What is death?

 

"What is death?" This is a question for the young and for the old, so please put it to yourself. Is death merely the ending of the physical organism? Is that what we are afraid of? Is it the body that we want to continue? Or is it some other form of continuance that we crave? We all realize that the body, the physical entity wears out through use, through various pressures, influences, conflicts, urges, demands, sorrows. Some would probably like it if the body could be made to continue for 150 years or more, and perhaps the doctors and scientists together will ultimately find some way of prolonging the agony in which most of us live. But sooner or later the body dies, the physical organism comes to an end. Like any machine, it eventually wears out. For most of us, death is something much deeper than the ending of the body, and all religions promise some kind of life beyond death. We crave a continuity, we want to be assured that something continues when the body dies. We hope that the psyche, the `me, - the `me' which has experienced, struggled, acquired, learned, suffered, enjoyed; the `me' which in the West is called the soul, and by another name in the East - will continue. So what we are concerned with is continuity, not death. We do not want to know what death is; we do not want to know the extraordinary miracle, the beauty, the depth, the vastness of death. We don't want to inquire into that something which we don't know. All we want is to continue. We say, "I who have lived for forty, sixty, eighty years; I who have a house, a family, children and grandchildren; I who have gone to the office day after day for so many years; I who have had quarrels, sexual appetites - I want to go on living". That is all we are concerned with. We know that there is death, that the ending of the physical body is inevitable, so we say, "I must feel assured of the continuity of myself after death". So we have beliefs, dogmas, resurrection, reincarnation - a thousand ways of escaping from the reality of death; and when we have a war, we put up crosses for the poor chaps who have been killed off. This sort of thing has been going on for millennia.

 

 

Krishnamurti - Saanen 7th Public Talk 21st July 1963

We are originally unlimited and perfect

 

Mind is consciousness, which has limitations. We are originally unlimited and perfect. Later on we take on limitations and become the mind.

 

Ramana Maharshi

Brot úr viðtali við Krishnamurti - Death is waiting for you

 

...

BL: You don’t leave much standing do you, Krishnaji!

K: Of course not, that’s why I said one has to be free of all the illusions thatthought has created to see something really sacred which comes about through right meditation.

BL: And what is right meditation? You are suggesting that there is also a wrong meditation.

K: Oh, all the meditations and all the rest of it being put forward now by the gurus (laughing) are nonsense.

BL:Why ?

K: Because first you must put the house in order.
BL: But isn’t this the way to put it in order?
K: Ah, you see, that’s wrong. They think that by meditating you put the house inorder. 

BL: And that is not so?

K: No, on the contrary you must put the house in order first, otherwise if you don’t it becomes an escape.

BL: But we need surely to escape from the ego, from the self, from these desires, these demands in ourselves, and surely the silence of meditation is a valid path to that, isn’t it?

K: You see, this question is very complex. Putting the house in order means no fear, the understanding of pleasure, the ending of sorrow. From that arise compassion, intelligence, and the process of that—we’ll call it process for the moment—is part of meditation and then to find out whether thought can ever stop, which means time has to have a stop. And then out of that comes the great silence, and it is in that silence that one can find that which is sacred.

BL: Well, as far as I’m concerned, and I’m sure this is true of most people, to stop thought, to switch off the mind is the most difficult thing in life.

K: You see it is again rather complex. Who is it that switches off the mind?

BL: I suppose what I have to say is, it is the mind itself.
K:Itself.
BL: Which I suppose is impossible.
K: No, when one realizes that the observer is the observed, the controller is the controlled, the experiencer is the experience, when one realizes it not intellectually, verbally, but actually, profoundly, then that very perception stops it. It’s like seeing danger. If you see danger you move away from it. For example, a human being who is perpetually in conflict may ‘meditate’, he may do all kinds of things but the conflict still goes on; but when he sees the psychological danger, the poison of conflict, then he’ll stop it, there’s an end of it.

BL: But from what you say, it seems to me that there is no path to this.
K: Oh, no.
BL: Well, how do we get there? I mean to get somewhere where there is no pathseems to be a very difficult idea indeed.

K: Look, these paths have been laid down by thought, there’s the whole Hindu idea of progression, the Buddhist, the Christian way, but truth is not a fixed point. So you can’t have a path to it.

