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Ramakrishna Ananda

Exciting Spiritual Dimensions

What’s the easiest way to know that God is real?

Consider another possibility of contact with higher consciousness: more than ever, religion will assist men and women Godward. Oftentimes man’s ignorance and the power trips of tyrants have intruded on religion. (Religion is the linking of man with God, or the returning of mankind to his true spiritual state.) Yet, despite these negative influences, churches, synagogues, and temples are becoming filled with inspired and spiritually-awakened men and women who are eager to assist their fellow worshippers into a deeper experience and communion with the Lord of all.

Spiritual Living, Sri Ramakrishna

Sri Ramakrishna, a monk with little formal education, lived in superconsciousness and changed the world of spiritual thought. (Sri Ramakrishna is not to be historically confused with Sri Krishna, the avatar and king who lived in India many centuries before Christ, and who is the spiritual focus of the modern Hare Krishna movement.)

He was considered, as mentioned earlier, an avatar, or an Incarnation, by millions of people. A number of his central points are found, fully or partly, in religious and philosophical thought throughout the world; but some of his ideas are new to mankind. His views are particularly interesting to seekers of higher consciousness. Leaders — and followers — of many religious paths study his words and the way he lived in God-consciousness.

Since Sri Ramakrishna dedicated his life to replacing the bloodshed and hatred between people of different religions with love and appreciation, his uplifting precepts have become very popular throughout the world. Politicians, as well as priests, take hope in his teachings about true brotherhood and world peace.

To simply ponder one of the following spiritual concepts which Sri Ramakrishna shared with humanity in the last century will likely fill you with amazement and hope at the spiritual potential hiding within you and all others who seek a better life and a more spiritual world.

You may wish to consider each of these ideas as possibilities for you. They are grand possibilities, indeed. Even better, meditate on these great truths so that you can experience them.

  1. All people are spiritual beings, individual expressions of the Divine.
  2. This is a spiritual world, comprised of Spirit (conscious energy).
  3. Each person is called in his or her own way to make mind and body subtle enough to attune with the soul and with the Lord.
  4. Man’s yearning for God, love, and wisdom is natural, valid, and divine.
  5. All the main religions are from God, provided by His infinite love and wisdom.
  6. Religion must be dynamic.
  7. When devotees of different paths embrace their own path fully and experience the Lord’s nature, they will become tolerant and appreciative of the other God-given religions.
  8. Religious differences are as important as their similarities. In appreciating the views of others, one will often be enriched and inspired on one’s own path.
  9. Spiritual pride, bigotry, and exclusivity limit the seeker from spiritual experience.
  10. The living soul in each person actively yearns for a spiritual relationship.
  11.  The living soul in each person actively strives for a dynamic, creative expression of Truth, Beauty, and Goodness.
  12. Suffering and confusion is a result of man trying to halt his soul’s creative, loving expression of spiritual values.
  13. The aspirant is precious in the eyes of the Lord. One’s individuality is God-given and the ego is not to be hated but appreciated and developed into a spiritual relationship.
  14. God can be experienced in both form and formlessness.
  15. Meditation and prayer are among the most direct ways to experience God. one’s soul, and divine realities.
  16. Through devoted meditation and prayer, the cells of the physical body become divinized, spiritually transformed, to enter a new dimension of interplay with one’s Creator.
  17. A new species of man is thus emerging. The divinized body is developed through receiving spiritual radiance into every thought, breath, and cell.
  18. Through the divinized body, a new relationship is established between God and man. It is an eternal play of love between the devotee and his or her dear Lord God.
  19. The purpose of spiritual practice is to become attuned enough to realize that the Kingdom of God is at hand, that God is here – now.
  20. Enlightenment is often gradual, a continuous, ever-new process, always developing. Spontaneous awakening is rare, but also occurs.
  21. Repressed, ignored desires always cause sorrow. Desires, when faced with clarity and meditation, are transformed by God’s power and one’s character becomes stronger.
  22. God is Divine Mother as well as Father and Son, available to all seeking comfort, delight, and refuge.
  23. One ideally lives from Spirit first. If you allow, the higher plane always controls the lower.
  24. There is no end to God-realization. No matter what you have realized, there is something more.
  25. Individual spiritual experiences, thoughts, and actions help all of humanity because they radiate love and energy to the whole planet. One’s individual experiences and realizations benefit all other lives on this good earth.

Sri Ramakrishna often said the easiest way for you—for most people—to know God is real, and to experience God as your dear Lord, is to focus your mind on thought of the Divine Beloved while chanting His (Her) name, repetitiously and with love. Don’t chant vain, mindless repetitions; but chant with attention, even adoration, as best you can. You could also chant some attribute of the Lord, like love or peace, and experience God through that quality. “Chant the name and glories of God” was Sri Ramakrishna’s most frequent advice to people seeking spiritual experience, human happiness, or both.

Hopefully you’ll find these possibilities breathtakingly exciting and you’ll wish to explore them with your heart and mind. Often the spiritual possibilities made known to man are so far ahead of the general consciousness of people that it takes a lot of living and a great deal of trial and error before one begins to sense that spiritual potentialities are perfectly real.

If you’re already a person of deep faith, what joy must be yours in personally experiencing each of the dimensions made clearly known to you through your dear scriptures.

However you proceed toward the fascinating capacities available to you as part of your inheritance, as part of the very gift of life which you possess, you can know for a certainty that your life will be richer. Likely, you’ll have, through awakening into your true nature, more material success and physical well being. You’ll know greater emotional wholeness and the beauty of being able to give and receive true, lasting love. You will know the other aspects of happy thought — peace, contentment, ecstasy, and ever-new joy. You will know mental clarity and have the ability to use your mind as a dear friend rather than as most people have to live: their mind is their worst enemy, a most destructive, worrying, turbulent, self-destructive entity.

