MyLifeYoga

We all seek happiness. But our mistake is that we think things outside ourselves can give us happiness. This is what the sage Ramana Maharshi had to say about this:

“Happiness is your nature. It is not wrong to desire it. What is wrong is seeking it outside when it is inside.”

When we start looking inside we find that we are much more than our ego. This realization brings tremendous joy, wisdom, and power to our lives, as Lao Tzu explains:

“Knowing others is intelligence;
knowing yourself is true wisdom.
Mastering others is strength;
mastering yourself is true power.”

So how do we condition our mind to go deeper and find the deeper Self outside the ego? Here are the words of the Sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras (I-33) that show us the way:

“Undisturbed calmness of mind is attained by cultivating friendliness toward the happy, compassion for the unhappy, delight in the virtuous, and indifference toward the wicked.”

When we get established in this state, our mind expands into divine love and the light of God flows in. There is expansion and joy in this state as Swami Vivekananda explains:

“All love is expansion, all selfishness is contraction.
Love is therefore the only law of life.
He who loves lives, he who is selfish is dying.
Therefore love for love’s sake, because it is the only law of life, just as you breathe to live.”

Related: The Scorpion And The Saint

Credits:This has been written by Raj Shah and edited by Ketna Shah.

Finding a true saint is like looking for a diamond in a coal mine. It is more likely to occur by happenstance rather than by any effort on our part. The world is full of con men who position themselves as agents of God. It is easy to be fooled, so be careful if you set out on a journey to find one. However this is a story of a Harvard trained westerner’s encounter with a true saint.

Richard Alpert, an ex-professor of Harvard University, bumped into this saint almost by accident. The name of the saint was Neem Karoli Baba, known to most of his followers as Maharaj-ji. Most westerners who met Maharaj-ji were simply sent away. He would tell them, “You already have a teacher in Jesus. Just follow his words. You don’t need me. Go away.” But there must have been some connection between Richard Alpert and Neem Karoli Baba and so the saint accepted him and showered his grace on him. This led to his complete transformation into the world famous Baba Ram Dass.

Upon his return back to the US, Baba Ram Dass went on to author the best-selling book “Be Here Now”. This was instrumental in making Neem Karoli Baba famous. This saint was the same person who Steve Jobs went looking for when he went to India, but the saint had passed away and the meeting never happened.

Later Ram Dass said, “People ask me more about the miracles that Maharaj-ji performed. But the most extraordinary aspect of him were not the miracles but the love that one felt in his presence.”

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Credits: This is a you-tube video.

The sage Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras lays out the framework by which one can measure progress in meditation. However the description is in Sanskrit and is couched in technical terms as it describes the various stages of the Samadhi state. These descriptions can be daunting for the lay reader. Instead we can look at what some modern sages have said in plain english.

In Journey to Self-Realization, a collection of talks by Paramhamsa Yogananda, at the end of the talk entitled “The True Signs of Progress in Meditation,” he gives the following list of seven indications of progress in meditation practice:

1. An increasing peacefulness during meditation
2. A conscious inner experience of calmness in meditation metamorphosing into increasing bliss.
3. A deepening of one’s understanding, and finding answers to one’s questions through the calm intuitive state of inner perception.
4. An increasing mental and physical efficiency in one’s daily life.
5. Love for meditation and the desire to hold on to the peace and joy of the meditative state in preference to attraction to anything in the world.
6. An expanding consciousness of loving all with the unconditional love that one feels toward his own dearest loved ones
7. Actual contact with God, and worshipping Him as ever new Bliss felt in meditation and in His omnipresent manifestations within and beyond all creation.

Related: Clearing Muddy Waters

Credits: This is from one the book by Paramahamsa Yogananda as explained in the post.