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"(spirit) is described in Scn as having no mass, no wave-length, no energy and n o time or location in space except by consideration or postulate.

The spirit is not a thing. It is the creator of things'....the awareness of awareness unit whi ch has all potentialities but no mass, no wave-length and no location. "Nibbana on the other hand is 'freedom from birth, freedom from becoming, freedo m from creation ...without illness, freedom from old age, deathless...It seems t o describe a perfectly static and at the same time ideal state." Book: Encyclopedia of Religion 1.AUGURY, prophetic divining of the future by observation of natural phenomena particularly the behavior of birds and animals.Among the vast number of sources of augury, each with its own specialist jargon and ritual, were atmospheric phenomena (aeromancy), cards (cartomancy), dice or lots (cleromancy), dots and other marks on paper (geomancy), fire and smoke (pyromancy), the shoulder blades of animals (scapulimancy), entrails of sacrificed animals (haruspicy), or their livers, which were considered to be the seat of life (hepatoscopy). 2.Traditionally the Jews have divided their scriptures into three parts: the TORAH (the Law ), or PENTATEUCH; the NEBIIM (the Prophets ); and the KETUBIM (the Writings ), or Hagiographa. 3.BON , indigenous religion of Tibet that gave TIBETAN BUDDHISM much of its distinctive character. The original features of Bon seem to have been largely concerned with the propitiation of demonic forces and included the practice of blood sacrifices. 4.In the tradition of JUDAISM, it is here that ABRAHAM, the of the Hebrew people, is said to have sacrifice his son ISAAC. The Dome and are both located on the Temple Mount, the site of Solomon s Temple. progenitor and first PATRIARCH prepared to the AL-AQSE MOSQUE which was previously

5.GEMATRIA, the substitution of numbers for letters of the Hebrew alphabet, a favorite method of EXEGESIS used in QABBALAH to derive mystical insights into or new interpretations of sacred writings. 6.The beginnings of the ghulet are usually identified with Abd Alleh ibn Sabe al-Gimyarj, a 7th-century convert from JUDAISM, who addressed ALi as God and maintained that !Alj never really died and would return from heaven to initiate a messianic age. Book: The founders of Western thought. The Presocratics.. 1.Following Anaximander, Greek astronomy was mainly geometric, while Babylonian astronomy, in contrast, was basically arithmetic. 2.All of the concepts that comprise the system of philosophy and physics were co nceived during that period of Greek philosophy. The concepts of matter, force, n umber, size,movement, becoming, being, continuity, discreteness, space, time, an

d the atom are distinct creations of the first Greek philosophy. 3.In Ionia philosophy and science were born. Virtually all of the Presocratic philosophers are from Ionia. 4.Anaxagoras of Clazomenae, of approximately the same period, will theorize the homoeomeroi (having parts like its other and the whole) or seeds as the compon ent entities, and for the first time will distinguish mind, as opposed to matter , as the primal moving force that directs and controls the universe: the mind con trols all things. 5.It is equally correct to name Thales the first Greek mathematician and the fou nder of theoretical geometry. Following his journeys in Egypt, he introduced geo metry in Greece, 6.The circle of the Milesian philosophic tradition closes with Anaximenes. In 49 4 B.C. Miletus would be razed by the Persian army, a horrible punishment for the Milesians s attempt to rebel against the dynasty. 7. In life to which we come from another life and nature, some enter the service of fame and others of money, but the bes t choice is the one of those few who spend their time in the contemplation of natu re, as lovers of wisdom, that is, philosophers Book: The cambridge Companion to Nietzsche 1.If the notion of a self-consuming concept is to be of use in understanding Nietzsche's remarks concerning the will to power, eternal recurrence, the ascetic ideal, and the Ubermensch. 2.The hook by which the legend attaches itself to the real man is in fact not any self-sought solitude but Nietzsche's intellectual independence as a philosopher... 3.The dramatic shift in argument and tone was due to Nietzsche's " discovery as he put it, that religion was but a superficial and popular form of an underlying morality. 4.In Schopenhauer's opinion, the vast majority of people were and would always be incapable of proper philosophizing, and, therefore, religion could not be dispensed with. 5.This Schopenhauerian pessimism cannot be overcome by compassionate activities, but only by giving up all striving. This involves passing to a state of "holiness," which Schopenhauer described as quietist asceticism. 6.First, he drew psychological profiles of the founders of religions to make obvious the gap between their doctrines and their real motives. Second, he uncovered the social developments that rendered possible or favored the growth of Christianity. Third, he rendered intelligible the psychological and physiological states likely to dispose individuals to accept Christian morality. Finally, fourth, he sketched states of mind that motivated interest in keeping this type of morality alive and stable, in whatever disguise.

Book: Complete Pythagoras 1.That is how he visited all of the Egyptian priests, acquiring all the wisdom e ach possessed. He thus passed twenty-two years in the sanctuaries of temples, studying astronomy and ge ometry... 2.After twelve years, about the fifty-sixth year of his age, he returned to Samos. 3.He instanced that the East was more important than the West, the morning than the evening, the beginning than the en d, growth than decay; natives than strangers, city-planners than city-builders; and in general that Gods were more worthy of honor than, divinities, divinities than semi-divinities, and heroes th an men; 4.But the purest and most genuine character is that of the man who devotes himself to the contemplation of the most beautiful things; and h e may properly be called a philosopher. 5.But another kind of purification of the discursive reason, and also of the whole soul, through various studies, was effe cted (by asceticism). 6. They took solitary morning walks to places which happened to be appropriately quiet, to temples or groves, or other suitabl e places. 7.Nietzsche is often treated as one of those hermetic thinkers whose universe wholly consisted of his isolated self and his grandiose ideas about "modernity" and "culture" and "humanity" as such. 8.Nietzsche doesn't advocate immorality,he rather points out how minimal and inadequate is a morality of "Thou shalt not." 9.The system works above all to suppress the drives and the energies of the superior, the strong, those who would rather make something of themselves that "morality" does not allow or, in any case, does not recognize.

Book: Theravada Buddhism 2nd Edition 1.In Pali it is called the Tipitaka, which means that it consists of three baskets , i.e. three collections of texts: the Vinaya Pitaka, which contains the vinaya, i.e. the rules or discipline of the Sangha; the Sutta Pit.aka, which contains the Buddha s sermons and some religious poetry and other miscellaneous texts this is far the largest basket ; and the Abhidhamma Pit.aka, which contains what is sometimes called systematic philosophy Book: Mindfullness in Early Buddhism 1.To sum up, the unwholesome functioning of saA (ie perception) can lead to concep tual proliferation (papaca), which is obstructive to the insight that effects lib eration.

The four satipaWWhAnas are practiced to rectify this faulty functioning of saA by focusing on empirical objects without any conceptual proliferation contemplating the body, etc., as they are. 2.upekkhA to be the only emotional state ultimately valued by nibbanic Buddhism. ...as a psychological condition opposed to any kind of extreme emotional reaction, either pleasant or unpleasant. 3.These practices ( i.e. daily activities recognizing "I am walking" etc.mindful ly) consist of non-judgmental observation and recognition. The mind is simply aware of an object objectively without evaluating the object, the subject (i.e. the observer or the mind) or the interaction between the two. 4....defines mindfulness as paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally. Following this definition, the non-judgmental characteristic of mindfulness means that pleasant and unpleasant experiences are treated simply as that, as experiences. 5.He acts in full awareness when going forward and going back; he acts in full awareness when looking ahead and looking behind; he acts in full awareness when bending back and stretching out [his limbs]; he acts in full awareness when wearing his upper robe (saXghAWi) [and other] robes [and carrying his] bow;he acts in full awareness when eating, drinking, chewing and tasting; he acts in full awareness when he acts in full awareness when walking, standing, sitting, falling asleep, waking up, speaking and keeping silent. 6.in a section on mindfulness and full awareness18: Then being fully aware of all your acts, you should fix your mindfulness on sitting, walking, standing, looking, speaking, and so on. 7.THIS SUBJECT of MINDFULNESS, Ananda, THUS DEVELOPED, THUS CULTIVATED, LEADS TO MINDFULNESS and FULL AWARENESS. 8.As discussed above, the passage in the Dukkhadhamma Sutta implies that one should practice mindfulness IN EVERY MOMENT so as to protect oneself from evil unwholesome states of covetousness and dejection. 9. Mindfulness picks the objects of attention, and notices when the attention has gone astray. Concentration does the actual work of holding the attention steady on that chosen object. 10.He trains thus: I will breathe in perceiving71 the whole body ; he trains thus: I will breathe out perceiving the whole body. 11.This is just like the case when the Buddha says that he falls asleep mindful and fully aware,92 and the case of the sati-sampajaa formula, which states that one acts in full awareness (sampajAnakArin) when falling asleep. These cases do not mean that one can be mindful and fully aware even in sleep, but only describe the mental state just before the moment when one falls asleep. 13.What is meant by mindfulness of the body [refers to] head-hairs, body-hairs, nails, teeth, skin, flesh... Book: Pythagoras and Pythagoreans 1. His[pythagoras] learning was universal. He first studied geometry and astron omy with Anaximande, then hieroglyphic symbolism with the priests of Egypt and t

he science of dreams with Hebrew masters...and finally with Zoroaster, who taugh t him the ritual of purification and the nature of things. 2.On Sacrifices, preserved by Eusebius. If ( as seems likely) the text is authen tic, it shows that Apollonius' ascetic lifestyle must be understood as a regime of purification designed to release the spiritual or intellible soul from the pr ison of the body. Book: Buddhist monastic life according to Theravada. 1. According to Buddhist monasticism, renunciation was not an escape, but the first of a series of actions aimed at el iminating the real causes of the problems of life... 2. The canonical texts also mention the names of several forests in which the Buddha stayed. There were also public park s, such as Ambalatthika in Rajagaha,which were popular resting-places for wander ing ascetics. 3. Inner solitude, in which past and future have lost their power to disturb the mind, is compared to physical solitude. Book: Gotama Buddha 1.If we accept that their mythical lineage was related to their origin as a trib e then the Sakyas would seem to have been Aryan, in contrast to the majority of Nepalese. 2.Because all the: traditions say that the Buddha lived eighty years, his birth year would then be 624 B.C.E. 3. Knowing the origin of the coming about of nothingness, that is, knowing that enj oyment is a fetter', and knowing this thus, he then quietly contemplates it. This is the knowledge that sees reality as it is,[the k nowledge] of the Brahmin who has reached perfection. The phases of consciousness appear to correspond more or less to the origin of the coming about of. nothingness.It is therefore reasonable to consider the contemplation of the manner of consciousness to be a stage PRIOR to nothingness. 4.... How is consciousness destroyed for one who conducts oneself mindfully? It is this I have come to ask the Bhagavant, and we would hear your words. ...What ever suffering arises, all is because of consciousness; if consciousness is abolished, suffering does not arise. 5. Becoming a buddha entails overcoming temptation. Constant striving is in itself buddha action. In other words, attaining enlightenment does not mean becoming a different kind of being. Book: Mahamudra quintessence of mind and meditation. 1...If that is so, one might ask how the external world of form, sound, and so on appears to be real. The mind being unaware of its true nature has perceived the duality of "self" and "others" from beginningless time. Clinging to these, the mind builds up a sediment of impressions.19 This causes external phenomena to appear as real to the deluded mind. 2. A deluded mind does not know that the nature of duality is samsara and the op posite is nirvana.

