Science of spirituality

What is spirituality?

According to the scholars spirituality means: “intrinsically based beliefs in which personal values are used for guidance in day-to-day living”, “an article of faith; a spiritual the person possesses a right relationship with all that is”, “spirituality is what gives significance and purpose to one’s life”, etc., commonly people look upon the Spirituality as – Meditation, Connectedness, Mindfulness, Authenticity, Inner-health, Oneness, Self-centering, Relaxation, Self-discovery, Finding Purpose, etc.

About Yoga Therapy, our revered Sir Padma Shri Sadashiv Nimbalkar would say that we must know our body, mind, and soul then only any upachar or treatment could be possible. Taking this prime principle, I had the privilege to design the course for Naturopathy, when I was Coordinator. In this article, I wish to explore the finer aspect of human beings, spirituality as a topic for Yoga Therapy.

I was handling the topic ‘Maun’, for the Naturopathy course. I found, ‘Maun as a Tool for meditation’. Here, the techniques followed were to explore Tri-Sharira, Pancha-Kosha, and Chakras to reach the final state of Dhyana.

I feel spirituality is an ‘Anchor’ for the lifeboat that carries on a comfortable, smooth, happy, and safe voyage. Spirituality is the process through which integrates harmoniously the body, mind, intellect, and the soul and is able to connect to the Supreme Body, the Creator. We see, every religion, in one or the other way has advocated its followers to remain connected with the Creator of the universe. 

To be connected with Supreme Soul is known as Meditation. Patanjali has given the Meditation, the Dhyana as a part of Antaranga Yoga. The Ashtanga Yoga is divided into two parts. 1.Bahiranga Yoga: Yama, Niyama, Asana, and Pranayama, and 2. Antaranga Yoga: Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. The connecting link between these two is Pratyahara. 

Pratyahara is the process of severe the mind’s connection with the external world and creating the distracting thoughts. Once, the mind is calm, it can be directed towards the inner self, our soul. Our mind would be now with our living Soul, which is ready to get united with the Supreme Soul. 

This uniting of TWO SOULS would be possible when we are able to fix our mind on the Union of Souls, and this process is called Dharana. When these SOULs remain united in the Blissful domain, is absolute the state of Dhyana, the Meditation. During Dhyana, when we totally assimilate with nature, this state is called Samadhi.

Today, there are many people who work in this area and also there are well-established institutions that are working to establish peace in society through meditation. The importance of meditation as a spiritual activity cannot be over-emphasized. Spirituality is the eternal and everlasting true form of every soul. If we live with clarity of mind, meditation is possible to get us to an awakened state. Meditation is an attitude. We are always with self, in this state, meaning we experience our true self; when we choose to be close to self that is the state of meditation.

How to do the Meditation?

To meditate, first we need to understand our inner resources and strengthen them. This can be done by way of strengthening and purifying the Koshas and the Chakras, the energy centers.

To strengthen Annamaya Kosha, we do physical activities and take nutritious healthy food. The Pranayama and breathing practices help us to empower Prnamaya Kosha. The next one, Manomaya Kosha, is related to the thought process, which is thinking. How to have control over this layer? How make it think positively?

From our toddler days we have been trained in basic necessities of life, like how to talk, how to walk or eat. Later, we had grown, we had a good education to become a qualified doctor, an engineer, a lawyer, a caterer, or any skilled professional.

At all the stages of our life we were trained only to live comfortably and successfully in the external world. We were never learned how to look within. To look within we need to think quietly with a calm mind and clear perception. We all know that our thoughts are shaped by the information we get through the sense organs. These thoughts make our understanding; our understanding makes our personality, finally shape our life.

To frame the thoughts, we need to think. It is, therefore, essential to learning to think , and equally it is essential to train our mind to think positively, which Gita does, it teaches us to cultivate a positive thinking process. This positive thought process paves the way to our intellectual sheath, the Vigyanamaya Kosha and the discriminative power of our intellect enable us to open the last and fifth layer, the blissful sheath, the Anandamaya Kosha. Here, we can feel our soul. We can now take the inner journey to reach the Supreme Power and be in a blissful state. This is the main purpose of meditation.

Techniques to get into Meditative State

We have been taught a breathing practice, Prana Dharana means the fixation of the mind on the breath; it is the first step to control the mind as such a step towards Meditation, as we start it, in few minutes we will start feeling changes inside. We will not make any effort to breathe, let it be natural. Just count it. Then feel its touch and go along it to know its path, finally, feel its temperature variations. We will find ourselves deep within our-self. Now, practice Sakshi Bhavana (Witness the emotions/thoughts), a practice to cleanse the mind (catharsis), in few moments we can feel unwanted thoughts and painful emotions are drained out of our mind. This will be the awaken state of our meditative nature. Slowly we will start feeling our life, we will feel energized and getting creative strength. 

