Contents Message from the Master
Swami Says
Padma Prana Chin Mudra Asana
Pranic Crystal Healing
Bach Flower Remedies
Guru Pournami
Science of Rebirth
Autobiography of a Yogi
Meditation
Lao-Tzu
Selected Articles
Message from the Master
Message from the Master
Eliminating four enemies
We are all like frogs in a well. The only thing important to each of us is the confine of the walls of the well. Each one of us thinks that if we generate great amounts of goodwill, love and tolerance that we can save the world. This is not true. Do we know anything about the other parts of world or do we know only what we seen on television or hear on the radio? Are we really thinking clearly? Just because someone disagrees with us, does it mean they are wrong?
Imagine frogs from different wells congregating to discuss their convictions and experiences. At the very first instance they learn that there are other wells in this universe and theirs is not the only one. With all this they still lack the knowledge of the existence of the ocean and what it contains and that it cannot be confined to walls and wells. The same applies to us, and in our own discussions we lack the knowledge of the existence of the ocean of truth that cannot be confined within the walls of our conceptual wells. These walls can only divide, but the ocean only unites. This ocean is the Ocean of Truth and in order reach it we need to realize the four enemies.
The four enemies are prejudice, belief, desire and fear. Ridding ourselves of these enemies does not require undergoing a rigorous learning process - but instead a great unlearning process is needed. No specific talent is required but a lot of courage is essential. Take a child, for instance: does a child see the person giving her love and attention as different or separate from love itself? Does a child differentiate between an old, sick person, a black person, a servant, an Indian, a white person, or a mother, or does the child see only comfort and love? To a child, physical characteristics and culture are totally irrelevant and, like children, we need to unlearn the conditioned aspects of our lives. How do we do this? Simply by becoming aware each time our learned responses dominate and teach ourselves to unlearn them.
A child has no prejudice and no belief, so achieve the mind of a child. A child does not believe that some people are more dangerous than some animals, but we do because we have unlearned how to be children. A child does not have any desires or fears, yet we do - and great ones too. A child does not look at another child’s dress and desire it but we would . . . with envy added. Aim to achieve the mind-state of a child. A child will see a snake and raise his hand to attract the snake’s attention, causing the snake to slowly advance and play with the child. Why is this? Because that union is not fear-based. Our union is generally fear-based - even our marriages are fear based. Why do we insist on an Antenuptial contract when we marry? So that if some-thing goes wrong we don’t lose anything because to lose is fear.
Work on these four enemies.
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Autobiography of a Yogi
by Paramhansa Yogananda
Crystal Clarity Publishers
ISBN: 1-56589-108-2
This is the first time that an authentic Hindu yogi has written his life story for a Western audience. Describing in vivid detail his many years of spiritual training under a Christlike master - Sri Yukteswar of Serampore, Bengal - Yogananda has here revealed a fascinating and little-known phase of modern India. The subtle but definite laws by which yogis perform miracles and attain complete self-mastery are explained with a scientific clarity.
There are colourful chapters on the author’s visits to Mahatma Gandhi, Sir Jagadis Chandra Bose, and Rabindranath Tagore. The section dealing with Yogananda’s Western experiences includes a chapter on his great friend, Luther Burbank, and an account of the author’s pilgrimage to Bavaria in 1935 to meet Therese Neumann, the amazing Catholic stigmatist. After establishing a high school with yoga training at Ranchi, India, Yogananda travelled to America in 1920 as the Indian delegate to the International Congress of Religious Liberals. He has lectured extensively in the United States and abroad and is the founder of a Yoga Institute at Encinitas, California.Yogananda is a graduate of Calcutta University; he writes not only with unforgettable sincerity, but with an incisive wit.
“Amazing, true stories of saints and masters of India, blended with priceless superphysical information - much needed to balance the Western material efficiency with Eastern spiritual efficiency” (Amelita Galli-Curci).
“Yogananda’s Autobiography fills an important gap in the literature of Yoga available to Western readers. Here at last we have an authentic account by a genuine yogi of the so-called supernatural (in reality highly natural) powers acquired by his brother-yogis, with a full picture of their spiritual background” (Jean Herbert).
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The Power of Emotion and Will
by Paramahansa Yogananda
Excerpt from Scientific Healing Affirmations
A case is recorded of an emotional person who had lost his power of speech, but recovered it as he fled from a burning building. The sudden shock at the sight of flames caused him to shout: “Fire! Fire!” - not remembering that hitherto he had been unable to speak. Strong emotion had conquered his subconscious disease-habit. This story illustrates the healing power of intense attention.
During my first steamer trip from India to Ceylon, I was suddenly seized by a spell of seasickness and lost the valuable contents of my stomach. I resented the experience very much; it had been sprung on me at a time when I was enjoying my first experience of a floating room (the cabin) and a swimming village. I determined never again to be tricked like that. I advanced my foot and planted it firmly on the floor of the cabin and commanded my will never again to accept the seasick experience. Later, though I was on the water for a month going to Japan and back to India, and for fifty days from Calcutta to Boston, and for twenty-six days from Seattle to Alaska and back, I was never seasick again.
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The Power of Choice
by Suren Pillay
We are reminded every day of the transient nature of existence. Newspapers highlight the day to day killings, murders, rape and tragedy that have haunted the man of the modern age. With a world population of approximately six billion people, one has to ask these questions: how long can our environment sustain the vast needs of modern man? Are we being of service to nature, or are we just needlessly destroying what wasn’t even ours in the first place? Around the world people kill each other in the name of various causes, the most surprising of all being religion. I could never understand why there would need to be a killing of life in order to satisfy God. It seems to be more correct to say that the killing is necessary, not to satisfy God’s needs but to satisfy man’s needs. The desire for wealth, power, name and fame has driven man to the eclipse of insanity as expressed in his unnatural actions.
A careful and clear observation of world events would lead one to conclude that the rate of scientific and technological advancement is by far exceeding man’s spiritual and humanitarian advancement. Man is only beginning to discover his own inner creative potential, yet his intellectual abilities have been highly expressive, especially in the past hundred years. The imbalance in growth must be rectified if we are to avoid complete disaster. The future lies in our own hands, as co-creators of our own reality as we can collectively choose to destroy ourselves at any moment.
The power of independence and choice is a gift from God and to abuse that gift is true blasphemy. The current events happening in the world today are nothing but an expression of the collective choices that we, as human beings, are making in our lives. When we look at life as a whole, we see that our whole life is nothing more than a series of choices, decisions and actions.
My message to you this month, dear brothers and sisters, is to embrace life and, more importantly, to embrace choice. You have the power to reduce a person to tears of humiliation, or to help them shine with deepest love in their hearts. Collectively, we have the ability to destroy ourselves, or to create a heaven on earth. How will you choose to react if someone offends you? How will you choose to spend your hard-earned money? How will you enjoy your free time? How, how, how ...? Always God will be asking, for this is the game of life and he is both the creator and the created. He is thus present in our hearts at every step of our journey. All we have to do is to pay a little more attention to that inner voice of conscience when hardship strikes.
Love, joy and truth to all, eternally!