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- The energy body - chakras and aura - by Submitted on Apr 30, 2014 from rachel annThe energy body - chakras and aura Do you know the difference between chakras and aura? It is often a source of confusion; read on to find out more… Aura We all have a luminous glowing energy, like a halo we see traditionally encircling the head of a pure character, such as an angel. This ...
Views: 2621 - The Environmental Consciousness and the Individual - by Submitted on Sep 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe ego-personality believes it ‘creates’ ideas, manufactures feelings, etc. It then takes pride in the accomplishment, and this becomes a source of enhancing the ego through a sense of vanity. Many systems in the world are set up to reward the creator or inventor or author, with the idea that ...
Views: 573 - The Essence of Karma Yoga — the Yoga of Works - by Submitted on Mar 01, 2023 from santosh krinskyHumanity has relied on social action, technology, and education as pillars of advancement and the development of humanity. Yet if we examine things closely we find that we are still driven primarily by the forces of ego and desire, even when they cloak themselves in a veneer of altruism or ...
Views: 453 - The Essential Difference Between Prayer and Aspiration - by Submitted on Nov 16, 2024 from santosh krinskyWhile there is a real difference between prayer, as an external action and aspiration as an inner status of being, there is also connection between the two which can be extremely potent in terms of bringing forth the aspiration into the external world and making it a living and real thing. When ...
Views: 249 - The Essential Nature of the Inner Attitude in Relation to Meeting the Challenges or Deciding on the Direction of One’s Life - by Submitted on Mar 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyIn the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna asks how one can identify a realised soul. His question indicates there should be some outward sign that can be observed. Sri Krishna, however, demurs and indicates it is not by any specific outward action or formation that such a soul can be recognised. Everything ...
Views: 169 - The Essential Process of Ascent and Integration of Spiritual Progress - by Submitted on Apr 24, 2023 from santosh krinskyBy putting emphasis on ‘headline’ spiritual experiences and attempting to hold onto them or repeat them, the seeker is potentially losing sight of the larger process that is taking place to effect the transformation of the nature. All progress represents what may be called a ‘vertical ascent’ to ...
Views: 417 - The Essential Role of Supermind in the Transformation of Mind-Life-Body - by Submitted on Mar 22, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe aspiration and goal of seekers from time immemorial is the Eternal, which represents a status outside of the normal functioning of body-life-mind, that is, outside our normal experience. Through achievement of samadhi, the consciousness enters into the experience of pure existence, ...
Views: 655 - The Essential Role of the Psychic Being in the Process of Vital Transformation - by Submitted on Jul 28, 2022 from santosh krinskyTransformation of the vital nature in man is a key and essential part of the transformation that must come with the evolution of the next stage of consciousness. Past yogic paths did not focus to any great degree, if at all, on transformation of the external being and life in the world; rather, ...
Views: 475 - The Evolution and Manifestation of New Powers of Consciousness - by Submitted on Jan 08, 2025 from santosh krinskyPlato in the famous dialogues recounting the teaching of his mentor, Socrates, recounts the understanding that Socrates held that education was simply a recognition by the individual of what he already knows. The process of education was one of drawing out, removing the obstacles to the ...
Views: 243 - The Evolution of Consciousness Across Multiple Lifetimes Organised Around the Development of the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Jan 31, 2024 from santosh krinskyThe human lifetime is extremely short in the context of Nature’s evolutionary development. This leads us to several possible explanations or conclusions. We can posit that life is just random chance and there is no real significance or meaning to our lives, or the fact that we have developed ...
Views: 305 - The Evolution of Occult Powers - by Submitted on Jan 07, 2025 from santosh krinskyFrom the point of view of animals, we may assume, the actions, and the powers that drive them, of human beings are some kind of ‘occult powers’ about which the animals know nothing. These actions may seem miraculous but they are in reality expressions of the evolution of the mental stage of the ...
Views: 236 - The Evolution of the Psychic Being Across Innumerable Lifetimes - by Submitted on Mar 14, 2026 from santosh krinskyThere is considerable confusion about the concept of rebirth and the development and growth of the psychic being across multiple lifetimes. Popular imagination has it that the same individual personality is reborn, and that under certain circumstances, past lives can be identified and recalled. ...
Views: 28 - The Evolutionary Cycle and the Speeding Up of the Evolutionary Cycle - by Submitted on Nov 15, 2022 from santosh krinskyWhen we reflect on the evolution of consciousness, it becomes obvious to us that nothing can evolve out of Matter that is not already involved in some way. We plant an acorn, and an oak tree grows. Someone unfamiliar with the science would treat this as a magical event. We put one form of ...
