Raja Yoga Bunk? My mind is Paramdigm, I am Shiva.

andrey, it all goes back to when they were trying to work out how to teach Gyan to simple people that could not grasp abstract concepts, you know, the progression from "thumb shaped" and so on. Even point of light is a theory, although I have seen then (or you could argue had visions of them) as have many BKs. Many BKs have seen and heard and felt without their bodies ... there is no astral or causal body according to Gyan.

PBK seems to have jumped onto this point as one of those "questions without an answer" pundits like to stun their listeners with before injecting some other point.

It also ties in with Bhakti, the difference between those that could conceive of a formless, abstract God and those that needed a statue plonked in front of them. This is broadly stated as Shaivite versus Vaishnavite although that it not entirely fair on enlightened Vaishnavite thinkers who realised the statues were symbolically anthropomorphic. The original lingums were not forms but formless, often just river stones.

Mind you, the worship of an erect phallic Shiva also goes back to about 3,000 year BC during the time of Kushanas Period ...

andrey, it all goes back to when they were trying to work out how to teach Gyan to simple people that could not grasp abstract concepts, you know, the progression from "thumb shaped" and so on. Even point of light is a theory, although I have seen then (or you could argue had visions of them) as have many BKs.

I wonder if back in the day of thumbshaped souls, those in the Yagya at the time had visions of thumbshaped souls.

I wonder if back in the day of thumbshaped souls, those in the Yagya at the time had visions of thumbshaped souls.

Good question ... there was another one too wasn't there. We should date them. No point of light concentration stuff mention in the early days ... focusing on a point of light in the forehead is a practice elsewhere in traditional Hinduism. I think it is one of Maharaji's "secret" practises too.

thumbshaped souls

I cannot recall where I read this but the thumbshape represents the male and female genitalia. Maybe it's fiction, but I am sure the source was from some non-fiction research/study into Hinduism.

Hey bansy, looks like that means I got 2 souls.

Hi alladin, I think ex-l and everyone else has elaborated on different aspects of your deep and heartfelt share very eloquently. Everyone’s sharing helps us see the big picture. To add to our Picasso, I would like to share my understanding on how people fall in love. This understanding encompasses how we fall in love with people, places, things and yes God and religions.

We (99.9999% of us) never really fall in love with other people. We fall in love with the image we have of a particular person. Research on the nature of addiction has found that people create neuropathways in their brains of what is attractive to them during youth. An astonishingly young age in fact. That is, as a child grows up they create deep beliefs about what is sexual, nurturing, beneficial etc. Researchers have found different pathways for different categories of love and attraction.

For me, and I suppose a lot of people, the way this knowledge applies to this situation is that if we are in some way insecure or feel/believe ourselves to be lacking love/nurturing/approval in anyway we see our selves as a sort of victim. A victim waiting to be saved. Humans want security; it is #1 on our priority list. So we search, and search and the more messed up our perceptions of reality are the easier it is to find what we are looking for.

This is because we never really perceive reality directly. We perceive reality through many different filters and mediums: senses, the brain, the mind, etc. Humans certainly don’t have enough mediums to perceive objectively. Birds can see more colors then us because they have more sophisticated eyes, to give a quick example. But most deceptive is the mind.

We want security. We need security. We will do absolutely anything for security. Anything. Self-deception is in fact, no biggy. When someone comes into our peripheral vision that looks anything like the image we have burned in our brain of a rescuer, that’s it. This is our soul mate. It is the one we have been looking for our whole life. Our long lost and now found reason for living. Our knight is shinning armor, or perfect princess.

Sadly though, the more we get to know about this person the more the real person conflicts with our image of this person and we blame the person for not being perfect (as compared to our ideal) and we become a victim again. I mean there are cases where people do find what they are looking for or they make compromises and thus do live happily ever after, but this is not the norm.

No doubt if we have such neuro pathways this fact must show us that the same surely is true when it comes to spirituality and God.

Andrey, what you said about, "The abstract conception of God also has no proofs", got me thinking. There is no proof of God as most people have defined God. This leads to one solid conclusion. God does not exist. Not as describe by most people, BKs included. That which cannot be proven does not exist. Sure the idea of God exists, but so does the idea that Britney Spears is God. With the God argument is does seem to be a question for the believer or non-believer to choose between values. Fact or Faith.

What you said about distaste for physical reality, which is preached widely in the BKWSU, Hinduism and many other isms I am not so sure about. Often times its not material things people distaste, it is their perception of them; their cerebral maps of reality. This has nothing to do with reality. It just means a change of the map will make everything perceivably different.

