How to know God

[Guest guest]

In each of the four yoga paths around which this

club is based, there are rational, thoughtful

approaches to the various practices, including meditation,

and there are intuitive approaches to the practices.

The swing stage between the two approaches is called

pratyahara. Pratyahara involves renouncing desire and turning

the mind AND THE SENSES inward.<br><br>An excellent

description of pratyahara and its necessity was given by

Jacob Boehme, a 17th century German Lutheran mystic in

his work, 'Of The Supersensual Life':<br><br>"The

Disciple said to his Master: How may I come to the

super-sensual life, that I may see God and hear Him

speak?<br><br>His Master said: When thou canst throw thyself but

for a moment into that where no creature dwelleth,

then thou hearest what God speaketh.<br><br>Disciple:

Is that near at hand or far off?<br><br>Master: It

is in thee. And if thou canst for a while but cease

from all thy thinking and willing, then thou shalt

hear the speakable words of God.<br><br>Disciple: How

can I hear him speak, when I stand still from

thinking and willing.<br><br>Master: When thou standest

still from the thinking of self, and the willing of

self; “When both thy intellect and will are quiet, and

passive to the impressions of the Eternal Word and

Spirit; And when thy soul is winged up, and above that

which is temporal, the <br>outward senses, and the

imagination being locked up by holy abstraction,” then the

Eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking, will be revealed

in thee; and so God “heareth and seeth through

thee,” being now the organ of his spirit: and so God

speaketh in thee, and whispereth to thy spirit, and thy

spirit heareth his voice. <br><br>Blessed art thou

therefore if that thou canst stand still from self-thinking

and self-willing, and canst stop the wheel of

imagination and senses... Since it is naught indeed but thine

own hearing and willing that do wonder thee, so that

thou dost not see and hear God"<br><br><br>What was

also informative was the limitation and the resistance

of the rational mind of the Disciple. Therefore,

cultivate your intuition and your lucid dreaming so that

pratyahara can take root and bring you to Brahman by giving

you access to the profoundest depths of your

spiritual practices.<br><br>Hari Om Tat Sat<br><br>Omprem

[Guest guest]

>>Pratyahara involves renouncing desire and

turning the mind AND THE SENSES inward<<<br><br>I

found that in turning the mind inward and the senses

inward, we are basically changing our minds about

everything that we have ever been taught in our lives. In

doing that, though I had no idea i was renouncing my

desires, I was. Now my desires have changed to such a

point that it is my desire that everyone be enlightened

and know the power and love in which they can

walk.<br><br>vicki

[Guest guest]

peace in your heart,<br><br><br> A person who

does not control his or her outgoing tendancies,

diminishes his or her energy in the world of identification

with separating sense perception, and the longing for

gratification through this. A yogi or seeker always practices

restraint and discrimination between the benificial and

non-benificial, untill there is a resevour of energy stabalized

within, this practice is different for each person

depending upon his or her mode in life. This process of

saving the energy and refocusing it, breaks through all

the hard pressed impressions that have made there

mark on the consciousness over lifetimes of existance

and usage. When the impressions are broken through

and desolved back into pure consciousness, and all

that is left are the benificial impressions for

teaching others, then the yogi just is, in pure relation

to what is, and is always apropriate and in

enlightened union with all. Then this discrimination is just

part of the existance of the limited being that he or

she does not identify with anymore, but occupies as a

form of service to those that still exist in wrongful

identification with body and mind. Control is an illusion, but

on the spiritual journey, one must control ones

delusional illusions with this discipline which turns the

yogi, from the bondage of differentation, into the

bliss of union. Does one think that the impressions

from lifetimes will desolve without effert?<br> <br>

Consciousness descends from undifferentiated purity into the

illusion of differences in maya. Evil comes from the

identification with the seeming separation of subject and

object, seer and what is sought, and good comes from

knowing that the other IS you. Evil is from the needyness

of not knowing that you ARE everything and therefore

complete inside, you alone exist as all, as stillness

in/and as the form of motion, unity in diversity. Good

comes from knowing that you ARE complete, and there for

there is no needyness, no wrong action based on selfish

desire, from this state all that is given is seen as

given from the truth to the truth, likewise with

recieving, for all there is, IS the Truth.<br> <br> To

understand this seeming paradox, one would have to see it

from the standpoint of being beyond it, in the state

of what illumines all that is. For when one is still

only seeing from inside the game, then there is "i"