3. By purifying that which is the cause of sarnsara,One achieves the purity whic h is nirvana. Thus the mind is the root of all deficiencies and attributes. They originate only from the mind. 4....Furthermore, it is stated that meditating on tranquility produces revulsion for sensory pleasures, removes all doubts, and engenders perfect cognition, contemplative tranquility... 5. Understand, 0 noble son, that the faith bodhisattvas have in the Mahayana teachings and whatever they have attained through them originates from the essence of the completely undistracted mind and from contemplation on the true reality... The undistracted mind is that which has focused itself one-pointedly upon a mental image3 [ of an object]. 6. What is the mark of equanimity? It is an even level of the perceived mind brought about through directing the mental focus or through maintaining it without excessive exertion. When should one work toward this evenness? When tranquility and insight are free from dullness or sensual incitement, one achieves equanimity. .On the great level of one flavor [emptiness] the meditator will realize nondual awareness, detached from any mental clinging, which lasts throughout the cycle of a day and night. This realized state cognizes all diverse appearances as the manifestatio n of the unceasing power of mind's primordial purity and evenness. Even though he sometimes feels no perceivable difference between meditation and no meditation, between being mindful and not being mindful, it is vitally important for him to remain in solitude and maintain the undistracted mindfulness of the essential nature of his realization. 3.He who lives in solitude, settling the mind in inward purity, meditates on aspects of reality previously analyzed. 4.The mind develops attachments and clings to the two self-entities of subject a nd object. Conversely, the nonexistence of the two innate selves is nonduality. 5.(mahamudra), the ultimate reality, leaves its imprint upon all [dual] realities of samsara and [nondual] nirvana. 6.The essential characteristic of mahamudra is described as being analogous to all-encompassing space; it rests nowhere and is detached from all conceptions. 7.The four seals are all mentioned by Naropa in his commentary on the Hevajra-tantra: They are the female consort, the inner consort of manifest awareness, the great seal, and the spiritual commitmen t. Each of them is necessary: first as a condition for preceiving the lucid awareness [of one's stream-being], second as contemplation, third as inner realization, and fourth as consolidating it without impairment. 8.During the period of undertaking the twelve near-fatal ordeals as commanded by his teacher, Naropa realized the secret oral teachings on the quintessential great seal. It was stated that this resulted in his

liberation, which was not dependent upon the esoteric path of tantra. 9.Nevertheless, it [mahamudra]can be treated as being related to tantra because the Queen Doha mentions [three factors]: associating oneself with a female consort, training her in order to germinate the seed of illumination in her, as well as carrying out the secret enactment of the self-realization process 10. If one is content with merely comprehending these principles once, or even if one initially experiences a meditation, one will not only fail to overcome delusion, lust, and hatred, but will succumb to the force of materialistic ambition for wealth, pleasure, and fame. Herein lies the reason why so few seekers achieve realization. Book: the Physical Dimensions of Morality in Buddhist Ethics. 1.Nevertheless, the Compendium of Training regards a monastic lifestyle as most conducive to concentrated practice. 2.Additionally, even householder bodhisattvas are at times exhorted to adopt monastic attitudes such as detachment from sensual pleasures, including sex with one s own spouse. 3. Book: Study on Mahayana Buddhism 1.By giving away his body, the bodhisattva denigrates physical existence as being completely worthless and expresses a wish for some form of immaterial, non-embodied existence. This existence may be spoken of in terms of body, but the body imagined is wholly non-physical, and the emphasis is on getting rid of all the shortcomings of physical existence: Body is used metaphorically here to stand for non-body. 2.All bodhisattvas mahsattvas who appeared in the past were delivered from every fear by dwelling in the wilderness [i.e. ascetic lifestyle]; in this way they obtained the fearlessness that is unexcelled, perfect enlightenment. 3.However little we may know of the origin of the ascetic movement, we know a lot about the function and meaning of the monk s act...Above all, in a worl d where the human race was thought of as besieged by invisible demonic powers, the monks earned their reputation through being prize-fighters against the devil. 4. Book: Divine Power 1.It [Shakti or Sakti] seeks to harmonise works with knowledge, knowledge with devotion, and wordly life of enjoyment (pravrti) with ascetic life of detachment or renunciation (nivrti). It steers a middle course between gross hedonism and pure asceticism and other-wordly holiness. It seeks to harmonise individualism with humanism. It aims at divinization of human life. 2.Sakti, awakening of the coiled Divine Energy at the basic centre by exercises in breathing, making it pierce the six esoteric centres at the abdominal centre, the navel centre, the heart-centre,the throat-c

entre and the eye-brow centre, and uniting it with the Absolute at the highest centre at the top of the cerebrum,is a unique method in Saktism. 3.Sakti is feminine in Sanskrit, and is so called Divine Mother. The universe is the expression of Her free will. Siva is indifferent to the creation, maintenance, and destruction of the universe. Sakti creates, maintains and dissolves it. She is the cause of bondage and liberation of the individual souls (jivatman). She projects the universe of phenomenal apperances through maya, and entangles the individual souls in embodied life by veiling their spiritual nature by avidya or ignorance. 4.This difference is imagined by the intellect.' (Ibid.) This verse shows that the world of difference is imagined by the human intellect infected with primal nescience (avidya). This is the view of the Advaita Vedanta. There is a strand of idealistic monism in Saktism. The Brahman is one and without a second, eternal, always existent. When time in the form of creation comes into existence, duality or difference arises. When the Brahman creates the world, It creates difference. 5.The sense of 'mine' is bondage. The absence of the sense of 'mine' is liberation...Egoism is bondage. Non-egoism is salvation. 6. The Devi Bhagavata states an individual soul and Supreme Self as residing in the heart-ether of a p erson as friendly to each other, the former experiencing the fruits of its merits and demerits, and the latter merely looking on as a neutral spectator. 7.Desire, anger, grecd, and pain spring from ENERGY. 8. A devotee's mind is dissolved in the Divine Mother, Who is of the nature of pure consciousness only, in the state of supreme devotion. It is purged of egoism - the sense of 'I' and 'mine' - and of false identification of the self with the body. It becomes independent even of the body. No thought of maintaining the body torments it. 9.Detachment itself is liberation.A finite self is entangled in physical objects of enjoyment because of its primal nescience (avidya). Avidya generates egoism. Egoism produces attachment to sensible objects. When a finite self is freed from avidya by undergoing yogic discipline, its egoism and attchment are destroyed and it becomes detached, is established in divine consciousness, realizes its essential identity with Divine Spirit, and is liberated. Detachment from the objects of enjoyment is a prerequisite for the realization of a finite self's essential identity with Divine Spirit. Book: Canon of the Kuala Tradition 1.Although many of these Saivites were householders, the mainstays of these traditions were largely single ascetics, many of whom travelled widely and in so doing spread their cults from one part of India to another. 2. The spiritual discipline these works prescribe does not involve complex rites or require extensive intellectual development. It is, however,

largely intended for the renunciate, rather than the householder. 3.At this stage of his spiritual discipline, he should act like a madman ignoran t of right and wrong. Pretending to sleep, he snores loudly or rolls on the ground and talks nonsense. When he sees a beautiful woman, he should make lewd gestures at her. In this way he courts abuse in the belief that his disgrace will gain for him the double benefit of purifying him of his sins and gaining the merit of those who abuse him. 4.Perhaps also, we can understand the specific injunction in the Sutras [Pasupat as path] not to look at urine and excreta as a reaction against the more extreme practices of the earlier Pasupatas that required the handling and even consumpt ion of these and other obnoxious substances. 5. The adept first visualizes the five elements in the form of symbolicfigures (mandala) of various shapes and colours. They are then imagined to be located in separate parts of the body. Letters and syllables are then projected into these figures, which thus become charged with their Mantric powers. 6.Kaula rites are generally private and, ideally, performed in secluded places such as lonely forests, mountains, deserts, cremation grounds or sacred centres where adepts, male and female (suddhas and yoginis), traditionally assemble. The deity worshipped is often (but not always) fearsome and adored with offerings of meat (including at times beef and human flesh) and wine as well as the male and female sexual fluids (kundagolaka) produced during ritual intercourse. 7.Accordingly, some Kaula traditions advocated symbolic substitutes for the meat, wine and sex, declaring that the essential point of Kaula practice is the arousal of Kundalini and the expansion of consciousness. 8.The yogini is the womb from which the enlightened yogi is born and her mouth, from which issues the tradition, is the sacred matrix (yoni), the triangle consisting of the powers of consciousness to will, know and act.51 As the womb (yoni) of creation, it is the Lower Mouth (adhovaktra) which is the essence of Kaula doctrine. 9....filled with their cosmic power, then identifying himself with Bhairava. He now offers libations to Bhairava and the circles of his energies that surround him, which are identified with the officiant's own sensory and mental powers. This is done by drinking a mixture of male and female sexual fluid (kundagolaka) from a sacrificial jar previously filled for this purpose. 10.The triangle (whose microcosmic equivalent is the female sexual organ) is worshipped by contemplating this creative flow of bliss in the unity of universal consciousness. This can be done either directly in elevated states of consciousness and /or through the ecstatic experience of physical orgasm. 11.Again, Kubjika's crooked form relates to her nature as Kundalinl who is the matrix (yoni) or Triangle (srgata) from which CREATION pours forth and in which it resides. 12.At the corners of this triangle are located the Mahapithas: Purnagiri, Jalandhara and Kamarupa. In the centre is Odiyanapitha where the goddess resides in

union with the divine linga whose nature is bliss itself and whose seed (bindu) is the Sky of Consciousness. Book: Concentration 1. It is the fulcrum on which then rests your whole inner world, and this is the only thing w hich a man can 'take with him' into Eternity, no matter in what forms or worlds he ma y still manifest himself. 2.While the saint repeats his prayers day and night, the yogi will do the same w ith his mantras, pranic currents or mental images. 3.Man is then simply afraid that he might 'lose himself in the rarefied atmosphere of spirit, and that there will be little or nothing left of him from his self-awareness and self-assertion. This obstacle has barred and even closed the path to many otherwise able aspirants, who were not lucky enough to get authoritative advice at the right ti me,to show that these fears are futile, unreal and hence groundless. 4.The one thing is valid from beginning to end: the Self-inquiry matures the man 's consciousness, cleanses it of sin, raises and in the final stage merges it into the ocean of the unique, great Self, which people call variously God, Nirvana, Heaven, Salvation, Paradise, and so on. 5.If we could ask them what happened, and why they so suddenly changed their ideas and strivings in life, the answer would often be: 'Now I see everything fr om another point of view. What before was of overwhelming importance to me, no longer has any meaning; for I see men and their activities, qualities, emotions, thoughts and fates, as from another world. The causes and effects are now much clearer to my inner sight and the inward dissonances and fears have disappeared for ever.' And once again, we see that it was just the state of consciousness which changed and nothing more. Nevertheless, we say that a man became as if 'quite another person'. 6.You will never be entitled to tell the world that you have reached your goal. Briefly, there would be no one left in you who could utter anything like that. T he ego-personality will have died long ago, and you the Self, silent, omnipresent... 7.Before you become a yogi, an advanced occultist or a saint, the astral-body (feelings) and mental-body (thoug hts) in your everyday consciousness are practically indivisible. 8.There were also other things achieved by this simple practice, but stimulation of the will-power was one of the most important. When you place your body in unusual and slightly dangerous conditions (for a certain element of dang er always exists in such experiences), the subtle sense of separation from the body may appear, and this is the beginning of further and better things, for then you sho

w who is boss.

Book: Western asceticism 1.Abba Evagrius said that an old man said: "I cut away my fleshly pleasures, to remove the opportunities of anger. For I know that it is because of pleasure that I have to struggle with anger, and trouble my mind, and throw away my understanding." 2. Book:The selfless mind personality CONCIOUSNESS 1.Here, a spiritually undeveloped person is said to 'conceive (ideas)' (maniiati) on a number of items, including nibbanna. The verb 'maniiati' is frequently used to refer to i-centred thought, such as seeing oneself as 'better', 'equal' or 'inferior'... 2.Moreover, even nibbana is not-Self and not related to a Self, and the Buddha did not accept that Self exists, or that it even lay beyond existence and non-existence. 3...The simplest answer to this is that the Buddha accepted a changing empirical self which was not destroyed at death, but flowed on into a future rebirth. The Annihilationist 'denial" of s/Self rejected any idea of rebirth, and thus denied 'self' in this sense. 4.Such a person lives without any idea of 'Self' or 'I', he 'does not conceive that he is anything, or anywhere, or in anything' (M.III.45): he is certainly not one who has discovered some true Self or I. 5.Identification, whether conscious or unconscious, with something as 'what I truly and pennanently am' is a source of attachment; such attachment leads to frustration... 6.Indeed, the most developed self is one which is, precisely, known as Selfless and 1-less. 7.Here the Buddha explains that the same small (evil) deed may take one sort of person to hell to experience its karmic fruition, while another son of person will experience its fruition in the present life, and not beyond. The first sort of person is 'of undeveloped body, undeveloped virtue, undeveloped citta, undeveloped wisdom, he is limited (paritto), he has an insignificant self (appatume), he dwells insignificant and miserable'. 8...he is described as 'one with a citta[heart/mind complex] like a diamond (vajiriipama-citto)': his citta can 'cut' anything and is itself uncuttable: it cannot be affected by anything. 9.Citta [heart/mind], being completely 'alone' has no barriers or boundaries. When a person lets go of everything, such that 'his'

identity shrinks to zero, then citta expands to infinity. 10.Whatever one grasps at and identifies with as 'I am' limits one. ... The Arahat, however, doe s not invest anything with 1-ness and so cannot be 'found' anywhere. Though he is completely 'alone', he 'is' no-one, he 'does not conceive that he is anything , or anywhere, or in anything' 11.he does not identify with anything, does not 'lean' on anything for support, is not influenced by anything, as nothing can excite attachment, repugnance or fear in him, and ii) he has a boundaryless citta, 12.In the 'early Suttas', then, citta may mean a 'thought', 'train of thought', 'mind-set' or 'heart'. In the latter two meanings, it represents the dynamic, fluctuating focus of personality. Conditioned by mind-and-body, particularly by volition, it becomes the co-ordinating. guiding, creative focus of mind, marshalling and integrating other aspects of mind, including volition itself, in an ongoing process of mutual interaction and change. 13.Here the Buddha gives someone a step-by-step discourse: 'talk on giving, moral virtue, heavenly rebirth, showing the disadvantage, degradation and stain (saq~kilesaq~) of sense-desires, and the advantage of non-sensuality .. such that his listener's citta is 'ready' and 'pliable', without hindrances... 14,If nibbana is to be called 'eternal', as It is at Kvu.l21, this must be because it is beyond time. The Arahat's full experience of nibbana, as a state in which the personality-factors temporarily stop, might be seen as his 'participating in' this timeless reality. 15.This explains that insight into impermanence leads to the firSt, insight into dukkha leads to the second, and insight into not-Self leads to the third (Ps.ll.58). Nevertheless, if any of these liberations is developed in a sustained way, the others naturally develop... 16.It[nibanna] is a state in which all the personality-factors and causal links 'stop', but it is not the same as the 'cessation of cognition and feeling'. 17. He or she does not hang on to the personality-factors [five skandhas/khandas ] as if they had permanence, satisfactoriness or Self in them. He does not identify with them as if they were a true Self or I, but sees them as merely conditioned phenomena. 18.He is thus a 'man of nothing', not clinging to anything, whether internal to 'his' personality-factors or external to them... 19.Here, one is 'easily measured (suppameyyo)' if one is 'frivolous, empty-headed, a busy-body of harsh speech, loose in talk, lacking concentration, of flighty mind, with senses uncontrolled'; one is 'hard to measure' if one lacks these characteristics, but is 'immeasurable... 20.'WHEN A PERSON LETS GO OF EVERYTHING, such that "his"IDENTITY shrinks to ZERO

