The Existential Condition

Meditationtime Forum Post

Date:  Posted 3 years before Jan 29, 2017

MiBeloved 3 years ago

The reports I make on my practice, are coming in a series of reports from back in 1969, when I first started to record what was being experienced. If you took all my notes over the years, you will see a progression of incidences but still sometimes when I write a report there is negative blow back from others who feel that the report is motivated or that it is influenced or that it was meant for this or for that purpose, or that it was to benefit someone specially, or that it was to insult someone or to specially motivate someone.

I have a set of reports which I am to publish and which were published in loose binding some years ago under the title of Yoga Journals.

Recently I found that people sometimes object to these report or they feel something negative or develop a cynical attitude to them and then they attack me in one way or the other about these reports.

Yesterday Srila Yogeshwarananda was complaining about this because he said that someone had taken an advancement I made after getting much help from several yoga gurus including himself, to be something else and was expressing negative thinking energy about it.’

Why does this happen, that someone reads a report I file and then goes through the numbers and expresses negative feelings about what I wrote, when in fact the writing had nothing to with what that person or even with that person’s advancement or anyone else’s and was just a progression of my practice report from years of effort on my own and also from years of efforts and grace contributions from my yoga gurus.

In this world this is what happens and we can do nothing about it. This is the nature of this environment.

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This morning the Brahma deity entered my psyche. This was quite unusual. He was checking to see what condition my subtle body was in, as to the nature of the energy within it, and as to if it really had some permanent changes. He did not give any remarks about it but I saw him looking every which way in it. He did say something however like this,

“People fall from the higher levels because of their own internal qualities, not because of being cursed or dismissed by a deity. It is the existential condition of the person which causes the fall. Inform people about this.”

Alfredo 3 years ago

I am in the process of reading through your 4 Yoga Journals, after reading many other early writings of yours. These 4 journals were apparently released to a reduced circle of students, ranging from about 2004 to 2006. There is a wealth of information and diagrams in them.

They may have to be edited, as there is some repetition in them, but that is expected from an evolving journal.

In between the 4 journals, and the much earlier writings of yours in book or booklet format, there is a book that stands by itself released in 2003 called "Atma Shuddha Yoga". This one is a jewel. This was apparently intended for students that have gone through the earlier series on the yoga of celibacy (a controversial series indeed), as a culmination of it. Much earlier you had written the deity books with clear influence from your time in New Vrindavan ashram.

One of the reasons these things you mentioned occur when people personally inject themselves into the purpose of your writings with a personal agenda (resentment, wishful thinking, negative or positive feelings, etc) is due to projection and insecurity. As you wisely said, this is practically unavoidable, given the fickleness of human nature.

The projection occurs once one aspect of the teaching is internalized by a student in a way that the student thinks is beneficial to him or herself. Once that happens, any deviation by the teacher in the future could bring doubts.

The student fails to realize that the teacher also evolves and that his teachings may not be set in stone, thus unconsciously resents the change that seems to go against his beliefs and now casts doubts in its solidity and its purpose.

I will give you a personal example. Since we met over a forum where I was extolling the state of urdhva retas and celibacy and that has always been important, a goal, and problematic for me, I was at first thrilled by your early celibacy books with its total support for celibacy and later doubtful when a broader and more open approach seemed to dismiss some of your early assertions. At first, I failed to understand your evolution on the matter.

It is important, very important, for the student then to realize that this state, like any other in yoga, is a personal matter and differs from person to person. Moreover, that is a state to be realized by practice by each one, and that the teacher's guidance is a pointer, a signpost.

In this manner, the student is to avoid as much as possible, if not completely that unhealthy injection into the teachers' teachings that you mentioned.

It is for that same reason that I try to bother you as little as possible, knowing how busy you are, staying away from unnecessary phone calls and emails and that sort of things, which are mostly a waste of time. At this point I have nothing whatsoever to prove that I can't prove to myself, and the banality of most social interactions is a glaring reminder of the futility of most efforts we endeavor to entangle ourselves in this very stage.

devaPriya Yogini 3 years ago

I've also been reading the Atma Shuddha Yoga book and you're right Alfredoji,

it's a gem.