SAIEN

Spiritual experience takes ‘knowing about’ something to ‘knowing’ it. What we learn from books, what we learn in school, the facts we memorize, the procedures we learn about, are all based in the intellect and while they may open the mind to new things, do not represent actual experience. The famous proverb that one can read all the books on swimming, but will not actually know how to swim until one gets in the water and puts the theory into practice, is an appropriate one to keep in mind. The practice of skills or methods used by the surface being to maneuver through the external world is relatively well-known. When it comes to spiritual experience, we find it difficult to even understand how to proceed. Some people say that it is entirely a matter of Grace, and of course, that is a primary characteristic of how people gain spiritual experience. Sri Krishna tells Arjuna as much in the  Bhagavad Gita  when Arjuna asks to see the universal form of the deity. There is however a ...

In yoga, cleanliness is called  saucha , and is very important on the yoga path. I hope this article will help explain the reason for its importance. Why  saucha ? Patanjali places  saucha  as the very first niyama, the first step towards self-exploration. Why would Patanjali give this much importance to cleanliness?  Saucha  is the foundation of  niyama , or personal discipline. The reason is energy. When the body is dirty, it is holding onto past energy. When clothes are dirty, they are holding onto past energy. When the house is dirty, it is also holding onto past energy. It‘s like a weight that the house carries. I’m sure you’ve discovered that when you have just cleaned up the whole house, vacuumed it, cleared out the cobwebs, changed the sheets, then it feels lighter, it feels brighter, it feels more alive. That is because you’ve removed a layer of the past. So, instructing students to be clean is instructing them to remove layers of the past and...

Food has been and is undoubtedly the most critical aspect of our lives and our culture as humanity. Not just us, for all life, nutrition is essential and without it no life can grow and progress. It is interesting to note that the food of an organism also evolves as the organism evolves biologically and culturally.   As descendants of apes, we started our journey as hunters and gatherers, feeding mostly on wild plants and animals. We developed a keen eye to recognise the edible wilds and their effect on the human body. Gradually, we started favouring plants that are edible, more nutritious and delicious and as the more we would eat these fruits or vegetables, the more we would spread their seeds. This led to our development as horticulturists where our landscapes evolved with us while the wilderness was still preserved.   Eventually, we noticed this pattern and could see that this ability to modify the landscape could be used to grow even more food in the way that we wanted, a...

Since I first read the Mother's writings on education in 1976, I have always enjoyed setting myself the same challenge She set for Herself in those writings: "In these articles I am trying to put into ordinary terms the whole yogic terminology, for these Bulletins are meant more for people who lead an ordinary life, though also for students of yoga — I mean people who are primarily interested in a purely physical material life but who try to attain more perfection in their physical life than is usual in ordinary conditions. It is a very difficult task but it is a kind of yoga. These people call themselves “materialists” and they are apt to get agitated or irritated if yogic terms are used, so one must speak their language avoiding terms likely to shock them. But I have known in my life persons who called themselves “materialists” and yet followed a much severer discipline than those who claim to do yoga.  What we want is that humanity should progress; whether it professes to l...