Healthy Spirit - Part III

Healthy Spirit Part 3- Become a Seeker
Swami Sitaramananda
12/03/06
Morning Satsang, Sivananda Yoga Farm, Grass Valley, CA

The scriptures say that all physical disease comes from negative mental patterns, which starts with wrong thinking. The body is the instrument for you to go back to school, that’s why the state of spiritual health, or liberation is freedom from rebirth. It is said that when you are actually spiritually healthy you are not reborn. Can you imagine? That means you have paid all the karmic debts, and you are free. There is no area of darkness, no illusion; you have completely realized your nature as Satchidananda, immortal self, absolute consciousness, absolute bliss, and absolute reality. If you can accept it, and try to be in Satsanga, or company with those who are experiencing this bliss, they radiate it and they talk about it. That energy will inspire you and give your life good perspective. So keep yourself in satsanga. Most people think, “What are you talking about? I just want to be healthy happy, have my family, my job, do what I need to do, in life that’s it.” So don’t expect to know everything, to think everything, but just know that there’s way to get there and one of the ways is being in the company of the wise. That’s why you come to the ashram; to learn the teaching of enlightened people, yogis, masters, and hear this kind of thing. Refresh your memory and know there is another dimension. There’s no magazine in the world that will say that. No place in the world that will talk about that. You see, you go to a place of enlightenment to get some light, you don’t go to a place of darkness to get some light.
The more that you are able to do that, the more that inside you will believe in it and want it to know more. You become a seeker, you become a yogi, you become a Sadhak; a person who seeks. In the Bible it is said, “Seek and ye shall find.” If you don’t seek you will not find. So first you have to seek. You have to know that you don’t know. You have to know that what ever you know is only a limited idea. And then you have to go to place of knowledge, with people who know, and after some time it starts to make sense. What if you cannot be there, cannot be in the ashram forever? Then you go home and you can also practice. You have to learn and practice and learn and practice. So what is it that you practice? You practice self-discipline; you practice the control of the senses. That’s what it means. Control the senses means the tendency to always believe in something external to you, coming through the senses. So you either eat to live or you live to eat. If you live to eat, you are moving in the wrong direction, it is that simple. So already you can practice proper diet in your life. That means eat to maintain the body, but don’t lose yourself in your senses, by living to eat. This is wrong thinking. You can do this immediately; practice control of the senses.
Start moving in the right direction, with proper exercise. Do Asanas, the yogic postures, everyday. Because when you practice asanas, you stay balance and centered and clear, because the postures move the energy in your body. These practices will bring you back to an awareness of your self. After proper exercise you practice proper breathing. Learn how to manipulate your Prana, your energy. Learn how to breathe, learn how to balance your breath. Because when you balance your breath everything is okay. Your right brain left brain is balanced. Your personality becomes balanced. And then what? Proper relaxation. When you truly relax, it’s very deep and profound. Proper relaxation means letting go of grasping, letting go of worry, letting go of control, letting go of thinking “I know,” letting go of ego, letting go of desire. Because when you try to relax, and you cannot relax, it is because you have nourished the idea, “I need to control, I need to do things, I have so much desire in my mind I need to run- do this, do that.” The practice of letting go, the practice of self surrender, the practice of not wanting anything, the practice of openness of heart, of acceptance, that’s part of eventually letting go of the body. If you do not let go of the body you don’t relax. This is the ultimate relaxation in the class. You have to let go. You also have to let go of your mind.
After you’ve let go of the body, let go of the mind, what remains? What remains is Spirit. You have to relax more than five or ten minutes a day. You have to let go in your life. Let go of the body, let go of the mind all the time. In the yoga class you’re doing that in a very focused way. Life is a big yoga class. In the yoga class you have 12 basic posture. In life you have 1008 postures. In yoga class you have only the inhalation and exhalation; two positions of the mind. But in life you have100,000 positions of the mind. But still you have to be balanced, be aware of the body, aware of the mind, knowing that you are not the body, knowing that you are not the mind. This is the state of absolute awareness, absolute detachment; being in the body without being in the body. Living life without being lost by life, all this takes training. So everyday you do asanas, pranayama, proper diet, proper relaxation, positive thinking. You understand your thoughts and your emotions and know how to deal with them. And everyday you meditate, so you can have the experience - the direct experience of that state beyond your mind. And that’s it - you are on your way to enlightenment.

