Om! Desire is the first child of Maya! ~ Swami Sivananda

Desire is the first child of Maya!
~ Swami Sivananda

Desire is the first child of Maya. The whole Lila (play) of this objective world is kept up by the force of desires.

Man’s environments and circumstances are the materialization of his own desires. The world experience rises or falls in accordance with his desires.

All that you are all that you have and all that you shall be, is the result of your desires. Your destiny is mapped out by own desires.

The objective universe is nothing but a wheel of desire, and momentum is given by the individual mind.

Expressions of Ego! ~ Swami Sivananda

Expressions of Ego!

by Swami Sivananda

Wherever there is ego, there are mine-ness, selfishness, likes and dislikes, lust, anger, greed, hypocrisy, pride, jealousy, delusion, arrogance, conceit, impertinence, Vasanas (desires, tendencies), cravings (Trishna) and Vrittis (thought-wave; mental modification) or Sankalpa (resolve to do something), clinging to this earth-life (Abhinivesha), agency, doer (Kartha) and enjoyer (Bhokta).

This ego wants to exercise power and influence over others. He wants titles, prestige, status, respect, prosperity, house, wife, children. He wants self-aggrandisement. He wishes to domineer and rule over others. 

If anybody points out his defects, his vanity feels offended. If anyone praises him is elated. 

This ego says, ‘I know everything’. He does not know anything. ‘What I say is quite correct’. What He says is quite incorrect. ‘He is inferior to me’. ‘I am superior to him’. He forces others to follow his ways and views.

Om! Anger as a tool for self-awareness and self-knowledge. ~ Atman Nityananda

Anger as a tool for self-awareness and self-knowledge

Anger is an indication that some desire, attachment or need of yours is being prevented from being fulfilled or unfulfilled.

Therefore, whenever anger manifests within us, we understand that some desire, need, attachment is being hindered, that someone, some situation or event is preventing our desire, need or attachment from being fulfilled.

So, you can use your anger to investigate and discover what desires, attachments or needs are limiting your mind and causing you to suffer and not experience freedom, happiness, love and peace.

The inner work does not stop at discovery, of course, but continues with investigating, understanding and eliminating anger as well as attachment, desire or need.

Om! Desire is the enemy of Self-knowledge - Bhagavad Gita Ch. III

 Desire is the enemy of Self-knowledge

41.Therefore, O Arjuna, by controlling the senses first, slay this enemy called desire, the destroyer of knowledge (indirect knowledge of Atman, right understanding) and wisdom (direct knowledge or realisation of Atman)!

Bhagavad Gita Ch. III

Comment of Ramanuja (a great Sage of India)

‘For whatever reason a person is engaged in Jnana Yoga, which is of the nature of abandoning the activities of all the senses, should control this enemy in the shape of desire which turns him away from the Self (Atman, Consciousness) through creating infatuation for objects of the senses. By the same reason, you, which are attached to the activities of the senses, should, at the beginning of the practice, control the senses by the practice of Karma Yoga, which is the practice of regulating the functioning of the senses. And then you must destroy, i.e., slay this sinful enemy, which is in the shape of desire and which destroys knowledge and discrimination, i.e., knowledge relating to the nature of the self and of the discriminative power, which is the means to gain this knowledge’.

Evolution of Consciousness - Sri Aurobindo

Evolution of Consciousness

There is possible a realistic as well as an illusionist Advaita. The philosophy of The Life Divine is such a realistic Advaita. The world is a manifestation of the Real and therefore is itself real. The reality is the infinite and eternal Divine, infinite and eternal Being, Consciousness-Force and Bliss. 

This Divine by his power has created the world or rather manifested it in his own infinite Being. But here in the material world or at its basis he has hidden himself in what seem to be his opposites, Non-Being, Inconscience and Insentience. This is what we nowadays call the Inconscient which seems to have created the material universe by its inconscient Energy, but this is only an appearance, for we find in the end that all the dispositions of the world can only have been arranged by the working of a supreme secret Intelligence. 

The Being which is hidden in what seems to be an inconscient void emerges in the world first in Matter, then in Life, then in Mind and finally as the Spirit. The apparently inconscient Energy which creates is in fact the Consciousness-Force of the Divine and its aspect of consciousness, secret in Matter, begins to emerge in Life, finds something more of itself in Mind and finds its true self in a spiritual consciousness and finally a supramental Consciousness through which we become aware of the Reality, enter into it and unite ourselves with it. 

This is what we call evolution which is an evolution of Consciousness and an evolution of the Spirit in things and only outwardly an evolution of species. Thus also, the delight of existence emerges from the original insentience, first in the contrary forms of pleasure and pain, and then has to find itself in the bliss of the Spirit or, as it is called in the Upanishads, the bliss of the Brahman. That is the central idea in the explanation of the universe put forward in The Life Divine.

