Swami Yatiswarananda (1889""1966) was a disciple of Swami Brahmananda. He spent seven years teaching Vedanta in Europe, where he founded an ashram in Switzerland, though he lectured on Vedanta from Madrid to Warsaw. He left Europe as the second World War forced a closure to the European Vedanta work. The swami then spent ten years teaching Vedanta in the United States, returning to India to head several Centers, eventually becoming Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Math and Ramakrishna Mission. Swami Yatiswarananda was famed for his meditative life and spiritual attainment. His book, Meditation and Spiritual Life, a compilation of his class talks, is considered one of the finest compendiums on spiritual life. The article below was taken from the Jan-Feb 1959 Vedanta in the West.
What Are the Obstacles?
In spiritual life, we use the word "obstacles"- with reference to both the inner and the outer world, to physical and subtle objects, and to conditions and situations which stand in the way of our spiritual progress.
In general, there are obstacles of various kinds producing misery, or duhkha of various types. In the Sankhya Sutras, Kapila mentions duhkhas of three types: adhyatmika or that caused within ourselves""in the body by illness and unhealthy living, and the mind by evil desires, anger, greed, folly, pride, envy, etc.: adhibhautika or that caused by other living beings such as beasts, thieves, and evil-minded persons; and the adhidaivika or the misery brought about by natural phenomena such as extremes of temperature, floods and storms, earthquakes, pestilences , etc. These may act as hindrances to spiritual life. And we are affected by our troubles all the more when we are not well inwardly.
We are all born with subtle impressions and tendencies brought from previous lives and we also acquire new ones in our present life. While good tendencies help, evil ones obstruct our spiritual progress.
There are different kinds of obstacles, and we come across them in the different stages of our spiritual life. Spiritual life is like a stream and should move towards the ocean of Sat-Chit-Ananda or Infinite Existence-Consciousness-Bliss, call it Godhead, Brahman, the Lord, Allah, or Tao, as you please. Sometimes the spiritual current does not move at all; sometimes it moves for a time and stops; sometimes it tends to move in wrong directions. The task in our spiritual life is to make this current move; move in the right direction and move steadily till the goal is reached.
Obstacles Are Inevitable but Can Be Overcome
This is the ideal. But in actual life, there is no such thing as movement in a straight line. There are ups and downs, breaks or stops, in the movement. Obstacles continue to confront us till we have known God's grace and attain the peace and blessedness that come from divine realization. Until then, however, we have to persist steadily in our spiritual practices; we have to continue the struggle however insurmountable the obstacles may seem for the time being.
This is a matter of actual experience for many spiritual aspirants. A young man was once asked about this spiritual progress by Swami Brahmananda, his teacher. He said, "Not very well, Maharaj; my mind is restless. I have no taste for spiritual practices yet. There seems to be an obstacle inside me. I feel so unhappy. I must have been born with evil tendencies and these stand in the way of my spiritual progress."- To this the Swami replied: "My boy, you must not talk like that. Try to practice japa (chanting the Lord's name) at dead of night; if that is not possible, do it during the early hours of the morning. . . . Waste no more of your valuable time. Lose yourself in prayer and meditation; otherwise, how can the door to spiritual truth be opened? . . . The aspirant should first learn about the spiritual path from some great soul and then follow it methodically. If the person proceeds haphazardly he or she cannot make much progress, and if the person gives up entirely, the effort to begin again will be twice as difficult. But no effort is wasted. Lust, greed, anger, all gradually leave one who practices spiritual disciplines."-
When the young man said, "My mind is restless,"- he was not speaking of ordinary restlessness and unhappiness. Having made some substantial progress in spiritual life, he found inner obstacles standing in the way and these were making further advance difficult. The question may be asked, how do I know the mind of the young man? I know it because the young man was none other than myself.
There is restlessness and restlessness""that of the worldly man hankering for the pleasures of the world; and of the spiritual seeker yearning for progress, wanting to move from a lower plan of consciousness to a higher one.
