Sannyasi Dharma

Why are we here?

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 11 Jul 2013 19:45:00 +0000

In response to my previous post, someone asked me a question via a comment:

Dharma. Can you help me with this question? Incarnation. Why are we incarnated and what does this have to do with karma? Karon x

Gee Karon, ask me a tricky one next time why don't you!!! :)

So anyway, my response ended up being too long for Blogger to take in a comment, so I thought I'd make it a full new entry. Haven't had one in a while...

So here we go...

Hi Karon. Not sure about 'help you out with a question'... I'm no authority ... but I can give you my opinion...

We are incarnated precisely because of karma. The physical plane is the plane of action, it's where karma plays out. Or at least where it is easiest to play out karma.

You're probably not into football much, and neither am I, but this is what springs to mind: You can spend as much time as you like on the training ground, or in the dressing room talking about strategy, but you'll never get any results there. You have get on the pitch on a Saturday afternoon and take on your opponents, because that’s the way rules are written, You have to get in there and take part.

That's how it is with the universe. We can hover around between incarnations making plans, but unless we actually dive in and swim in it, it means nothing. I don't know why, other than to say that them's the rules! That's the way the universe is put together.

In fact, according to Hinduism, there are exceptions, and there are actually more efficient places for working off excesses of 'good' or 'bad' karma - heavens and hells. In yoga, heaven is place to avoid, because if you find yourself there, it means you have become to massively imbalanced with certain samskaras (karmic impressions), and you need to manifest in one of the heavens to work yourself back into a position of relative balance. From there, you can continue to work on your longer term karma (sanchita karma), back on the good old physical.

We touched on a point there...There are three types of karma: sanchita, prarabdha, and kriyamana.

Sanchita karma is all of your karma. It is the total net baggage of all unresolved karmic impressions that your own individual atman (soul for the sake of argument) has accrued since the beginning of time. No offence, but there's probably quite a lot of that :)

Prarabdha karma is that portion of sanchita karma that will have an impact on you in this lifetime. The rest of your sanchita karma is buried so deep, it will not, on its own and unprompted, be close enough to the surface of the lake to cause any noticeable ripples this time round. But prarabdha karma helps determine your lot in this life. If your favourite colour is blue, thats prarabdha karma. If you are female, that's prarabdha karma. If you are naturally active, lazy, creative, dour etc... that’s prarabdha karma. Also, if you get injured, ill, win the lottery and so on...

Kriyamana karma is the karma you create in this incarnation. Every time you act, speak or think, you are sending out ripples, and as we well know, every action etc... so the ripples you send outwards, also have an inwards effect. They add to your baggage...they become kriyamana karma in this life.

If you resolve kriyamana karma in the same incarnation you create it, then it has no lasting effect. New Agers call this 'instant karma'. If you don't, though, it will become prarabdha karma in your next life. If you keep doggedly refusing to act to resolve this new karma, it will eventually become sanchita karma, and just add to the heavy bags you carry from life to life.

So, we have all this karma, and are usually making more all the time. And the way the world works is that the only place you can smooth out these wrinkles is to incarnate here in the physical. So, the very fact that your atman is a writhing vortex of karmic knots and threads is what causes the atman to be physically incarnated. Because, just as if you release a gas into a space, it naturally expands to fill the space with a smooth, even distribution, so Nature wants to unwind all these knots that are making a mess of Her nice smooth karmic field.

What's special about human incarnation is that the equipment into which we are incarnated (brains and bodies) is highly enough developed to allow the atman to express a sense of its own existence, and to choose to act in ways other than those simply determined by karma.

Animal brains don't permit this (in the large - personally I believe there are exceptions). Animals incarnate in brains and bodies that are suited to expressing prarabdha karma. Human brains can do two extra things: they can learn to access sanchita karma, and they can learn to prevent the build up of kriyamana karma.

Yoga is a great way of achieving both of these things.

To access sanchita karma, we need to become very, very still and quiet. Once we have a great level of silence, we find all kinds of things arising from our 'subconscious' - sanchita karmas. And we then (hopefully) have the tools, through yoga, of dealing with these. Some of the most popular tools are models that give us a way of thinking about these things systematically. With systematic thought, we can think 'Oh, XYZ is happening, and this system tells me that this means ABC'. The Chakras, for example, are one such system. When we are working into the chakras, we are working into our sanchita karma, and the chakra system, developed by people who have been there and done it, gives us a way of dealing with what comes up.

As you know, there are may such systems.

The second thing a human incarnation gives us is the opportunity to avoid generating kriyamana karma.

There is great misunderstanding in this area in my view. Yes, it definitely means the yamas and the niyamas. And to some extent it means being a good 'citizen of the material plane'. But the green thing, and the slightly disturbing is-it-real-is-it-fake 'niceness' of a lot of yoga and New Age people isn't it.

'It', as in the way to avoid kriyamana karma, is karma and bhakti yoga.

It is performing your actions without hope, expectation, or desire of the fruits of the action. These desires and expectations are the 'equal and opposite action' of the action, and they are the force that cause the knots and ripples in your karma. Without attachment to these fruits, the kriyamana karma passes over and through you, and dissipates into none-existence.

Alternatively, if you can't be so abstract, perform your actions for the sake of God. Bhakti yoga. God can take as much karma as you care to throw at her/him/it. Redirect those 'equal and opposite' reactions towards God. That's the next best thing.

If you can do both, you are onto a winner. If you can perform actions actions whilst fully mindful of the divine, with no attachment to the results, you will be generating no kriyamana karma, and will probably also be making great inroads into your sanchita karma, if you have learned to access that by yogic practice.

There are two schools of thought regarding prarabdha karma. One says you are you stuck with it. Once it gets skimmed off the top of your sanchita karma, and manifests in this life as prarabdha, theres nothing you can do. If you prarabdha karma says you are going to be hit by a truck, then you are going to be hit by a truck. If it says you are going to prefer redheads, then you get no choice. Manchester City fan? Bad Karma Dude!!! Of course, you are still free to carry out actions of your own volition, but you are somewhat constrained by the prarabdha karma.

That's basically as close as yoga gets to fatalism.

The other view is that the prarabdha karma just gives you nudges, but you can either listen to them, or not, depending on how hefty the nudges are.

So there you go. My two penneth :)

Karma as Gravity

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sat, 22 Dec 2012 10:24:00 +0000

I'm on a gravity theme. I like gravity, because it provides a good analogy for many things. So after talking about Guru as gravity (below), I now want to talk about karma as gravity.

In the West, we often talk about 'good karma' and 'bad karma'. But really, the distinction does not exist.

A great many of us are brought up in the West with at least some influence of Christianity. Even if we were not brought up as church-goers, many of those around us will have been church-goers, or will themselves have been raised by church-goers. In Christianity there is a clear dichotomy of good and evil. God and the Devil, two opposed forces.

This runs so deep within our society, that many people have a very, very deep rooted impression that Good and Evil are absolute forces. Even if we don't think it consciously, it's a mindset that filters through into our thought patterns, and colours the way we see the world, to a greater or lesser extent.

This dichotomy of absolute good and evil is not present in other cultures, and specifically not in Hindu/yogic culture. In Yoga, there is no devil. Even beings such as Ravana, the demon who kidnapped Sita, is not ultimately evil. He was just a being, like you or I, who had an incarnation as a demon. His ultimate true nature was of Sat Chit Ananda, just as for every other being in the universe.

So there is no ultimate good and evil. And also there is no good karma and bad karma. Karma is karma, and karma does what karma does. Karma is really just cause and effect. We all operate within the field of maya, and karma is one of the laws of nature within maya. Karma makes no decisions, and makes no judgements. Karma is not a conscious entity watching your actions and giving you 'what you deserve'.

Here comes the gravity. Gravity is a law of nature, just like karma. Everywhere I go, and everything I do, I'm doing it within the field of gravity. So, right now, I'm sitting in a chair and typing. Gravity is acting on me, and so I remain in the chair, and I don't have to worry about floating around the room like an astronaut! I don't have to wear magnetic boots so I can stay on the floor, and I don't have to put padding over all my walls, and be scared of every sharp corner. All thanks to gravity. So that's good gravity.

