Reflections on this week so far

Paramasivoham 🙏🏼

What went well

- Everything ☺️

- Food, running, weight, energy, love, feeling connection with Siva, pooja, yoga,ML algorithms training, cloud computing training, The sapiens book, Meditation training

What can be improved

- Nothing ... Coz life is perfect right now. Thanks to Siva

- only thing I miss is I want Siva to help me understand His story and believe in the truth. I don't want to believe everything that religion says is just a story. If it is then it's a huge problem, I want to know the truth of life and Gods and reincarnation and karma

How you react to life defines you

If health is not good, you are obese or diabetic - look at the reason for it. Chances are it's your lifestyle which contributed to it. A rolling stone gathers no moss, so also an active body does not suffer diseases.

Lifestyle became less active probably because of the fact that you have given importance to studies more than any physical activity or sports during your formative years, reason was probably that parents wanted you to focus on studies, always asked you to focus on studies than anything else.

Many stock market biggies have poor health as they have given money as the most prominent role in life than health. Then they lose all their hard earned money on treating diseases.

Sometimes you're not spending nature may affect your partner who may want you to spend more. You may be conservative. Again there would be a reason for it. You might have grown up in middle class or poverty due to which you value money more. Or your parents trained you that way as money was scant.

The law of action and reaction constantly at work in shaping up experience.

Approaching death of the ego

Sometimes god gives our ego a new low. He redefines how much the ego should bend to humility. such an experience lightens the heart but leaves a memory and a mark.

I observe the same fear in people all around the world -- job related insecurity, old age and being single, divorced people who feel people with family are blessed, lonely people who resort to mindfulness and meditation. Happening all over the world. I attended a sangha meditation centre in Milwaukee and saw that a pediatrician was there, an old lawyer was there, a man who was about to get divorced was there, old women who are about to die were there, relative middle aged people who have gone through much sufferings were there.

Sometimes we don't understand why people dislike us -- but go deep inside them and it becomes clear the sufferings that they are going through and what it is which is making them hate us. when someone does something to you which you are not able to understand, it means there is something about you which you don't understand yourself. Why? because the same energy flows in them which is flowing in you. Everyone is behaving out of conditioning and therefore nobody is guilty. Yet nobody is innocent because they have a choice on how to use their energies. Wow -- such an awesome creation of God. He creates the world of opposites and gives a choice to souls.

Looking again at the back of the mind, there is nothing else other than the present moment all the time. memories is what makes the mind interfere. As UG Krishnamurthy says there is no way you can experience anything at all without the knowledge of it. The vicious cycle is such that Knowledge "enables" experiencer to experience and the experiences fortifies the knowledge. In the present moment there is no memory, no knowledge, no experience -- just beingness. Yet there is no word to describe the state. Buddha calls it emptyiness, Jesus called it the fullness of life. Yet they all describe the same thing.

Excerpt from the "power of Awareness"

The world moves with motiveless necessity. By this IS meant that it has no motive of its own , but is under the necessity of manifesting your concept,the arrangement of your mind, and your mind is always arranged in the image of all you believe and consent to as true. The rich man , poor man, beg-gar man or thief are not different minds, but different arrangements of the same mind,

Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind-that is, by your concept of yourself [and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.] What you consent to can only be discovered by an Uncritical observation of your reactions to life.

Man's CHIEF delusion is his conviction that there are causes other than his own state of consciousness . All that befalls a man -all that is done by him - all that comes from him - hap-pens as a result of his state of consciousness . A man's consciousness is all that he thinks and desires and loves, all that he believes is true and consents
to . That is why a change of consciousness is necessary before you can change your outer world.

You know a thing mentally by looking at it from the outside, by comparing it with other things , by analyzing it and defining it;[by thinking of it:] whereas you can know a thing spiritually only by becoming it,. [only by thinking from it]. You must be the thing Itself and not merely talk about it or look at it.

Memory => Desire/Fear => Action

An experience : while browsing through the world, I observe something which reminds me of a past memory. This memory is many years old stored in subconscious.

this memory triggered a thought which projected the memory into a future (imagination).

Soon after this a desire was formed to reenact the memory in the present.

That led to an action (which is actually a reaction of the past memory)

Karma - The law of the mind

Karma - The law of the mind

Thursday, November 11, 2010

10:08 AM

During Diwali weekend - experienced a rather tough experience in life which made me realize the how my energies released-forth get back to me.  The energy which powers the mind, the body - comes from the very essence of existence. The energy can be used for both constructive, creative purposes or destruction.

