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Date Posted: 02:08:43 04/28/04 Wed
Author: Hendrik - 5 Apr 2004
Subject: Re: Parabrahman, Mukti and Human Thought-Systems
In reply to: sundarar - 4 Apr 2004 's message, "Re: Parabrahman, Mukti and Human Thought-Systems" on 02:05:06 04/28/04 Wed


Hi Brother,

of course I remember your constructive letters. They were of great help, in several ways, and very welcome.

A good opportunity to set some things straight. In our last communication one year back I made two remarks that were prone to be misunderstood.

About Sivananda I simply do not know whether he was an authentic yogi or a yoga trickster writing books -- there were some credible people who entertained doubts --, but otherwise everything he did and wrote and represented I really love. He was despised by both U.G.Krishnamurti and Osho, which I take as a strong recommendation. I just purchased his book "Lives of saints" which is choice reading because it is difficult to find info on many of those today little-known yogis elsewhere. For instance I never knew that Trailanga Swami published a yogic treatise.

I also refered to Nityananda. When I spoke of him as being crazy I did not mean Nityananda guru of Muktananda, whom I didn't even know by name then, but that Yoganiketan book author of the same name who advocated pushing the tongue through the brain to the forehead and beyond, which is absurd. I see that the book has been taken offline for a long time now.


The 'Advaita Shuffle' is a new phenomenon, here in Germany teachers of that sort pop up like mushrooms.

Lately I met a young man who had given up the idea of pursuing sadhana (he originally intended to subscribe to SRF Kriya) after reading Nisargadatta and more contemporary Jnana writers. He is a marvelous fellow, but tried to impress on me the idea that I am immortal and there is no birth and death because "what is, IS" and "I am That". I responded telling him the exact date of my birth -- he was speechless as if just communicating with a Martian!

No objection though. If people are into this stuff and are happy with it it is OK. I listened, and read the stuff he recommended. It turned out to be all from contemporary Advaita people who claim they do not exist and that all yogis are 'liars', i.e. the usual stuff popular in these quarters.


You will have a difficult time in your further research. There may be a number of people who have a good grasp on yoga, but few who will be able to show up the reflections in Kriya particulars. I definitely can not and leave the field to others.

I am not even sure whether Kriya in itself was ever designed to bring about anything else than the no-mind (jnana) state. Pranabananda practiced Kriya like hell but could not make the final leap until Lahiri Mahasaya directly intervened.

I am sure with your strong spiritual drive and faith in Yogananda you will reap the greatest benefit from Kriya. Sincerity and aspiration is all what matters.


As for the other two detours, I have never heard of them before--the merged in Sat, and merged merged in Ananda. Please do tell where I can read more!

Maybe here is something worth quoting, from Brahmananda, The Eternal Companion p. 189:

"Samadhi is generally classified as of two kinds. In the first, the savikalpa samadhi, one experiences the mystic vision of the spiritual form of God, while the consciousness of individuality remains. In the second, thenirvikalpa samadhi, a man loses his individuality and goes beyond the vision of the form of God. The whole universe disappears. Besides these two there is yet another kind of samadhi called ananda (blissful) samadhi. If an ordinary man attains this experience, his body and brain cannot stand the intense ecstatic joy; he cannot live more than twenty-one days."


As for the others, I remember there was this Meher Baba looking after "masts" -- highly evolved souls who behaved in a strange manner and fallen short of full realization. Here is an interesting story from Ramdas' childhood:

"There was an Avadhut in the family who was usually looked upon as an idiot. He had absolutely no interest in life's activity of any kind. He had to be bathed, clothed and fed even though he had grown at the time to the age of about fourteen when Ramdas first knew him. One thing he noticed in him was that whenever evening Bhajan was going on, he would rush away from the room in which he was to stay, and sit in front of us with a smiling face, listening to the songs. He was dumb. Now his face would light up with a strange glow. Except for this interest, he had nothing to do with the world. He would not recognize even his own mother. The conduct of this personality left a mysterious impression on Ramdas at his early age. Ramdas often used to sit near this person and watch his ways. He was perfectly non-violent, as Ramdas had seen him slowly picking off with his fingers some ants and poisonous insects which were biting him, and leaving them a little away from him."

-- Passage to Divinity, p. 4-5


I'll stop here. It's useless for me to add further comments because you are more knowledgeable about spiritual traditions than I, but however here is some more source material which may be of interest:


(1) Sri Aurobindo, on the occasion of answering questions to some disciple asking about self-realization etc., referred in a letter to his first spiritual breakthrough which happened (decades earlier) in early 1908. I am quoting this because it strongly reminds me of the way U.G.Krishnamurti and the Advaitins speak about themselves.

