The Spiritual Quest and the Way of Yoga

Swami Adiswarananda

Description

Guidance for Your Spiritual Journey—from the Wisdom of Yoga and Vedanta

“The ultimate goal of life is to discover the divinity within ourselves and in all beings and things. This will lead us to adore our true Self, adore our fellow beings, and adore the world that is but a reflection of Reality. This reunion with the Absolute—the core of our individual being as well as of the universe—is the true meaning of yoga.”
—from chapter 13

The yoga way maintains that spiritual quest is not a matter of choice but a vital necessity for total well-being. This comprehensive guide for spiritual seekers of all faiths and backgrounds presents a roadmap to Self-knowledge, the goal of spiritual quest, and shows that reconnecting with the center of your being, your true Self, is real, tangible and attainable.

Exploring the route to spiritual fulfillment through the teachings of Yoga and Vedanta, Swami Adiswarananda outlines the meaning of spiritual quest, the nature of and the preparations necessary for the journey and the milestones you will use to chart your progress. He also draws from the sacred texts of these time-tested traditions to address the vital questions that often trouble spiritual seekers, such as:

• Which spiritual path should I follow?
• How can I attain liberation?
• What are the dangers and obstacles on the spiritual path?
• How do I control the restless mind?
• Why are there many religions and what is the way to interfaith unity?

Sujets

• Santé et bien-être
• Bien-être émotionnel
• Bien-être émotionnel
• Sport
• Sports fitness
• Ved?nta
• The Goal (novel)
• Vedanta
• Yoga
• Health
• Fitness

Informations

• Publié par: Turner Publishing Company
• Date de parution: 22 août 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781594735516
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

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Contents

Introduction
Part One: The Goal
1 Theories of Creation
2 Sri Ramakrishna and the Thinkers of His Time
3 Swami Vivekananda: Vedanta East and West
4 Unity and Harmony of Religions
Part Two: The Journey
5 Love: Human and Divine
6 The Human Mind and Its Health
7 Human Relations: A Spiritual Guide
8 Truthfulness: Its Practice and Its Dilemmas
9 The True Friend
Part Three: The Milestones
10 Signposts of Progress
11 Vital Spiritual Questions and Their Answers
12 Lessons of History
13 The Essential Teaching of Yoga
Notes
Glossary
Credits
About the Author
Copyright
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Introduction

