Nisargadatta Maharaj, one of India’s greatest saints and a master of Self-knowledge (jnana yoga), perfectly summed up the meaning of life for a true spiritual seeker when he stated: “Wisdom tells me I am nothing. Love tells me I am everything. Between the two, my life flows.” Indeed, spiritual life is about finding the balance between wisdom, which gives us…
Category: Yoga Philosophy
Understanding Energy and Matter
Before I can move on to the more practical aspects of healing, I think it is fundamental to understand a few concepts that are the core foundation to my thoughts on the healing process. Energy is probably the most important one. So let’s explore this a little further.
Bhakti Yoga or Yoga of Devotion
Devotion is love, and love is our true nature. The term bhakti comes from the root bhaj, which means attachment to God. Bhajan, bhakti, anurag, prem, priti, or worship, are all synonyms and refer to love and devotion to the Divine. According to the teachings of yoga, devotion to God is developed in nine different ways, and intense love is…
Ashtanga Yoga: Eight Limb Yoga
Yoga means “union” in the sense of union with the Divine. In this sense, yoga is the path and goal of all human existence, that is, the realization of the Self as our true, inner nature. In the West, yoga has come to mean only hatha yoga or yoga postures (asanas). In fact, this is only one aspect of the…
About the Nature of Pain
We all know what pain is, we all have experienced physical, mental, or emotional pain at some point or another throughout our life. Pain is suffering and as long as we are in the body, it is inevitable, it is part of life. Yet we seldom understand what the meaning of our pain is, what its purpose may be, or how it arises, and we try to avoid it at any cost, sometimes even at a high price with drugs, alcohol, or other addictions.
The Five Body Layers or Koshas
The body-mind complex is influenced by the impressions of the world that we receive through the senses and motor organs, but its ability to receive and process impressions goes beyond them. Our perception of the world does not stop with the physical senses…
About the Nature of Mind
In the west we are used to viewing the mind as just one aspect of ourselves, and a cognitive one at that. Yet the mind is much more complex than that and encompasses much more than just our ability to think.