At this point, we will concentrate upon Chakras one by one from Mooladhara, Swadisthan, Manipur, Anahat, and Vishuddhi and with yogic practices, these chakras will be cleansed. Finally, we may feel that Anjana (Agya) Chakra has been lighting up and may visualize the flame of Supreme Power there and meditate upon Him Omkara. While silent inner chanting of Om, Now, we may experience the Sahasra Chakra is slowly illuminating (The Brain Cells are empowered).

Science of Meditative State

The Universe is full of vibrations, called cosmic energy and it is spread across and pervaded all over the environment from the surface of the earth to the outermost layer of the Universe. When these vibrations touch our system, our system transforms them into thoughts, therefore, these are called power. We get the power to think and the power to create thoughts. We have not learned to use this power, as we don’t know to think to create power. What we are thinking is not thinking, it is just reflections of on what occurs to our mind.

If we knew how to think and what to think, we could create paradise. The power to think is the power of creation. We are, what we have created by our thoughts, it is this life. These are outcome of our thoughts, our imaginations, and our dreams. Whatever we imagine, we see, or we think, we feel they are the truth. If we consciously know how to use our thoughts, how to use our thinking power, then we would have made our lives as we want it to be.

All matter is energy from cosmic energy, our consciousness is energy, and with all the force it is our consciousness. Strength comes when we connected to cosmic vibrations, we are then positive, and feel healthy; on the other hand, when consciousness is weak, we are destructive, we start feeling different, and feel poor health. 

When our thoughts are healthy, positive, we start feeling strong. When our thoughts are negative, we start feeling weak. When we are sincere, we feel strong; when we are not, we start feeling very weak.

What I learned in Silva Mind Power training is that we get this cosmic energy while we are in deep sleep and this conscious energy is sufficient to carry out our day to day activities like to walk, to see, to eat, to sleep, etc., which is not sufficient to meet the challenges of a present-day hectic life. We can get a good amount of this cosmic energy through Meditation, Yoga Nidra, etc., where we awaken our conscious mind and energized it.

Let’s be Blissful

When we sit for meditation, let’s not do anything, no effort, mere presence, and be quiet with ourselves. Just present, feel the environment, the atmosphere, just enjoy our own company. Finally, let us learn to be with a meditative attitude, through watching the breath and slowly progressing to discover our inner Self, thereby nurture our life into a beautiful garden with lots of colourful flowers and pleasant fragrance. Wish you all a Blissful Meditation.

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* Prof. K S Iyer, Freelance Professor, Yoga teacher, Yoga Therapist & Naturopath. Consultant for Health & Wealth and Yogic Lifestyle. 

Make your Resolutions for year 2013

Wish you all a very happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!

Human race has evolved from very ancient ‘Stone Age’ to present most sophisticated ‘Information Age’. Every age has its tools and power. The power of present age is the potential of information, which acts as catalyst for speedy revolutionary growth and development that changed the life style of human race. Every age has created certain information, which adds to universal database.

Invention of Computer in the middle of last century, proved to be a great boon. Why Computer is so great, one may ask?

It is because of its characteristics, the memory to store, the speed and accuracy to compute a large volume of data and capability to process any complex processing. And it could create large universal database adding information from all ages; this along with the communication has empowered to exploit the great potential of information.

Computer’s storing capacity can hold large volume of information of a very large library in a small compact disk, which can be carried in our pocket. We can also retrieve whatever information we need by pressing few keys of the keyboard.

Information, communication, liberalization, and globalization have created a tremendous growth power in the world; there is a great quest among the younger people, who are struggling to convert all these energies into a super power to shape themselves as energetic and viable human force. The progress & development are also being misused by few negative forces, causing a great threat to human race, in the form of terrorism.

The younger generations today are at the crossroad, at one point they have to prove themselves amidst multifaceted severe competition and on the other hand they are in every step exposed to disastrous danger from all sorts of vices cropping up every moment by terrifying human mind.

Most sad aspect of this rapid and progressive period is that young minds are exposed so deeply to sensual excitements that they fail to be at peace of mind, their mind is filled with anger, frustration, excitement, etc., and the pressure is so much that they try to escape from themselves. The outlet is Internet and social websites. Some of them end their life or fall prey to undesired practices that ruin their whole life.

