Religious holy books and violence

Hari Aum.

When I was at university about 15 years ago, I was interested in reading the holy books of various religions. I had friends from various faiths, including Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Jews and Hindus, and used to discuss and exchange ideas about religion with them.

In India, we are fond of saying that 'all religions are the same'. Yes, all religions are the same- in a way. In the sense that they all preach being good. And being good leads one to God in one way or another. The externalities may be different but the message is the same- 'be good and do good'.

The sad reality of the world today however, is that although all religions have the same essential core message, of 'be good and do good', they are not all being practised in the same way.

There are violent members of all religions today. Religion and violence are inherently incompatible. There can be no real religion where there is violence. Yet different religions have been hijacked by violent elements within them to different extents.

This violence extends across the full spectrum- from a sense of intellectual superiority over others to full-blown killing of those who have different beliefs. There are also those who feel the need to 'save' others by converting them- by money, force or other means. There are others who feel that people of a different religion are all doomed to hell anyway and dehumanise them.

There is an increasing divide between 'modern' and 'orthodox' ways of living, particularly with regard to religion. Some religions appear to be 'evolving' and adapting to modern life in the present century, while others seem to be stuck in the past.

Religions also involve varying degrees of control and freedom. There are some religions where a high level of freedom is given to think as one likes, to analyse and live in a way that makes sense to one- within an ethical framework of course.

There are other religions which give one very little space to think or have any opinion of one's own. These religions also involve a high level of moral policing in society- where other people in society control what one wears, what one can eat or drink, who one marries and so on. Frighteningly, there are people of some religions who believe that it is appropriate to kill members of their community who say they wish to leave that religion.

The lives of women in particular are greatly affected by the religion that they are born into. Those women born into orthodox traditional families where religion is effectively 'forced' upon them have little freedom to think, to dress how they want, to work, to live as they like. There are entire countries in this world where women are not allowed to work, to drive, to think or live freely because of the religion that is practised there. It is quite extraordinary.

It is important to recognise that one can interpret religious texts in any way that one likes. The same book can be read and interpreted peacefully or with violence. One example of this is the holy Quran. There are certain groups who read the holy Quran and live very peacefully on Earth with others- an example are the Sufis. There are other groups who read the same holy Quran and interpret this with cruelty and perpetrate great violence upon others- we hear about them in the news all the time these days.

Recently I had an online satsang with a Swami at the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh. We were discussing various religious books and I happened to ask him if he had ever read the holy Quran. He said that he had not. I was surprised to hear this and suggested that he may wish to read this sometime. I feel it is very useful to read the holy books of various religions to have broad knowledge of philosophy and also to understand people from other religious backgrounds.

I am sharing below links to the holy books of some of the main religions in the world today. I strongly recommend reading at least a few chapters of these books even if one does not belong to these religions to have some idea of the philosophy that is being taught.

The holy Quran of Islam:

https://quran.com/1

The holy Dhammapada of Buddhism:

https://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/kn/dhp/dhp.intro.budd.html

The holy Bhagavad Gita of Sanathana Dharma (Hinduism):

http://www.dlshq.org/download/bgita.htm

The holy Bible of Christianity:

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bible?lang=eng

Hari Aum Tat Sat

Prayer for peace and protection

Hari Aum.

India and many other countries face the menace of terrorism in the world today. There are people who wake up every day with the sole aim of harassing, troubling and destroying other innocent people on this planet. Many of them believe they will get a spiritual reward for committing such atrocities upon other human beings. It is incredible that people can be so deluded as to think that God rewards cruelty and violence.

Ahimsa paramo dharma say the yogis. Non-violence is the highest virtue. However, when the world is facing violence from criminals and terrorists, it is proper and correct to take action against this. It would be violence to sit quiet and allow terrorists to perpetrate violence everywhere.

Let us pray for peace and protection of all those brave people in all countries in the world who protect innocent citizens from violent criminals and terrorists. These include the police, armed forces and secret services of all decent countries who risk their lives daily to protect others. Many of them sacrifice their lives in the fight against criminals.

