These were the last 2 sessions of the course. The main thrust and core discussion again was on God and the Time- cycle. These sessions were more or less a continuation of the last 2 sessions (http://adhvaitha.blogspot.com/2009/02/raja-yoga-3.html).
A lot of questions were asked by the participants to get more clarity on the different ages of time-cycle, re-birth, capacity and purity of soul. It was a quite complex discussion, but I felt Paramjit tried his best to make us all understand the concept of birth and re-birth of each soul and the different ages. In the end we all did a role-play of the 'time cycle and souls'.
The points I think that were clarified included:
- There is a continuous stream of souls coming to the physical world.
- All the souls are pure, but differ in capacity
- Souls come to the physical world pure and goes back into soul world (at confluence age) pure
- Souls who have a higher capacity and/ or purest of the pure come early ie they come in the Golden age/ Silver age
- A soul in the Golden age will have born, many times more than ones in the silver age and this process is continuing into Copper and Iron age (present)
- The less purer souls (not impure) with a lesser capacity may experience only few/ even a single birth in the Iron age
- The Purity of the souls is inversely proportional to the population of the physical world.
- The seed of humanity, of the human family, is the Supreme Soul(God)
- The trunk of the tree symbolises the era of Golden and Silver age
- The closeness of the trunk to the seed/ root symbolizes how souls at that time embody God’s qualities. Such souls are revered as ‘gods’ and ‘goddesses’ ('Divine' beings)
- As a tree grows, its trunk expands in size and many branches and leaves are formed. New leaves signifies new souls and the population increases.
- In the copper age and later Iron age, prophet souls like Abraham, Sri-Buddha, Jesus Christ, Muhammad, Shankaracharya, Guru Nanak and so on starts appearing as people became more body conscious . New branches and sub branches signifies new religions (in Copper age) and later sects/ cults (in Iron age) respectively.
- Each Religion creates their own branch and brings with them their own followers from the Infinite Light, until they too decline and splits into many branches and sub-branches. Each branch thinks that they are the real tree...
We have three teachers in life
1. Knowledge (application of this knowledge is Wisdom)- Best way
2. Learning from experiences/ mistakes- Second best way
3. Time- It might be too late as we may reached the point of no-return.
For a Soul to come to this world- needs a physical body; so the supreme soul also needs a physical body to come to earth. The supreme soul comes to the earth in the physical being who has the most pure and highest capacity soul. This would happen (according to Paramjit, already happened)in the most spiritual place on Earth ie Bharat (India). Paramjit tells that this person is called 'Shivababa' through whom God speaks the knowledge (the easiest way to be awakened and become 'soul conscious')
Summary:
It has been a wonderful journey for me so far. Did I learn anything knew? Yes, Of course a lot of things. I think this course has helped me in understanding more about our 'true self'. The concept of 'Mind- Intellect- Sanskara' is an effective way of having control over your thoughts and subsequently your actions with the 'intellect' acting as a 'filter'.
The understanding that 80% of your thoughts are those where you do not have any control over ( ie waste thoughts) is indeed an efficient way to express positive feelings and improve concentration. It also helps when we imagine that everyone including ourselves are playing a role, when we are interacting with people in different situations.
This form of Meditation is helpful in imagining that we are 'a point of light' (soul) and could be practiced at any time, anywhere and in any position that you feel comfortable. It doesn't require any formal way of preparation other than becoming soul conscious and practicing it regularly.
I have re-discovered that I could just close my eyes and go into a 'state of meditation' when ever, I want to. Even when Iam traveling in a busy train or at a crowded place or when going to bed or waking up from sleep or just even when Iam engaged in something I could take a minute or few minutes out, imagine the positive thoughts and feel the positive energy.
The first four sessions ie being a self sovereign, awareness of body and soul, the three levels of consciousness and Karma were quite a reiteration of many aspects that we already knew or are aware through one source or other. I would say that this was the best part of the course, that were simple to understand and comprehend.
The second half ie sessions on God, Time cycle and Tree of humanity were more complex, challenging and at times difficult to grasp. The concept of space, time, infinity etc is always going to be difficult to explain and understand in such a short period of time. But I felt Paramjit has done and doing a great service by taking such sessions and explaining this version of 'Raja-Yoga' in a simple, clear and most importantly, a practical manner. Om Shanthi......
1 comment:
Excellent. But as you know the debate never stops. Vedantins start their process from the mind, not giving much importance to the physical system as in Raja or Hatha yoga which concentrates more on asanas and pranayama. But I think the debate if futile since all the paths lead to same destination. Nile, Amazon, Ganges and so on may have different shapes, sizes and ways but their destination is the same.
Also don't you think Yoga has been wrongly taught in the west? Actually a common man today is unfit and cannot do meditation that easily. But in the west they do it in 1 or 7 day camps !!! Even Patanjali says meditation is only the 7th advanced step. Before that there is yama, niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana and then only dhyana comes. So there are 6 preliminary steps. Even to start yama it seems an aspirant needs to be qualified with the 4 basic qualifications - viveka, vairagya, shatsampat and mumukshutva.
Also the west believes in doing yoga for beautification of body which is not true yoga. You might have heard of Bikram uncle ji who teaches the Americans to jump like monkeys in a heated room in their bikinis! Yoga is for realization of Self which is not that easy. Even Demi God Indra took 101 years (those times) of training and discipline to arrive at the conclusion. Lord of death has hesitant to impart this knowledge to Nachiketa due to the difficulty and subtleness of the subject. As you might know Krishna says in gita that among thousands only few are selected and even among them only few realize. So it seems we need some kind of authorization even to talk about such subtle topics. And I am glad we are :) Krishna also says not to disturb others who are busy with mundane useless sense life.
What I say is every step in life is a battle. The more we know the truths, some forces revolt as if they don't want us to know the truths since we will be the masters over them. So these subtle forces are happy if the humans continue living in ignorance as slaves to them.
"He who knows the Self knows all things." declared Prajapati. So Indra as a representative of Gods and Virochana as a representative of Demons went to him and requested to teach that knowledge. After 32 years of discipline, he said - "Go and look at yourself in a pan of water, a vessel filled with water. You will see something there. That is the Self.". They said ohh that's so simple.
They looked. What did they see? They saw their own face - their own body.
Virochana said, "Now I know what is the Self. This body is the Self." Virochana returned home and proclaimed to all the demons: "Now we know what the Self is, by knowing which all things are known and all things can be obtained. This very body is the Self. Eat, drink, be merry and enjoy."
Thus it is that the philosophy of enjoyment, hedonism and materialism started with Virochana, because he concluded that the Ultimate Reality is this body, which was very clear from the instructions he received from Prajapati. And what does this body need? It needs eating, drinking, enjoying, sleeping and all the appurtenances of physicality.
Virochana was happy with that knowledge and he never returned but Indra returned. You might know what happenned later
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