Praana deserves the very best:
Excerpt from “The Beauty of Scriptural Wisdom” by Paramahamsa Hariharananda Giri (from “Ocean of Divine Bliss” The Complete Works of Kriya Yoga Master Paramahamsa Hariharananda vol. 8). Prana Prana means life, and it means breath or vital energy. It is the strength in the body, and the source of all activities. It is the mystical power about which few know. A common question arises: from where does life come and where is it abiding in human beings? The yogic texts describe it: prano hi bhagavan isha prana Vishnu pitamaha pranena dharyate lokam sarvam pranamayam jagat “Prana is Lord Shiva (the destroyer). Prana indeed is Lord Vishnu (the sustainer) and the creator, Brahman. Prana alone is the upholder of the universe, and everythingis permeated by prana.” Prana is abiding everywhere, in the whole system. You feel sensations in your body parts, which means there is life force there. There is a beautiful mantra from the Mundaka Upanishad (3:1:4) about prana. prano hi yesha yah sarva bhutair vibhati vijanan vidvan bhavate nativadi atmakrida atmaratihkriyavan esha brahmavidam varishthah “This one, verily, is the prana which shines divergently through all beings. Knowing this, the wise or the realized one never engages in debate or talk. He sports in the Self, rejoices in the Self, and becomes a true kriyavan. This person is the best among those who know Brahman.” prano hi yesha yah sarva bhutair vibhati “That life force is remaining everywhere, but more manifested in every human being.” Sarva bhutair vibhati also means “in all elements.” Thus, it becomes omnipresent. Prana is the tranquil life energy, manifested or unmanifested. For example, in the seed, life is unmanifested as a tree. It is there in all its glory. This tranquil life energy is manifested in all living beings, starting with plants and insects, and ending with the last creation, humans, in the form of breath. Thus, breath becomes the real indicator of life. Breath is the door to open to both restlessness and calmness. It depends upon how you use it. If you meditate deeply and seek God within, you will get calmness, automatically. You will hear the divine sound, and all negativities will gradually disappear. You will get Truth. You will have the real knowledge of who you are. Here are a few steps:
I just want to write something here once. And then hopefully forget about it.
I am amazed at the level of gossip in the Ayurveda world. Don’t get me wrong. I truly love my fellow students. They are amazing. They are love and light such as I have never encountered before. They are my siblings. I truly love my fellow practitioners. They are strength and clarity and insight personified. But the gossip level is something I also never saw before. I think the same sensitivity with which we Ayurvedically-inclined can discern say between the provocative effects of cold water (kapha) and cool water (vaata) is also the same sensitivity that we bring to social situations. Maybe there’s some competition thrown in by the pitta types. It’s also a small community centered on a subject that is shrouded in mystery and magic. This might make some anxious. Regardless, I would like here to submit that we open our arms, encourage each other, and be gentle. We have to accept everyone where they are, as my acupuncturist says, and everyone has to start somewhere. Including me. What I am trying to say is said much better here. definition:
jIva mf(%{A4})n. living , existing , alive RV. &c. ; healthy (blood) Car. viii , 6 , 74 ; ifc. living by (see %{jala-cara-} , %{rUpa-}) ; causing to live , vivifying (see , %{putra-} , %{-jala}) ; m. n. any living being , anything living RV. &c. ; life , existence MBh. iv , vi Hariv. &c. (ifc. f. %{A} Katha1s.) ; m. the principle of life , vital breath , the living or personal soul (as distinguished from the universal soul see %{jIvA7tman}) RV. i , 164 , 30 ChUp. S3vetUp. Pras3nUp. Mn. &c. ; N. of a plant L. ; Br2ihaspati (regent of Jupiter) VarBr2S. Laghuj. Su1ryas. Ka1s3i1Kh. ; the 3rd lustrum in the 60 years “‘ Br2ihaspati cycle VarBr2S. viii , 26 ; N. of one of the 8 Maruts Ya1jn5. ii , 102/103 39 ; Karn2a L. ; n. N. of a metre RPra1t. xvii , 4 [422,3] ; (%{A}) f. life L. ; the earth L. ; a bow-string L. ; (in geom. = %{jyA}) the chord of an arc ; the sine of an arc Su1ryas. ii , 57 (cf. %{tri-} , %{tri-bha} “‘ , %{dRg-gati-} , %{lamba-} and %{zaGku-jIvA}) ; N. of a plant (%{jIvantI} or %{vacA} L.) VarBr2S. iii , 39 ; the tinkling of ornaments L. ; pl. N. of a particular formula Kaus3. Vait. ; cf. %{ati-} , %{upa-} and %{saM-jIva4} ; %{a-} , %{kumAra-} , %{ciraM-} , %{jagaj-} , %{dur-} , %{nir-} , %{pApa-} , %{bandhu-} , %{sa-} , %{su-} ; %{khSudra-jivA} , %{yAvaj-jIvam} ; [cf. %{bi4os} ; Lat. {vivus} ; Lith. %{gIvas} ; Goth. {qvius} ; Eng. {quick} ; Hib. {beo}.] A jiiva is defined to be a living being, but it goes deeper than that. A jiiva is the feeling of differention from the Undifferentiated. It is who we treat when we see a client. It is the recreation of the Atman from the soul self via manas or mind. It is a personality. A personality is all well and good. Kind of. Is it not ultimately a disturbance, much like a dosha? Astrology teaches many important things, but the principal one is that we are actually Undifferent. We are One. Content of consciousness (for example, seeing a tree) and consciousness itself are one. So, the jiiva is important to understand if not to have. Many people want to know, or be reminded of, their story when they come in for a reading. But what happens when people drop their stories? Is this even recommended? I contend that is always recommended. Why? The story will change in the next reincarnation anyway. If the story is bad, what use is there not to forgive and move on? Even if the story is good, I don’t know what it gives besides pleasure, which is neither here nor there Ayurvedically, and we’ve got to consider the high likelihood that pleasure might be unsatisfying or addictive. Maybe I’ll get posts saying I’m against the personality, but this isn’t quite true. In living, there is just more to life than limitation. Hart once said, it’s not good to show your chart in everyday life, and yet he also has said “I am what I am.” Another paradox from the teacher. We are what we are jiiva-wise, but we are more than that too. If you have a strong Mars, for example, use its gifts, but don’t think that that is all you are. Most people in fact get swept up in the forces of their charts and their charts are all that their lives show. It just seems sad to witness. Jiiva, wake up! In many publications, one sees the double vowels omitted from a word in Sanskrit. I do it myself sometimes, but mostly by accident.
For example, vaata, one of the doshas of Ayurveda, is often spelled vata. This may be because the typeface of getting a long a is difficult and expensive to obtain and share or putting the two aa’s in makes the word look even longer and scarier. Students then grow up in Sanskrit thinking that vaata is spelled vata. Nonethless, it’s important to keep track of the vowels. For example, vata in Sanskrit is actually a type of bird. It can get worse. Consider the words maala and mala. (In the definitions below, aa is spelled A while a is kept a. This is standard to the dictionaries used.) mala n. (in later language also m. ; prob. fr. %{mlai}) dirt , filth , dust , impurity (physical and moral) AV. &c. &c. ; (in med.) any bodily excretion or secretion (esp. those of the Dha1tus q.v. , described as phlegm from chyle , bile from the blood , nose mucus and ear wax from the flesh , perspiration from the fat , nails and hair from the bones , rheum of the eye from the brain ; cf. also the 12 impurities of the body enumerated in Mn. v , 135) Sus3r. Va1gbh. &c. ; (with S3aivas) , original sin , natural impurity Sarvad. ; camphor L. ; Os Sepiae L. ; m. the son of a S3u1dra and a Ma1luki1 L. ; (%{A}) f. Flacourtia Cataphracta L. ; n. tanned leather , a leathern or dirty garment (?) RV. x , 136 , 2 ; a kind of brass or bell-metal L. ; the tip of a scorpion’s tail L. (v.l. %{ala}) ; mfn. dirty , niggardly L. ; unbelieving , godless L. [Cf. Gk. $ ; &240436[792 ,1] Lat. {ma8lus} ; Lith. {mo4lis} , {me4lynas}.] mAlA f. a wreath , garland , crown Gr2S3rS. MBh. &c. ; a string of beads , necklace , rosary. Ka1v. Pan5cat. (cf. %{akSa-} and %{ratna-m-}) ; a row , line , streak MBh. Ka1v. &c. ; a series , regular succession (with %{nAmnAm} , a collection of words arrayed in a series , a vocabulary , dictionary ; cf. %{nAma-m-}) ; a kind of Krama-pa1tha (cf. %{krama-mAlA}) ; N. of various metres Col. ; (in rhet.) a series of epithets or similes W. ; (in dram.) a series of offerings for obtaining any object of desire (S3ak. iii , 17) Sa1h. ; (in astrol.) a partic. Dala-yoga (q.v.) VarBr2S. Sch. ; Trigonella Corniculata L. ; N. of a river MBh. ; of a glossary. Big difference, no? Aama and ama. ama 2 mfn. (pron. ; cf. %{amu}) this AV. xiv , 2 , 71 (quoted in S3Br. xiv and A1s3vGr2.) [The word is also explained by %{prA7Na} , `" soul "' cf. Comm. on ChUp. v , 2 , 6.] Ama 2 m. (probably identical with 1. %{Ama}) , sickness , disease L You don’t want to be calling your ama, much less your amma, aama. Paarvati and parvati. Paarvati is consort of Shiva. Parvati is a stone. Are you convinced? It’s really quite important. I know I’m cheating a little bit because other special non-Western letters are usually not being accounted for on my site so far, but at the very least, it’s good to keep track of the double (long) vowels. I also am choosing to keep using Ayurveda instead of AAyurveda and sutra instead of suutra because they have already entered the American lexicon that way. There’s an old Indian story that goes something like this:
