Eternal Way

Self Conscious people, according to yoga, are asleep to higher realities.

Self conscious people are instead attracted to relationships, circumstances and experiences that stimulate the senses. They are awake in material pursuits, and asleep in spiritual matters.

Those who are attracted to higher realities are awake to the “Truth”. They perceive the indestructible Omnipresence, the true Reality, and remain indifferent to the delusive appearance of material unreality.   

What self conscious people perceive to be awake and true is in fact being unconscious (maya) to the truth.

The metaphysical correlation is that while most people are spiritually immersed in the delusive dream of life, the man of realization is spiritually awake, with his alert divine vision ever intent on the luminous Reality behind the dark “night of maya”.

The yogi whose whole attention is fixed on God withdraws himself from the world. He is in the world but not of it.

Established in Self knowledge, the devotee of God is unmoved by the stream of impressions that flow through the field of awareness during the course of daily life.

He has renounced all desires, attachments, and the illusional sense of independent existence. He is focused on awakening to the complete knowledge of Ultimate Reality and surrenders self consciousness in favor of Self Realization.

Yogananda:” He who roams the earth, having freed himself from the compulsion of past desires, and who keeps himself impervious to the invasion of new cravings and is no slave to ego consciousness of “I” and “mine” is wholly free from bondage”.

The soul as individualized pure consciousness is divine. When we fully realize this to be so, our awareness is no longer clouded. When the time comes, where the soul no longer needs the body as a vehicle of expression, it can awaken to the full joy of spiritual freedom.

A wise devotee wants to awaken to truth-consciousness as soon as possible; to enjoy soul (inner) freedom before he leaves the body.

Yogananda:” The ordinary man has no peace. His shallow mental reservoir is constantly roiled by the inrush of sensory stimulation. Restlessly he bores holes of desires in the dam of consciousness, draining away his inner powers and contentment”.

In a man of peace, the soul is a sea of contentment in which his whole consciousness is immersed. Instead of losing that peace through yearnings, he absorbs within himself all the rivers of desire, thereby keeping his quiescent sea filled to the brim.

The advice of the Gita: Do not drain dry your reservoir of peace, by diverting its waters into a channel of small but ever growing desires. The true devotee desires less and less and finds more and more in his soul a sea of contentment.

Karma Yoga: The Path of Spiritual Action.

Why is Activity a necessary part of the path of liberation?

Righteous duty, performed with non attachment, is Godly.

“From the vibration less region, through a cosmic rhythm of ordered activity, the Spirit brought into being all vibratory creation. Man is part of that vibratory cosmic activity. As an integral entity in the cosmic plan that all creation, projected out of spirit, must evolve back into Spirit, man also must ascend through activity in harmony with the divine schema.”