Measuring growth ...

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

why measure at all? We have the guidelines form scripture and Gurus.

I think this is a reasonable question to ask. Why measure ? Because we are humans. The mind fluctuates here and there. So this 'measuring' is none other then a check point. "Oh, this is happening, it is good to know". Many times the experience can be counter-intuitive and one is not sure if this is considered progress. And sometimes the experiences 'early on' in one's practice many not be a sure indication.

If no experiences are there, that is not a big deal and more time is needed. Also grand experiences are also not necessary. It is the simple things that begin to grow over time, stablize, and become part of one's nature.

Now let me offer anther view that one may have... "No, I am feeling restless, irritable". These experiences can be adjusted by one's teacher. If one looks at this and notices, then some adjustments can be made.
So , paying attention of what is occuring within one's daily experince can help with the person's development.

praṇām

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

sukh & dukh

It would be wise to give the definitions of these words in the post and how they apply. Many reading in this folder 'New To Sanatana Dharma' will not know these words or their application.

praṇām

[dhyandev]

sukh=happiness,good times,events happening favourably,everything is in our favour

dukh=sadness,bad times,things happening which are not in our favour,bad turn of events

et cetra

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

It seems as one grows and develops , there are things that one avoids.
For me, I have noticed in my experience is the avoidance of vaikharī avatsala� or harsh speech from others or from the radio , or situations.
If given a choice I avoid this both in ( listening to ) speech and in music. It seems to disrupt the smooth flow of peace, of easiness. It seems to affect the awareness with negitivity.

praṇām


words

• avatsala - harshness; hard; cruel
• vaikharī - sound; speech; speech in the fourth of its four stages from the first stirring of the air or breath , articulate utterance , that utterance of sounds or words which is complete as consisting of full and intelligible sentences

[surrenderindailylife]

Vannakkam: Who is the measurer? If it is oneself, and I assume it is, then intellectual honesty is key. By this I mean the ability to look oneself in the mirror and be honest.

But why measure at all? We have the guidelines form scripture and Gurus. We do our best (hopefully) to follow them. Can a child increase or decrease the rate that which he/she grows physically? They also have guidelines ... eat right, get lots of fresh air and sunshine, have good sleeps ... after that basic stuff is accomplished, it is a natural process. Sure they can stand by a wall and measure, but it won't stop or speed up this process.

Aum Namasivaya

Namaste EM, I appreciate your point about not being anxious for "how far we have gone" when we know for sure "I know for sure that I am on the right path". But then, how do I know that I am on the right path? For example, years ago, altruism for me started as it was the 'right thing to do as per scriptures' till about later (by God's grace) empathy grew (for few situations that I had experienced). However, even now there are several situations that I have not experienced, on which I act just to be "on the right side of scriptural teaching". This is a faith based approach and not an empathy based approach - good for starters.

Maybe in these cases, it is good to keep a track of 'how much we have progressed'. Just a thought ....

[Amrut]

Namaste,

I would echo what is said by @AmIHindu.

Traditionally speaking, Bhagavad Gita Chapter 16 and 17 called as Parisistha, are the barometers of spiritual progress.

From my personal observation and experience.

there are some conditions:

1. Moksha / Divine vision of God / Yog should be the ONLY GOAL. One should be ready to leave everything for it. It does not matter if you are qualifies or will achieve success or not. But one should be mentally ready. There is no need to quit worldly things physically. Mental renunciation is enough

2. Strong faith and total surrender. As one develops these qualities gradually, one excels in spiritual path.

The sign of progress is increased faith in God and loss of interest in material things. But these happen only if above 2 conditions are satisfied. One feels that God is near him, as against earlier feeling when God looked something distant and attraction and being engrossed in worldly issues a natural thing.

Generally people do not meditate, do not increase faith in God are not ready to quit anything. They want both Bhog and Yog. One has to increase faith. After some years of practice, I mostly feel peace and bliss, sometimes even while doing work, and sometimes immediately after I finish my job. As one progresses, one gives more importance to God than to any other thing. So now, you do work in middle of your sadhana, as work is secondary, your Job / business is secondary, chanting God's name is primary. This is progress.

Sri Ramakrishna says, as one progresses on spiritual path, God reduces devotee's work just like as the months of pregnant women pass and the delivery approaches, work is reduced. After 7 months very little work is given and after delivery, no work is given. Only work is to take care of child. (Child is Jnana).

Rather than trying to be polite, soft, etc etc, if one surrender's to God and behaves naturally, then God does the necessary changes in our nature and one progresses on spiritual path totally dependent on God. When one achieves this or lives this kind of life, I personally think one is progressing spiritually.

I do not say, not to practice any character building. What I mean to say is give more importance and give more focus to God then any other thing.

As one progresses, superstitions drops, reasoning drops, and for some, even others feel peace in presence of an advanced meditator. I see this as progress.

