samsarictravelling

I would like to do a second post on Yogananda's autobigraphy: From Preface: The value of Yogananda’s Autobiography is greatly enhanced by the fact that it is one of the few books in English about the wise men of India which has been written, not by a journalist or foreigner, but by one of their own race and training—in short, a book about yogis by a yogi. From Chapter: 12 Years in My Master's Hermitage: “All creation is governed by law,” Sri Yukteswar concluded. “The ones which manifest in the outer universe, discoverable by scientists, are called natural laws. But there are subtler laws ruling the realms of consciousness which can be known only through the inner science of yoga. The hidden spiritual planes also have their natural and lawful principles of operation. It is not the physical scientist but the fully self-realized master who comprehends the true nature of matter. Thus Christ was able to restore the servant’s ear after it had been severed by one of the disciples.” 11 Drifting_Throught_Infinity (and everyone else), what is found in Chapter: 14 An Experience in Cosmic Consciousness is super consciousness described? (I pasted the part I chose to paste from the chapter, but read the whole chapter). Sri Yukteswar struck gently on Yoganada's chest to open him up to the, can we call it,"super consciousness"?: Sri Yukteswar seldom indulged in riddles; I was bewildered. He struck gently on my chest above the heart. My body became immovably rooted; breath was drawn out of my lungs as if by some huge magnet. Soul and mind instantly lost their physical bondage, and streamed out like a fluid piercing light from my every pore. The flesh was as though dead, yet in my intense awareness I knew that never before had I been fully alive. My sense of identity was no longer narrowly confined to a body, but embraced the circumambient atoms. People on distant streets seemed to be moving gently over my own remote periphery. The roots of plants and trees appeared through a dim transparency of the soil; I discerned the inward flow of their sap. The whole vicinity lay bare before me. My ordinary frontal vision was now changed to a vast spherical sight, simultaneously all-perceptive. Through the back of my head I saw men strolling far down Rai Ghat Road, and noticed also a white cow who was leisurely approaching. When she reached the space in front of the open ashram gate, I observed her with my two physical eyes. As she passed by, behind the brick wall, I saw her clearly still. All objects within my panoramic gaze trembled and vibrated like quick motion pictures. My body, Master’s, the pillared courtyard, the furniture and floor, the trees and sunshine, occasionally became violently agitated, until all melted into a luminescent sea; even as sugar crystals, thrown into a glass of water, dissolve after being shaken. The unifying light alternated with materializations of form, the metamorphoses revealing the law of cause and effect in creation. An oceanic joy broke upon calm endless shores of my soul. The Spirit of God, I realized, is exhaustless Bliss; His body is countless tissues of light. A swelling glory within me began to envelop towns, continents, the earth, solar and stellar systems, tenuous nebulae, and floating universes. The entire cosmos, gently luminous, like a city seen afar at night, glimmered within the infinitude of my being. The sharply etched global outlines faded somewhat at the farthest edges; there I could see a mellow radiance, ever-undiminished. It was indescribably subtle; the planetary pictures were formed of a grosser light. The divine dispersion of rays poured from an Eternal Source, blazing into galaxies, transfigured with ineffable auras. Again and again I saw the creative beams condense into constellations, then resolve into sheets of transparent flame. By rhythmic reversion, sextillion worlds passed into diaphanous luster; fire became firmament. I cognized the center of the empyrean as a point of intuitive perception in my heart. Irradiating splendor issued from my nucleus to every part of the universal structure. Blissful amrita, the nectar of immortality, pulsed through me with a quicksilverlike fluidity. The creative voice of God I heard resounding as Aum,1 the vibration of the Cosmic Motor. Suddenly the breath returned to my lungs. With a disappointment almost unbearable, I realized that my infinite immensity was lost. Once more I was limited to the humiliating cage of a body, not easily accommodative to the Spirit. Like a prodigal child, I had run away from my macrocosmic home and imprisoned myself in a narrow microcosm. My guru was standing motionless before me; I started to drop at his holy feet in gratitude for the experience in cosmic consciousness which I had long passionately sought. He held me upright, and spoke calmly, unpretentiously. “You must not get overdrunk with ecstasy. Much work yet remains for you in the world. Come; let us sweep the balcony floor; then we shall walk by the Ganges.” I fetched a broom; Master, I knew, was teaching me the secret of balanced living. The soul must stretch over the cosmogonic abysses, while the body performs its daily duties. When we set out later for a stroll, I was still entranced in unspeakable rapture. I saw our bodies as two astral pictures, moving over a road by the river whose essence was sheer light. “It is the Spirit of God that actively sustains every form and force in the universe; yet He is transcendental and aloof in the blissful uncreated void beyond the worlds of vibratory phenomena,” 2 Master explained. “Saints who realize their divinity even while in the flesh know a similar twofold existence. Conscientiously engaging in earthly work, they yet remain immersed in an inward beatitude. The Lord has created all men from the limitless joy of His being. Though they are painfully cramped by the body, God nevertheless expects that souls made in His image shall ultimately rise above all sense identifications and reunite with Him.” The cosmic vision left many permanent lessons. By daily stilling my thoughts, I could win release from the delusive conviction that my body was a mass of flesh and bones, traversing the hard soil of matter. The breath and the restless mind, I saw, were like storms which lashed the ocean of light into waves of material forms—earth, sky, human beings, animals, birds, trees. No perception of the Infinite as One Light could be had except by calming those storms. As often as I silenced the two natural tumults, I beheld the multitudinous waves of creation melt into one lucent sea, even as the waves of the ocean, their tempests subsiding, serenely dissolve into unity. A master bestows the divine experience of cosmic consciousness when his disciple, by meditation, has strengthened his mind to a degree where the vast vistas would not overwhelm him. The experience can never be given through one’s mere intellectual willingness or open-mindedness. Only adequate enlargement by yoga practice and devotional bhakti can prepare the mind to absorb the liberating shock of omnipresence. It comes with a natural inevitability to the sincere devotee. His intense craving begins to pull at God with an irresistible force. The Lord, as the Cosmic Vision, is drawn by the seeker’s magnetic ardor into his range of consciousness. I wrote, in my later years, the following poem, “Samadhi,” endeavoring to convey the glory of its cosmic state: Vanished the veils of light and shade, Lifted every vapor of sorrow, Sailed away all dawns of fleeting joy, Gone the dim sensory mirage. Love, hate, health, disease, life, death, Perished these false shadows on the screen of duality. Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, melancholic whirlpools, Melting in the vast sea of bliss. The storm of maya stilled By magic wand of intuition deep. The universe, forgotten dream, subconsciously lurks, Ready to invade my newly-wakened memory divine. I live without the cosmic shadow, But it is not, bereft of me; As the sea exists without the waves, But they breathe not without the sea. Dreams, wakings, states of deep turia sleep, Present, past, future, no more for me, But ever-present, all-flowing I, I, everywhere. Planets, stars, stardust, earth, Volcanic bursts of doomsday cataclysms, Creation’s molding furnace, Glaciers of silent x-rays, burning electron floods, Thoughts of all men, past, present, to come, Every blade of grass, myself, mankind, Each particle of universal dust, Anger, greed, good, bad, salvation, lust, I swallowed, transmuted all Into a vast ocean of blood of my own one Being! Smoldering joy, oft-puffed by meditation Blinding my tearful eyes, Burst into immortal flames of bliss, Consumed my tears, my frame, my all. Thou art I, I am Thou, Knowing, Knower, Known, as One! Tranquilled, unbroken thrill, eternally living, ever-new peace! Enjoyable beyond imagination of expectancy, samadhi bliss! Not an unconscious state Or mental chloroform without wilful return, Samadhi but extends my conscious realm Beyond limits of the mortal frame To farthest boundary of eternity Where I, the Cosmic Sea, Watch the little ego floating in Me. The sparrow, each grain of sand, fall not without My sight. All space floats like an iceberg in My mental sea. Colossal Container, I, of all things made. By deeper, longer, thirsty, guru-given meditation Comes this celestial samadhi. Mobile murmurs of atoms are heard, The dark earth, mountains, vales, lo! molten liquid! Flowing seas change into vapors of nebulae! Aum blows upon vapors, opening wondrously their veils, Oceans stand revealed, shining electrons, Till, at last sound of the cosmic drum, Vanish the grosser lights into eternal rays Of all-pervading bliss. From joy I came, for joy I live, in sacred joy I melt. Ocean of mind, I drink all creation’s waves. Four veils of solid, liquid, vapor, light, Lift aright. Myself, in everything, enters the Great Myself. Gone forever, fitful, flickering shadows of mortal memory. Spotless is my mental sky, below, ahead, and high above. Eternity and I, one united ray. A tiny bubble of laughter, I Am become the Sea of Mirth Itself. Sri Yukteswar taught me how to summon the blessed experience at will, and also how to transmit it to others if their intuitive channels were developed. For months I entered the ecstatic union, comprehending why the Upanishads say God is rasa, “the most relishable.” samsarictravelling

