Month: April 2022

From one sadhaka to another

Posted on by Divya - Administrator

I haven’t visited SRSG since the pandemic began. It feels like such a long time ago, but also like I never left. While I haven’t been able to gaze at your face, or touch your hand, you and our Tradition have been a source of guidance, love and support every day.

I don’t really understand a lot of what happens in my own life, let alone the machinations of our complex world. I have learned through the Tradition that these circumstances and the difficulties I have with them directly accord with my karma and capacity. And I can rest in this knowledge when seemingly impossible challenges arise. The Tradition has also given me the tools of the eight limbs and the wisdom, experience, presence, examples, and companionship of all of you to help me live a meaningful life. I make lots of mistakes and get many, many things wrong, but the Tradition and our community never fail me.

One of the truly beautiful things to come from this pandemic and the isolation it has imposed is a heart lifting digital community. It has been a revelation how far our Tradition extends. I have started to see its branches and connections and the rich reservoirs of knowledge and guidance that they offer. I get to see you and hear you from all over the world. Just like when spending time at SRSG, meaningful connections occur, when we all have the time and exposure to deepen our practices together.

Knowing you, stories from far away have become much more important to me because they affect you and your home. I marvel over the photos and stories you share on online and read books and watch movies set in your country, because I think you are wonderful and interesting, and I want to understand you and your life more. In this way I learn more of the beauty and details of your life. It has also made me a devoted consumer of international news.

I guess news, by its nature, is negative and I learn of desperate situations, the pandemic, turmoil, war, climate change, natural disasters and the brutality and ignorance of humanity. I know that there are lies and propaganda that I don’t understand and know that I will never know the truth of these situations. I also realise that there are so many layers, and such complexity to these troubles, that maybe there is no possibility of truth. But I also know that you are there. I know that you live in these places and just like me you are living your karma and practicing to the best of your capacity. You are working the eight limbs; using the yamas and niyamas to guide you.

I am content and cosy here in our Tradition with you. But sometimes in pursuing the tenets of our Tradition I rub up against other traditions both within the teachings of our Tradition and in my daily life as I endeavour to grow my spirituality in my physical home far away from the heartland. I can begin to see the value and beauty of other Traditions and how they help and guide their adherents.  I realise how similar the foundations of their teachings are to ours. I know that in their lives, in their places, they are also practicing their Traditions’ versions of the eight limbs and, just like me, relying on their cohort for love, guidance and community.

So, while I have missed SRSG and the beautiful souls who live and visit there. I have learned a lot in my time away. Our Tradition and you, my kalyana mitras, are all still here and everywhere. A source of joy and richness in my life, and a blessed place of refuge and succour during life’s storms. With this new perspective, my mind’s eye conjures a vast web of souls guided by spiritual traditions plodding away striving for good and diminishing evil, increasing in influence whilst growing and strengthening the kindness, love, and compassion of the mindfield.

May the force be with us my dears ?

Editor’s Note:

Joanne Moran from Australia is an initiate and a level-2 HYT-TTP student.

A loving invite for the Swami Rama Dhyana Gurukulam

Posted on by Divya - Administrator

“Few seek, and the fewer find.  The burden of Truth once found is heavy and teachers seek the seekers to whom to give.  When, dear seeker, you sit in your daily meditation, the blessings of all the great Himalayan masters are with you even if you do not know it.” Swami Rama

We are pleased to announce the starting of “Swami Rama Dhyana Gurukulam”, which will not only convey the message of great Rishis but will also pave the way to realize the truths of life.

Today, confined and defined by worldly achievements, and material development there is fear and much instability. Thus, there is a renewed search to understand the purpose of life. Now is the time to make mindful efforts to help such seekers so that peace, mutual understanding, spiritual awakening and knowledge may dawn upon this troubled planet of ours.

