The Majestic always stride Alone.." The Glory and Beauty of `Aloneness" the Road to all Freedom..

The Majesty of Aloneness..The `Time Travel ' Techniques of the Yogis and Overcomming Self Destructive 'Love..'

The Majestic Always Stride Alone..Even in a crowd of Millions..they are Apart and Detached..as if a silent witness to the play of the world..Part of it and yet Apart from it..reminding one of the Majestic Lion striding alone and unafraid  in the forest of the wild..or the grandeur of a Golden Eagle that flys high and soars above the turbulance of the world below..

This " Aloneness" is known as `Kevalam" in Sanskrit and depicts the quality of detachment and deep strength..it does not mean being selfish, aloof, Single or a loner...shunning family and freinds or being a hater....but being a Free soul even in the midst of all the trials and tribulations and storms of this life..
The  Holy Bhagwad Gita ( Chapter 12) describes such Men and Women of wisdom as " He who is alike to freind and foe..Alike in honour and ignomy..in heat and cold..given to contemplation and content with whatever comes unasked,,unattached to wealth and belongings and sence of `Mine'.

He who hates no being, who is friendly and compassionate to all, who is free from the feeling of I and mine, even-minded in pain and pleasure and forbearing

Meaning: Ever content, steady in meditation, self controlled and possessed of firm conviction, with mind and intellect fixed on me, such a devotee is dear to me.

Meaning: He by whom the world is not afflicted and whom the world cannot afflict, he who is free from joy, anger, fear and anxiety - he is dear to me. ( the one who does not provoke others nor is provoked by them...)

He who has no wants, who is pure and prompt, unconcerned, untroubled, and who is selfles

in all his undertakings, he who is thus devoted to Me,

That one says Sri Krishna " is dear to me...

The 56th Aphorism of Patanjali which we are studying goes like this goes like this :

सत्त्वपुरुषयोः शुद्धिसाम्ये कैवल्यमिति ॥५६॥

56. By the similarity of purity between the Sattva and the Purusha comes Kaivalya.



Swami Vivekananda In meditation..

Swami Vivekakananda :When the soul realises that it depends on nothing in the universe, from celestial beings to the lowest atom, that is called Kaivalya (isolation) and perfection. It is attained when this mixture of purity and impurity called Sattva (intellect) has been made as pure as the Purusha itself; then the Sattva reflects only the unqualified essence of purity, which is the Purusha.

We are in the class at the Vedanta Society of Toronto . Our Spiritual teacher the Revered Swami Kripamayananda Maharaj Head of the Canada centre. .He explains to us the beautiful verse in context to both life and death..we are in the class of spiritual studies on Wednesday April 9th ."  Love your beloved...your family..your parents..your spouse...your children..give them your best....but know that they belong to God and can at moment be called back to him..do not have the extreme attachment of the weak..but the strong and spiritual love of `Kevalam'..I am the witness.." Our Swami K spoke about the extreme love and attachment which brings pain and heart break to the point of self destruction as a great weakness which should be overcome..

" Everyday death stalks us..our most beloved can be seperated from us suddenly without reason..we often hear examples of people who cannot bear this seperation and then they in turn either committ suicide, or take to drugs or alcohol or become mentally unstable because they cannot bear this pain..their `attachment to another person is that intense' How can we love deeply without that Love becooming self destructive ?"

Spiritual practices that are to practised througoutt one's life time such as deep devotion and total  ` Surrender" which is " Sharanagatha"  to God. The true devotee belives that God is his Father and Mother..he will take care of him and everything that happens good or bad is for  a reason I trust in him completely and turn to him each day in times of peace and trials..I am his child..meditation and prayers and repitition of God's name give us tremdendous strength to face the loss of our loved one..
The Other way is that of the " Wise' which in Sanskrit is " Gyan Yoga" by analysis....by realising I and mine are all impermanent.." Life is a Gift loaned to us from God and when the time comes he asks to take back what he has given"  says our Swami..He gives us a beautiful example .".imagine your neighbour has lent you some utensils..a few months later he asks for them to be returned..will you fight, quarrel, yell and go into depression ? Imgine that your loved ones are gifts of Love loaned to you..treat them well and when God asks to take them back..do not destroy yourself because he has taken what belongs to him"...Says Swami Kripamayananda Maharaj.
Even this Body is impermanent according to our path of Vedanta..We have this deep identity with our bodies and our self identity that is why we suffer..Examples of how we identify ourselves with our bodies so much is reflected in views like " I am young..I am beautiful, intelligent and charming..I am Blue eyed and Blond haired..I am Irish...or American..I am Aryan....I am a Brahmin and of Royal Blood.. You are not as intelligent as I am....I am a CEO..I am a Star..and I am the best.People who feel a need to constantly compete with  others and reinvent and `Makeover' themselves..to spend thousands on Cosmetic surgery and not on self development of the spirit and the mind..are stuck with self identification of the body .." Live each moment of your life carefully" cautioned Sri Sarada Devi.." Each action has a " Karmic result'.....
In the treatise by Swami Sarvagathananda Maharaj the late head of the Vedanta Society of Boston..a few techniquiqes of meditation which help us take the path of ' Wisdom' were described. ...
* Imagine in meditation that you are sitting by a stream of water..that stream is your life..think of it from a particular moment of time..analyse it before and after that `point of time' you are not ' In the stream' but by the stream so you cannot be washed away..you will see how many people came into your life and went away..how much happned good and bad..how you faced those days and how you will face the future...that meditation gives us the ability to see our self and our lives as a witness and gives us strength...Sri Ramakrishna often said that the wise man is like a dry coconut..the kerneal inside is free from the shell..which means There is so little self identification with his " Shell" which is the Body..
Another example he oftem gave was that man should live as a Mud Fish or  a duck in water..never getting wet or `soaked' with the world..at the end of the ' Game' nothing was ever yours to begin with.....

