This is the study plan that Swami Chinamaya recommends within Kindle Life. This is a long term study plan that covers a wide variety of Vedantic texts and scriptures. It is an eventual goal to complete this study plan over a period of time.

I am at a point in my sadhana where I would like to build a sangh (community) of like-minded people. While my sadhana has been mostly individual focused, I feel the need to build a community for a few reasons:

1. Shared Motivation: Doing a sadhana alone is a bit solitary. Monks have their monasteries and ashrams, Hindu temples seem to have their own set of practices. It is not easy to stay motivated when you are doing it alone. So having a community of like-minded people can help keep the motivation high.
2. Collective Learning: I am trying to build a path that merges the modern world with the ancient wisdom of Sanatana Dharma. A lot of this is trial and error. I think having a community that can share their experiences and learnings can help refine the path.
3. Service and Outreach: A sangh can also help in doing seva (service) and outreach. The goal is to use Sanatana Dharma principles to help society, and with that to help Sanatana Dharma grow.

How are I different from say a Chinmaya Mission or a temple group?

• I am not focused on rituals or temple activities. While those are important, my focus is on individual sadhana based on the four yogas and the three shastras of Hanuman Chalisa, Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita.
• Focus on modern life. I want to build a path that is relevant to the modern world so I will be pulling ancient Sanatana Dharma ideas and applying them to modern life.
• Simplicity. I want to keep the path simple and easy to follow. By limiting to the four yogas and three shastras, I want to create a simple framework that can be very effective within the modern world.

What I am not going to do:

• Limit anyone's individual sadhana. I just focus on the Four Yogas and the three shastras of Hanuman Chalisa, Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita as a common ground. If someone wants to do additional sadhana I am not here to stop anyone.
• Create rigid rules. The idea is to have a simple framework that can be followed. I want a sanyasi-like simplicity, while living and working in the modern world.
• Focus on rituals. While rituals are a part of Sanatana Dharma, I want to focus on the core principles and practices that can help individuals grow. Individuals can choose to do rituals on their own if they wish.
• Create a sect. Sanatana Dharma is vast and diverse. I am not trying to create a new sect or denomination. I am just trying to build a community of like-minded individuals.

It is gotten confusing having a single ledger for everything. It makes it hard to know if a transaction is for a specific purpose or not. Also by combining all of it into one anything not tracked leads to a mess in terms of accounting. Simplifying the ledgers into specific purposes and business units makes it easier to track and manage funds.

As part of this release we are splitting the ledgers according to business units and anything under Yerra Capital is now tracked separately and is specific to the family. It makes it much easier to track and manage funds this way as the opsZero specific things can be delegated to the appropriate people without having to worry about the family funds.

When one releases their semen independent of their partner there is a loss of energy. Semen when released with a partner has a positive energy. A reason around this seems that semen released with a partner has a benefit of using the energy for the intended purpose of procreation. Creation has a positive energy.

Using semen and releasing it otherwise has a negative energy as the use of the semen is not for creation purposes. It does not push you to a higher plane. It keeps you at the plane that you are in or pulls you down when you are at a higher state. So semen seems to play a role in Sadhana as one needs to preserve it and store its energy for going to higher planes. If released without a partner you are pulled down to the lower planes.

Furthermore, the production of semen is a long process requiring a lot of energy and the release of this semen itself is a large source of energy expenditure.

A person should use the energy that is store in semen which is at the base that moves up the spine through the chakras of the kundalini for spiritual purposes or procreative purposes. The semen itself becomes a store of energy. When it is not being lowered by purposeless release can add energy through the spine awakening a person spiritually.

So semen used for procreation has positive energy and energy used by preserving semen has positive spiritual energy. Otherwise, semen wasted does not provide a benefit and is like throwing away a store of energy, like a battery. It has to be recharged. Because of this it makes you tired and irritable as your body has to use a significant portion of its energy on recharging this battery.

When this battery is being recharged it leads to a stalling of progress in spirituality as you don’t have an energy source to push you upward as Sadhana needs immense energy. In a way semen is like a capacitor that stores energy for spiritual progress.

So don't waste your semen. Use it for procreation or preserve it for spiritual purposes.

Jai Shree Ram

• Hanuman Chalisa (Karma/Bhakti): Devotion
• Yoga Sutras (Raja): Discipline
• Bhagavad Gita (Karma/Bhakti/Jnana): Wisdom

These three shastras encompass the spirit of the Four Yogas and it seems just understanding these three fully and deeply seems to be sufficient. As I stated on v0.11 that I was going toward this path but I didn’t fully understand the depth of each. Frankly, I didn’t think much of the Hanuman Chalisa and now have absolutely fallen in love with it.