Views: 502 - The Evolutionary Process of the Manifestation of the Supramental Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 13, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe gradations of consciousness beyond the human level represent levels of awareness and power that far exceed anything that we can appreciate from the purely human mental level. In the Taittiriya Upanishad, there is a “calculus” of gradations of bliss. “Let there be a young man, excellent and ...
Views: 372 - The Evolutionary Progress of Nature and the Impact of the Conscious Participation of the Soul - by Submitted on May 10, 2023 from santosh krinskySri Aurobindo describes the long, slow process of development of the universal manifestation. There is an evolution of consciousness which takes place over time spanning many millennia, and which does not involve the conscious participation of the individual. At a certain point in time, when the ...
Views: 400 - The Evolutions of Forms in the Machinery of Nature - by Submitted on Jan 30, 2024 from santosh krinskyAs we are basically fixated on the physical world within which we reside, we tend to look at the development of forms and the relationship of form to function on the physical level. Scientists such as Darwin studied the evolution of species. Mendel looked at the genetic factors that have later ...
Views: 352 - The Example of Great Souls Facing the Difficulties and Issues of Human Spiritual Development - by Submitted on Dec 06, 2021 from santosh krinskyPeople tend to assume that great beings such as Buddha or Christ are exempt from the issues that the “rest of us” have to face in the world, and in the practice of spiritual sadhana. They simply assume that these great souls somehow fly above the ground-level obstacles that plague us. In fact, ...
Views: 551 - The Excuses We Make to Justify Indulgence - by Submitted on May 16, 2025 from santosh krinskyWe make resolutions to change certain behaviours. Our minds are made up. We are certain that we can make the needed change. Many people make ‘new year’s resolutions’ to change something, perhaps to lose weight, to discontinue some habit, to avoid expressing anger, or some other intention we ...
Views: 150 - The Exercise of Will-Power and the Role of Sincerity in Implementation - by Submitted on Oct 09, 2024 from santosh krinskyMost people have had the experience. They decide to try a new diet or exercise regimen. They stick with it a few days or weeks and then it seems to get overlooked, forgotten or abandoned. Other things got in the way, or else, the impulses caused them to weaken their resolve. How many times ...
Views: 274 - The Existence of Mental, Vital and Physical Planes of Existence Independent of the Material World - by Submitted on Mar 06, 2021 from santosh krinskyWhere do life and mind come from in the material world? How does inanimate Matter become the basis out of which life evolves? Western science, at a loss as to this process, simply has speculated that given enough time, the chemical/electrical interaction of material forces will spawn life and ...
Views: 685 - The Existential Crisis of Humanity and the Evolution of Consciousness - by Submitted on Jul 05, 2024 from santosh krinskyThank you for your interest in this critical issue for the future survival of our entire human race. There is a positive way forward for humanity as we face the intense challenges before us. When we are under intense pressure we have the impetus to make needed changes. That is the lesson of ...
Views: 377 - The Expanded Field of Consciousness Beyond the External Awareness - by Submitted on Mar 23, 2024 from santosh krinskyConsider that we remove ourselves from active participation in the external world and its activities for some 30% of our lifetimes while we are asleep. Sleep provides the physical body-life-mind complex with the opportunity to undertake basic ‘maintenance’, repair the body, soothe the life ...
Views: 420 - The Experience and Difficulty of Drawing Inwards in the Consciousness - by Submitted on May 06, 2022 from santosh krinskyUntil an individual has an actual experience of what the Mother calls ‘interiorisation’, there is no real way to understand what it is about. Many people believe that if they sit quietly in meditation, or follow an internal train of thought, that they have an inner experience, but this is not ...
Views: 554 - The Experience of Samadhi - by Submitted on Apr 19, 2023 from santosh krinskyIt is impossible for the mental consciousness to imagine what the state of Samadhi actually is. If we try to sit for meditation, we find all kinds of perceptions, feelings, nervous impulses, random thoughts and emotions flitting across our minds. We can observe an almost endless stream of inner ...
Views: 417 - The Experience of the Descent of the Higher Consciousness Into the Mind, Life and Body - by Submitted on Sep 27, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe traditional paths of yoga have as a defining experience the rising of the energy from the lower chakras to the higher centres. Western psychology proposes that the creative force, that leads to art, as well as intellectual achievement comes through a process that is called ‘sublimation’ of ...