A man in a parched dry part of the country was trying to create a well. He would dig a hole, not deep enough to find anything, get exasperated and then give up. He tried this over and over again, and then went to his guru, asking what could be the problem. Perhaps there was no cool water under the ground anyway. Perhaps he should give up forever. The guru laughed and said, you have to pick a spot, dig deep, and then you will find the well of water that unites all ground. Perhaps apropos of this site, the story describes accurately and realistically the problem people face when they jump from one “field” to another of study. Yoga, Praanayaam (breathing exercises), mantra, astrology, Ayurveda, these are all fields, sciences, in themselves that each need deep focused study and heartfelt practice. If you just do a little bit of any one of them, get tired or frustrated, or otherwise get your ego hurt and move to the next, nothing will happen. You won’t reach the water. Much like the table of water underground, once you do reach Truth, you will find that it unites all the disciplines. It’s true that you could start anywhere and reach the same hidden ocean. But how to get there? Find one place and dig deep. Keep trying. Don’t move. Don’t get anxious. tat-pratisedhaartham eka-tattvaabhyaasahah (Yoga Sutras I.32) “In order to prevent those blocks[sickness, density, doubt…], the practice of a single truth.” For me, astrology is that one truth. The tattva, sight. It allows me to experience the other disciplines honestly and more fully than if I had bopped around, smelling occasional whiffs of knowledge from a distance. I love the story above and remember it quite often. As I begin with this web site, I want to emphasize that I don’t know much, except maybe a little in my practice of astrology. Still I can not imagine having a site on astrology that didn’t nod often to Sanskrit for example, and of course Ayurveda, and hence cooking, and ultimately yoga . You get the idea, So while I have interdisciplinary subsections on here, they are all staked around astrology. That’s my focus but it’s not my radius of perception. The radius is union, which is the ultimate meaning of yoga, the field Truth. Once, you find the table, all the fields merge. My main teacher, Dr. Lad, can speak Sanskrit by a touch of his guru, is a foremost master of Ayurveda and Yoga , and can perceive Jyotish instantly. I decided to write on this site so that I could codify some thoughts and feelings for my own education, share them with others, and learn what others have to say. We together form the eternal field of knowledge. Aham Brahmaasmi I am Brahma. (Brhadaaranyaka Upanishad 1.4.10) definition:
lIlA f. (derivation doubtful) play , sport , diversion , amusement , pastime MBh. Ka1v. &c. ; mere sport or play , child’s play , ease or facility in doing anything ib. ; mere appearance , semblance , pretence , disguise , sham Ka1v. Katha1s. Pur. (ibc. sportively , easily , in sport , as a mere joke [903,3] ; also = %{lIlayA} ind. for mere diversion , feignedly) ; grace , charm , beauty , elegance , lovelniess Ka1lid. Katha1s. Ra1jat. ; (in rhet.) a maiden’s playful imitation of her lover , Dalar. Sa1h. Prata1p. ; a kind of metre (4 times $) Col. ; N. of a Yogini HParis3. This word comes to mind often when I do a chart. Each person’s life seems to be a beautiful incredibly well written Shakespearean-level play, “mere sport” to the jiiva beneath. I think the subdefinition “a maiden’s playful imitation of her lover ” is also important. Krishna and the gopis are a beautiful example of a celestial love affair. Krishna, in charge of the leela, is graciously allowing our ultimate attempts at imitation of Him. It’s a beautiful thing, and the play is beautiful to witness in chart readings and in life. I think it’s an easy at bat on this one. Obama is in his Jupiter/Sun period, Jupiter and Sun shining into his tenth, for the election and Clinton has been in a Sun/Rahu (which I think describes an uber-politician well), Mars and Saturn in Cancer in the second
