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Browse published articles attributed to santosh krinsky, with full-archive search.
When we experience something in the physical body, it is a sensation that carries a nervous impulse to the brain, which interprets whether it is cold or hot, dry or wet, painful or pleasurable, etc. Similarly, vital reactions and emotions are experienced through the release of various hormones into the bloodstream which travel to the brain and create the vital experience.
For the individual who has a spiritual experience, one of the most notable characteristics is the absolute and incontrovertible ‘reality’ of the experience. Yet, people who live primarily in the surface consciousness tend to treat such experiences, when related, as somehow less real or even unreal, compared to the experience of the outer world. Terms such as dream, hallucination, or delusion frequently are used, and in many cases, the person having such inner experiences is lumped in with those who require some form of counseling or mental health support.
One of the great obstacles to the reception and activation of the higher forces of consciousness are the pre-existing habits of action and reaction in the mind-life-body complex. We are constantly pulled in one direction or another, we react to events and circumstances from our narrow ego-standpoint, and try to enforce our desired results on people and activities. There is no room, in this reactive state, for a new focus and action of consciousness to occur. Thus arises the need to bring the reactive psychology to a state of quiet and receptivity.
In setting forth a goal of transformation of the nature through the advent of the spiritual consciousness and the supramental level, Sri Aurobindo goes beyond the goals of other traditional spiritual paths which have ‘liberation’ as the goal. He describes the impact of each new manifestation of consciousness as representing a radical change that affects the preceding levels. This occurred with the advent of the vital life-force in a world of physical matter, and can be seen also in the advent of mind in a world of life and matter.
In ancient Greek mythology, there is the tale of the 12 labours of Hercules, one of which was cleaning out the Augean stables. He needed to accomplish this task in one day, but there were so many cattle that it was considered an impossible task. And every day the mess was renewed after the cattle returned from pasture in the evening. Hercules was undaunted as he had the help of Athena, the goddess of wisdom. He made a hole on each end of the stables and dug trenches that allowed a river to flow into and out of the stable.
Speech not only can affect one’s own energy, but it can also affect one’s relationship with others and the dynamics of a social relationship and a community. For the most part, people tend to speak whatever comes to them without a great deal (if any) reflection. This practice however can have grave and negative consequences in interpersonal relationships and for any society. The loss of civility, an increase in anger and hatred, polarization are all symptoms of speech that has gone far beyond the bounds within which it acts as a positive influence.
There 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 experience a true state of joy when they are able to ‘do’ something, whether it is learning how to jump for the first time, or helping their mother in some activity, or simply running, playing and experiencing life actively.
The Bhagavad Gita proclaims that ‘yoga is skill in works’. The type of focused concentrated effort that comes about through a yogic practice is an essential aspect of completing any task skillfully. It does not imply, however, that all ‘skill in works’ is necessarily yoga, unless by that one includes the secret yoga of nature that prepares the being for union with the Divine through the long, slow process of evolutionary development.
When the idea of becoming conscious in sleep is raised, many people try simply to find ways to remain awake somehow in sleep. This process generally leads to exhaustion, and imbalances in the physical, vital and mental complex of the outer nature. Sleep is restorative to their processes, and any attempt to artificially disrupt sleep, with the idea that our mental consciousness must have a way to pay attention to what is going on in sleep, is bound to create problems.
The ancient Mandukya Upanishad describes OM in considerable detail as the sound-body of the Universe: “OM is this imperishable Word, OM is the Universe, and this is the exposition of OM. The past, the present and the future, all that was, all that is, all that will be, is OM. Likewise all else that may exist beyond the bounds of Time, that too is OM. All this Universe is the Ete al Brahman, this Self is the Ete al, and the Self is fourfold.” (Sri Aurobindo, The Upanishads, Mandukya Upanishad 1-2, pg. 319)
One level of the deep ignorance within which we live and act is our bondage to the specific individual life, personality and situation that we inhabit. We are generally unaware of anything prior to our birth or which occurs after our death. Some even take the view that there is no “meaning” and that birth and death are simply beginning and ending points of a meaningless existence. If that were true, however, we would be left with the question of how and why this enormous mechanism of the universal creation exists and why we need to experience, learn and grow at all.