There are guidelines in Hindu religion which propose the best way to use this energy - these guidelines are The Yamas and Niyamas found in classical Yoga. One of the most important Yama is Ahimsa. - Non-injury - not just physically but all by thoughts, words and actions. If the energies are used against this principle (by causing harm through thoughts) - the same would return back through "channels" - which could be anyone - relatives or friends.

I have vowed to use these energies of mine in a creative and constructive way - and vowed to follow ahimsa in Life after this experience from this great University of Life.

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Karmic Playground

 

Met some new Anava margis who happen to stumble upon your path in life ? I'm not sure if the experience was pleasant for you, its definitely not for me.

One thing to understand from these I, Me and myself types is that there is no way to convince or make them understand because selfishness rules first in them. They are going through their evolutionary patterns creating new karmas as a result.

My complete surrender to the law of karma has produced some miracles off late in my life. The way I escaped from losing the appointment at Chennai consulate. The way i beat the odds in coming out with a solution at work for the Waveform Gap issue, The way I again beat the odds by getting the Difficult 3G pre to post conversion with International Roaming in a day beating all the process overheads – all prove the same thing – If it were not your karma you wouldn't be in that situation in the first place.

Next week I'm in Germany – meeting many new souls having different evolutionary processes but those who spend mostly time in the intellect. Let me see how it goes and what karma has in store for me – I'm still clueless where ill stay when i land in Freiburg on Saturday night as my bookings are done only from Sunday. Its this uncertainty that makes life exciting and I'm all IN for it !

Update: On the last day another miracle, I got a flight rescheduled at the last moment with no extra cost ! And thereby spend Sunday night comfortably at Hotel. Yes now I truly believe that i love uncertainty and karma. Welcome guys, I'm game !

Karma, the natural law.

This blog is in response to a question by an anonymous reader. His question is "I would like to know is there a way/ ways to decrease ones own karma ?"

This link should answer all your questions,

http://tinyurl.com/yfrwfny

Aum namah Sivaya !

Love you Gurudeva

 

Once in a while on this Earth there arises a soul who, by living his tradition rightly and wholly, perfects his path and becomes a light to the world. Satguru Sivaya Subramuniyaswami was such a being, a living example of awakening and wisdom, a leader recognized worldwide as one of Hinduism's foremost ministers.

 

 

An eye opener from gurudeva from “Living with Siva” :

 

Thus the wheel of karma continues, on and on and on, creating and recreating. The wheel of karma is simply the mechanism of the mind's action -- your mind, everyone's mind. Through the study of the wheel of karma, which is a meditative study, you realize that you have created everything that is happening or has already happened to you. Everything that is coming your way in the future you will have created. Everything you will acquire your own wants will have brought into being. You are right now a sum total of millions of thoughts, feelings, desires and actions -- all of them yours. Circumstance is not responsible for your condition, for you have made your circumstances consciously and unconsciously. There are no outside forces imposing themselves upon you. Whatever you attract to yourself of the world, though it seems to be external, is but a manifestation of your own inner nature. Yo u are the author of all of your creations; and yet in the inner recesses of your being you are already the finished product at the same time. To understand this fully, you need yoga.

Being in the ‘here’ & ‘now’

 

I liked this beautiful learning from natha website

Reflect to the idea that:

a) If you really are HERE and NOW, this is truly ENOUGH to have EVERYTHING, and

b) Thus you will reach the power and capacity of discriminatory understanding to make the most harmonious thing right now. Therefore when “after that”(the future) will become NOW - if you truly assimilated this exercise - you will then be in the ideal state and you will be then (in the future) much more capable to make the most appropriate and the most harmonious actions, so that it will not be necessary to waste your time NOW to worry yourself about then (future).

5. Reflect over the fact that you can program wisely your future being a state the consciousness of HERE and NOW, because in this kind of state, “ then” becomes NOW.
Doing like this you will be fully HERE and NOW. Do these statements still appear paradoxical to you? It is normal in the beginning, but nevertheless continue to meditate upon them, because the OUNCE OF PRACTICE will reveal to you that they hide truths which could never be fully comprehended by the rational mind.