On the other hand, if I'm walking along not paying attention, and I happen to walk off the edge of a cliff, that same gravity would take hold of me and smash me into the rocks two hundred feet below. Bad gravity?

It's quite clear to see that in these cases, there was no 'good gravity' and 'bad gravity'. Gravity made no judgements about my actions. Gravity had no conscious decisions to make about the outcome of my actions. I acted, and gravity was just gravity, doing what gravity does.

Karma is the same. You act, and karma does what karma does. The consequences are rarely as immediate, which tends to make it seem more mysterious, but the principle is the same. There is no 'good karma' or 'bad karma', there is just karma doing what it does.

Of course, there may be karma we 'like', and karma we 'dislike', but that's far from the same as good and bad karma. Saying good karma makes it sound like something desirable. But it isn't. We need to be free from all karma. Trying to build up good karma is every bit as useless as trying to build up bad karma.

Why?

Because if you are trying to build up good karma, this means you are carrying out your actions with the desire and expectation of result. And any result, any karmic consequence, only binds us further into maya. Carrying a suitcase full of good karma into our next incarnation, is still carrying a suitcase full of karma.

We need to try to operate in such a way that we incur no karma. In terms of gravity, we need to become weightless. We need to operate in such a manner as we are not creating more waves, not interacting with the ebb and flow of karmic existence.

How?

Karma yoga. We have to do as Krishna exhorted, and carry out our actions without expectation of, or desire for, the fruit. And good karma is the sweetest and tastiest fruit of all! Acting as Krishna (and Swami-ji!) tells us allows us to gently express the samskaras of our past karmas, without creating any further karmic baggage.

So, I don't like to think of good and bad karma. It's just karma, doing what it does.

Mans Greatest Challenge

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sat, 13 Oct 2012 10:26:00 +0000

If I win £300,000,000 on the lottery, I will plough the vast majority of that vast fortune into solving the last great technological challenge faced by mankind.

I will buy a small island, so that the people I hire to work on the problem can remain completely focussed and in isolation.

I will provide them with every comfort, and their families can join them, but the goal is so important, they have to be kept from other worldly distractions.

I will build a magnificent scientific and technological institute on the island, with all of the very best facilities for research and experimentation.

I will hire Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose, Brian Cox and Sheldon Cooper, and I will put their minds to work on the greatest task faced by our our modern society.

It's a tricky task, and I won't expect immediate results. I'll give them the space they need to accomplish their goal.

And then maybe, just maybe, after a decade or so of intense effort, they might, just might, finally provide mankind with a toaster that actually works.

Guru as Gravity (sort of)

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sun, 16 Sep 2012 14:07:00 +0000

In Harrogate Swami Satsangi said something that has been turning over at the back of my mind ever since. She said that the role of initiator had now been passed to her, as Swami Niranjan would be staying in India, and she explained by saying that Guru is a tattwa, and that the tattwa had been passed to her by Paramahamsa-ji.

Tattwas are often thought of as the figures that represent them. A red triangle for air, a silver crescent for water. But those are not the tattwas, those are symbols representing the tattwa, and which provide a focus that allows access to the tattwa itself. A tattwa is actually an all pervasive field. The tattwa 'Tejas' (fire), for example, is present everywhere in the universe. It is more prevalent in some areas than it is in others. The same with the other tattwas that we are familiar with: pritthivi (earth), vayu (air), apas (water) and akasha (spirit). These extend through all space time, in various levels of intensity.

This is how gravity works.

Gravity is everywhere in the entire universe. And just as there is only one vayu, and only one tejas etc, there is only one gravity.

The gravity that the earth 'has' that holds us to its surface is the same gravity that the sun has that holds the earth in orbit round the sun, and is the same gravity that holds the galaxies together across the vastness of space. There are not separate gravities that each of these has.

The way it works is that gravity exists as 'field' throughout all of space. In the sense of a 'magnetic field'. It' sone field, but in some places it is more intense, and in others it is less intense. With gravity, what determines the intensity is the presence of matter. So, Poornamurti (my wife) is small, and has very little gravity. I'm a bigger, and have a little more. The earth is much, much bigger, and it causes a significant increase in intensity of the gravity field. The sun is a million times bigger than earth, and causes an intensity a million times stronger. In between the stars and galaxies, gravity is stretched very thin. It's still there. It's everywhere, but its so small, its hard to even detect.

It's one gravity, but the presence of something (matter) makes it stronger in some places than it is in others.

Guru is the same.

There is one Guru, spread throughout the whole of creation, and wherever you go, Guru is there. But in some places it's more intense than others. And it is the presence of something that determines the intensity of the 'Guru-field'. It's the presence of 'spiritual aptitude' for want of a better word. So, someone such as Paramahamsa-ji is an intense ball of 'spiritual aptitude', and in His presence, the Guru field is incredibly strong.

So, there is only one Guru, and that Guru is always there wherever you are, and with the right equipment can always be detected and 'tuned in to', but in some places, it's easier to feel, such as in the presence of the people we call 'Guru'.

It's interesting that one of the meaning of the word 'guru' is 'heavy'!

Hello again!

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Tue, 10 Jul 2012 19:52:00 +0000

Well!
That was a bit of a mad period!
The last practice session I completed was in Madrid in May!

Ever since coming back, work has been crazy. I've been working absolutely insane hours, and I haven't completed a single practice session.

It's difficult to get up at 5AM to practice when you've been working until 2AM, and are expected back in the office (an hours drive away) by 8AM!

However, fingers crossed, it seems that things have calmed down a little, so I'm going to try starting again.

And I do mean starting again. In the two months I've had away from practice, I have regained about one of the three stones in weight that I had lost, and have lost a lot of the flexibility I was painstakingly building up.

So, starting 'soon', maybe tomorrow morning, it's back to Lesson 1 in the Systematic Course. I'm going to do Lesson 1 at least until Sunday, at which point I will decide whether I can fast track to Lesson 2, or whether I need to stay on Lesson 1. To be honest, I think I'll need to stay with Lesson 1 for at least another week whilst I also get my diet back on track. The reason I think this is that several of the postures in Lesson 1 are concerned with the digestive system, and I recall that I didn't start to feel the full benefit of them until I was practicing with a fairly clear system in the morning, and this didn't happen until I'd been eating a lot less for a few weeks. So I think I need to reduce my food intake considerably right away, and that will take at least a week or two to work through my system, to the point where things are in much better balance.

You know, although I've been working a lot, and it really would have been very difficult to practice on the vast majority of days, I think there's also an element of the fact that stuff was starting to come out. I was starting to remember stuff from childhood. Some if it good, some of it - well, what a lot of people might consider odd - some of it really awful. It didn't come to me during my meditation practice. In fact, most of it came in my drives home from work - a time that I find oddly reflective.

I think maybe I fell for the 'somethings happening, it's scary, make it stop' story that a lot of people who really delve into themselves come across. I'm really surprised, and a little disappointed at this. I mean, I've been seriously pursuing self investigation since I was a teenager, and some of the stuff I did in my youth was incredibly powerful, stirring up a lot more than this recent stuff. Maybe I thought I'd got it all out, and that I was now going to sail into sainthood without any further ado. Probably. One of the things I'm most proud of is having no ego...get it?

Of course, when you think you have no ego, it just means it's grown so large you can't see the edges anymore.

Anyway, in case you are interested, here's one of the strange things I recall from childhood. This is a good one, because it definitely feeds my ego, and makes me think I'm special, so beter get it out there.

It's something I'd forgotten, and just came back to me on one drive home.

I used to sit at my parents feet at night, after my younger sister had gone to bed, waiting for them to tell me. You know, tell me all that stuff that they must know: the purpose of life, the real meaning of God and religion, the secret rituals that grown-ups do. No not sex. I don't remember being aware of sex. I was about 8, and this was nearly 40 years ago. 8 year olds really didn't have any clue about sex in the seventies.