With the Grace of Gurudeva Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati, under the auspices of “Swami Rama Dhyana Gurukulam,” our sankalpa (resolve) endures and extends the ancient heritage of our founders: “May all people of this living planet follow the path of Truth and universal love. May they live with a purpose in life sincerely practicing through compassion and understanding.”

Such a goal in life teaches us not to be swayed by attachment to things of the world, nor caught in this web of ignorance. Use your Gurukulam intensive studies and practices to refine and clear your mind to guide your thoughts, and use your kind thoughts to guide your speech and actions. Your very life will be transformed through ahimsa; and by santosha (contentment) you will live in harmony with all situations of life. To you, dear seekers on the path of this inward journey come join us, and may you receive the blessings of the Himalayan Lineage.

Food Sadhana Part 1: Mindful Eating

Posted on by Divya - Administrator

Dedication

Food Sadhana in four parts is dedicated to all students of yoga in the Himalayan tradition.

Blessed by Swami Veda Bharati for publication, this series details various food practices as passed down to us in the traditions of Yoga and Ayurveda. If you find the suggestions helpful, please pass them along so other students can benefit. This writer’s hope is that you will be inspired to be more mindful of your food choices, and you will thereby create a strong foundation for good health, happiness and long life. In gratitude to the many fine teachers who inspired these offerings.

Om shanti, shanti, shanti.

“The yoga approach to health is extremely simple, logical, and practical. It lays stress on the words Yuktahar viharasya – eating and living as they should be done. By simply studying one’s own capacity and learning how to regulate one’s dietary habits, external activities, and thinking process, it is possible for one to gain control over his life and remain healthy. This does not mean that one must do anything unnatural or impossible; there need not be restrictions, but given the information in these lessons, one can decide what is best for himself, and implement whatever changes he chooses, practicing them according to his own capacity.” – Swami Rama, A Practical Guide to Holistic Health, pp. 5-6

Part I: Mindful Eating

Been feeling rushed lately? Do you find yourself eating at your desk or grabbing a bite as you run for the train? Or maybe, you’ve been feeling bored. So you sit on the couch watching TV with a snack, and before you know it, you’ve eaten the whole bag. Maybe you’ve been following a diet plan but your heartburn is still acting up and your energy level isn’t what it used to be. What can we do?

Ayurveda teaches us that how we eat is as important as what we eat and when and where we eat. We can make better choices and improve our relationship with food through the practice of mindfulness.

Modern research concurs. The practice of mindful eating has been shown to reduce over-eating, provide better weight management, improve digestion and help prevent chronic disease. Mindfulness training is currently being prescribed for people with eating disorders, type II diabetes and for cancer survivors. There are many excellent resources on-line for anyone wanting to incorporate the practice of mindful eating into their daily lives.

When individuals begin to practice mindful eating they report better digestion, better energy and more enjoyment. They find it easier to make healthy choices and manage their weight without resorting to the latest diet fad. Overall, mindful eating can lead to a healthier relationship with our food, with ourselves and with our world, as they are all interconnected.

To get started, try the following experiment. Set aside about 20 minutes when you will not be interrupted and you are hungry but not starved. Choose an apple (or one of your favorite foods) and place it on a table. Sit down, close your eyes and become aware of your breath for a short while in order to relax and clear your mind. Then open your eyes and look at the apple. Notice and appreciate its appearance. Then reach out and touch the apple, feeling its texture. Bring the apple to your mouth but pause to smell the apple. Now take a bite, noticing the sound it makes. Then be aware of the taste sensations in your mouth as you begin to chew. Does the taste change as you continue to chew? Continue eating the rest of the apple with mindfulness. Then rest and reflect on this direct experience. What happened? How did you feel? Did you enjoy the experiment?