The full article is here (courtesy: natha.fi)

Karma

I am beginning to perceive an observation of the workings of karma amongst people. Karma can use oneself to be used as a channel to ‘pass-on’ or ‘return’ the karma of another individual. To give an example : Say Person X has angered someone in the past and as a result there is a pending karma. Person Y who is a good friend of X visits X over the weekend and they engage in a conversation. They discuss various topics in a random manner without thought of what to speak or what not. Person Y responds to X or says something to X which will cause X to be angry. The person X could have been you or me or anyone for that matter. In other words Karma can use anyone as a channel to affect another.

This is one of the reasons why yogis lived away from society in forests for practicing Yoga. This served two purposes

• Provided them a calm and peaceful environment for performing sadhana
• This way they ‘Avoided’ themselves of becoming a “channel for Karma” to affect another person or creature.

Changes in Life

Lot of changes happening in life. Conscious Mind is getting too many experiences both favorable and unfavorable which are all being recorded in the subconscious Mind. Life seems to be running so fast with so many things happening – i get a promotion, my responsibilities at home & work skyrocket, concurrent projects, managing people, getting married, get the stuff necessary to make my partner happy, buy new clothes and vehicles, shift to a new home, setting up things there starting from a curtain to phone & Internet connections, file tax-returns, consoling mom when she is emotional, convincing dad my point of view etc etc etc – This is samsara. It can and usually does keep a person and his conscious mind busy for many life times to come. This is where a person creates and destroys new karmas swiftly. This is what distinguishes a normal person from a yogi. A Yogi lives 2/3rd within and 1/3rds outside in the conscious mind. Family Life keeps a non-yogi 2/3rds or even more in the conscious mind which is full of novelty and ramification.

At the moment my only goal is to achieve this - Living Two Thirds within

Ignorance is not bliss

 

Life has finally put me amidst people who are my own very relatives and close to my heart – but unaware of the God & Gods and see them as a product of imagination, unaware of the laws of karma, like to live life with lot of glitter and glamour, too many conscious and subconscious desires which are not yet satisfied, fear and negative emotions ruling their life on a day to day basis, anger taking them over when their wishes are not met, selfish and self centered, pessimistic with no willpower or Goals – either material or spiritual in life. In short such people are called “Anava Margis” (Those who follow the path of the ego) in classical Hindu Literature.

As my gurudeva says “The person who has the least – desires the most” – I'm finding it true in their lives. my Karmic consequences has created circumstances in my life to deal with such people on a regular basis & I'm not sure how I will deal with this. I surrender to the Holy Almighty Lord Siva and accept His Will. Sivas Will be done !

Many of my own relatives are accustomed to show-ff every small thing they do as something great. Their attempt to show others that they are superior is constant, their arrogance and pessimism has completely covered their souls in ignorance. Here is the answer from Tirumantiram for all those folks who like to show-off

The black-footed Garuda bird flies across the sky; a black-hued serpent dies in a deep well, all unseen. So, stop bragging of your greatness, O heart! Be like the river that merges into the wavy ocean.

- Tirumantiram 2513.

The Tirumantiram wisely points out that there are many things happening in the world unseen, so why are you begging for attention by bragging about your greatness? Be like the river which merges into the wavy ocean without even leaving a trace.

Siva has sent all these people in my life to teach me something and that is – How not to live life in confused lower states of consciousness.

Aum Namah Sivaya

Related Post: The World is my University

Life in 2009

 

I prayed Lord Ganesh a few months back to improve my willpower and in turn the Loving God answered me my giving me lots of work in life – a good chance to work hard and improve the will by using the will.

• Leading 2 tech projects
• Renovating home
• Working on my own goals and personal projects
• Amidst so much of work – life is putting me in things i don't like doing like attending ‘audits’ !

By my observation - The year started with a lot of work at office, travel to Shirdi pilgrimage, Satya Narayan Pooja, finding my better half and getting wedding dates fixed, increase of responsibilities towards my partner, increase of work and social responsibilities.

Whatever comes in front of me both good and bad is a result of my own making. With the wisdom equipped from my guru I am ready to face the snakes created by myself and make them my garland !

Aum Namah Sivaya

Gurudeva – On Overcoming Karma

 

I will be putting the above quote from Gurudeva to practice in my life from today.