In such an alarming situation, how to make our teens and youth to find solace and safety? Young impulsive mind unable to concentrate upon anything beyond few seconds, they don’t enjoy any creative work. They all need a very positive motivation and should be made familiar with the teaching given in our ancient scriptures and age old spiritual traditions, which are the only remedies.

Our scriptures in the forms of Veda, Upanishad and Purans provide all needed guidance and information for a meaningful way of living. When we understand the messages in these scriptures and convert them into knowledge we will be able to tackle any & every problem. Unless we exploit the potential of knowledge and put into use this large valuable information as tools for our growth & development through a proper way of living, all these will be reduced in to a mere voluminous data-base.

An appeal to young generation for having lasting happiness, which comes through safe and healthy practices and not the activities we get addicted to for momentary impulsive kicks, which will not only lead to frustration but make our life miserable.

Please give only half an hour time to self to create a great life for you – during that half an hour do the practices to strengthen your body, mind and soul.

Your body has five aspects: physical layer that need good health and nutritious diet encompassing – carbohydrates, proteins, little fat, minerals, vitamins and lots of water. Next is our vital layer that envelops our cells with oxygen, which we get through breathing, so learn to breathe deeply that your body get maximum oxygen. The third one is the mental layer – your mind is like a hard disk storing information, emotions and thoughts added it also able to direct you so learn to make it your servant rather than allowing it be your master, whereby it will make you do all that is not good for you. The fourth layer is intellect layer – governs the faculties of wisdom and discrimination; you can tap this layer only when you are able to keep your mind under control. Final and the inner most layer is blissful layer, where your soul resides – your soul wants to be pure, serene and happy all the time so that it can get merged with the Supreme Soul, the creator

Practices for these five layers:

Physical layer: this layer is comprised body organs, the practices required to keep them clean, strong and efficient are Kriyas, the process to clean internal and external body parts, and the practices to bring the endurance, balance, flexibilities, and strength to these organs are physical exercises like Suryanamaskar, aerobic, walking, dancing, etc.

Vital layer: the flow of vital power all through the body and removal of toxins from the cells would be possible only when get maximum amount of oxygen and the practices needed are Breathing kriyas, Pranayama, etc.,

Mental layer: the practices for this layer are the auto-introspection, it is the process to understand the thoughts, able to identify them and segregate them into positive thoughts, redundant (useless) and negative thoughts – nurture the positive thoughts, ignore useless thoughts and convert the negative thoughts into strength, removing its negative aspects.

Intellect layer: Keep the mind cool and calm so that you can understand its contents – only through this layer you can neutralize your anger, moralize desires, handle worries appropriately and act accordingly and finally be able to achieve 100% discriminatory power that will give success in all your walks of life.

Finally the Blissful layer: it is the layer, which is an anchor to the life of every soul, which will enable the soul to navigate and move to Supreme Power. This state will give an absolute peace of mind and serenity. Every religion advocate japa for peace, i.e., to repeat the word or line or stanza continuously and feel the Supreme Power – the Supreme Soul is with you.

Wish you all a Very HAPPY 2013.

Be happy all the time.

The Art of Happy Living (HOLISTIC HEALTH FOR HAPPINESS)

[1] K. S. Iyer

Abstract (Paper presented in International Yoga Conference organized by Kaivalyadham, Lonavala in December 2009)

Today, the Yoga Therapy has been accepted universally as a way, rather a method to achieve the holistic health. This presentation, “The Art of Happy Living”, studies the body, psyche, mind, intellect and soul, as components of human life to achieve holistic health thereby derive a total happiness.

Vedic sources on the various aspects of human life, have prescribed four objectives for human life, called "Chatush-Purushartha", these four objectives of human life are based on human traits and their inborn desires. Today, human beings are filled in with numerous desires, and want to lead a luxurious life with all worldly comforts. These four objectives give the insight to us to make our life meaningful. Two of the objectives relate to worldly life, i.e., Kama (desires) & Artha (materialistic resources), and other two relate to subtler aspect of life, i.e., Dharma (righteous path) & Moksha (Liberation / Self-realisation).

All these aim at eternal Happiness of every person is. A person is happy, when he enjoys a good health (wellness), i.e., to have a holistic health. The hindrances in realizing the happiness are anger, desires, emotions, worries, etc., which in turn lead to an uncontrolled stress, resulting in countless psychosomatic disorders & diseases and ruin our happiness forever.