and other, and the "i" doesnt know what is happening

with the other except through his or her own limited

ego vision. When one sees these two as one, then one

understands both the subtle, and gross implications of all

parts, as well as being beyond all individual shells at

the same time.<br> <br>In loveing

service,<br>Hari<br><br>p.s. we should never forget the power of grace, grace

is the understanding that the light is always

shining, its the effert that brings grace into actuality.

[Guest guest]

This is the item I wrote recently after an

intense experience of expansive consciousness.<br><br>

During the path of higher self discovery, there comes

unbidden moments when the long practices of discipline in

meditation and the other yogas bare fruit. In a single

moment all veils drop away and pure awarness is revealed

in all its glory. When this happens all the worries

and desires, fears and hates, judgments and

projections, all just melt away as quick as salt desolves in

the ocean. <br> There is a moment of grace when all

insights come to the asperant in a flash of illumination,

its a deep point of consciousness that is deeper than

the acitivity of the mind which has to think about

and pin point the why?. It just is.........in a

greater sense than our normal level of individual

identification and its beyond our capacity of reasoning and

encapsulating concepts. It's a state where one understands

everything whithout having to explain a single thing to

itself. For it is everything and everyone. The peace in

this feeling is beyond dimension yet exists as all

dimensions. It is so Grand that if there was such a person on

this planet who owned everyting and controlled

everyone. In comparrison to this state of being. He would

have NOTHING.<br><br><br>Much Love and

Peace,<br><br>Hari

[Guest guest]

Thank you for sharing that beautiful experience.

<br> >> It is so Grand that if there was such a

person on this planet who owned everyting and controlled

everyone. In comparrison to this state of being. He would

have NOTHING.>><br><br>I would like to say, he

would be the one who has EVERYTHING, in that state of

dissolution of the ego "i'! In fact, having said that I take

that back .. when the "i' dissolves into the "I" there

is no more 'he' or 'his', a product of duality,

there is only "I". <br><br>Are you able to have that

experience regularly whenever you wish? or is it something

that happens when it happens? <br><br>_/\_ Tat twam

asi<br><br>Uma

[Guest guest]

Uma,<br><br>Great name,<br><br>I am not steady as

of yet dear, but the me that is Truly me is, I just

dont always have awareness of that pure "I"

consciousness, i go in and out of

"I"!<br><br>Love,<br>Hari<br><br>sgmkj!

[Guest guest]

Hari!<br><br>That is lovely!<br><br>Here is a

quote that really spoke to me and though it is not

Christian, to me it fully explains the christian rapture,

which is so horribly misinterpreted by so

many.<br><br>Recollecting the Sangha<br><br>"At any time when a disciple of

the noble ones is recollecting the Sangha, his mind

is not overcome with passion, and not over come with

aversion and not overcome with delusion. His mind heads

straight, based on the sangha. And when the mind is headed

straight, the disciple of the noble ones gains a sense of

the goal, gains a sense of the Dhamma, gains joy

connected with the Dhamma. In one who is joyful, RAPTURE

ARISES. In one who is rapturous, the body grows calm. One

whose body is callmed experiences ease. In one at ease,

the mind becomes concentrated.<br> -AN

XI.12<br><br>"When you recollect the sangha, monks, any fear,

terror, or horripilation you may have will be

abandoned."<br> -SN XI.3<br><br>vicki