Haha! My guess was right. You were talking about something in Hinduism (Krya yoga is from Hinduism, right?) I did a google search of 'Krya yoga' and it redirected me to 'Kriya yoga'. Wikipedia article: Practice Kriya Yoga, as taught by Lahiri Mahasaya, is traditionally exclusively learned via the Guru-disciple relationship and the initiation consists of a secret ceremony.[6][2] He recounted that after his initiation into Kriya Yoga, "Babaji instructed me in the ancient rigid rules which govern the transmission of the yogic art from Guru to disciple."[7] As Yogananda describes Kriya Yoga, "The Kriya Yogi mentally directs his life energy to revolve, upward and downward, around the six spinal centers (medullary, cervical, dorsal, lumbar, sacral, and coccygeal plexuses) which correspond to the twelve astral signs of the zodiac, the symbolic Cosmic Man. One half-minute of revolution of energy around the sensitive spinal cord of man effects subtle progress in his evolution; that half-minute of Kriya equals one year of natural spiritual unfoldment."[5] In Kriya Quotes from Swami Satyananda, it is written, "Kriya sadhana may be thought of as the sadhana of the 'practice of being in Atman'".[8] Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kriya_Yoga So it seems Kriya yoga is similar to Taoism in that it talks about engery centres in the spine, am I right? I think Tibetan Buddhism talks about energy centres in the spine as well? I could be wrong with that, though. The spinal energy centres knowledges I do not care to learn about, but I can direct you to Yogananda's autobiography: Autobiography of a YogiBy Paramhansa Yogananda https://www.ananda.org/autobiography/ I have read his autobiography in the past, so that is why I guess you were talking about Hinduism. samsarictravelling

