Self Improvement Site
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
Articles from santosh krinsky | Selfgrowth.com
- The Necessity of a Luminous Faith in Following the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on May 05, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe long-standing debate between science and religion pits the rational intellect with its demand for facts, proof, and logical inference, along with rigorous testing to achieve reproducible results to dispel doubt against the religious conviction based on faith. Science looks down on faith as ...
Views: 446 - 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: 446 - The Nature and Power of Sincerity in the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on May 13, 2021 from santosh krinskyFor spiritual practices that seek a solution outside the life in the world, it is possible to try to “cut the knot” and simply abandon, or at least minimize, the active engagement of mind, life and body in the world. For a spiritual practice such as the integral yoga, however, which aims at a ...
Views: 445 - The Subconscious Basis of Our Individual Being, Part 1 - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe tend to not only identify with the values of our family, our country, our religion, but we also internalize the standpoint taken by them, so that we view situations, actions and reactions, and history through the lens of this standpoint. This of course can create a highly biased viewpoint of ...
Views: 445 - Three Steps (and Beyond) to Eliminate the Ego-Consciousness - by Submitted on Dec 22, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe ego-consciousness controls our viewpoint, how we respond to events and circumstances, and our relations with others. This is such an inherent and automatic framework of action, that we many times do not even notice or appreciate that it is there. When egoism becomes extreme, we can ‘see’ it, ...
Views: 445 - Understanding the Larger Being of Man and the Process of Transformation of the Subconscious - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2021 from santosh krinskyWestern psychoanalysis focused on a specific segment of the overall human psychological makeup, an area that deals with vestigial instincts and suppressed desires and urges. Obviously any opening and examination of this aspect is fraught with both concerns and dangers for the individual seeking ...
Views: 445 - Evolution of Consciousness and the Need for Rebirth as a Mechanism of that Evolution - by Submitted on Mar 01, 2022 from santosh krinskyWe observe an outer fact of existence, but we do not see the motive force behind it, nor the intention behind the motive force. Thus, Darwin identified an evolution of species, and researchers have identified families of species, development of specific characteristics within those families and ...
Views: 444 - Purification of the Energies of the Second Chakra - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2021 from santosh krinskyIn traditional yogas that describe the opening of the chakras, the kundalini energy moves up systematically from the root chakra, Muladhara, successively through each chakra until it reaches the crown of the head where it joins with the Divine, universal consciousness. Thus, one of the very ...
Views: 444 - Rebirth and the Individual - by Submitted on Mar 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyHow do we imagine our past, or future, existences? What about past life regression therapy? Is there a reality to the experience and if so, what does it mean to us? Many who believe in a future reincarnation have no conception of any past lifetime at all. They accept the reality of their current ...
Views: 444 - Secrets for the Successful Use of Japa or Mantra for Spiritual Realisation and Daily Life - by Submitted on Jul 12, 2021 from santosh krinskyThere are tales of devotees reciting various mantras millions of times in order to achieve some boon or result in their spiritual progress. The mantra, or the recitation of a name of God, is the sound-body of the form or deity and thus, the theory goes, continued repetition of that name or sound ...
Views: 444 - Suggestion and Illness, Spiritual Force for Healing and the Use of Medical Treatment - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhether consciously or subconsciously, suggestions reach the being from the outside world, in some cases impacting directly on the body, and in others through the mind or the vital being. When these suggestions arrive subconsciously, we only recognise the thought or feeling when it arises within ...
Views: 444 - The Need for the Guidance of the Guru - by Submitted on Sep 20, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe snares of the desire-soul of the vital nature are often subtle and can easily overpower the mind. Thus, motivations that represent the gratification of the ego are frequently justified by the mental processes and thus, can continue even when the seeker believes that he is carrying out the ...
Views: 444 - Two Forms of Protection from Attacks of Hostile Forces - by Submitted on Dec 14, 2021 from santosh krinskyThere must be some form of inner connection or resonance for any vibration to succeed in impacting an individual. On the more general basis, the physical body represents a connection to the material world, so that actions which impact the material world may obviously impact the physical body. ...
Views: 444 - Overcoming Doubt, Fear and Depression Which May Arise During the Practice of Yoga - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe changes sought in the integral Yoga are of such magnitude and detail that they will naturally take a considerable time to work themselves out in all the levels and aspects of our being. Along the way, there come periods of difficulty which may challenge one’s faith or determination, what is ...
Views: 443 - Pain and Suffering: the Play of the Gunas and the Role of the Vital Nature - by Submitted on Aug 04, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere is a part of the vital nature which takes a perverse pleasure in flaunting illnesses, pain and suffering publicly to collect the sympathy of friends and acquaintances. These things become the topic of conversation and extensive gossip. Thus, the vital nature may prolong, accentuate or even ...
Views: 443 - Sri Aurobindo’s View of the Supramental Transformation - by Submitted on Oct 02, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe spiritual landscape is vast, and there are innumerable objectives and paths that can be taken. Sri Aurobindo describes briefly his approach to spiritual growth and its relation to the process of an evolution of consciousness in the earth-nature to incorporate what he calls the supramental ...