Revered Swami Kripamayananda our Spiritual Teacher.

One of the students mentioned that in his meditation he often felt that since the body came from " Dust" and the `Five elements 'there never was a time when he was not or would not be since oneday we would all be dust and our Swami K..said that was the exact Buddhist thought of meditation .
However  In Vedanta we believe that the soul travels from life to life and we were all created  to begin with as Divine..our " karma and actions of each life determine our  next body and Life and that is why we must always live carefully and spiritually ..We are free from the `birth and death cycle' only when we reach again that state of perfection and oneness with God which we began with..
In The Bhagwad Gita Chapter 2 : this is the description of the Soul...

20. He( The soul) is not born nor does He ever die; after having been, He again ceases not to be.

Unborn, eternal, changeless and ancient, He is not killed when the body is killed,

21. Whosoever knows Him to be indestructible, eternal, unborn and inexhaustible, how canthat man slay, O Arjuna, or cause to be slain?

22. Just as a man casts off worn-out clothes and puts on new ones, so also the embodied Self casts off worn-out bodies and enters others that are new.

23. Weapons cut It not, fire burns It not, water wets It not, wind dries It not.

The Self is partless. It is infinite and extremely subtle. So the sword

cannot cut It, fire cannot burn It, wind cannot dry It.

24. This Self cannot be cut, burnt, wetted nor dried up. It is eternal, all-pervading, stable,ancient and immovable.

25. This (Self) is said to be unmanifested, unthinkable and unchangeable. Therefore,

knowing This to be such, thou shouldst not grieve.

Finally Sri Krishna promises this to all Mankind.."There Never was there a time when I did not exist, nor you, nor these Kings..nor in the future shall any of us cease to be".

We asked our Swami what the purpose of our lives if the ones we loved are taken away..and then he said that to start with just being a spource of happiness and a blessing to everyone we meet is a great way to find the purpose of our lives..
Here is a Beautiful litle clip which was shared by a Devotee :: Believe in good: http://youtu.be/cZGghmwUcbQ

The  next Aphorism is also described below by Patanjali...as we retrace our steps in the book..
 53 क्षण-तत्क्रमयोः संयमाद्विवेकजं ज्ञानम् ॥५३॥

53. By making Samyama on a particle of time and its precession and succession comes discrimination.

Swami Vivekananda :How are we to avoid all these things, these Devas, and heavens, and powers? By discrimination, by knowing good from evil. Therefore a Samyama is given by which the power of discrimination can be strengthened. This by making a Samyama on a particle of time, and the time preceding and following it. ( Samyama means meditation that is concentration, continuation and culmination)..
Our Swami Kripamayanada Maharaj explanied that this method of mditation on a Partcle of Time..in depth can actually enable a serious spiritual aspiarnt..the ability to spiritaully ' Time Travel " and visit the past in all its reality and also the future in all its reality..that is how Spiritual masters can know their future and even the exact time of their deaths..

How do we know about things and beings that seem totally mysterious to us ?

 Aporism 54 : जाति-लक्षण-देशैरन्यताऽनवच्छेदात्तुल्ययोस्ततः प्रतिपत्तिः ॥५४॥

54. Those things which cannot be differentiated by species, sign, and place, even they will be discriminated by the above Samyama.

Swami Vivekananda : The misery that we suffer comes from ignorance, from non-discrimination between the real and the unreal. We all take the bad for the good, the dream for the reality. Soul is the only reality, and we have forgotten it. Body is an unreal dream, and we think we are all bodies. This non-discrimination is the cause of misery. It is caused by ignorance. When discrimination comes, it brings strength, and then alone can we avoid all these various ideas of body, heavens, and gods. This ignorance arises through differentiating by species, sign, and place. For instance, take a cow. The cow is differentiated from the dog by species. Even with the cows alone how do we make the distinction between one cow and another? By signs. If two objects are exactly similar, they can be distinguished if they are in different places. When objects are so mixed up that even these differential will not help us, the power of discrimination acquired by the above-mentioned practice will give us the ability to distinguish them. The highest philosophy of the Yogi is based upon this fact, that the `Purusha' ( our souls) is pure and perfect, and is the only "simple" that exists in this universe. The body and mind are compounds, and yet we are ever identifying ourselves with them This is the great mistake that the distinction has been lost. When this power of discrimination has been attained, man sees that everything in this world, mental and physical, is a compound, and, as such, cannot be the Purusha. ( Everything that causes us to feel that we are different..is not the truth )..

तारकं सर्वविषयं सर्वथाविषयमक्रमञ्चेति विवेकजं ज्ञानम् ॥५५॥

55. The saving knowledge is that knowledge of discrimination which simultaneously covers all objects, in all their variations.

Swami Vivekananda Raja Yoga :Saving, because the knowledge takes the Yogi across the ocean of birth and death. The whole of Prakriti ( Nature)  in all its states, subtle and gross, is within the grasp of this knowledge. There is no succession in perception by this knowledge; it takes in all things simultaneously, at a glance.

Little Nuggets from the Class : Question : Was Sri ramakrishna as ' Bhakta ' ( Intense devotee ) Or a Gyani ( Man of true wisdom ?)
Swami K : Sri Ramakrsihna was a Bhakta  ( Intense Devotee) externally and a Man of total wisdom and Logic ( Gyani ) internally..
SWami Vivekananda was a Gyani on the outside and a Bhakta on the inside...