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- The Best Gift Ever - by Submitted on Dec 16, 2019 from Lisa BarnettThis is the time of year when I hear it the most. “This can’t be my family!” I know it’s challenging for some of us to believe we really chose them. It can be painful and aggravating at times. The Akashic Masters want you to know that yes, indeed, you did choose your family members in this life, ...
Views: 1359 - The Best Way of Widening One’s Thought - by Submitted on Dec 03, 2024 from santosh krinskyIf we observe carefully our interactions with others, we may note that when another person is describing or explaining something, our minds are eager to jump in, express a different point of view, or simply remain fixed in our own ideas and mindset; in other words, ‘hearing’ without ‘listening’. ...
Views: 225 - The Best Way to Help Others and Help the World - by Submitted on Feb 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we want to help alleviate the suffering in the world, or help solve the general concerns, or the more specific individual needs and wants, we come up with an endless number of ideas about ‘how to help’. From an outward perspective these may be highly valuable and useful activities. ...
Views: 187 - The Bhagavad Gita and the Path of Karma Yoga - by Submitted on Feb 27, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we delve into the yoga of works, the Bhagavad Gita immediately comes to mind as a primary text. The Gita explores the questions of what constitutes a yogic attitude in action and compares it to the normal standpoint about work. The major difference lies in the inner standpoint and attitude ...
Views: 481 - The Bhagavad Gita Provides a Suitable Initial Foundation for the Spiritual Development of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Feb 11, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe Bhagavad Gita rightly occupies an important spot in the spiritual tradition of India. The teaching of the Gita is expansive and detailed, exploring the paths of Knowledge, Devotion and Works and providing insight into the attitude of the seeker, the relation to the teacher, and the nature of ...
Views: 817 - The Bifurcation of the External Parts of the Being and the Central Consciousness - by Submitted on Dec 28, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen we happen to identify ourselves with certain parts of the being, such as those parts that are conscious, or which are aware of the divine Presence, we generally fail to recognise that this is not the entirety of our being, nor that other parts of the being, with different types of needs, ...
Views: 303 - The Bliss of Non-Possession - by Submitted on Aug 27, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn the Taittiriya Upanishad, there is an interesting chapter often referred to as the "calculus of bliss". It starts from the measure of one human being who has everything, health, strength, all human opportunities fully available to him. That is the measure of "human bliss". The recitation goes ...
Views: 123 - The Body Consciousness - by Submitted on Dec 21, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe tend to take for granted the innate consciousness and capacities of the body. Much of what takes place in the body is done by systems that are far more complex, and far more subtle, than anything the mind can actively control. In fact, we find that frequently, when the mind intervenes, or the ...
Views: 216 - The Body’s Formation Does Not Directly Correspond to the Person’s Character and Development - by Submitted on Nov 26, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe frequently try to judge the character of an individual based on physical characteristics. While it is true that there is an interaction and influence between the body, the life-force and the mind, for most people these are not at all absolute or determinative. There are well-known instances ...
Views: 319 - The Body’s Will to Health Is the True Cure of Illness - by Submitted on Aug 02, 2022 from santosh krinskyMost people associate the will-power with the mind. We concentrate on achieving something and we “set our mind to it” and exercise our will. When the issue turns to overcoming vital habits or bodily weaknesses, however, we find that the mental will is much less effective, and in many cases, we ...
Views: 516 - The Breakthrough to the Reversal of Consciousness - by Submitted on May 22, 2023 from santosh krinskySri Ramana Maharshi, to point the seeker towards the truth of his existence, asked ‘who am I?’ With persistent inquiry, the individual soon finds that this external personality, ego-self that we normally treat as who we are, is in reality a front, a shell, an illusion, and that the truth of our ...
Views: 454 - The Buddha Says... - by Submitted on Jan 15, 2017 from Lisa BoussonThe Buddha Says: “Young man, be aware of these four good-hearted friends: the helper, the friend who endures in good times and bad, the mentor, and the compassionate friend.” The Helper can be identified by four things: by protecting you when you are vulnerable, and likewise your wealth, ...