Hi, Neo. So, in a way, u are suggesting that self deception and infatuation play a major, if not the only role in "falling in love"?

We fall in love with the image we have of a particular person. When someone comes into our peripheral vision that looks anything like the image we have burned in our brain of a rescuer, that’s it. This is our soul mate. It is the one we have been looking for our whole life. Our long lost and now found reason for living. Our knight is shinning armor, or perfect princess.

Sadly though, the more we get to know about this person the more the real person conflicts with our image of this person and we blame the person for not being perfect (as compared to our ideal)

This would explain to a great extent why love often turns into struggles. I hope the remedy is not ascetism and detachment. What do you think? If you appeal to reason, that sounds a bit like the opposite of a natural feeling of love - or am I too romantic and idealistic? Is there a wholesome, healthy way of loving?

Is any unconditional love possible, that can take us beyond the stage of infatuation with an image and enable us to use this energy for loving the real soul, the way he or she is, with defects and qualities, hopefully respecting each other's freedom and empowering qualities and potentials that are latent in our "higher self"?

I think we should split this into another thread on "Falling in love again", if it does not already exist.

I would disagree with your 99.99% estimate. I understand what you mean (Jung's concept of anima/animus projection). But I think there is another phenomenon at play when two souls do actually meet and connect, their chakras "cord" or connect together and an interplay of energies happen.

I also think this "cording" between our chakras happens with the so called Shiva in BK Raja Yoga and is part and parcel of the "intoxication" process that goes on there.

What the proportional difference or interplays are, I do not know. I would also consider that the cording even happens between, say popstars and infatuated teenyboppers. It may be a trigger mechanism and it may happen at different levels according to which chakras are set off. The teenybopper throwing their knickers onto the stage of the Elvis might be symbolically enacting the throwing of a cord out from their stimulated Muladhara chakra to the popstar's pelvis. A more mature and centered relationship might be corded at a heart or even head level.

But when two chakras meet, some special happens. I am not sure about the BK soul theory any more ...

Dear br. neo,

I feel there is something wrong in telling people how they should feel, like guiding the meditation. Perhaps one could just narrate some points of knowledge and one can feel the way he feels about them. Generally, with this "meditation" thing, it is very easy for one to conclude it is just some mind game, self-hypnosis or else.

Please note that the idea that everything is just an illusion and we are part of a matrix is only just a human idea preached by anyone. Some neo-nihilism. Now, in this world where everything is illusion then this idea will also be just illusionary. Who will be this enlightened one that will have realized that everything is an illusion, his enlightenment will be also illusionary. So he must have seen what truth is. So what truth is? One cannot say truth is that it is an illusion. No, besides the illusion, what comparison do we have so to know what is real.

If we look there are so many ideas. Ignorance is when we don’t know, or when we know many ideas, but don’t know which is true and which is false it is the same situation. What is this world where no one knows what is real, what is true and what is false. Like all are lost and searching. Is it not possible that we can know what is real, what is true and everyone to know.

That’s why what is done is that conceptions, mind blocks that we have these are changed with the help of knowledge. Our mind is put in certain position that remains for everyone, certain, common perception, and this lasts for a long time then due to dualism people scatter and start serching and being confused again.

Now people all have and all the leaders, teachers everyone teaches some falsehood, some different kind of lie. And amongst this chaos there is only one source that is the source of truth. For example Christians say "Oh God have mercy", but is god merciless that we have to ask for mercy. Will he not be the most merciful and show mercy himself without having to ask. Why do we have to pray. Theсe are all wrong practices from the point of view as what could be the real identity of God.

Regarding the falling in love. I feel there is a lot in common in remembering and loving. The more you remember someone the more you fall in love and the other way round. There is a saying from a book that if you feel the germs of love starting to grow in your heart, then be sure that the heart of the other one has already been stricken by the lightning of love. That’s why in the Murli it is said that the more you remember me the more I remember you in return.

Means the matrix has some response, and sometimes it is independent to us. Sometimes something happens to crush this matrix we have in us. There is also this example of the debate whether everything is in our mind, it is a very old debate, so some philosophers were debating and one used to maintain the idea that everything is in our mind and the other one slapped him and said, "don’t mind it is only in your mind."

So is it possible that we can know reality? In the Murli it is said truth is this that happens in practical. Can The Knowledge of The Cycle be true?

There is also this practical experience that when we meet some we just feel internal joy, and with other we don’t Why is it like this? It is because we have some dissonance.

