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by Patricia Hayes
Socrates and Plato told us, "Know Thyself".
One day a disciple asked Christ, "What is the most important thing we
should know?" Christ answered, "Know Yourselves". The disciple didn't
like that answer. It didn't seem directive enough and so he asked, "and
what next should we know?" The Christ answered, "After you know
yourselves, go back and know them some more".
To know your "selves" means to know all of the many aspects and Dimensions of God within. To know all the potentials of God that work in Oneness with your Divine Self in the lotus of your heart. It means to know the inherent abilities within you. Don't think you know yourself by looking in the mirror or judging yourself from your many mistakes or looking at your portfolio of investments and successes. To know means knowing all of the intricate, wondrous dimensions of yourself. We judge ourselves without knowing self at all. We feel like a failure because of our many mistakes and fail to see how those mistakes were part of the spiritual lessons on our journey to enlightenment. We think we know our abilities through our job, family life, hobbies and apparent achievements, but we have only seen the tip of the iceberg. We know very little about ourselves. We are now living in the time of The New Day. It is a time where we must learn from the Light within our selves. There has never been a time in man's history when it has been so important to know his Inner Self. Knowing the vast realms of Light and potential within allows one to easily transmute the faulty perceptions that chain you to feelings of fear, unworthiness, and isolation. Inner knowledge puts you in touch with the depth of your love and wisdom. You are able to rise in stature to the true creator and leader that you are.
Well-being is possible only to the degree to
which one has overcome one's narcissism; to
the degree to which one is open, responsive,
sensitive, awake, empty. Well-being means to
be fully related to man and nature affectively,
to overcome separateness and alienation, to
arrive at the experience of oneness with all that
exists . . . Well-being means to be fully born,
to become what one potentially is.
- Erich Fromm
A leader that is not allowed to lead is like a heart without a beat. You are made in the image of God. You are a creator. When you are not loving and creating, your heart becomes small like a glass of water and your life stops working. You begin to find relief through external things. Each new thing offers new hope but cannot and does not fulfill the emptiness that you feel. External things cannot fulfill a longing heart. Only the recognition and acknowledge of your soul has the ability to fulfill and catapult you to new horizons. If you place salt in a glass of water, you taste the salt. If you know your inner self, you know your heart to be as vast as the most beautiful majestic body of water you can imagine. Your heart is able to easily receive the salt (pain) that others impose upon you through their spiritual ignorance. You are able to receive it with loving compassion and instantly transform any pain to light.
If you place salt water in a bottle and cork it, and then place the bottle in the ocean, the water in the bottle cannot mix with the water of the ocean. Remove the cork and they become one, being composed of the same ingredients. So when we remove the cork of ignorance from the bottle of our individual consciousness, we become One with the sea. When we know our heart through direct experience in meditation, we live life with greater perspective, perception and wisdom. We experience an inner freedom that expresses itself in our life.
He who knows God becomes One with God. When the wave dances on the sea it thinks it exists as a separate entity. But once it realizes, "I cannot exist without the ocean", the wave sees that it is the ocean and has created a little wave out of itself.
When you know Self, you know that you are the Ocean and you are the wave expressing the Ocean that you are. They are One and the same. You express your Life through that vantage point.. You are no long a slave to your self-serving (ego). You are free to express the Light that you are. Your love is infused within every one of your thoughts, words and acts.
Can you remember the last time you created something, a poem, an inspired writing or something you made? You worked tirelessly until it was finished. Time stopped while you were creating. After it was finished, you read or looked at it many times, loving it each time. Your love was infused within that which you created. It could have been the simplest of creations Your creation was a precious part of yourself. You were protective of it. Your Love was within it.
Eye of Perception
If the doors of perception were cleansed,
everything would appear to man as it is,
infinite.
Dead center, right above the middle of your forehead lies your Divine Eye in the sky of your heart. As your begin to feel the expansiveness of your heart, you begin to see through your Divine Eye. Your focus changes. Rather than seeing through the eyes of separation and isolation, you see everything in Oneness. You see the physical world and spiritual world as One. You feel a kinship with all life. You know that when one is injured it affects the whole. When one heart awakens, it increases the light within the collective consciousness and strengthens us all. This is not an intellectual fact that you accept. It is a Knowing through direct meditative experience in your Inner World. You begin to see Beings of light in multiple dimensions of light. You are able to clearly see your soul's history and past lives.
Most people think there is only darkness behind closed eyes. But as you develop and concentrate on the "single" eye in the forehead, you will find that your inner sight is opened. You will behold another world, one of many lights, and great beauty.
Paramanhansa Yogananda
Ninety-six percent of our physical body is water. Symbolically water represents the unconscious. Within that ninety-six percent of our body lays the unconscious archives of our beginning, our journey and our future. Man's descent from Spirit into form and the ascension of his Self and God-Realization. You have vision to see within your own Akashic records and can experience the records of Man and his Becoming.
