearly a near-zero probability, considering that near-zero probability for each of a billion trillion stars makes it almost certain that somewhere among them intelligence and even technological civilizations exist. If, for instance, the probability were only one in a billion that near a given star there existed a technological civilization, that would mean that in the universe as a whole, a trillion different such civilizations would exist.” ([Location 25210](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25210)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “People like us, who believe in physics,” said Einstein, “know that the distinction between past, present, and future is only a stubbornly persistent illusion.” ([Location 25297](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25297)) - Tags: [[pink]] - The eight principal divine powers, referred to as aishvaryas, which can be manifested by the incarnate being who has attained mastery over the forces of creation, are as follows: the power to make one’s body or any object (1) as small as desired (anima), (2) as large as desired (mahima), (3) as light in weight as desired (laghima), and (4) as heavy as desired (garima); the power (5) to obtain anything desired (prapti), (6) to bring anything under his control (vashitva), (7) to satisfy all desires by the force of his will (prakamya), and (8) to become Isha, Lord, over everything. In the Yoga Sutras of the sage Patanjali, other powers (siddhis) are also discussed. The attainment of mastery over phenomenal creation is not a goal of the enlightened man, but is a natural endowment of the omnipotent, omniscient soul—the immortal Self, which becomes manifest as it gradually sheds its coverings of delusion. ([Location 25392](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25392)) - 4 The juice extracted from the soma plant is used to prepare a purifying ritualistic libation offered during ceremonial worship. The true Soma, however, is known to advanced yogis as a nectar-like secretion of divine life energy produced in the throat by the perfected practice of such techniques as Kriya Yoga and Khechari Mudra (see X:28, “Yogic significance of ‘cow of plenty.’”). ([Location 25443](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25443)) - “We don’t really see the Creator twiddling twenty knobs to set twenty parameters to create the universe as we know it. That’s too many,” says physicist Leon Lederman, author of The God Particle. “There is something simple underneath all this. Six quarks, and six leptons, and their antiparticles, and their coming in different colors and different charges, is too complicated.” Physicist John Wheeler agrees: “To my mind, there must be at the bottom of it all, not an utterly simple equation but an utterly simple idea. When we finally discover it, it will be so compelling, so beautiful, that we will all say to each other, ‘Oh, how could it have been otherwise?’” ([Location 25468](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25468)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “…Mystical experience by self-development through meditation, etc., is not only the key to one’s own development but also the key…to putting this attempt to synthesize science and religion on a solid foundation….If we follow this path of a synthesis of science with religion (using meditation as an observational tool), what we are doing is using our own nervous systems as instruments to observe the domains in which God works. Ordinary scientific instruments like telescopes, galvanometers, and particle detectors are not going to be good in this context because they are designed to function in the material domain. Our nervous systems, on the other hand, are designed to allow us to interact not only with the material level of existence but also with the spiritual levels. …All the different levels are open to exploration if we develop our nervous systems so that they tune in. One can imagine that this would be a part of the scientific training of the future.” ([Location 25505](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25505)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - See VI:13. 2 Uragan divyan: “celestial serpents”; reference to the creative forces that have their origin in the kundalini, the coiled life energy in the base center of the spine that enlivens the sense faculties when it flows down and outward into the body, but which bestows enlightenment when “tamed” and uplifted to the higher centers of spiritual perception. ([Location 25586](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25586)) - Tags: [[blue]] - Yata-atma-van: lit., “like a mastered self”; that is, emulate those who have attained Self-mastery; keep endeavoring to reach that goal. ([Location 25627](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25627)) - Tags: [[favorite]] - “When physicists began to study the quantum theory of fields, they discovered that a vacuum was not at all what it had long appeared to be—just empty space devoid of substance and activity….What might appear to be empty space is a seething ferment of virtual particles. A vacuum is not inert and featureless, but alive with throbbing energy and vitality. A ‘real’ particle such as an electron must always be viewed against this background….” ([Location 25670](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25670)) - Tags: [[orange]] - Samsara: “the world; worldly illusion; passing through a succession of states; transmigration.” ([Location 25787](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25787)) - Tags: [[blue]] - On several occasions Paramahansa Yogananda told his disciples: “After my passing, many ‘mediums’ will say they are in touch with me and are receiving my ‘messages’ for the world. All such statements will be false. “My message for the world has already been expounded in my speeches, classes, and writings. Do not be misled by persons who, after my physical departure from the earth, will assert that they are receiving new teachings from me. To sincere seekers who in prayer request my help, I will always give it gladly and silently.” As Paramahansa Yogananda predicted, since 1952 a number of misguided mediums have been publicly claiming that they are receiving messages from the great Guru (and from the Self-Realization Fellowship Paramgurus, as well). By borrowing the name of an illustrious teacher, such individuals attract the attention of unsuspecting people who do not understand that the practice of putting the mind in a passive trance state is directly contradictory to the teachings of all true masters. The latter emphasize that concentration, will power, and mastery of one’s own consciousness are fundamental necessities for spiritual progress. The claims of some highly publicized mediums notwithstanding, no great teacher would accept the “invitation” of a passive mind in the trance state. To do so would encourage a practice that is dangerous—psychologically as well as spiritually. (Publisher’s Note) ([Location 25915](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25915)) - Tags: [[orange]] - 6 Bharata-rishabha: lit., “Bull of the Bharatas” (“the best or most excellent of the descendants of the Bharata dynasty”)—thus, one who has attained the highest: realization through the fortitude, the divine obstinacy or “stubbornness,” of inner constancy (dhriti, as described in the preceding verses). 7 Abhyāsād ramate: from abhyāsā, lit., “the continuous effort to hold the mind in its pure sattvic state”; and from ram, lit., “to enjoy,” “to still; set at rest”—that is, to gain transcendent happiness. When the mind is recollected in its pure sattvic state, the sensory tumult is stilled and the transcendent supreme bliss of the soul becomes manifest. 8 “In God’s plan and play (lila), the sole function of Satan or Maya is to attempt to divert man from Spirit to matter, from Reality to ([Location 25969](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=25969)) - Tags: [[pink]] - “Become (vraja) sheltered (śaraṇaṁ, ‘protected’—from delusion) in oneness (ekaṁ) with Me (mām).” “Always keep your consciousness in My sheltering Presence”; i.e., “Remember Me alone.” ([Location 26078](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B07L6L8H9V&location=26078)) - Tags: [[pink]]