The next step is to eat an entire meal with mindfulness. Here are some tips on how to practice:

  1. Eat sitting down in a settled environment. This means stop multi-tasking, turn off the electronics, and clear away clutter. The idea is to reduce distractions and create a pleasant environment.
  2. Take a few moments to relax. Sit down and practice breath awareness for a few breaths. Be aware of your surroundings. Relaxation is a prerequisite for good digestion.
  3. Set your intention. You are choosing to practice mindful eating.
  4. Be grateful. Say grace or thanks for the food you are about to eat.
  5. Be mindful of all the senses as you take your first bite.
  6. Chew your food well. Notice how the taste changes as you chew.
  7. Set down your utensils between bites. The idea is to savor your food.
  8. Proceed at a moderate pace, not too fast and not too slow.
  9. Notice when you first begin to feel full. This is a good time to stop eating.
  10. Rest after eating. Rest for a few minutes at the table before moving on to the next activity.

The beauty of mindful eating is the focus on direct experience, not some abstract idea of what we should be eating. Over time we begin to notice things. We connect to our inner wisdom. We realize that how we eat affects how we feel. There is no rush to make changes. The advice is to just notice without judgment. Let the process reveal itself.

It may seem difficult to maintain your mindfulness throughout the whole meal. When you realize that your attention has wandered, simply bring it back to the next bite of food and begin again without judgment. When finished, take some time to reflect. Then decide how often you want to practice. Some people choose to practice just once a week, or once a day at first. Others practice just at the beginning of each meal. However you proceed, you are following your own wisdom. After some time, you may find yourself altering your food choices or eating less. Let the process proceed naturally. Follow your gut!

The science of Ayurveda recommends that we eat when hungry after our previous meal has been digested. The rationale is to honor our digestive capacity. If we eat too often, we can overwhelm our ability to digest. The same goes for overeating or eating on the run. Here is a mindfulness practice to help us gauge our appetite.

Before selecting the food for each meal, check in and gauge your appetite on a scale of 0 to 10 with zero being famished (empty of food) and ten being stuffed (full of food). The same measurement is then used to gauge when we’ve had enough to eat. The idea is to eat when the appetite is around 2 but stop when the appetite is around 7 or 8 (when we are approximately 70-80% full). This is called staying within your comfortable capacity.

At this point, let us recall the five-fold method advocated by yoga science (see Yoga Sutra I.20) as can be applied to mindful eating:

  1. Faith – Hearing the benefits of mindful eating increases our faith or conviction.
  2. Effort – Next we set our intention and give it a try.
  3. Mindfulness – The whole process is facilitated by mindfulness.
  4. Concentration – Over time mindfulness becomes relaxed concentration. We learn to focus on our direct experience without being distracted. According to Swami Veda Bharati, when we are “mindful of each bite or each sip, then each sip can be samadhi.”
  5. Wisdom – Our inner wisdom grows as we make new insights. We are continuously refining our relationship with food.

“Thus one casts suffering far away by the continual close application of mindfulness.”

– Tibetan Blue Beryl Medical Tantra

Suggested Reading:

A Practical Guide to Holistic Health by Swami Rama, published in 1999 by the Himalayan Institute Press.

Editor’s Note:

Gary Gran, (CYT, DAy), is a a long-time initiate in the Himalayan Tradition and has been trained by Swami Rama and Swami Veda Bharati. Gary and his wife Cynthia are both certified yoga teachers and Ayurvedic educators, and have taught at the North American TTP retreats over the years.

Be the Dwelling Place of God

Posted on by ahymsin

When you work on purifying yourself, that purity naturally overflows the bounds of your personality and inundates all those around you.  Your silence cools the world, when there is sufficient silence within you.  You cannot blame others for conditions in your personal life, else you will also blame others for the collective life of the planet.

Remember that love is first; the Beloved is found after.  May you seek silence on that sentence.  Joy is first.  It meets the exterior stimuli much after.  Love, joy, consciousness, and God are all synonyms.  Seek the basic meaning of any one of these words and the rest are found as well.  Love is not a feeling, it is a force, a palpable force.  Joy is not a temporary sentiment, but a force, a palpable force that wells up and fills you from inside.  Otherwise, all of the exterior alambanas¹ that you hang on to for love and joy are going to crumble to dust one after the other.  It is through celibacy, through intensifying the prana force, through silence and meditation that you will discover within yourself the source of love and of joy.

