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Ma Durga
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Ma Durga
by
Ma Durga
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Do you know that if you are convinced about some problems due to your powerlessness, it just becomes your reality?
Many times, instead of going to the root of the problem and solving it, completing it, you go on holding onto the surface and enjoy the suffering. For some people they are afraid that if they go to the root of the problem, it may just disappear and what will they do in their life?! With the unconscious mind, we can get so comfortable with our problems that we are afraid to come out of the comfort zone and live without any problem. Sometimes the problems have become our companions and we just love our problems because we can get attention from others. Worrying about the problems has become a pattern that one may feel lonely without problems. Hence we don’t want to look into the root of the problem.
In the 8th Yoga Sutra, Patanjali says “Interpreting based on past conditioning leads to misconception or wrong understanding”. In this one Sutra, he analyses and describes ALL our problems.
First of all, most of the time we suffer only with our conditioning, not with the situation itself. If you look deeply, 99.9% of the sufferings are not related to the external situation, they are related to our internal conditioning.
Here’s an incident which happened to my client. This lady once witnessed the infidelity of his father when she was a child. Her parents fought frequently and her mother was depressed. Once a fight broke out and she asked her father not to leave them alone but he did. Her entire world crushed because her idea of her father loved her was completely shattered. She lost the trust she had in her father and in men. Her relationship with her partner become a problem because of inability to trust and she tortured herself with the pattern of spying on her partner. The incident is nothing but the past conditioning which stops her from experiencing the reality. The good news is she had completed with this incident by letting go of the anger and had since started building up on her trust.
From this incident, we can see that it is our mind that is programmed at a young age and we start living life based on our programming. We walk, talk and take decision based on those programs. The scary part is many of us are not even aware that we are programmed and we continue to live in unawareness!
That is what Patanjali calls as wrong knowledge, the very cognition or input in which we receive life is distorted because it is based on past conditioning and incompletions. So naturally, whenever wrong data and process are done, the way we take decision will also be wrong.
Here is a simple exercise you can do just to see how you make the same mistake of interpreting the present moment using the past conditioning. Sit and pen down at least 10 incidents where you made the same mistake using past conditioning. You will begin to see how your mind is behaving, how your life is happening and how you are struggling with this pattern.
The big problem is, before you even understand the depth of the problem, you start trying to correct it from your past conditioning. Then the problem can never end because the very knowledge is wrong. If you just understand the depth of the problem, that’s enough to trigger a transformation inside you. Just by understanding the depth of the problem, the transformation starts happening in you. Be very clear, understanding brings clarity, clarity brings change.
Upanishads declare again and again that all the Enlightened Masters declare – Whatever IS, is divine, it is God. If you see anything other than the Divine, if you have any other experiences other than bliss in life, you are stuck with this pattern, this is the sutra for you. Contemplate on this sutra – Interpreting based on past conditioning leads to misconception or wrong understanding. Decide to get out of this pattern and go to the depth of each problem and see it without your past conditioning so that you see each situation as it is. Namaste 😀
Do you know that the more judgments you carry about life, the more you will suffer with unnecessary violence and anger?
We are always so quick to pass judgment on a particular person based on one experience or even on a particular race based on one person. The judgment you pass about a particular race, the judgments you pass about a religion, the judgment you pass about a state, the prejudices and biases you carry, are all related to this wrong knowledge – we use the past experience to judge the present situation.
Here starts the problem because not only do we throw the emotions of anger or violence on others, we start internalising them which make us suffer with unnecessary emotions. For example, you read some news about a country’s President and you say “This guy is destroying the citizens of that country! So you start to carry a strong anger against him. But you won’t be able to directly interfere in his life as you have neither the right nor power to do it. So you are just sitting with that anger and later, if you hear some misfortune has happened in that President, you are happy because your anger is fulfilled, your violence is fulfilled. This is called excess anger or unnecessary anger which is in no way directly related to your life. It is just a judgment you are carrying about life.
In the 8th Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, he tells us not to carry strong words or judgments about life based on our narrow logic from the past conditioning. All these things are based on wrong knowledge. He says “Interpreting based on past incompletions leads to misconception or wrong understanding.” We never have compassion towards the present moment, we are always violent with the present moment, that is why we kill the present with the past. We destroy the present moment with the incompletions carried forward from our past. Be very clear – abusing the present moment with the incompletions from the past is hell.