Spiritual life is a twofold movement, one of which may be represented as vertical and the other as horizontal. We have to rise higher and higher and also expand more and more in our consciousness.
Most of us may not care to rise to a higher plane. We fool ourselves by thinking that we are all right where we are. We are like Pluto's men in the cave who took the shadows to be real and were quite satisfied with the life of darkness they lived. We are quite contented with our life in the cellar.
But some of us want to come out into the light and rise to a higher plane with the help of the spiritual current, which may be likened to the elevator which takes people from one floor to another. The spiritual current, when properly roused, takes us from one center of consciousness, or chakra, to another. Sometimes we want to get into the elevator but the door does not open; this is one of the obstacles. The door opens and we get into the box but the box does not move""this is another kind of obstacle. A third one is, we move up but the door does not open. The fourth is the door opens, we get out on the floor, move about for a time, but are not able to find our way back to the elevator when we want to rise higher. Something of this kind happened to me when I spoke to Swami Brahmananda of some obstacles standing in the way of my spiritual progress.
But these obstacles can be overcome. We can undergo spiritual practices, unfold the inner eye, discover the "secret stairs"- and move up higher and higher.
It has been said that evolution is being held up by fundamental religiosity and the surge of such narrow minded and arrogant thought, sends shivers through cynical atheists and mystics alike. The bumper sticker actually did get it right: "We are spiritual beings having a human experience."
According to the 1987 classic, The Different Drum: Community Making and Peace, Dr. Scott Peck defines the spiritual life as fluid and that one may pass back and forth repeatedly through any of the four-probably more-stages of the soul.
Stage one upon this journey -that begins from within-is essentially our infancy in the spiritual life. Like a wild child, a person in this stage reflects the inner chaotic and anti-social, unregenerate soul that is interested only in its own self-satisfaction and ego, much like the stereotypical spoiled child.
Stage one people may claim to love others, but their behavior reflects they love their own pleasure, money, power, prestige, and security above any other. For stage one people, it really is all about them.
Stage two souls seek to "let their light shine" and will live virtuous lives and do many good works. They also can be judgmental of others, self-righteous, rigid of thought, cold of heart, legalistic concrete literal thinkers and may even be guilty of a lukewarm faith. They want to do right and they even may desire to love and please God, but have not yet fully opened up to the Inner Light, as Joan of Arc did when she challenged church and state and persisted that she had intuited God within -even while being fried.
Jesus said, "You shall know the truth and the truth will set you free." -John 8:32
Stage two souls have not yet been set fully free and prefer the security of a higher human authority than themselves for guidance. They submit to institutions, scripture, dogma, ritual, ministers, or gurus. This is the most appropriate stage for older children and most adults who live busy lives just trying to keep bread on the table and a dry roof above.
The difference between a stage one and stage two soul, is that a one wouldn't even notice a neighbor in need, while the two has awoken to the fact that we are to be our neighbor's keepers and they will respond to a friend-and like the good Samaritan, even to a total stranger in need.
Most theologians would agree that the opposite of faith is not disbelief: the opposite of faith is fear.
Stage three souls have not just fearlessly awoken, they have evolved!
This evolution has led them to the realization of what Christ was really talking about in the Sermon of the Mount AKA: The Beatitudes which sound like crazy promises, but are all about waking people up to The Divine.
About 2,000 years ago, when Christ was about 33, he hiked up a hill and sat down under an olive tree and began to teach the people;
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven."
In other words: it is those who know their own spiritual poverty, their own limitations and sins honestly and trust God loves them in spite of themselves who already live in the Kingdom of God. How comforted we will all be, when we see, we haven't got a clue, as to the depth and breadth of pure love and mercy of The Divine Mystery of The Universe. God's name in ancient Aramaic is Abba which means Daddy as much as Mommy and He/She: The Lord has said, "My ways are not your ways. My thoughts are not yours." -Isaiah 55:8
Christ proclaimed more: "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth."
