6 posts tagged with "niyama"

While I am reading a great many texts at the moment the end goal for all of this is to get to liberation. All this reading isn't for fun, there is an end goal in mind. There are better things to read than how to discipline yourself.

As I read these texts I am overcompensating by reading more than I need to with the assumption that I incorporate the best ideas into my Sadhana, move on from the texts that didn't provide much, and then largely focus on the sastas and the texts that were exceptional.

So if the texts in svadhyaya seem like a lot, it's because I am trying to read a lot of texts to find the best ones.

To prioritize my read texts in the following order according to the teacher:

1. Swami Dayananda Saraswati
2. Swami Chinmayananda
3. Swami Vivekananda
4. Swami Sivananda
5. Others

This order is based on the cummulative knowledge of the teachers and in many ways the teacher's ability to communicate to me through the language they use. While I do like reading Swami Sivananda, the language is a bit more dated than the jokes that Swami Dayananda Saraswati uses. In this way the texts just feel more alive and relevant to me.

I am no trying to say that the other teachers aren't good, but I am trying to prioritize my ability to understand the texts and incorporate the ideas into my Sadhana quickly.

While I love Sri Ramakrishna and Swami Vivekananda’s teachings, the Vedanta Societies of the West seem to be tailored to whites and Bengalis. While I have no problem with these institutions being devoted to developing Vedanta for those who are not from Indian backgrounds this poses a limitation for myself who is from an Indian background.

The Vedanta Societies seem to have taken on a very church like demeanor which is not something that I grew up with going to Hindu Temples. While I will continue with reading and thinking about Ramakrishna and Vivekananda I think in terms of a sangh I will focus on the Chinmaya Mission. Vivekananda is modern India’s spiritual father and if I were in India I would follow the tracks of the Ramakrishna Mission. However, the Ramakrishna in the West seems to be about promoting Vedanta among non-Indians. It sets aside the Puranic literature.

While I do believe in the universality of Vedanta to all religious systems, I am Indian. The Puranic literature with the plethora of devas and asuras plays an important part in the Vedanta teaching. The Puranic texts form a moral compass from which we can then move to the more metaphysical aspects of Jnana Yoga. Unfortunately, it seems the Hindu smriti texts are not a core teaching of the Ramakrishna tradition. In this regard the Ramakrishna tradition seems to be lacking. By trying to be universalistic in its teaching of Vedanta, it limits the focus on any specific Bhakti outside of Sri Ramakrishna and Sri Sarada Devi’s teachings. While the teachings of Ramakrishna are quite illuminating I do want to study more of the smriti’s which don’t seem to have a strong focus.

So I think the natural lineage of Vivekananda in modern Indian context is the Karma Yoga ideal built into the RSS. While I will continue on reading the texts of the Ramakrishna Mission as they are quite good in terms of practice I will center on the RSS as the Vivekananda lineage.

While Chinmaya is a primarily Jnana Yoga path, the beginning of Jnana Yoga is Bhakti and Chinamayanada does seem to cover a lot of the early teachings of Adi Shankaracharya. Further, while Vivekananda built the Ramakrishna Societies in the West when there were not many if any Indians, Chinamayananda started in the 70s when more Indians were in place. So lots of the traditions that I grew up with are in place.

Anyways, from a sangh and a family standpoint the Chinmaya Mission seems to be closer to what I want to be a part of in terms of community.

There is a lot of prophecies in the West about Biblical End Times and such and I always freak out a bit about it, get depressed and genuinely feel like I am contributing to evil. Then I realize I am a Sanatani and it doesn’t matter. Brahman is everything, if Brahman wants to set in motion something the let Brahman do so. In Sanatana Dharma the cycles of time are endless. There is no real end. There is just change. The end of one age is the start of another.

Death in the Vedanta sense doesn’t really matter. For the end goal of all souls in to attain God. Freaking out about a potential end time based on a different theology doesn’t help much. While there will be immense violence and a depression, and more are coming soon I am not worried. We need to take it one step at a time and assume that spiritual growth happens when there is suffering as it shows the true nature of oneself. Hopefully, my true nature is good and is not a coward.

So the “end times” we will face will a period of spiritual growth as material wealth fades. So the point is not to cling to life, but to grow spiritually. It means that we have to give our best.

https://samraja.substack.com/

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!

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