, then CITTA[MIND/HEART] expands to infinity'. 21. Such a person cannot be 'found' even when in normal consciousness,for they d o not invest an 'identity' anywhere. 22.it is said that one should see the personality-factors as being impermanent, dukkha and not-Self, so that one can then go on to become an Arahat , i.e. a tathdgata. Book: Buddhism and dzogchen/ Direct Path 1.Furthermore, the more we come to depend on the recognition of others, the more anxiety we will endure facing the possibi lity of being ignored, rejected, slighted, judged negatively or hated. 2.Since deep down we know perfectly well that we will never succeed in filling o ur lack with possessions, with the value projected by others, with physical, aesthetic or mental easure, and so on, we try at least to elude the lack, together with the disturba nces that accompany it (which together make up the all-pervasive suffering ), by undertaking activities that divert our attention from it.. 3.Furthermore, since in order to go on with our normal lives we have to elude th e fact that our existence is inherently dissatisfactory... 4.This [ cessation of dukkha] cannot be brought to pass irreversibly from one da y to the next, but can be achieved gradually if one engages in the process of repeated dissolution of delusion that progressivel y neutralizes the propensity for the manifestation of the latter and endows our li fe with ever-increasing meaning, making us feel ever more complete and, finally, p utting an end to craving (trishna) in general and thirst-for-existence in partic ular, so that we remain established in the absolute plenitude of Awakening. 5.Likewise, in some Buddhist Paths and vehicles, relationships with a partner and erotic pleasure, as well as moderate consumption of alcohol a nd meat, and other activities that the Path of renunciation DOES NOT consider spiritual, n be very important elements in the Path to Awakening. 6.In this context, the term [ the avidya;veil of illusion] must be understood in the three senses a Dzogchen classification... as the delusion that consists in taking the insubstantial as substantial, the relative as absolute, the dependent as independent, what lacks value and importa nce as having inherent value and importance... 7.Like all other members of technological civilization, those who live in opulen ce are always beset by dissatisfaction, anxiety and neurosis, and have no access to the nonconceptual u nveiling of the nondual Flow of our true nature that makes life truly Meaningful . Book: Mahayana Buddhism 1.Mahayana was again sub-divided into two schools of philosophy known as Sunyatavada, i e., of the Madhyamika, of which Nagarjuna was the main e xponent and Vijnanavada of the Yogacaraa, the main exponent of which was Asanga,

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who, it is said, was inspired by Maitreyanstha, a Bodhisattva. 2.Hinayana (Hy.) and Mahayana (My.) may briefly be compared thus : Hy. is ethical and historical, while My. is religious and metaphysical, being a later phase of Buddhism (2nd or 1st century B. c.) . 3.According to Hy., Buddhas appear only once in an aeon (kalfla), while, accordi ng to My., all beings possess Buddha-nature, technically known as the Tathagatagarbha (womb of Tathsgatas), which is a mixture of both good and evil, and it -is only when the evils of a being are totally eradicated, the particular being becomes a Tathagata. Book: Doctrine of Vibration 1.The Kaula character of this school is evidenced by the fact that it advocates the ritual consumption of meat and wine as well as ritual intercourse, as a possible means of developing this consciousness. 2.the fettered soul achieves this recognition and with it the conviction that he is not a slave of creation (pasu) but its master (pati)....In this way he who T HOUGHT himself weak discovers his spiritual MIGHT. 3.Doctrine of Vibration stresses instead the importance of experiencing Spanda, the vibration or pulse of consciousness...According to the Doctrine of Vibration, man can realise his true nature to be Siva by experiencing Spanda, the dynamic, recurrent and creative activity of the absolute. 4.Accordingly, in the Stanzas, this self identity is neither understood as an im personal 'atman'nor as a Superego, but rather as one's own being (svabhdva) which, belonging to none other, is intimately one's own (svasvabhava) as one's own fundamental state of being (svasthiti)[i.e. a thetan]. This personal identity is the living soul ( jiva) who is none other than Siva Himself. 5.Desire is not denied, but accepted at a higher level as the pure will or freed om (svdtantrya) of the absolute. Desire is to be eliminated only if it is desire 'for' (akariksa), rather than desire 'to'... 6.When Siva and Sakti, the two aspects of the pure vibration of consciousness, are understood as one reality, their symbol is a single dot (pronounced 'm') called a 'mixed point' (misrabindu). It represents both the integral unity of the absolute and the fertile potential of consciousness which, like a seed, is swollen (ucchuna) ready to germinate into cosmic manifestation. This 'mixed point' is the seed of consciousness known as the 'Sun of Knowledge'. 7.[For the yogi] past and future are not different from the present; it is the present itself which becomes divided by the past and the future. When they no longer exist, the present also ceases to exist. 8. All pleasure, in other words, is essentially spiritual. It is a state the subject experiences and not a property of the object. It is 'a drop from the ocean of Siva's bliss', a small wave or pulse in the universal vibration of consciousness. The yogi must fix his attention on the source of pleasure, freeing his mind of all disturbing thoughts and so make the transition to a state of awareness in which his personal concerns are transcended in the pervasive

experience of consciousness. This yogi is no hedonist. He is free of the false notion that the body is the Self and so does not crave for the pleasures of the senses, although he does make use of them as springboards to project him beyond the realms of physical, transitory objectivity into the eternal sphere of consciousness. 9.Ultimate reality transcends all the opposites, including subject and object. Book: Analytical Buddhism 1.They [Buddhism/Vedanta] have held that it is possible, through rigorous practices involving meditation, to attain nibbana (Sanskrit, nirvana), an exalted and irreversible mode of conscious existence. 2.Some commonly reported characteristics of nibbana include an end to all mental suffering. The capacity to feel negative emotion is completely BURNT OUT. 3.As we saw above, the consciousness of the nibbanic sage is held to be greatly expansive in its native capacities. Such consciousness does not come into being; it is always there, but while enmeshed in the cocoon of illusory self it is unaware of its full potential. 4.Por Sumedho (1992, 23) once remarked that looking at the mountains in Switzerland was almost painful, as if his mind could not get and hold onto its rightful fill of hedons! This dukkha is a feeling of unfulfilment, a sensing that one is not as full of happiness and joy as one might be. 5.Now, Buddhists distinguish between nibbana while the Arahant is living, and nibbana when the Arahant dies, a distinction that bears directly upon the difference between mental and physical dukkha. While the Arahant is alive, the elimination of tan.ha only involves the cessation of mental dukkha. 6.the term nibbana can, in the suttas, imply either an event of cessation (of tan. ha and ignorance) OR the unconditioned reality... 7.On this reading, the path to nibbana will be more accurately viewed as an uncov ering of the intrinsic mind rather than a literal development of the mind. 8.The defilements, rooted in tanha[desire] and ignorance, somehow serve to obscu re or dim the mind s natural luminosity. 9.Mental development will therefore involve a progressive uncovering rather than creating of intrinsic luminosity. 10.The unreliance of nibbana upon the khandhas can be inferred from the fact of its being unconditioned by time. 11.In many reports, the mind of a living Arahant is not only free from tanha, mental dukkha and ignorance about conditioned reality, but is radiantly and constantly happy in the knowledge of its real nature as unconditioned (with unta inted happiness deemed inherent to the mind s very nature). 12....it will be discerned that the aim of Buddhist practice is to rid one s minds et of any sense of me and mine . 13.Even so, monks, whatever is not yours: Let go of it. Your letting go of it

will be for your long-term happiness and benefit. And what is not yours? Form (body) is not yours ... Feeling is not yours ... Perception ... Mental Processes ... Consciousness is not yours. Let go of it. Your letting go of it will be for your long-term happiness... 14.Whenever a subject has feelings of personal my-ness towards any object, bodily o r mental, then the subject implicitly identifies with whatever group of mental and bodily khandhas serve to stand it in a relation of possessive or perspectival ownership towards the object in question. 15.Applying this analysis to the anosognosic, we can now say that when he feels that his arm does not belong to him, this means that he fails to identify as the personal owner of the arm. In Buddhist terms he does not, with respect to the arm, view the self as possessing [khandhas] . In failing to assimilate to himself (qua subject) the idea of being the arm s perspectival owner (and so failing, through this lack of identification, to generate a sense of personal ownership towards his arm), he lacks a sense of self towards the arm; he does not feel as if he is the arm s personal owner. Or when he feels that the arm is not a part of who he is, this means that he (qua subject) fails to identify with that body part as a part of himself (qua self). In Buddhist par lance he does not, with respect to the arm, view the khandhas as in the self ; he does not assimilate the arm into the set of khandhas that seems to reflect his identity as an integrated self or me . 16.It is clear that Buddhism regards a sense of a self to be something that lead s to dukkha. 17.Having renounced a sense of self-identification and personal ownership toward s the khandhas, where one no longer regards them in this manner to be me or mine, one is also set loose from dukkha (mental dukkha while physically alive, mental and physical dukkha when the body dies). 18.the sense of self, through identification, is somehow obscuring our perceptio n of the khandhas [five senses] as anicca [impermanent] and dukkha [suffering]. 19.But due to tan. ha [desire], this real possibility of a happiness-ideal gets distorted into the belief that such an ideal can be found outside the intrinsic mind, in the perfect configurat ion of khandhas (in getting the world the way we like it! 20.What we call a being , or an individual , or I , according to Buddhist philosophy, is only a combination of ever-changing physical and mental forces or energies, which may be divided into five groups or aggregates... 21.To have a sense of being a bounded entity is to have a sense of being a unique thing with boundaries separate from all other things. 22.This sense of separation between self and other is evidence for a feeling of boundedness that is had by the identifying subject. Identified-with items may include gender, race, character traits, preferences, aversions, bodily attributes, social status, profession, possession s, other people... 23.Whether expanded or shrunken, the sense of boundedness,through identification