The essence of meek is to be patient with ignorance, slow to anger and never hold a grudge. In other words: how happy you will be when you also know humility; when you know yourself, the good and the bad, for both cut through every human heart.
"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled."
In other words: how happy you will be when your greatest desire is to do what "God requires, and he has already told you what that is; BE JUST, BE MERCIFUL and walk humbly with your Lord."-Micah 6:8
"Blessed are the merciful, they will be shown mercy." In other words: how happy you will all be when you choose to return only kindness to your 'enemy.'
"For with the measure you measure against another, it will be measured back to you." Christ warns his disciples as he explains the law of karma in Luke 6:27-38.
"Blessed are the pure in heart, for they see God."
In other words: how happy you will be when you WAKE UP and see God is already within you, within every man, every woman and every child. The Supreme Being is everywhere, the Alpha and Omega, beginning and end. Beyond The Universe -and yet so small; within the heart of every atom.
"Blessed are The Peacemakers: THEY shall be called the children of God."
Oh how happy the WORLD will be when we all seek justice and pursue it, for there can be none without the other.
"Blessed are those who are persecuted because they do what God requires, theirs is The Kingdom of Heaven."
And one fine day the lion will lie down with The Lamb and man will make war no more and that is the Kingdom of God.
A stage three soul may well reject Christ as God, but often agree with the philosophy of Jesus, which Thomas Jefferson laid out when he weeded out the miracle stories from the gospels and clarified the teachings and ethics of Christ in: THE LIFE AND MORALS of JESUS of NAZARETH
1. Be just: justice comes from virtue which comes from the heart. 2. Treat people the way we want to be treated. 3. Always work for PEACEFUL resolutions, even to the point of returning violence with COMPASSION. 4. Consider valuable the things that have no material value. 5. Do not judge others. 6. Do not bear grudges. 7. Be modest and unpretentious. 8. Give out of true generosity, not because we expect to be repaid. 9. Being true to one's self in more important than being loyal to one's family...those who think they know the most are the most ignorant...
A stage three soul will see that a neighbor is everyone on the planet and not just those who think and look the same and are born in the same geographical localtion. Stage three's are seekers, doubters, skeptics, atheists, agnostics and frequently adults who grew up disenchanted with institutionalized religion. Their inherent intellectual curiosity leads them to seek their own way towards the Mystery of the Divine through philosophy and the study of multiple faith paths choosing and discarding according to their "inner light."
Stage three souls often become activists for social justice and reform and the increasing wave of humanitarian secularism verses the bondage of religious dogma just may be the way to change the world as we now know it.
It has been said we are all called to be mystics in the market place and a stage four, such as Thomas Merton and Rumi give voice to that experience of the curtain being lifted and seeing through the glass a bit less darkly.
A mystic can best be understood as one who is in love with the divine mystery and is viscerally connected to the unity of all creation. Mystics are not navel gazers, they feel the pain of the world within their hearts and grieve at what humans do to the other when they have no clue that The Divine is within the other as much as within themselves.
Mystics have detached from their concepts of God-not by their own efforts, but by the invitation and action of God upon a willing and simple soul in love with Pure Being, AKA: God for lack of a better word.
The mystic fool, Saint Francis, the leper kisser of Assisi, was so head over heels in love with God in everyone and all of creation that most people of his time considered him crazed, or at least, extremely eccentric. One needn't be a mystic or move beyond stage two on the spiritual journey to do what is good and right just because it is good and right. On that foundation alone people of faith, atheists and agnostics can surely find something to agree upon. Or would only a mystic see that?
