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yajvan
07 February 2007, 10:27 AM
Hari Om
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Namate satyakama's ( lovers of the Truth)
No matter if one is grhastha (householder) or a sanyasi ( roughly speaking a mendicant), there is one common theme both can practice, that is balance in life . What do you do to keep this balance? What are some of your methods? Care to share a few ideas?

What do some of the great ones say about this? Lets look at two:
The insight of balance is given by Sri Krsna and Buddha. For Sri Keshava He calls this out in the Bhagavad Gita chapters 4.22, 5.20, and 6.16 which is my favorite - ' yoga indeed is not for him who eats too much nor for him who does not eat at all, O Arjuna; it is not for him who is too much given to sleep nor yet for him who keeps awake'
For Buddha, its called the middle way. Siddhartha's tapas was very austere ( as you probably know). He abandoned his former way of life, including his wife and family, and dedicated himself to a life of extreme asceticism. So harsh was this way of life that he grew thin enough that he could feel his hands if he placed one on the small of his back and the other on his stomach.

One day as he sat, he overheard a teacher speaking of music. If the strings on the instrument are set too tight, then the instrument will not play harmoniously. If the strings are set too loose, the instrument will not produce music.
Only the middle way, not too tight and not too loose, will produce harmonious music. This chance conversation changed his life overnight. The goal was not to live a completely worldly life, nor was it to live a life in complete denial of the physical body, but to live in a Middle Way. The way out of suffering was through to experience the Supreme, transcending and establishing the SELF.

The 'apparatus' for this is the mind… Since the mind is connected to the body, denying the body would hamper this transcending just as overindulgence would distract one from this ability too.

Siddhartha became the Buddha, or "Awakened One."
He expounded his "Four Noble Truths," which are the foundation of all Buddhist belief:
1.) All human life is suffering (dhukka ).
2.) All suffering is caused by human desire, particularly the desire that impermanent things be permanent.
3.) Human suffering can be ended by ending human desire.
4.) Desire can be ended by following the "Eightfold Noble Path": right understanding, right thought, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, and right concentration. This Right action is Dharma.


pranams,