All our fears, greed, worries, whatever we think of as misfortune in life, whatever we think of as our identity, can be sorted out with this one understanding. Eternity presents itself to you in the present moment, you can touch Eternity only by touching the present moment. You can’t directly touch the past nor future, the present moment is the only way you can directly connect with Eternity. However, if you are constantly torturing it with your past, you are creating incompletion, misconception and wrong understanding. All the suffering is just with this one problem – carrying the past into the present, leading to wrong understanding. You go on interpreting life based on the past and creating problems for yourself. This is how wrong understanding leads to wrong decisions which leads to suffering.
In any situation, if you are open, fresh and alive, without the past conditioning and words, you can handle the situation directly, you can live and experience that situation completely. But when you carry a preconceived idea about the situation. You never directly face that situation, you jump to a certain conclusion and start taking actions based on that. See how many time you create a whole problem in your imagination and are ready to attack with all the weapons and arguments. One important truth is we think in a generalised way i.e. the mind always carries the incompletions from one situation from one experience and extends it to all people, all situations and all experiences. Each situation is different, but your mind always generalizes.
My Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) gives this ONE amazing key, he said ‘Have compassion towards the present moment’. If you look towards the present moment with a little sympathy and compassion, it will completely open a new door, you will have a new understanding about life. When you don’t have compassion towards the present moment, you always judge this moment with your past experience. This is a powerful key to unlock all your suffering from the past and see every moment as new!
In essence, stop judging life based on your past, have a little compassion towards the present moment so that you can allow yourself to fully experience life and eventually touch Eternity. Namaste 😀
- Source – 108 truths from the Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda
In the 7th Yoga Sutra of Patanjali, we know that there are 3 different levels of knowledge – the direct perception from senses, inference from right cognition and the words of an enlightened Master.
If you only follow the society, you will only have the first level knowledge (pratyaksa), the society will be primitive as it does not know anything except what they perceive through their senses. If you are living at that level of existence, even if you live with all the wealth, name and fame, power, everything, you will only be depressed because it is like having a TV with only one channel and you don’t even know how to switch on the next channel – the next level of knowledge which is available to us. The truth is life is knowledge, expansion of knowledge is life. When we are unable to expand in knowledge after certain level means death by the first 33 years of our life.
People open the second level of knowledge are the artists, scientists, creators, poets and thinkers. For example, a sculptor may perceive a stone through his senses but he is able to remove certain parts of the stone and transform it into a sculpture. He is using the inference through cognition to enter the second level of knowledge. Rarely some civilisations offer opportunities for science, art, creativity or inference dimension (anumana) for the next 33 years till your retirement. That’s why there is a high level of suicide rate among the senior citizens all over the world.
The third level of knowledge is very rare, only the very intelligent civilizations accept, internalise and experience the words of the awakened ones, the words of the enlightened ones (agama). As the civilisations evolves to higher and higher level, it starts accepting and encouraging the higher levels of knowledge. It is only when a civilisation moves to the very subtle, very intelligent level that it starts to accept agama, the words of an enlightened Master. Only such a civilisation can keep on offering you something new for your entire life.
My Guru, Paramahamsa Nithyananda (fondly known as Swamiji) said that if you move naturally from level to level of knowledge in your life, you are a complete human being, you will live as a fulfilled being, this is called ageing gracefully. If the third level of knowledge has not happened in your life – feeling connected to the words of the enlightened ones – the higher level of knowledge has not opened up in your consciousness. Be very clear, you will fall into depression by the next 33 years after you hit 66 years of your life and your life will become a living hell. That’s the worst thing that can happen to a human being. The Vedic civilization has done a great service to humanity by awakening the highest level of knowledge in every human being because it is structured in such a beautiful way that one goes through the first and second levels naturally and the third level of knowledge will be automatically awakened in you. The enlightened beings understand that all the three levels of knowledge are related to the words of the enlightened master, so there is no conflict at all. By the time you are above 66 years old – the third phase of your life, you will be able to sit in meditation, in contemplation because you would have been prepared for it during the first and second phases of your life. You will live gracefully and age gracefully. So if you don’t want to fall into suicidal tendency by old age. The one and only way is to awaken the most subtle dimension of your being, you will have ‘YOU’ to you. That would be the greatest service you will do to yourself and the world, the best retirement plan for anyone.
In essence, start preparing yourself to move away from the wrong knowledge to receive the third level of knowledge – the words from the enlightened beings and you will never ever feel bored in your life. Namaste. 😀
- Source – 108 truths of the Yoga of Enlightenment by Paramahamsa Nithyananda.