Yoga breathing

Here are some Hatha yoga videos, from beginners to advanced stages. Yoga is one of the best ways to cultivate your mind and body union. It tones muscles, increases flexibility, calms the mind and can improve overall health. You can notice results from your very first practice, and as you become familiar with the postures, both your yoga practice and your body will evolve in an enriching and truly powerful way. Read more »

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The hymns of the rig-Veda were almost all composed in praise of the gods. The social and other materials are of secondary importance, as these references had only to be mentioned incidentally in giving vent to their feelings of devotion to the god. The gods here are however personalities presiding over the diverse powers of nature or forming their very essence. Read more »

agni, devotion, joy and sorrow, priests, puranas, rig veda, vedic gods

This tendency towards extolling a god as the greatest and highest gradually brought forth the conception of a supreme Lord of all beings (Prajapati), not by a process of conscious generalization but as a necessary stage of development of the mind, able to imagine a deity as the repository of the highest moral and physical power, though its direct manifestation cannot be perceived. Read more »

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It will however be wrong to suppose that these monotheistic tendencies were gradually supplanting the polytheistic sacrifices. On the other hand, the complications of ritualism were gradually growing in their elaborate details. Read more »

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The cosmogony of the rig-Veda may be looked at from two aspects, the mythological and the philosophical. The mythological aspect has in general two currents, as Professor Macdonell says, “The one regards the universe as the result of mechanical production, the work of carpenter’s and joiner’s skill; the other represents it as the result of natural generation (1).” Read more »

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Though it is generally held that the Upanishads are usually attached as appendices to the Aranyakas which are again attached to the Brahmanas, yet it cannot be said that their distinction as separate treatises is always observed. Read more »

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The passage of the Indian mind from the Brahmanic to the Upanishad thought is probably the most remarkable event in the history of philosophic thought. We know that in the later Vedic hymns some monotheistic conceptions of great excellence were developed, but these differ in their nature from the absolutism of the Upanishads as much as the Ptolemaic and the Copernican systems in astronomy. Read more »

atman, brahman, one god, principle, rig veda, upanishads, vedic hymns

The doctrine which next attracts our attention in this connection is that of emancipation (mukti). Already we know that the doctrine of Devayana held that those who were faithful and performed asceticism (tapas) went by the way of the gods through successive stages never to return to the world and suffer rebirth. Read more »

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Though the belief that the world is full of sorrow has not been equally prominently emphasized in all systems, yet it may be considered as being shared by all of them. It finds its strongest utterance in Samkhya, Yoga, and Buddhism. Read more »

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Samkhya and the Yoga, like the Buddhists, hold that all experience is sorrowful. Tamas, we know, represents the pain substance. As tamas must be present in some degree in all combinations, all intellectual operations are fraught with some degree of painful feeling (1). Read more »

buddhists, happiness, mukti, pleasures, sacrifice, sacrifices, samkhya philosophy, sorrow, tamas, vedic, worldly experience

The purpose of Yoga meditation is to steady the mind on the gradually advancing stages of thoughts towards liberation, so that vicious tendencies may gradually be more and more weakened and at last disappear altogether. But before the mind can be fit for this lofty meditation, it is necessary that it should be purged of ordinary impurities. Read more »

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It may not be out of place here to mention that in later Nyaya works great emphasis is laid on the necessity of getting ourselves assured that there was no such upadhi (condition) associated with the hetu on account of which the concomitance happened, but that the hetu was unconditionally associated with the sadhya in a relation of inseparable concomitance. Thus all fire does not produce smoke; fire must be associated with green wood in order to produce smoke. Green wood is thus the necessary condition (upadhi) without which, no smoke could be produced. It is on account of this condition that fire is associated with smoke; and so we cannot say that there is smoke because there is fire. But in the concomitance of smoke with fire there is no condition, and so in every case of smoke there is fire. In order to be assured of the validity of vyapti, it is necessary that we must be assured that there should be nothing associated with the hetu which conditioned the concomitance, and this must be settled by wide experience (bhuyodarshana). Read more »

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Analogy (upamana) is accepted by Mimamsa in a sense which is different from that in which Nyaya took it. The man who has seen a cow (go) goes to the forest and sees a wild ox (gavaya), and apprehends the similarity of the gavaya with the go, and then cognizes the similarity of the go (which is not within the limits of his perception then) with the gavaya. Read more »

