Spiritual Dung

We live in a world of spiritual mockery and greed. Everywhere we look, it’s there in front of us. It’s on television, radio, magazines, blogs – everywhere! Join just about any Facebook group or add someone as a “friend” in the various online social networking Web sites who promote themselves as “teachers,” “gurus” or “yoga guides,” and you’ll inevitably have to deal with their disgusting promotions for their books, CD’s, DVD’s, videos and workshops. They love to sell their garbage to anyone who will provide them with 19.95 plus shipping and handling. This doesn’t mean there aren’t good teachers out there or good books and other materials for personal study or reflection. However, for most people who are unaware of what real spirituality is, they become victims of these sales people.

What some people call “spiritual” pretty much equals to biting into a Big Mac for the very first time. That’s no more spiritual than a cow dropping dung on the ground. At least for the latter, some other beings benefit from it, for example, insects. If you’re getting your “spiritual knowledge” from self help books written by these self-proclaimed “gurus” who sell their “teachings” to others while building up a profit or even a name for themselves, then you’re not even getting the nutrition that these insects obtain from having dinner at the local Dung Heap Cafe. However, once the food source is gone, the insects move on to another source.

Some of these self proclaimed “gurus” will even present certificates in an attempt to prove they’re the “real thing.” Oh how they love their certificates. They might have taken some online class in “Reiki healing,” or visited an ashram in India or a three day workshop in America so they could “qualify” to “teach” others. After they get their “spiritual training” they get all emotional and mushy, and BANG! they think they’re a teacher now, and people begin believing them, sending them money for those self-help books and meditation CD’s.

It’s people like that who make a complete mockery of real spirituality and religion. Religion is pure and without profit. Spirituality is experiencing the Divine which brings real change to a person, inner and exterior. You don’t have to shell out any amount of money to learn about the truth of God and to allow your heart to change in order to serve Him according to His Will. Once you meet REAL spirituality, yes there can be emotion. That’s natural. But if change has not occurred, not only externally, but also internally, then what you were eating as spiritual food wasn’t really spiritual at all. The first time you bit into it, you may have liked it, but once it’s all gone or once you get tired of it, you decide to move on to something else. Some people are no better than those insects mentioned earlier eating from the dung heap.

If you have become tired of playing the “spiritual dung heap” game, don’t give up on seeking the truth. The truth is available to all who have a sincere heart and who wish to act in accord with God’s Will. It will be revealed and you will know it’s the truth.

Check out this article from 2009, Denunciation of False Teachers.

Ghajar Tarendra.

The Five Diamonds of Perfection

The Five Diamonds of Perfection consist of:

1. Proper Reason
2. Proper Mind
3. Proper Intelligence
4. Proper Thought
5. Proper Understanding

The Mind System

Mahamati said to the Blessed One: Pray tell us, Blessed One, what is meant by the mind (citta)?

The Blessed One replied: All things of this world, be they seemingly good or bad, faulty or faultless, effect-producing or not effect-producing, receptive or non-receptive, may be divided into two classes: evil out-flowings and the non out-flowing good. The five grasping elements that make up the aggregates of personality, namely, form, sensation, perception, discrimination, and consciousness, and that are imagined to be good and bad, have their rise in the habit-energy of the mind-system,–they are the evil out-flowings of life. The spiritual attainments and the joys of the Samadhis and the fruitage of the Samapattis that come to the wise through their self-realisation of Noble Wisdom and that culminate in their return and participation in the relations of the triple world are called the non out-flowing good.

The mind-system which is the source of the evil out-flowings consists of the five sense-organs and their accompanying sense-minds (vijnanas) all of which are unified in the discriminating-mind (manovijnana). There is an unending succession of sense-concepts flowing into this discriminating or thinking-mind which combines them and discriminates them and passes judgement upon them as to their goodness or badness. Then follows aversion to or desire for them and attachment and deed; thus the entire system moves on continuously and closely bound together. But it fails to see and understand that what it sees and discriminates and grasps is only a manifestation of its own activity and has no other basis, and so the mind goes on erroneously perceiving and discriminating differences of forms and qualities, not remaining still even for a minit.

