Love Birds in Yoga

Srila Yogeshwarananda at his astral school gave a lesson about parakeet love birds. These are birds which even human beings like to keep caged, so as to observe the affection shared between them. They perch close together, shower love on each other and groom each other.

Yogesh said:

How nice it is to see such birds, a couple of them in a cage of a rich man where they can get the best seeds, purified water and have a servant clean the bottom every time they evacuate. No mess here. Their bright colors fascinate. Their antics are loved by lovers everywhere. They remind us of the joys of romantic affairs.

Now stick with me for a minute. There is another cage. It is the psyche. Specifically in that cage there is sub-cage which is the head of the subtle body. In there we find two birds. These are not the same birds mentioned in the Upanishads as the atma and paramatma. These two birds consists of one of the birds from the Upanishads, which is the atma bird, and yet another bird which is not the paramatma.

According to Adi Shankaracharya, the two birds to consider are the atma and the buddhi. These are that two birds in consideration here. The issue of the atma and the paramatma is a different story altogether. Shankara thought that we should forget the atma and paramatma for the time being and focus on the other two birds which are the atma core-self and the buddhi intellect psychic apparatus.

These birds live in the cage together but sometimes one is dominant over the other. Mostly the intellect is dominant over the core-self. For this yoga practice, the student has to change that arrangement making the core-self the dominant one. However it is not easy to live holding a dominant position. Romance means smoothing everything over in some way or the other.

Thus these two birds should learn to live happily together like two sweethearts in a love garden. Initially this is the intention of material nature but it intends to achieve that by keeping the core-self hypnotized so that it is never concerned to discover if it is the superior bird.

Imagine if there is a great king but he is the servant of his servant. He puts his servant on the throne. He offers his servant a diamond studded crown. He ask his servant what should be done. He complies just as if he were the servant and the servant was the king. This is the situation of the conventional self, where there is a lovey-dovey relationship with the core-self kowtowing to the intellect.

How can we switch this relationship, whereby the core-self can be the king with the intellect kowtowing and the two of them living happily ever after. This would be the most amazing love story ever.