Are you healthy?

Transcription of a satsang talk at the Yoga Farm dec.3, 2006 by Swami Sitaramananda

In Yoga we say that we are comprised of body, mind and spirit, therefore, if you want to be healthy, you have to be healthy in body, mind and spirit. Health is not only physical. Actually, if you are healthy in spirit you will be healthy in mind and body, not the reverse. Sometimes we think that the body is not healthy therefore I am depressed, but you have to think reverse: the mind is not healthy, that’s why my body is healthy that’s why I become depressed. If you ask your self, am I healthy in body mind and spirit? That’s the right way to think.
So what constitutes physical health? Swami Sivananda our SatGuru, was a medical doctor. His definition of physical health was: all organs of the body functioning in an optimum manner, under the intelligent governance of the mind. That means, we are equipped with all the organs of the body and they have to function perfectly, optimally, but under the intelligent control of you, of your mind. The organs have to function, but by your lifestyle, what you eat, what you do, you make sure that your organs function well. So if you ask yourself, “Am I healthy physically?” you have to consider the mind working with the body, and think: “what do I do to regulate it, what do I do to make it better?” Change your diet, change your lifestyle, change your exercise, take supplements, do whatever you need to make sure it is working. Yoga, is the best thing to make it work, because yoga asanas work on all the body systems together.

If you ask yourself “Am I healthy mentally? ” then you have to consider a few things. If you are healthy mentally, the mind has to be strong, the mind has to be calm, and the mind has to be without negative thoughts or emotions. If you are addicted and craving all the time then you are not healthy mentally. If you are angry, upset, grieving, depressed all the time, them you are not healthy mentally. If your mind is so distracted, that you cannot focus, then know that you are not healthy mentally. You are using energy. Because when we talk about the mind we also talk about your level of energy, in yoga energy is not physical, yoga energy is subtle, it is absolutely connected to the mind. So your level of energy is very important. That means you have to have energy, so all the time you have to check in and find out: do I have energy? My energy is up? my energy is down? And you have to know that negative thoughts and feelings bring your energy down while positive thoughts give you energy. When you are stressed out, you are not healthy, mentally your energy is squeezed. You don’t have enough energy to handle difficulties in life. The difficulty of the whole set up of the body and mind is incapable of responding to demands, what ever the demands may be. External or internal. The thought is too big, the emotion is too big. You don’t have a solution for it, so you get stressed. When you have stress, you lose more energy. So you try to deal with the stress by taking external things that give you support; drugs or alcohol, or anything to deal with the stress. That stresses you more because it weakens the system. It makes the system too weak to deal with it. If you do that a lot then you have a crutch. The system constantly has to be propped up. But if you stay healthy; that means health is your natural state, then you have all the resources to be healthy. You have all the inner resources to deal with your problems.

Sometimes you think, “But my problem is bigger than yours, so it’s nice for you to sit there and say - but you are not in my situation. My problem is bigger that’s why I am stressed, that’s normal.” Not true. The truth is everyone has their stress. The truth is every life is difficult, the truth is the amount of stress, of difficulty, is always tailor cut to who we are, and what we are capable of. The way we cope with our stress will determine who we are.

Energy is unlimited in the universe. That means you can channel that energy in. That means your potential is unlimited. That means you have the whole universe to back you up. . You just have to know how to use the support that you have. And not shut it off. Sometimes we need help, and at the same time we close the door. Educate yourself on how to deal with energy, educate yourself on how to control your mind, so your own thoughts aren’t blocking you, is the practice of yoga. Yoga is more than asanas, more than exercise. Exercise, relaxation is excellent for physical and mental health, but the deeper aspects of yoga teach you how to balance your energy, charge your energy, control your mind and how to tune into the infinite source of energy and power. I encourage you to study yoga, not just in the superficial aspects, but really study deeply.