In this presentation – an attempt has been made to throw light on the various aspects of wellness, i.e., body, psyche, mind, intellect & soul. The tools to accomplish wellness and derive happiness are, thus to understand self, to cope with stress, neutralize anger, moralize desires, ignore worries, etc., and all these through the process of self-introspection. This process will enhance awareness of different layers of human body and soul in Blissful State and will enable to understand various energy centers that control us. These techniques together make a process, which can help us to accomplish the wellness (holistic health) and achieve the absolute Happiness. This entire process, we may call as: “The Art of Happy Living”.

1. Introduction

Since Vedic time a child is initiated to Veda at a very early age. Sanskrit word Veda is derived from its root, ‘vid’, which means the science of knowledge. The initiation process is called upanayanam, upa means near and nayanam means knowledge, i.e., to bring the child near the knowledge. Gayathri is Mother of Veda

Objectives:

v To understand the vary purpose of this life – the ultimate purpose is to be Happy All the Time – which, we may call the Blissful State of our soul

v We can derive the happiness only through our body, mind & soul – so it is necessary to understand their form and nature

v Finally, there are many obstacles, which not only destroy our happiness but also make us victim of diseases and agony. To be happy, we need to learn and practise the techniques to overcome all these obstacles.

Contents of Main Paper

2. Components of The Art of Happy Living

a. Understand the Wellness – its factors & their Dimensions

i. The sheathes enveloping the soul

ii. The energy centres that control our functioning

iii. Social being

iv. Environmental/Occupational

b. Understand the Body which enables us to experience the Wellness & Happiness – to understand through

i. Modern Medical Science

ii. Alternative Medical Perspective

iii. Complimentary Medical Perspective

c. Self Introspection

i. Understand & to cope up with the stress

ii. Analysis of thoughts

iii. Moralisation of desires

iv. Neutralization of anger

v. Eradication of worries and

vi. Realization of consciousness-self

3. Conclusions

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[1] Prof. K S Iyer graduate in Science & Law and postgraduate in commerce, management, computers & application, is a certified associate of Indian Institute of Bankers and the Life Member of Computer Society of India. Voluntarily Retired as IT & Banking professional from Reserve Bank of India, Ex-in-charge of Business Simulation Lab (BSL) in a reputed Business School; developed BSL as a platform for on-line trading and designed a curriculum for PGDM FM course for Business Schools. Prof. Iyer has been teaching Accounts, Finance and IT since over 25 years and Cyber Law since 2007. Prof. Iyer authored the Principles of Computer Science for Banking Industry for Indian Institute of Bankers, when institute introduced the subject for its CAIIB course. Besides, a qualified yoga teacher, yoga therapist & naturopath, Prof. Iyer has developed the Life Style Management course for management schools in particular and for the corporate world in general.

The School Called "Life"

Each day in our life is an opportunity to learn lessons. We may like or dislike these lessons. However, it is necessary for us to design these lessons as part of curriculum of our course Life. First of all let’s ask - Why are we here? What is the purpose? We, the humans have sought to discover the meaning of life for a very long time. But, what we and our ancestors have overlooked in the course of this endless search the very fact that there is no one single answer to this serious question; what is Life? Since the meaning of life is different for every individual. Each person has his or her own purpose and distinct path of living, which is unique and separate for each one of them. As we travel through our life path, we get numerous lessons and we need to learn them in order to fulfill the very purpose of our life. The learning these lessons is the key to discovering and fulfilling the meaning and relevance of our own life.

Once we have learned the basic lessons taught to us by our own self, i.e., our body, mind and soul then we are, now we are prepared for a more advanced teacher: the universe. This is in line with the saying, which says ‘yatha brahamande tatha pind”, i.e., your body as is the nature. We get lessons in every circumstance those surfaces in our life. When we experience pain, we learn a lesson. When we feel joy, we learn a different lesson. For every action or event, there is an accompanying lesson and that we must learn.

As we travel through our lifeline, we may encounter challenging and complex lessons that many don't have to face, while others spend years struggling with some other challenges that we don't need to deal with. We may never know why we are blessed with a wonderful marriage, while our friends suffer through bitter arguments and painful divorces, just as we cannot be sure why we struggle financially while our peers enjoy abundance. Here the only option we have either to choose to learn from them or ignore them entirely.

The challenge, therefore, is to align us with our own unique path by learning our lessons. This is the most difficult challenge we will face in our lifetime, as sometimes our path will lead us into a life that is radically different from others. Let’s not compare our path to those around us and focus on the disparity between their lessons and ours. We need to remember that we will only be faced with lessons that we are capable of learning and are specific to our own growth.