Western medical science holds that illness has several potential causes. Failing to digest food properly is one such cause. Stress on the body and its organ systems is another. A third is failure to obtain proper nutrition or fluids. Aging is considered a contributing factor in the breakdown of the bodily systems and reduction of the ability to withstand stress and exte al attack.
Before 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 permanent and a part of our own being.
Surveys done of young people today indicate a strong movement to reduce the role of the mainstream organised religions with people claiming to be “spiritual” not “religious”. What is spirituality and how does it differ from being religious?
As the awareness develops of the influences that have shaped our character and active nature from our ancestors, our parents, as well as the influences from our peers and from the society at large, we begin to develop a respect for the complexity of the task and the reasons why we cannot simply use our mental conception and will-power to change our own nature. There is too much embedded in the subconscious layers of our being, not to speak of what resides in universal nature, to simply isolate ourselves from all those influences and create ourselves anew out of whole cloth.
The true test of spiritual equanimity and balance is how one responds to adverse circumstances. It is relatively easy to be calm and peaceful when there is no exte al pressure and one is surrounded by a quiet and nourishing environment. It is quite another to remain focused, balanced and equal on the “battlefield”. Sri Krishna provided his guidance to Arjuna in the middle of the battlefield of Kurukshetra, as a great war was about to come to its climax in a battle that would pit cousins against cousins and force the protagonists to take up arms against beloved elders and respected teachers.
Just as we cannot see electricity, but we can observe its results, or we cannot see the mental process objectively (although one can indeed observe thoughts processing internally), but we can see its impact in the world, so with the spiritual development, which is more subtle than the mental power, the observation is truly based on changes that take place for the individual in both the perception of one’s own being, body-life-mind, and the way one responds to events, circumstances and perceptions.
Whether 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 us and we take “ownership” of it as our own. At this point, it is much more difficult to reject it as we have already let it in and made it part of our being!
In today’s world, we tend to value those processes of mind, life and body which focus on the elements of success in the outer life. We educate children to remember facts of the past, to learn basic mathematics, and rules of grammar and spelling. We train students on how to utilize and implement various forms of technology into their lives, or to gain certain practical skills to maintain and install the powers that drive our society and economy.
The action of the three gunas, qualities of nature, is often overlooked in our understanding of how things take place in the world, including in our spiritual growth; yet, these qualities permeate all activity and an appreciation of them helps the witness consciousness observing the actions of the outer being to both understand and manage these actions. Our relationship to handling material things is very much based on the gunas. When tamas, darkness or indolence, is predominant, we tend to treat material objects carelessly, and they break down or lack smooth functioning.
The subconscient is the home, in the earth consciousness, of the quality of Tamas, just as the vital manifestation is the natural home of the quality of Rajas, and the mental level and above would be the natural home of the quality of Sattwa. These are all mixed up in the human being, interact with each other and constantly exert their influence to provide a very mixed result. None of the human instruments is entirely pure either as to a specific quality or as to its power of expression or action.
it is typical of the mental intelligence to believe that reading and remembering something implies that we have realised the truth of what we have read. Those who have taken the time to reflect on this make it clear that ‘reading a book about swimming’ does not mean one knows how to swim!
Many paths of yoga teach a fixed method that everyone who takes it up is asked to follow in a precise and standardized way. Whether it is the use of a fixed set of asanas, pre-determined pranayama routines, set routines of prayer, mantra, japa, or devotional practices, everyone is given essentially the same starting point and are set to reach essentially the same result at the end of the process.
The question is frequently raised as to whether Westerners, with a background and culture grounded in materialism, the fulfillment of the vital ambitions and desires, and the development of the mental faculties, can truly enter into the spirit of yoga and obtain the fruits of the yogic practice in the same way as people who stem from the culture of India, with its long history of spiritual practice and cultural inclinations towards devotion and prayer. There are numerous questions that arise from such an inquiry and Sri Aurobindo takes them up systematically.
Access 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 exte al world, symbolised by what we know as ‘money’. In his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo states that ‘money is the visible sign of a universal force’. Money sitting stagnant and being held without purpose puts a barrier to the flow of the money-force. When money is put into action, the force flows and creates a cycle of replenishment.
