Yoga, Enlightenment, and Vedic Astrology

This past week traveling through Scotland and Southern England was enjoyable and illuminating. The following talk was given on June 3rd, 2011 in Somerset, England, Poplar Farm at the annual Spring Kriya Initiation Weekend hosted by Center for Spiritual Awareness Minister Richard Fish. For more information about these annual offerings, please see http://www.kriyayogacentre.org.uk/.

The information covered in this short talk includes how Vedic Astrology can optimize your life and help guide you to your goals. I also discuss how regular meditation practice, specifically Kriya Yoga meditation, quickens one's evolution and helps us rise above our karma to experience Soul Liberation.

Follow the link below to watch and listen.

http://youtu.be/bqVXkpcrIcA

Yoga Sutras Kriya Yoga Commentary Part 2, 3, and 4

Here is part 2, 3, and 4 of the commentary on the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, entitled Kriya Yoga. This was presented at the Om Seva School of Yoga in Charleston, WV.

Part 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M0wcuLbiJJw

Part 3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyD6BMEFxM8

Part 4

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zjWmVHNC8I

What is Kriya Yoga?

Here begins an audio commentary on the second chapter of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, entitled Kriya Yoga.

Kriya Yoga is a spiritual process that removes all obstacles to Self and God Realization, which results in enlightened living.

Part 1

Click Here to Listen to the Audio Commentary

Meditation Class Helps Lower Violence in AL Prison

By JAY REEVES, Associated Press Jay Reeves, Associated Press – Wed Feb 2, 8:39 am ET

BESSEMER, Ala. – Deep inside an overcrowded prison with a reputation for mayhem, convicted killers, robbers and rapists gather in a small room. Eyes closed, they sit silently with their thoughts and consciences.

Their everyday life is just outside in the hall — a cacophony of clanging steel doors, yelling and feet shuffling along cold concrete floors. The noise never really ends; peace is at a premium in Alabama's toughest lockup.

Despite a history of violence at the William E. Donaldson Correctional Facility, which is named for a slain corrections officer, the prison outside Birmingham has become the model for a meditation program that officials say helps inmates learn the self control and social skills they never got in the outside world.

Warden Gary Hetzel doesn't fully understand how the program called Vipassana (which is pronounced vuh-'POSH-uh-nuh) can transform violent inmates into calm men using contemplative Buddhist practices.

But Hetzel knows one thing... Click on the link below to read more.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_prison_meditation

Some Thoughts on Prayer

I've been reading a book called "the Energy of Prayer" by Thich Nhat Hanh. As I've been giving more attention to prayer lately, today I read the following passage.

"Sometimes when we pray, we see that the words of a prayer are effective. Sometimes we get a result so strongly, it is as if God is saying "yes." Sometimes we get the reply "not yet," sometimes "maybe," and sometimes "no." That "no" is hard to hear, but know that this is not the refusal of God, of the Buddha, of the bodhisattva, but the energy sent is not yet strong enough to change the situation. We need a few more conditions. Prayer always has a result, but the level of the result varies."

In the book I AM THAT, it was written:

"M: How do you go about finding anything? By keeping your mind and heart in it. Interest there must be and steady remembrance. To remember what needs to be remembered is the secret of success. You come to it through earnestness.
Q: Do you mean to say that mere wanting to find out is enough? Surely, both qualifications and opportunities are needed.
M: These will come with earnestness. What is supremely important is to be free from contradictions: the goal and the way must not be on different levels; life and light must not quarrel; behaviour must not betray belief. Call it honesty, integrity, wholeness; you must not go back, undo, uproot, abandon the conquered ground. Tenacity of purpose and honesty in pursuit will bring you to your goal.
Q: Tenacity and honesty are endowments, surely! Not a trace of them I have.
M: All will come as you go on. Take the first step first. All blessings come from within. Turn within. 'l am' you know. Be with it all the time you can spare, until you revert to it spontaneously. There is no simpler and easier way."

It looks as though where we put our attention is where we go, and that somethings take some adjusting and some time. To me this uncovers possibilities, and also shows the process. When we cannot accept immediately what we want, there are those things which need adjusted and identified. Once all is in line, then it happens naturally. Practice and time and understanding are key.

Quotes on Friendship from a Spiritual Perspective

A pure mind holds the state of meditation more easily...
Yoga Sutras 1:33 "The mind is purified by cultivating thoughts and feelings of friendship for others, compassion for those who are suffering, happiness for the well-being that others enjoy, and dispassion regarding what is observed."

"You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you."
-- Bernard Meltzer

"A friend is a person with whom I may be sincere."
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit."
-- Kahil Gibran.

"A mirror reflects a man's face, but what he is really like is shown by the kind of friends he chooses."
- Proverbs 27:19

Being the Divine Friend - From the Gita - "When we behold all sperate beings as existant in the One that has expanded Itself into many, we merge with the Wholeness of God." XIII:30

"A true friend is someone who thinks that you are a good egg even though he knows that you are slightly cracked." -- Bernard Meltzer.

Yoga Sutras 1:34 "Or one may definitely overcome all such obstacles by the practice of Pranayama."

Grace is Your Life

Your body and your life are filled with grace. I would even go so far as to say they are pure grace. Many people are not aware of this truth. They struggle and search and pray and beg to feel and to know grace. All the while, the same grace they are searching for, is the very thing that holds their form together and is the very essence of their being.


People who report having transcendent experiences almost always affirm having a sense of peace and familiarity about the episode. The deep stillness they sense is described as being something they have known all along, not as something new or strange or foreign. It feels like coming home.


At first, on the spiritual path, we may be enamored with strange perceptions during meditation, such as radiant lights or perceptions of astral landscapes, or feelings of bliss and ecstasy. We may long for visions of Gods, Goddesses, Angels, or Ascended masters. Our imagination will provide them of course, but in reality, this is entertainment no different than what you get at the movies or on your computer. Anything that you can perceive, is “out there”, and we want you to be “in here” existing freely as your Self. We want you know what you are, rather than searching for interesting phenomena.


As a person goes through the stages of spiritual awakening, it becomes more and more ordinary. Gone are the desires to seek a sense of completion or fulfillment through something external. If it is appropriate, a tranquil spiritually aware person can sit for long periods of time, simply being. To someone hypnotized by the mind and addicted to sense stimulation, this seems outrageously ludicrous. Isn’t the act of spiritual awakening meant to lift you out of the human condition and into a divine condition? Yes it is, but the divine condition is not a glorified human condition, as our minds would like to believe.


Spend some time in nature. Watch the wind blowing through the trees as they sway back and forth, or how the wind rolls over the long grass of late summer. See how the sun and moon cross the sky, and the stars shine as if eternally fixated in the heavens. Nature can show the consistent tranquility of simply being.


See how there is no clinging to the past or expectation of the future in nature. When the rose blooms, it is beautiful. Its scent fills the air. As the season passes, it fades, and dies. There is no argument. The Spring will come again. Even if it doesn’t for this particular rose bush, it will for some other plant. There is no need to worry about which plant. It does not matter what names or forms are given to the rising and falling waves on the ocean of consciousness, because it is all the same ocean.