, seems to turn the subject from a mere point of view into a substantial personal thing. 24.In all such cases, the subject s identification as the one and only me is suffu sed with a dispositional sense of value that can be readily felt, should the occasion arise. This value seems to create or reflect an almost tangible feeling of boundedness between self and other. 25.One can feel this sentiment to the extent that the thought of losing one s thisness [The sentiment of this-ness , involving identification], such as through replica tion and destruction[analogy], feels akin to the thought of dying. Book: The Idea of Idolatry 1.The immediate background, the setting in which Muhammad lived and proclaimed his message, is known generally in tradition as the jahiliyya. That Arabic word may be translated as the age, or condition, of ignorance ... 2.According to Muslim tradition, however, the Prophet Muhammad was sent to a people who were idol worshippers and morally debased. 3.Again, Muhammad s pagan grandfather, Abd al-Muttalib, is described praying to Allah inside the Kaba, the site of an idol called Hubal, Book: Aghora 1.Tantra is a mental science, a meta-psychology, a method for exploring the mind and developing the range of one's perceptions. 2.Personality is the self-identification of the ego with a set of attributes. Al l beings possess egos and therefore all beings have personalities. 3.The doctrine of kundalini and the chakras is associated with that of the five great elements[water, fire etc.] have been thoroughly purified in an individual then the kundalini shakti a goddess in her own right, has a free path upwards th rough the chakras to meet and mate with her shiva in the brain. 4.Tantric sex becomes possible only when one has totally effaced one's own perso nality... 5.Renunciation disappears once you arrive at the Absolute because then nothing r emains to renounce. An Agorhi goes so deeply into darkness into all things undre amable to ordinary mortals that he comes out into light. 6.These eight nooses or snares, pashas in Sanskrit, with which you could hang yo urself are lust, anger, greed, delusion, envy, shame, fear and disgust. While yo u are in a state of ignorance you possess one or many or all of these emotions o r grinning heads. Smashan Tara[KALI] tells you, " I chop off your head to cure y ou of this malady, to free you from the grip of these snares." MOst people, unfo rtunately, are so attached to their snares that they shrink from Smashan Tara in fear, thinking SHe wants to kill them. She does want to kill you=the false you, the limited personality which has accrued over so many births. You fear Her bec ause you identify yourself with this mediocre personality when your true persona lity is something quite different [nibanna?]... 7.What this means is that She removes so many of the karmas which have forced th e individual to be born into a particular womb that a higher rebirth is guarante ed. She actually alters the patterns of your personality, which is merely the ag

gregate of all your countless karmas in myriads of births. 8.After so many experiences of death you forget all about life; your renunciatio n is complete. 9.All dualities like polarity and charge are finished, the manifestation is diss olved. This is why the authorities say the Absolute reality has no gender attrib utes. 10.Until you begin to atleast curb these desires you will never make any permane nt spiritual progress...All your gains will be continuosly wiped out by your ind ulgences. 11.When you see One in All and ALl in One, there can be no fear, fear of what-of yourself? 12. They [aghora] deal with planes of existence which are unbelievably alien to our every day lives...If you go around telling everyone what you have achieved y ou will definitely suffer. .. 13.Semen is that substance in the male body which has the ability to create. Onl y procreation is possible if it is expelled from the body, ejaculated during the sex act. If it is RETAINED within the body, stored instead of being wasted, the n real creation becomes possible through ojas. Ojas is the source of the body's metabolic energy, the Jathara Agni...Ojas exists in association with the head an d the nervous system. In fact the "aura" or "halo" which you can see around a pe rson's head is composed of his or her ojas. 14.If you want to progress from the state of being a donkey in human form, one w ho lives for eating and procreating to a higher state you must conserve semen. 15...years of Brahmacharya [celibacy] will develop great strenght of ojas. Your aura or halo will develop to such an extent that whoever meets you will feel ref reshed and relieved afterward...this is the hallmark of a real saint, the test y ou can use to seperate the men from the donkeys. 16. A firm mind means firm ojas and NO emission of semen; loss of mental control means LOSS of ojas and semen. 17.The main reason for becoming a naga [sadhu] is to remove once and for all every thought for the body. 18.According to Tantra everyone is ill who is doomed to live with a limited pers onality. Only those who go beyond time,space and causation to become immortal ca n be said to be truly in harmony with the cosmos and therefore truly healthy... 19.The aim of Tantra is...return of the seeker to the state of undifferentiated existence.... This union[tantra] is described with a sexual metaphor: the union of the personal ego (which is female)with the absolute (male). 20.As one accumulates power, the ego will balloon out unless the personality is continuosly incinerated simultaneously. 21.Your ego is nothing but your Kundalini shakti, your personal fragment of Adya .All during life your ego tries to find HER MATE. Her controller-Lord shiva in o ther people, and convince ourselves that we have located what we have been searc hing for. 22...but because you have been'lightened' of your heavy burden of karmas and to the grace of your guru.

23.If you want to die while hings which most bind us to e you more concious of your hese desires you will never Book: Aghora Kundalini

you are still alive you have to restrict the three t the body: food,sleep and sex...Food and sex also mak bodily processes...Until you begin to atleast curb t make any permanent spiritual progress.

1.This Way [aghora path]is one of extraordinary extremes and intensities, even f or tantra, and its aim is nothing less than to destroy the human limitations of the practitioner, so that he/she becomes a superhuman-in fact, a kind of deity. 2.Such a practitioner must be willing to venture into anything or nothing, knowi ng that in either case a successful experience will bring further ISOLATION from the human and immersion in realities from which there can be NO TURNING BACK. 3...ahamkara, or egoism, the force which makes it possible for you to unquestion ably accept the world as it is on the surface. This same force is called Kundali ni when it turns AWAY from the mundane and toward the spiritual...After kundalin i awakes it becomes IMPOSSIBLE to continue believing that external reality is th e sole reality[i.e. destruction of awareness]. Ahamkara makes you who you are NO W, Kundalini makes you into what you will become. 4.No means to awakening is too disgusting or frightening for them, for they wors hip death, the Great Transformer. 5.In the ordinary human the ego is fully identified with the body and the limite d personality, and all actions are centered around this temporary "self". 6. ...problems are solved if and only if kundalini awakens in a slow, CONTROLLED way...because Kundalini progressively un ties every knot that binds the personality together. 7.Why I am so outraged: Because the ORDINARY individual can at best, after long penances, become able to partially self identify with the universe...whenever th at self identification becomes perfect the ego loses all concept of individualit y and all contact with the body, which disintegrates. 8. "In an ordinary individual the ego resides at the lower end of the spinal cor d because gravity has full power over her. So long as she lies there sleeping th e individual remains in ignorance. IF you want to liberate the ego from her rest rictions you must create a force within your body to counteract the force of gra vity, this can only be done by STRENUOUS PENANCE [punishment]. 9.To rise above all this misery[mundane world] you must raise your Kundalini in a CONTROLLED way. 10.Jathara agni is in charge of physical digestion, and bhuta agni of mental dig estion. When you take in new ideas you 'eat' them, Bhuta agni'digests'them so th at you can comprehend them. 11."the nadis[ethereal nerves] meet and connect with one another at ethereal ple xus called chakras. The chakras exist only in the subtle body[subtle body]... 12.When kundalini begins to awaken, a tremendous rush of energy is released. Unl ess the guru is strong enough to control it the disciple will be overwhelmed wit h desires and will become strongly attached to worldly things, PRECISELY because the chakras are still blocked. 13....control of breath causes control of mind...

14.If you really want to progress at Kundalini Yoga you must forget your body... and to do that you must forget food and water. 15.An aghori meditates on burning corpses to force the consciousness beyond all limitations of the personality. The hardest concretions[mass] of identity are th e most resistant, and steel-wool penance[punishment] are needed to scour them aw ay.Aghoris take no chance with EGO-INFLATIONs. 16.whatever you imagine you will most surely become...but eventually you are bou nd to achieve, if you are patient and persistent. Book: Law of Karma 1.Until that time ahamkara creates and reinforces your limited human personality by self-identifying with your physical and mental attributes. So long as your awareness remains trapped in your body you will be at Saturn's mercy, for y ou will be unable to control your own nature. Only when you have completely overcome 'wh at comes naturally' to you can Saturn no longer have any effect on you. 2.I emphasize all this just so you will know that to make any kind of fundamental change in your nature w hich means to alter your fate you must be able to change the chemical patterns in your brain, patterns which are controlled by your genes and chromosomes." 3.But as soon as Shiva saw Saturn He experienced his own true nature and went into samadhi. Saturn makes you experience yourself as you really are, down deep inside. 4.It is always better to endure whatever fate throws your way. You will definite ly receive your reward eventually. 5.Yes, this is where Saturn comes in. Saturn uses Prakriti Siddhi [Prakriti Sidd hi is the ability to change the innate nature of any part of the Universal Prakr iti, which means the ability to alter the consciousness of any being in the univ erse]on his victims." 6.but when a deity uses Prakriti Siddhi on a human human being the effect is still permanent. That person's very genes and ch romosomes are changed, and there is never a regression to the previous state. Book: the Kapalikas 1....the Kplikas worship the Hindu deity Bhairava-Siva and his consort.

Book: the Triadic Heart of Shiva 1....The ithyphallic condition has been attributed by some not to priapism but to the Tantric ritual of seminal retention. To a certain extent, this techni que may be considered a manifestation of yogic chastity... 2.The "yogic"effect of this elevation is homologized with the rising kundalini,

which ascends through the erect spine of the meditative yogin and spills itself out in to the skull in the form of the nectar of immortality... 3.Later, more sophisticated formulations, such as those of Abhinavagupta,argue t hat spiritual ignorance is precisely the attachment to polarities of good and ev il, purity and impurity, right and wrong, and life and death. It is precisely the attachment to these polarities that constitutes conventional morality. The ascetic confronts his own and others' ignorance by challenging, am ong other things, the prevailing conventional morality of society. The result may be, of course, that the ascetic is, in turn, almost certainly misunderstood, if not reviled, by the society from which he separates himself in the search for Siva. 4.In this respect, it is especially relevant to note that the Natha Siddhas were uncompromisingly celibate. Their celibacy is not surprising, given the importance of transmuting rather than spending the sexual essence. 5.In addition, this system of symbols takes on a markedly sexual character aboun ding in what Bharati terms "polarity symbolism," involving descriptions of the " mystical" union of male and female, of Siva and sakti. 6.The sakti is the cosmically creative force that actually carries out the tasks of creation,maintenance and reabsorption of the universe. In addition, it is th at power which is operative in human beings both as a vital force and a spiritual power. On the human level, the sakti is present in the body as the kundalini force. 7.This penetration is often theoretically described as an ascent through the cakra-s of the mystical physiology and involves a progressive mastery of the pranic forces that sustain both the physical body and the mind. Often, this mastery leads to the production and display of supernatural abilities of various sorts, magical powers, or attainments which are also common in many Yoga texts. 8.The psychological sophistication of tantric groups was that they had recognized that the sources and origins of sexuality and spirituality are identical. 9.Verily, what is called brahman - that is the same as what the space outside of a person is. Verily, what the space outside of a person is - that is the same as what the space within a person is... 10.In the non-dual Kashmir Shaiva texts at least three possible levels of meaning for the Heart can be identified: the physical organ, the cakra,and th e Ultimate. 11.Indian philosophers use this term (the heart) to mean the place within the bo dy where feeling, willing, thinking, and so forth take place. 12.This important nexus of the vital breaths, sensory perceptions,and underlying consciousness is located in the general area of the physical heart. 13....we will see that upon occasion Abhinavagupta's usage of the term Heart seems to be directed toward the cakra. The elevation of the symbol to its final height, however, occurs only when the Heart is no longer used to refer to the cakra, but rather, by synecdoche, comes to be a term applied to the Ultimate itself.

14.It is in the center of the center that the Sakti dwells as the power that enlivens and controls the entire wheel of sense capacities and subtle conduits. 15.Finally, the kula is said to be both the consciousness (samvid) and the body (sarira) of the Lord. 16.The intense power that develops from the constant practice of absorption allows the practitioner to draw to himself whatever divinity he desires. He experiences this divinity as residing in identity with his own body. Then even as he continues to appropriate these divinities into himself - if he does not abandon his absorption - then remaining continuously absorbed for two periods of three hours, he no longer perceives his own body, vital breath, and so forth, and beholds unveiled the entire mass of the form of consciousness. Then, if he remains in that state for two periods of three hours, all distinctio ns are completely destroyed and his own body becomes similar to that of someone else." The practitioner next loses his sense of separateness, of the boundaries usually established by the physical body, and the distinction between self and other. Once he has surpassed this distinction he is able to perceive whole hosts of divine beings: Moreover, when he does not abandon the practice of absorption even then, but abides constantly absorbed for three periods of three hours without interrup tion, then he will behold the Mothers, Brahmi and the others; the Yogesvari-s, Mistresses of Yoga; the Vira-s, heroes perfected by the practice of the cakra an d led by Aghora; and the Lords of the Heroes beginning with the nine-souled Deity. Also the Siddhas, whose powers are born of the practice of the cakra, appear. All these are endowed with the great power of Bhairava.... 17.Once this state has been attained[bhairava] any particular desire that remain s in the heart of the practitioner will be granted by this wheel of divinities: Book: Masters of magical Powers 1.'Master of magical powers' is a possible translation of the Hindi designation Nath Siddha. 'Nath Siddhas' is thus a generic term for a North Indian group of yogis who claim spiritual descent from the god Siva, his human disciple Matsyendranath, and the probable historical founder of their order, the great guru Gorakhnath. 2.According to the Nath Siddhas, the key to salvation...This process is intimate ly related to human sexuality, or more specifically, to the issue of the preserv ation or waste of semen (bindu). The released semen is the gross form of a subtle substance that has a potential value - if no t wasted as the elixir of immortality, the amrt... 3.The central concept is the bindu. It is the most important element in the theo ry and practice of the jogis. 4.On a more concrete level, it is the rise of the kundalini that brings about the transmutation of the raw semen into nectar in the cranial vault...

