Latest / Sri Aurobindo Studies / The Awakening of the Yoga Force in the Individual

Transcript

The Awakening of the Yoga Force in the Individual · Sri Aurobindo Studies

• 0:01
  When we consider the awakening of the Kundalini Shakti at the
• 0:05
  base of the spine, we frequently imagine some kind of dramatic
• 0:09
  experience, some palpable energy, some noticeable force
• 0:15
  operating and moving up through the experiential body, And in
• 0:19
  some cases this actually does occur this way.
• 0:23
  For the most part, however, the awakening of the yoga force is
• 0:27
  more subtle. As a chakra opens, it becomes
• 0:31
  receptive to energies that vibrate at the frequency that it
• 0:35
  is able to receive, similar to a radio receiver tuned to a
• 0:41
  specific channel. In some cases, the development
• 0:45
  of the energies occurs quite naturally as a process of
• 0:48
  maturation of the being. The individual simply grows into
• 0:52
  it. In other cases, there is some
• 0:56
  prod or impetus that touches something deep inside and
• 1:00
  awakens the individual to a new thought, a new emotion, a new
• 1:04
  energy, a new way of being. Then there are the dramatic
• 1:09
  instances where an individual undergoes some kind of intense
• 1:13
  life changing experience, possibly a near death
• 1:17
  experience, which radically changes his life focus.
• 1:22
  Charles Dickens, in his classic story A Christmas Carol, tells
• 1:27
  the tale of Scrooge, who operates his life primarily from
• 1:32
  2nd and 3rd chakra energy. His heart center is closed and
• 1:37
  his methods are rough and uncaring, demanding and
• 1:40
  unsatisfied. He has an experience where he is
• 1:44
  visited by the ghost of his former business partner, Woeful
• 1:48
  and in chains, and is warned that he will be visited by three
• 1:52
  successive ghosts, one showing him the past, one the present
• 1:58
  and one the future. After undergoing these
• 2:01
  experiences, he finds the next morning that his heart chakra
• 2:05
  has opened and he becomes a caring, supportive and open
• 2:11
  hearted person, essentially a complete reversal from his prior
• 2:15
  personality, and with this change he becomes cheerful and
• 2:20
  even joyful in contrast to his former constant dower mood.
• 2:26
  Danny and Brinkley in his book Saved by the Light tells how he
• 2:31
  was literally struck by lightning, declared clinically
• 2:34
  dead and upon returning he transformed his life from being
• 2:39
  a stone cold mercenary to a caring and understanding
• 2:43
  individual with a mission to help others in their transitions
• 2:47
  as they face death in Hospice situations.
• 2:51
  Another individual reported how he had his entire life
• 2:55
  transformed through a case of poisoning and near death event.
• 2:59
  He had been on an educational path leading to a possible
• 3:02
  career in the legal field until the event when his body seized
• 3:07
  up from the poison and he could not breathe.
• 3:10
  He reported hearing an inner voice that said do yogic
• 3:14
  breathing. He had no external knowledge of
• 3:18
  or relation to yoga and had never been exposed to it.
• 3:23
  His body started breathing differently and when he awoke he
• 3:27
  saw the sun shining brightly and he knew at that moment that
• 3:32
  there was a divine consciousness creating and guiding the world,
• 3:36
  and he had been returned to carry out a life dedicated to a
• 3:40
  path that was laid out before him.
• 3:43
  He abandoned his education, his former career aspirations and
• 3:48
  took up the study and practice of yoga.
• 3:51
  He experienced this as an act of grace.
• 3:56
  In his epic poem Savitri, a legend and a symbol, Sri
• 4:00
  Aurobindo describes a process where the soul takes up the
• 4:03
  effort of former lives. In his evolutionary development
• 4:08
  quote, a thought was thrown in the unsounded void.
• 4:13
  A sense was born within the darkness depths, a memory
• 4:17
  quivered in the heart of time, as if a soul long dead were
• 4:22
  moved to live. But the oblivion that succeeds
• 4:26
  the fall had blotted the crowded tablets of the past, and all
• 4:32
  that was destroyed must be rebuilt and old experience
• 4:37
  labored out once more. End Quote.
• 4:42
  A disciple asked about a citation from Sri Aurobindo.
• 4:46
  There's a yoga Shakti lying coiled or asleep.
• 4:50
  How can it be awakened? The Mother responds quote.
• 4:55
  I think it awakens quite naturally the moment 1 takes the
• 4:59
  resolution to do the yoga. If the resolution is sincere and
• 5:04
  one has an aspiration, it wakes up by itself.
• 5:08
  In fact, it is perhaps its awakening which gives the
• 5:11
  aspiration to do yoga. It is possible that it is a
• 5:16
  result of the grace or after some conversation or reading
• 5:21
  something that has suddenly given you the idea and
• 5:23
  aspiration to know what yoga is and to practice it.
• 5:28
  Sometimes just a simple conversation with someone is
• 5:31
  enough, or a passage one reads from a book.
• 5:35
  Well, it awakens this Yoga Shakti and it is this which
• 5:40
  makes you do your yoga. One is not aware of it at first
• 5:45
  except that something has changed in our life.
• 5:49
  A new decision is taken. A turning End Quote reference.
• 5:55
  Sri Aurobindo and the mother powers within.
• 5:58
  Chapter 8. Yoga Shakti.
• 6:01
  Page 81.