I have no idea how long this carried on. They sat where they still sit today, although there was no coffee table then. 40 years ago, coffee wasn't invented. Not in our house anyway. So I used to sit on the floor, between the settee with my mum on it, and the armchair with my dad on it, by their feet, waiting. They were watching telly, but I was actively waiting. 'When are they going to tell me?', 'Why are they not telling me?'.

Eventually, I clearly remember one night, and I must have been about twelve by now, so this must have gone on some time, I was going to bed, and I left the living room, pulling the door shut behind me, and as I stood there in the dark, it finally hit me. It wasn't a gradual realisation, a slow dawning of acceptance. It was a thunderbolt out of nowhere: They don't know!

How can they not know?

How can any grown up not know the answers? Not know the secrets? I was really shaken to the core. If they don't know, then how on earth am I ever going to find out?! No point asking teachers. They are the dumbest of grown ups. The church won't help. They threw me out of Sunday school years before for 'being disruptive'...aka 'asking questions'.

I don't recall anything further. I can't say it sparked my search for truth. That search was already going on. That's why I wanted the answers from them. I can't say it left me devastated for days. Maybe it did. I don't remember. I just remember standing with my right hand on the living room doorknob, my left shoulder leaning against the louvre door to the kitchen, forhead against the doorframe, in the darkness, aghast, hollow and slightly dizzy, thinking, "They don't know."

Perhaps that's why I get so emotional about my Guru. And about Neem Karoli Baba, and those few others: They know. And their knowing fills the gap in me. Not the gap of my own knowingness, or lack thereof. That's a gap I can live with. But that awful, dreadful gap of shattering doubt: Maybe there is nothing to know!

At risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld: I may not know for myself, but at least I now know there is something to know!

By the way: that was a great quote by Don, and it was absolutely correct. The media lambasted it because it required about six seconds of thought to figure out what he was saying, and that's about 5.5 seconds more thought than your average journalist can manage in any one incarnation. If you want to know about known unknowns, look it up.

Anyway, that was one thing that came back to me in the days before going to Madrid. Here's another.

For one of my school essays for my CSE English (my school wouldn't enter people for GCE. I had to enter it myself), I wrote about an initiation ceremony.

I have no idea where it came from, and again, I had completely forgotten about it. It was quite Masonic in nature - and I wouldn't have known that until just a few years ago when my curiosity got the better of me. No, I didn't join, but a lot of the so called secrets are published by the Masons themselves, and if you want to know what happens in their ceremonies, you can go to their online bookshop and buy the scripts for the ceremonies.

Even when I bought a few of these books out of curiosity, and read them, I still didn't remember the essay I wrote at 14 years old. Again, that came back to me on one of my journeys home just a few weeks ago. I can't remember any great details about the essay, just that it was an initiation ceremony. I don't think I used the word initiation. Maybe 'induction', because I think the cubs had an induction? But the ceremony, whilst I'm sure it wasn't in any way an accurate description of a Lodge Working, I definitely remember now that it had that feel. I also remember Mr. Croft being very puzzled and slightly disturbed. But he did give me an 'A'.

So, that's a couple of the weird things that came back to me. Very few nice things have come back, but then I suppose they don't have any power. Nice things don't tend to build neuroses, so there's no point having them resurface.

One day I might tell you some of the awful things.

But I doubt it.

Swami Satsangi in Madrid

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:15:00 +0000

We were fortunate to be able to attend the Satyananda gathering in Madrid last week, which was graced by the presence of Swami Satsangi.

I have to say it was quite a remarkable experience. They managed to squeeze an lot in during a short time - Friday Afternoon to Sunday morning.

We had several Satsangs with Swami-ji, where she spoke on the topics that were the title of the event - Gyana, Bhakti and Karma yogas. She talked with her usual clarity and charm, and made the relationship between the three seem somehow obvious and natural.

The two morning hatha sessions were both absolutely amazing. Both were very, very simple, but were incredibly profound, with the usual Satyananda emphasis on awareness, rather than gymnastics. The second day, in particular was almost a full hour spent doing just TTK - bracketed with mantra and pranayama - with absolute focus, lead by Acharya Swami Anandananda, and was one of the most profound experiences I've ever had!

Overall, an excellent weekend.

Confused about OM

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 12:34:00 +0000

So how does this work... Brahman is the one non-dualistic basis of all existence. It is timeless, featureless and unchanging. Om is called Shabda Brahman - the representation of Brahman in sound. But OM is O-M, or even A-U-M. How can something with two, or even three parts represent the single Brahman?

The Best Gita Transalation...

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 07:35:00 +0000

In my humble opinion, the very best Gita translation - certainly that I've come across - is a new translation by George Feurstein.
Dr Feurstein has written many books about yoga, from the perspective of an academic and a practitioner. It tends to make his books very well written, well structured and accurate, as well as being very sympathetic to the true nature of Yoga. Many other academics have written about Yoga, and it tends to make the subject seemstale and clinical. It also leds them to favour a rigorous interpretation of texts, or to attempt interpretations that they see fit, but that they formulate poorly, due to not having the 'insider knowledge' that comes from being a practicing yogi.
None of this is true of Dr. Feursteins works. He knows the real meaning of the subject matter, and is able to present a proper interpretation in a clear manner. Neither is his writing dryly academic. What I've read of him is good reading. Perhaps his biggest and best known work is 'The Yoga Tradition', which is packed with excellent information about a very wide range of yoga subjects.
His new interpretation of the Gita, however, is really excellent. Despite what I said earlier about some academics being too literal, Dr. Feursteins approach to the Gita is to be absolutely literal - nut with his excellent knowledge, on those times where he has to maek a choice of how to interpret a word or phrase, his choice - which he often explains - is always superb. The problem with many Gita transalations is that the interpreter usually has an angle that they want to convey. Thus, some interpretations make the Gita sound almost Christian (Mascaro, for exampel), whereas others heavily promote a particular aspect of Hindu theology (Prabhupada, for example).
Dr. Feurseins approach is completely agnostic in this regard. He presents his interpretation opposite the Sanskrit test - Devanagari and Romanised - but includes a large section after this that shows his word-for-word interpretation of the Sanskrit. This allows the reader to see how he has arrived at his rendering of each sloka, and makes it very clear that he has made just a bout as literal a transaltion as is possible.
This doesn't lead to a particularly poetic presentation (like Eswaran, for example), but it has given me, at least, a completely new view of many verses. My previous favourite translation was Mascaro, but it becomes very clear from this translation that Mascaro actually added quite a lot of phrases that simply don't exist in the original, and usually serve to enhance parallelisms with Christian ideas.
The book also includes a set of essays that introduce the characters and setting of the Gita, and make for very clear and enjoyable reading.
Overall, for me, this is a revolutionary transaltion. It's what I've been waiting and hoping for ever since I first read the Gita over 30 years ago.

Last Nights Mrityunjaya

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 13:03:00 +0000

Thanks to everyone who came to our Mrityunjaya session last night. It was a small group, but it was very pleasant.
In fact, it was quite remarkable. At the end of Mrityunjaya, I think we all had noticed that around three quarters of the way through the 108 repetitions, it somehow changed. For me it was quite dramatic, and I think it was also very noticeable to a few others. It seemed to suddenly become more focussed and intense. A few people were quite moved.
We followed it with a very low, slow Gayatri, which was also very intense.
All in all a wonderful session, and lot's of thanks to everyone who helped to make it very memorable!

