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Articles from santosh krinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- Overcoming the Impulse to Anger - by Submitted on Jul 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyMost people believe that both the impulse of desire and the impulse to anger are both inherent, deeply established reactions that are either completely impossible, or virtually impossible, to overcome and remove from one’s life. They say that one may succeed in controlling outer expressions of ...
Views: 677 - How to Deal With Anger and Other Strong Vital Reactions - by Submitted on Jul 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere is an idea, prevalent in some aspects of Western psychology, both mainstream and ‘pop’ psychology, that it is unhealthy to internalize and hold in strong reactions or emotions such as anger. They counsel letting it out and thereby saving oneself from the psychological and physical effects ...
Views: 694 - Yogic Sadhana and Depression - by Submitted on Jul 03, 2022 from santosh krinskyPractitioners of yoga are not exempt from the play of the gunas, the qualities of Nature, and thus, are from time to time, subject to bouts of discouragement and depression when tamas is in the ascendent. It may happen when a particular goal or ambition is thwarted or delayed, as the frustration ...
Views: 625 - Understanding and Overcoming Depression - by Submitted on Jul 02, 2022 from santosh krinskyIn today’s world, depression is a widespread malady that affects people throughout the world. In many cases, pharmaceutical drugs are known to have potential ‘side effects’ that can cause depression, thoughts of suicide, or other dark moods that inhibit the ability of the individual to function ...
Views: 625 - The Origin of Joy - by Submitted on Jul 01, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere is a difference between ‘joy’ and ‘enjoyment’. Enjoyment is a more or less passive state, such as when we enjoy some form of entertainment. Joy, on the other hand, is an active status, which rises spontaneously through involvement and action. If we observe children, we see that they ...
Views: 597 - Addressing and Overcoming Boredom - by Submitted on Jun 30, 2022 from santosh krinskyAs long as we remain bound to the ego-personality, we are caught in the play of the three gunas, or qualities of nature. Every individual is subject to all three, and their constant interchange. Thus, there will be times and circumstances where tamas, the quality of indolence and darkness comes ...
Views: 560 - Fear Is Based in the Limitations of Ignorance and Unconsciousness - by Submitted on Jun 29, 2022 from santosh krinskyIn The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes the sevenhold ignorance which limits the human being. We live in a world about which we know very little, and we lack a complete understanding of the significance of our lives, the meaning of existence, or the processes of Time. As a result, we act as ...
Views: 701 - How to Overcome Fear - by Submitted on Jun 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyA number of years ago, a crowd of anti-war protesters in Washington DC were gathered in front of a federal building and were suddenly confronted with a phalanx of heavily armed police wielding guns, batons and potentially tear gas cannisters, arriving with numerous paddy wagons, who surrounded ...
Views: 767 - Understanding the Nature of Fear and Its Effects on the Being - by Submitted on Jun 27, 2022 from santosh krinskyWherever we focus attention, we create a direct relationship with the object of that attention. It may be through aspiration towards a higher consciousness, devotion to an ideal or through love for a revered guide or teacher; or it may be through the reaction of fear about some person, event or ...
Views: 772 - Aspiration, Faith and Realisation - by Submitted on Jun 26, 2022 from santosh krinskyAspiration in terms of the yogic process is a tuning of the consciousness towards the spiritual reality, and thereby shifting the focus away from the ego-personality to the divine. The aspiration directs the attention, but must be followed up with an attitude of receptivity so that the response, ...
Views: 628 - The Importance of the Attitude of Trust for the Yogic Practitioner - by Submitted on Jun 25, 2022 from santosh krinskyIn our world today, we tend to doubt everything, question everything, trust in nothing. We recognise how much dissembling takes place, how many illusions are placed before our eyes, and we frequently have the experience that when we trust in someone or something, we tend to later see that we ...
Views: 614 - Comparing Thought and Intuition as Problem-Solving Methodologies - by Submitted on Jun 24, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe West, in particular, believes in the power of thought to solve problems. The educational system focuses its attention on analysis and categorization, and eventually adds the precepts of logical thought as a methodology to work through problems step by step. The scientific method, as it is ...
Views: 772 - Dealing with Difficulties and Setbacks Along the Way - by Submitted on Jun 23, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe tend to judge things, events, opportunities, setbacks, obstacles and directions from the standpoint of our individual ego-personality. When we take up a spiritual path, we expect that our efforts, and our devotion to the guide or master in whom we rely, will smooth the path in front of us and ...