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Mimamsa has to accept the existence of soul, for without it who would perform the Vedic commandments, and what would be the meaning of those Vedic texts which speak of men as performing sacrifices and going to Heaven thereby? The soul is thus regarded as something entirely distinct from the body, the sense organs, and buddhi; it is eternal, omnipresent, and many, one in each body. Prabhakara thinks that it is manifested to us in all cognitions. Indeed he makes this also a proof for the existence of self as a separate entity from the body, for had it not been so, why should we have the notion of self-persistence in all our cognitions–even in those where there is no perception of the body? Read more »

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From what we have said before it will be easy to see that Mimamsa agrees in the main with Vaisheshika about the existence of the categories of things such as the five elements, the qualities, rupa, rasa, etc. Kumarila’s differences on the points of jati, samavaya, etc. and Prabhakara’s peculiarities have also been mentioned before. On some of these points it appears that Kumarila was influenced by Samkhya thought rather than by Nyaya. Samkhya and Vaisheshika are the only Hindu systems which have tried to construct a physics as a part of their metaphysics; other systems have generally followed them or have differed from them only on minor matters. The physics of Prabhakara and Kumarila have thus but little importance, as they agree in general with the Vaisheshika view. In fact they were justified in not laying any special stress on this part, because for the performance of sacrifices the common-sense view of Nyaya-Vaisheshika about the world was most suitable. Read more »

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The Mimamsists held that everything that is said in the Vedas is to be interpreted as requiring us to perform particular kinds of action, or to desist from doing certain other kinds. This would mean that the Upanishads being a part of the Veda should also be interpreted as containing injunctions for the performance of certain kinds of actions. The description of Brahman in the Upanishads does not therefore represent a simple statement of the nature of Brahman, but it implies that the Brahman should be meditated upon as possessing the particular nature described there, i.e. Brahman should be meditated upon as being an entity which possesses a nature which is identical with our self; such a procedure would then lead to beneficial results to the man who so meditates. Shankara could not agree to such a view. For his main point was that the Upanishads revealed the highest truth as the Brahman. No meditation or worship or action of any kind was required; but one reached absolute wisdom and emancipation when the truth dawned on him that the Brahman or self was the ultimate reality. The teachings of the other parts of the Vedas, the karmakanda (those dealing with the injunctions relating to the performance of duties and actions), were intended for inferior types of aspirants, whereas the teachings of the Upanishads, the jnanakanda (those which declare the nature of ultimate truth and reality), were intended only for superior aspirants who had transcended the limits of sacrificial duties and actions, and who had no desire for any earthly blessing or for any heavenly joy. Read more »

bhagavadgita, brahman, heavenly joy, meditation, sacrifices, shankara, truth and reality, upanishads, veda, vedas

Vedanta says that when a duly qualified man takes to the study of Vedanta and is instructed by the preceptor - “Thou art that (Brahman),” he attains the emancipating knowledge, and the world-appearance becomes for him false and illusory. Read more »

attainment, karma, right knowledge, selfish desires, vedanta, vedas, worldly enjoyments

That eternal immutable existence which transcends the turiya and all other states is the unconditioned Absolute, the supreme Brahman or Para-brahman, without Prakriti (nishkala) or Her attributes (nir-guna), which, as being the inner self and knowing subject, can never be the object of cognition, and is to be apprehended only through yoga by the realization of the Self (atmajñana), which It is. For as it is said, “Spirit can alone know Spirit.” Being beyond mind, speech, and without name, the Brahman was called “Tat,” “That,” and then “Tat Sat,” “That which is.” For the sun, moon, and stars, and all visible things, what are they but a glimpse of light caught from “That” (Tat)? Read more »

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This earth, which is the object of the physical senses and of the knowledge based thereon, is but one of fourteen worlds or regions placed “above” and “below” it, of which (as the sutra says) knowledge may be obtained by meditation on the solar “nerve” (nada) sushumna in the merudanda. Read more »

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The worlds are inhabited by countless grades of beings, ranging from the highest Devas (of whom there are many classes and degrees) to the lowest animal life. The scale of beings runs from the shining manifestations of Spirit to those in which it is so veiled that it would seem almost to have disappeared in its material covering. There is but one Light, one Spirit, whose manifestations are many. Read more »