Views: 1535 - The Burning Darkness of Illusory Enlightenment - by Submitted on Dec 03, 2013 from Stephen F. KaufmanEnlightenment is not a state of overall awareness that one remains in as a permanent finite mental condition. There are too many parameters a person has to contend with of a subjective nature unless having transcended physical reality, and that is hardly possible unless complete detachment from ...
Views: 1224 - The Call of the Divine Flute - by Submitted on Dec 20, 2023 from santosh krinskyAn individual is living out his life, following his career, pursuing education, enjoying himself, raising a family, pursuing a hobby. All quite normal things. For most people, this is the frame within which his life carries on, and he experiences the joys and sorrows, the pains and the ...
Views: 335 - The Call to the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Nov 29, 2022 from santosh krinskyIf we look at the individual life as separate from the rest of the creation, and claim that it starts at birth and ends at death, there seems to be no rationale or meaning for that life, nor can we explain the evolutionary progression of awareness, understanding, growth, and development that we ...
Views: 617 - The Case for the Rare Instance of an Ongoing Physical, Vital or Mental Formation Surviving the Death of the Individual - by Submitted on May 07, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe have no difficulty seeing and understanding that an individual can create a legacy in the physical world we inhabit, as we see the evidence everywhere around us in the form of buildings, enterprises, religious movements, mental developments and conceptualization, and artistic creations, not ...
Views: 503 - The Case for the Rare Instance of an Ongoing Physical, Vital or Mental Formation Surviving the Death of the Individual - by Submitted on May 07, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe have no difficulty seeing and understanding that an individual can create a legacy in the physical world we inhabit, as we see the evidence everywhere around us in the form of buildings, enterprises, religious movements, mental developments and conceptualization, and artistic creations, not ...
Views: 489 - The Challenge and Difficulty of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Dec 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyEvery spiritual discipline, every path, has its unique challenges and difficulties. One cannot minimize the issues that anyone taking up the spiritual life must face. Almost all of these paths traditionally have focused on liberation of the individual seeker, regardless of the specific ...
Views: 67 - The Challenge of Changing Human Nature - by Submitted on Mar 09, 2025 from santosh krinskyThose individuals who take up the practice of yoga for the purpose of transformation of the nature and the development of wider and higher states of consciousness inevitably find that the influence of the physical and vital basis upon which human life is based represents one of the greatest, if ...
Views: 164 - The Challenge of Duality and the Conquest of Light Over Darkness - by Submitted on Dec 17, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe live in a world filled with contradictions, a world of dualities. We accept the premise that we cannot have light without dark, pleasure without pain, joy without sorrow. This appears to be the nature of the world, and it seems like an irrefutable concept. Yet, we can in fact conceive of the ...
Views: 337 - The Challenges of Merging the Ego into the Divine - by Submitted on Oct 17, 2023 from santosh krinskyThere are several ways to approach the question of consecration of one’s being and life to the Divine. As the Mother makes clear, the need to be an individualised being that can actually have something to offer to the Divine is both paramount, and requires substantial effort to both understand ...
Views: 365 - The Change in Standpoint That Puts the Seeker in Harmony With the Divine and its Intention in the Universal Manifestation - by Submitted on Mar 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe frequently hear people complaining about how they are locked into and trapped in the lives they are leading. They feel like there is nothing they can do and nothing can change it. This was exemplified in a motion picture called ‘Groundhog Day’ which told the story of an individual who ...
Views: 152 - The Characteristics and the Power of an Integral Faith - by Submitted on Oct 20, 2024 from santosh krinskyWith our standpoint based in the mental consciousness we tend to believe that if we think something, it is ‘real’. This viewpoint fails to account for the different parts of the being, and their different modes of response. For example, we may hold a mental conception to not fear something, and ...
Views: 299 - The Characteristics of the Physical Nature and the Way Toward Transformation - by Submitted on Nov 08, 2021 from santosh krinskyAt some point everyone experiences periods where the physical body and its corresponding physical mind seem dull, tired, lacking in enthusiasm, and interested only in sleeping, eating and the most basic things that occupy our physical life on earth. During these periods there is an absence of ...
Views: 537 - The Check is Hard Times! - by Submitted on Dec 07, 2012 from Dr. Mona AeyshaWe all are human and to err is human. Here I want to focus on humanity in the hard times. When we analyze our behavior in good time, it is always good. When it is hard for us to survive mentally or physically we are out of our nature. Some of us become rash, some bull, some fight, and some ...