Views: 443 - The Necessity of Transformation of the Lower Vital Nature - by Submitted on Nov 01, 2021 from santosh krinskyIf the goal of the spiritual seeker is to attain liberation or realisation, the vital nature can be, for the most part, disregarded. For an integral yoga that has transformation of life through the implementation of the next phase of the evolutionary cycle, such a direction cannot be accepted. ...
Views: 443 - Withstanding Attacks by Hostile Forces in the Practice of Yoga - by Submitted on Dec 12, 2021 from santosh krinskyIt is a common occurrence for practitioners of yoga to adopt a position on one extreme or the other. Either they get fixated on dealing with weaknesses, failures, and attacks by forces inimical to their yogic progress; or else, they take the position that there is no reality to these forces and ...
Views: 443 - External Forms of Worship and Spiritual Growth in the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jul 10, 2021 from santosh krinskyPractitioners of mainstream religions are very familiar with ritual worship. Much of the activity of religion is scripted around a set formula of external worship that has developed from perhaps an initial experience or, over time, as a result of habitual action. The intended purpose of this ...
Views: 442 - How to Overcome the Obstructions of the Vital Being - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2021 from santosh krinskyAs has been shown time and again when individuals have attempted to change the vital nature, the attempt is doomed to only partial success, if not ultimate failure, if the struggle is carried out under the conditions of the vital being. Almost any method, process, technique, control mechanism or ...
Views: 442 - The Need to Overcome Fear in the Realisation of the Atman - by Submitted on Aug 02, 2021 from santosh krinskyIn the external world, fear plays a role that can both hinder progress, and protect from impulsive or rash action that would result in injury, loss or death. If fear is excessive, it paralyzes the individual into inaction. If it is insufficient, he may rush into circumstances far beyond his ...
Views: 442 - The Power of Affirmations in Healing the Body and Achieving Positive Results in Life - by Submitted on Aug 12, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe Power of Affirmations in Healing the Body and Achieving Positive Results in Life Posted on August 13, 2022 Emile Coue was a French psychologist who used the power of positive affirmations to heal his patients of numerous diseases. He created a program to be repeated a number of times ...
Views: 442 - The Psychic Being — the Nature of the Soul - by Submitted on Apr 28, 2022 from santosh krinsky.When we try to understand what is meant by the term ‘soul’ we run up against a confusing mix of ideas about what the soul actually is. Similarly, the use of the term ‘psychic’ has its own issues with confused interpretation. Recognising the need to have some term in English that can be employed ...
Views: 442 - Which Comes First — Devotion or Spiritual Experience? - by Submitted on Jul 05, 2021 from santosh krinskyHow does an individual come to devotion to the Divine? There are well-known instances that involve some kind of key experience of the Divine, such as the story of Saul on the road to Damascus, or even extreme cases such as Dannion Brinkley who was struck by lightning, declared clinically dead ...
Views: 442 - Dual States of Consciousness in the Being - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe normal human individual lives primarily in a state of consciousness that is immersed in the outer life, including the inner reactions to that life, and the functions of the body, life-energy and mind. This is true whether the person considers himself to be an extrovert or an introvert. The ...
Views: 441 - The Embodiment of the Conscious Divine Exceeds the Ability of the Habitual Mind to Understand and Judge the Event - by Submitted on Mar 08, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe Western mind-set, based in analysis and categorization, works to fragment and divide everything into discreet and distinct classifications and categories. Therefore, when it sees any element of Nature, or any being in existence, it wants to treat it as a separate and separated existence. It ...
Views: 440 - The Experience and Difficulty of Drawing Inwards in the Consciousness - by Submitted on May 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyUntil an individual has an actual experience of what the Mother calls ‘interiorisation’, there is no real way to understand what it is about. Many people believe that if they sit quietly in meditation, or follow an internal train of thought, that they have an inner experience, but this is not ...
Views: 440 - The External Being’s Need For Sleep - by Submitted on May 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere are several different orders of activity that take place during sleep. Confusion about these separate things leads to mistaken attempts to simply limit sleep in order to ‘become conscious during sleep’. First, there is the activity that takes place with the external, surface being ...
Views: 440 - The Play of the Gunas in the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Oct 02, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe Bhagavad Gita places considerable emphasis on the need to understand the play of the Gunas, Sattwa, Rajas and Tamas, in all things. Yogic practice is not exempted from this play. Each of the Gunas has a specific set of characteristics, and they are not stable. The Gunas are always in motion. ...
Views: 440 - Understanding and Attaining the Right Attitude Toward Food for the Yogic Practitioner - by Submitted on Jan 25, 2022 from santosh krinskyShifting the awareness away from the ego-consciousness to the divine standpoint takes place as a ‘tuning’ process which Sri Aurobindo designates as ‘aspiration’. This represents a focus of the attention of the being on the higher consciousness and away from the normal fixation on the outer life ...
Views: 440 - 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: 438 - Resting the Body with the Right Consciousness - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2022 from santosh krinskyThe machinery of the physical body has its own basic requirements for rest in order to function optimally. When one goes beyond the body’s capacity for effort at any point in time, and thereby becomes fatigued, a state of tamas tends to arise. This is inimical to maintaining the continuity of ...