Aum Namasivaya

MORE THE WILLPOWER WE USE, MORE WILLPOWER WE HAVE

Everyone has willpower. It is inherent to the makeup of the physical-astral-mental-emotional body. The center of willpower is the manipura chakra, located at the solar plexus. Unlike other energies, the more willpower we use, the more willpower we have to use. Actually, by
exerting our willpower, we store up new energy within the manipura chakra. This happens when we work a little harder than we think we can, do a little more than we think we can do. By putting forth that extra eff ort, we build up a great willpower that we will always have with us, even in our next life, the next and the next. Willpower is free for the using, actually. Therefore, the more you use your individual willpower in your religious service, in your business life, your personal life, your home life, your temple life, in fulfilling all the yamas and niyamas, the more willpower you have. It is an accumulative, ever-growing bank account.

Jupiter enters Capricorn

In Sanskrit it is "Guru" planet entering "Makar Rashi".

Lord Rama belonged to Makar Rashi and when this planetary event occurred (guru entering his rashi) Rama had to give up the kingdom and take up 14 years of forest exile.

From one perspective this appears like trouble, on another perspective, it means guru came into His life so that He could shine to His fullest potential which actually happened in Lord Rama's Life.

I myself am Makara rashi and Jupiter entered this constellation on Dec 6th 2008. And I'm beginning to see many changes in life. By the grace of my guru i hope to brave the challenges and emerge successful.

A colleague of mine described a nice observation about life. He says when we were born - "our parents didn't expect that their kids would grow up to become Software Engineers in reputed MNCs and earn 5/6 figure salaries". Then he says "Do you know who your great grandma is? What she did?" I said "No" And he says something like "Everything even relatives gets forgotten, all gets washed away by the all powerful time". Third example he gave was about some of his old colleague friends - who got sacked from a textile company in a town in Tamil Nadu due to "low" performance - the same guys ended up working in a top company in the US few years down the line. So the sacking actually helped them advance their careers. To summarize what i learnt from him was

While flowing with the river of life - its the unexpected things that happen to us that make the journey exciting and give invaluable insights. The river experiences calm waters, violent falls, smooth sand, tough rocks, every minute is full of unexpectedness. Yet it keeps flowing and finally merges into the Ocean.

There is lot of truth in his words, we struggle everyday in pursuit of happiness, everyone is seeking fulfillment in one form or the other, better job, better food, better clothing, better financial security, better mate etc - every single human wants fulfillment, yet all the hard work and achievements in attaining those fulfillments are forgotten soon by us and society and life itself which is temporary, is over. Even on obtaining the fulfillments - lets say a brand new car for example - the sense of ownership lasts for a few days and then slowly over time the longing for a better car starts, the emptiness again slowly takes over.

Related Posts : The River of Life

Karma and Prayaschitta

Im moving in a very tough test offered by life now, though i take complete responsibility for whatever is happening to me - awareness is moving to areas that are unpleasant. I centre myself and try to relax a little and awareness is back to those states. There are strong temporary illusions that suddenly come in life, trouble the mind and go away. But the mark remains. Finding it difficult to stay like a child which can live continuously in the "now" as if nothing happened. So that shows i still have a long long way to go in this spiritual progress. 

From gurudeva:

What Is Sin? How Can We Atone for It?

Sin is the intentional transgression of divine law. There is no inherent or "original" sin. Neither is there mortal sin by which the soul is forever lost. Through sadhana, worship and austerities, sins can be atoned for. Aum.

Bhashya

What men term sin, the wise call ignorance. Man's true nature is not sullied by sin. Sin is related only to the lower, instinctive-intellectual nature as a transgression of dharma. Still, sin is real and to be avoided, for our wrongful actions return to us as sorrow through the law of karma. Sin is terminable, and its effects may be compensated for by penance, or prayashchitta, and good deeds which settle the karmic debt. The young soul, less in tune with his soul nature, is inclined toward sin; the old soul seldom transgresses divine law. Sins are the crippling distortions of intellect bound in emotion. When we sin, we take the energy and distort it to our instinctive favor. When we are unjust and mean, hateful and holding resentments year after year and no one but ourselves knows of our intrigue and corruption, we suffer. As the soul evolves, it eventually feels the great burden of faults and misdeeds and wishes to atone. Penance is performed, and the soul seeks absolution from society and beseeches God's exonerating grace. The Vedas say, "Loose me from my sin as from a bond that binds me. May my life swell the stream of your river of Right." Aum Namah Sivaya.

Persevering through terrible experiences

The worst experiences are the ones which bring about the best strengths and character.

Once a man prayed god to give him strength, God responded by keeping a huge heavy rock blocking him. The man had to struggle to push it out of his way. It took many days. But at the end of it he got what he wanted - Strength. Due to the constant pushing of the rocks he had a well developed musculature, and his arms had become strong - This is how God answers prayers.