5.In the case of ordinary people, the nectar [bindu] is wasted, while yogis stri ve to preserve it through celibacy and yogic practices. 6."Concentration on the nerve-centres known as Cakras, confers on the Yogi super human powers. 7.its [bindu]waste is tantamount to bodily deterioration, disease and death.By t he same token, its preservation and eventual return to the top cakra is equivalent to the attainment of both adepthood and immortality. 8.The subtle body and its energies are not a given: one has to 'build' this body through a regime of elaborate practices that often imply the exercise of visual ization and mental concentration. 9.When released through the sexual act, according to the jogis the bindu is wasted, which ultimately leads to disease, o ld age, and death. To counteract this process, celibacy is an essential requirem ent, but it alone is not sufficient. 10.This process of the return of the bindu, its transmutation from material seme n into spiritual elixir, constitutes the most important practice of the Nath Siddh as... 11....and finally, the union may be accomplished within an individual body, by m aking Siva and Sakti meet esoterically, which would be the approach of yoga. 12.The application of mind to this process is established through its deployment in the effort of visualizatio n and concentration. 13.The subtle body [chakra ,nadis,kundalini]with its centres of energy is, there fore, not a tangible or substantive object. 14.These notions are powerful because they stand in causal relationship with the material and spiritu al effects,the seeds of which are planted by the practice of willed and discipli ned visualization and meditation, or imagination. 15.Siva and Sakti are also present within the human body, having their respective places at the top of the head and at the base of the spine. 16.The sexual abstinence and the retention of sperm are approached as the pathways toward positive goal, which is power, siddhi. A yogi resorts to the asc etic methods because he, "by conserving his semen, is believed to build up an interna l store of magical power. 17.At the same time, as already mentioned, the struggle against the demands of desire represents an occasion for the acquisition of power - a common theme

in Indian spirituality. It is well known that humans most closely approach the c ondition of gods when they accumulate a store of energetic heat, tapas, through their asceti c and celibate exertions and it is at such occasions the gods usually send heavenly ny mphs to seduce the ascetics and make them release accumulated semen and thus lose their godlike power. The important fact here is that sexual abstinence represents an avenue fo r the obtainment of power. 18.Celibacy is encouraged, not because there is a moral stain attached to sexuality, but because the preservati on of the semen is essential to the praxis of yoga. Book: Kundalini Energy of the Depths 1.Kundalini, the upright axis at the innermost center of a person and of the uni verse, is the very source of man's might, drawing and unfolding all his energies . 2...Kundalini can rise up to the throat; but if he wants to take her into the head, he must have the ability to remain in a deep and continuous state of absorption. 3.As a conscious energy, Kundalini is at the source of the two currents that govern life: prana, vital energy, and virya, virile potency, in the broad sense of the word. 4.For when it is awakened [kundalini], it manifests in the body in the aspect of powerful vibrations. 5.In the center of the Heart is an etheric void, free from duality, called vyoma n or kha[thetan]. It is identical to the initial vibration,spanda.According to A bhinavagupta, this eternal, peerless heart is the still and vibrant center of Co nsciousness, a universal receptacle wherein all the universes are born and withdrawn. 6.In the same way, as soon as Kundalini uncoils and rises straight like a staff to the top of the head, not only does she become harmless, but as the evil nature of her power is transforme d, she proves to be a priceless treasure. 7.How can the poison of mundane energies[i.e.bindu] be made to serve higher aims ? Two solutions are offered: either to digest the poison or to keep the nectar i n store under one's control. 8.In ordinary persons these wheels neither revolve nor vibrate,they form inextri cable tangles of coils, called accordingly "knots" (granthi), because they "knot" spirit and matter, thus strengthening the sense o f ego. 9.Each knot, being an obstruction, must be loosened so that the energy released by the centers can be absorbed by K undalini and thus regain its universality. 10.Her sleep [kundalini]is the bondage of the ignorant, making him blindly mista ke his body for his true Self. She is then named "receptacle energy" (adharasakti), for she contains all the elements

of the universe. Although asleep, she is supporting the life of man and of the w orld, both having fallen into slumber. 11.Within her coils the sleeping Kundalini holds the poison (visa) which destroys the vitality of human beings, as they dissipate their energies in sexual agitation. But at the time of her arousing, as soon as a pure, perfectly-focused energy reigns supreme, this poison transforms itself into an all-pervading power (vis),7 thus opening access to universality. 12.All functions stop as soon as bliss is enjoyed and the energy spreads inside the head, up to the thousand-spoked center; and since the ties with the samsara are broken, she changes into an energy of pure c onsciousness. 13.then the eyes close and Kundalini, fully erect, manifests as a tremendous flo w of powerful energy. 14.In lalata, the middle of the forehead, Kundalini discovers the entrance of the brahmarandhra [human head]and her journey comes to an end.From t here on the energy becomes supreme and all-pervading. 15.It [kundalini above the skull;halo?]is no longer related to the body; it is t he cosmic dvadasanta or sahasrara, a wheel with a thousand spokes, that is to say innumera ble energies, resplendent, eternally present, which cannot be attained through any amount of self-effort, for it is the very n ature of things (svabhavika). 16.It is fluid and diffuses the divine nectar, and yet it is as stable as the firmament.Situated above the skull, it consists of the fusion of bindu and nada, of Siva and energy... 17."A yogin whose ordinary consciousness is well collected in the heart and who has no other care, through an awareness free from duality (avikalpa) devotes himself entirely to the contemplation of his own consciousness as a conscious Subject liberated from the body and other limitations. And so, ever vigilant, absorbing himself in the Fourth state and in what lies beyond, he puts an end to the dualizing though t and gradually acquires sovereignty." 18.His energy being thus intensified, the yogin becomes perfectly still, with his consciousness fully collected in a crucial moment, and then he loses the usual awareness of hi s limited self and of his surroundings. 19.Mystical experiences and significant phenomena occur in rapid succession as t he corresponding centers are affected and the Kundalini energy begins to spread through the entire being of the yogin. When she saturates the whole body, absolute bliss prevails, but as long as she remains confined to one center, the way is not clear and cert ain phenomena occur. 20.Then, as it touches the root center, the breath is transformed into a very powerful seminal flow which, in both master and disciple, spreads throughout the body and rises to the brahmarandhra; the initiate, then, becomes aware of the virile potency streaming

through his centers... 21.When he has reached the one and only Center, the yogin is omnipresent and as his median way is universal, the centers are everywhere and contain everything. The yogin is no longer aware of his body as being separate from the universe; he does not know where he is; and his vikalpa having vanished, he experiences only bliss and indescribable rapture... 22.Thereby is expressed in a concrete form the free, independent divine energy, as the presence of both sexes in a single body reconstitutes the original oneness of the opposite principles dividing the universe: "Siva puts his seal upon the whole world," says Utpaladeva, "dividing humanity intonmale and female bodies" fragmented parts of one Whole. 22.While sexual desire involves a redoubtable and vain attachment, its intensity, though, remains necessary, nay, essential, because of the lively effervescence it stirs up. 23.So, according to the great saying of the Tantra, that which is a cause for bondage to ordinary humans proves to be, to the siddha, a means of liberation. Even in the height of the agitation particular to sexual desire, one is carried, through the ascent of Kundalini, to where the energy surges forth, to its vibrant source. 24.the man must forget about his being a male, as the subjective realm enters the objective realm and vice versa, a necessary condition for the sense of self to vanish. 25,Here all functions come to an end. The distinction between man and woman disappears; only union remains, wherein Siva and Sakti, quiescence and emergence, become undistinguishable... 26.Thus complete oneness is achieved as intensity grows from bindu to bindu, until all of them merge into a single one, from botto m to top. 27.By its means they destroy the last remnants of the differentiated. Freed from all attachment, they are autonomous in their sexual practice and may unite with their own wives. They raise their Kundalini from the throat cakra. Book: An introduction to Tantric Buddhism 1.They have always been transmitted from the preceptor to the disciple in the most secret manner and it has always been h eld an unpardonable crime on the part of a Sadhaka to let the uninitiated into t he secret of their Sadhana[spiritual endeavor]. 2....and these two aspects of the reality are represented in Hinduism by Siva and Sakti and in Buddhism by Prajna(female p rinciple) and Upaya (or Sunyata(female) and karuna) 3.The Buddhist Tantras are based more on the Yoglclra school... 4.The Sanyatii-doctrine of Nagarjuna may seem incompatible with the doctrine of

nirvana. If everything be void and there be neither origination nor destruction, then by the destruction or arrest of what should we attain nirvana ?' The reply of Nagarjuna is that nirvana is not something which is to be attained through th e destruction or the arrest of anything whatsoever; it is but the complete cessa tion of all mental construction. It has been described as the destruction of nothing,-the attainment of nothing,-it is neither annihilation, nor eternally existent ;-it is neither the arrested, nor t he produced-this is the definition of nirvana. 5.Tradition holds Asanga, the great exponent of the Yogacakra school, to be resp onsible for the introduction of Tantrism in Buddhism... 6.This composite system of Tantricism came to be known by the general name of Va jra-yana and from Vajra-yana developed the Sahaja-yana at a still later time. 7.From what is said here about the Kala-cakra-yana it seems that it is also a ph ase of Vajra-yana...The word Kala-cakra means the wheel of time. 8.This theory of Kala-cakra has very soundly been discussed in the sixth chapter of the Tantra-loka of Abhinavagupta and a perusal of thetext will convince the reader that the explanation of Kala-cakra as given in the Sri-kala-cakra-tantra is just the same as described in the Tantra-loka. The whole chapter of the Tantrii-loka is devoted to the exposition of the doctrine of Kala (time) and the process of k eeping oneself above the influence of the' whirl of time... 9.Kala-cakra, therefore, means the absolutely unified principle of Prajna[shiva] and Upaya[shakti]. 10.Vajra-yana or the ' Adamantine way ' is really the way or means for the reali sation of the Vajra-nature or the immutable and impenetrable void-nature of the self... 11.Sadhaka[practitioner] is bent on realising the nature of his citta[function o f mind] as luminous by nature...as the immutable void (vajra) ; after the realisation of the self as the void, he identifies hims elf with all the objects of the world and becomes one with all. 12.The word Vajra, commonly rendered as the thunderbolt, is taken here to connot e the immutable adamantine[hard substance eg diamond] nature of the dharmas. It has been said,-" Sunyata[shiva principal], which is firm, substantial indivisibl e and impenetrable, incapable of being burnt and imperishable,is called Vajra. " 13.This realisation of the self in all as of theimmutable and all-pervading natu re is the secret of all Yogas. 14.Prajna is conceived as the female element while Upaya is conceived as the male element. 15.Siva represents pure consciousness which is inactive the static aspect of the ultimate reality; while Sakti represents the world force--the kinetic energy of the ultimate truth. 16....or in other words all men and women are Upaya and Prajna in their ultimate nature.

17.in the Sahaja or the ultimate stage there is the cognition of neither the Prajna nor the Upaya, t here is no sense of difference anywhere. 18.The advocates of Vajra-yana and Sahaja-yana hold that the pleasure that is re alised through the discharge of matter[bindu] is much lower, in respect of degree as well as in quality, than the bliss that can be realised through the control of this matter, i.e., by checking its downward flow through subtle y ogic processes and by giving it an upward flow so as to make it reach the lotus situated in the cerebrum region... 19.The sexoyogic Sadhana of the Tantrikas is a Sadhana for transforming this sex-pleasure into _a realisation of infinite bliss in which the self and the world around are lost i n an all-pervading oneness. 20.Tantras, as a science of religious methodology, consists in its analysis of the body and the discovery of all tattv a in the nervous system and in the plexus(chakra/nadi) and thus making the body, with the whole physiological and biological process, a perfect medium (yantra) for realising th e ultimate truth. 21.Let us now see how the TBntric Buddhists discovered the different tattvas wit hin this corporal structure: a.This analysis of the physical system starts with the spinal cord, wide ly known as the Merudanda, which is taken to be one bone from the bottom of the back up to the medulla oblongata (brain area controlling heart/bp). b.All the nerves start from a seat called the Kanda which is situated ab out one inch above the anus and one inch below the penis. c.The most important of the processes for the arrest of the flow of Bodhicitta[ here connotating bindu] is the Kumbhak a or the suspension of the vital wind, both Prana and Apana. Prana is the wind tha t moves upward, and Apana is the wind that moves downward, and generally the disturbed semen within the body is discharged throug h the downward motion of Apana 22.This principle of the Vajra-yanists is found explained in many of the texts in the form of a set of an alogies, the main purport of which is, what binds the fool, liberates the wise; that which may prove fatal to ordinary people may conduce to health and happiness in the case of a scientist, that which drags the uninitiated fool to the hell of de bauchery may help the initiated Yogin to attain perfect enlightenment. 23.A Yogin, thus versed in the fundamental truth, is never disturbed by the objects of pleasure though H E MAY indulge in them. Book: Obscure religious Cults 1....therefore to realise the absolute truth, or in the other words, to obtain t he highest spiritual experience, man and woman must first of al realise themselv es as manifestation of Siva and Sakti and unite toghether physically, mentally,

and spiritually and the supreme bliss that proceeds from such union is the highe st religious gain. 2.The most important of the secret practices is the yogic control of the sex ple asure so as to transform it into transcendental bliss, which is at the same time conducive to the health both of the body and the mind. Book: Ancient secrets of Kundalini 1,This finished product, emerging as a male or a female, through a most powerful unaccountable urge that reaches down to the very depths of one's being, finds i tself drawn to its opposite with a magnetic force, as if the two parts belonged to one stream of being, and had been torn apart to hunger for each other till th ey combined into one again. 2.But whether the stimulation would have the desired effect of generating tabolic processes, which result in the circulation of a new form of nerve in the body and the flow of the reproductive secretions into the various and the brain, leading to a new pattern of consciousness, is a different altogether. the me energy organs matter