One may ask, first, why not then say that the Jivatman which can be realised in this way is the pure “I” of which the lower self has the experience and through which it gets its salvation; and, secondly, what need is there of going into the overhead planes at all?

Well, in the first place, this pure “I” does not seem to be absolutely necessary as an intermediary of the liberation whether into the impersonal Self or Brahman or into whatever is eternal. The Buddhists do not admit any soul or self or any experience of the pure “I”; they proceed by dissolving the consciousness into a bundle of Sanskaras, get rid of the Sanskaras and so are liberated into some Permanent which they refuse to describe or some Shunya. So the experience of a pure “I” or Jivatman is not binding on everyone who wants liberation into the Eternal but is content to get it without rising beyond the spiritualised mind into a higher Light above. I myself had my experience of Nirvana and silence in the Brahman, etc. long before there was any knowledge of the overhead spiritual planes; it came first simply by an absolute stillness and blotting out as it were of all mental, emotional and other inner activities - the body continued indeed to see, walk, speak and do its other business, but as an empty automatic machine and nothing more. I did not become aware of any pure “I” nor even of any self, impersonal or other, - there was only an awareness of That as the sole Reality, all else being quite unsubstantial, void, non-real. As to what realised that Reality, it was a nameless consciousness which was not other than That; [Mark that I did not think these things, there were no thoughts or concepts nor did they present themselves like that to any Me; it simply just was so or was self-apparently so.] one could perhaps say this, though hardly even so much as this, since there was no mental concept of it, but not more.

Neither was I aware of any lower soul or outer self called by such and such a personal name that was performing this feat of arriving at the consciousness of Nirvana. Well, then what becomes of your pure “I” and lower “I” in all that? Consciousness (not this or that part of consciousness or an “I” of any kind) suddenly emptied itself of all inner contents and remained aware only of unreal surroundings and of Something real but ineffable. You may say that there must have been a consciousness aware of some perceiving existence, if not of a pure “I”, but, if so, it was something for which these names seem inadequate.


(2) A year later, in prison, he began to see the Divine everywhere, even in the walls of his cell and the warder. Then in 1912 he realized Parabrahman, the supreme Reality. Here is the letter I mentioned - not addressed to his brother as I wrote, but to a friend of his from Bengal - where he mentioned this realization. 15th August was his birthday. The letter has been written shortly afterwards:

15th August is usually a turning point or a notable day for me personally either in Sadhana or life - indirectly only for others. This time it has been very important for me. My subjective Sadhana may be said to have received its final seal and something like its consummation by a prolonged realisation and dwelling in Parabrahman for many hours. Since then, egoism is dead for all in me except the Annamaya Atma, - the physical self which awaits one farther realisation before it is entirely liberated from occasional visitings or external touches of the old separated existence.

My future Sadhan is for life, practical knowledge and Shakti, not the essential knowledge or Shakti in itself which I have got already, but knowledge and Shakti established in the same physical self and directed to my work in life. I am now getting a clearer idea of that work and I may as well impart something of that idea to you: since you look to me as the centre, you should know what is likely to radiate out of that centre. [...]

See also this article about how he was guided by the spirit of Vivekananda in prison. Someone has complied all the source material and reproduced in this text. There is some interesting detail info there.


(3) Here is a text by Ramdas which I posted some months back:

The liberated soul freed through the realization of Atman, which is only one aspect of the Lord, still strives to know and merge in the supreme Godhead in all His aspects and existences. Here starts the path of utter self-dedication leading the awakened soul to a vision and status which baffles description. He now beholds the entire universe and all beings, creatures and things in it as the very expression and revealment of the invisible, infinite, immutable, eternal, unthinkable and transcendent supreme Reality. He experiences not only the unchanging calmness and peace of his oneness with God in the universe and beyond but also the bliss of the pure, intimate and loving communion with Him in the visible universe and all activities in it. So it is made clear at the end of the Gita that the highest acme of God-realization is to be a perfect devotee of the Lord - a veritable embodiment of divine knowledge, divine action, and divine love. Such a devotee is the very form and expression of God or God himself in human form. Sri Krishna - the Purushottama has revealed Himself in his (the devotee's) heart and has absorbed him into His ineffable and extremely wonderful Being.

-- Swami Ramdas, The Pathless Path

In the late years of his life Ramdas identified not anymore exclusively with his 'Das' (servant) identity, but also increasingly as Lord Himself, with both of them alternating, which to some people must have appeared confusing. Btw he taught that bhakti leads to jnana, then comes parabhakti leading to vijnana.

All the best,

Hendrik

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