Views: 499 - The Experience of the Individual in the Ordinary Life of the External Surface Being - by Submitted on Jun 05, 2023 from santosh krinskyFor the individual living on the surface of his being, interacting with the external world, responding to impulsions, pressures, forces and the objects of desire, his inner experience is essentially a reaction to these external pressures and an attempt to meet the desires that arise and somehow ...
Views: 407 - The Experience of the New Higher and Wider Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 22, 2021 from santosh krinskyThe experience and descent of a higher consciousness is not a matter of philosophical argument but one of psycho-physical effects seen and noted by the individual, as well as palpable impacts in the basis of knowledge, action and implementation in the outer world. The seeker actually can feel ...
Views: 540 - The Experience of the Witness Consciousness - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe standpoint of the witness consciousness, separated from the external being, is not something that is acquired through thinking or the exercise of will-power based in the mind. Many people have developed approaches or systems to not react to outer circumstances, such as stoicism, various ...
Views: 133 - The Exploration of Inner Space - by Submitted on Oct 21, 2023 from santosh krinskyHumanity has developed a method for exploration of the world around us, and in recent times, the exploration has expanded to include exploration under the vast oceans, exploration of the solar system and further reaches of outer space. Attention has now turned to the internal foundations of life ...
Views: 361 - The Exploration of Powers Within - by Submitted on Aug 19, 2024 from santosh krinskyIn his epic poem Savitri: A Legend and a Symbol, Sri Aurobindo explores the vast field of human consciousness and development. Along the way he provides numerous references to hidden, latent powers within each of us, psychic powers, powers of mind, vital powers and powers of the physical being, ...
Views: 277 - The External Being and the Inner Being - by Submitted on Apr 26, 2023 from santosh krinskyMost people identify closely with their active external personality, and as a result, they consider that to be the extent of their existence. They leave on the surface, interact with others, family, friends, acquaintances, associates and other members of society, and respond to the outer ...
Views: 478 - The External Being’s Need For Sleep - by Submitted on May 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyThere are several different orders of activity that take place during sleep. Confusion about these separate things leads to mistaken attempts to simply limit sleep in order to ‘become conscious during sleep’. First, there is the activity that takes place with the external, surface being ...
Views: 558 - The External Personality and the Psychic Being - by Submitted on Mar 28, 2023 from santosh krinskyFor most people, the external personality and being, the body and its needs and habits, the life-force and its desires and the mind and its particular predilections, represent “who they are”. Rarely, an individual reflects deeply on the question of ‘who am I’ and begins to understand that there ...
Views: 509 - The Faith That Every Sadhak Must Have to Support Him Through Every Obstacle or Setback - by Submitted on Jul 23, 2025 from santosh krinskyWhen we travel on a major highway, we do not doubt or question that the destination at the end of that road is where we will eventually end up. We may need to face various difficulties along the way. There may be stops for food or fuel, there may be automobile breakdowns and needed repairs, ...
Views: 163 - The Faults We Observe In Others Are a Reflection of the Faults We Carry In Ourselves - by Submitted on Oct 18, 2022 from santosh krinskyIt is much easier to see and criticise others for their ideas, behaviour or habits, than to see in oneself potentially those same issues. Jesus raised this issue in his Sermon on the Mount: “And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in ...
Views: 467 - The First Aim of the Yoga: Receptivity to a Higher Spiritual Consciousness - by Submitted on Sep 14, 2025 from santosh krinskyHistorically, much of the spiritual focus has been directed towards seeing through the illusory nature of the external reality and shifting the awareness to a pure spiritual consciousness that is not involved in that external reality. Regardless of terminology used, whether it is maya or samsara ...
Views: 95 - The First Movement of Aspiration for the Divine - by Submitted on Dec 18, 2022 from santosh krinsky“Seek thou to know that from which these creatures are born, whereby being born they live and to which they go hence and enter again; for that is the Eternal.” Thus goes the teaching of Varuna to his son Bhrigu in the Taittiriya Upanishad (translation by Sri Aurobindo in The Upanishads, pg. ...
Views: 448 - The First Necessary Step in Preparation for the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Nov 26, 2022 from santosh krinskyOne can clearly appreciate the unique nature of the integral yoga when one reflects on the preparation needed for the practice when compared to the preparations required for numerous other paths of yoga. The 8 steps set forth in Patanjali’s yoga sutras include two preparatory stages, called ...