Sadhana is not smooth. There are up's and downs like waves. Sometimes, you meditate beyond your expectation and sometimes, you cannot meditate even for 5-10 minutes. All days are not equal, so sadhana are not same everyday. This does not mean that you are not progressing. But as one progresses there is more steadiness. Imagine a ball which is dropped from height, it does not calm down immediately but bounces back, but each time force of bounce is reduced until eventually it calms down as stays down steady. Same is with sadhana. After the external factors, work pressure, opinion of others do not enter into you, then daily routine does not affect your mind. Now sadhana becomes steady and then whatever is stored and is dormant in sub-conscious mind pops out and is uprooted. One may or may not experience each and every past moment or all past lives, but al desires are burnt out.

Sign of progress is that when day-2-day issues do not come out in meditation.

One experiences Samadhi, but mind is not destroyed, so it again awakens and pulls one down to duality. After some more efforts again mind calms down and one goes beyond mind into non-dual state. This repeats till one is steady in Nirvikalp samadhi and it becomes sahaj samadhi. Now one does not need to meditate any more to know who you are. You just abide in SELF. When one opens eyes, he/she sees this world as nothing but manifestation of Brahman. This is Jivan mukti.

When one experiences samadhi for first time, it is like Tiger testing Blood. Now you do not want anything (unless you want to hit axe on your own leg). You try to reach that blissful unexplainable state, but you seldom experience it after too much effort, may be only for fraction of seconds after hours of meditation and that too not daily. But this struggle decreases, if one is not careless, and the period of samadhi increases till one remains steady in it.

*EDIT: Did I mention that you do not care to measure and know your growth

This is unlike some people's thinking that one needs to be still and thoughtless without any desires to enter into samadhi and once you enter, it's 'Game Over' - This is my personal opinion.

I think that when day-2-day activities and issues do not disturb your meditation (in any path), you have reached a level) to dive more deep. Such persons are definitely not social

*EDIT: We measure, because we are not sure where are we going?


Aum

Indiaspirituality

P.S. the chart of progress given by @dhyandev looks like from HJS (Hindu Janagagruti Samati or (FHA) Forum of Hindu Awakening). They try to give scientific explanations to common religious practices with the help of energy.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

Sri Ramakrishna says, as one progresses on spiritual path, God reduces devotee's work just like as the months of pregnant women pass and the delivery approaches, work is reduced. After 7 months very little work is given and after delivery, no work is given. Only work is to take care of child. (Child is Jnana).

I found this to be true.


you offer the following:

Strong faith and total surrender. As one develops these qualities gradually, one excels in spiritual path.

I look at this slightly differently - I find that faith and surrender grows with the infusion of sattva and not the other way around; That is, as sattva grows faith grows. Yet I cannot have additional faith to make sattva grow. It is like a container. Through sattva the size of the container increases - that is negitivity has no place to reside, and hence more faith has a home.


Yet we are referred to the bhāgavad gītā on multiple occasions in this and other posts. What then of of it calling out this sattva and its support of this position?
If we look to bhāgavad gītā chapter 16.14 it gives us direction:

It is said that success, happiness, bliss (sukṛta�) is born of sattva (sāttvkaṁ). It is by this infusion of sattva� , being, wholeness, purity, that one unfolds their essence (sāra).
The implications are substantial . It is not by acting good that one unfolds, but by infusing the highest good in one's self that unfoldment occurs to ones delight.


praṇām

words

• sukṛta - meritorious act , virtue , moral merit ; well-conducted , virtuous , fortunate ; another name for prajā-pati
• sattva - Being, true essence , the existence of the Supreme ; In the sāṃkhya view of reality it is the the highest of the three guṇas

[ShivaFan]

Namaste Yajvan

In reply to your question "dimensions one would consider to give some indication of growth?" ...

I actually expored a method of measuring spiritual growth in the thread "What is Dharma?" (in the Gita section)....

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With Dharma as Action, and as a method towards ensuring Actionable Dharma as "never doing injury to another which one regards as injurous to one's own self", then can this be achieved if we see others as family of your Own Self, and expand our Own Identity of Self to This Family and All Things?

Then can we progress our Spirit and measure this Progress by how far we have expanded the light of true Self to embrace this Family?

And if we start with our First Family of all Hindus be Saiva, Shakta, Vaishnav, that just this achievement alone in our short life can be the sure sign that this expanding Self is progressing spiritually to Dharma, and eventually to Sanatana Dharma?

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So isn't this one way we can measure spiritual growth? And that is to measure how much we expand our own identity of the self to see others as family of our own self and all things?

And we can see our progress, by starting with our "First Family" of Hindus of all sects be it Saiva, Shakta or Vaishnav, by expanding our own identity of self first to our brothers and sisters in Hinduism? If we can simply achieve this, it would surely be a sign that we are on the right path, yes?

Om Namah Sivaya

[Amrut]

Namaste Yajvan ji,

what you say is true. With the increase in Sattva, love for God increases. What I mean to say is that keep God in center of all activities, rather than trying everything yourself. Self effort is definitely needed, but God has to be kept in center.

