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elderberry
USA
42 Posts |
 Posted - Aug 10 2024 : 10:55:51 PM
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AYP wisely points out the effects of karma on the human nervous system. The analogy often given in AYP is that of attempting to clean a window. Spiritual practices slowly but surely clean the window of the soul. However, it is theoretically possible to shovel dirt onto one's spiritual window faster than spiritual practices can clean them off.
The classic example given in AYP is the example of addiction. Worst case seems to be addiction to physical substances. Until one gets a handle on their drug or alcohol addictions, spiritual progress is unlikely to take off in a significant way. Granted, spiritual practices may help you gain more awareness to fight one's addiction. But at the end of the day, you need to stop shoveling dirt onto one's spiritual window before you can make real progress in human spiritual development.
The core of my question is this:
What types of behaviors, specifically, hinder spiritual progress?
In reading through the AYP lessons, it seems that only two main instructions are given in terms of behavioral regulation. Avoid legitimate addictions, and avoid harming others. Everything outside of that seems to be fair game, up until the point where one's inner silence calls oneself to behave differently.
However, even with this view, I feel as if I hold a mental image of what someone on the spiritual path should or should not do.
For example, if one loved more than anything to surf, and one decided to surf all day long in their spare time, I would not expect this to have negative repercussions on one's spiritual development.
However, let's suppose an individual's favorite thing was to go on dates and have sex. Let's suppose that in one's spare time a spiritual practitioner was going on loads of dates and maintaining sexual relationships with a variety of different women. He is always practicing ahimsa (non-harm) and being open and honest with his partners about his dealings. He is engaging in tantric practices and always has pre-orgasmic sex.
In my mind's eye, the first example seems "good" and the second example seems "bad" in terms of supporting spiritual development. However, I cannot actually find anything in the AYP texts to support this belief. Part of me feels like this is a correct intuition pointing towards truth. Part of me feels like this is a belief fed to me by cultural imagery, and it is not necessarily grounded in truth.
Assuming there is no legitimate addiction present, is freely engaging in sexual abundance any worse than surfing all day long in terms of supporting our spiritual development?
And if the answer is yes, then why? And where do we draw the line?
Does this also imply that other highly "pleasurable" activities like attempting to accumulate wealth, playing lots of video games, also hinder spiritual progress?
I would imagine that, with the rise of the witness, the appeal of many of these things will naturally fall away as we surrender to the joy of outpouring divine love and service, more so than personal pleasures.
However, for those of us who are still tempted by these sorts of behaviors, what is the most spiritually conducive way to behave in the meantime? Can we have our cake and eat it too? |
Edited by - elderberry on Aug 10 2024 11:03:05 PM |
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th1996
Germany
35 Posts |
Posted - Aug 11 2024 : 4:49:40 PM
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In my case, video games are an hindernice on the path because it?s mentally very exhausting and I have to digest mentally very much. It is like eating to much.
To accumulate wealth I think it depends on different aspects. What do u do with your wealth? Are u using it for good use and serve others? Is it in balance with the divine flow? Wealth often means living on costs of our planet. So, when it is aligned with our planet?s ressources and is used for good purpose I don?t see any negative Karma there.
And to the guy who is dating very much. If we interagate with others, there is a lot of space where Karma can be created. And having sex with someone is exchanging the energy, so there can be some negative karmic reaction.(at least I have read this a lot of times, and find this logical.)
But in this context I would like to ask a question. In AYP, we say that spiritual progress is mostly about the quality in life. In other spiritual traditions, people say that spiritual progress is when karma is reduced and no new karma is created. (negative or positive)
So, when I increase the quality of my life, it can lead to new (mainly positive) karma. For example when I manifesting my inner wishes through manifestations techniques. Through this I create new karma, but also improve my quality of life. I mean, for some people having sex with lots of different people is increasing the quality of life, but it creates on the other hand lots of karma. So, isn?t it to easy to say that spiritual progress is showing up through increasing our quality of life?
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Mithuna
France
11 Posts |
Posted - Aug 12 2024 : 11:41:23 AM
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Hi Elderberry.