Religion, philosophy and science argue about such issues. They attempt to influence us with their theories and conceptual judgments. "Should religion be permitted in our schools?", "Is abortion a sin?", "Should euthanasia be allowed?", "Is cloning Godless?" Is God dead? We have atheists who claim there is no God. Most religions disagree about the will of God. All think that their way is the only way. Neither Science or the majority of religions show us how to go within the depth of Self to find the answers for ourselves Only individuals that are searching within their inner self through meditation know Self and God through their direct experience. And, they have no need to convince anyone. They share their experiences and knowledge of their understandings with those that are searching.
Self Knowledge & Yoga
Yoga literally means union with divine consciousness, which typically happens in deep states of meditation. There are four major systems of Yoga and numerous others. I have listed a few of them we use in our Correspondence Program. Bhakti-Yoga teaches you how to attain the Supreme through loving devotion. In this way, the goal of ALL other yoga processes is more effortlessly achieved. Bhakti-Yoga is the system that most follows the mystical path to Self-Enlightenment.
The four paths of Yoga are:
- Bhakti Yoga: the path of Devotion. It is known as the path of the heart and is the system of Yoga which means devotion to God and selfless love for God. Bhaktha in Sanskrit means Principle of Godhead. A devotee is one who has selfless love for God. Hindu sages claim it is the quickest way to the Lord of Light whose infinite love embraces all beings in all galaxies in all dimensions of time and space.
- Raja- Yoga: the royal path to Realization. (Raja means king), is traditionally known as Ashtanga Yoga in Hinduism. Ashtanga means eight limbs. This path of yoga has eight separate components that all work together towards Self-Realization. The goal of Raja Yoga is to establish yourself in your true nature - pure consciousness. Our Self- Enlightenment Study and Training Program practices six of the eight limbs of Raja Yoga
- Jnana-Yoga: the path of Self-Awareness. Jnani literally means knower: A Self-Realized sage. Jnana Yoga is a mental path leading to the actual experience of Self-Realization. The path has three steps: intensive study, contemplation of the truths you have studied, and meditation. This is someone who knows the truth from direct experience, not just a person who intellectually knows about it. (English word is Gnostic). Our study program emphasizes and incorporates the wisdom of "knowing through direct experience" throughout all its meditative practices.
- Kama Yoga: the path of Action. Its goal is mukti, liberation - freedom from karma. Karma Yoga cultivates a state of egoless-ness. When selfishness and desire drop away, so does the Karmashaya, the depository of past life karma that we carry around with us in our subtle body. There is no emotional glue to make it stick to our soul anymore. Free from the wheel of rebirth, we do not have to reincarnate again, unless we choose to for the sake of helping others. Karma Yoga teaches us to work with the greatest of our ability and offer the results of our work to God. In this way, we are not emotionally bound to suffer; we are not personally attached to the results. Seva (Spiritual service) is a major component of Hindu spirituality and an important expression of Karma Yoga. The Self-Enlightenment Study Program incorporates these goals through the methods and techniques of RoHun Yoga.
RoHun Yoga is the path of Ascension through specific methods of purification and deep states of meditation. The goal of RoHun Yoga is to establish yourself in your true nature while in the physical body in order to participate in the sacred and divine purpose of life. Spiritual Initiates work to penetrate the darkness of ignorance with the light of wisdom within their own consciousness, as well as the collective consciousness of man. Ignorance of one's true nature is the root of all suffering. When Man shines his light of wisdom and systematically cleanses and purifies the negative and destructive thought patterns, attachments, and cravings, his true nature radiates the light of a thousand suns. Through the practice of RoHun Yoga and expanding our consciousness through deeper and deeper states of meditation, we untie the knots that strangle the heart and awaken the higher centers within our mystical body. RoHun Yoga is a systematic process of cleansing and purification for the purpose of Self-Enlightenment and God-Realization.
- Awakens the inner senses
- Purifies the negative emotions and faulty perceptions that cause the knots that strangle the heart and prevent spiritual progress
- Releases energy blocks from the seven major chakras within our subtle body that prevent the sacred kundalini fire from flowing upward and activating the higher spiritual centers within our mystical body
- Awakens the mystical body and higher centers within man
Anahata Chakra (Heart)
Vishuddhi Chakra (Expression)
Ajana Chakra (Third-eye)
Sahasrara Chakra (Divine eye)
- Kundalini-Yoga: the aspirant works to awaken the kundalini Shakti which is situated at the muladhara chakra (root). Kundalini is the Divine Cosmic Energy in bodies. Kunda means coiled. The Goddess is the coiled and sleeping serpent in the lowest bodily center, at the base of the spinal column. Through very specific meditative practices, the kundalini begins to gently and naturally rise through the chakras, centers of consciousness and energy in the subtle body. In this process, one journeys through the seven worlds (Dimensions of God within) awakening all the higher centers and activating the Divine Eye.
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