THE WAY FOR FULFILLMENT OF YOUR DESIRE by Swamy Rama Tirtha

       The very moment that you rise above the desire, the object of desire seeks you; and the very moment that you assume the craving, seeking, asking, begging attitude, you will not have, you cannot have the object of desire. Rise above the thing, stand above it and it will seek you. That is the Law.

       It has been said, "Seek and it shall be given you, knock and it shall be opened unto you." That is misunderstood. Seek and you will never find, knock and it shall never be opened upto you.

      "First seek the kingdom of heaven and everything else will be added upto you!" 
That is the Law.

Law of Karma

       The Law of Karma says that man is the master of his own destiny. We make our own environments and circumstances. Every child is the father of his father; every daughter is the mother of her mother. These statements seem to be paradoxical; they appear to be preposterous; oh, but they are the whole Truth and nothing but Truth.

       According to the Law of Karma, when you desire things, so long as you go on craving and yearning for them, they are denied upto you. But after a period of craving and yearning, after a period of desiring, willing and wishing, there comes a time when you become tired of that willing, wishing and desiring, when you turn back to it, and become disgusted and hopeless, then it is brought to you. That is the Law of Karma.

       You know that in order that a man make progress, he will have to raise one step and bring the other down, lift one foot and drop the other. Similarly in order that the Law of Karma may reign, in order that your desires may be fulfilled and realized, there must come period when you rise above the desire, when you give up the desire; and thus it is by keeping off the wish and giving up the wish that the wish is satisfied. Usually the writers on the Law of Karma lay all the stress upon the positive side and ignore the negative side of the question. Rama tells you that all your wishes must be fulfilled; all your desires must be fructified. Everything that you long for must be brought before you, but there is one condition. Before it is realized, there must come upon a state where you give up the desire, and when you give up the desire, then will the desire be satisfied.

Swamy Rama Tirtha

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Source: Excerpts from the book on "In Woods of God-Realization Vol.II"
by Swamy Rama Tirtha.
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SRI AUROBINDO's TEACHING AND METHOD OF SADHANA

       The teaching of Sri Aurobindo starts from that of the ancient sages of India that behind the appearances of the universe there is the Reality of a Being and Consciousness, a Self of all things, one and eternal. All beings are united in that One Self and Spirit but divided by a certain separative of consciousness, an ignorance of their true Self and Reality in the mind, life and body. It is possible by a certain psychological discipline to remove this veil of separative consciousness and become aware of the true Self, the divinity within us and all.

       Sri Aurobindo's Teaching states that this One Being and Consciousness is involved here in Matter. Evolution is the method by which it liberates itself; consciousness appears in what seems to be inconscient, and once having appeared is self-impelled to grow higher and higher and at the same time to enlarge and develop towards a greater and greater perfection.

       Life is the first step of this release of consciousness; mind is the second; but the evolution does not finish with mind, it awaits a release into something greater, a consciousness which is spiritual and supramental. The next step of the evolution must be towards the development of Supermind and Spirit as the dominant power in the conscious being. For only then will the involved Divinity in things release itself entirely and it become possible for life to manifest perfection.

       But while the former steps in evolution were taken by Nature without a conscious will in the plant and animal life, in man Nature becomes able to evolve by a conscious will in the instrument. It is not, however, by the mental will in man that this can be wholly done, for the mind goes only to a certain point and after that can only move in a circle. A conversion has to be made, a turning of the consciousness by which mind has to change into the higher principle. This method is to be found through the ancient psychological discipline and practice of Yoga. In the past, it has been attempted by a drawing away from the world and a disappearance into the height of the Self or Spirit.

       Sri Aurobindo teaches that a descent of the higher principle is possible which will not merely release the spiritual Self out of the world, but release it in the world, replace the mind's ignorance or its very limited knowledge by a supramental Truth-Consciousness which will be a sufficient instrument of the inner Self and make it possible for the human being to find himself dynamically as well as inwardly and grow out of his still animal humanity into a diviner race. The psychological discipline of Yoga can be used to that end by opening all the parts of the being to a conversion or transformation through the descent and working of the higher still concealed supramental principle.

       This, however, cannot be done at once in a short time or by any rapid or miraculous transformation. Many steps have to be taken by the seeker before the supramental descent is possible. Man lives mostly in his surface mind, life and body, but there is an inner being within him with greater possibilities to which he has to awake - for it is only a very restricted influence from it that he receives now and that pushes him to a constant pursuit of a greater beauty, harmony, power and knowledge. 