T here are three basic desires in every human heart: everlasting life, unrestricted awareness, and unbounded joy. All human struggles and efforts are a search for the fulfillment of these three desires. The yoga * philosophy tells us that the fulfillment of these three desires can never become a reality until we discover our true Self, also known as Atman, the divine Self, or God. This true Self is the great Self of the universe and also the inmost Self of all beings and things. It is the Reality of all realities. Only by realizing this Self can a mortal go beyond all sorrow, pain, and suffering. The Self is the source of all bliss and joy. One who has tasted the bliss of the Self never again hankers after anything worldly. This Self, our true identity, is indestructible, eternal, and immortal. One who knows the Self knows everything.
Yet a human individual first seeks the fulfillment of the three desires in the outside world-in holy sanctuaries, places of pilgrimage, and through ascetic renunciation or sense enjoyments. But nowhere does the seeker find that fulfillment. After experiencing repeated births and deaths, pain and pleasure, and being cheated by false hopes, desires, and temptations, the seeker becomes world-weary and begins to look within. This is the first stage of the spiritual quest.
The spiritual quest begins with an awakening to the fact that the sense-perceived world of fleeting enjoyments is the abode of sorrow-where everything is uncertain and where a person finds nobody to call his or her own. The seeker feels intensely restless for the vision of Reality and struggles hard to reach that Reality.
The spiritual quest, from the point of view of yoga, is an inward journey-a journey through the layers of our mind, through the wilderness of temptations, desires, and delusions. The journey has its peaks and valleys, hopes and despairs. The journey is a solitary one, and the seeker s only companion is his or her own mind, known for its proverbial instability and restlessness. The seeker is required to train and educate the mind, distinguish between the facts and myths of life, and prepare for facing temporary setbacks common on the path. The yoga scriptures give us signposts on the path, by which we can judge our progress toward the goal. The Bhagavad Gita tells us that yoga puts an end to all sorrows of life when it is rightly practiced, and practice becomes right when it is steadfast, unbroken, and sincere. Yoga is both light and fire. Before it brings enlightenment, it burns everything false and imaginary. All our desires, enchantments, delusions, and attachments are consumed by that fire. Yoga is raising the blaze of Self-awareness.
In search of self-fulfillment, the seeker turns the mind inward and dives deep within. He or she leaves the sense-perceived world behind, goes through the different layers of attachment to the body, mind, and ego and finally reaches the blissful, immortal, and inmost Self, the focus of the all-pervading universal Self. By tasting the intense bliss of the divine Self, the seeker then becomes absorbed into the Self. Yoga and Vedanta describe this absorption as samadhi. The seeker then surfaces to the world of outer consciousness, bringing the great news that the Self alone is the Reality of all realities, the Truth of all truths, and that the Self alone exists in the universe.
The Bhagavad Gita refers to the seeker as a yogi , the quest for the Self as yoga , the divine Self as yogeshwara (the lord of yoga), things necessary to succeed in the quest as yogakshema , and assures us that all that is necessary for the quest is the sincere spiritual longing of the seeker for the goal. Everything else comes as a result of divine grace. Reaching the goal and tasting the bliss of the divine Self, the seeker becomes completely transformed, and his or her human birth achieves its highest reward.
The present book explores various aspects of the spiritual quest and answers the question of why a seeker should undertake this quest. Part 1 discusses theories of creation and the meaning of spiritual quest. Part 2 describes the nature of the journey to the goal, the laws of the spiritual highway, and preparations necessary for the journey. Part 3 outlines the milestones of progress, presents a number of vital spiritual questions and their answers, discusses the lessons of history, and summarizes the essential teachings of yoga. The three parts of the book highlight the message of the yoga way: that all the pain and suffering of life are merely the symptoms of a deep-rooted malady that is spiritual. We suffer because of the loss of contact with the center of our being, our true Self. Since the problem is essentially spiritual, it requires a spiritual solution, which is Self-knowledge. Self-knowledge is the goal of all goals, and the quest for Self-knowledge is the greatest of all quests. No attempt in this quest for the Self is ever lost. In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks Sri Krishna about the ultimate destiny of those who fail to achieve perfection in yoga and realize the Self. To this, Sri Krishna replies:
O Partha, there is no destruction for him either in this world or the next: no evil, My son, befalls a man who does good.
The man who has fallen away from yoga goes to the worlds of the righteous. Having lived there for unnumbered years, he is reborn in the home of the pure and the prosperous.
Or he is born in a family of yogis rich in wisdom. Verily, such a birth is hard to gain in this world.
There he comes in touch with the knowledge acquired in his former body, O son of the Kurus, and strives still further for perfection. (6.40-43)
The yoga way maintains that the spiritual quest is not a matter of choice for us; it is a vital necessity for our total well-being. Self-knowledge, the goal of spiritual quest, is real, tangible, attainable, and verifiable. The yoga way to the Self is direct, well charted, well tested, and its conclusions are based on universal principles. The sages of yoga warn us that those who ignore or neglect this Self become lost in the world of delusion and face the same Self as the unforgiving realities of sorrow and suffering. Only Self-knowledge can save a human individual from the great terrors of life and guarantee everlasting peace.
Many have made painstaking efforts to prepare and edit this book. I am thankful to all of them for their help. I especially thank Mr. Jon Sweeney, the co-founder and former editor in chief of SkyLight Paths Publishing, for his editorial suggestions.

* The word yoga in the present book has been used broadly to include both the Yoga philosophy of Patanjali (Yoga with an uppercase Y ) and that of the Vedanta interpretation of yoga, where yoga means union with the Divine (yoga with a lowercase y ).
PART ONE
The Goal
1
Theories of Creation

T he spiritual quest is essentially the quest for our self-identity, which is our true Self or soul, worshipped by different traditions through different names and forms. This true Self is the Self of the universe as well as the inmost Self of all beings. The spiritual seeker who makes this quest is called upon to discover and realize that he or she is ultimately connected in every possible way to the universe and that his or her well-being-physical, mental, and spiritual-depends upon the well-being of all in the universe.
The cosmology of different spiritual traditions gives us interpretations of the relative universe around us, the place of the human individual in this universe, and the goal of human life. Any such interpretation is only a working hypothesis for the seeker on the spiritual path. Yet, knowledge of the world and its creation must lead to knowledge of Ultimate Reality, without which all speculations and interpretations of creation are meaningless. Peace and blessedness, the two great rewards of the spiritual quest, can only be attained through knowledge of the Self-not simply through knowledge of the universe around us.
For the spiritual seeker, the cosmology of a particular tradition describes how, why, and when the universe came into being and why the spiritual quest is so important for our well-being. These questions must be asked and answered in order to understand the meaning of the spiritual quest. This chapter presents various theories that explain the nature of the universe, its origin, and its destiny. According to the traditions of Yoga and Vedanta, all theories of creation come under ten broad categories:
Materialism
Creation as re