In the mind-system there are three modes of activity distinguishable: the sense-minds functioning while remaining in their original nature, the sense-minds as producing effects, and the sense-minds as evolving. By normal functioning the sense-minds grasp appropriate elements of their external world, by which sensation and perception arise at once and by degrees in every sense-organ and every sense-mind, in the pores of the skin, and even in the atoms that make up the body, by which the whole field is apprehended like a mirror reflecting objects, and not realising that the external world itself is only a manifestation of mind. The second mode of activity produces effects by which these sensations react on the discriminating mind to produce perceptions, attractions, aversions, grasping, deed and habit. The third mode of activity has to do with the growth, development and passing of the mind-system, that is, the mind-system is in subjection to its own habit-energy accumulated from beginningless time, as for instance: the “eyeness” in the eye that predisposes it to grasp and become attached to multiple forms and appearances. In this way the activities of the evolving mind-system by reason of its habit-energy stirs up waves of objectivity on the face of Universal Mind which in turn conditions the activities and evolvement of the mind-system.

Appearances, perception, attraction, grasping, deed, habit, reaction, condition one another incessantly, and the functioning sense-minds, the discriminating-mind and Universal Mind are thus bound up together. Thus, by reason of discrimination of that which by nature is maya-like and unreal false-imagination and erroneous reasoning takes place, action follows and its habit-energy accumulates thereby defiling the pure face of Universal Mind, and as a result the mind-system comes into functioning and the physical body has its genesis. But the discriminating-mind has no thought that by its discriminations and attachments it is conditioning the whole body and so the sense-minds and the discriminating-mind go on mutually related and mutually conditioned in a most intimate manner and building up a world of representations out of the activities of its own imagination. As a mirror reflects forms, the perceiving senses perceive appearances which the discriminating-mind gathers together and proceeds to discriminate, to name and become attached to. Between these two functions there is no gap, nevertheless, they are mutually conditioning. The perceiving senses grasp that for which they have an affinity, and there is a transformation takes place in their structure by reason of which the mind proceeds to combine, discriminate, apprise, and act; then follows habit-energy and the establishing of the mind and its continuance.

The discriminating-mind because of its capacity to discriminate, judge, select and reason about, is also called the thinking, or intellectual-mind. There are three divisions of its mental activity: mentation which functions in connection with attachment to objects and ideas, mentation that functions in connection with general ideas, and mentation that examines into the validity of these general ideas. The mentation which functions in connection with attachment to objects and ideas derived from discrimination, discriminates the mind from its mental processes and accepts the ideas from it as being real and becomes attached to them. A variety of false judgements are thus arrived at as to being, multiplicity, individuality, value, etc., a strong grasping takes place which is perpetuated by habit-energy and thus discrimination goes on asserting itself.

These mental processes give rise to general conceptions of warmth, fluidity, motility, and solidity, as characterising the objects of discrimination, while the tenacious holding to these general ideas gives rise to proposition, reason, definition, and illustration, all of which lead to the assertions of relative knowledge and the establishment of confidence in birth, self-nature, and an ego-soul.

By mentation as an examining function is meant the intellectual act of examining into these general conclusions as to their validity, significance, and truthfulness. This is the faculty that leads to understanding, right-knowledge and points the way to self-realisation. (Lankavatara Sutra)

New podcast from Netaji Lokmanya

Guru Netaji Lokmanya has a new podcast called “How do I get to Shambhala?”

“Shambhala is real and waiting for the serious seeker to enter. How is this accomplished?”

You can also follow Netaji on Twitter

The Six Ideals of Spiritual Perfection

To practice the Six Ideals of Spiritual Perfection brings rewards of happiness and success.

The Six Ideals are:

1. Charity

2. Good behaviour

3. Patience

4. Zeal

5. Thoughtfulness

6. Wisdom