Paramahansa Yogananda
on Fast Spiritual Progress
How to Achieve Spiritual Realization?
The Vedantic way of spiritual realization is
to listen to the scriptural truth (shravanam), then
to perceive it (mananam), then
to be one with it (nididhyasanam). (The Gita p.657)
Commentary
Listen
Perceive
Be One With
Listen
— Shravanam (Sravana) ('listen') — Hear this truth again and again: "You are Brahman". Read Yogananda's words again and again. Read this web-page again and again until you really remember and know it.
If you can’t realize Brahman, or you have doubts, or you don’t get it — go to the next step:
Perceive
— Mananam (Manana) ('perceive') — Think about the meaning. Relate it to similar concepts and question it, relate it to your existing knowledge. Think about the meaning until you understand the deeper meaning.
When you know that ‘You are Brahman’ intellectually but it’s still not real to you — go to the next step:
Be One With
— Nididhyasanam (Nididhyasana) ('be one with') — Meditate on the Truth. Assimilate the Truth. Become one with the Truth. Go beyond intellectual knowledge and reasoning. Be one with the Truth intuitively so you can feel it 'in every cell of your body'. "It is by intuition that God can be realized in all His aspects."
Practice Kriya Yoga
"The true follower of Kriya Yoga is the highest yogi, and Kriya Yoga is the greatest yoga technique ever developed in man’s search for the Infinite."
Sri Shankaracharya (788-820 CE):
"Reflection (manana) is hundred times superior to listening (sravana); meditation (nididhyasana) is hundred times superior to reflection; nirvikalpaka samadhi is infinitely superior."
Challenges on the Path to Spiritual Realization:
1. IGNORANCE
— Solution:
Sravana — Manana — Nididhyasana
(Listen — Perceive — Become One with Truth).
2. RESTLESS MIND
— Solution:
Concentration & Deeper Meditation.
3. IMPURE MIND
We can’t mediate because of the impurity of the mind.
— Solution:
Perform unselfish actions — practice the Karma Yoga & Bhakti Yoga.
"By unswerving devotion to God, by love for Him so complete that one's mind has no room for thought of self."
The Great Value of Master's Teachings
by Brother Anandamoy
Study
Absorb
Assimilate
Apply
First reading:
read a portion (Lesson or Chapter or [web-page] )
Second reading:
• read slowly
• make notes in study book
• write questions
Third reading:
• take one thought at a time
• repeat thought in mind
• contemplate deeply
• write out deeper thoughts, realization that comes
• note perceptions about meaning
• go back & contemplate key thoughts in notes
• Ask: "How can I apply it?"
Choose one thought.
Take it up first thing in the morning.
Carry it all the day.
Introspect in the evening.
Techniques to Learn
Those who want to prove for themselves the scientific truth of the doctrine of reincarnation should first prove the principle of continuity of consciousness after death by learning the art of consciously separating the soul from the body.* This can be done by following the rules laid down many centuries ago by the Hindu savants: Learn
Learn
(1) to be conscious during sleep,
(2) to be able to produce dreams at will,
(3) to disconnect the five senses consciously, not passively as during sleep, and
(4) to control the action of the heart, which is to experience conscious death, or the suspended animation of the body (but not of the consciousness) that occurs during the higher states of superconsciousness. (me)
* The Christian mystic St. Paul understood and demonstrated this mastery of life and death; he declared: "...I die daily" (I Corinthians 15:31).
The essential proof of Self-realization—of God's consciousness in you—is to be truly and unconditionally happy. If you are receiving more and more joy in meditation, without cessation, you may know that God is making manifest His presence in you. (me)
If you would develop Christ Consciousness, learn to be sympathetic. When genuine feeling for others comes into your heart, you are beginning to manifest that great consciousness. (me)
Signs of Progress in Meditation
The true signs of progress in meditation are the following:
— An increasing peacefulness during meditation.
— A conscious inner experience of calmness in meditation metamorphosing into increasing bliss.
— A deepening of one’s understanding, and finding answers to one’s questions through the calm intuitive state of inner perception.
— An increasing mental and physical efficiency in one’s daily life.
— Love for meditation and the desire to hold on to the peace and joy of the meditative state in preference to attraction to anything in the world.
— An expanding consciousness of loving all with the unconditional love that one feels his own dearest loved ones.
— Actual contact with God, and worshipping Him as ever new Bliss felt in meditation and in His omnipresent manifestations within and beyond all creation. (jt)