May God bless the armed forces of all decent countries. Let us pray daily for the strengthening of good, noble forces on this planet and a weakening of negative, destructive energies. A special prayer for the Indian armed forces who are currently facing a heightened threat from terrorists from a neighbouring country. May God bless, guide and protect them to walk the path of dharma (goodness). May goodness prevail on Earth.

Om Namo Narayanaya

Hari Aum Tat Sat

Sivananda's song of 'a little' sadhana

Hari Aum.

One of my favourite poems by Sivananda is his song of sadhana, the sadhana of the 'yoga of synthesis' which he says develops the head, heart and hand of the human being (all-round development). I'm sharing this poem here with a link to the article on the yoga of synthesis.

Eat a little, drink a little
Talk a little, sleep a little
Mix a little, move a little
Serve a little, rest a little
Work a little, relax a little
Study a little, worship a little
Do Asana a little, Pranayama a little
Reflect a little, meditate a little
Do Japa a little, do Kirtan a little
Write Mantra a little, have Satsang a little
Serve, Love, Give, Purify, Meditate, Realize
Be good, Do good; Be kind, Be compassionate
Enquire 'Who am I ?', Know the Self and be Free

Link to article on the 'yoga of synthesis':

http://sivanandaonline.org/public_html/?cmd=displaysection&section_id=637

This yoga of synthesis, described in the poem above, is a nice balanced approach to spiritual life. Doing a lot of just one spiritual practice can make one feel rather unbalanced (e.g. only reading, or doing mantra, or karma yoga).  As the mind usually needs variety, this is an intelligent way to keep it engaged in yogic practices through a combination of the four main paths of yoga- jnana, karma, bhakti and raja yoga.

Hari Aum Tat Sat

Spiritual revival and purascharana four update

Hari Aum.

On the spiritual path, one has to be ready to fall and get up many times. Like an ice-skater athlete, who learns to dance beautifully on ice only after many an undignified fall, a spiritual practitioner also learns to manage the mind and progress on the path of sadhana only through many an uncomfortable fall.

I had a spiritual dip recently as mentioned in the 'dark night' post in December two months ago. The joy of sadhana left me and only the sense of duty in doing it remained. This sense of duty is also important as it helps sustain the practice during tough times. But it's much better to do spiritual practices with joy.

Health has a major impact on ability to sadhana (this is probably the reason why the yogis say one should never leave sadhana for old age when the body is more likely to have health issues, and the reason they emphasise asana and pranayama for good health). When the body experiences suffering, it is difficult for spiritual seekers to concentrate the mind. The health issues that I faced in the past two months did not help my sadhana at all. Thankfully these are now passing and I feel my spiritual enthusiasm returning once more. The nausea/vomiting of pregnancy has thankfully finally left me. Just being able to eat a meal normally has given me energy. I also feel mentally happier and more positive now that I feel physically better. 

My interest in sadhana is again rising. I am doing the daily japa with more enthusiasm and feel a sense of peace and relaxation during this. I am committed to completing this fourth purascharana in whatever way possible and hope that God and Guru support me in this.

In terms of visualisation during japa, I initially do a brief manasik puja of the form of Narayana but then seek His blessings and visualise His form as pure light (a disc of light in the space between the eyebrows). I find this peaceful and pleasant to visualise during japa these days.

I'm more than halfway through the current fourth purascharana. The original plan (before pregnancy) was to complete this in early October this year (at the rate of 11 malas per day). Now that the pregnancy has happened, I'm just going with the flow and taking it one step at a time. I'm doing as much japa per day as health allows (something between 10-15 malas per day currently).

I have been quite busy with work-related stuff in recent weeks but am also planning to start and finish book 4 of the Krishna series before July if possible. Man proposes and God disposes. No idea if this will happen but I will try anyway, that's all I can say really.

I pray for the blessings of God and Guru to help me complete purascharana 4 and book 4 in a timely manner.

Om Namo Narayanaya.

Hari Aum Tat Sat

Learning Sanskrit

Hari Aum.

Sanskrit is one of the oldest languages on Earth. The yoga scriptures describe it as a divine language, 'the language of God (and the demi-gods)'. All mantras of yoga philosophy are in Sanskrit.