In the ancient texts on the philosophy of Bhakti, devotion, it is said, “Love is God.”  The name of God is “Prema”, Love.  Elsewhere in the Upanishadic texts we are told that Joy is God, “Anandam Brahma.”

Sentiments,  states of mind, are not created by exterior forces.  Within you there is a reservoir; within you, these states of mind are merely winds that blow on the surface of that reservoir.  You need only look there, not in the mud and mire of the unconscious associations.  And there is a vast pure sky which is the same as the depth of this lake of peace and silence within you.  “Ramnivas,” means the “Lord’s dwelling place.”  May you become a Ramnivas: the Lord’s dwelling place.

Editor’s Note

1 This term in Yoga means all that mind hangs on to, leans on, needs for support; the props.  It is also the term for objects of concentration, for details of which see the author’s commentary on the Yoga-Sutras of Patanjali, Chapter 1, Verse 17.

[This passage has been taken from a transcription of a lecture given by Swami Veda Bharati in 1992.]

Path of Love

Posted on by Mandala

Bhakti yoga is known as the path of love and devotion. It is the path of self-surrender and dedication of all one’s resources to attain the ultimate Reality. In this path, love becomes the Lord of life and motivates the whole being toward Divinity alone. The path of bhakti yoga is the path of love. This sounds so exciting to modern young people, that many want to follow this path, but only a few know what it really is. Many think that performing rituals and becoming fanatical makes one a follower of this path, and they also that that it is the easiest to follow. But it is not at all like that. Performing certain rituals to worship God is an easy way to keep the mind busy, but it is an inferior type of worship yielding no results and no progress in spirituality. In the higher way of bhakti, one totally surrenders everything to the Lord. The offering is not just a flower or a fruit, but all of oneself. There are no rituals involved. The offering is the devotee himself. He completely surrenders himself to the Divine.

Bhakti is a compound of two qualities: love and reverence. Love without reverence cannot be called bhakti. Reverence is also essential in human relationships. If one does not respect the person he loves, then there is something wrong with that relationship; that is not love. One cannot exclude love from reverence. There is a Persian poet that says, “On the ladder of love, reverence is the first rung leading to the person you love.” If a person has no reverence for the beloved one, then he does not have true love.

One should also learn to love with one-pointedness. One-pointed love and reverence is called self-surrender. One cannot be selfish and egotistical and loving at the same time. If one is not giving and selfless, he can never follow the path of love. Bhakti means unconditional love, directing all the energies of mind, action, and speech for God only. Love for God is something different from love for human beings. Bhakti is love for God. It is the path of the heart and not of the mind.

The path of the heart is not mere emotionalism and sentimentality. If a person just allows whatever emotions arise to come into action without properly channelling them, the goal of life will remain unattained. One must learn to control that emotional power and channel it towards spirituality. Emotions are of two varieties: one is negative and the other is positive. When a negative emotion arises, one is distressed and becomes passive, depressed, or imbalanced. This is not control; this is being helplessly tossed about by an emotional outburst. But when a positive emotion arises, it makes one calm, joyous, and happy. The emotional body is like a fish tossed by the currents in the lake of the mind. If the mind is agitated by unfulfilled wants and desires, the emotional body is also disturbed; but when the mind is calm, the emotional body functions properly. Emotional maturity comes when one starts guiding his emotional powers consciously for creative use. In the path of bhakti, the devotee learns to tap that emotional force within and to control it properly so that it is channelled positively in one-pointed devotion for the Lord. He does not suppress his emotions, but intensifies them and directs them towards God.

Editor’s Note

This passage has been taken from the book Choosing a Path, pp 55 – 56, by Swami Rama, published 1982 by the Himalayan International Institute of Yoga Science and Philosophy of the USA.