Why is daily sadhana important?

[silence_speaks]

Dear LightofOm,
Please do not worry about that statement... ignore it.
Its not for everyone. I have quoted a statement from Yoga Vasishta, not my own statement and it is not for all...

It is for someone who has got "Yoga Vasishta" in mind

To my knowledge I am yet to find anyone in this forum who is ready to own that up. It belongs to a different category. Many people are contended to settle for the lower ideas and I realize that one should never disturb.

YV (Yoga Vasishta) says something ... for people who want to give it a try... most people dont want to ... so it wont apply to them.

Hence please ignore that, and excuse me for not stating this explicitly.

Love!
Silence

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

if one walks away from the yogavasișțharāmāyaṇa (yoga vasișțha) thinking this is the main message:

There is no need for any spiritual practise such as austerity , meditation , japa and the like for the moksha of the aspirant who has got this scripture in mind (through sravana-manana-nidhidhyasanam)

then one has passed up a wealth of knowledge that is offered there. Let me offer just one ( as I am happy to offer many more)¹ sample ~lesson~ :
hastaṁ hastena saṁpīḍya
santairdantāṁśca pīḍyam |
aṅgānyaṅgairsamākramya
jaayedādau svakaṁ manaḥ ||

To avoid my meager translation of this śloka let's look to svāmī lakṣman-jū's view on this matter:
ball your fists, clench your teeth, and tense all of the muscles of your body, but conquer your mind ||

As I see it the yogavasișțharāmāyaṇa is a vast ocean of knowledge; IMHO it is on par with the mahābhārata in terms of its weight ( guru¹).

iti śivaṁ

• guru - heavy , weighty (as opposed to laghú)
• more of the yogavasișțharāmāyaṇa can be found within this HDF string: http://www.hindudharmaforums.com/showthread.php?t=4976

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

Its not for everyone.
It is for someone who has got "Yoga Vasishta" in mind

Who then is this yogavasișțharāmāyaṇa (yoga vasișțha) for ? We take our support from the same book, the section called upaśānti prakaraṇaṃ¹ ( 5.14) .
Śrī rāmaḥ is told by vasișțha-ji, my teachings are not meant for those O'rāmaḥ whose intelligence has ben silenced by the firm faith in the reality of this (illusory) world and the consequent striving for the pleasures of this world. Who will strive to educate that man whose nose has been eaten away by leprosy the delicate art of distinguishing different perfumes ?

So, what is vasișțha-ji saying ? This book ( of no less then 32,000 verses) will fall on deaf ears of those that don't know that they do not know. It is for those that are beginning to wake up. It is my humble opinion that HDF has this native within its group; those that are beginning to wake up. This book will serve them well. Perhaps not on the 1st read, but within their interest over time to come and appreciate the wisdom in this book.

iti śivaṁ

1. upaśānti prakaraṇaṃ - upāsana is the act of throwing off; upaśānti is cessation , intermission , remission ~dissolution ~

[silence_speaks]

Dear Yajvan ji,


Suppose a poet presents a picture ... who can benefit from it ? Who ever is ready to "See" through the eyes of the poet. It is people's readiness to see thus that makes them eligible. If i do not see through the eyes of the poet ... i will not be able to benefit from them. It is more about readiness to see, in my view.

For example ... Bhaja Govindam says that look at the body of a women (or man) as made of flesh and other unagree-able things again and again. A person, if he wants to remain attached to women's body ... would never see through the eyes of Shankara. If he sees, he would eventually loose interest !

Yoga Vasishta presents that the world is totally a dream... there can be a million reasons to not see as is shown... someone may be attached to "Dharma" [karma portion] ... or someone may be attached to some forms of Bhakti [lower ... forms, where i want to invoke God etc]...someone else wants to "Experience Something" ... so they "Do not want to" see the world as a dream. When YV says that all experiences and all activities are like dreams ... they cannot accept !