 BL: But there must be a path, or I hope there’s a path, to the ending of conflict.

 K: There is no path, but there is an ending of conflict, sorrow and all that when one realizes—no, let’s put it this way, when there’s actual sensitive awareness of what one is without any distortion, awareness of it without any choice, out of that there’s the ending of all this mess.

BL: Well, when you say that there is only this awareness of what one is, full awareness without choice, without illusion, it sounds as though we all have to sit around waiting for instant revelation.

K: Oh, then you can sit around for a million years!
BL:Exactly.K: As we have done.
BL: Indeed we have.
K: You see, then we have to find out what action is. Is there an action thatdoesn’t create conflict, in which there is no regret, which under all circumstances, whether we live in a poor or an affluent society, is and must always be correct? To find that out one has to go into the question of what our action is now. It is either idealistic action concerned with the future or it is action based on past memories, which is knowledge. Now, is there an action independent of the future, of time? That’s the whole point, isn’t it?  

BL: We can’t stop time in its tracks, it rolls on.

K: Time by the watch, by the day, goes on, but is there psychological, inward time? There isn’t, we have created that set-up.

BL: So it seems then that whatever the thing is, it is complete and instantaneous, it is not something you build up layer by layer.

K: Absolutely not. There is not a gradual process; then it is not enlightenment, because you allow time into it to gradually become something.

BL: You know, in this context I would like to ask you something. You have a school here, what do you teach the children? If you cannot build this up for them, for any of us, old or young I presume—what do you teach?

 K: The academic subjects.
BL: Yes, but in these areas...
K: Of course, and also point out all this. How to live correctly, what it means.
BL: Philosophers throughout the ages have discussed that very point, how to livecorrectly—right living, as Socrates called it. K: Yes, right living.
BL: Can you teach that?
K: You can point out. You can say don’t be a slave to society, don’t be this orthat, but you have to show it, to point out, then it’s up to them.

BL: But can we live in the real world that we do live in where we have to catch trains and go to offices and buy bread in the shop...?

K: Yes, I’ve done all those.
BL: How can we combine all the pressures of the mundane around us?
K: I wouldn’t do anything under pressure.

BL: You wouldn’t—I wish I didn’t!

K: No, I refuse to be under pressure, either intellectually or psychologically. I don’t mind starving, I don’t mind having no job, but I refuse to be put in that position.

BL: You see this is what I really meant when I asked what is the secret, because you say you will never be put under pressure, and indeed I can see and understand that, one has only to look at you or read or listen to you to know that, but what about the rest of us? How do we get out from under the burden? 

K: If we all say we won’t be under pressure...
BL: We all are under pressure all the time.
K: No, we won’t be.
BL: How can we refuse it? How can we live in the real world, the job is waitingfor us, we’re going to be late, we’ve got an appointment.

K: Just a minute, that brings up the issue whether society can be changed. The communists and the socialists have tried it, various systems are trying to change society. Now, what is society? It’s an abstraction from our personal relationship. If our personal relationship changes radically, society changes. But we’re not willing to change, we admit wars, we accept all this terrible state of existence.  

BL: Yes, we do. How do we stop it?

 K: Revolt against it. Not revolt by becoming a communist or that kind of stuff but revolt psychologically against it.

BL: But that presumably must be done by each individual. This is not something that can be done collectively.

K: Again, what do you mean by ‘individual’?

BL: Well, we’re all independent, separate personalities.
K: Are we?
BL: Well, aren’t we?
K: I doubt it. We’re not individuals, we are the result of a million years ofcollective experiences, memories, all that. We think we are individuals, we think we are free, we are not. To us freedom means choice. Choice means confusion, you don’t choose if you are clear.

 BL: You said once, one of your most striking phrases as I remember, that your purpose was to set man free.

K: Yes, it sounds... (laughs) 

BL: It’s the most important thing in the world after all, but how do you go about that? How do we set ourselves free, because presumablywe have to set ourselves free is what you meant. How do we set ourselves free?

K: To be aware of our conditioning. What is our conditioning?
BL: Well, that surely varies from individual to individual.
K: I doubt it. We are conditioned by fear, conditioned by pleasure, which arecommon to all mankind. We are conditioned by our anxieties, our loneliness, our desperate uncertainty, all these are the factors that condition the mind.

