inSelf Yoga / For Whom?

inSelf Yoga / For Whom?

Email Correspondence:

When you teach a student breath infusion/meditation, how do you know they are ready for this level of technique?  Is there a step by step process that one needs to complete before they practice breath infusion? Or qualifications beforehand?  How can one know if they are ready for this practice?

MiBeloved’s Response:

The first sign that someone is ready for this yoga practice is the person’s interest in it. That alone is the first indication.

We have to trust fate which brings a person to inquire about the process or be interested in any part of it. This exposure by fate is the sign that the person should be doing this process.

Notice the use of should instead of must. Should means that fate is giving the person the opportunity to do this process but the person does not have to commit to it. It is our duty however to explain and demonstrate it but it is not our duty to force it on anyone or to proselyte or intimidate anyone into it. It is our duty, once we explain and show it, to give the person the opportunity to freely accept or reject it and to remain friendly with the person regardless of their decision in this regard.

This is not a process for everyone. Every human being even cannot do it. Only a handful of people may do this and to booth it requires individual supervision. Hence we cannot teach it as a mass spiritual discipline with hundreds or thousands of people.

There were valid teachers of this process who taught it in mass but these teachers were especially empowered to do that and they were not able to hone in to each of the students but appointed others to help teaching. This invariably resulted in dilution and misunderstanding, which is the risk those teachers took.

Fortunately for me, I am not empowered to teach masses of people and hence I do not have to be in the risk of giving a diluted process.

Recently a student requested permission to teach many persons. I granted the permission but I am also involved in the risks of this. Hence teaching many persons, or having someone do so, or permitting someone else to do so, is risky.

This person who was granted permission does me the honor of advising him step by step, after his classes so that he can be fair with me since I am carrying some of the liability for what he does.

A question arises as to why I permitted him to teach many persons, if I myself does not and cannot do so. The answer is that fate put me in a position to do so. I circumstantially bowed to fate. Still I have some liability in what he does.

Basically speaking, anyone who meets me and who inquires about this process is ready for it. Such is the power of providence. But that does not mean that the person will actually practice, after it is explained and demonstrated.

The other day a student brought a woman to me. He discussed some elementary parts of the process to this person. Due to her increased interest, he felt the necessity for me to speak with this person. However as I explained more and more, the person was thinking that she was not ready to do this.

That was due to certain restrictions on her lifestyle which are part of the process. Thus we do not expect this person to take up the process but if she does then that is all the better.

More or less, if a person is sent to me by providence, then that person is a criminal in God’s creation, doing things which are counterproductive to spiritual advancement. My job is to say to the person in one way or the other, something like this,

“Hey, you are a crook, which means you are highly intelligent. Hence use that intelligence and make spiritual advancement. Jump away from a lifestyle which is hostile to the aims of the Supreme Being.”

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There is a step by step process but it depends on what level the particular student is on, when that student approaches for practice. I may ask someone to wake up at 4 am to practice. I may not say that to another person, whom I may request to meditate at 6 am only. I may tell one person that he has to do the breath infusion. I may tell another person that she should make attempts to meditate only.

There is a step by step process as for instance in the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali or in the Bhagavad Gita discourse of Lord Krishna, but even so each person enters the practice at a different level and hence we must first intuit into the persons level and then give advice.