Views: 560 - Finding a Solution that Provides Peace Without Sacrificing Progress in the Universal Manifestation - by Submitted on Jun 22, 2022 from santosh krinskyIf the drive towards progress is fueled by dissatisfaction and anxiety felt by the individual, we are left with the concern that achieving peace must come at the cost of giving up the active life and the development of consciousness in the world. We either have to sink back to the level of the ...
Views: 519 - The Human Dilemma: the Underlying Cause of Anxiety - by Submitted on Jun 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyBeing human is uncomfortable. We do not have the innocence of living that we find in the animal kingdom. We struggle with the pressure of growing knowledge about ourselves and our world, and an awareness of past, present and future that haunts us all the time. For many, this pressure is so ...
Views: 672 - Man: the Being Who Worries - by Submitted on Jun 20, 2022 from santosh krinskyAnxiety arises when we extrapolate from a current circumstance or event to what we anticipate, imagine or speculate will follow. Some of this speculation is logical, following what we know of the method of Nature and the rollout of events through Time, although there is no absolute certainty ...
Views: 648 - The Third Step in the Mental Discipline: Control of Thoughts - by Submitted on Jun 19, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe inner control of thoughts is a further development once the poise of the witness consciousness has been attained. As the seeker observes the thoughts, he can also determine their effect in the being, and see if they lead to uplifting, widening, and harmonizing results, or whether they shrink ...
Views: 509 - Discernment of Good and Bad Thoughts - by Submitted on Jun 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen we initially reflect on “what is a good thought” and “what is a bad thought”, the first ideas that arise almost inevitably harken back to whatever cultural, moral or ethical code prevails within the society of the time, whether this is based on religion or developed cultural understandings ...
Views: 623 - The Need and Method for Observing One’s Thoughts - by Submitted on Jun 17, 2022 from santosh krinskyAvoidance of suffering may be considered as a ‘negative’ status. Achievement of happiness is the positive pole of this continuum. Both states are rooted in the mind and the standpoint that the individual takes. When the scriptures speak of “evil thoughts” or “purified thoughts” this is not ...
Views: 545 - Four Steps to Avoid Suffering - by Submitted on Jun 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyMany people suppose that it is impossible to avoid suffering, as it is an inherent aspect of life on earth. Their strategies for dealing with suffering may vary, but they all believe that suffering is inevitable. When we consider, therefore, the idea of avoiding suffering, we are either met ...
Views: 557 - Escaping the Conflict and Battle of Thoughts in the Mind - by Submitted on Jun 15, 2022 from santosh krinskyThrough the process of affinity and filtration of thoughts, when we remain in the plane of the mind, we experience the struggle and resistance of competing thoughts that appear to be in many cases chaotic in nature. Fighting with these thoughts, struggling, suppressing, all turn out to be ...
Views: 557 - Dealing with Mental Resistance to Attempts to Silence the Mind - by Submitted on Jun 14, 2022 from santosh krinskyIt is quite natural for an individual, particularly a seeker attempting to make progress in the yogic process, to internalize the difficulties and blame them on his own weakness, incapacity, or lack of will power. The reality, however, is that this is a continuation of the egocentric viewpoint ...
Views: 561 - The Source and Nature of the Thoughts an Individual Receives - by Submitted on Jun 13, 2022 from santosh krinskyIf we ask almost anyone where thoughts come from, they will say that they are produced in the brain. The brain is some kind of thought-factory. They don’t know how. They don’t know why. They don’t know what causes certain thoughts to develop. They recognise that sense perceptions influence the ...
Views: 550 - Controlling One’s Thoughts - by Submitted on Jun 12, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe mind is always active, jumping from one input source to another, depending on the senses and their objects, the various forms of media we are consuming, including radio, tv, music, reading, social media, etc.; but also on a variety of internal factors including nutritional factors, ...
Views: 579 - Understanding the Limitations of the Mechanical Mind - by Submitted on Jun 11, 2022 from santosh krinskyAt a very basic, rudimentary level, less developed in the evolutionary scale than the physical mind, lies what is termed the ‘mechanical mind’. This level relies heavily on programmed repetition. It is programmed to have a simple instruction set, to repeat continuously whatever ‘sets off’ its ...