You’ll know who you really are, instead of having to put up with a thrown-together, makeshift ego. You will discover your true self through your higher consciousness and be able to make a genuine contribution in the lives of your loved ones. You’ll become enabled to express your nature for the benefit of humanity as well.

Of course, you will know the indescribable joy of living in attunement with your higher consciousness. Merely to be in a state of attunement with it is to know that you have been welcomed home. You are finally living in your true state. Your life gives up its boredom because so many wonderful talents within you interplay with one another and with the world. Your life becomes what is called a lila, a play or dance of awareness, an interplay between human being and creation, a conscious relationship and dance between your life and your world.

What are your personal possibilities in discovering the dimensions and richness of your higher consciousness? Only you — deep within your being — can say.

Reflection

For so many, life is a battle.
For so few, life is a dance.

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#2 THE MYSTIC GAZE
A Classic Technique

This classic technique is one of the mystic’s greatest treasures.

It is designed to stimulate your mystical faculties and begin the process of spiritual awakening.

With the Mystic Gaze enjoy the developing sense of clarity, coordination and attunement with life in all you do.

  1. Sit calmly and relax your eyes
  2. Gaze slightly upwards 20-30 degrees
  3. Look into space 20 feet or more
  4. Gaze, don’t stare or strain your eyes
  5. Simply observe and appreciate your awareness of space
  6. Enjoy the dawning wholeness for several minutes
  7. Gear down and go about your day

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#7 EXPANSION THROUGH ATTITUDE AND GOOD WILL
Change Your Heart

Your practice of good will cultivates the heart’s truest, deepest feeling:  love.

These good will practices are a boon to mystical study.

The goal of good will practice is the change of the heart.

When your heart naturally and spontaneously radiates forth a palpable good will, then you are a changed person.

  1. Consciously direct your thoughts and feelings toward an attitude of good will
  2. Bring a person to mind
  3. Or place your awareness on a person closest to you
  4. Direct good will toward this person
  5. Feel free to add specific well-wishes like health, love, courage, etc.
  6. Allow your heart to expand, to change

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#6 EXPANSION LEVEL ONE
Quality of Life

Mystics break out of body bondage through numerous expansions of the heart — of the sense of self.

Your feeling of self-awareness imprisons or frees you.

Happily, you can do something powerfully liberating about the state of your heart and the quality of your life.

  1. Sit comfortably for 15 minutes
  2. Choose a person you know
  3. Imagine you’re walking in his/her shoes
  4. Feel you’re inside this person
  5. Say “If I were (name), I’d feel and think…”
  6. Have fun with it and let your heart expand

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#5 THE HEART AND ITS LIBERATION
Your Sense of Self

Mystics break out of mind and body bondage through expansions, expansions of consciousness.

Your “Heart” is your sense of self, your feeling about who you are.

Who are you as a distinct person from everyone else? This is your core individuality, your mystical heart.

  1. Focus on your mystic heart
  2. It is located in the right-central chest or inside the spine behind the heart
  3. Practice The Radiance or The Mist:
  4. Feel that your mystic heart…
  5. Radiates love, light and energy, or
  6. Generates a white mist flowing outward

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#4 THE MYSTIC BREATH
Your Window

Your breath is the key to the mystery of your life. The Mystic Breath is conscious use of this key.

Our individual natures will require different windows — different energy centers — from which to view the life force.

Allow the mystic breath to reveal your personal window.

  1. Stretch and then sit comfortably
  2. Take 5 to 7 deep breaths
  3. Focus on the center of your upper lip
  4. Witness the breath come and go
  5. Let your mind move to a natural center
  6. Watch your breath and the life force from this “window”

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#3 THE ASCENT
The Essence of Your Life

We begin meditation on the Infinite by focusing our awareness on Spirit, the life essence within us.

How can we do something so seemingly abstract? It’s easy. Spirit empowers your breath night and day.

Let the life force reveal itself to you. Sense the higher power which flows through you.

You’ll feel more alive.

  1. Stretch and relax your body
  2. Sit comfortably
  3. Take 5 to 7 deep breaths
  4. Focus on your nostril rims
  5. Witness the breath come and go
  6. Enjoy for 10 to 12 minutes
  7. Inhale deeply and stretch

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#0 THE MYSTIC SELF
Our True Nature

In the view of mystics, the major problem in life for most of us is ignorance of our true natures.

The Mysteries reveal many ways that you can actually contact your mystic self — and the Infinite Consciousness.

Do you, can you, contact your Mystic Self? Yes, indeed!

  1. Practice this anytime you like
  2. Probably your mind wanders quite often
  3. At times during the day, look at your mind and notice when it’s wandering
  4. Then, turn your attention to that part of your consciousness which observes that your mind is wandering
  5. That special overseeing awareness is part of your marvelous mystic self

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#1 MYSTIC AWAKENING
Benefits

Stimulate your mystical awakening.

When you wake up from a dream you realize you were only dreaming.

Consider too that this normal state of awareness in which you live may be a kind of sleep also.

As you do this technique you’ll find the world becomes more beautiful and enjoyable.

  1. Try this many times a day
  2. Whisper to yourself, “Wake up!”
  3. Mentally say, “Wake up!”
  4. Increase your attention, appreciation and feeling of love
  5. Just cheerfully exhort yourself
  6. Wake up!

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How to Succeed

As you may know, we do not charge for our courses. All Yoga World content is free and available to you with our blessings. However, we do have a simple, but important request that’s key to the transformations necessary to succeed on the path.

We ask you to commit two hours a week to selfless service. This service can be anything you choose ranging from helping a family member or neighbor to volunteering at a nonprofit organization.

I Commit to Serve

This commitment is solely between you and your inner self.

Why the Commitment?

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