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LittleTurtle
USA
342 Posts |
 Posted - Nov 13 2007 : 5:01:58 PM
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Yogani's AYP lessons and continual support thru email and the forums plus all the forum members/contributors are so wonderful! Everyday I feel more and more grateful for all of it. If I had stayed in SRF I simply would have stagnated and gotten bitter, filled with even more guilt. Now daily I feel I am advancing little by little. And sometimes in big jumps. A lot of what Yogani has taught I think I knew deep down inside and was just waiting for an external approval. (And I've been doing yoga in one form or another since about 1970). Thank you, thank you Yogani.
A couple of years ago I read Swami Ramdas's trilogy. The first book, In Quest of God is really a worthwhile read. Ramdas in 1920s India decided to become a sadhu and wandered India etc. ( I felt envious. Imagine. A sadhu in 1920s India riding the trains and visiting all the temples, the saints, the himalayas). All the while his sadhana was simply japa of "Ram". He attained a blissful state and saw God everywhere.
HOWEVER, it was a while before I realised that this guy had abandoned his wife and baby girl in order to take up his new life as a sanyasin. Despite pleas from the wife, Ramdas refused to come back, so the wife was forced to go back to her family for support. The child was essentially fatherless. Eventually the girl was married off at a young age.
This had a massive effect on me. Here's Ramdas blabbing in his diary about his visions and his blissful "God is everywhere" state, but he's really just another bum who decided he didn't want to be married after all!
This confused me because I thought one had to master the yamas niyamas before getting on to the next step. You had to deserve it. Not so, as evidenced by Ramdas. Then I had a brainwave. It's all about technique! You can be an *sshole and still get God bliss simply because you've got the will and the technique! YOGA WORKS whether you are a saint or a bum!
This realization answered a lot of vague questions I had about the status of various "saints" and yogis present day and past. Also I could see that samadhi/bliss etc was within my grasp. I wasn't an outsider after all! If this jackass could see God everywhere, well so can I damnit!
I suppose the massive noodle ball of karma fits in here somewhere, and at any rate I have no designs on forgetting yamas/niyamas and common proprieties. That's not me. But the whole idea of "I'm not at a high enough level yet" and "God/bliss is so many lifetimes away", has completely dropped from my thinking.
Enter AYP and this forum. The techniques are here for anyone. NO MORE SECRETS. I get so much out of reading others' experiences, questions, honest concern and help for others here.
I feel so fortunate and full of courage, like I'm finally getting it right. 
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thomas
USA
22 Posts |
Posted - Nov 13 2007 : 6:00:35 PM
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quote:
Enter AYP and this forum. The techniques are here for anyone. NO MORE SECRETS. I get so much out of reading others' experiences, questions, honest concern and help for others here.
I too feel very fortunate for coming across Yogani's AYP lessons, this forum and each of you. It is all helping so much. Thank you, everyone.
Thomas |
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nearoanoke
USA
525 Posts |
Posted - Nov 13 2007 : 6:18:13 PM
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I am not sure if leaving wife and kids for higher purpose is against yama niyamas. I agree you are hurting someone but just because we have made a wrong decision in ignorance in the past doesnt mean we have to stick to it all life even though we know what is right for us now. Infact I guess he would be accumulating more bad karma had he stayed put with his family after he realized what his goal in life was.
Having said that, I agree with you that the karmic aspect is a very minor variable when it comes to the big equation of spirituality. The progress in self-realization can burn karma very fast. Otherwise it would be impossible to undo the bad karma of several lives and attain realization in just one life.
-Near |
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scottfitzgerald
USA
65 Posts |
Posted - Nov 13 2007 : 9:27:56 PM
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In a way, a very hopeful thread.
Have to think on that one a bit.
We all have choices, but not all of us realize that before many, many choices have been made, and often they prompt us to create attachments, which often are saddled with responsibilities. Some are easier to ditch than others, and if a goal is in mind, who knows how the "greater good" may mainifest.
Bottom line, extremely thankful to have found an inviting, safe, progressive forum.
I don't feel like quite such a stranger in my skin as a result.
Take good care.
s
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Eddie33
USA
120 Posts |
Posted - Nov 14 2007 : 2:33:19 PM
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in my experience there's a zillion different angles of perception that one could look at any event. i'd ultimatley say the only way we can understand if somethings "right" or not is the overall feeling and confidence of it being right. like a sense of complete knowingness that transcends all doubts.
maybe ramdas just could say any longer. maybe he had to go. who knows. |
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Kyman
530 Posts |
Posted - Nov 14 2007 : 6:12:00 PM
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I found yoga, there's no going back, for what was behind me has vanished.
There are a million things I could say about yoga, but I'll just say it is the most mind opening, health improving, life benefiting thing I've ever encountered.
Yoga is the catalyst for doing anything you want, as everything is ultimately a sub category of yoga. Yoga is helping me achieve all of my dreams, even if I don't know what they are just yet.
There is great comfort in knowing that if I am in any pain, under stress, feeling under attack, all can be made right by fixating my mind on what is real. There is no enemy, only my own resistance to what is.
There is no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow when you are already rich.
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Manipura
USA
870 Posts |
Posted - Nov 14 2007 : 7:34:28 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by LittleTurtle
HOWEVER, it was a while before I realised that this guy had abandoned his wife and baby girl in order to take up his new life as a sanyasin...
This had a massive effect on me. Here's Ramdas blabbing in his diary about his visions and his blissful "God is everywhere" state, but he's really just another bum who decided he didn't want to be married after all!
...Then I had a brainwave. It's all about technique! You can be an *sshole and still get God bliss simply because you've got the will and the technique!
I'm just now tuning in to this post. Thanks for the great laugh! I too have wondered about the 'majesty' of these great saints & sages, always male, who, at some respectable age of 50-something, having fulfilled their obligations as semen donor and financial provider, decide to abandon the role of householder and set out in search of God & Truth. In contemporary lingo this would be called a Deadbeat Dad. But I guess in India this was the norm? Apparently there is, or was, a long-standing tradition that once a guy passed the age of 50, he could voluntarily renounce all worldly goods & possessions, including the family. He is thereby released from the heavy chains that bind him to earth and free to spend the eve of his life pursuing all that is Holy, blessed by God and undisturbed by desire & passion. Cheers to that!
Reading this (specifically, in Gopi Krishna's famous 'Kundalini'), I can't help but wonder at the wife's side of the story. Wouldn't you love to read HER autobiography!? But I prefer your positive spin on the situation, Little Turtle:
quote:
YOGA WORKS whether you are a saint or a bum!
 Yes indeed! If these 'renunciates' received such a blessing from God, then surely I'm a solid contender for the same.
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