Let me illustrate with a simple example:

इदँ प्रपञ्चँ यत् किञ्चित् यः शृणोति च पश्यति।
दृश्यरूपँ च दृग्रूपँ सर्वँ शशविषाणवत्॥

Whatever traces of this world one hears or one sees of it, the form that is seen and the form of seer are all like horns of a hare

This is from Ribhu Gita, as it is. Please tell me now ... are you ready to look at the world like this ... yes or no ? ... if you have to say : "its ok , but ...." or "its not to be taken as it is ...." etc ... it just goes to prove that one is not ready! If one is not ready to see with that vision ... one is not yet eligible for that ! Not because of some "Spiritual Level" ... but because they are not ready to accept what the scripture states !

And to a person who revels in such a vision... does japa, tapa, puja etc mean anything ?



Love!
Silence

[silence_speaks]

BTW ... a person who has got this scripture in mind through sravana manana , nidhidhyasana is already reveling as Self ... of what use is japa tapa etc for such a person ?

manaHprakalpite bhagne hR^idi vistiirNapattane |
vR^iddhi.N cotpanaate bruuhi ki.N vR^iddha.N kasya ki.N xatam ||
मनःप्रकल्पिते भग्ने हृदि विस्तीर्णपत्तने।
वृद्धिँ चोत्पनाते ब्रूहि किँ वृद्धँ कस्य किँ क्षतम्॥
A huge state imagined in one's own heart by the mind, whether it gets destroyed or prospers what is the big deal about it ?

If a person is reveling with this vision ... do you go and tell him to do some japa ? You must be kidding, if you do so !!

[markandeya 108 dasa]

Pranams,

I read this recently and I thought maybe it can be of some benefit.


Love of Krishna is locked up in the heart of the living entity, but to access it, we need to know the combinations….
The Combinations to the Safe (those combinations that help us to be spiritually safe) Part 1
The Agni and the Ecstasy
On route to achieving higher states of devotional consciousness, and just by the nature of life itself, we all stand to face challenges and tests. Those tests we don’t pass don’t pass us. They simply re-enter our lives at a different point until we learn from and ultimately transcend them. Challenges always test our resilience, ability to let go of negative mindsets or disappointing situations. They often also test our ability to forgive. Forgiveness happens in a deep way when we are able to digest and truly grow through the hard times.
In Ayurveda, it’s explained that just as there is a fire of digestion that allows one to digest food, there is also a fire of digestion within the mind that allows one to digest difficult or traumatic experiences. This fire is called Sadhaka Agni. Not everyone is born with the same strength of Sadhaka Agni, and for this reason, irrespective of the magnitude of the difficulties we go through, different people are able to digest challenges and disappointments more healthily, swiftly and positively than others. How do we develop our ability to come through challenges and traumatic experiences in ways that are truly and deeply strong, healthy and constructive? How do we avoid holding onto bitterness and prevent ourselves from allowing the entire nature of our lives to be defined by those negative experiences?
The different internal and external challenges life throws at us needn’t be a problem because we always have the ability to make ourselves internally stronger. We always have the ability to use whatever has happened for our growth and development.


According to Ayurveda, emotional imbalances are due to our inability to process or digest emotions in a timely way. When someone is genuinely able to digest negative emotions quickly, they are able to let them go and move on with their lives in a progressive way. If we have trouble digesting such emotions, it’s like the food of our experience not digesting or digesting very slowly, which can then create mental toxins such as depression. This is due to the negative impressions remaining in our minds and effecting our current emotions and thoughts.


A person with strong Sadhaka Agni will have the memory of the negative experience but it will no longer affect them. They will think “That negative experience happened but I am a different person now.” She processes the experience quickly. Due to our past life, some of us are born with strong Sadhaka Agni, some with weak Sadhaka Agni and some with variable Sadhaka Agni. The good news is that we can strengthen our Sadhaka Agni by the way we live and associate. Honouring prasadam properly, living more naturally, surrounding ourselves with supportive people and avoiding unnecessarily negative or envious association all increase our Sadhaka Agni. Deeply imbibing and practicing spiritual knowledge by the regular study of Shastric books greatly and deeply increases and strengthens our Sadhaka Agni. If such study is done attentively and regularly, it’s like fanning a spark and increasing that spark until it becomes an inferno that burns to ashes the toxins of negative impressions.
“As a blazing fire turns firewood to ashes, O Arjuna, so does the fire of knowledge burn to ashes all reactions to material activities” Bhagavad Gita 4.37
In the purport, Prabhupada writes as follows:


Perfect knowledge of self and Superself and of their relationship is compared herein to fire…There are many stages of reaction…but knowledge of the constitutional position of the living entity burns everything to ashes. When one is in complete knowledge, all reactions, both a priori and a posteriori, are consumed…
A sign of low Sadhaka Agni can be weak power of discrimination. By study of sastra, subtle effects take place within the consciousness providing depth and sharpness of judgement and evaluation, based upon real and eternal principles. The inability to sit quietly without feeling restless can also be a sign of weak Sadhaka Agni. Procrastination, lack of endurance or perseverance, inability to keep commitments or fulfil ones daily duties can also signify weak Sadhaka Agni.
If we lose control of our emotions and thoughts, this can eventually degrade into losing control of our actions. The more one practices Krishna Consciousness in the mode of goodness, the more one naturally strengthens and invokes the Sadhaka Agni.


Additional tips for strengthening the Sadhaka Agni
1. Sleep before ten pm whenever possible (Some people work shifts) or even earlier because before 10 pm is the kapha period, and sleeping at that time gives restorative sleep. After 10 pm, the pitta period comes which doesn’t give the same quality of regeneration because sleep is then more likely to be restless.
2. Rising early has a subtle effect on the mind, and imbibes more goodness into it, helping it to be more positive and balanced. Try to maximize the mode of goodness hours in your life. From 2am-10am is goodness, 10-6pm is passion. 6pm to 2am is ignorance. The Vedic kings would maximize their time in goodness and use this for sadhana and planning the day. They would use the period of passion for execution, and the period of ignorance for relaxation, socializing and sleep. Sleeping during the late morning, after 6am can make the mind dull as it can cause blocks within the subtle channels known as the shrotas.
3. Daily exercise helps move negative emotions out of the body and increases the Agni so it is very useful and progressive to include this in your schedule.
4. Try to have a bowel movement each morning, drink plenty of water and eat your meals at around the same time. The midday meal should be between 12-2pm when the Agni in the stomach is strongest.
5. Try to eat foods that are more natural and unprocessed. These foods are more quickly digested by the body and create an energy called ojas, which gives stable emotions and good health.
6. Avoid junk food, as these create ama or toxins in the body and weaken the Sadhaka Agni. They allow negative emotions to be stored in the body rather than released from it.
7. Practice positive behaviours. These are called Acharya rasayanas, or behavioural rasayanas. The Charaka Samhita says that by the regular practice of these behaviours, one will gain in overall health and wellbeing. They include being truthful, sweet in speech, calm, clean, charitable, respectful to seniors (such as teachers, parents, elders), loving and balanced, humble, self controlled, positive, and devoted to study of sastra.
8. Associate and surround yourself with positive loving people who support you and encourage you to live in the mode of goodness. Create a loving environment around yourself in this way. The Charaka Samhita says that good company means company of those mature in wisdom, patient, mature in sadhana, understanding of human nature, well behaved, peaceful and who advocate right action and conduct. The same text encourages the avoidance of those who are negative in thought, conduct and speech, argumentative, lacking in compassion, regularly speak ill of others, cruel, greedy, envious of the prosperity of others, those who speak sarcastically and those who do not live virtuously.
Note: after birth, the fire of digestion for women goes very low, and so can lead to fluctuating emotions, anxiety or depression. Emotional support is important for us all throughout our lives, but after childbirth, it is considered especially important as it enhances metabolism and Sadhaka Agni at the same time.


Child hood is a time of life when one naturally takes a while to process thoughts and feelings. At the same time, children are naturally inquisitive, open and enthusiastic to learn. Therefore they require time, affection and attention. If parents do not spend time with their children and answer their questions, the heart of the child becomes emotionally dissatisfied, and this can make them more prone to emotional imbalances in life.