The Yoga I Do Now

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 12:41:00 +0000

Something happened.
I don't think I've talked about this before on my blog, just in my own journal.
For years, decades actually, I've been justifying to myself my lack of a rigorous Yoga sadhana. I've been saying, 'but I practice Karma yoga as much as I can', and 'I always have my Guru in mind', and I've been trying to convince myself that this was adequate. The main means I've used in this effort at justification is, of course, to pretend that I'm trying to convince others. To attempt to present myself as 'yes, I am a yogi too - different to your type of yoga, but a yogi nevertheless', and using this as an excuse to do nothing.
Only a few months ago I in fact posted on this very subject.
For some people, this may all be true. So if this is your path - to practice karma yoga and bhakti yoga, without also practicing the more, perhaps, tangible aspect of sadhana - what I'm about to say is not aimed at you. If that's your path, then that's absolutely great, I respect it, and I have no issue with what you choose to do.
But, for me, it was bullshit.
At the back of my mind, I always knew it was bullshit, but of course, that gets suppressed, and instead the justification mechanisms kick in.
This has been bubbling under since going to Munger and Rikhia, and sometime just before Christmas, the bubble burst, and I suddenly had a really strong urge to begin a proper regime of sadhana. It took me a while to decide what to do, and of course, Christmas is a bad time to begin anything.
So, on my first day back to work after New Year, I began on page 1 of 'A Systematic Course in the Ancient Techniques of Yoga and Kriya'.
This is a thick book from the Satyananda stable. It is, rightly, credited to Swami Satyananda, but was actually penned by Swami Nishchalananda (as was at least one other of the prominent Bihar books). It is basically an account of the contents of a course that Paramahamsa Satyananda-ji used to instruct some of the very early Swamis, including Swami Nishchalananda. This is my understanding. Please correct me if I am wrong.
It is made up of three 'books' - all bound in one volume - and each book is made up of twelve lessons. The idea is to practice each lesson for a month, thus making it a three year course. Each lesson in the book includes some theory, and the description of one or more of the following: shatkarmas, asanas, pranayama, relaxation, meditation, and, in the last book, the kriyas. Each lesson ends with three suggested daily practice routines. At the beginning, these are scheduled to last 60 minutes, 30 minutes and 15 minutes. The idea is to pick one that you can practice every day. So even if you can only spare 15 minutes a day, you can progress through the book.
I made the decision that I would attempt to practice the longer schedule. This is fine whilst it is one hour. Later on, I may need to review, as the longest routine by the end of the book requires three hours.
In order to fit the 60 minutes into my day, I have been rising at 5AM during the week, and 6AM at weekends. This gives me the time to do my ablutions, do the 60 minute routine, and still leave the house before 7AM - which I need to do to arrive at work in good time.
This I have been doing in conjunction with eating using the so-called 'Fast 5' routine. This is, basically, fast for 19 hours a day, and eat during the remaining 5 hours. So, I take my lunch at around 2PM, and try to get my dinner before 7PM. I do this 5 days a week, eating normally at weekend. By combining this with what I like to refer to as 'eating like a human', I have lost around 25 pounds since New Year.
By 'eating like a human', I basically mean not having the following typical weekday food intake:

Breakfast: 2 ham and cheese croissants and 2 pain au chocolat, a flapjack, double espresso, half a litre of Pepsi Max (sugar free)
Mid morning: Flapjack, double espresso, half a litre of Pepsi Max
Lunch: two large, fat, sugar and salt laden pre-packaged sandwiches, flapjack and chocolate brownie, half a litre of Pepsi Max
Mid afternoon: another brownie and a packet or two of crisps, double espresso, half a litre of Pepsi Max
Late afternoon: double espresso, half a litre of Pepsi Max, and perhaps another packet of crisps
Snack on arriving home: because I "can't wait an hour for dinner" - e.g. peanut butter sandwich
Evening meal: something relatively healthy cooked by either Poornamurti or myself, so I can pretend I actually eat quite well, and only weigh 23 stone because of some mysterious alien intervention
One or two fancy chocolate truffles "as a little indulgence"

This interspersed with a few biscuits from the office 'handy biscuit stash', and a few more bottles of Pepsi Max.

Now, that's not eating like a human! That's eating like some kind of weird obsessive nutcase. Or maybe an American.

This has been replaced with:

2PM: Home made soup or dahl with one home made chapati and a tangerine or orange
3PM: An apple and another tangerine, sometimes a low fat yoghurt
6-7PM: Something really quite healthy cooked by myself or Poornamurti, one or two fancy chocolate truffles, or maybe a 'Shivananda cookie' as a little indulgence
All of the Pepsi Max has been replaced by water sipped throughout the day

At weekends, this is preceded by a couple of toasted teacakes at breakfast time. I find it much more difficult to wait until 2PM to eat at weekend. I don't have the distraction of being tied to a computer, stuck in meetings etc., as when at work.

That's what I would describe as being closer to eating like a human!

The best thing about this is that it's not a 'diet' in the popular sense. The problem with 'diets' is that as soon as you start them, you have the idea that at some point, you will finish the diet, and start 'eating normally'. As you can see, returning to 'eating normally' for me would be an unmitigated disaster!

So, this is not a diet, this is how I intend to eat from now to eternity. There will not be a time when this diet ends. This is it, forever. And you know what? It's a darned relief. I'm sure you think you can imagine how utterly awful it makes you feel to eat like I was doing, but I would contest that unless you've done it, you probably can't. And the thing is, it's only now, ten weeks or so in, that I'm really starting to realise how truly awful I felt, all the time. And I can't tell you how good I'm starting to feel.

Eating like I am now, I'm loosing about 2 pounds per week. A little less on average, as the first couple of weeks I lost almost a stone. This happens because of being so far out of equilibrium at first. As I loose weight, the rate will gradually lessen, until I reach an equilibrium point for this amount of food, which I think will be somewhere around thirteen stone. This will take about two years.

The plan for the sadhana is to spend one month on each lesson of book 1. However, I am not practicing the crow walking, and the asanas I am practicing are not terribly good, in terms of final position. This is because of my physical shape. If you imagine trying to do, for example, saithalyasana or shashankasana with very large, solid ball strapped to your abdomen, you can imagine it would be difficult achieve a decent final posture, regardless of your flexibility: the ball simply gets in the way. That's where I am with my excess weight: it is a physical obstruction. Also, I am not practicing 'crow walking', as with my current weight and shape, it places far too much stress on my knees.

So, when I get to the end of book 1, I should, in theory, be almost another four stone lighter. I intend at that point to return to lesson 1, and spend one week on each lesson, attempting to get better final positions, and including the crow walking. This will take around three months. It will also mean, due to the crow walking, I wil be better prepared for the postures of shankaprakshalana, which is presented in lesson 13. It also means that lesson 13 will roughly coincide with the shankaprakshalana days at the London Satyananda Centre, in 2013 (assuming they keep to the same routine as the previous couple of years).

So, there you have it: a confession and a plan. And hopefully some motivation for people to realise that you really can rise at 5AM and get some really good quality practice time, as long as you are in bed for around 10PM. Once you get into the routine, it won't make you more tired, rather it will make you more energised, more alert, more calm, and more able to face the day!

The Truth About Lies

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 23:44:00 +0000

The purpose of lying is to obscure the truth from someone in order to make them act from a position of false knowledge, or avidya. It must, therefore be one of the most disrespectful things you can do to someone, as you are deliberately leading them from true knowledge into false knowledge. Mostly, lying involves constructing a false image of reality that will induce the person to act in a way that is beneficial to ourselves. This clearly a bad thing. Not only are we trying to avoid the reality of the situation ourselves, but we are deliberately leading our victims astray. A double dose of bad karma! With a so called 'white lie' we construct a false version of reality that we believe will reduce the suffering of the person we are lying to. But of necessity, even in a white lie, we lead the victim from vidya to avidya. This can never help them, and reflects poorly on us. This is why the yama of satya is so crucial. The ultimate goal of all souls is to gain vidya - true knowledge - and lying, by definition always leads to avidya - false knowledge. It is,mtherefore, one of the worst things one can do for ones own spiritual well being.

Swami Satsangi Comes to Town

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 20:21:00 +0000

Well, assuming you live in Madrid. But really Midrid is just down the road, so it's a great opportunity to meet with the current voice of the Satyananda tradition. It's worth remembering that Satsangi is is now doing what Swami Niranjanananda was doing until a few years ago. And I'm sure that Paramahamsa Satyananda chose her for good reasons! She is the Real Deal, and well worth making some effort to see. This is happening on May 11th to 13th. The website is here: http://swamisatsangi2012spain.blogspot.com/ Hope to see you there!