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The universe consists of a Mahabrahmanda, or grand Kosmos, and of numerous Brihatbrahmanda, or macrocosms evolved from it. Read more »

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The passage of time within a maha-yoga influences for the worse man and the world in which he lives. This passage is marked by the four ages (yuga), called Satya, Treta, Dvapara, and Kali-yuga, the last being that in which it is generally supposed the world now is. The yuga is a fraction of a kalpa, or day of Brahma of 4,320,000 human years. Read more »

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Do you desire success in life? Will you take the means that infallibly secure it? Will you choose, and say to yourself: “I will have wealth; I will have fame; I will have virtue; I will have power’. ? Let your imagination play upon the thought, and watch the dim clouds of hope shape themselves into heavenly possibilities. Give wings to your fancy, for fairer than any picture that you can paint with thought is the future that you can claim with will. Once you have imagined, once you have chosen, say: “I will”. And there is nothing on earth that can hinder you for long; for you are immortal and the future is obedient to you. Read more »

imagination, knowledge, littleness of man, success in life

YEARS ago I described the contents and workings of the mind as a magic box, comparing it to the nest of boxes produced by an Oriental conjuror, who spreads his carpet and lays a box in the middle of it, then takes a number of boxes out of that box, and then a number of boxes out of each of those, until the whole carpet is piled up with boxes. I compared these boxes to ideas in the mind and described how one idea contains or gives rise to innumerable others. Read more »

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WHEN the student is well practised in concentration, so that he can put on the mood of it like a garment, let him or her proceed to meditation and contemplation. Read more »

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There are certain definite ways in which we can practice contemplation. In all cases one should go through the three stages in order to reach the top of one’s thought: (I) the attention must be centered on the object; (2) thought must be active with reference to that object alone; (3) the mind must come to an end of its remembering, collating, comparing, reasoning and meditating, but still remain attentively poised upon the object. Read more »

Attention, contemplation, contemplative experience, intense search

Contemplation is always to be seen to some extent in true worship. Worship is a faculty different from thought, different even from love; it is the little self finding itself within the greater self, as though the sun reflected in a pool of water should look up at the sun in heaven and feel a sudden liberation into that greater life. It has not lost itself; it has gained itself. This is the experience of a man suddenly confronted with a realization of that which is utterly greater than he had thought. Thus he occasionally forgets that which he used to call himself, and this more and more frequently, so that it becomes only a sub-conscious element, as it were, in the new life. Read more »

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As valuable as are all these illustrations, examples, and figures of speech, still all must of necessity fall short of the truth in the case of the Soul of Man–that wondrous something which has been built up by the Absolute after aeons and aeons of time, and which is destined to play an important part in the great Cosmic Drama which it has pleased the Absolute to think into existence. Drawing its Life from the Universal Life, it has the roots of its being still further back in the Absolute itself, as we shall see in the next lesson. Great and wonderful is it all, and our minds are but illy fitted to receive the truth, and must be gradually accustomed to the glare of the Sun. But it will come to all–none can escape his glorious destiny. Read more »

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In our last lesson we gave you the Inner Teachings of the Yogi Philosophy, relating to the real nature of the Universe, and all that is therein contained. We trust that you have pondered well and carefully the statements contained in that lesson, for in them is to be found the essence of the highest Yogi teachings. While we have endeavored to present these high truths to you in the simplest possible form, yet unless your minds have been trained to grasp the thought, you may have trouble in fully assimilating the essence of the teachings. But, be not discouraged, for your mind will gradually unfold like the flower, and the Sun of Truth will reach into its inmost recesses. Read more »

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From the starting of the process of Involution from the Mental Principle, down to the extreme downward point of the grossest Manifestation of Matter, there were many stages. From the highest degree of the Finite Mind, down to lower and still lower degrees; then on to the plane of Force and Energy, from higher to lower degrees of Principle within Principle; then on to the plane of Matter, the Involutionary urge proceeded to work. When the plane of Matter was reached, it, of course, showed its highest degree of manifested Matter–the most subtle form of Ether, or Akasa. Then down, down, down, went the degrees of Matter, until the grossest possible form was reached, and then there was a moment’s pause, before the Evolutionary process, or upward-movement, began. The impulse of the Original Will, or Thought, had exhausted its downward urge, and now began the upward urge or tendency. But here was manifested a new feature. Read more »

Energy, Force, Individualization, involution, Manifestation of Matter, Mental Principle