Ys


Md

[yajvan]

hariḥ oṁ
~~~~~~
namasté

Yoga Vasishta presents that the world is totally a dream... there can be a million reasons to not see as is shown... someone may be attached to "Dharma" [karma portion] ... or someone may be attached to some forms of Bhakti [lower ... forms, where i want to invoke God etc]...someone else wants to "Experience Something" ... so they "Do not want to" see the world as a dream. When YV says that all experiences and all activities are like dreams ... they cannot accept !

Let me illustrate with a simple example:

This is from Ribhu Gita, as it is. Please tell me now ... are you ready to look at the world like this ... yes or no ? ... if you have to say : "its ok , but ...." or "its not to be taken as it is ...." etc ... it just goes to prove that one is not ready! If one is not ready to see with that vision ... one is not yet eligible for that ! Not because of some "Spiritual Level" ... but because they are not ready to accept what the scripture states !

It seems from what you write that choosing to look at the world as wholeness or from your vantage point as a dream is an intellectual choice. While this is mildly interesting, it is like saying I am a king, yet I have no kingdom nor the riches to back up the claim.
So, with that frame of mind one may say oh yes all this is a dream, an illusion - or this is all māyā ( very in vogue and fashionable to say). One can say this with confidence because it comes from the śāstra-s. Yet is it one's direct personal experience ? Intellectual understanding is the beginning - the direct personal experience confirms this understanding. Even the yogavasișțharāmāyaṇa offers this within the very first story of śukadeva, vedavyāsa’s son. So this is where ( I think) we differ and I am fine with that condition.

And your other post that begins with BTW and ends with 'are you kidding ? ' . I do not have the slightest idea of what you are offering. Also note that I am not asking for any re-statement or clarification. I only answer due to the comment that you are asking ' are you kidding'.

iti śivaṁ

[silence_speaks]

Dear Yajvan ji,

it is like saying I am a king, yet I have no kingdom nor the riches to back up the claim.
...
Yet is it one's direct personal experience ? Intellectual understanding is the beginning - the direct personal experience confirms this understanding.

The kingdom is ever yours ... its waiting for you to be claimed ! But if we choose to ignore it and keep repeating that I do not have a kingdom !

Annamalai Swami says : [Please read this carefully]

Q: I know that listening to the Guru and believing his words is important. When he says, 'You are the Self. The world is not real," and so on, I can accept that what he says is true, but my belief in the truth of those words does not seem to make it my experience.


Annamalai Swami: You must believe the Guru and you must also believe your own experience because the Guru is not telling you to add another belief to your mind. He is instead telling you to look at your own experience of yourself, and in doing so, disregard everything else.


There is a story that Ram Tirtha used to tell. A man who was a little mad lived in a small village with his wife. His friends liked to tease him and make fun of him because they all thought he was stupid.


One day, one of them said, 'We have some bad news for you. Your wife has become a widow.'


He believed them and started crying out in grief, 'My wife has become a widow! My wife has become a widow!'


Some of the people he passed on the street laughed at him and said, 'Why are you mourning? You are very much alive. How can your wife be a widow if you yourself are alive to complain about it?'


'My closest friends have told me this,' he replied, 'and I trust them. They are very reliable people. If they are saying that my wife has become a widow, it must be true.'


We would think that a man who behaved like this was utterly stupid because he chose to believe the words of others instead of his own experience. But are we any better? We believe, on the basis of indirect information provided by the senses, that we are the body. The experience of 'I am', of the Self, is present in all of us, but when the mischievous senses gang up on us and try to make us believe something that is patently untrue, we believe them and ignore our direct experience.


Then we grieve about our state, lamenting, 'I am bound; I am unenlightened; I am not free'.


And even when the Guru comes along and says, 'You are the Self. You are free. Why do you insist on believing this misinformation that the mischievous senses are giving you?' still you do not believe the truth.


You tell him, "The senses have always given me reliable information in the past. I have learned to trust them. What they tell me must be true.'


And so you go on grieving and complaining, even when your direct experience and the words of the Guru agree with each other and reveal the truth.


~ Annamalai Swami, Final Talks, edited by David Godman

So, with that frame of mind one may say oh yes all this is a dream, an illusion - or this is all māyā ( very in vogue and fashionable to say)

