http://reluctant-messenger.com/yogananda/chapter_48.htm
chp 24
As I knelt before Sri Yukteswar, and for the first time heard him pronounce my new name, my heart overflowed with gratitude. How lovingly and tirelessly had he labored, that the boy Mukunda be someday transformed into the monk Yogananda! I joyfully sang a few verses from the long Sanskrit chant of Lord Shankara:
"Mind, nor intellect, nor ego, feeling;
Sky nor earth nor metals am I.
I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He!
No birth, no death, no caste have I;
Father, mother, have I none.
I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He!
Beyond the flights of fancy, formless am I,
Permeating the limbs of all life;
Bondage I do not fear; I am free, ever free,
I am He, I am He, Blessed Spirit, I am He!"
Every swami belongs to the ancient monastic order which was organized in its present form by Shankara.3 Because it is a formal order, with an unbroken line of saintly representatives serving as active leaders, no man can give himself the title of swami. He rightfully receives it only from another swami; all monks thus trace their spiritual lineage to one common guru, Lord Shankara. By vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience to the spiritual teacher, many Catholic Christian monastic orders resemble the Order of Swamis.
In addition to his new name, usually ending in ananda, the swami takes a title which indicates his formal connection with one of the ten subdivisions of the Swami Order. These dasanamis or ten agnomens include the Giri (mountain), to which Sri Yukteswar, and hence myself, belong. Among the other branches are the Sagar (sea), Bharati (land), Aranya (forest), Puri (tract), Tirtha (place of pilgrimage), and Saraswati (wisdom of nature). The new name received by a swami thus has a twofold significance, and represents the attainment of supreme bliss ( ananda) through some divine quality or state—love, wisdom, devotion, service, yoga—and through a harmony with nature, as expressed in her infinite vastness of oceans, mountains, skies.
The Yoga system as outlined by Patanjali is known as the Eightfold Path. The first steps, (1) yama and (2) niyama, require observance of ten negative and positive moralities—avoidance of injury to others, of untruthfulness, of stealing, of incontinence, of gift-receiving (which brings obligations); and purity of body and mind, contentment, self-discipline, study, and devotion to God.
The next steps are (3) asana (right posture); the spinal column must be held straight, and the body firm in a comfortable position for meditation; (4) pranayama (control of prana, subtle life currents); and (5) pratyahara (withdrawal of the senses from external objects). The last steps are forms of yoga proper: (6) dharana (concentration); holding the mind to one thought; (7) dhyana (meditation), and (8) samadhi (superconscious perception). This is the Eightfold Path of Yoga6 which leads one to the final goal of Kaivalya (Absoluteness), a term which might be more comprehensibly put as "realization of the Truth beyond all intellectual apprehension."
About Anandamayi Ma:
A central theme of her teaching is
"the supreme calling of every human being is to aspire to self realization. All other obligations are secondary"
and "only actions that kindle man's divine nature are worthy of the name of actions". However she did not ask everyone to become a renunciate. "Everyone is right from his own standpoint," she would say.[4] She did not give formal initiations and refused to be called a guru, as she maintained that "all paths are my paths" and kept saying "I have no particular path".[16]
She also advocated spiritual equality for women; for example, she opened up the sacred thread ritual, which had been performed by men only for centuries, to women. Her style of teaching included jokes, songs and instructions on everyday life along with long discourses, meditation and reading of scriptures.
Paramhansa Yogananda wrote about her in his Autobiography of a Yogi. His meeting with her is recounted in the chapter titled "The Bengali 'Joy-Permeated Mother'", where she explains her background:
"Father, there is little to tell." She spread her graceful hands in a deprecatory gesture. "My consciousness has never associated itself with this temporary body. Before I came on this earth, Father, I was the same. As a little girl, I was the same. I grew into womanhood, but still I was the same. When the family in which I had been born made arrangements to have this body married, 'I was the same... And, Father, in front of you now, I am the same. Ever afterward, though the dance of creation change around me in the hall of eternity, I shall be the same."
At the age of fifteen, whilst sitting by a lake in Bajitpur, Nirmala had the inspiration to inquire as to what it would be like to be a religious aspirant (sadhaka). She then began what she would later describe as a 'game' (Hindi "khel") of investigating the path of the sadhaka. When Nirmala sit for worship, she would witness her body perform yogic asanas and mudras hit her unknown to her and Romani. She described these forms as arising automatically as in the manner of factory machinery when talking to devotees in later years. To the puzzlement of those around her, whilst in Shahbagh she became unable to feed herself. She would find that she could not bring her hand to carry food to her mouth. Consequently, Bholenath or female renunciates used to feed her in the manner of an infant child. Unable to comprehend the meaning and origin of Nirmala's religious practices at the time, Romani consulted priests, exorcists and medical doctors about Nirmala's condition, until a medical doctor reassured him that she was not insane.
After her marriage to Romani, Nirmala would also fall into ecstacies or trances at public kirtans, in a manner reminiscent of the Vaishnava spiritual personality Chaitanya. This led locals to accuse her of hysteria. Nirmala told Yogananda that when Romani once made physical advances to her, he received an intense electric shock. From then on they lived as wandering ascetics rather than householders.
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