Views: 532 - The First Step In Organising One’s Life Around a Central Will or Aspiration - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2022 from santosh krinskyThose who have an aspiration for spiritual growth, for the change of human nature within themselves, eventually find that they cannot live haphazardly, at the mercy of whatever forces, impulses, ideas or thoughts happen to be moving within them at any point in time, regardless of the source or ...
Views: 501 - The First Step in Unifying the Consciousness - by Submitted on Nov 07, 2023 from santosh krinskyThe mind, vital, and physical body tend to pull one in different directions, based on their differing needs, wants or desires, and propensities. This creates a tension in the being when the pulls from these aspects come into conflict with one another. For instance, someone has the desire to ...
Views: 354 - The Flame of Aspiration, the Mystic Fire - by Submitted on Nov 02, 2025 from santosh krinskyThe Rig Veda has a large number of hymns to Agni, the mystic fire. Sri Aurobindo translated and commented on the hymns to Agni in his book, Hymns to the Mystic Fire. The importance of the mystic fire, which we may call the flame of aspiration for the spiritual seeker is evidenced by both the ...
Views: 87 - The Focus Needed for Success in the Practice of the Integral Yoga - by Submitted on Nov 05, 2025 from santosh krinskyEvery path of Yoga has its own methodologies and expected results, just as every discipline or focus in the external activities have their own methodologies and expected results. An individual can train for sports, for proficiency in a particular science, or even for learning skills in social ...
Views: 92 - The Focus on Spiritual Development or Attachment to Family Life: the Choice for the Spiritual Aspirant - by Submitted on Feb 10, 2022 from santosh krinskyFrom childhood we are acculturated with the idea of family and family life as a primary function and goal of our existence. This becomes a habit in our vital being and in our minds. At some point, through some seminal experience or through a growing inner conviction, certain individuals become ...
Views: 528 - The Food of the Vital Being - by Submitted on Jul 22, 2023 from santosh krinskyWe can observe that there are times when the vital nature is energetic, enthused, active, and makes efforts. There are other times when it is dull, withdrawn, sullen, lacking energy and clearly is not taking interest in doing anything. The difference between these two states generally lies in ...
Views: 378 - The Force of Habit and the Physical Consciousness - by Submitted on Apr 23, 2022 from santosh krinskyFor the physical consciousness, repetition and the building of habit is the centerpiece of harnessing physical, material nature. The “laws of physics” are essentially habits at the level of Matter that function to create an order and system in Nature that maintains the cohesion and operation of ...
Views: 538 - The Forces and Beings Active in Places of Worship - by Submitted on Jun 14, 2024 from santosh krinskyWe tend to attract those energies, beings and forces to us that respond to the vibratory pattern of our thoughts, emotions, feelings, desires and physical state. Keeping this in mind, we can review our relationship to places of worship, whether a temple, mosque, church or other. Some ...
Views: 357 - The Forces of Light and the Forces of Darkness Grapple for Supremacy in the World - by Submitted on May 14, 2024 from santosh krinskyIn Paradise Lost, John Milton describes at great length the intentions and motivations of the fallen angels as described by the Christian tradition, and their attempt and need to influence and control the human world and thereby to defeat God’s intention and plan for humanity. This story is in ...
Views: 313 - The Forgotten Art of Foot Washing - by Submitted on May 31, 2012 from Manfred PaierThe Forgotten Art of Foot Washing www.kiwani.net Master Libre has baptized this alchemical method “the noble and forgotten art of washing the feet” and defines it in his books as “a magic-stick for personal transformation.” The forgotten art of washing feet reaches far back into ancient & ...
Views: 2109 - The Formation of Human Nature and the Character of the Individual and the Basis of the Resistance to Change - by Submitted on Mar 14, 2023 from santosh krinskyA yogic practice focus on transformation of human nature must necessarily address issues differently than one that has ‘liberation’ as its sole goal. This brings in the need for an understanding of the human instrument, the various elements of the being, the development of those elements through ...
Views: 439 - The Forms of Knowledge: the Mind’s Knowledge and the Soul’s Knowledge - by Submitted on Jan 04, 2024 from santosh krinskyIn a chapter titled ‘Knowledge by Identity and Separative Knowledge’ in The Life Divine, Sri Aurobindo describes true knowledge as coming through identity, where the knower and the object of knowledge are one and unified. This occurs through the direct relation of the soul with the Divine in a ...
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