Views: 575 - Understanding the Limitations of the Physical Mind - by Submitted on Jun 10, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe are used to superimposing our higher intellectual control on the physical mind and its operations. The physical mind still acts, but we generally limit its application through this process. At the same time, however, we do not consciously pay attention to its action or the impact of that ...
Views: 582 - Dealing with Obtrusive, Repetitive Thoughts - by Submitted on Jun 09, 2022 from santosh krinskyBefore we can deal with thoughts, we need to have at least a basic understanding of what they are and where they come from, what they consist of, and what the purpose of thought is. Yet, we rarely if ever examine these questions and simply take thought for granted as something necessary and ...
Views: 588 - Transitioning to the Silent Mind - by Submitted on Jun 08, 2022 from santosh krinskyAssume that we succeed, through various methods of meditation or concentration, to bring the mind into a status of relative quiet. At that moment we begin to notice that there is this other running commentary going on in the background, reacting to every sense impression, bodily sensation, ...
Views: 564 - The Silence of the Mind - by Submitted on Jun 07, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe are so used to the constant internal dialogue that we have no conception of what it means to have ‘silence of the mind’. We strive to fill up any silence with sound, whether through conversation, consumption of media, music or even treating television or radio as ‘background noise’ for our ...
Views: 568 - How to Quiet the Mind - by Submitted on Jun 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyIt is a virtually universal experience. One sits for meditation, trying to quiet the mind, and the thoughts keep surging and seem to have more intensity than before! Every sensation seems to provoke some activity in the mind, pent up issues or concerns take that time to come to the fore, ...
Views: 567 - Understanding and Dealing with the Physical Mind - by Submitted on Jun 05, 2022 from santosh krinskySri Aurobindo recognises that in order to effectively address the actions of the mind, the various underlying sources and the energies they raise up in their action must be clearly seen and understood. There is a difference in the way one needs to deal with a persistent emotional reaction, for ...
Views: 513 - Developing the Proper Attitude of Yogic Equality in Relation to Present Reality and Future Development - by Submitted on Jun 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe tend to view everything from our individual ego-standpoint, and as a result, we take difficulties as being our own, as well as any obstacles, setbacks or delays being directly tied to ourselves. We tend to believe that we are either bound by some karmic destiny, or by the astrological pattern ...
Views: 984 - Yogic Equality Does Not Imply Fatalistic Acceptance - by Submitted on Jun 03, 2022 from santosh krinskyAttaining the proper poise of equality is an essential step for the yogic practitioner. It is quite easy to fall into a fatalistic view that basically says “what happened was what had to happen”, without further consideration about the process through time and the direction, momentum and ...
Views: 595 - The Test of Yogic Equality - by Submitted on Jun 02, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe setting of Sri Krishna’s teaching to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra, symbolizing the ‘battle of life’ is an essential message to all who seek to progress in their spiritual growth and development. We do not normally associate a battlefield as the place to learn about our spiritual ...
Views: 609 - The Nature of Equality in Yogic Psychology - by Submitted on Jun 01, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe term ‘equality’ in general use relates to inter-personal relationships within the society, but that is not how the term is utilized in yogic psychology. Equality in that sense means the ability to accept all touches from the universe, perceptions, feelings, thoughts, emotions, powers and ...
Views: 523 - Mental and Vital Formations and Habits of Acceptance Which Create Obstacles for the Soul’s Victory - by Submitted on May 31, 2022 from santosh krinskyEvery part of our being has certain habitual patterns of responding to, accepting and dealing with forces and vibrations that enter into them. These habitual patterns for the most part lock in the old ways of seeing and acting, and it takes a change in standpoint from the mental-vital-physical ...
Views: 570 - The Most Effective Method for Achieving Detachment - by Submitted on May 30, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen one works to develop the consciousness of the witness, Purusha, observing the Nature, Prakriti the progress comes generally over time with repeated persistent and patient effort. Consider for a moment going through one’s own life observing but not reacting internally. If we observe even a ...
Views: 606 - Absorption in Our Outer Life, Living in the ‘Now’, Mindfulness and Detachment - by Submitted on May 29, 2022 from santosh krinskyMost people live a life without inward reflectoin, reacting to circumstances, conditioned by habits developed through millennia, trained responses and built up expectations. Their lives are fixated on whatever is presented to them at the moment, and they lose any sense of self-awareness in this ...