So, are you healthy mentally? Then you have to have energy. You have to be positive. You have to be on top of your life, on top of yourself not dragging behind, not thinking life is passing you by, not thinking that you are not in the life you deserve, not thinking that you are a victim of circumstances, not thinking that someone is better than you, not thinking that the life you lead is not good. Anything negative that you think makes you unhealthy. So when you are healthy mentally you are centered, balanced, in harmony with everything, in harmony with your life. The life you have is the life you always wanted, the life you have is the life God has given you, that is a healthy state of mind. Focused. You have to be focused. Not distracted, not restless, not desirous, not running around, confused. This is mental health.

Spiritual health. That is more difficult to figure out. Spiritual health is when you feel in complete harmony and life and with God. God is the perfection you feel within you. When you are spiritually healthy, you have the idea that you and God are very close, you and God are one. That means that perfection, or that infinite power of God is with you. Most of us are not like that, right? We struggle and struggle against life, we question, we drag ourselves, we don’t know why we are living, we suffer, have misery, questioning all the time - with glimpses of happiness, followed by stretches of misery. Spiritual health means you are always happy. Can you imagine that state of mind, all the time joyful and all the time happy? All the time? You experience it from time to time. That’s when you are healthy.

So you see, health is a big topic. Yoga teaches you this. It is necessary to study Yoga philosophy to understand who you are in reality. If you think you are something you are not, you are not healthy. That’s why your concept of who you are is capital to your health. If your concept is unhealthy then your actions and thoughts constantly confirm you are not the person you think you are. If you understand who you are everything is fine. You start to act healthy, think healthy, behave healthy. You can take any amount of supplements or herbs, get a massage, or anything, but if you don’t have a healthy concept of yourself, you just miss the point. Health is in your hands. No doctor or anyone can help you, really. All the doctors can forgive me. Doctors can be helpful when something goes wrong, because they know the different systems of the body. More or less, they can help regulate it. We are body mind spirit all connected, but the body is subservient to the mind and the mind is subservient to the spirit. Spirit is supreme. This is basic, you have to turn it around. If you think of the body first, then you miss out, because the body is only what you see externally. What you don’t see is the energy and the mind. What makes the energy in the mind the way it is, is your spirit, called your sense of self, or your inner connection with your spiritual self, or your connection to the divine, your connection to God. It’s all connected.

So if you have that connection to God, then the mind will not be out of control, you will understand your challenges in life, and you will not create new confusion; you will be content, happy and in harmony. Not self-creating problems or self-sabotage. We do those things because we cannot connect with the intelligence of the spirit within us. The body will be healthy because the body is connected to the energy. It’s incredible. You have seen spiritual healers- they heal. Doctors check things out, and say they cannot help you, and then a you have a miracle healing, the healer will switch something and all of a sudden everything becomes aligned, and things that are not perfect disappear, because you have the trust and faith that spirit is powerful and it heals you.

In summary, when you talk about health, talk about physical, mental, and spiritual health. Spiritual health is most important, because it governs the body and mind. Know that your life is perfect, no matter how it is, know that challenge is normal, because it makes you stronger and that’s how you become healthy. So know that there are things that you can do in order to be stronger, and positive, know that infinite energy is there for you, but you have to learn how to access it, know that most of your problems are self-created. Not most - all of your problems. All. Not your husband, not your boss, not your neighbor. It is self-created. That means, if something negative happens, you have the tendency to blame others. If you can change something - do it, if you cannot change something, accept it, because everything is always perfect. It’s you who needs the training. The situations are there for you to be trained. But everything is perfect. So you want to find that perfection and that perfect health? You need to work on yourself. You need to have the right idea. You cannot think the world is at your feet and you can do whatever you like and you’ll be healthy. That’s the bottom line.

viveka

OM
Blessed Self:
This is the summary of what we have talked a lot about today. Everyday of this vedanta course has brought us to a very deep level of realization and communication. There are things I never spoke about in other context, that I was able to bring out in this context. The students were receptive and thinking deeply, many things have been revealed about their own path, their wrong thinking and their obstacles.