Today’s (5/5/8) New York Times front page story just in time for her Mars return: “Ruthlessness and Grit Seen in Clinton’s Love of the Fight” (interestingly changed to Clinton’s “Style” in the web version.) Regardless, here is Mars, Saturn, and Mars respectively. “We need a president who’s a fighter again,” Mrs. Clinton said at a rally on Thursday…. “She’s not going to quit, not going to quit fighting,” said Jody O’Dell of Decatur, Ill., who met Mrs. Clinton last week in Jeffersonville. She got her signature, too, a prized “Hillary” across a pair of red boxing gloves. I’m not making this up. Both candidates are showing off their dashas perfectly. Mars debilitated in Clinton’s second, with Ketu, whooo, suggests that she is going to blow her cash during this month. {Edited: Later, in 5/8/8’s New York Times, I saw this Highlighting the financial woes of Mrs. Clinton’s expensive battle against Mr. Obama, campaign officials disclosed that the $6 million in loans she made to her campaign had come in three installments since April 11, with the last two since May 1….} There’s no way she is going to win in November. For a good article that says the opposite click here. Expect Obama to win and Al Gore to be his running mate. Now Al’s chart is something else! Another super duper Jupiter chart. For all that he has accomplished, he is just about to begin the time of his life! McCain is not on my map at this point. I’ll flesh this out this weekend withkundalis and so on, but that’s the bottom line. Let’s see if I can throw in any other unrelated metaphors. Nope, can’t think of any. I learned how from a show on Coast to Coast AM, a late night radio show. That night Maureen Caudill was speaking. She talked at length about her own experiences as a cognitive computer science specialist, who went “Suddenly Psychic“. (Yes, I later bought the book.) I was so impressed with her tone, her delivery, I actually listened to the whole show. It was my first time I stayed for it. Usually I’m turned off, or maybe a little confused, by all the discussion of UFO’s and so on. I’m glad I did this time. It changed my life. You can still find the .mp3’s of that show on the Coast to Coast web site. After talking about healing her cat, the second hour was devoted to step by step instructions on how to bend spoons. They worked perfectly. We obviously are not talking about flimsy forks or spoons that can be bent “normally” by anyone. That clearly wouldn’t be any fun. We are talking about heavy banquet ware that is not bendable typically. How did I do it? Basically, if you know a little Chi Gong, you will find this easy. Using light pressure, pass your chi through the spoon for at least 5 minutes. This is the tough part. You will find a moment when the thing feels like it just melted a little bit. That is your opportunity. With that light pressure, bend the spoon, or the tines of the fork, or whatever. Having high psychical energy is pretty necessary. Eating chocolate helps. How much physical force is necessary? Very little. If the fork or spoon or key or screwdriver or whatever were made of plastic instead of stainless steel or silver, and that hypothetical plastic object would break with the amount of force you are giving, then that is way too much physical force. Your efforts should be gentle and mindless. Also, be careful of the real world importance of the object. I once tried to impress a friend by bending a fork that I got out of her drawer. She was instead upset that her grandmother’s heirloom silver fork was no longer usable. I used my energy to move the fork back into place. It snapped into two, and she was very distraught. Except for that last, quite shameful event, I found this whole thing to be incredibly empowering, telling us all that the military technological engineering oriented world is only so much of the picture. For example, I gave a spirally twisted spoon to a techie friend for Christmas. He couldn’t unspiral it. He announced that his engineering education was now for nought and that he should “go to a cave to meditate.” “Everyone should do that”, says my sister. Indeed, I think a lot can be said for it. I would be happy too to levitate. That would make me feel good and inspire the same feelings, but on a larger scale, of course. You’ve got to admit, the concept of the world will change once the first person levitates publicly. It will collectively rise, same as the person who did it.