From the Guru Gita

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Tue, 31 Jan 2012 20:59:00 +0000

One of our favourite chants that we usually indulge in when we have our Mrityunjaya sessions is the Guru Sotram - or Verses on the Guru.

You can find this with my translation here.

Some of hese verses actually from Sri Guru Gita, one of the many Gitas that accompanies the famous one, such as Ashtavakra Gita, Avadhoota Gita.

Sri Guru Gita is in itself quite delightful. Some of the verses of Guru Gita come from verses 67 to 76 (at least in the version I have!). What we know as the first vers (Akhanda mandala kharam) is verse 67.

The premise of Guru Gita is that Parvati has asked Siva, seated on mount Kailas: Tell me by which path a human being can become one with the Absolute. Shivas reply is: The Absolute is no different from the Guru.

Shiva then goes on to expound the glories of the guru. In verse 66, He says: I will now tell you the theme on which one should always contemplate. The next few verses contain several from Guru Stotram.

Some other verses are not oresent in Guru Stotram, but are just as beautiful. Here are a few:

83. Guroh kripaa prasaadena
Brahma Vishnu Sdaashivaaha
Samarthaah prabhvaadau cha
kevalam Gurusevayaa

Even Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva acquired their cosmic potencies by the Guru's Grace. They attained all power only through service to the Guru.

35. Tvam pitaa tvam cha me maataa
tvam bandhustvam cha devataa
Samsaara pratibodhaartham
tasmai shree Gurave namaha

You are my father, my mother, you are my family, you are my God. Salutations to the Guru, imparter of true knowledge.

43. Yadanghri kamala dvamdvam
damdva taapa nivaarakam
Taarakam sarvada apadabhyah
Sree Gurum pranamaamyaham
Salutations to the Guru whose lotus feet eradicate the anguish of all dualities and help us to cross all misfortunes and calamities.

And os it goes on.

I've got these transaltions from a littel edition of Guru Gita that acquired some years ago from t'internet, transalted by Dr V. V. B. Rama Rao, and published by Richa Prakashan.

You can buy it here for a very small sum.

Swami Pragyamurti

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 09:42:00 +0000

I just realised I never blogged this!

Well, we were really blessed in November when our little group was privileged to welcome Swami Pragyamurti to join in our session.

I must confess that for years I was terrified of her! My first experience of her was when she was one of the main characters involved in the visits of Swami Niranjan, and she would act as a kind of Master of Ceremonies. She was very insistent on some correct protocol, which a lot of us Westerners didn't really know - such as everyone remaining seated until Swami-ji left the room. She was quite fierce, and seemed to have quite a fierce aspect.

Of course my trepidation was unfounded. The first really close interaction I had with her was when she stayed with us a few years ago when she presented a seminar for MADYA. Of course, as with all of the Satyananda Swamis I have met, in 'real life' she's really perfectly delightful, and it was a complete honour to have her spend an evening with us in our home.

In fact, it was on that visit that Swami P. inspired us to begin the Mrityunjaya sessions, and also to visit Munger and Rikhia. For the sessions, this came about because we told her that within a short distance from our home, there were something around half a dozen initiates, and she asked if we ever got together. We were ashamed to say we didn't, and so the monthly mantra sessions began. She inspired us to go to India simply by her presence, and by relating some stories of the early days of Munger and Rikhia.

So when she agreed to come to do another MADYA seminar in November, we thought it would be great for her to join in with one of our monthly sessions. I asked her if she would be happy to do this, and she was immediately not only willing, but enthusiastic!

So we did almost a normal session, but with her present. She did point out to us a couple of points of pronunciation on Mrityunjaya, so as well as the pleasure of her company, and the subtle benefits of having a yogi of her calibre present, we also gained some immediately apparent benefit.

In fact, it may be worth me recounting those three points, so we can remember:

Although the written word (as I have seen it) at the end of line three is 'bhandanan', Swami Pragyamurti learnt this as 'bhandanat'. This was a point where i had some confusion previously. I had thought I had herd it as bhandanat, but when I saw it written as bhandanan, I assumed i had misheard, so we we've ben using the 'n' ending. From now on, we will be saying bhandanat!

Still on the third line, we have been pronouncing 'rukhamiva' as 'rukh-am-eeva', with 'i' sound being a long 'i' like in 'Shiva', and it should be a short 'i' like in 'shiver' or 'river'. In fact, 'rukhamiva' almost rhymes with 'river'. So that's something else for us to be aware of!

The third point was to start a book of names. Mrityunjaya is a liberating and healing mantra, and chanting it monthly is intended for the general welfare of the world. But traditionally, there is a book where people can write the names of people who are in need of a little 'good vibe'. The names are written in, and remain in for as long as appropriate, and are read out at the start of each session. We have begun to do this, and will continue to do so.

Our sincere thanks to Swami Pragyamurti.

Fire Ceremony

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 08:56:00 +0000

This year I'd really like to try to make one of our sessions a Mrityunjaya Havan.

I just received a CD from Mangrove Mountain with all of the proper mantras, instructions for how to proceed, and a tub of samagri (to offer into the fire), so we have everything we need.

I'll be practicing the mantras for a few months, but lets see if we can get it together!

Sankalpa

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 20:16:00 +0000

T'Internet is amazing.
I was just thinking about the idea of sankalpa. I feel I need a new sankalpa to work with, and was wondering where I might get inspiration from within the tradition.
I typed 'sankalpa' into Google, and it gave me this:

http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2005/ajan05/sanknat.shtml

T'Internet is great!

Thanks for Coming

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Mon, 23 Jan 2012 20:56:00 +0000

Thanks to those that attended last night Mrityunjaya chanting. I thoroughly enjoyed the session, and it was nice to spend some time talking about the Gita verses. This also lead to some spin-off discussions, which were great.
I think we'll keep the same format for future events, and this year we'll try harder to get a fire ceremony going in the summer months...

Continuing Chapters 7 & 8

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 21:16:00 +0000

So, I've said that, for me, the crux of these two chapters is that they set about directly addressing the ultimate question: What is the one thing we can know that will give us ultimate knowledge?

In chapter 7, Krishna speaks as an embodiment of that answer. Krishna is speaking as God if you like. Or if you prefer, he is speaking as a manifestation of Universal Consciousness. He is acting as the very voice of the Theory of Everything. And he is trying to convey the essence of his nature:

8. I am the taste of living waters and the light of the sun and the moon. I am OM the sacred word of the Vedas, sound in silence, heroism in men.
9. A am the pure fragrance that comes from the earth and the brightness of fire I am. I am the life of all living beings, and the austere life of those who train their souls.
10. And I am from everlasting the seed of eternal life. I am the intelligence of the intelligent. I am the beauty of the beautiful.
11. I am the power of those who are strong, when this power is free from passions and selfish desires. I am desire when this is pure, when this desire is not against righteousness.

These are the ways in which Krishna is expressing that 'He', as the manifestation of the Ultimate, is the very 'isness' of all things. He is the very essence, the very nature - the most fundamental cause and manifestation - of all things. He is Brahman, he is that upon which existence is founded, he is the Theory of Everything.

Again, I find it interesting to muse that in science, we don't say that the fundamental forces are 'in' the universe, or that the fundamental particles are 'part' of the universe. Instead, these are what the universe is. My body is made of cells, the cells of atoms, the atoms of protons, neutrons and electrons, the protons and neutrons are made of quarks. The quarks may be made of tiny strings. These are not artificial. Science hasn't made them. Instead they are each a step closer to the fundamental nature of all reality.

The Rishis, though, say that the fundamental nature of all reality is Sat Chit Ananda - Existence Consciousness Bliss.

The fundamental nature of reality is 'existence-consciousness-bliss'.

Remember I talked about emergence in the last post? About how something seemingly complex appears to emerge from something simple. This desk I am sitting on is cluttered with books, papers, keyboards, monitors, a tin of pepsi. But that complexity is just an illusion. It's all just atoms. 'Book' is just a concept we invent to describe a particular configuration of atoms. It's not really a book, that's just a feature that emerges from the underlying atoms.