Views: 1428 - The Choice Before the Practitioner of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Nov 04, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe pressure of both the habitual patterns established by the physical body, the vital life energy and the mental development, together with the pressure of society and the impact of past education, creates an enormous impediment to the radical change in standpoint necessitated for the ...
Views: 517 - 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: 540 - The Collective Soul of Human Groupings and the Expression of Collective Karma - by Submitted on Mar 05, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe individual is not an island unto himself; he is part of a series of larger groupings, such as family, clubs, teams, tribes, school classes, corporate entities, community, states and nations, religion, etc. The collective energetic expression of each of these groupings develops a way of life ...
Views: 335 - The Complementary Aspects of Aspiration and Prayer - by Submitted on Dec 21, 2022 from santosh krinskyJust as there is a debate between science and religion, there is a corollary argument that encompasses aspiration versus prayer. Aspiration for growth, development, knowledge, progress, expansion is acceptable to those in the “science” camp. Prayer is relegated by these individuals to the ...
Views: 478 - The Complex Make-Up of the Human Personalities - by Submitted on Apr 29, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe tend to look on ourselves as being of a specific nature and having a specific personality. We see main lines of understanding, of reaction, and of action and look upon these as ‘who we are’. If we take a closer look, however, we soon begin to see that we are not as simple and homogeneous as ...
Views: 413 - The Complex Nature of Our Being Impacts Our Ability to Change and Transform Our Lives - by Submitted on May 25, 2025 from santosh krinskyThose who identify with their mental being tend to believe that if they think in a certain way, that they have succeeded in embodying that. They will take the thought for the accomplishment without necessarily recognising that their physical actions, their vital energies and even aspects of ...
Views: 132 - The Complexity and Difficulty of Achieving Complete Sincerity in the Spiritual Path - by Submitted on Dec 23, 2022 from santosh krinskySincerity is not as simple as believing in and meaning what we say to others. This is what we ordinarily consider to be sincerity. Sri Aurobindo and the Mother have a much more far-reaching idea of sincerity relating to the practice of yoga in the furtherance of spiritual growth. Sincerity ...
Views: 444 - The Complexity and Time to Harmonise and Unify the Being - by Submitted on Nov 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe mind is the characteristic power exercised by the human race. While the higher reasoning and abstract mind is somewhat limited in its action across the broad spectrum of human individuals, the basic mental powers are widespread, providing the capability to review, categorize and classify, ...
Views: 340 - The Complexity of Predicting the Destiny of Any Individual - by Submitted on Nov 23, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe predict the times and the seasons, we can predict to a certainty physical and mechanical operations, and we can even predict within a range, the pattern and scope of a particular set of events we set in motion in various fields. We expect that the physical world in which we live follows ...
Views: 521 - The Concept of Spiritual Purity in the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Jan 21, 2023 from santosh krinskyFor most people, purity is connected with a moral precept, and for most, this has eventually been related to the question of sexual relations. The question of chastity, and withholding of sexual activity until the socially sanctioned relationship of marriage has been put in place, holds a ...
Views: 480 - The Concrete Reality of Spiritual Force and Its Action - by Submitted on Jul 26, 2024 from santosh krinskyThere is a clear divide between those who have actually experienced the action of spiritual or yoga-force, and those who have a mental conception of spirituality but have not had a strong experience thus far that makes the theory into something real and actual for them. Once the experience is ...
Views: 283 - The Conditions of an Effective Faith - by Submitted on Oct 23, 2024 from santosh krinskyIn his book The Mother, Sri Aurobindo defines the conditions and qualities of faith needed to overcome all obstructions or disasters: “To walk through life armoured against all fear, peril and disaster, only two things are needed, two that go always together — the Grace of the Divine Mother and ...
Views: 304 - The Connection to the Psychic Being Minimizes the Dangers of the Intermediate Zone - by Submitted on Apr 13, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe process of the yogic sadhana inevitably begins to shift the consciousness inward and upward, and exposes the seeker to powers, forces and energies that are not easily seen or understood from the standpoint of the external mind and life. Thus, there is what we may call a natural opening to ...