* Yeah, I want to do these things to reach others, to say you CAN do the scary, the improbable, the incredibly transformative. YOU have incredible energy. There is no denying it after having done this. It’s my triple Scorpio ascendant, I guess. But the secret is not to get egotistical. Then all your insight and power drains out of you. This is what I understand happened to Uri Geller. A friend of mine can do it even better than I do. She makes the tines into spirals. Cool. Another friend told me, “Renay, what would I do with a bent spoon?” Sure, it’s just a trick in a way. There’s no reason to do it unless you want to make jewelry or something, or with levitation, to cross the street without pushing the button for the light. But it teaches us that we are not drones of any sort, or as my friend said, it might make us want to meditate more. It might inspire our lazy selves to vibrate higher. Hence, despite objections by some, I think it qualifies as beginner’s yoga, but I may well be wrong yet again. *Here are the sobering comments of Vasistha’s Yoga (page 313) about flying (and probably by extension, bending spoons): Flying in the sky and other powers are natural to some beings, O Raama. The extroardinary qualities and faculties which are observed in this world are natural to those beings – not to the sages of self-knowledge. Supernatural faculties (like flying in the air) are developed even by those who are devoid of self-knowledge or liberation, by the utilisation of certain substances or by certain practices. All this does not interest the man of self-knowledge who is utterly content in himself. They who, in pursuit of pleasures, acquire these powers tainted by ignorance, are surely full of ignorance; the sages of self-knowledge do not adopt such a course. Whether one is a knower of truth or ignorant of it, powers like flying in the air accrue to one who engages himself in some practices. But the sage of self-knowledge has no desire to acquire these. These practices bestow their fruit on anyone, for such is their nature. Poison kills all, wine intoxicates all, even so these practices bring about the ability to fly, etc., but they who have attained the supreme self-knowledge are not interested in these, O Raama. They are gained only by those who are full of desires; but the sage is free from the least desire of anything. Self-knowledge is the greatest gain; how does the sage of self-knowledge entertain any desire for anything else? … Fair enough. In so far as this post stimulates discourse (within myself at the very least) and hence a real part of yoga, I’m glad I did the trick, but honestly and without artifice. The whole thing has been educational for myself and others. Let it be that. Jyotish represents the eye, one of the Vedangas, of the Vedas.
What does this mean? I think there is a lot to think about here. For one, tamas, the guna to avoid, translates first to “darkness”, not beeing able to see, that is, the absence of light. Jyotish is light, is seeing. The eye is a lens, used to look outward and to separate “me” from “them”, the basis of our Ahamkaara. “The illusion that we are separate from one another is an optical delusion of our consciousness.” – Albert Einstein What we see feeds our personality internally, makes the inside and out seem separate. From the transient ephemeral “outside” our eyes determine the individuality of our faces and the individuality of our experiences. Eyes are the window to our soul it is said, but then, how could the VEDAS have eyes? One lens that is the chart to an Ahamkaara can be seen as that Ahamkaara itself. Signpost, signed, and signer, the jiiva or being can be seen as accurately via a chart as being looked at directly, if through the eyes of a proper reader. As skilled astrologers know, that same chart can then be a lens to see other jiivas. Indeed all is One, OM TAT SAT, and the proof is in any given Jyotish chart. Hymn to the Ganga
The Goddess is the stream of consciousness, flowing with inspiration, Adorable, blissful, She who partakes of everything. Wave of pure consciousness who quickly flows over the three worlds, The pure one who plays at the head of Shiva. My mind is at home at your lotus feet. She is the one who gives pleasure. Mother of the three worlds, the greatness of your waters is reknown. I do not have the power to comprehend your greatness, Give your protection from my ignorance, one whose nature is compassion. Speaking of ignorance and compassion, I beg of you the latter for the former that oozes out of my voice as I try to do justice to the above, and fail. For a better, clearer and purer version, purchase from Karunamyi‘s site. The chandas or meter of the piece is amazing, and I’ll try to address it in another post. |
ARTICLESAuthorRenay Oshop - teacher, searcher, researcher, immerser, rejoicer, enjoying the interstices between Twitter, Facebook, and journals. Categories
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