Part of the answer is to consider the energetic impact of our behaviors and the dependencies they can generate.
If we return to the definition of the Yoga of the Ys "Yoga Chitta vrittis nirodha" (YS 1-2) the resorption of mental operations leading to the discovery of inner silence, the modifications of the mind are indeed classified according to the energetic impact with which they project our consciousness towards its externality, whether it is content of the external world or content internal to our psyche but external to our consciousness.
We can thus understand the classification made in YS 1-5 "the changes of the mind are fivefold and are painful or not painful". This statement may come as a surprise: where are the pleasant modifications? Thus, in the continuity of your question, any pleasant modification carries a risk of dependence, and the stronger the dependence, the more it will become a "thief of consciousness " alienating our internal energy at the expense of "the dwelling of the Drastr" (YS 1.3).
One of the fruits of a resolute and sustained practice, the emergence of inner silence develops in us an awareness of this risk as soon as it becomes dangerous, likely to establish a psychosomatic energy dependence that not only harms our practice by projecting our consciousness in a lasting way outwards, but can affect our entire personal balance. Under these conditions, each tendency to develop an addiction generates spiritual suffering, a flashing light from our Witness that warns of the beginning of a loosening of the link with our depth. And this flashing light will be all the more preventive as our practice is continuous and if we have glimpsed the unadulterated fullness of the effusion of inner silence.
Your example of surfing illustrates this point in two ways. First of all, if surfing practiced in a balanced way by the requirement of physical and mental concentration that is its can only strengthen our energy potential, an excessive dependence that would polarize our life towards an ever more exacerbated search for the stimuli that this activity provides would entail a risk of creating a form of dependence that is not compatible with our sadhana.
Furthermore, using the example of surfing, if we compare the spiritual path to a form of surfing at the crest of our consciousness, what will be dangerous is what will make us lose our center. The surfer by lowering his consciousness into his center maintains his stability despite the movements of the waves, the "chitta vrittis" which will not be the case if his body consciousness loses this center. Thus the development of inner silence within us elaborates in us a form of center, of deep resilience. If we are installed in this center, the waves of affects will not destabilize us, conversely if we are not sufficiently rooted, they will carry us away and then our destiny risks escaping us.
Your second example is explicit and your wording very clear. Even if it is not a question of unbridled and selfish sexuality, obviously not very compatible with a serious practice but as you insist on ahimsa and an effort to integrate this addiction into a tantric practice, if we come back to the energetic criterion a bad practice will mean an energy loss but a pre-orgasmic practice should increase the internal energy. However apart from the difficulty of finding a tantric partner in the multiplicity of experiences, a "Don Juan" search revealing dissatisfaction will end up feeding a bottomless pit and it is legitimate to classify it as bad.
Generally speaking, an addiction that is too pronounced will be an obstacle that can stand in the way, even if we are committed and sincere. This subject is addressed many times by Yogani (lessons 29 and 308 among others), it joins the member of Yama restraints considered in the second chapter (Sadhana Pada) as the pillar of the eight members. However, Yogani explains very clearly (lesson 149) why he places meditation (basis of the first chapter Samadhi Pada) as the basis of other practices. Fighting an addiction or in general any dependence on an inner representation or an external element is very complicated, while the awareness of the psychic and sensual plenitude that comes from inner silence is a lever of great power.
In some cases, new sources of addiction may emerge. The alchemical process of purification that takes place in us coagulates latent contents. Each emerging content concentrates within itself a reservoir of energy that can seek an external outlet or, on the contrary, strengthen our ishta, the engine of our commitment. Once again, the practice of meditation that has coagulated this content will allow it to dissolve into inner silence.
In summary, to answer your question precisely, we are not responsible to moral precepts, nor even to an external God who rewards or punishes, but to our Conscience, the Witness, the Inner Master, or more precisely to the process of transformation that we initiated the day we decided to embark on the path of Yoga, without forgetting that every choice is ours because this path will always be a path of freedom....
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The Perils of Pleasure on the Spiritual Path
