Monday, July 30, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Friday, July 27, 2012
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Thursday Quote(s)
[Dharma Mittra] told us about a man who came to him for advice. He had meditated for 30 years but could find no spiritual peace. “It turned out he was eating too much meat,” said Dharma. “He was a butcher. I told him to change his profession immediately.”
“Without the first step--ahimsa (nonviolence)--you gain nothing with meditation,” he reiterated. You get stuck in your chakras “when deep in your heart you know that as a real yogi you should be able to put yourself into someone else’s place. You should be able to put yourself in the place of a cow. Would you like for people to bring you to the slaughterhouse and take meat from you?”
He said that eating meat turns the stomach into a graveyard. “If there’s a nice house with a carcass in it, it turns into a morgue. If Rama and Jesus came and saw this house, they would not go in. They would wait outside.”
“So if you’re not a vegetarian yet, reduce the amount of meat intake,” Dharma encouraged.
As for dealing with unsavory people, he said, “You should love even the bad man. But keep your distance. If you start despising them it bounces back. If you send the negative thoughts out, it flows back to you.”
....Dharma said he suspected many of us half-believed in some things such as reincarnation and karma. “How many of you believe you came here with just a one-way ticket?” he asked. “What if you don’t accomplish what you want in this life, and you’re just a one-way incarnation?”
He said that bad karma does indeed follow one into the next life, and that the aforementioned butcher would face violence in his next incarnation. His guru said that when people help you, they are from your past. “If you died with money in the bank, it’ll be there in your next life--with interest. Everything has reasons from the past.”
After one morning session, some students were talking about Dharma’s hard-line take on vegetarianism. “I understand what he's saying, but I can't give up fish,“ said one. “I mean, I've been a vegetarian for ten years because of yoga, but I just love fish.” That afternoon, after chanting the Govinda mantra, Dharma began his talk by explaining that animals are like children, without hate. Then he discussed how many fish suffer so those humans can eat them. “It takes how many minutes for them to die without water? Animals are made to be loved, not to be eaten.
“If you have to eat meat, wait for one of the great saints to die and feast on his flesh. Then the vibrations will be positive.”
Click here or here to read the rest of this article about Sri Dharma's 2005 weekend workshop in Chicago.
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Mid-Week Video
Astanga with a Broken Femur
"Anyone can practice, young man can practice, old man can practice, very old man can practice, man who is sick, he can practice, man who doesn't have strength, he can practice....
...except lazy people, lazy people can't practice."
-R. Sharath
Monday, July 23, 2012
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thursday, July 19, 2012
Thursday Quote
-Bhagavad Gita XVI.21
Monday, July 16, 2012
Friday, July 13, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
Thursday Quote
"The purification of the heart is the duty of all aspirants, especially of world-renouncing sannyasins, for this is the means of cultivating knowledge which leads to the freedom of the soul. As a mirror stained with impurities cannot reflect an image, so the impure heart cannot reflect Self-Knowledge. The yogi realizes Immortality after having purified the heart by the following means: worship of the spiritual preceptor, inquiry into the Vedas and other scriptures based upon them, performance of righteous actions, the keeping of holy company, the hearing of holy talk, avoidance of the touch and sight of a woman, the seeing of the Self in all beings, non-acceptance of others' property, the wearing of the coarse ochre cloth, withdrawal of the senses from the enjoyment of objects, relinquishment of sleepiness and idleness, investigation into the nature of the physical body, the regarding of selfish action as sinful, control of rajas and tamas and cultivation of sattva, desirelessness, and control of the sense-organs. Study of the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Puranas, and other religious treatises, performance of sacrifices, practice of brahmacharya and austerities, control of the senses, faith in the worlds of the teacher and the scriptures, fasting, and non-dependence upon others are also among the means for the attainment of Self-Knowledge."
-Rishi Yajnavalkya
Monday, July 09, 2012
Friday, July 06, 2012
Thursday, July 05, 2012
Thursday Quote
[Sri Ramakrishna] used to tell us that the difference between man and God was this: If for 99 days you have served a man well, but on the hundredth you do some wrong to him, he will remember the one bad turn and forget the 99 good turns. But if you abuse God for 99 days and for one day you say something in praise of Him, He will forget the 99 bad days and He will say: 'Ah! today this man has spoke something good of me.' Man forgets the 99 good works and remembers the one bad one. God forgets the 99 bad works and remembers the one good one."
-Swami Ramakrishnananda
Wednesday, July 04, 2012
Tuesday, July 03, 2012
Monday, July 02, 2012
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