Sanskrit is regarded as a very precise language. The vowels and consonants are arranged in a logical manner and the rules of pronunciation are very clear (unlike say, English where two words appear similar but the pronunciation is completely different e.g. the 'u' sound in 'put' versus 'cut').

I made an attempt to study Sanskrit in school many years ago in India but gave up as the teacher was a very scary lady (who had an unpleasant habit of slapping children on the face- glad this is increasingly going out of fashion in Indian schools). Then, about four years ago, I signed up to the online Sanskrit course by the Chinmaya Mission and found this useful up to a point- it gave me an overview of Sanskrit but there was so much information and little application that I found I did not really retain very much.

In recent weeks, I discovered a ten week 'beginners Sanskrit' course being run by a local organisation that promotes Indian arts and culture. I signed up to it and have really enjoyed it so far. The teacher has an excellent style of teaching- he gets us to speak Sanskrit rather than simply bombarding us with a lot of information. In this way, in five weeks, he has managed to introduce us to a surprisingly large number of nouns, verbs and concepts and enabled us to make simple sentences. I feel that by the end of the course, I will have a reasonably good foundation on which to build my further studies of Sanskrit.

The purpose of learning Sanskrit for me, like for many others, is of course to be able to appreciate the ancient literature of yoga in the original e.g. the Gita, the Upanishads and so on. I can currently read these in the original but with some effort (the script of Sanskrit, known as 'Devanagari' is very similar to some spoken Indian languages such as Hindi).

I would highly recommend learning basic Sanskrit to anyone interested in yoga philosophy. There is something special about reading a book in the original. When one translates a book or a poem, the meaning may be preserved to an extent but the feeling behind the words is often lost (Imagine reading a Hindi translation of Shakespeare- it's just not the same. Or for that matter, an English translation of Mirabai's poems). It is worth trying to read the yoga scriptures in the original, at least to some extent.

There are lots of online resources to learn Sanskrit (including some excellent YouTube videos) for anyone who cannot attend a class locally. It is worth attending a class if possible I feel, as this is more fun, interactive and one tends to learn faster with the support of a teacher.

Hari Aum Tat Sat

Bird-feeding as a spiritual practice

Hari Aum.

One might ask why write a post on bird-feeding on a blog on spiritual matters. Well, that's because I think bird-feeding is actually quite an important spiritual activity! You might think this sounds trivial and silly but let me explain.

A few winters ago when it was snowing a fair bit, I set up a hanging bird-feeder, a bird table and a small water bowl/bird bath in my garden. I placed these in such as way that I could get a nice view from the sofa in my living room that looks out into the garden as I enjoy bird-watching (a habit I learned from my father while growing up in India). Now I have a fairly steady stream of daily bird visitors including robins, sparrows, magpies, pigeons and a few other species. Occasionally a squirrel pays a visit to the bird table and rarely a field mouse appears and takes a bit of food.

I've observed that these birds are highly intelligent creatures. They've worked out that my husband and I are a source of food and when the bird feeder/table runs out of food, they know how to communicate to us that they want more.

For example, this morning I was sitting on the sofa having breakfast when I suddenly caught sight of a robin staring at me from the bush under the bird feeder which was empty (the food ran out a couple of days ago). It looked at me intently and then looked pointedly at the feeder. It repeated this cycle a few times and then flew off. This is not the first time I've noticed this behaviour in the robins- it's a message that they want some food!

Similarly, when the pigeons want to communicate their desire for a top-up of food in the feeder, they appear in the garden and throw what can only be called a tantrum! They flap their wings, strut up and down the garden, stare at my husband and me while we are in the living room and generally draw attention to their presence in the garden! I sometimes give in to this behaviour but if I've only recently given them food (which they've speedily eaten!), then I ignore the tantrum thinking that they can fend for themselves for a couple of days until I top up the feeder again!

Anyway, the robin succeeded in making me feel guilty this morning (you know how it feels when you're eating and someone hungry is staring at you- quite uncomfortable!). I therefore topped up the feeder and bird table with some bird food, and the robin then returned and played a game in the garden hopping between the bushes and plants while looking at me- it seemed to be expressing its thanks! This is also not unusual for robins. One time, a robin actually sat next to the patio door and stared directly into the living room at me after I'd put some food on the bird table. They seem to be able to feel gratitude and try to express this in their own way.