Views: 438 - 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: 437 - Introduction to the Subconscient Level of Consciousness - by Submitted on Apr 24, 2022 from santosh krinskyWestern psychology has invested a considerable amount of time and energy in trying to understand, describe and treat the subconscious levels of our existence. Freud described various complexes that arose from the subconscious and which drove the being into actions that the conscious parts ...
Views: 437 - The Nature and Power of Equality in the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on May 21, 2021 from santosh krinskyWe usually think about the term ‘equality’ in relation to society or the economy. Sri Aurobindo uses the term to describe an inner psychological state that keeps the practitioner of the yoga focused on the inner being and its spiritual practices, rather than having the attention drawn out to ...
Views: 437 - Understanding and Bridging the Gap Between the Outer Surface Existence and the Inner Being - by Submitted on Jul 24, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe Upanishads describe an aspect of reality that is generally blocked from the external awareness of the body-life-mind complex. The Isha Upanishad states: “The face of Truth is covered with a brilliant golden lid; that do thou remove, O Fosterer, for the law of the Truth, for sight.” (Isha ...
Views: 437 - 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: 436 - Necessary Elements Required to Understand and Apply Techniques of Psychological Healing - by Submitted on Apr 05, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhether one is working with a professional in the field of psychology, or one is working on one’s own internally to resolve disturbances and inner conflicts, attain peace, or achieve balance in one’s life, certain basic knowledge is required. One needs to understand the complex nature of the ...
Views: 436 - The Circumstances and Need of a Temporary Withdrawal and Quiet of the Being - by Submitted on Feb 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere are occasions where the practice of silence and a temporary withdrawal from the hustle and bustle of the outer life, to the degree feasible, becomes a necessary part of the sadhana for the practitioner of yoga. Yoga is, by definition, a change of consciousness, and it involves an inward ...
Views: 436 - 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: 436 - Determining the Appropriate Posture for Beginning with Meditation - by Submitted on Feb 17, 2023 from santosh krinskyFor someone beginning with meditation, every aspect of the process raises a question. One of these questions relates to the body. The eventual goal is to attain a state whereby meditation can occur regardless of what the body is doing or how it is positioned. However, this is not usually the way ...
Views: 435 - The Example of Great Souls Facing the Difficulties and Issues of Human Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Dec 06, 2021 from santosh krinskyPeople tend to assume that great beings such as Buddha or Christ are exempt from the issues that the “rest of us” have to face in the world, and in the practice of spiritual sadhana. They simply assume that these great souls somehow fly above the ground-level obstacles that plague us. In fact, ...
Views: 435 - Comparing Current General State of Human Consciousness With More Evolved States, Part 1 Unconsciousness Versus Increasing Consciousness - by Submitted on Oct 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhat does the evolution of a new power of consciousness imply? When we observe the impact that the Life-Force has had on Matter, we can see that it brings in a radical transformation of Matter itself to allow the Life-Force to act. Matter has to become more responsive, more flexible, less dense, ...
Views: 434 - The Qualities of Food and Spiritual Practice - by Submitted on Jan 27, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen people take up spiritual practices, they are exposed to many different ideas about the proper diet. With the idea that ‘you are what you eat’, there is a long list of foods that are considered suitable for spiritual practitioners to eat, what are called in the ancient traditions of India, ...
Views: 434 - The Role of the Inner Standpoint in Overcoming Depression and Ambition in the Practice of Yoga - by Submitted on Nov 28, 2021 from santosh krinskyMany people, not just those who practice yoga, experience times when they feel like their lives are meaningless, they are helpless to change, and the round of daily life, with its little wants and needs, and fulfillment of desires, is empty and distasteful. They experience in some cases a sense ...
Views: 434 - 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: 434 - Understanding the Concept of Wideness in the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on May 18, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe Vedic Rishis spoke of Satyam, Ritam, Brihat, ‘the truth, the right, the vast’. These represent psychological states into which the yogic practitioner can enter in order to embody the truth of the Brahman. The vast consciousness takes us out of the human egoistic standpoint into an awareness, ...
Views: 434 - Fasting and the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jan 26, 2022 from santosh krinskyAt some point in their spiritual quest, seekers are generally confronted with the question of ‘fasting’. Some paths recommend fasting as a method to lighten the heaviness of the ‘earth consciousness’ and make the being more receptive to higher vibrational energies. Some point out that fasting ...
Views: 433 - Impatience - by Submitted on Apr 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhile at its root impatience has as a primary source the frustration associated with either lack of ability to fulfill a desire, or a delayed gratification of that desire, in the modern world, these root causes are accentuated and provoked through acculturation and the systemic operation of the ...
Views: 433 - The Occult Action and Interaction of the Planes of Existence - by Submitted on Feb 27, 2021 from santosh krinskyFrom a superficial perspective it is virtually impossible to understand the development of consciousness from Matter to Life, and from Life to Mind, and beyond. We now recognize that our beliefs and actions are conditioned by factors unseen and essentially unknown to us. C. G. Jung described the ...
Views: 433