       The first process of Yoga is therefore to open the ranges of this inner being and to live from there outward, governing his outward life by an inner light and force. In doing so he discovers in himself his true soul which is not this outer mixture of mental, vital and physical elements but something of the Reality behind them, a spark from the one Divine Fire.

       He has to learn to live in his soul and purify and orientate by its drive towards the Truth the rest of the nature. There can follow afterwards an opening upward and descent of a higher principle of the Being. But even then it is not at once the full supramental Light and Force. For there are several ranges of consciousness between the ordinary human mind and the supramental Truth-Consciousness.

       These intervening ranges have to be opened up and their power brought down into the mind, life and body. Only afterwards can the full power of the Truth-Consciousness work in the nature. The process of this self-discipline or Sadhana is therefore long and difficult, but even a little of it is so much gained because it makes the ultimate release and perfection more possible.

       There are many things belonging to older systems that are necessary on the way - an opening of the mind to a greater wideness and to the sense of the Self and the Infinite, an emergence into what has been called the cosmic consciousness, mastery over the desires and passions; an outward asceticism is not essential, but the conquest of desire and attachment and a control over the body and its needs, greeds and instincts are indispensable.

       There is combination of the principles of the old systems, the way of knowledge through the mind's discernment between Reality and the appearance, the heart's way of devotion, love and surrender and the way of works turning the will away from motives of self-interest to the Truth and the service of a greater Reality than the ego. For the whole being has to be trained so that it can respond and be transformed when it is possible for the greater Light and Force to work in the nature...

       This is Sri Aurobindo's teaching and method of practice. It is not his object to develop any one religion or to amalgamate the older religions or to found any new religion - for any of these things would lead away from his central purpose.

       The one aim of his Yoga is an inner self-development by which each one who follows it can in time discover the One Self in all and evolve a higher consciousness than the mental, - a spiritual and supramental consciousness which will transform and divine human nature.

Sri Aurobindo is an emanation of the Supreme who came on earth to announce the manifestation of a new race and a new world; the Supramental.- Comments by THE MOTHER.

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Source: Excerpts from All India Magazine Aug.2007 A monthly magazine of 

Sri Aurobindo Society, Pondicherry.

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PRANAYAMA

(Swamy Rama Tirtha 1873-1906)

Pranayama literally means "control of breath". The Hindu books on yoga gives eight principal methods of controlling the breath. But Rama will lay before you only one method known as Pranayama, a very important method of controlling the breath. This is a kind of physical exercise. Those who think that this Pranayama has got something mystical, some divine meaning in it, are mistaken. Those who think that the highest Realization culminates in it and that there is nothing higher than it, are mistaken. Pranayama or this control of breath has nothing supernatural in it. It is an ordinary exercise. Just as you go out and take physical exercise, so is this, a kind of exercise of the lungs. There is no real significance in it, nothing mystic about it.

BENEFITS OF PRANAYAMA

It will cure you of many physical diseases. Most of your diseases leave you; consumption, diseases of the stomach, blood diseases, and almost every diseases will leave you if you practise that. We will now see what is that.

METHODS OF PRACTICE

In order to practise Pranayama you must sit in a most comfortable, easy position to sit cross-legged is the most comfortable posture, but this posture will kill you, a West Indian. You may sit in an easy chair. Keep your body straight, back-bone stiff, head-up, chest out, eyes front. Place the right hand thumb on the right nostril, and inhale the breath slowly through the left nostril. Go on inhaling slowly, until you feel at ease, go on inhaling as long as you conveniently can. While inhaling, let not the mind be vacant. While you are inhaling, let the mind be concentrated on the thought that all omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent divinity is being inhaled, that you are drinking divinity, the Godhead, the whole world, the whole universe. Well, when you think you have filled in the air to your best, then close the left nostril, through which you were inhaling, by finger; thus when you stop both strips, let not the breath escape through the mouth; keep the inhaled breath within you in the lungs, in the stomach; in the abdomen; all the activities being filled with air, the air which you have inhaled, and when the breathed air is in you, let not the mind be vacant, let the mind be centered in the idea, in the truth that you are divinity, the Almighty god that fills, permeates and pervades everything, every atom and molecule in the universe

PRECAUTION

Be natural in every part of this breathing process. Make efforts, do your best to lengthen every process, but do not fatigue yourself. Do not work much yourself. If after performing only the firs two processes, say, the inhalation and keeping the breath in your lungs, you feel tired, stop. Stop, you are under no obligation. The next day be more considerate, and while performing the first processes or the second process, try to keep your energies reserved, so that you may be able to continue the remaining processes; be judicious.

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Source: In Woods of God-Realization Vol-II by Swamy Rama Tirtha (1873-1906)

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