BL: And can we simply put them aside?

K: No, you put a wrong question there; if one sees the consequences, the pain, everything this conditioning entails, it stops naturally. That is intelligence, there is no entity which says I must stop it.

BL: And then we are free?
K: What do you mean by ‘free’?
BL: Well, what I mean by it is to be rid of these fears, anxieties, these impossibledesires, vain yearnings. K: Yes, that is freedomBL: It certainly seems so to me.
K: Unless there is that freedom you cannot be a light to yourself, unless there isthat freedom, meditation is meaningless.

BL: You see, everybody thinks it is the other way round. You have reversed this, haven’t you?

K: That is a fact.

BL: We think of the systems, the beliefs, the faith, the work as a means to getting to this state of freedom, but you start with a state of freedom.

K: Belief atrophies the brain. If you keep on repeating, repeating, as they do, your brain atrophies.

BL: Then can we just do it by one great leap into freedom?
K: Yes, that is by insight into all this.
BL: Instantaneously? And any of us can do it?
K: Yes, anybody who is attentive, inquiring, exploring, who is trying tounderstand this terrible confusion of life.

BL: At any age?
K: No, of course not, a baby, a child, can’t do it!
BL: But we don’t have to spend a lifetime in practising it?
K: Of course not. Death is waiting for you.
BL: It is waiting for all of us.
K: For all of us.
BL: Thank you very much, Krishnamurti.

 

Hér getið þið lesið bókina sem þetta viðtalsbrot er tekið úr.

Fyrirhafnarlaus og ótakmörkuð varurð er raunverulegt eðli okkar allra - Notaði Krishnamurti stiga?

 

Maður frá Sri Lanka spurði [Ramana]: J. Krishnmurti kennir leið hinnar fyrirhafnarlausu varurðar, þar sem hún er ekki látin taka eitt fram yfir annað í upplifuninni - gagnstætt skipulögðum hugræktaræfingum. - Vill Ramama vera svo góður að gera grein fyrir heppilegustu aðferðinni við hugleiðingu?

Ramana svaraði: Fyrirhafnarlaus og ótakmörkuð varurð er raunverulegt eðli okkar allra. Ef einhver getur haldið sig við það er það auðvitað langbest, en það kostar flesta einhverja fyrirhöfn að gera þetta viðvarandi. Sú fyrirhöfn er ævinlega skipulagðar hugræktaræfingar. Hinar rótgrónu tilhneigingar gera hugann úthverfann og upptekinn af aðgreindum fyrirbærum. Þessu verður að breyta og það kostar fyrirhöfn og æfingu, a.m.k. fyrir flesta. Ef svo væri ekki þá væri sá hinn sami sjálfkrafa þessi fyrirhafnarlausa varurð án þess að gera neitt. En ef þú getur þetta ekki, þá verðurðu að finna einhverja aðferð til að kyrra hugann sem þér fellur og halda þér við hana.

 

G.Á. sneri út The teachings og Ramana Maharshi - Brot út lítilli grein sem birtist í hausthefti Ganglera frá árinu 1984.

Kriya yoga námskeið helgina 14. - 15. ágúst

 

Peter Van Breukelen er væntanlegur til landsins og verður hann með kynningarfyrirlestur þann 13. ágúst kl. 19:00 í Yogastöðinni Heilsubót (Síðumúla 15, 3 hæð).

Þann 14. - 15. ágúst verður innvígsla í Kriya Yoga og hugleiðslutæknin kennd, einnig í Yogastöðinni Heilsubót.

 

Sjá frekari upplýsingr á www.kriyayoga.is

Ávinningar hugleiðslu

Stop stressing, start living

(August 2, 2010)

Our lives are frenetic: a giddy round of ceaseless activity. In fact, we are in danger of becoming what medical pioneer and meditation expert Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn calls “human doings”, instead of “human beings”.

More and more people are finding that meditation is the perfect antidote. What is meditation?

Meditation is an ancient practice. Anthropological studies show that various forms of meditation have been used in nearly every culture and religion since the beginning of recorded human history. It seems that we are genetically programmed to spend time in silent contemplation.