3.Day and night, with only brief intervals for meals and other basic necessities of life, he consecrated himself in lonely hermitages and ashrams to the enterprise, undergoi ng various practices and disciplines, some of them extremely dangerous and painful, without any thought to the world, to bodily injury, mental derangement or even death. 4....under the impression that they are the harbingers of success in the undertaking[kundalini]. This sort of wishful thinking has, not unoften, the very reverse effect of enlarging the ego and inculcating ideas of self-importance. 5.The awakening of Kundalini implies the renewed activity of the same Life-force to refashion the brain to a higher dimension of awareness... 6.He seldom imagines that the moment the objective of Yoga is achieved, he will cease to be what he is or thinks himself to be. Utterly humbled and subj ugated he will then find that he is but a shadow or merely a thin film of ego fa lsely believing himself to be the doer of deeds and the thinker of thoughts. 7.the individual soul (Atman) which is Brahman itself, perceives a duality, i.e. itself as the embodied observ er, and the colossal world in which it finds itself as the object observed, both separate an d distinct from each other. 8.This plainly signifies that the Operation Theatre of the Vedantic maya is not located in the cosmos which we perceive, but in the very instrument of perceptio n, that is our brain. 9.With the streaming of Energy into the sahasrara (cerebral cortex), a revolution occurs in the strictly limite d consciousness of the individual, resulting in the opening of a new channel of pe rception the Third Eye and the apperception of a new, indescribable world of Being which is a concentrated ocean of Existence, Consciousness, Bliss and Beauty personified.

10.The pre-condition for the attainment of jnana [wisdom]is said to be cessation of samskaras (causative seeds of previous karma) 11.The seeds of evil karma that condemn a human being to a life of delusion, suf fering and sorrow must, therefore, be present in his genes, which exist in the c ells of his brain and inevery cell and fibre of his being. 12.The world we see is the creation of the senses and the mind. We can never suc ceed in detecting this illusion unless the instrument of perception, i.e. consci ousness, undergoes a change. This is what Yoga is designed to achieve. Change in consciousness necessarily implies a change in the basic structure of the brain. This cannot be achieved by any means whatsoever save by the arousal and metabol ic activity of Kundalini. 13.The reason why this first or lowest chakra is called Muladhara or the 'root-s upport' center is because it is from this place that the explosive energy that c auses the upheaval in the mind ascends to the brain in the form of a radiation a nd a subtle organic essence which in all books on Kundalini is designated as 'am rita' or nectar. 14.What the ancient adepts had in view, when prescribing the symbols for each chakra, are the changes in the patte rn of prana and consciousness as the Kundalini force moves upward from center to cente r. Prana itself is a concept lacking official recognition. It is, in fact, what neurobiol ogists are searching for the link between the neuron and the mind. The term 'pranayama', repeatedly used in the manuals on Yoga, refers to the regulation or control of t his mysterious element. Book: History of the Tantric religion 1.In the religious sense Tantra first came to mean 'the scripture by which knowl edge is spread'In the next stage it was defined as a class of texts'which promul gates profound matters concerning tattva (theory, which later came to mean "pure knowledge") and mantra (practical means. which later came to denote ("mystic sound") 2.The vajra (thunderbolt or lightning flash) was identified with the male extern al generative organ 3.Likewise the Majjhima Nikaya mentions the view of a class of Sramanas and Brahmanas according to which sexual intercourse with youthful female ascetics is a way to achieve salvation. 4.Kundalini does not stay long in sahasrara. She has an inherent tendency to return to her original place. Therefore the aspirant has to make con tinuous efforts to retain her in sahasrara,. because liberation is not gained by merely awakening kundalini.It is possible only when she takes up her permanent abode in the sahasrara. Book: Untying the knots in Buddhism 1.The various versions agree that by eating foods of increasing coarseness, the bodies of these beings became more and more coarse, and these beings lost their original attributes. I do not know

whether Hindu texts have a similar account, which may provide a rationale for the frequent Indian yoga practice of drastically curtailing food. Presumably, by reversing the process,one could grad ually refine the body and ultimately re-attain the primordial state. 2.At the present time, happy without illness and strong, he does not eat with im proper measure, or something unwholesome, or when there is bad transformation, [ in such a way] whereby in the future, tomorrow or the following day, indigestion attended with purging in both directions would take shape in his body, or one or another bodily illness occur, that is, itching, leprosy, febrile eruptions, white leprosy, and so forth... 3.When, 'One dispels the weakness through desire of food," thus arises his streng th. 4.Among those, by reason of untransformed food, indigestion attended with purgin g in both directions takes shape in his body: or bodily illness. one or another, arises in his body. Book: companions in solitude 1.There has to be a radical, life-transforming attitudinal change from Within before we are able to find real solutions to the problems besetting our world. 2.The truth is that so long as we refuse to inwardly change and transcend and transmute our petty egocentred selves and rise into the Light of Unifying Awareness, Within and Above, mere cha nge of locale would not help. 3.The power of Tap (penance) is immense. Tap means heat. So penance means heating up the self for purification. The greatest of all the powerful elements in this world have their roots in Tap or heat. 4.Of all the energies, spiritual energy is the purest and greatest. 5.Rishi Kanad, who lived on broken grains scattered here and there on the ground and Valmiki, who lived on the white juice of Banyan tree, were deprived of worldly p leasures. But what they got in exchange of their Tap[punishment/penance for sins/karma?] far greater than the greatest o f mundane gains. 6.Satiation of sex, fulfillment of greed, amassing wealth,getting applause, etc. are the highest aims in life for those who consider their body to be their true identity. They can forget about the awakeni ng of the soul and can continue wearing golden handcuffs and leg straps. They may be right in their pretext of not havin g favourable conditions to adopt the higher path. It is the ego-driven desire within that prompts people to amass material w ealth, and worldly name and fame. 7.When the chain of lust, desire and greed for high position, pelf, power, fame and applause was broken, I felt a sense of liberation from worldly bondages. The persons who are fastened by these chains a

re dragged along the miserable and rough path of mundane existence and keep bemoaning their perpetual state of discontent and distress. 8.When the roots of greed and lust were pulled out of the psyche, immense amount of energy and enthusiasm filled the heart. Any one can test and experience it on oneself. 9.What I had to lose [mundane world]is inconsequential but what is gained is so rich and great that I wish to appeal to everyone to adopt i deal and sublime tradition of living a spiritual way of life. Book: Ascetic Self 1.The ascetic submits her life to a form that transforms it, to a training that changes a person s orientation from the fulfilment of desire to a narrative greater than the self. 2.To begin, we might say that asceticism is the reversal of the flow of the body, which is also an attempt to reverse the flow of time. Asceticism refers to a range of habits or bodily regimes designed to restrict or reverse the instinctual impulses of the body and to an ideology that maintains that in so doing a greater good or happiness can be achieved. 3.A key of food desire. worldly feature of the reversal of the body s orientation is the renunciation and sexual practice along with the attempted eradication of sexual Not only this: in propounding a life of simplicity and minimal interaction, ascetic cultures often renounce aesthetic pleasures...

4.Through developing ascetic habit, ascetic ideology maintains that the limits o f the body can be superseded and a new body created or the body transcended. 5.For a man or woman to devote their life to a path and practice that can involv e great discomfort and pain is to make a commitment to a goal that has ultimate value for them. 6...the text is fundamentally concerned with asceticism as the withdrawal of consciousness from exteriority and the cultivation of higher states of AWARENESS (samadhi) through detachment leading to discriminative wisdom (the discerning of the true self from what is not the self ). 7.This is pure detachment, in which there is an absence of anything either to be achieved or abandoned... 8.The goal of yoga is the cessation of mental fluctuation, which can be stopped through application or practice and dispassion...Practice is the application of effort, consistently and over a long time period to achieve the cessation of mental fluctuation, and detachment is the necessary withdrawal from the realm of the senses. 9.states that austerity is that which is taught in the texts of tradition (sastra) and goes on to identify it as bodily mortification (kr. cchra), and fasting regulated...Furthermore, thr ough the practice of such austerity the yogin gains perfection of body and senses, that Vyasa glosses as gaining magical powers...

10.We see from these occurrences that tapas is an important element in the development of yoga and the cessation of mental fluctuation. Moreover, it creates perfection of the body and faculties a perfection characterised by beauty, gracefulness, strength and diamond hardness. 11.When I say that asceticism is a key feature of all the asramas I mean that a marked feature of the system is that they are concerned with the control of sexuality and the intake of food. 12.Rather than a mechanical method for eradicating impurity, asceticism becomes a moral endeavour that leads the ascetic self, after long struggle, to see things as they are ... 13.For the Jains, action (karman) is a substance that adheres to the moist and sticky soul and liberation is the expunging (nijjara) of this substance by means of asceticism, thereby allowing the soul, freed from the weight of its actions, to ascend to liberation at the top of the univer se... 14.Dressing in rags disrupts attachment to fine clothes and disrupts any notion of conventional style and conformist identity-markers fundamental to culture. 15.This is not the place to describe at length the origins of Christian ascetici sm, but suffice it to say that there are precursors in the New Testament where Jesus calls his disciples to renounce material goods. 16.Evagrius consistently uses the term logismoi, thoughts , which almost always refers to the vices that keep a soul bound to the lower orders of creation...It is the vices that cause the mind to wander and care of the flesh , fornication, uncleanness, passionate thoughts, concupiscence, greed and self-love have to be put to death . Book: Ideals of Asceticism 1.To minimize wants, to reduce material resources, to simplify life all round, o f luxuries to make a clean sweep-this is the way of the ascetic. 2.A root power is discovered which inhibits absolutely any selfish ambitions, se lf advertisement... Book: Four illusions 1.The range of human suffering includes the physical pain of birth and aging, the mental pain of losing beloved relatives and encountering unwelcome tax collectors, the frustration of UNFULFILLED expectations, and the daily discomforts of being human. Book: Shabkar food of bodhisatva 1.He spent most of his time in solitude, high in the mountains, attended only, if at all, by those of his closest disciples who were able and willing to share the hardships imposed by the physical environment and savor the perfect freedom that comes from the complete abandonment of worldly concern s.

2.To be a vegetarian in Tibet required powers of endurance and a determination t hat could only come from the deepest possible conviction. 3.This division of the world into good, bad, and indifferent is such a deep-rooted instinct that we habituall y take it for objective reality, yet it is no more than an illusion created by our own self-clinging. 4.For my disciples, I prescribe a fitting nourishment: rice and .barley, wheat and peas, every kind of bean and lentil, butter, oil,honey, treacle, fruit s and sugar cane. Book: Prana and Pranayama 1.One may roughly translate the word prana as 'energy' or 'vital force'... 2.The universal principle of prana may be in a static or dynamic state, but it i s behind all existence on every plane of being from the highest to the lowest. 3.A stone worshipped sincerely may have a finer quality of prana than the force of a leopard in full flight. 4.Prana was never separate from consciousness; it existed eternally as potential in consciousness, but now it assumed itself. 5.The conscious experience is chitta; that which takes one closer to the conscio us experience is prana, and that which motivates prana is vasana, inherent desir e. 6.When the sexual energy is sublimated or transformed, substantial prana is cons erved within the system and converted into ojas, a subtler form of energy. This energy accumulates in the brain and is utilized for creative and spiritual devel opment. 7.By measuring the distance of a pendulum's arc, and the speed of its spin, Simo neton was able to measure specific wavelengths, which indicate the intrinsic vit ality and relative freshness of different foods. 8.In this first class are fruits, fresh vegetables, whole grains, olive oil, oce an fish and shellfish. In the next class, with radiations 6.5 thousand to 3,000 angstroms are eggs, peanut oil, wine, boiled vegetables, cane sugar and cooked f ish. The third category, with very weak radiations below 3,000 angstroms, is com prised of cooked meats, sausages, coffee, tea, chocolate, jams, processed cheese s and white bread. 9.One can work with one's own prana to enhance vitality, will and strength, cure diseases, boost capability and efficiency, and evolve to a higher consciousness . 10.When prana is i nfluenced through modification of the breath, all the functio ns of the body, brain, mind and consciousness are affected. 11.A significant outcome of pranic awareness is that one is able to gain control over the mind.By developing sensitivity to prana, one becomes more aware of the subtle forces of the mind, which arise in the form of thoughts, feelings, emoti ons, responses, impressions, symbols and knowledge. Prana is grosser than the mi nd and hence easier to control. 12.When the full potential of this energy is released, it travels up through the