The Hanuman Chalisa is not just a song but each sloka is a mantra and an aspiration of behavior that was exuded by Lord Hanuman. Each sloka has a depth of meaning of the trials of Hanuman and how he overcame them. It is in essence the ultimate in the Karma Yoga texts that are succinct to follow the understanding versus reading Ramakrisha or Vivekananda. While, Ramakrishna and Vivekananda act as gurus to guide us to the Four Yogas the Hanuman Chalisa is a condensed version of the values that they want us to lead.

The Yoga Sutras act as a means for disciplining oneself. If the Hanuman Chalisa teaches how to act outwardly then the Yoga Sutras teaches us how the inner world should be. The Yoga Sutras are a guide on how to structure and setup the inner world so that you can act like Lord Hanuman to always be focused on Lord Ram. Since Rama means “light within” it is also a representation the Brahman.

Lastly, the Bhagavad Gita acts as a bridge between the outer and inner world. While the Hanuman Chalisa deals with outer virtues, the Yoga Sutras the inner world, the Bhagavad Gita deals with the battlefield of life of how to deal with yourself as an individual in society at large. It has the ideas that are included in both the Chalisa and Yoga Sutras as well as the Upanishads. It acts as the source of Jnana Yoga encompassing the why of it all.

These shastras have a lifetime of study ahead of them and I am content knowing what I need to focus my energies around.

Jai Shree Ram

I have simplified my daily routine. It was too complex with too many moving pieces making everything I do be shallow. It was hard to know what I was to do when without a schedule. It just made things difficult.

With the simplification of my Sadhana I am also simplifying my routine. I am no longer going to be so intense about my schedule as I was around focusing my energy just on my spiritual practice over everything else. With my goal of memorizing the Hanuman Chalisa, Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita my intent is to have the core scriptures I have become a part of me.

What has changed is that I now have long periods for each task of over an hour each sometimes two. This gives me a lot of time to do tasks.

Lastly, I have combined Study & Work. The reason is a lot of my work is becoming more study than work and I need to take time to just study. This long periods of time to Study & Work are important to get focused work complete.

I’m hoping to keep this schedule for the foreseeable future with the exception that I may wake up at 7 instead of 7:30.

I am reorienting my sadhana as I mentioned in v0.9 and v0.10 and simplifying my practice to:

1. Memorization of the Hanuman Chalisa, Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita
2. Study of Ramakrishna and Vivekananda

Everything else is a subgroup of these two things. I am going way out of the primary sources and reading secondary sources. The primary sources are where the power lies, the secondaries are just clarifications. To simplify, I am focusing my energies on the primary texts and will slowly add the secondaries to clarify any holes in my understanding.

Memorization of Hanuman Chalisa, Yoga Sutras and Bhagavad Gita will be a primary practice that I will go through while also learning them in the original and Sanskrit. This will require me to learn Devanagari so I can say what I have read in Sanskrit. The issue I am facing is that I am not sufficiently devotional and building my devotion is what I need so that when I am not meditating or am away from my meditation mat I can still have God in my heart instead of instantly forgetting. By memorizing some of the core texts I can take the devotion wherever I go.

All of these words are to say that I have greatly simplified my sadhana to a few things with a focus on depth. Summed up it is the following:

• “Yogas citta vritti nirodah” Yoga Sutras 1.2
• “O Arjuna! As the ignorant men work with attachment to action, so should the wise act without attachment, for the welfare of the world.” Bhagavad Gita 3.25
• “Hail, Hail, Hail, Shri Hanuman, Lord of senses. Let your victory over the evil be firm and final. Bless me in the capacity as my supreme guru.” Hanuman Chalisa

O Lord, while I identify myself with my body, I am Thy servant.
When I consider myself as Individual Soul, I am Thy part.
But when I look upon myself as Pure Awareness, I am one with Thee Thyself.

The problem of tasting sugar versus being sugar is a real one. When one thinks of oneself as the sugar it is hard to perform action in the world. The advaitic method may be the eventual goal but as a day to day you want to taste sugar. This is the reason I think Ramakrishna said it was easier to be a Bhakta than the other paths because we identify with our bodies.