Incase if you find success through only Self Effort, then you may Develop Ego of Jnana, but in case you pray to God to remove all negative qualities and sattva Guna increase i.e. you notice change in your nature, then you know it's all done by God and not me. So less chance for ego to develop.

Just like being humble, respecting others, donations and services to saints and mankind, etc increases sattva, so does prayer, surrender and faith increase sattva.

Both help each other. Faith can develop if you pray. Even if Tamasic or Rajasic person i.e. person with maximum or pre-dominant guna as Rajas or Tamas pray God to take away all that is negative and give sattvik qualities, the person can experience transformation.

Even in this case sattva increases gradually

This is possible, because man i.e. humans have been given the power of discrimination. So if you know that you are doing wrong and want to change, you can, all you need is effort. Nothing happens if you do not do anything.

Even praying and surrendering to God is a kind of (mental) purushartha. Even meditation is a kind of Purushartha, but it is an effort to become effortless. Always remember that to the one whom you are communicating and surrendering is handling the entire universe. God is all powerful and is capable of doing anything. This is the difference between normal effort and effort to advance spiritually by praying. You depend upon God

The thing is to stay more and more with God, communicate with him, pray, talk, vent anger, frustration, etc, etc to God. After venting anger, mind calms down and the next thought will be positive because it's coming from a calm mind. Again you are talking to God, so it has it's effects like you receive his grace and compassion, which is not possible if you share it with your wife or a friend. After you mature, you will accept things 'as they are' and so the amount of frustration that you vent on God will also decrease. bhava is necessary for spiritual progress, no matter which path you follow.

Any activity without the faith in God will yield results, but in lesser degree.

People give more importance to karma kand and God is not in center

e.g.

You are doing puja and there is step-by-step procedure. So technically speaking, you are giving more importance to the steps then to God himself. Do do not say this is wrong. All I want to say is that one should not get stuck up in it. These are tools to help you progress. One should not get obsessed with them, else you keep visiting temples and your hair turns grey and eyes grow weak and you have glasses, still the inner eye will not open, there will be no progress.

Again, if you give importance to worldly things and to God, then still you will be trapped in a loop. you want to climb to 1st floor through stairs. you step up one stair and then step down one. Keep repeating it will you be able to reach 1st floor.

Effort is there but where is progress. Your container has holes, so water cannot be preserved. It drains out.

I do not deny anything, any path. I just want to focus on a particular thing, which in no way means that any other way than mine is useless or that I am stubborn. Conscious effort helps. It is also necessary.

All I want to say is keep God in center of all activities. Do not get lost in his playground. Look towards creator, else you will get lost in his maya.

Even a beginner can pray. can't you pray to God, 'Oh God take away all that is negative within me and give me positive qualities'

If you do not want to pray, then don't, but do not say, I can't.

It's not just for advanced meditators, it's for all. Everyone and anyone can pray.

so if you want to progress, then I personally think, keep God in center of all activities. Communicate with him more. Believe me, you want even know that you have changed, just like you never know when you first hair turned grey or when did 'Apple' dropped from letter 'A'

When we are toddlers, we are taught, A for Apple. So A is associated with apple. You learn 2 things, necessary at that time, 'A' and 'Apple'. But as you mature, say you graduate, do you write you name by thinking 'Y' for Yatch. No you simply write Yajvan. when did you drop 'A' from 'Apple'? Do you remember?

Again, I do not say that do not character building. I only want to focus on one thing 'Keep God in .... ' know know it now

With discrimination, viveka and with communication with God, faith increases. As you give prime importance to God ( which is upto you, it's your decision and you decide what you want to do), vairagya comes. Again, if one has vairagya, faith increases. Vairagya is absence of 'Bhogya Padartha' (in the mind). So when it's not world, it's God just like when you are looking at Sun, you cannot look at shadow.

I find that faith and surrender grows with the infusion of sattva and not the other way around; That is, as sattva grows faith grows.

True. Even if you do not make conscious effort to increase it, it still increases. But it happens as you say. There is no doubt. By doing sattvik Karma, Sattva Guna increases.

To sum up (I know I am repetitive)

If you simply have God on one side and world on other. You always have 2 choices. The more you select God, the more you come close to him (no matter whatever path you follow).

It's just about the approach. I wanted to share and repeat it, since you should not get stuck up in the middle. Activities help reach God. they are itself not destination. Destination should always be God. So importance to God should be more important than activities.

EDIT: I know I do not have good writing and communication skills. I hope you undertand what I want to convey.

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~

namast�

Another measure is śauca or cleanliness. Sure being clean in body and clothes is one idea. Yet it spills into another dimension of thinking and emotions. How often do ill feelings come to one's mind ? How often does one put their attention on higher ideals and higher learning.

So, this śauca takes on different aspects as one grows.

praṇām