Some experiences in my life are so strong and so terrible - that i end up completely identifying myself with the mind. It happens within a flash of a second. one thought leads to the other ultimately resulting in a miserable state of mind with all the emotions surging like a volcano eruption.

On the goal to the merger with Siva there are many many pitfalls - major one being how we respond to the experiences in life. As long as we react, these miserable experiences keep repeating. The experiences stop when we have understood them and stop reacting to them. End of the day it was an experience - neither favorable or unfavorable, but a result of some past karma carrying some lesson and necessary for the evolution of the soul.

The spiritual path is a long, enduring process. It does not reach fruition in a year or two years.

The spiritual path brings lots of ups and downs, and the greatest challenges will come to the greatest souls. With this in mind, it becomes clear that steadiness and perseverance are absolutely essential on the spiritual path.
- Gurudeva

In the Shandilya Upanishad (upm, p. 173-174, dhriti (steadfastness)) has been described as preserving firmness of mind during the period of gain or loss of relatives/friends/a loved one. This implies that during times of sorrow, difficult karmas, loss and temptation, when in mental pain and anguish, being misunderstood by a loved one, while suffering a heart-break, feeling alone and neglected, we can persevere, be decisive and bring forth the dhriti or steadfastness strength within us and thus prevail.

Life has been providing these experiences to me lately, probably due to my own past karma, however the good part is it is giving me a chance to exhibit the quality of dhriti. My guru was tru when He said that the world is our university and each experiences is there to test us. From past 2 days, i can say that i have got a some amount of success in being steadfast and im happy about it. Going forward it will be the way i live my life.

One translator of the Varuha Upanishad used the word courage to translate dhriti. Courageous and fearless people who are just and honest prevail over all karmas--benevolent, terrible and confused. This virtue is much like the monk's vow of humility, part of which is enduring hardship with equanimity, ease of mind, which means not panicking.

The Tirukural reminds us, "It is the nature of asceticism to patiently endure hardship and to not harm living creatures" (261). And we can say that dhriti itself is a "hard ship"--a ship that can endure and persevere on its course even when tossed about on the waves of a turbulent sea.

Many a times I wonder why it is good to passively endure hardship. To persevere through hardship one must understand, as all Hindus do, that any hardship coming to us we ourselves participated in setting into motion in the past. To endure hardship and rise above it in consciousness is to overcome that karma forever. To resent hardship, to fight it, is to have it return later at a most inconvenient time.

The following steps will be put into effect from this day in order to express the quality of dhriti - steadfastness more effectively:

• An essential part of steadfastness is overcoming changeableness. Changeableness means indecision, not being decisive, changing one's mind after making a deliberate, positive decision. Changing one's mind can be a positive thing, but making a firm, well-considered decision and not following it through would gain one the reputation of not being dependable, even of being weak-minded. No one wants a reputation like this.

• To be steadfast, you have to use your willpower. Willpower is developed easily in a person who has an adequate memory and good reasoning faculties. To be steadfast as we go through life, we must have a purpose, a plan, persistence and push. Then nothing is impossible within the circumference of our prarabdha karmas.

• It is impossible to be steadfast if we are not obeying the other restraints that the rishis of the Himalayas laid down for us as the fruits of their wisdom. All of these restraints build character, and dhriti, steadfastness, rests on the foundation of good character. Character--the ability to "act with care"--is built slowly, over time, with the help of relatives, preceptors and good-hearted friends.
  

• Observe those who are steadfast. You will learn from them. Observe those who are not, and they, too, will teach you. They will teach what you should not do. To be indecisive and changeable is not how you should be on the path to enlightenment, nor to be successful in any other pursuit.

• Surrender all resistances unto Him - know thats All is Siva, everything is His will, and He is the ultimate well wisher of the soul.

Bhagwan Baba - a perfect example of steadfastness gave me a good darshan at whitefield yesterday for more than half an hour. He has a major backbone problem and a deteriorating physical condition - yet He arrives for darshan regularly everyday to bless His devotees. His projects that were discussed during a speech yesterday - are a perfect example of how seemingly impossible things are made possible by power of will and steadfastness. Sri Sathya Sai Water supply project which supplies drinking water to the whole of Godavari district, Sri Sathya Sai Super Speciality Hospital - providing free health care to all people including the tribal people who have no money - Shame on all the so called great countries like USA, UK, Australia and the whole of Europe for these countries cannot even think of something even close to "free" health care despite their technological advancements !

