VoyForums
[ Show ]
Support VoyForums
[ Shrink ]
VoyForums Announcement: Programming and providing support for this service has been a labor of love since 1997. We are one of the few services online who values our users' privacy, and have never sold your information. We have even fought hard to defend your privacy in legal cases; however, we've done it with almost no financial support -- paying out of pocket to continue providing the service. Due to the issues imposed on us by advertisers, we also stopped hosting most ads on the forums many years ago. We hope you appreciate our efforts.

Show your support by donating any amount. (Note: We are still technically a for-profit company, so your contribution is not tax-deductible.) PayPal Acct: Feedback:

Donate to VoyForums (PayPal):

[ Login ] [ Contact Forum Admin ] [ Main index ] [ Post a new message ] [ Search | Check update time | Archives: [1], 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 ]

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Date Posted: 09:54:39 01/28/06 Sat
Author: ketch - 3 Dec 2005
Subject: Yama/Niyama - The Hardest Part of Yoga


The foundation of Yoga according to Patanjali is Yama and Niyama. The rules of right behaviour. Without this practice yoga is useless.

It is a pity that many ignorant yoga "guru's" and their followers do not understand this fact. Even in the kriya world we find people who believe that they simply have to practice certain techniques and everything else will happen naturally. Such a view is mistaken. This is one of the reasons why most genuine kriya guru's will not simply give immediate initiation to anyone who asks.

Paramahansa Yogananda spent many years receiving training from his great guru Swami Sri Yukteswar. Such training was not simply in kriya yoga. After all the instructions into how to practice kriya yoga can be given in a fairly short initiation ceremony. That is the easy part. The real training which PY received was in behaviour. In his autobiography PY wrote "I sometimes felt that, metaphorically, he was discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw. The hard core of egotism is difficult to dislodge except rudely. With its departure, the Divine finds at last an unobstructed channel."

It might be remembered that Lahiri Mahasaya did not initiate his own wife into kriya yoga until he had helped her work out some of her past karma which would have prevented her from making progress. Most people on this board will be familiar with the life of the Tibetan yogi Milarepa and how his Lama Marpa would not give him spiritual instruction until he had suffed greatly with the ordeals he had to undergo. This was not due to any cruelty on the part of Marpa, it is just that he recognised that his student could not make any progress in meditation until he had burned out the bad karma he had accumulated. To have simply given initiation straight away would not have been the best thing for Milarepa's spiritual progress.

The real work of a genuine guru is to bring the disciple to a state of spiritual enlightenement. In most cases the hardest part of that will be in the perfection of character. The genuine guru takes on a huge responsibility and a monumental task. Genuine guru's therefore do not seek large numbers of disciples (there are of course exceptions) but rather look only to sincere students. Those "guru's" who give worthless initiations to anyone must be regarded with suspicion.

The question must arise though, of how the guru teaches those of us who do not live with them in hermitages? What is the situation when the guru is no longer physically in this world? In part we can learn from the guru's teachings, or perhaps through some medium such as the SRF lessons. For most of us however this will not be enough. The real answer unfortunately seems to be that God and Guru's arrange for the circumstances of the disciples life to be suitable for the disciple to learn the lessons they need. I say "unfortunately" because in most cases learning hard lessons is not pleasant. The sincere yogi may find that everything seems to go wrong in his life. Perhaps he will feel that God is against him. How else will the guru go about "discovering and uprooting every diseased tooth in my jaw?"

Perhaps we can see an example of this in the life of Mr J D Walters (Swami Kriyananda). This is not meants as an anti-Walters comment. He was someone who must have had much good karma which brought him into contact with one of the great spiritual figures of the twentieth century. He may well have made good progress in the practice of kriya yoga. He rose to a high position in SRF and was admired by many. Unfortunately, along with his good karma he also may have had some problems with the control of the sex instinct. This is surely one of the hardest problems for most yogi's to overcome. Several times Mr Walters was made to face up to the lesson which he needed to learn, but he does not appear to have been completely successful. Eventually he was forced to face up to the situation with the very public exposures surrounding the court case against himself and Ananda.

Commenting on that case Mr Walters wrote later that it had helped him to overcome the sex impulse. The point here is that it may be an example of God and Guru's working through life to bring a necessary if unpleasant lesson to the devotee. If the lesson is learned we do not have to repeat it, but if not then life will keep repeating the same lessons, perhaps making them harder each time.

If we want to achieve complete liberation it seems every single flaw must be ironed out. During his great samadhi in 1948 PY was heard speaking with God as the Divine Mother. From what he was reported to have said it seems that Durga Mata was holding up her spiritual progress by being "selfish" in showing some reluctance to give up her bed for a guest. This is hardly a major crime, but it seems that even a small flaw like that must be overcome.

On several occasions residents at PY's ashrams would complain to him about other disciples living there. PY would listen to such complaints then reply "Change yourself!" On one occasion he was reported to have gone as far as to say "If that person did not exist, I would have to create someone just like him."

I believe that this may be one of the reasons why so many devotees find their lives beset with suffering and problems when they step foot on the path of yoga. For most of us unfortunately that is the only way we will learn.

Kriya Yoga is not simply about following certain techniques and meditation practices. It must be a way of life. In everything we do, even in every thought we have, we have to make an effort to be in accord with Yama/Niyama. Without that strong foundation the greatest spiritual building may collapse one day.

Some people expect yoga to improve their life. Yoga seems to attract people with emotional problems and inadequacies. Some see yoga as a means of escape. Many people drop out after a short time when their life suffers and their prayers seem to go unanswered.

Yoga should not be looked upon that way. It must necessarily be a hard path for most of us. We have a huge transformation to undertake. It is sometimes a path of suffering as well as beauty. It is a path for the brave, but for those who face up to and overcome the obastcles the ultimate reward will make everything worthwhile.

[ Next Thread | Previous Thread | Next Message | Previous Message ]

Replies:

[ Contact Forum Admin ]

Forum timezone: GMT-8
VF Version: 3.00b, ConfDB:
Before posting please read our privacy policy.
VoyForums(tm) is a Free Service from Voyager Info-Systems.
Copyright © 1998-2019 Voyager Info-Systems. All Rights Reserved.