sushumna nadi, bringing about a complete metamorphosis of the individual. Cosmi c prana and kundalini are synonymous terms. 13.According to yoga, a human being is capable of experi-encing five dimensions of existence, which are called pancha kosha or five sheaths. 14.The second sheath is pranamaya kosha, the energy field of an individual. The level of experience here is more subtle than the physical body, which it pervade s and supports. This sheath is supported in turn by the subtler koshas. Together , the physical and pranic bodies constitute the basic human structure, which is referred to as atmapuri, city of the soul. They form the vessel for the experien ce of the higher bodies. The pranamaya kosha is the basis for the practices of pranayama and prana vidya. It is also described as the pranic astral and etheric counterpart of the physic al body. 15.The fifth sheath is anandamaya kosha, the level of bliss and beatitude. This is the causal or transcendental body, the abode of the most subtle prana. 16.The aim of a yoga aspirant is to attain higher levels of consciousness by pie rcing through kosha after kosha [five sheats]. 17.The activation of pranic force leads to the development of healing abilities, so that the energy can be used to repair the wounds of life. 18.If the consciousness is in pranamaya kosha, one will identify with power and vitality, as athletes do. If the con-sciousness is in manomaya kosha, one will i dentify with the analytical mind. 19.One who identifies with anandamaya kosha is a yogi. He has evolved to the spi ritual realm, where all experiences are spiritual experiences. 20.The pranic body is fuelled by the chakras, or psychic centres, which are subt le, high-powered vortices of energy in the body. 21.They [chakras] also act as switches for illumining the higher faculties and d imensions of consciousness. 22.Beyond the six[chakras] are two other centres of awakening: bindu and sahasra ra, whose perception is acquired only at significantly evolved states of conscio usness. 23.In philosophical terms the concept of mooladhara is understood as moola prakr iti, the transcendental basis of physical nature. All the objects and forms in t his universe must have some BASIS from which they evolve and to which they retur n after dissolution. 24.In pranic science, mooladhara is the generating station for prana. The awaken ing of prana starts from mooladhara and ascends the spinal cord via the pingala nadi. Pingala is merely the channel; the energy comes from mooladhara. 25.As long as this knot remains intact, the energy located in this area is block ed. Prana shakti awakens the moment this knot is undone. Infinite energy and spi ritual experience emanate from mooladhara. 26.In psychological terms mooladhara [perinium btwn genital area]is associated w ith the unconscious mind where the most primitive and deep-rooted instincts and fears lie. It is therefore the gateway to hell as well as to heaven; to the lowe r as well as the higher life.

27.In psychological terms, swadhisthana [above mooladhara] is associated with th e subconscious mind and is responsible for drowsiness and sleep. It is also rela ted with the reproductive organs and the sense of taste. The desire for pleasure , especially in the form of food and sex, increases when this centre is activate d. These desires can become an obstacle to the awakening of prana at this level. In order to pass through this centre one needs to develop willpower. 28.Vishnu granthi, the second psychic knot, representing the bondage of emotiona l attachment, is located here[heart chakra]. When this knot is opened, one becom es free of all selfish, egoistic and emotional attachment, and attains mental an d emotional control, equilibrium and peace. 29.Sahasrara is the master key that controls the awakening of all the chakras fr om mooladhara to ajna. The chakras are only switches; their potential power lies in sahasrara. 30.These three major nadis are situated in the spinal column and pass through ev ery chakra. Ida nadi is the mental channel, pingala nadi the vital channel and s ushumna nadi the spiritual channel. 31.Similarly, the body is polarized, so that pingala governs the right side and ida the left. The central axis of ida and pingala is sushumna. This nadi is the mystical path of yoga that flows in between ida and pingala. Sushumna rises stra ight up through the centre of the spine, meeting ida and pingala at the points w here they cross the chakras, and uniting with them at ajna chakra. 32.Sushumna is the pathway through which the kundalini rises, and thus forms the basis for the progressive awakening of higher knowledge. However, this pathway remains dor-mant in most people until a higher state of evolution is reached. 33.Similarly, when the body and mind are united, a third force arises. This forc e is called sushumna, the spiritual energy. 34.There are planes of existence and areas of consciousness that remain in absol ute darkness for the average individual. These planes are much more beautiful an d creative than those one lives in now. By penetrating and illumining them, one is able to experience different states of consciousness,just as one experiences the state of dream or sleep. When the pranic energy is awakened, it circulates t o these dark areas of consciousness. Then the inner city is illumined and the so ul is reborn into a new dimension of existence, a new area of experience. 35.Indulging in an experience of arrogance, for example, will create a block in the manipura/anahata region and the network of nadis there. Every further wave o f arrogance will fortify the block. Book: kundalini 1.Through a number of physical poses called Yoga Asanas it tones up the entire n ervous system, and brings it under the conscious control of the Yogi, through Ba ndhas and Mudras it controls the Prana, regulates its movements and even blocks and seals it without allowing it to move, through Kriyas it purifies the inner o rgans of physical body and, finally, through Pranayama it brings the mind itself under the control of the Yogi. Kundalini is made to go upwards towards Sahasrar a through these combined methods. 2.When Kundalini sleeps, man is awake to this world. When She wakes, he sleeps that is, loses all consciousness of the world and enters his causal body. In Yoga, he passes beyond to formless Consciousness. 3.You are bound in this world by desires, actions and manifold [many]anxieties.

Therefore you do not know that your life is slowly decaying and is wasted. There fore wake up, wake up. 4.Those who are addicted to sensual pleasures or those who are arrogant and prou d, dishonest,untruthful, diplomatic, cunning and treacherous and who disrespect the Guru, Sadhus and elders and take pleasure in vain controversies and worldly actions, can never attain success in Yogic practices. 5. Without observing moderation of diet, if one takes to the Yogic practices, he c annot obtain any benefit but gets various diseases 6.Almost all diseases are due to irregularity of meals, overeating and unwholeso me food. 7.Sour, hot, pungent and bitter preparations, salt, mustard, asafoetida, chillie s, tamarind, sour curd, chutnee, meat, eggs, fish, garlic, onions, alcoholic liq uors, acidic things, stale food, overripe or unripe fruits, and other articles t hat disagree with your system should be avoided entirely. Rajasic food distracts the mind. It excites passion.Live a natural life. Take simple food that is agre eable. You should have your own menu to suit your constitution. You are yourself the best judge to select a Sattvic diet . 8. To him who is temperate in eating and in sleep and wakefulness, Yoga becomes a destroyer of misery. 9.Do not change your place very often when you find some inconvenience. You must put up with it. Every place has some advantage and disadvantage. Find out a pla ce where you have many advantages and a few disadvantages. 10.When it[kundalini] is at rest, a man has full consciousness of the world and its surroundings. When it is awakened he is dead to the world. He has no body-co nsciousness. 11.They think that they are Siva and ladies to be Sakti and that mere sexual uni on is the aim of Kundalini Yoga. After having some wrong interpretation of the Y ogic texts, they begin to offer flowers and worship their wives with lustful pro pensities. The term Divine intoxication that is derived by drinking the nectar is also misrepresented. They take a lot of wine and other intoxicating drinks and i magine to have enjoyed the Divine ecstasy. It is mere ignorance. They are utterl y wrong. This sort of worship and union is not at all Kundalini Yoga. 12.The seat of Prana is the heart. 13.Prana is present even when mind is absent during deep sleep. Hence Prana play s a more vital part than mind. 14.If you know how to control the little waves of Prana working through mind, th en the secret of subjugating the universal Prana will be known to you. The Yogin who becomes a n expert in the knowledge of this secret, will have no fear from any power, beca use he has mastery over all manifestations of power in the Universe. 15.Prana is the over-coat of the mind. If you can control Prana, you can control mind and Veerya[energy] also, because Prana, Veerya and mind are under one Sambandha. If you can control mind,breath stops by itself. Prana comes under control. Just as

you have a nervous system in the gross physical body, so also there is a nervous system in the astral body. The nervous system of the physical body is the Sthula Prana. The nervous system of the astral body is the Sukshma Prana. There is intimate connection between these two Pranas. There is inter-action bet ween these two Pranas. 16.The Yogi, who draws his semen up and preserves it, conquers death. Good smell emanates from his body. 17.Anger controlled properly, becomes TRANSMUTED into an energy so powerful as to move the whole world. 18.The endurance of all pain and torture with patience and contentment means the exercise of a distinct force which spiritualises the whole nature. The greater this force, the speedier the spiritual growth. Patience and faith should continu e undiminished all through the Sadhana period. 19. Diseases are generated in one s body through the following causes, viz., sleepin g in day-time...taking of unwholesome food and laborious mental work. 20. Only a Yogi leading the life of a Brahmachari and observing a moderate and nut ritious diet, obtains perfection in the manipulation of Kundalini . 21.Do not be ashamed to mention your mistakes, vices and failures. This is meant for your own progress only. Do not waste your precious hours. It is enough that you have wast ed so many years in idle-gossiping. Enough, enough of the troubles you had all t hese days in satisfying your senses. Do not say: from tomorrow I will be regular. Th at tomorrow is for the worthless worldly-minded fools. Be sincere and start doing Sadhana from this moment. Be sincere. 22.The Kundalini then goes to the seat of the Sahasrara. It gives up the eight f orms of the Prakriti: earth, water, fire, air, ether, mind, intellect and egoism. 23. Behind all activity there is a static background.This static centre in the h uman body is the centre serpent-power in the Muladhara (root support). This static Sakti is affected by Pranayama and other Yogic processes and becomes dynamic. Thus when completely dynamic that is when Kundalini unites with Siva in the Saha srara the polarisation of the body gives way. The two poles are united in one an d there is the state of consciousness called Samadhi. The polarisation, of cours e, takes place in consciousness. The body actually continues to exist as an obje ct of observation to others. It continues its organic life. But man s consciousness of his body and all other objects, is withdrawn because the mi nd has ceased so far as his consciousness is concerned... 24.When Kundalini sleeps man is awake to this world. When she wakes he sleeps i. e. loses all consciousness of the world and enters the causal body. In Yoga he passes beyond to formless consciousness. 25.If you want to attain success in Yoga, you will have to abandon all worldly e njoyments and practise Tapas and Brahmacharya. You will have to control the mind skilfully and tactfully. 26.Selfless service is the highest thing on this earth. Service will make you di vine. Service is divine life. Service is eternal life in God. Service will give you Cosmic Consciousness Service that is selfless, without attachment. But nobody

wants to serve! Everybody wants to be served by others. You will have to kill th e ego. You will have to pulverize it, make it a powder. You will have to extract oil from your bones and burn it for six months. Such is the toil, as it were, t o progress in the path of self-realisation. 27.Observe strict Brahmacharya [celibacy]; avoid unnecessary talks. 28.The practice of Yoga lessens and prevents the decay of tissues, by increasing the life-force, and fills the system with abundant energy. Book:control the mind 1.Mind is nothing but a collection of Samskaras. It is nothing but a bundle of h abits. It is nothing but a collection of desires arising from contact with diffe rent objects. It is also a collection of feelings aroused by worldly botherations. It is a collection of ideas gathere d from different objects. Now, these desires, ideas and feelings constantly chan ge. Some of the old desires and feelings are constantly departing from their sto rehouse, the mind, and new ones are replacing them. 2.There is no functioning of the mind during deep sleep. It is full of impurities, Vasanas and Trishnas (cravings). It gets p uzzled during anger. In fear, it trembles. In shock, it sinks. How can you take the mind, then, as the pure Self? 3.Potatoes boiled without salt or roasted in fire are very good. 4,He should live alone. Then he will become very powerful and strong. He will develop a strong individuality. One will find difficulty in the beginning in the practice of living alone. Fear will come in. You will have to overcome all difficulties, one by one, if you want to attain im mortality (Amritatva). The reward is very great: 5.As a result of purification of the mind, it becomes more sensitive, gets easil y disturbed by a sound or shock and feels any pressure acutely. An aspirant must be sensitive and yet have the body and nerves completely under his control. The greater the sensitiveness becomes, the more difficult is the task; there are ma ny noises which pass unheeded by an ordinary person, but which are torture to one who is very sensitive. You must do your best to get over this oversensiti veness. 6.It is the Vasana in the mind that causes attraction towards objects and brings about bondage; with the disappearance of Vasanas, bondage naturally vanishes. T here will not be any attraction, admiration or excitement for any object outside , if there is no Vasana inside your mind. It is the Vasana that is at the bottom of all your miseries and troubles. 7.The energy that was agitating you to run after tea is now transmuted into will . You gain peace and will-power by giving up one thing. If you give up fifteen t hings, your peace of mind will be still greater and the will still more powerful . 8.Desire, thought and Ahankara[ego] form one vicious circle. If you can destroy any one of them, the other two will die by themselves. These are the three pilla rs or corner-stones of the edifice of mind. They are the three links of the mind -chain. Destroy any one of the links; the whole chain will be broken. 9.Enjoyment strengthens, increases and aggravates a desire. 10.Mind enjoys. Mind suffers. Atman is a silent witness. It has nothing to do wi

