Standing on the Branch Side of the Saw?

Higher consciousness is found through an increase in consciousness. If you’ve developed a habit of being numb in the brain or in general sensitivity, all the tendencies involved in this habit have to be patiently turned around. If you recognize that you’re mentally limited and are willing to patiently do everything you can to activate your consciousness, then perhaps there is hope.

Of course, we’re all relatively bright and we’re all relatively stupid, depending on how comparisons are made. But it’s all-important for you to consider whether you’ve firmly decided to daily become a more conscious person. These principles of higher consciousness have to be applied with some degree of sensitivity and thoughtfulness in order for them to work. The path here is one of greater consciousness, not magic. Your ability to be attentive and sensitize yourself to superconsciousness is essential in order for you to meet with success.

The Legend of Kalidas

The legend of Kalidas — India’s greatest playwright — always begins with the story that he was extremely stupid. In fact, he may have been the most stupid man in his part of India. Once, some wise men passed by and observed him standing on the limb of a tree and sawing off the limb while standing on the wrong side of the saw! That is, when he had successfully sawed through the branch, he would himself fall down a considerable distance — along with the branch he was removing.

The wise men were seeking a particularly stupid man so they could play a cruel trick on their arrogant princess. They had determined, after receiving considerable abuse from her, to find the stupidest man they could get their hands on and present him to the princess as an extremely wise man, a “fitting” candidate for her royal hand.

They took Kalidas to the palace and presented him as a great sage who was observing a vow of silence, and told the queen he could only communicate through gestures. Previously they’d advised Kalidas to keep his mouth shut under all circumstances and simply move his fingers and fists when questioned. The princess interrogated Kalidas and the responses of his fingers and fists, as interpreted by the wise men, made him seem the wisest man in the kingdom.

Delighted, the princess married him. Shortly after they entered the marriage chamber Kalidas uttered something and the princess, with horror, discovered she was married to a dolt. She kicked him out of the bed chamber and palace. She called him a camel and other such endearing names.

Kalidas was miserable. He determined life was not worth continuing — especially his life. He went to the river to drown himself. But once there, he observed that the rocks beside the river had been worn down by the washerwomen who scrubbed and pounded the clothes on the stones on the bank. Kalidas hesitated a moment in his desire for oblivion and studied the hollows worn in the stone banks by the washerwomen.

“If merely washing clothes can wear down something as hard as stone, surely my thick, numb, stupid mind can also be worn through,” he thought.

Kalidas prayed that this possibility be so. He prayed to the Lord, thinking of the Lord as his divine mother. She appeared to him and bestowed a blessing on his thick head. His stammering tongue was freed, his mind became clear, and his deep heart became unblocked. He became the most eloquent and brilliant poet in Indian history. Kalidas is considered the Shakespeare of India.

Worth thinking about, isn’t it? A man who couldn’t saw the branch off a tree intelligently became legendary for the subtlety of his mind.

Why They’re Amazing

The three techniques that follow are of extraordinary value. They awaken consciousness. They release inner potential. They will also brighten your life. From this moment, you need never be bored or have idle time in which you cannot think of anything to do. These three techniques are fascinating to practice. They work in harmony with one another and they can also be practiced separately, as you wish.

There are thousands of specialized techniques which can help a person become more conscious and ultimately discover the higher consciousness within. However, a study of the wide variety of techniques and disciplines will reveal they have much in common with these three excellent practices, which you are about to know. Adherents of most every path practice these techniques in one form or another. Adepts in western mysticism, in metaphysics, and in most all schools of thought in the Western world, as well as masters of Eastern philosophies, including Yoga and Zen, focus with particular favor on these three amazing practices.

Bear in mind, as you prepare to raise your consciousness with the great techniques ahead, all adepts would urge that no method should become more important to you than your goal. The method is only your means toward higher consciousness. Methods are not meant to be more than the means.

Schools of Thought

Many Zen advocates, for example, urge that since the mind is ignorant to begin with, the mind must be silenced through paradox or by some other “mind-bypassing” means. The Zen student strives to stop the misperceptions and the distortions which his or her mind regularly creates through its ignorance.

Other schools of thought generally say that while the mind is ignorant and generally distorts any particular technique, it would be better that the mind be given some food, some reason or some idea of what it’s doing, so that it might cooperate toward a transcendent process which leads to higher consciousness.

So, some methods strive to directly calm the mind while others engross and concentrate the mind. Many wondrous levels of awareness become available when either approach is practiced well.

The three techniques comprise what is formally called kriya yoga but you will find similar practices under different names throughout the world.

Many teachers consider kriya yoga a sublime preparation, clearing the way for an aspirant to enter into a successful relationship with a qualified teacher. On the other hand, some gurus and masters, when they make the acquaintance of their new and beloved student, require him or her to practice these three steps for five or more years.

Mastery of these three practices assures a relative ease in the discovery and consolidation of one’s life in higher consciousness.

Please note that the term kriya yoga has been used to refer to other practices as well as those which follow. To a few million people, kriya yoga is primarily the series of techniques which involve directing life force, or prana, up and down specific passages in the spine until body, mind, and emotions are so calm and pure that higher consciousness can be perceived and entered into. Or, more appropriately, that the higher consciousness may descend throughout the individual’s faculties without being blocked, distorted, or limited. The term kriya yoga is also popularly used in ways that will seem so bizarre as to make you laugh, or in other ways so strange as to raise eyebrows in perplexity. Since the word kriya comes from the Sanskrit root word meaning action, many teachers feel free to call any actions they dream up, kriya yoga, or “kriya kriya,” or “kriya-robics.”

Apply These Techniques to your Daily Life

As you practice these three exquisite techniques, please apply them as specifically as possible to your daily life. Use each day to develop in your practice of each one.

Please do not allow past destructive habits to dominate these new, life-enriching tendencies. Consider each technique as if you’re hearing it for the first time. Apply yourself as never before to the benefits that each technique yields.