Meditation is not about withdrawing from the world, but rather about engaging with it more fully so that you can awaken to the beauty of each and every moment. Every time we worry about the future or fret over the past, we are missing the moment right in front of us and, as Kabat-Zinn reminds us, “we only have moments to live”.

The benefits of being here now

1 Meditation calms the mind

The sages compare the mind to a monkey – constantly chattering, and never able to stay still. Meditation trains the monkey. A calm mind generates inner peace, which has a positive effect on our relationships and workplace. A clear mind is able to focus efficiently on one task at a time and the increase in concentration leads to better results in all areas of life. Television is the junk food of the mind. Meditation masters agree that the quick succession of passing visual images gives viewers mental indigestion and a short attention span. They claim that the mental discipline of meditation reverses this adverse effect and enables practitioners to master focus and singular attention.

2 Meditation boosts your immunity

Numerous studies have shown that meditation increases resistance to viruses. A study of male runners conducted in the British Journal of Sports Medicine found that six months of meditation practice lessened the suppressive effect that strenuous exercise has on the immune system. Proponents of a popular form of meditation, transcendental meditation (TM), claim that it also reduces levels of cortisol, the stress hormone that numerous studies have linked to high levels of systemic inflammation and chronic disease.

3 Meditation boosts your energy

Breathing oxygenates every cell of the body, from the brain to the vital organs. When we are stressed our breathing becomes shallow, and we deprive our body of sufficient oxygen, making it susceptible to health problems. Deep breathing raises levels of blood oxygen, which optimises health in many ways. It can go so far as to improve fitness and mental performance and stimulate digestion. Complementary health guru Dr Andrew Weil says, “If I had to limit my advice on healthier living to just one tip, it would be simply to learn how to breathe correctly.”

Meditation teaches you to breathe deeply. One way to do this is to breathe in deeply through the nose and hold it for a second before breathing out through the mouth. This makes your breathing much more defined and keeps it focussed, so that you do not forget and start breathing in a more shallow way.

4 Meditation eases anxiety and stops panic attacks

Jeffrey Brantley, author of Calming Your Anxious Mind (New Harbinger) says that with a little perseverance meditation can eradicate anxiety, panic attacks and phobias. The practice of meditation brings an accepting and calm view of yourself and your present situation. With meditation you become aware of the tension and stress you are holding throughout your body. This allows your mind to accept tension and not misinterpret it as a signal to start panicking or feeling anxious.

5 Meditation makes you happy

Stephan Bodian, author of Meditation for Dummies (For Dummies), which has sold more than 150 000 copies worldwide, has been teaching meditation for 35 years. He swears that regular meditation sends your serotonin levels soaring. He says, “studies using brain-imaging technology show that meditation, even for a short time, will substantially and measurably increase your happiness (also known as subjective wellbeing) and your enjoyment of life”.

 

Greinin birtist hér

Þýðir nokkuð að reyna að breyta öðrum? Brot úr viðtali við Sigvalda Hjálmarsson

 

-Þýðir nokkuð að reyna að breyta öðrum?

-Ég hef aldrei haft neina löngun til að breyta öðrum, finnst slíkt fjarstæða og upphaf sundurlyndis, kúgunar og styrjaldar. Gleymum því ekki að mestu glæpir mannkynssögunnar hafa verið framdir í góðum tilgangi - eða svo héldu þeir sem frömdu. En ef einhver hefur hug á að breyta einhverju sjálfur viðvíkjandi sjálfum sér og því sem honum kemur við þá stendur honum til boða að læra af minni smávægilegu reynslu. Það er allt og sumt. Enginn fræðir eða upplýsir svo gagn sé að nema með því sem hann sjálfur er. Þarfasta góðverk hvers og eins í þágu mannkynsins er að taka sjálfan sig í gegn. Þannig hygg ég að unnt sé að breyta heiminum að einhverju marki. Vandinn er að vera hollt fordæmi.

 

Sérðu það sem ég sé? Brot úr viðtali við Sigvalda Hjálmarsson sem birtist í hausthefti Ganglera árið 1983. Spyrill var Birgir Bjarnason.