While I meditate on Lord Shiva, it is in the form of the Shiva Linga. While this is well and good for the sake of meditation when doing action in the world it is not really motivational! While I sympathies to the plight of Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita and his love of Krishna, Arjuna was always represented as having a will of his own. While Arjuna realizes his love of Krishna, it had to be developed through the discourse in the Gita.

In this regard I think Hanuman is the best representation of a soul’s love for God. Hanuman was the instrument of Rama. He did everything that Rama asked of him with devotion and love. And being an avatara of Lord Shiva the worship of Hanuman becomes a worship of Lord Shiva. This is likely why Hanuman is represented so heavily in modern Hinduism as a form of worship.

Hanuman represents pure devotion and the combination of the powers of Hari and Hara. While the Bhagavad Gita goes into the love of God’s love for all and the philosophical aspects of how to show that love, Hanuman shows that love in a pure form always thinking himself the instrument of Rama. His strength and power are always used at the service of Rama.

While I will continue my worship of Lord Shiva in the Linga form for Raja Yoga, I will use Lord Shiva in the Hanuman form as the primary method of worship for Karma Yoga.

Jai Shree Ram!

I made my Sadhana too complex to the point where I burnt out. Trying so aggressively to incorporate all the practices and study all the texts of Sivananda, Chinamaya, Dayananda, Vivekananda and Ramakrishna has led to be feeling like I am not doing enough and putting spiritual pressure. The goal is to free oneself not feel like you are adding another weight.

The number of scriptures and commentaries are endless. Each of the yogas has distinct practices that are unique to each path. I realize while we need to do all the paths there needs to be one which is the primary. But I was trying to practice Raja Yoga while making Jnana the actual practice. This dichotomy of practicing the wrong thing for what I wanted to focus on has been detrimental since Jnana is philosophical in nature while Raja should be about stilling the mind.

So I am simplifying my practice with only a couple of texts being my primary focus and everything else being secondary. These texts are:

• Karma: Ramakrishna / Sri Sarada Devi / Vivekananda Complete Works
• Bhakti: Hanuman Chalisa
• Raja: Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
• Jnana: Bhagavad Gita

Yes, I know core Vedanta is textual study of Bhagavad Gita, Upanishads and Brahma Sutras the ultimate realization of Advaita but I don’t think it is the primary path for me. I am more action oriented and experimental in nature and Raja is the path that fulfills this goal not trying to decipher philosophical texts. It is for this reason I am focusing largely on practical texts as those to read. Ramakrishna and Vivekananda are practical in their explanations. Yoga Sutras are specific in their recommendations. The Bhagavad Gita ties the yogas into a comprehensive whole.

I will be using supplementary texts to fill in the gaps of the primary texts. They are there to help realize the Raja Yoga goal of “yogas citta vritti nirodahah.” So my goal is to read things that assist in attaining the goal. These can be either spiritual or not.

It is a curiosity that I have decided to follow both the Ramakrishna lineage as well as the Sivananda lineage. The reason is that they complement each other. Sivananda teaches how to purify the body practically to have the experiential realizations that Ramakrishna and Vivekananda describe. While Ramakrishna rejected the Hatha Yoga path as leading one to associate with the body I do think Sivananda defines the practical framework for the Four Yogas.

The Four Yogas were been defined by Vivekananda and Sivananda put a practical set of instructions on them. Vivekananda put the philosophical framework while Sivananda applied the practice framework. And being a medical doctor he incorporated Hatha Yoga to the mix of practices.

While there has been controversy in the Sivananda lineage with some of his disciples because of the danger of Hatha Yoga that Sri Ramakrishna was warning about I do think for a householder the practice of Hatha Yoga is important in terms of a baseline or health. Asanas help with certain body aches that can be alleviated so the mind can focus on other things.

Lastly, the textual basis of the Ramakrishna order and the Chinamaya/Dayananda seem more attuned. While Sivananda sets up the practice he doesn’t seem to really give the scriptural basis of Vedanta. In that regard the Chinamaya/Dayananda provide the textual basis for Vedanta in a lot of ways as a complement to the Ramakrishna order.

In that regard as I mentioned in v0.6 under structured study that I have a set of reading for the next few years. But those are entirely preliminary readings to setup my practice. The long term goal that I have as I set up my practice is a focus on a few core texts:

• Gospel of Ramakrishna
• Vivekananda Works
• Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras
• Narada's Bhakti Sutras
• Bhagavad Gita
• Upanishads