They're not really atoms. Atoms are not real. Atoms are just a feature that emerge from the underlying protons, neutrons and electrons.

They're not really protons and neutrons. Protons and neutrons are not real. They are just a feature that emerges from the underlying quarks (called Truth, Beauty and Charm).

They are not really quarks. Quarks are not real. Quarks are just a feature that emerges from the underlying strings.

They are not really strings. Strings are not real. Strings are just a feature that emerges from the underlying Consciousness.

This is stated again in the next verse:

12. And know that the three Gunas come from me...But I am not in them: they are in me.

And to continue:

13. How the whole world is under the delusion of these shadows of the soul, and knows not me though forever I am!
14. My mysterious cloud of appearance is hard to pass beyond; but those who in truth come to Me go beyond the world of shadows.

So, the Gunas, the Yogic aspects of nature are in Krishna, not He in them. I've often heard it said that 'there is no room in science for God', and Krishna here is saying just that! Science - the natural world - does not contain 'God' or the ultimate reality. Rather, God contains all else. There is no room in science for God. But certainly, there is room in God for science!

The whole world is under the delusion of these shadows of the soul. By 'shadows', I understand 'things which have appearance but no real substance', and by this I understand protons and atoms etc. These are not 'real' things, these are 'shadows of the soul', or 'things manifested from the underlying consciousness'. The whole world is existing in the belief that manifest nature is the ultimate reality.

The 'mysterious cloud of appearance' is exactly the same. Another term describing the manifest world as something fleeting, and ultimately unreal. Again for 'world of shadows'.

So, 'those...who come to Me' go beyond the world of shadows. Remember Krishna is speaking as a manifestation of the Ultimate ExistenceConsciousnessBliss, and so when he says 'comes to Me', he means someone who has direct conscious experience of that ultimate Consciousness which is the fundamental basis of all existence. On having that experience, one 'goes beyond' normal existence. Again this emphasises that the ultimate reality is beyond this manifest world, and is of the nature of pure Consciousness.

For someone who loves science, and has for my whole life felt a strong pull to both God and Science, this is tremendously exciting. This means that finding the Grand Unified Theory, or the Theory of Everything is not an objective, detached experience. Rather, the ultimate answer to the question of the Theory of Everything is experiential: the only way to find the answer is to become the answer. Imagine that! Even better than being awed and moved at an incredibly beautiful set of field equations: you can actually be the answer to the ultimate question. You can have your existence as the conscious manifestation of the ultimate answer to the ultimate question!

Now that's got to be worth striving for!

Bhagavad Gita Chapters 7 and 8, The Mundaka Upanishad and CERN

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Sun, 08 Jan 2012 17:47:00 +0000

For this months Mrityunjaya session I am suggesting we consider chapters 7 and 8 of the Bhagavad Gita.

Each chapter is very short, consisting of 30 and 28 verses respectively.

The reason they have piqued my interest this month is that they relate very much to what is going on at CERN with the Large Hadron Collider. Not so much it's immediate goal of finding the Higgs Boson, but what it represents in terms of the human races' quest for what science used to call the 'Grand Unified Theory', and now calls the 'Theory of Everything'.

What science is striving for is a single theory, or model, or piece of knowledge that on it's own and by itself describes how the Universe came into existence, and how the Universe operates. In other words, what they want to know, is, what is that one thing, which when known, gives the knowledge of all things.

Which is interesting, because here is verse 3 of the First Khanda of the Mundaka Upanishad:

3. Saunaka, the great householder, approached Angiras respectfully and asked: 'Sir, what is that through which, if it is known, everything else becomes known?'.

Sound like a familiar question?

Now, I hate pseudo science, and have no time for it at all. But taking the most open-minded outlook I am capable of, that sounds to me like Saunaka was asking for a Theory of Everything.

Of course, the 'everything' is understood differently. Modern scientists are looking to fill some embarrassing and troublesome gaps in a couple of amazingly accurate theories that between them come tantalisingly close to covering everything. They are looking for particles missing from the Standard Model of Quantum Mechanics, and also trying to do away with some meddlesome 'free variables'. The existence of mass is one such 'free variable'. The Standard Model takes mass for granted, and doesn't explain it. Professor Higgs extended the model to remove this omission with some truly groovy mathematics and not a little imagination. The idea of the LHC is to see if the prof is correct. If so, that's a step towards a complete 'Theory of Everything'. Another thing that needs closing off in science is the chasm between two astoundingly successful models of the universe, one for small things (atoms) and one for big things (bigger than a few atoms). Sadly, these theories cannot both be right on a deeper level. They both work amazingly well in their own right, but in a very dep way, they contradict each other. At least one of them is wrong at a fundamental level, possibly (I'd say probably) both.

So that's all really technical stuff, and highly mathematical. It seems unlikely that either Saunaka or Angiras had a grip on modern physics.

But they and modern physics are, still, nevertheless, both asking precisely the same question: What really is the Universe? Where did it come from? And please give me one piece of knowledge that can provide all the answers!

Let's think about that. At least many hundreds, and possibly thousands, of years ago, a group of people who lived on the shores of the Ganges had somehow come to the conclusion that there is a single piece of knowledge that gives the answers to all questions. And yet the same idea didn't surface in Western Science until really quite recently, and only really did so because it was found, about 80 years ago, that Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity could not work together!

Science doesn't yet have an answer, and I have a radical, unpopular and - to be honest - unfounded, opinion as to why that is.

In my opinion - and that's all it is - the reason Science does not have, and cannot have, an answer to their own problem is that they do not factor Consciousness into the equations. Science does not really accept the existence of consciousness. Most scientists believe that it is simply an illusion caused by the the complexity of the human brain. Imagine a ball of string accidentally tangled up in such a way as to look like a face. There is no face. The face has no real existence, but the complexity of the way the string is tangled causes the impression of a face to emerge. That's a close analogy to the current reductionist view of consciousness. They even use the term 'emergent feature'. The brain is so complex that the impression of consciousness emerges, but has no reality.

Hmm. Ok.

So who is it that is deluded into perceiving this emergence?

Well, that's another matter.

My point is that I believe science will continue to fail until it realises that Consciousness is not only an intrinsic aspect of the Universe - every bit as much as gravity, for example - but is in fact, a huge step towards answering the ultimate question:

'What is that through which, if it is known, everything else becomes known?'

And of course, the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita approach the question from the perspective Consciousness, not the perspective of the Strong, Weak, Elctromagnetic and Gravitic forces. The starting point for the philosophers of the Upanishads was not rolling balls down slopes and watching apples fall from trees. Their starting point was similar to the finishing point of Rene Descartes: I think therefore I am. For the Vedic seers, consciousness was the most refined and most promising start point for their investigations into the absolute nature of existence.

So, whilst Science has progressed looking ever outwards, investigating the interactions of 'things', the Vedic philosophers delved inwards. This lead scientists to the fundamental forces of Nature, and lead the Vedics to the fundamental Nature of mind.

Now, both of these things are great, and I am not in any way denigrating Science. In fact, I adore Science.

But maybe it becomes clear why the same question - precisely the same question - has lead to very different attempts to answer it.

So, what is the answer given by Angiras? Well, his answer is in fact the rest of the Mundaka Upanishad, which is long, obscure and wrapped in Hindu thought. But contained within it are some nuggets. In fact, contained within is the answer. But I feel that a better version of the answer to largely the same question is given by Krishna in the Gita, chapters seven and eight.

Interestingly, Krishna directly alludes to Mundaka in Chapter 7 verse 2:

2. And I will speak to thee of that Wisdom and vision which, when known, there is nothing else for thee to know.

He continues:

5. But beyond my visible nature is my invisible Spirit. This is the fountain of life whereby this universe has its being.

By 'visible nature', we should understand 'nature which is detectable', so this includes the fundamental particles and forces. The invisible Spirit should not be taken to mean 'magnetism', as is so often and so infuriatingly done, or as any of the other forces of nature that are 'invisible' to the naked eye. The Spirit to which Krishna alludes is something beyond this normal range of detectable objects and forces.