One of the five great sacrifices known as the 'pancha maha-yagyas' according to the yogis is the feeding of other species, be they birds, animals or insects (Sivananda used to feed sugar to ants). I feel this is an important part of recognising the divine in other species. It makes one feel connected with other species and with nature in a nice way. Being kind to birds and animals is an essential part of spiritual life in my view.

The same God that resides in us resides in birds and animals. Feeding of these species is therefore a way of worshipping the God within these beings. It would be good if we could feed birds and animals with the same devotion that we offer milk and sweets to stone idols in temples. Of course stone idols also contain God (as God is everywhere). But God is more manifest in living beings than in idols so it is good to include bird/animal-feeding as a form of worship.

Hari Aum Tat Sat

Spiritual stamina

Hari Aum.

When we first embark upon our spiritual journey, it is all very new and exciting. We have lots to discover about the spiritual path, about ourselves, what sadhanas (spiritual practices) to do and so on. Typically, we read, travel and meet people to learn more about spirituality. We reflect upon what we've read and heard and come up with our own understanding of the spiritual path and what we need to do. And then, usually, most of us take up some sadhana (spiritual practice). Initially, there is the challenge of getting into a routine, of self-discipline, of doing the practice every day. But we remind ourselves of the spiritual benefits and carry on. It's still new, fresh and interesting. This helps stay motivated.

After some years of regular practice, we've got into the daily routine of doing sadhana, and there comes the next challenge. The challenge of sustaining the practice. The sadhana is not completely new to us now. It is more familiar. We have a better understanding of our strengths and weaknesses now. We know what we need to do. We just need to do it. The difficulty sometimes can be to stay motivated. Spiritual life is a continuous battle with one's lower mind. It involves persistence and great effort and it takes time to see results. Results do occur but we often expect more than what we get and expect things to occur faster than they really do. This can be frustrating. However, patience and perseverance are essential qualities in spiritual life according to the yogis. They tell us to be prepared to work hard for a long time. Good things come to those who wait they say. We accept what they tell us but it's still not easy. 

The dictionary definition of 'stamina' is 'the physical or mental strength to do something that might be difficult and will take a long time'. Stamina involves strength. It is needed to continue on the spiritual path. Stamina requires good health. It is difficult to focus on spiritual matters when the body is weak, in pain or otherwise unhealthy. Stamina also requires faith, trust in oneself, in the Guru and in God. It involves trust that things will happen at the right time. God does things at the right time. He/She is an artist that creates a unique spiritual path for each one of us. No two yogis attained God in exactly the same way. We too have our unique path laid out for us. We just have to be willing to walk it.

As mentioned in the last couple of posts, I've had a bit of a spiritual crisis recently. May be it's just the pregnancy hormones, may be it's the effect of my karma as outlined in my astrological chart (going through the so-called 'Sade Sati' - difficult phase of Saturn's influence), or may be it's something else. I feel like I've been through a tough phase physically (health has been terrible due to the pregnancy hormones- now much better), mentally (feeling gloomy and depressed) and spiritually (feeling apathetic and uninspired).

After two months of these unpleasant experiences, I feel slightly better. Health is improving, strength is building and spiritual motivation is also returning.

I am continuing with the mantra practice. The current aim, based on my present health situation, is 7 malas a day. In between I try and remember God as often as possible. I'm trying to accept God's will for me. I try to accept that I must simply do the sadhana without any expectations- but yet with the knowledge that the results will inevitably come in good time, at the right time.

I'm trying to cultivate and maintain my spiritual stamina. After seven years of daily japa, I'm trying to rediscover the joy of my practice by just letting go and being patient. 

Anyway. Onwards and upwards we go. As one of the Swamis from the Sivananda Ashram in Rishikesh said during my Skype satsang today, 'Human birth alone is suitable to strive for self-realisation'. It is a golden, precious opportunity not to be missed.

May God give those of us who have been walking the spiritual path for a while the spiritual stamina to continue until we attain Him/Her. May we be granted the ability to find new-ness, freshness and joy in our sadhana at every step until we attain the spiritual goal of life.

Hari Aum Tat Sat