We seek for love, we look for it in our relationships, we search for it in a ‘soul mate’, but in the end, we can recognise that human love is limited and uncertain. There are examples of love that spans a lifetime, possibly multiple lifetimes, and there are countless tales of idealised love that overcomes all obstacles and remains true to the end. Yet, in the vast array of human lives, these relatively few examples are lost in the immensity of the situations that do not work out quite this way.
The devotee may begin the process of devotional surrender to the Divine with a form of bargaining, expecting a recompense from God for the efforts made to express the devotion. Thus, people pray and expect an answer to their prayers, or they carry out devotional exercises and expect God to respond with spiritual solace, vision or experience. Devotion, however, is not a business transaction but a whole-hearted giving of oneself to the object of devotion, without thought about any form of compensation.
As we become aware of the states of conscious awareness within our being, it becomes clear that there are times when the consciousness is highly concentrated, intensely focused, and other times when it is dispersed and wandering seemingly aimlessly. Our activities, including reading, are indicative of these states, and help to create these states. We understand the concept that ‘you are what you eat’ on a physical level, but do we recognise that the food of the mind is the sensory input and ideas that we ingest?
The 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 transformation as a next step in the evolutionary progression.
We are trained to think and act from the viewpoint of the ego-personality. When we take up the practice of integral yoga, however, we understand that the standpoint of action must shift so that we can become true instruments of the higher action of the divine force which is working to transform life on earth through the advent of a new consciousness and way of action. We then are confronted with the issue of how to receive this force and how to distinguish between the old way of thinking and acting, and the new direction that is in the process of manifesting.
The unique dynamics of living in a spiritual or religious community make it especially important to understand the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) distractions that can arise when the long habitual reactions of the vital nature, as well as the strong cultural pressures, developed over millennia, bring up the sexual tension between individuals. Sri Aurobindo was writing specifically to sadhaks in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, so he focused on the specific situations that were brought up to him by those members of the Ashram.
Sri Aurobindo emphasizes the need for the psychic transformation, which is the coming forward of the soul or psychic being in man to provide the central focus, and overcome the promptings of the ego-consciousness as it normally acts in the mind, life and body. Spiritual experiences, on their own, are possible in any part of the being, but they have their limitations if the ego-personality is still active and uses them for its own purposes and for self-aggrandisement.
The ego-consciousness has its evolutionary purpose. The distinction of the individual from the mass of existence led to the ability to move beyond the instinctual and habitual patterns of the species. With this consciousness, variation and innovation became more easily possible. Observation from an individual standpoint allowed comparison, evaluation and the competitive urge to develop, and thereby set in motion the entire range of action we see in our civilisation today.
The idea of overcoming lower drives and desires of the vital, or that stem from the physical or the subconscient, through indulgence in a purposeful way is an enticing one, particularly to the vital nature, which can use this excuse to convince the mind to fulfill the myriad of powerful desires that are still active in the being.
Dealing with deeply embedded drives of the subconscient and the lower vital through raising them up and indulging in them not only contains risks that one may fall into a deeper pattern of habitual response, but also can be a pretext for the vital enjoyment of the action with a veneer to disguise it to the mind for what it really is. The vital is extremely able in its attempt to convince the mind that indulgence is acceptable for one reason or another.
For most people, rest is a state of lowered consciousness in which we recuperate from the fatigue generated through our various activities. If we reflect on how we respond to fatigue, we find that we have different modes depending on whether it is mental fatigue, vital exhaustion or physical tiredness. The usual responses for mental fatigue include distraction of the mind through various light activities, such as game-playing, watching television, or reading light literature, such as mysteries, romance novels, or other ‘page-tu er’ fare, etc.
When the spiritual aspirant hears that he must eliminate desire from his consciousness, he frequently takes this as a message of ‘renunciation’ and thereby determines to live an isolated life free from the efforts involved in living in the world and interacting within the societal framework. Even when he tries to live quietly in the forest, or the desert, or some kind of monastic retreat setting, he finds that desire follows him there.