People who speak thus without understanding can be easily spotted from their lack of clarity -- provided one has the vision of the Truth. But I would still advice them to continue treating the world as a dream.

Infact if instead of saying "this is dream", one looks at life through the eyes of Vasishta, as expressed by Vasishta, one discovers liberation here and now. People can go on ... ad infinitum ... saying I am bound ! But one who seriously intends to see oneself as liberated, should look from the eyes of Yoga Vasishta!

And your other post that begins with BTW and ends with 'are you kidding ? ' . I do not have the slightest idea of what you are offering. Also note that I am not asking for any re-statement or clarification. I only answer due to the comment that you are asking ' are you kidding'.

Why are you not asking me for clarification ? What if what I wrote there has something valuable ? I was not sarcastic - even if i am, there will be a point there. Coz i never question people, i question or discuss ideas ! I was pointing at something, which you claim to have missed ... and over and above that "I do not need you to say what it is " ?! Are we open Yajvan ji ? we are discussing ideas... we can ask for clarifications , and have an open discussion.

Love!
Silence

[silence_speaks]

Dear Yajvan ji,


Here is one more from Annamalai Swami [Annamalai Swami is a direct disciple of Ramana Maharshi, a liberated person, whose teachings in the form of "Final Talks" are worth studying...]

Spiritual seekers have a very strange habit: they are always looking for a way to reach, attain,discover,experience, or realize the Self. They try many things because they cannot comprehend that they are already the Self. This is like running around looking for one's eyes with one's own eyes.

Why should you imagine that it is some new experience to be discovered or found ? You are the Self right now, and you are aware of it right now. Do you need a new experience to prove that you exist? The feeling "I am existing" is the Self. You pretend that you are not experiencing it, or cover it up with all kinds of false ideas, and then you run around looking for it as if it were something external to be reached or found. There is a story about someone like thus.

Once a king imagined that he was a poverty-striken peasant. He thought , "if I go and meet the king he may be able to help me by giving some money"
He searched for the king in many places but he could not find him anywhere. Ultimately he became very depressed because his search was not yeilding any results. One day he met a man on the road who asked him why he was so depressed.
He answered, " I am searching for the king. I think that he can solve all my problems and make me happy but I cant find him anywhere".
The man, who already recognized him, said with some astonishment, "But you yourself as the king!"
The king came to his senses and remembered who he was. His problems all ended the moment he remembered his real identity.
You may think that the king was fairly stupid but he had at least enough sense to recognize the truth when it was told to him.
The guru may tell his disciples a thousand times "You are the self, you are not what you imagine yourself to be", they all keep asking the guru for methods and routes to reach the place they are already are.

[Seeker]

Namaste Silence Speaks Ji,

So far I have concluded , that the following steps are necessary for most of us.

Seeking - this where a person starts looking & searching for answers for relation between him/her and God.

Knowing - we gather knowledge & formulate a path in getting/finding what we seek. Based on our temperament , personality & stage in our journey (journey across many lives) , we gather knowledge thru scriptures , readings , satsangs , guru , contemplation , meditation etc..

Practicing - travel on the path that we formulated /we are taught . This is what I would refer as 'sadhana' - this is accumulation of spiritual assets that helps us to attain what we seek.

Realizing : With proper practice (I will add that with Guru's grace first) , reach the goal.

Invariably all of our saints have told us very consistently about markers that let us know where we are in the right path in our journey. They talk about siddhis (& several saints never use it - they just know that this is at their disposal) and have demonstrated some of them like bi-location , peering into past or future (as if time is not a dimension for them) , healing etc.. Ultimately they have also testified the great feeling of joy - constant communion - which they have valued above all.

From the knowledge I have gathered so far, I firmly believe that the Self & I are one and the same , but other than that knowledge , I am void of any experience. My believe does not make me a realized person. I think this what Yajvan Ji is stating in his post.

To get to the final destination , I need a guide & Sadhana.

Some exalted souls are born with awareness even when they are out of the womb. They wont go thru all these steps. For some others it hits like a bolt (like Bhagwan Ramana Maharishi) at some point in their life.

So - when I agree that I am the Self - at this point it is bookish knowledge for me. If I don’t realize it by way of sadhana , I simply accumulate more karmic debt and set myself up for more grind in rebirths.