Rebirth

If evolution is a truth and is not only a physical evolution of species, but an evolution of consciousness, it must be a spiritual and not only a physical fact. In that case, it is the individual who evolves and grows into a more and more developed and perfect consciousness and obviously that cannot be done in the course of a brief single human life. If there is the evolution of a conscious individual, then there must be rebirth. Rebirth is a logical necessity and a spiritual fact of which we can have the experience. Proofs of rebirth, sometimes of an overwhelmingly convincing nature, are not lacking, but as yet they have not been carefully registered and brought together.

Evolution

In my explanation of the universe I have put forward this cardinal fact of a spiritual evolution as the meaning of our existence here. It is a series of ascents from the physical being and consciousness to the vital, the being dominated by the life-self, thence to the mental being realised in the fully developed man and thence into the perfect consciousness which is beyond the mental, into the supramental Consciousness and the supramental being, the Truth-Consciousness which is the integral consciousness of the spiritual being. Mind cannot be our last conscious expression because mind is fundamentally an ignorance seeking for knowledge; it is only the supramental Truth-Consciousness that can bring us the true and whole Self-Knowledge and world-Knowledge; it is through that only that we can get to our true being and the fulfilment of our spiritual evolution.

Om! How to disarm and weaken ego reactions! - Atman Nityananda

 

How to disarm and weaken ego reactions!

The main means to avoid the impact of sensory impressions on your mind and to restrain the emotional and mental reactions triggered by them, is to withdraw your attention from both (impressions and reactions) and bring it into the inner silence.

Just as the turtle withdraws its legs, head and tail (its limbs) into its shell to protect itself from external dangers, so we withdraw our attention from the senses and mind into the silent space of Consciousness to be protected from sensory impressions and the emotional mental reactions of the ego.

By being centered in silence we avoid identification with mental and emotional formations, we can manage them and let them go or make them remit and through prayer and the power of the mantra diminish the energy of the egoic tendency (desire, emotion, etc.).

Om! The ego is nourished and strengthened when we identify with it - Atman Nityananda

The ego is nourished and strengthened when we identify with it

The egoic tendencies are nourished and strengthened every time they manifest in us and we identify with them; every time we perceive them as ourselves and behave as if we were them.

Because of our identification with the ego and its expressions (egoic tendencies, desires, lower emotions and impulses such as lust, anger, liking, aversion, fear, jealousy, guilt, greed, etc.) we take the ego as ourselves and its expressions as our expressions. 

Liking and disliking, for example, which are expressions of our ego, due to identification, become ‘I like’ or ‘I don't like’. Similarly, identifying with anger we feel and believe that ‘I am angry’, with shame that ‘I am ashamed’, identifying with the ego's desire and passion for sexual pleasure we feel ‘I want to get sexual pleasure’ and so on.

When we identify with anger, we feel it as ourselves and behave under its influence. As a result, anger becomes stronger and will manifest itself in the future more easily, more often and more intensely.

The same applies to any other egoic tendencies (liking, disliking, antipathy, fear, aversion, impatience, lust, gluttony, jealousy, pride, etc.) with which we identify and which we mistakenly perceive as ourselves. Every time we identify with an egoic tendency that manifests in us, it is reinforced and we become more enslaved to it.

And vice versa, when we do not identify with the egoic tendencies, then they are weakened to some extent and we gain more control over them. If, in addition to this, we pray or repeat the name of God or apply any other method that eliminates the ego, then the egoic tendency is further weakened.

The hypnotic frequency of the tamas and rajas gunas and the identifications, projections and imaginations that the ego creates, keep us in a state of hypnosis and unconsciousness. Because of this we live identified with the ego and its tendencies[1], with the body and the mind and perceive the ego and the body as ourselves. As a result, the ego is fed and empowered and continues to dominate us.

Egoic tendencies along with the rajas and tamas qualities cloud the intellect and obscure clear perception and discrimination. Hence, we cannot realise that we are not the ego but the light of Consciousness which is ever-present, peaceful and blissful.

---

[1] we live identified with the ego and its tendencies: worldly people are fully identified with the ego and the egoic tendencies. They are a little or not at all aware of ego's ways, plans and intentions. Even those who are involved in Self-knowledge and spiritual practices are also identified with the ego. In their case, their identification with the expressions of ego (anger, fear, greed, gluttony, lust, etc.) depends on their progress and the level of consciousness they have reached so far. Only after awakening, one realises that is not the ego and the egoic tendencies but the silent presence of Consciousness. However, even an awakened can be deceived by egoic tendencies and programming. It depends on the purity of his mind, the work that he has done with the dissolution of the ego, and the development of abilities such as mindful self-observation, Self-awareness, clarity, discernment and dispassion, steadiness and one-pointedness of mind.