We tend to confuse artistic and various intellectual pursuits as somehow being spiritual accomplishments. These are, however, developments of the higher emotional and mental spheres to a great degree, except when they are channeling energies of the lower vital levels of our being, which, in today’s world, represents a major source of such artistic creations. Putting aside the lower vital influences and focusing on the higher productions of our finer emotions and mental development as it is expressed in art, there is a tendency to confuse refined mental development with spirituality.
Practitioners of the integral yoga are confronted daily with the task of balancing between the individual effort required, and the call to surrender to the divine force that actually is undertaking the changes in the nature that are required. We all start with the ego-consciousness and all of the embedded habits, desires, needs and trained ideas that permeate our society and our individual lives. We begin to understand that as long as we live within the frame of the normal functions of mind-life-body we are bound to this ego-personality and the illusion of separateness that comes with it.
It is a typical belief that through the use of logic, argument or some kind of pressure that is exerted, through perhaps an enforced dogma or belief system, that opinions and beliefs can be changed. It is true that the power of an idea may capture an individual’s focus and support. It is also true that adherence to that idea may last a lifetime. The question remains open, as to whether a comprehensive change in the way of seeing and acting, penetrating through all levels of the being, is even possible through these methods.
If we observe ourselves carefully, we find that as a natural consequence of the distractions and the dispersion of the consciousness, we have little if any calm and peace in the being. We experience not only the more overt forms of anxiety and concern, but the more subtle forms of nervous disquiet and mental lack of ease.
In The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes several standpoints that highlight the relationship between human beings and the material world. The “refusal of the ascetic” simply rejects the material world and does not put any focus or interest in it. The “materialist denial” accepts the physical world as real and focuses on accumulation, development and use of material things in order to achieve some kind of satisfaction, happiness or enjoyment in life.
Everything we experience is based on vibrations that impinge upon us and bring about a response in the substance of our being. All matter is created by energy, which consists of vibratory waves. All energy is created by consciousness, which provides the specific impulse of vibration to be created. This principle is recognised throughout the world. The New Testament of the Bible starts with a statement to this effect: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Succinctly put, this recognises the essential nature and power of vibration.
We like to think that we succeed through strenuous effort. Our ego-personality and vital nature thrive on the idea that we are the masters of our own fate, through dint of the efforts we make. We tend to picture ourselves as originating the ideas and drives that move us into action. We believe that we are exercising free will by making decisions and move forward with the sense of personal accomplishment.
Spiritual aspirants, just as all others in the world, are impacted by the play of the three Gunas the qualities of Nature. These qualities are always in movement, constantly combining, jostling one another, becoming predominant, and then being suppressed as the next movement arises. We can see this play in the spiritual sadhana quite clearly. When there are constant spiritual experiences and a feeling of progress, the vital being in the seeker has enthusiasm, energy and joy. We see here a predominant strain of rajas, tempered by sattwa.
The divine Force that descends is not a theoretical event, but a real experience with consequences for the mind, life and body of the seeker. The seeker must be prepared mentally, vitally and physically for the action of this force in the being. The story of the unbaked jar, which cannot sustain the pressure of being filled is illustrative for the similar experience of the energy descending into a being not yet ready to hold that force.
If we observe our mental space for some time, such as when we sit for meditation, the first thing to be noticed is that the mind tends to jump around from one thought, idea or perception to another, seemingly randomly and impacted by sensory data coming to us through our sense organs. Some call it the “monkey mind”. This constant chu in the mental space is an obstacle to the meditation, as it also is an obstacle to receiving knowledge and force from higher levels of consciousness.
Our mental logic frequently stumbles over the apparent contradictions that lead us to adopt an extreme position over a more nuanced view of things. The debate about the role of free will in the processes of the yoga which involve the surrender of the ego to the action of the divine Force is one such area. Some people believe that surrender involves giving up any aspect of free will, and thus, they enter into a very passive state of fatality about what happens and when.
The will power is a real and important part of the effort by the individual. Will power can be developed through exercise, just as we develop the physical muscles through exercise and weight training. In our development of the mental will, we frequently become frustrated when something we try to accomplish does not work out quickly or easily. How many people have tried to control their diet, or change some habit of reaction through exercise of the will, and lamented their failure! But this is simply an incorrect understanding of the process.
We 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 action on our overall ability to understand and function in our lives.