Views: 423 - The Consent of the Entire Being Is Necessary for the Divine Change - by Submitted on Nov 02, 2021 from santosh krinskyWhen we associate ourselves with our mental identity, we tend to believe that what we ‘think’ is what we ‘are’. However, this leaves open the opportunity for self-deception and ultimate failure to change the nature, as the vital being remains stuck in its old habitual patterns and does not ...
Views: 505 - The Constant Effort Needed in the Yogic Practice - by Submitted on Nov 09, 2023 from santosh krinskyWhen people think about yoga, they generally think about practicing certain poses, or asanas, or doing certain breathing techniques, or chanting various mantras, reading certain books, meditation, or singing devotional songs, etc. Those who take up the practice of Raja Yoga follow an eight-fold ...
Views: 351 - The Contagious Nature of Desire in the Vital Being - by Submitted on Jul 28, 2023 from santosh krinskyVirtually everybody, at some point in their lives, has the experience of entering a room or a gathering of some sort and feeling the movement of some vital force rising up within them. It could be a room filled with the energy of greed, or sexual tension or anger. They feel like they are being ...
Views: 405 - The Continuum of Consciousness and the Interactions of the Various Wave-Forms - by Submitted on Jul 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe recognise the electro-magnetic spectrum, the color spectrum, the sound wave spectrum and others, each as representing a continuum of wave forms with varying characteristics. There are shorter, more intense waves and longer wave frequencies. Some conduct tremendous amounts of physical heat, ...
Views: 378 - The Creation of Karma — the Interaction of Forces and Consequences - by Submitted on Mar 02, 2024 from santosh krinskyMany people consider the concept of ‘karma’ to be some form of moral retributive factor that brings back to an individual the ‘fruits’ of his actions. Thus, they believe, if a man does something considered wrong, dishonest, underhanded, the universal law of karma will eventually right the score. ...
Views: 356 - The Creative Power of the Silent Mind - by Submitted on May 16, 2021 from santosh krinskyFor most people there is never a moment of silence in the mind. A constant churning of thoughts, ideas, desires, plans, wishes, concerns, feelings, emotions, perceptions, and needs keeps mental activity of one sort or another always going. We seem to actually fear the silence, so if the inner ...
Views: 639 - The Cure for Inner Loneliness - by Submitted on Feb 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyHuman beings are social animals, and they crave contact and relationship with others. Modern society has broken or weakened many of the links that formerly brought people together, including the nuclear and extended family, and tight-knit communities where people socialized and interacted with ...
Views: 673 - The Cure for the Spiritual Aspirant for Doubt, Guilt, Feelings of Unsuitability and Despair - by Submitted on Oct 28, 2025 from santosh krinskyAs long as we base ourselves in the individual personal identity, what we term the ‘ego-consciousness’ we are subject to mistakes, failures, indiscretions, and other situations where we do not meet our own internal concept of what we ‘should’ do. Most of this is based on the background and ...
Views: 91 - The Cycle of Development in Nature and the Focus of Attention - by Submitted on Apr 06, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe observe everywhere that Nature has a development cycle, with focus of attention on what needs to take place at each stage of that cycle, rather than simply jumping ahead to an 'end result' of the development. Thus, we see that plants undergo a stage of sprouting from seed, and the first focus ...
Views: 333 - The Cycles and Causes of Recurring Difficulties in Relation to Spiritual Development and Progress - by Submitted on Aug 24, 2025 from santosh krinskyIt is a limitation of our normal mental mode of understanding that we do not tend to take into account the impact of time and the cyclical nature of development. We expect things to move in a straight line. We expect progress to be continuous and in a single direction. When we overcome a ...
Views: 120 - The Cycles of Social Development and the Swing Away from a One-Sided Focus on Materialism - by Submitted on Mar 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe do not usually recognise or appreciate how much influence our environment, our surroundings, the society we live in, the customs and life-ways of that social system impact what we think about, how we focus our attention and what we do with our lives. The Mother puts this also into the process ...
Views: 167 - The Darkness and the Light Within Each Individual - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyAncient Chinese philosophy enunciated the concept of yin and yang, which represent the opposites that together form a whole, and which are constantly interacting with one another dynamically. The classical image shows a black spot in a white background and a white spot in a black background, ...
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