I'd be reluctant to group everyone into just 4 categories. I find human nature is much too variegated for that. Vivekananda once said something to the effect that there are actually as many religions as there are people in the world. We each have our own unique situation, and we behave according to our willingness and capacity. You may be familiar with the Jack London quote: Karma is the hand we're dealt, and dharma is how we play it (I'd actually say it was the other way around....) Or, according to Vsasistha: some born-mystics go to hell, some mosquitoes become fully realized (he said it, not me!).
Anyway; I don't want to leave you with the impression that I was the one who wrote this article. The author was once Vice-President of the Ramakrishna Math and Mission. He also wrote the book "Meditation and Spiritual Life" (one of the best I've ever read), and contributed to "Vedanta for the Western World". I submitted the article before I learned about QuickLinks....
But I'm glad you appreciated it, and I 'm glad I was able to introduce the Swami to a few people who may have been unfamiliar with him.
Best wishes.
by
Mystic Wizard (1 articles, 50 quicklinks, 9 diaries, 33 comments)
on Monday, March 3, 2008 at 11:22:55 AM
" ...most people cannot see the Divine Light because their 'eye' is not 'single, as it must be to see the divine reality that is within and at hand. But the Divine Light is actually manifested in and around those who are really spiritually reborn, because God has given them the gift of the ultimate divine revelation and they've seen beyond the illusion of duality and fully realized they are One with God and One with all humanity."
"That is why the Christ Jesus said, 'I and my Father are one.' That’s why he said, 'As you do unto the least of our brethren, so you do unto me.' And that is also why he said when the 'Spirit of truth' comes to you, 'you shall know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.' You will know that we are in fact One in the Spirit."
"All truly enlightened, fully self-realized people have been given that gift, and you may receive it too. But you should know that it comes only from God when you least expect it. As the great Meher Baba said, no amount of effort, no amount of austerity, no amount of sacrifice, no amount of discipline, no amount of study, no amount of devotion, no amount of begging to God, and no amount of intellectual reasoning can achieve it. It comes as a gift only when you 'lose yourself' in some aspect of the Divine and transcend your separate-self ego, as if by fortuitous accident. That brings actual epiphany and discovery of a profound divine truth, which triggers a series of divine revelations that ultimately lead to full realization that God is the eternal, omnipresent Great Spirit, Supreme Consciousness, and Divine Light that is within, above and around us all."
"I can tell you truly that when the 'seven seals' of revelation and the seven 'chakras' are opened, one is carried away in spirit to that high and holy place where God inhabits eternity. There one witnesses and realizes what God truly is, and the Book of Life is opened to you. One fully realizes that we are all in fact One in Spirit and thus becomes truly reborn of the spirit and spiritually 'anointed' by the Holy Spirit of God. But it does not mean you are then 'holy.' It means the reality of God has been revealed to you, and for a moment that seems like eternity you've experienced God's overwhelmingly ecstatic love, peace and understanding, and known true cosmic consciousness. But, then you have to learn how to recognize and accept guidance from the Holy Spirit of God, and let it guide you on your path of return to God."
"All avatars, christs, buddhas, siddhas, and the greatest sat gurus and sages were truly reborn of the spirit, realized these truths, and.found their path of return. Most devotees and students of the greatest spiritual teachers learn the truth, at least intellectually. Cabalistic Jews learn that God is formless and yet is the essence of all form, just like practitioners of the Holy Qabalah learn that God is the Divine Light and the unspeakable primordial vibration or 'Word' that was in the beginning and is made flesh in all of us."
"However you perceive or conceive of Deity, there is but one Divine Holy One, which is God. Whatever you call it, and whether you regard it as one or many or all, it is still God. Every thing originated from and came out of the One, and every thing returns to the One that is God, the Source/Creator."
Ruth was addressing the comments about Chakras in the article, and her quotes were very appropriate.
Many people misunderstand what the opening of the seven chakras are. They don't understand that it's the same as opening the seven seals of revelation mentioned in the Christian book of Revelation.
Ruth's quoting Joseph J. Adamson on the subject was great.