Thank you Baba for all the things you have done selflessly to mankind and for answering my prayer yesterday regarding Mr Manjunath and family, and for calling me for your darshan. I dedicate this blog post to You.

Wishing your karma was better ?

He with whom neither slander that gradually soaks into the mind, nor statements that startle like a wound in the flesh are successful, may be called intelligent indeed.

~ Confucius

Off late life gave me certain experiences which made me strongly wish that my karma was better. The natural tendency of the ego is to blame the people involved in whatever injustice happened to it. But the bottomline is -- everything, both good and bad that happens to us is a result of ones own making. When karma is cheerfully endured, spiritual evolution takes place. When reacted, it results in re-experiencing those karmas at a later point in time or at a later life on earth.

TAKE RESPONSIBILITY

Wishing you karma was better?

The wise never blame God, for they know misfortune to be the return of man’s self-created karmas, difficult but necessary experiences for his spiritual evolution. Whenever we are injured or hurt, we understand that our suffering is but the fulfillment of a karma we once initiated, for which our injurer is but the instrument who, when his karmacycles around, will be the injured. If you take responsibility for all that happens to you, then you will have the power to deal with your karma through the grace of Lord Siva. He will give you the intelligence to deal with it as you worship Him in the Siva temple, contact Him within as the Life of your life and find Him in meditation.

Let’s take an example. Say I am holding a plate of rice and curry and I pass it to you. All of a sudden the plate drops on the floor between us. I blame you, and you blame me. I don’t want to be responsible for dropping the rice and curry, and you don’t want to be responsible either. So, we blame each other. The rice and curry is scattered there on the floor. No one is going to clean it up until one of us takes responsibility and says, “I’m sorry I dropped the plate of rice and curry,” and gets down on hands and knees and cleans it up. In the same way, only by taking responsibility, by recognizing what we have done as our own doing, can we begin cleaning up the results of our actions. Those who do take responsibility for their own karma have all the help in the world. The sages say, “Bear your karma cheerfully.” Each time you blame another person for what has happened to you, or cast blame in any way, tell yourself, “This is my karma which I was born to face. I did not come into a physical body just to blame others for what happens to me. I was not born to live in a state of ignorance created by an inability to face my karma. I came here to spiritually unfold, to accept the karmas of this and all my past lives and to deal with them and handle them in a proper and a wonderful way.” Then a sense of strength will come up within you, a sense of independence and peace. Mental arguments will stop. Arrogance will vanish.

• Accept all your experiences, good and otherwise, as the result of your own karmas in this and past lives.
• Avoid blaming others and instead take responsibility.
• Express gratitude for all that you have in life. Be thankful for the simple blessings that fill each day.

How to overcome karma

I was always curious to know how meditation can overcome one's karma, i finally got the answer from my guru. Here is how it goes

How does meditation affect one's karmas?

Karma is congested magnetic forces, and meditating is rising above karmic binding influences. You can control the congestion of karma or avoid the congestion and thus control your karma. This proves to yourself that you are the creator, the one who preserves and the destroyer simultaneously on the higher levels of consciousness. Yet, you have to come back occasionally to the "little old you" on this level and do the things that you have been accustomed to doing as a human, until you fully have the complete realization of the Self God -- the imkaif experience. Then you penetrate the doors of the Absolute into the core of existence itself, and you become the Self that everyone is searching for. But to overcome karmic patterns, the will must be tremendously strong and stable, and that means we must demand perfection in our life.
Why would you ever want to place demands of perfection upon yourself? You now walk the path of perfection, and you must be so to walk that path.

What is this perfection?

• First, it is a clarity of cognition.

• Second, it is a bursting of actinic love for your fellow man.

• Third, it is an openness and willingness to serve and fit in, in any capacity.

• Fourth, it is living a contemplative lifestyle better every day.

• Fifth, it is mastering all of your yoga disciplines given to you by your guru.

• Sixth, it is the ability to hold responsibility, maintain a continuity of your own karma yoga, yet have the mobile quality to be ever ready to do something different without losing continuity of what you have been doing in holding your responsibility.

If you can gear yourself to accomplish all this, you are on the path of enlightenment and you will surely prove to yourself, when you have your realization, that you are a free man in a free world, subject to nobody, to no power, even the power of karma. How could That which is formless and causeless be subject to anything?