What is kundalini? eftir Gabriel Morris

 

More than fifteen years ago, when I was twenty-two, I experienced something known as a “kundalini awakening”. When it happened, I had no idea what had occurred. I didn’t have a spiritual teacher or guru on the somewhat meandering spiritual path I’d embarked on a few years earlier. I’d started practicing hatha yoga, read voraciously everything from "The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying" to Carlos Castaneda, meditated alone in the desert, practiced deep emotional release, went to workshops and spiritual gatherings, and in the process met many others also reaching for a higher state of consciousness and a more meaningful experience of being.

It was still completely out of the blue and totally mind-blowing, however, when I experienced my kundalini energy awaken, or arise. There are many, many different types and expressions and experiences of spiritual awakening. Sometimes it’s simply a revelation or epiphany that leads one in a completely different direction, one focused more on spirituality and inner searching. Spiritual awakening can mean seeing angels, or contacting and channeling an alien entity. An experimental trip, such as in a teepee ceremony or sweat lodge, can lead to discovering and embracing a previously unknown part of oneself; or to communing with some aspect of the divine. Spiritual awakening can lead to the ability to see people’s auras, talk with the , or leave one’s body and explore the astral planes.

Kundalini awakening, however, is something else. It can come about as a result of some of these other experiences, as it did in my case. And it can also lead down the road to activating some of these otherworldly phenomenon, and others. In essence, kundalini is simply energy. Specifically, it is spiritual energy, which resides in every human being. Kundalini means literally “coiled serpent”. Figuratively speaking, the coiled serpent represents a reservoir of spiritual energy which lies at the base of the spine, in the root chakra, coiled up because in most people it is latent or potential spiritual energy which the person is for the most part unaware of.

Through yogic or other spiritual practices, or sometimes due to subconscious individual efforts or even completely randomly, this energy can be awakened in an individual; in which case the energy is tapped into and begins flowing upwards from the root chakra through all the chakras along the spinal column, culminating in unification with the uppermost crown chakra at the top of the head.

 

 

Lesa bloggið í heild hér.

 

 

Hér getið þið nálgast frítt eintak af bókinni Kundalini and the Art of Being eftir Gabriel Morris.

Becoming Human

 

If you look closely at human beings in the world today, you notice that they are not human beings. They don't act like human beings. If a human being acts correctly, then he or she becomes a true human being. Moment to moment, what do you do? What is your correct direction? Moment to moment, what is your correct life? How do you find your correct way? How do you save all beings from suffering?

We come into this world empty-handed. What do we do in this world? Why did we come into this world? This body is an empty thing. What is the one thing that carries this body around? Where did it come from? You must understand that, you must find that. So, if you want to find that, you have to ask yourself, "What am I?" Always keep this big question. Thinking has to disappear. We have to take away all our thinking, cut off our thinking. Then our true self appears, then our true mind appears...

In this world, how many people really want practice? Many people don't practice at all, fight day and night, and all day exercise their desire, their anger, their ignorance. When you lose this body, then you have nothing you can take with you. When this body disappears, what will you take with you? What will you do? Where will you go? You don't know, right? If this "don't know" is clear, then your mind is clear, then also the place you go is clear. Then you understand your job, you understand why you were born into this world. Then you understand what you do in this world. When you understand that, then you can become a human being.

 

Zen Master Seung Sahn

Yoga er að læra að vera maður sjálfur

 

Hvað er einbeiting í raun og veru? Framan af er einbeiting það að stjórna huganum og tilfinningum og láta þær ekki stjórna sér. En þegar hugsanirnar eru orðnar auðsveipar er samt einbeiting. Þá kemur í ljós hvað einbeiting er í raun og veru.

Einbeiting er full stjórn á athyglinni.

Og þú ert sjálfur í athyglinni.

Að minnsta kosti er hún eitthvert auga sem einhver sjáandi horfir með. Og það auga getur alveg eins horft inn.

Strax í upphafi Yoga Sutra segir Patanjali: ,,Yoga er að ná fullri stjórn á myndun hugsana og geðhrifa. Þá verður einstaklingurinn sjálfs síns var."

 

Sigvaldi Hjálmarsson - Í leit að sjálfum sér. Grein í hausthefti Ganglera frá árinu 1998.