7. In this whole vast universe there is nothing higher than I. All the worlds have their rest in me, as many pearls upon a string.

Here's an interesting coincidence. Of course the name 'Krishna' means black or dark. Just today in the Sunday Times there was an article about a bunch of scientists who conjecture that the distribution of galactic clusters and superclusters are formed along vast ribbons of dark matter.

So, for now, that's plenty.

Maybe those attending our next session could read Chapters 7 and 8, and see what thoughts come to mind for discussion!

A Shocking Memory

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Mon, 02 Jan 2012 11:59:00 +0000

When the Mandala Yoga Ashrama in Wales was being established, in the early/mid 1980's, I was training in Kung Fu with a very interesting guy called Chris Baldwin. Chris's wife at the time, Anne, was a yoga teacher, and her teacher training tutor was Swami Paramatmananda Saraswati. Swami Paramatma was also Poornamurti's teacher training tutor, although I wasn't to meet Poorrnamurti for another 20 years.
Through Anne, Chris new Paramatma, and Paramatma was heavily involved in the ashrama at that time. So Chris organised a couple of visits to the ashrama. During my time with Chris, one of these visits came up.
Now, I'd been training very heavily at around this time. I was 18 or 19 years old, practiced yoga asanas daily, ran everywhere instead of taking public transport, was unemployed and spent every hour of the day training with my good friend Gilly (Paul Gilmore). In fact, We used to go round to Chris' house on a Friday night, and train with him all weekend at Kung Fu and meditation.
So, the ashrama visit was arranged, but a few days before we were due to go, I became ill with a very heavy chest and throat infection.
All of this was lost in my memory until a few weeks ago, when it all came back to me. Especially something Gilly said.
You see, whilst the Kung Fu group had been at the ashrama, so had Swami Niranjanananda!
At the time, he must have been about 24 years old, maybe less, and his visit there was very low key compared to his travels in more recent years. He had basically hung out with the kung fu crowd!
I can remember now everyone talking about how beautiful he was, and what an amazing person he was.
But most of all, I remember Gilly saying that Swamiji had suggested to him that he go back Swami Satyanandas ashram in India with him!

I think about the mess that I am now, compared to who I was then, and I wonder if Swamaji would have offered me the same opportunity. I can remember being amazed that Gilly had not taken up the offer, and saying that I'd go at the drop of a hat.

But I hadn't been there. So I have to assume that I wasn't meant to be there.

Not a New Year Resolution

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 19:32:00 +0000

I don't believe in them.

However, something pretty groovy happened last year.

I'd gone back into the office after the Christmas/New Year break, and was standing in the queue for Starbucks (Starbucks was in my office building, and 30 yards from my desk), and I suddenly decided I needed to give up chocolate bars.

Some background will assist at this point.

Chocolate is my main vice and dietary weakness. Most people who meet me and don't know me assume I drink, and that my belly is the result of beer. But no, I don't take alcohol at all. It's entirely down to chocolate and sweets. And I'm diabetic, so that's not great. Especially as I would often visit the chocolate vending machines at work several times a day.

So, I needed to give up chocolate bars. I had the bars in mind specifically, as there are other chocolate products I was not yet ready to give up, such as brownies and pain au chocolat. Bars would be a good start, though.

But, the problem is, New Years resolutions are rubbish. The problem with them is that you are just making a promise to yourself, so, if you break the promise, all you have to do is forgive yourself, and no harm done. You don't even have to feel guilty, because you are utterly forgiven.

So I hatched a plan. At first, I thought of making a promise to Someone significant, but then I thought, if I failed, I would be letting them down, and I would have the guilt trip, because I wouldn't be able to ask for forgiveness. Not because it wouldn't be given, but because I would be too ashamed to ask. So that road could only lead to failure, guilt and shame. Not a good option.

Realising that the problem was that I am weak-willed ("Will power of a moth", as my brother-in-law says), what I needed was not the rod of promise and commitment, but the gentle caress of helpful assistance.

So, what I did was this: I asked my Guru that every time I saw a chocolate bar, I would be immediately reminded of Him.

This has meant that since that moment of asking, I have not bought (or otherwise procured and consumed) a single chocolate bar. How could I? Every time I see a chocolate bar, my Guru is there, and I can't eat chocolate in front of my Guru!

The strength and success of this is a little scary.

The reason it is strong is that it depends not on me and my will-power in the slightest. I have done nothing. I don't have to remember my Guru whenever I see chocolate. This is the amazing thing about having such a beautiful Guru: I genuinely asked for his assistance in an important matter, and by His Grace, he has helped me at every moment of my need. I don't need to remember my Guru: the memory of Him just comes to me whenever I see chocolate. And then I don't have to struggle to avoid the chocolate, because it would make me feel so small, ungrateful and plain stupid to eat it despite Him. With His face in my mind, I cannot even think about buying or eating the chocolate.

The reason it is scary is that I feel like I have been handed a useful but dangerous power tool. That doesn't express it properly, but it's the closest I can get: If this way of doing things can cut off chocolate bars so easily and so utterly, then what else might be achieved? What other parts of me might be easily and painlessly removed? What if I am not ready to lose those things?

I'm not doing, but suppose I asked my Guru to help me eat a completely yogic diet?

I have no doubt it would happen.

But I'm not sure I'm ready for that. In fact, I'm quite ure I'm not ready for it! I like bacon sandwiches, and a I like beef curry. I eat meat several times a week. I eat other chocolate products, and other sweets and biscuits. I visit restaurants - good restaurants with Michelin stars, and I enjoy it all.

So, having gone a full year with this support from my Guru, I feel that it is time to extend the parameters a little, and although this happens to fall around New Year, it is not a New Years resolution.

But what to do, and how far to go?

I'm getting close to a decision. It's not about what I think I can manage, it's about what I think I'm ready to do without. When I manage to articulate what I feel the next step is, I will ask my Guru for His further assistance. And then I'll let you know how it goes this time next year.

The Yoga I Don't Do and the Yoga I Do Do

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:13:00 +0000

Of course, I should do it all, but let's be honest: I don't do much.

Well that is, I don't do much of what people think of as yoga.

I'm 45, fat, and am becoming seriously inflexible in body. I never, ok, rarely, practice asana or pranayama.

But I consider myself a practicing yogi. I have, after all, been blessed with Karma Sannyasa Diksha by my Beloved Guru.

So what do I do?

Well, every day - every day - I think about my Guru. Every day he is on my mind. Every day I remember touching his feet, and every day I thank him from the bottom of my heart for accepting me as his worst disciple.

I have a piece of paper blue-tacked to my computer monitor at work. It has written on it the Yamas and the Niyamas. I look at it many times every day. It helps me to bring what I consider to be the real spirit of yoga into my working day. I try hard to deal with every person and every situation in light of those ten simple principles.

I approach my daily work as service. When someone at work asks me to help them, or to do something, it is my Beloved Guru who is asking through them. It doesn't matter that they are asking me to provide evidence for internal audit, or to find the root cause of a bug in the program code. What I am being asked to do is irrelevant. The fact is, I am where I am, and this is what I am to do. I could not be where I am if my Beloved Guru did not put me here. So, I do as He asks, and I do it for Him.

I try to take 20 minutes each mid-day to chant some malas of the mantra my Beloved Guru gave to me. My Beloved Guru has provided a multi-faith room at work so I can do this. Sometimes I am too busy, but that's ok, because if I am busy, then I am busy with my Beloved Guru's work.

So I would love to be thin and bendy, and to be able again to practice ustrasana and siddhasana, matsyasana and my other old favourites. But that won't happen. It's not my path, and I'm not yet ready to step up to the third rung of the eight-step ladder. The first two rungs are enough, and are more than I believe I will achieve in this incarnation. If I try, and if I persist in my trying, then perhaps I can achieve enough that in my next incarnation, I am ready to take another step.

I hope and pray that in my next incarnation, I am able to be born on the same landmass, or even the same country, as my Beloved Guru. If my Yoga practice can achieve so much, the reward will have far outreached the effort.