This, then, is the brief outline of the Story of Man’s Physical Evolution, as stated by Western Science, and compared with the Yogi Teachings. The student should compare the two ideas, that he may harmonize and reconcile them. It must be remembered, however, that Darwin did not teach that Man descended from the monkeys, or apes, as we know them now. Read more »

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Life is a great school for the learning of lessons. It has many grades, many classes, many scales of progress. And the lessons must be learned whether we will or no. If we refuse or neglect to learn the lesson we are sent back to accomplish the task, again and again, until the lesson is finally learned. Nothing once learned is ever forgotten entirely. Read more »

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Those who are suffering, and who see no cause for their pain, are apt to complain and rebel when they see others of no apparent merit enjoying the good things of life which have been denied their apparently more worthy brethren. The churches have no answer except “It is God’s will,” and that “the Divine motive must not be questioned.” These answers seem like mockery, particularly when the idea of Divine Justice is associated with the teaching. Read more »

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Edwin Arnold, in his wonderful poem, “The Light of Asia,” which tells the story of the Buddha, explains the doctrine of Karma from the Buddhist standpoint. We feel that our students should become acquainted with this view, so beautifully expressed, and so we herewith quote the passages referred to: Read more »

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THE Guru is the religious teacher and spiritual guide to whose direction orthodox Hindus of all divisions of worshippers submit themselves. There is in reality but one Guru. The ordinary human Guru is but the manifestation on the phenomenal plane of the Adinatha Maha-kala, the Supreme Guru abiding in Kailasa. (1) Read more »

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Yes, the Yogi Philosophy does teach that there is a real basis for the popular religious beliefs in “Heaven,” and that there are states of being, the knowledge of which has filtered through to the masses in the more or less distorted theories regarding “heavens.” Read more »

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SADHANA is that which produces siddhi. It is the means, or practice, by which the desired end may be attained, and consists in the exercise and training of the body and psychic faculties, upon the gradual perfection of which siddhi follows; the nature and degree of which, again, depends upon the progress made towards the realization of the atma, whose veiling vesture the body is. Read more »

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The Gayatri is the most sacred of all Vaidik mantras. In it the Veda lies embodied as in its seed. It runs: Om bhur-bhuvah-svah: tat savitur varenyam bhargo devasya dhimahi dhiyo yo nah pracodayat, Om. “Let us contemplate the wondrous spirit of the Divine Creator (Savitr) of the earthly, atmospheric, and celestial spheres. May He direct our minds, that is ‘towards’ the attainment of dharma, artha, kama, and moksa, Om.” Read more »

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ACCORDING to Christian conceptions, (1) sin is a violation of the personal will of, and apostasy from, God. The flesh is the source of lusts which oppose God’s commands, and in this lies its positive significance for the origin of a bias of life against God. According to St. Thomas, in the original state, no longer held as the normal, the lower powers were subordinate to reason, and reason subject to God. “Original sin” is formally a “defect of original righteousness,” and materially ” concupiscence.” Read more »

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THERE is but one thing which all seek — happiness — though it be of differing kinds and sought in different ways. All forms, whether sensual, intellectual, or spiritual, are from the Brahman, who is Itself the Source and Essence of all Bliss, and Bliss itself (rasovai sah). Though issuing from the same source—pleasure differs in its forms in being higher and lower, transitory or durable, or permanent. Those on the path of desire (pravrtti marga) seek it through the enjoyments of this world (bhukti) or in the more durable, though still impermanent delights of heaven (svarga). He who is on the path of return (nivrtti-marga) seeks happiness, not in the created worlds, but in everlasting union with their primal source (mukti); and thus it is said that man can never be truly happy until he seeks shelter with Brahman, which is Itself the great Bliss (rasam hi vayam labdhva anandi bhavati). Read more »

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Dharma means that which is to be held fast or kept-law, usage, custom, religion, piety, right, equity duty, good works, and morality. It is, in short, the eternal and immutable (sanatana) principles which hold together the universe in its parts and in its whole whether organic or inorganic matter. Read more »

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Now let us understand clearly what we mean by a subtle body. It is nothing but a minute germ of a living substance. It contains the invisible particles of matter which are held together by vital force, and it also possesses mind or thought-force in a potential state, just as the seed of a plant contains in it the life force and the power of growth. Read more »

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