Don't know what you mean by super consciousness, but I'm guessing you mean Hinduism's super consciousness? I never have, and am not Hindu, but Buddhist. But if you mean super consciousness as something else, I may or may not have. If by super consciousness you include Buddhist meditative states, then I have attained once a state like that (but many intermediate and advanced Buddhist meditators would call it an elementary meditative state, and I would agree). I achieved once in my life a state of meditation where I had no thinking, but just automatically following my breath at the achievement part/end part of the meditation (I think it was like that). I was just getting into serious buddhist living then (for a reason I wish to keep private), was a young guy then. Therefore, that was many, many years ago when I achieved that meditative state. It's called mindfulness of breathing in Buddhism. You follow your breathing, and keep bringing back your attention to your breathing, whenever it strays to thinking about anything. Eventually your mind stays with the breath. I achieved it sitting straight-backed, not leaning on the back of the chair (I think), with maybe a pillow(s) and/or blanket(s) on top of the chair. Never achieved that state of meditation ever again. Highest level of calm I ever attained. There was one or more times later I attained peace in breathing meditation (sitting on a mattress side, with the mattress on the ground; or sitting on some cushion-type object(s) on the ground), but never that single-mindedly as that time described when I was a young guy. Wikipedia: Zen (Chinese: 禪; pinyin: Chán) = Chan (simplified Chinese: 禅; traditional Chinese: 禪; pinyin: Chán; abbr. of Chinese: 禪那; pinyin: chánnà), from Sanskrit dhyāna[1] (meaning "meditation" or "meditative state"[2]) meditation = Zen = Chan = dhyana A book on meditation: The Three Pillars of Zen, by Philip Kapleau. Samsarictravelling

Hi, I know a bit about Taoism since I was in my early teens (was into martial arts and Far Eastern philosphy). I rarely use the internet at all nowadays, just came back on the internet after a long time away. So if I get a reply message, I might not check for a long time. Thanks in advance for your answer, if any, to this question of mine, because I might not go back on the internet for a long time. Before I ask my question, I have to say I am a Theravada buddhist (and even longer than being a Theravada buddhist, I was born into a buddhist family of another type of buddhism). My question: I saw in a public library (about eight or so years ago -- but the book could have been published much earlier than that) a book that may have been an autobiography (don't remember if it was translated into English by another person, or not). This book was about the life experiences of a (possibly) Taoist energy healer possibly from China who possibly was famous. The one experience/story I remember reading from this book was this energy healer had a grudge or something, on an official/someone of high rank in society, who later asked him to help heal him of a sickness. To get revenge on the official -- but the healer would still heal him at the same time -- the healer said part of the healing needs the official to smell his feet, which was a lie. So the official did smell the healer's feet in the healing sessions, thinking it was essential for the healing, though that was untrue. Still, the official got healed because the healer of course used his energy healing in the sessions. I think that was how the story went and ended. Can anyone tell me what book this is from? Thanks in advance, samsarictravelling

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Hi, I know a bit about Taoism since I was in my early teens (was into martial arts and Far Eastern philosphy). I rarely use the internet at all nowadays, just came back on the internet after a long time away. So if I get a reply message, I might not check for a long time. Thanks in advance for your answer, if any, to this question of mine, because I might not go back on the internet for a long time. Before I ask my question, I have to say I am a Theravada buddhist (and even longer than being a Theravada buddhist, I was born into a buddhist family of another type of buddhism). My question: I saw in a public library (about eight or so years ago -- but the book could have been published much earlier than that) a book that may have been an autobiography (don't remember if it was translated into English by another person, or not). This book was about the life experiences of a (possibly) Taoist energy healer possibly from China. The one experience/story I remember reading from this book was this energy healer had a grudge or something, on an official/someone of high rank in society, who later asked him to help heal him of a sickness. To get revenge on the official -- but the healer would still heal him at the same time -- the healer said part of the healing needs the official to smell his feet, which was a lie. So the official did smell the healer's feet in the healing sessions, thinking it was essential for the healing, though that was untrue. Still, the official got healed because the healer of course used his energy healing in the sessions. I think that was how the story went and ended. Can anyone tell me what book this is from? Thanks in advance, samsarictravelling