We talked a lot about the necessity for aspirants to think properly about one's life and directions by questionning oneself (vichara) about what is atma (self) and non atma (not self). This is termed viveka - discrimination between the real and unreal.
To be able to recognize what is atma and non atma implied that we are already the atma.
That recognition or knowledge is not an inttelectual recognition or knowledge but a state of being.
Viveka is there with aspirants but it is not unbroken and it is faulty. Faulty and imperfect thinking about onself makes one makes mistake over and over again, taking the non atman for the atman, thus getting lost in illusions.
The truth will set one free, and the untruth can't be true, no matter what one would like to think about it.

The ego is the problem as it doesn't surrender to knowledge.
Self Surrender means renunciation of ego. One has to have something in order to surrender. One can not surrender something or renounce something that one doesn't have. That means that renunciation has to come with discrimination. This means that one has to have the firm conviction that what one renounces is for higher truth, a higher gain and one is not loosing something by renouncing. One has to know that one is free to do what one chooses, but it is better to follow that path that leads one higher. That decision has to be made out of strength and conviction but not out of fears or to please someone. In other words, you have to make your own decision about renouncing the ego for a higher realization. Not because you are running away from something. So if you are not keeping the renunciation, it is because the viveka or discrimination is broken. We forgot why we renounced at the first place, and we took back what we have renounced.

When the desire is there for external thing, and when the ego is still very unyielding, the relationship with Guru (teacher)wanes, and one thinks that one knows and are in control.
One forgets to self surrender or to surrender the ego. At that time one takes back what one has renounced, and gets back what one has known to be an imperfect strategy for growth. One forgets that this familiar strategy that one has devised for one's life didn't work and can not work. This egoistic pattern of action Can Not give what we really want, the immortality, the Atman, our own Self.

Relationship with Guru exists only as far as one is wanting to honor this self search, in otherwords as far as the desire for liberation is there. Relationship with Guru disappears the moment the desire for liberation is not there. At that time what one sees as one's Guru might appear only as a person, a friend, or merely an imperfect body.

The desire for liberation is not there when one doesn't perfect one self in the qualifications : viveka, vairagya, and shat sampat.

1. knowing what one is and what one is not
2. staying detached from one's desires for involvement in the unreal (out of forces of habits)
3. practicing contentment and tranquility knowing that the inner life is the only road to freedom.
4. practicing control of senses and turning inward, knowing that there is nothing really worth it outside.
5. bearing through the difficulties of spiritual life, and keep going - not giving up, nor drop off the high thinking.
6. and know with faith that it is leading one to a better life, that the truth exists, that one is on the right path, that the teacher is leading you to the right place. Also have faith that one can do it.
7. keep this practice of dwelling within and detachment to other things presented in our minds, in a constant manner so one doesn't get lost again and stay balanced in all situations.

Therefore one has to perfect oneself in those qualifications to be able to keep maintaining the connection with our own Atman - through the agency of seeing the Guru. If not you loose the perspective of all that is truly about and see only the limited , emotional or personal or physical nature of the Guru.

The relationship works both way. The Guru will not tell the students what to do. It has to be the students that by his own free will, and out of discrimination, that come to the teacher ansd ask for help. Doing service to Guru is a way to tune oneself to the Guru's wavelength, thus matching the ego with the Guru and self surrendering oneself through the process of selfless action or selfless service. It combines the Bhakti Yoga, Karma Yoga, the Raja Yoga and the Jnana Yoga - discrimination, dispassion, shat sampat etc... together.

The Guru doesn't need the students, it is the student that needs the Guru. The Guru out of selfless love or compassion shares the knowledge and help the struggling students. He can not help the students against himself as the students need to realize that he/she needs help. Because no one can really eat for you if you are the one that is hungry. The teacher has to wait till the student is ready to give him knowledge. The student has to perfect his discrimination and his dispassion as well as his self control in order to receive the next help from teacher.

Om swami sita