Bhagavad Gita 5:4, 5 & 6

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 19 May 2011 13:18:00 +0000

This months verses ere chosen as their theme is very much about the concept and validity of Karma Yoga. Paramahamsa Satyananda reinstated what he saw as an ancient order of Sannyasa - Karma Sannyasa. Whilst a sage such as Paramahamsa-ji does not require any justification for his actions, it is said that he restored this order on the basis of writings in some of the more obscure Shruti and Smriti. However, right here in the Gita we see evidence that the concept, if not the order, of Karma Sannyasa is well established in the philosophy of the Gita.

These passages (5:4-12) are of great fascination to me, as Paramahamsa Niranjanananda, continuing in Paramahamsa Satyananda's tradition, continues to give Karma Sannyasa Diksha, and was gracious enough to give the same to myself and Poornamurti.

Here are the first two of these verses, from Mascaro (paraphrased only to remove the use of 'he'):

5.4 Ignorant people, but not the wise, say that Sankhya and Yoga are different paths; but who gives all their soul to one, reaches the end of the two.
5.5 Because the victory won by the person of wisdom is also won by the person of good work. That person sees indeed the truth who sees that vision and creation are one.
5.6 But renunciation, Arjuna, is difficult to attain without Yoga of work. When a sage is one in Yoga, they soon are one in God.

And from MacCuish (Walking with the Gita):

5.4 It is the childish, not the wise, who say that knowledge and action are different. The wise now that whoever applies themselves well to one will achieve the rewards of both.
5.5 Both followers of knowledge and action reach the same goal. They see clearly who understand that knowledge and selfless action are the same.
5.6 Perfect renunciation is difficult to attain without being engaged in action. But the wise who follow the path of action can quickly achieve the supreme.

The MacCuish translation is the more true in 5.4 in that the Sanskrit is indeed 'the childish', and not 'the ignorant'. Mascaro is more true in that the Sanskrit talks explicitly about Sankhya and Yoga, rather than wisdom and action.

5.6 is so different in each case, that I think we need to have a look at the original:

saanyaasas tu mahaabaaho
duHkham aaptum ayogatah
yoga yukto munir brahma
na chirenaadigach chhati

Literally:

renunciation is great-hero
difficult to-obtain without-yoga
immersed-in-yoga impelled-to Brahma
not long-time-accomplishment cut-off

(The next time God chooses to walk the Earth, I hope he learns English.)

So, to try to make some sense of this:

Renunciation is, great hero (He's talking to Arjuna, remember)
Difficult to obtain without Yoga
If you are immersed in Yoga, and meditate on Brahma
It won't be long before you reach the end of your accomplishment.

Not word about action, yoga of work, or karma.

Why is this?

Because in the Gita Yoga is almost synonymous with Karma Yoga. Whereas our modern understanding of Yoga is of asana, pranayama, etc., the conception of Yoga in the Gita is essentially one of work. This realisation comes about through later passages, where 'the yoga of work' is used interchangeably with simple 'yoga'. Almost every translator then takes this understanding back to the early chapters, and where in the sanskrit text we may see just 'Yoga', most translators will often put 'Yoga of Action' or even 'Karma Yoga', because it is 'obvious' that within the historical context, this wold have been the accepted understanding. Because our modern conception of Yoga is different, the translation has to be qualified in this way.

And that's why we get such different translations: each translator tries to make the meaning of the text more clear to our modern minds, by changing it slightly in this kind of way. With my bias towards the Satyananda tradition, there is an obvious way to re-translate this:

Renunciation is, great hero,
Difficult to obtain without Karma Yoga
If you are immersed in Karma Yoga, and meditate on Brahma
It won't be long before you reach the end of your accomplishment.

So, the two versions of 5.6 given above, each convey the same message, but they use slightly different words and phrases, because they are trying to convey the meaning of the Gita, and not the words of the Gita.

But here's an interesting thing: Sannyasa is renunciation, but Karma Yoga is action? And the Gita is saying one cannot readily achieve renunciation without being immersed in action?

Surely the point of renunciation is to give up action? A renunciate leaves the normal world, and goes to live on an ashrama, and sit shady groves, spending all day in meditation, surely? Surely, one of the points of renouncing, is to renounce 'action'?

But this is not so. And anyone who visits a Satyananda ashram will learn it in short order! Satyananda ashrams, particularly those in India, are places that are full of action. And full of renunciates.

So how can this be? How can one be renunciate and be immersed in work?

We'll need verses 7-12 to answer that one!

There are a few copies of 'Walking with the Gita' available via Amazon Marketplace:

Walking with the Bhagavad Gita: Freedom from Grief and Despair

It is a wonderful book. As well as a modern and pleasing translation of chapters 1-6 of the Gita, it offers daily practices, and gives the musical notation to allow chanting of the Gita in Sanskrit. It's a terrible pity that Volume 1 is out of print, and Volume 2 was never published...

Catching Up

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 19 May 2011 11:37:00 +0000

Well, the May event happened, and was really good. We had, I think, ten people on the night, and we can run to a few more with a bit of creative seating.

A couple of people mentioned that they would be happy to do more chanting than we have been doing, so I'm going to look towards adding a couple more mantras into the mix.

Unfortunately, we didn't get chance to talk about the Gita this time, which is perhaps as well, as even I hadn't looked at the verses in preparation, and I chose them!

So, I tink this time we'll keep the same verses. They can be found in this post (Chapter 5, verses 4-12), and I wil start to put my thoughts about them together as soon as I can.

When Yoga Can Really Help

noreply@blogger.com (Phil Lewis) — Thu, 19 May 2011 08:24:00 +0000

I met Gary (Syd) Bloomfield more than 25 years ago, and we were instantly good friends. We did some crazy stuff together in our teens and early twenties.

We settled down to a strong and lasting friendship, and as those early-life friends dispersed and went their separate ways, Gary and I remained as true life-friends. When I married Poornamurti, Gary was my Best Man.

Gary's own marriage broke up soon after that, and he went through a rough period. He'd always liked a drink, but by his own admission, at that time, he took things a bit too far. A few years later, he was very ill for a while, but they eventually sorted his medication, he cut right back on his excess, and everything seemed relatively ok.

Over the last few years, he was admitted to hospital about once a year, usually when a chest infection hit him hard, due to his condition. So, when a couple of weeks ago I got a text from him saying he was in hospital again, but would be home in two or three days, I didn't think too much of it.

So it came as a real shock when yesterday I got a phone call from Poornamurti, telling me his brother Craig had rang, and Syd had taken a turn for the worse, and died. He was 47 years old.

I have to confess, it hit me hard. I took the call at my desk at work, and had to leave. I beat myself up for not having visited when he told me he was in hospital. I had done every other time, but I thought if he was going to be home in two or three days, then it wasn't worth bothering. I still think it's a shame I didn't see him one last time. But then, even if I had, neither of us would have known what was going to happen, so it would have been just another half an hour added to years of friendship, so in the great scheme of things, not a great deal - but at the same time, certainly not enough.

So here I am. My very closest friend (besides Poornamurti) - and one of only three people I really call friend - has gone.

But I know he hasn't ended. And that's more than a comfort, for it allows me to see my grief for what it is: I have no sorrow for Gary; it's all for me. I know he is no longer suffering - no longer trapped in a body that was growing in discomfort and slowly failing him. And I know and that soon he we will have another turn on the great merry-go-round of life. I also know he was fundamentally a very, very good person. Sure, he liked a little mischief. But it was only ever at his own expense, and he never willingly caused anyone any harm or upset. So I know he's ok.

The grief I feel is because I wil miss him. We won't be having the boys nights in any more, where we play cards and chat about the meaning of life, the universe and everything. I won't have anyone to introduce me to new realms of music anymore. How many Dr John's or Thelonius Monks are there that he knew well, and I never encountered yet? I won't have the benefit of him recounting the fascination of his latest readings, whether it be the life of Tony Benn, or the works of Marx (Karl or the Brothers).

So my grief is for myself, and knowing that makes it a little easier to handle.