Views: 613 - The Sources of Disturbance and the Process of Detachment - by Submitted on May 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe tend to internalize and “own” our weaknesses or internal struggles. This is the ego-consciousness at work. We also fail to recognise that there are multiple different sources of pressures on us, some of which are ingrained habits we have accepted into our surface being, others are seeds we ...
Views: 554 - Detachment from and Mastery of the Surface Nature - by Submitted on May 27, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen we are first confronted with the concept of detachment from our external nature, we tend to approach it from a mental standpoint and thus, try to shut down our emotions and mental reactions with various types of response such as forms of stoicism, renunciation, or a show of non-caring, or ...
Views: 543 - Gaining the Standpoint of the Observer of the Nature - by Submitted on May 26, 2022 from santosh krinskyAn important step in the practice of yoga is to attain true detachment from the surface nature through the shifting of the standpoint from the surface to the ‘witness consciousness’, the Purusha. The separation of Purusha from Prakriti, the active nature, is needed in order to effectuate change ...
Views: 503 - Accessing the True Source of Vital Energy - by Submitted on May 25, 2022 from santosh krinskyAccess to the universal vital force and the renewal of one’s energy follows basic principles that can be seen in the action of another universal force that allows the creation of results in the external world, symbolised by what we know as ‘money’. In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo states ...
Views: 589 - Contacting and Connecting With the Universal Vital Force, Part II - by Submitted on May 24, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen we fixate on the fulfillment of the body-life-mind complex in our external being, the exclusive concentration involved helps us to temporarily lose sight of the larger Oneness of which all are a part. We then put ourselves in opposition to other aspects of the one Reality and treat each ...
Views: 556 - Contacting and Connecting With the Universal Vital Force, Part I - by Submitted on May 23, 2022 from santosh krinskyChildren naturally have direct contact with the universal vital energy but this tends to fade into the background and be ‘lost’ as the mind ‘learns’ the ‘laws of nature’ which do not recognise the energy or its relationship to us. This is a circumstance of the artificially limiting action of the ...
Views: 593 - Recuperating Energy Through Contact with Nature - by Submitted on May 22, 2022 from santosh krinskyMuch of modern-day life is centered around urban living. Most urban dwellers have little, if any, exposure to Nature on a consistent basis. They also tend to feel stressed, drained and exhausted by the lives they lead. When they head out to a natural area, they frequently feel a release of ...
Views: 540 - Tapping Into the Universal Forces Rather than Interchange with Other People - by Submitted on May 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe are very much creatures of habit, and thus, when it comes to our intake of energy, we tend to habitually turn to a preferred method of reception. For most people, the primary source is food. Most people engage in vital interchange with others, and there is a subtle interaction that can both ...
Views: 501 - Energies Sources: Energies of the Physical Body and the Universal Vital Energies - by Submitted on May 20, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere are a number of different ways that physically alive beings draw and obtain energy. Human beings tend to rely heavily on eating food, and converting the food into other forms of energy to carry out work in the body. Plants, on the other hand, rely primarily on direct conversion of sunlight ...
Views: 534 - Understanding, Utilizing and Balancing One’s Vital Energy Reserves - by Submitted on May 19, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen we consider the way we take in and expend energy in our lives, we start by looking at food as the source of energy. Food represents the conversion of solar energy into biological energy through the medium of photosynthesis and (for those who eat animal foods), the conversion of the plant ...
Views: 539 - Remembering One’s Dreams Upon Waking - by Submitted on May 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyWestern psychology has been fixated on dreams and dream interpretation since the dream interpretation work of Sigmund Freud. C. G. Jung took the review of dreams deeper by exploring what he called the ‘collective unconscious’ and the archetypes and symbols that arise widely in dreams. Dreams ...
Views: 768 - An Integral Repose — the Ideal State of Sleep - by Submitted on May 17, 2022 from santosh krinskyUsually when most people go to sleep, they simply ‘let it happen’. This carries with it all of the mental, emotional, vital-nervous, and physical energy pent up in the being at the time, into the sleep state. Add to this mix the state of fatigue that prevails, and it can lead to restless, or ...
Views: 551