th pleasure and pain. 11.It is difficult to divert the mind which, from infancy, has fallen into the p ernicious habit of seeking external pleasure and it shall ever persist in doing so, unless you give it something superior to be amused with, a greater form of p leasure to delight in. 12.Hope and anticipation are the opposite of Vairagya and Tyaga. They fatten the mind. To be perfectly hopeless is a very high state for a philosopher. It is a very bad state for worldlings. They always say with contempt: ?He is a hopeless man.? Worldlings and philosophers move towards diametrically opposite poles. 13.Control of the Indriyas means control of the mind only. Control of thoughts leads to the control of mind and Indriyas also. It leads to the attainment of in finite bliss and eternal life. Control of thought is indispensable... 14.The sex-impulses, ambitions, low desires are all ingrained in you and deep-ro oted in the subconscious mind. Destroy the subconscious mind and its Samskaras t hrough Vichara... 15.Mark how valuable and precious is semen! Do not waste this energy. Preserve it with great care. You wi ll have wonderful vitality and energy. When it is not used, it is all transmuted into Ojas-Sakti (spiritual energy) and stored up in the brain. 16.Forget everything that pertains to the world. Even if anything that is conduc ive to luxury comes, reject it at once. You will grow strong. 17.To attain Self-realisation, one must constantly struggle with the mind for it s purification and steadiness. It is only the power of the will which can control it and stop its fluctuations. 18.By spiritual Sadhana, Vichara, meditation, Pranayama, Japa, Sama and Dama an entirely new mind is formed in a Sadhaka with new feelings, new nerve-channels, new avenu es and grooves in the brain for the mind to move and walk about, new nerve-curre nts and new brain-cells, etc. Book: Ontology of the Middle Way 1.The term bodhicitta can thus be translated as the "spirit to become evolved" o r the "fully evolved mind", depending on whether it is referring to a causal or a resultant mind respectively. 2.The realisation of emptiness, like most mystical experiences, is said to be ineffable[inexpressable].The reasons for this are that emptiness is finally nonconceptual and hence inconceivable. It transcends mental constructs and so is be yond verbal designation. Book: Mind without measure 1.Inwardly, we have systems, we have ideals, we have all the so-called sacred bo oks, but we have not radically brought about a change, a psychological revolutio n, and we are going to enquire into that whether it is possible to bring about tot al mutation in the brain cells themselves. 2.Our brain being limited, we are asking, is it possible for the brain to free i tself so that there is no fear? Then there is right relationship with all the ne

ighbours in the world. 3.The computer is programmed; our brain has been programmed for thousands of yea rs, which is our conditioning. Freedom is the ending of that conditioning. 4. It is a fact to be felt, realized, eing, that you are not an individual. all think we are separate individuals nditioning, to think that each one of lived, that you are That is a hard pill with our own little us is separate, but not a separate human b to swallow because we brains. That is our co we are not.

5.There are those who say it is not possible, because they ask, how can a brain which has been conditioned for so many centuries upon centuries, how can that co nditioning be wiped away completely so that the human brain is extraordinarily p ristine, original, capable of infinite capacity? 6.You want them[children] to be like you safely married, with a house, a job, etc. Right? This is our life, daily life, and it is really a sorrowful life. 7.Now, we are going to look at the various issues of our life not with a brain t hat is trained to solve problems, but to observe the issues, not demanding an an swer, not demanding a solution, because to live a life without a single problem is the most extraordinary life. It has immense capacity. It has tremendous energ y. It is always renewing itself, but if you are always caught in the field of pr oblems and the resolution of those problems, then you never move out of those pr oblems. Is this clear? Book: Practical lessons in yoga 1.Non-attachment brings freedom and immortality. Attachment is death. Non-attach ment is eternal life. Non-attachment makes a man absolutely fearless. 2.Brahmacharya is the basis of acquiring immortality. Brahmacharya brings materi al progress and psychic advancement. Brahmacharya is the substratum for a life in t he Atman. It is a potent weapon for waging a relentless war against the internal monsters passion, greed, anger,miserliness, hypocrisy, etc. It contributes to per ennial joy and uninterrupted, undecaying bliss. It gives tremendous energy, clear brain, gigantic will-power, bold understanding, r etentive memory and good power of enquiry (Vichara-Sakti). It is through Brahmac harya and Brahmacharya alone that you can have physical, mental, moral and spiri tual advancement. 3.The Divine Light will not descend, if the stomach is loaded with meat. In larg e meat-eating countries cancer mortality is very high. Vegetarians keep up sound health till old age. Even in the West doctors in hospitals put patients on a re gimen of vegetable diet. 4.The old Samskaras (latent impressions) of vanity, cunningness, crookedness, ar rogance, petty-mindedness, fighting, boasting or bragging nature, self-esteem or thinking too much of yourself, speaking ill of others, belittling others may be still lu rking in your mind. You can never shine until you remove these faults thoroughly . Success in Yoga is not possible unless these undesirable negative qualities of lower nature are completely eradicated. 5. He who has controlled his mind has controlled the world. True victory is over the mind. That is real freedom. Thorou gh rigorous discipline and self-imposed restrictions will eventually eradicate a ll desires, thoughts, impulses

cravings and passions. Only then and not until then can you expect to be free fr om the thraldom of the mind. You should not give any leniency to the mind. The mind is a mischievou s imp. Curb it by drastic measures. Become a perfect Yogi. Money cannot give you freedom. Freedom is not a commodity that can be purchased in the Crawford Marke t. It is a rare hidden treasure guarded by a five-hooded serpent. Unless you kil l or tame this serpent, you cannot have access to this treasure. 6.The sex impulses, ambitions and low desires are all ingrained in you and deeprooted in the subconscious mind. Destroy the subconscious mind and its Samskaras... 7.Another writer, Dr. E.P. Miller, says: All waste of spermatic secretions, wheth er voluntary or involuntary, is a direct waste of the life force. It is almost univ ersally conceded that the choicest element of the blood enters into the composit ion of the spermatic secretion. If these conclusions are correct, then it follows that a chaste life is essential to man s well-being. 8.Strict abstinence is not merely from sexual intercourse, but also from auto-er otic manifestations...All sorts of sex anomalies and evil habits of various sort s like masturbation and sodomy must be completely eradicated. They bring about a total breakdown of the nervous system... 9.Brahmacharya is the only key to open the Sushumna and awaken Kundalini. 10.But, Brahmacharya is the most important of all. Without Brahmacharya, all your exercises are nothing. It is th e master-key for opening the realms of health and happiness. It is the corner-st one of the edifice of bliss and unalloyed felicity. 11.The preservation of semen is the secret of health and longevity, and of all s uccess in the physical, mental, intellectual and spiritual planes. 12.One who has a perfect control over the sexual energy attains powers unobtaina ble by any other means. 13.Brahmacharya is a sine qua[indespensible] non of spiritual life. It is a grea t desideratum. It is of vital importance. Without perfect Brahmacharya, you cann ot have substantial spiritual progress. Book: Practice karma 1.If the Veerya [semen] is lost, Prana gets unsteady. Prana is agitated. The man becomes nervous.Then the mind also cannot work properly. The man becomes fickle -minded. There is MENTAL WEAKNESS Book: Think on these things 1.Please see this, for it is the real clue to the understanding of the problem o f freedom. Whether in this world of politicians, power, position and authority, or in the so-called spiritual world where you aspire to be virtuous, noble, saintly, the moment you want to be somebody you are no longer free...and therefore not moved by the desire to be so mebody -such a person is free. If you understand the simplicity of it you will also see its extraordinary beauty and depth. 2.There must be those who are in

revolt, not partially but totally in revolt against the old, for it is only such people who can create a new world - a world not based on acquisitivene ss, on power and prestige. Book: the Book of life 1.When he says I must be without greed, the state in which he is non-greedy and wh ich he experiences, strengthens the self. That is why it is so important to be p oor, not only in the things of the world, but also in belief and in knowledge. A man rich with worldly riches, or a man rich in knowledge and belief, will never know anything but darkness, and will be the center of all mischief and misery. But if you and I, as individuals, can see this whole working of the self, then w e shall know what love is. I assure you that is the only reformation which can p ossibly change the world. 2.But to bring about a mutation in consciousness, a revolution in this whole str ucture, there must be complete emptiness. And that emptiness is possible only wh en there is the discovery, the actual seeing of what is false. Then you will see , if you have gone so far, that emptiness itself brings about a complete revolut ion in consciousness: it has taken place. 3.Is it not possible to live in this world without ambition, just being what you are? If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. I think one can live in this world anon ymously, completely unknown, without being famous, ambitious, cruel. Book: Pontus the Greek Ascetic Corpus 1.Above all, food abstinence was important because food fuelled the desires of the body and ineluctably enticed the monk towards indulging in carnal pleasures. Controlling the unruly impulses ofthebody at the basic level of food consumption was the first step in mastering the disordered movements of the soul. 2.All such attachments weigh heavily on the monk, who, like a ship with a heavy cargo, easily sinks in a storm, or like a leaky boat, is continually awash with material concerns. On the other hand, one who is free of possessions can soar to the heights like an eagle. 3.To preserve stillness, the monk will choose to live alone or only with like-minded brothers, avoiding any associations with people who are material-minded and involved in business affairs. Family bonds present their own dangers. Meetings with relatives should be avoided, and the monk needs to free himself from any preoccupation with his affection or worry for parents and relatives... 4.Fasting is recommended as a central ascetic practice that .. will purify the soul.

5.Eating once a day, do not desire to eat a second meal lest you become extravagant and trouble your thinking. Thus you will be able to accumulate an abundance for the purpose of works of beneficence, and you will be able to pu t to death the passions of the body. 6.One of the defining characteristics of monastic society was its negative attitude towards the acquisition of material goods, just as the acquisition and possession of property was a fundamental characteristic of worldly society and one's social status within it. Attachment to possessions was recognized as a source of worries and anxieties directed either towards

the acquisition of goods or fear for their loss 7.The monk would be tempted to think of himself not only as destitute but without honour, that is, without social status. Evagrius presents both the external and internal renunciations as beneficial opportunities for the ascetic, because it is through these struggles that he will in the end receive the crown of victory. 8.The struggle with gluttony stands at the beginning and the foundation of the practical life. The immoderate appetite for food and drink fuels desire and the attraction to pleasures in a general sense, 9.He who controls the stomach diminishes the passions; he gives increase to pleasures. who is overcome by food

10.When our soul yearns for a variety of foods, then let it reduce its ration of bread and water that it may be grateful even for a small morsel. For satiety desires foods of all sorts, while hunger thinks of satiety of bread as beatitude. 11. Book: The spirituality of Fasting 1.If you endure your hunger, your stomach will re-condition itself and contract. If you persist, it will no longer be in need for much. Hunger will then not persist since a small quantity will give the stomach a feeling of fullness. 2.We have g. Now we food as a scendants discussed the period of abstinence and the element of hunger in fastin would like to talk about vegetarian God s divine way since the beginning since Adam and Eve and up to the de of Noah were vegetarian.

3.Ezekiel also ate vegetarian food while fasting. He did this in obedience to a Godly order from God who said to him: Also take for yourself wheat, barley, beans, lentils, millet and spelt. (Ezek 4:9). 4.Saint Paul, the first of the anchorites, lived as a hermit for eighty years wi thout seeing a man's face, and so he lived to be around hundred. The majority of anchorites also lived long lives. Not only were they vegetarians, but also lived a life of asceticism and ate little. Nevertheless, they enjoyed good health. Saint Antoniu s, the father of all monks, lived to be 105 years old. His life was one of continuous fasting and yet he enjoyed good health and u sed to walk tens of miles without becoming tired. 5.Fasting, in the spiritual sense, is far superior to physical treatment, for it treats the spirit, the body, and the soul all together. 6.Thus, one who fasts becomes a spiritual and not a physical person. 7. Book: Psychology and tibetan buddhism 1.In this respect it is

similar to homeopathy, working on the principle that like cures like. The very s ame element that causes a disease if applied in a proper dose may act as an antidote and cure the same disease. 2.Thus anger is cured with anger, desire with desire, and so on, when transmuted into wisdom. Book: Synthesis of yoga 1.When he can begin to replace desire altogether by a still greater enlightened thought and sight and will in touch with the Infinite, consciously subject to a diviner will than his own, linked to a more universal and transcendent knowledge, he has commenced the ascent towards the superman; he is on his upward march towa rds the Divine. 2. Book: Wisdom of the mystic masters 1.

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