Category: Yogic Thought
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14. Shiva’s Night (Shiva-ratri)
Sivaratri Night out (Jaagran/Jaagaram) This is a big celebration in India, and every year, it falls in Feb/March month. Normal practice is to fast and stay up the whole night, and not skip a beat on the next day… How do you do it? This blurb offers some clues to this challenge. Yogis’ main purpose…
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13. Meditation – Modern Perspectives
How to be happy? What’s the difference between happiness and euphoria? Is there a drink for that? Btw, Why do we drink? What happens to the brain during “orgasm”? Is it possible to stay in the orgasmic state? What’s the neurological basis for those states? The Neurobiology of Bliss We are switching gears here to…
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12. Meditation – Buddha’s Perspective
Buddha essentially brought meditation to all. He meticulously explained the process and philosophy to his confidant, Ananda, who apparently documented it. What he taught about the functioning and disciplining of the mind is amazing; it’s one of the best practical accounts of meditation, ancient or modern… At the highest level, what Buddha did is to…
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11. Meditation and Ritual
ko dadarśa prathamaṃ jāyamānam asthanvantaṃ yad anasthā bibharti | “Who has seen the primeval (being) at the time of his being born; what is that endowed with form which the formless sustains” Rig Veda 1.164.4 This line of thinking is very integral to the yogic thought… While the translation provides the exoteric view,…
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10. Meditation – a Vedic Perspective
Saraswati is the Word and the Word is the way of the gods” – Sama Veda In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God – John 1:1 When evening came, they brought to Jesus many who were under the power of demons; and he cast out…
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9. Memories: Different Perspectives
A repeat question from before – in pursuit of ascending to heaven after death, if one undertakes a ritualistic action or a good samaritan act, where’s that record held, at least until that person dies on earth? Because heaven is after this life, right? And that deed has to be encoded with personally identifiable information somewhere,…
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8. Triangles of Yoga – sahasra śīrṣā puruṣa
The Fundamental Triangle of Yoga: Me-Mine-NotMine Yogis always paid special attention to all details including balance of polarities, relative positions of things. Everything has to be ordered and placed precisely, according to them. It’s all about relative angles and formation of triangles. Śri-chakra is a great example; it’s supposed to be the two dimensional representation…
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7. Knowledge, Self & I
Offer it or not, Prajapati wondered. At that moment a mighty voice responded in a thundering voice – offer it! … Prajapati quickly realized, it is his own voice, which split from the self of Prajapati, due to the first emotion, fear of own’s nonexistence (or end). Thus started the dialog with self – the…
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1. The Path of Karma Yoga
Karma is not a simple “tit-for-tat” principle, but more broadly, the operational residue of an act. Physical actions, thoughts, feeling, and all such are considered actions. It is the actions of the mind [i.e., thoughts/intentions] that are truly termed karmas – Sivananda Do this with me – go ahead and have a random thought. Go…
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2. Tenet 1: Don’t Bet on Results
Na māṁ karmāṇi limpanti na me karmaphale spṛhā… (BG 3.14) The actions (karmāṇi) do not (na) pollute (limpanti) Me (mām), nor do (na) I have longing (me… spṛhā) for the fruit (phale) of (any) action (karma) Action and its actor are entangled, NOT action and its result In the first quote from BG, replace “I” with you… As long as you do not long for the results of your actions, the karma…
Yogic Thought 