If we are able to rise to this challenge, we can unravel the mystery of our purpose and actually live in it. We cease being a victim of fate or circumstance and become empowered - life no longer just "happens to us". When we are working toward fulfilling our true purpose, we discover astonishing gifts within us that we may have never known we have. This process may not be easy, but the rewards are well worth the struggle.

Karma - the action & its reaction written on the Soul

I am not a Vedic scholar who has mastered the Veda (Science of Knowledge), but a common man and think, like any other common man, I too have little understanding about life, living, destiny, etc. 

Very often, when a good or bad thing happens to a person, we immediately say it is the result of his or her 'Karma'. 

What is this ‘Karma’? It is Sanskrit word derived from its root ‘Kri’ of ‘Kriya’, which means ‘to do’ or “to make” or more simply, “an action”.

We also use a saying, “As you sow so you reap”, this can be a brief explanation to word Karma, which means you will get a suitable result for every action you do. 

The deeper meaning of Karma, however, sowing reaping is not of one-time action; it is an infinite chain of the results from the actions that we had perceived and performed. Thus, every action that is done after perceiving, is being added to the store as our karma.

The way we have the result for every examination we give, so also, for every action of ours we will have to get some result and we have to accept it. These results are termed as Karma Phal or Karma vina.

Earlier days our grandparents would say our ‘lekha-jokha’, i.e., an account of our deeds, which is said to be kept by Chitragupta and we will continue to take birth in this earth till our account is completely squared off, say cleared off. 

An action may be positive or negative and it will have to be balanced by a reward or a punishment, and to receive this result we need to take birth.

If we understand the computer system, it can be easy to understand the concept of Karma. The mind temporary storage unit connected with senses, the input devices, getting all the data from the outer world. These data are processed by the brain and resulted in the information. This information trigger the mind, which in turn gets some emotion - liking or disliking that cause a desire in the deep conscious mind the permanent storage unit, the storage device through this the outputs. Now, when a person dies Shtoola Sarira is left here on the earth, the Soul in the Karana Sharira goes with the embedded Consciousness with all its records imprinted in it. Such infected Soul doesn't get entry to Ultimate Destination of the Paramatma and it is returned back to earth to format the storage unit - the consciousness. 

Our body is like a computer system, it has hardware, i.e., our physical body, the sthoola sharira, the way the computer works on electric power so our physical body works on the vital power that we get through our Prana from the breath.

Next, comes our subtle body, the sukshma sharira. This is like software. The mind – is like a storage device that stores thoughts, emotion, and information, which are fed to it by the five input devices our body has, these are our sensory organs - managing these and outputs therefrom are like application software. 

Then, like system software of a computer, which controls hardware parts – operating system (OS), drivers (programs run computer peripherals), tools, etc., and manage the memory, in our body, we have wisdom, intelligence.

Many may not know that the computer is booted by an inbuilt chip called ROM, it has a program that runs the moment the computer is powered on. This then loads the Operating System (OS) and the application programs – make the computer function. We use the application software and start working with it, never understood it is the ROM which started all these games.

In the manner the instructions on ROM put the computer to function, so the soul that boots the body and put to act according to the instructions written on the soul. 

These are the instructions written in all past life. So long there are instructions on the soul we will have to take birth after birth.

In this context, we can find what Adi Shankara has stated in the Bhaja Govindam. He said that our soul – the Atma, takes birth, dies and then again goes to the womb of the mother to take a birth: "Punarapi jananam punarapi maranam, punarapi Janani jathare Sayan; iha snasare bahu dustare krupaya paare pahi murare"

‘Born again, died again, again to had slumber in the mother’s womb! It is indeed hard to cross this boundless ocean of samsAra. Oh, Murari! please show Your mercy.

Karma is a concept of wisdom, based on the Ancient Vedas and Upanishads, which explains that the karma is a system by which a person gets peace and happiness that are derived from his or her past positive and good acts and suffer from the past negative or sinful acts. 

Thus we create a chain of actions and reactions throughout our reincarnated our lives. So, in every life, our endeavor has to be to minimize these actions and reactions.

For this, our scriptures say that actions done as duty without any attachment (raga), would not be considered the karma when it has not been created by good or bad action.

How to live in a detached way?

On this Maharishi Patanjali in 12 sutra of Yoga Sutra has said: 

"abhyāsa-vairāgya-ābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥ". 

This means the state of detachment can be attained only by practicing the Abhyasa, assiduousness and regular conscious practice and imperturbability vairagya, i.e., detachment.

Soul wants to be Happy All the Time, in a Blissful State.