Our aim is to become ignorant of even The Knowledge of what it is desire. Then the mind can feel peace and rest.

Dera br. John,

It is said Shiva does not always stay in the Chariot, well he must be in some other type of body to function

I don’t know about what you say. I cannot make such conclusions based on the Murli. I don’t know other authority.

Dear br. ex-l,

I think there are two ways to perceive The Knowledge and one is to distance yourself from it and analyze and one is from the point of view to understand. As if in the first case one will try to see if from a knowledgeful point of view. If someone is a researcher, so he has some knowledge already on the basis of which he can decide. Other is that we don’t know and learn. Many claims are made to the BKs, but it seems as if some also just like to scold them off and nothing more.

Karma is in the soul. These are the actions that the soul performs, the role that is recorded, that we cannot change, but don’t know. So it is said that everything is in our hand, even God cannot do anything. IN our hand is the pen to draw our destiny we are our own friend and enemy. So based on our thinking karma becomes good neutral or sinful. It is said that nothing is to be done anew, everything is already done, means that from the past whatever actions we have done, we have these habits left. Whatever we do we remember.

Sin is called that which is against Shrimat. So if we don’t know what is Shrimat then sin is one time. Then when we consciously know what should be done and what should not be done then sins is 100 times more, because we knew. It is also possible to become free from sin and it is a matter of stage of the soul, incorporeal, viceless, egoless stage where there are no thoughts and no remmeberance of the acation. Like in the “I drink water” if we stress on the I that who drinks water then there are no influence and if we remember the water then we remember the taste. So if we remember the elf the soul, then this is Shrimat, this is the way to get free from sin.

If we continually remember something then it is some karmic account, but if we even remember against our conscious wish then it is karmic bondage. So only one can free us from this who does not have past experience. So karma is related to the soul, the consciousness, when our consciousness is burdened when we feel we have done many wrong things and when consciousness bites. Some like "it is all in our mind" thing, but for this idea we should also accept the idea of rebirth, otherwise one cannot see point of relevance why some things happen, when I have done nothing wrong, why do I have so much attraction to some things, people than to other, if it is what we have done in the past, if it is that we have been meeting and interacting in the past also then it can be explained.

So it may be something like a memory chip the soul and experiences that it experiences through the body are recorded in it and they get activated due to some circumstances.It is also possible to die alove, to forget the body, not to feel it, then in the Golden Age and Silver Age we have no conciousness of the body, maybe slowly t starts to grow, from the highest organs. Now because we have had the tendency to enjoy bodily pleasures a lot we are full, the memory chip is full of experience, thats why we are heavy and we are getting formatted.

If knowledge and practices has been changing in time then maybe this is the way it should be.

According to Gyan there is astral body (subtle body) and causal body (the seed like soul).

Hi, Neo. So, in a way, u are suggesting that self deception and infatuation play a major, if not the only role in "falling in love"?

Hi alladin, yes.

I recall now that there is an nero pathway associated with attachment and bond forming, the exact details elude me as the research I read was some time ago and a bit technical but I’m pretty sure this is what is linked to peoples attachment to social groups. I don’t mean attachment as in BK terminology, but in a general way with some implications being loyalty, bonding, dependence etc.

Generally, our first social group is our family of origin. We are wired to have very strong loyalties and attachments to them. An example of this is seen with numerous courtcases where very young children are put on the stand in a trial to testify against a mom or dad and then freeze up despite being coached previously by counsel.

This love for one's tribe is not infallible of course. If sufficient wrongs are committed by one's original tribe or a new more powerful tribe conquers the old tribe in some way these nero pathways, as with all neuro pathways, can and do change.

Spiritual groups are indeed tribes. When one's native tribe lets them down or just seems weak or perhaps chaotic and dysfunctional, one tends to search for a new tribe. When one's family, social group and society lets a person down, they can become extremely susceptible to being seduced by a new tribe.

A susceptible person (most people, but levels of susceptibility vary), even before encountering any potentially better tribes, will have lurking in their brains a deeply subconscious picture or blue print of what are the criterias of a potential tribe for their salvation. Then when they do encounter a new tribe they don't see the new tribe as it really is. If the new tribe in some way resembles the picture they have burned in their brains of salvation, the person's salvation blue print will actually, at least in part, be projected onto their actual perceptions of the tribe. This in turn releases mad amounts of brain drugs within the person making them feel as though that are falling in love with the tribe or have finally come home.

I use the word tribe mainly as a term from Caroline Myss, but also because humans are tribal animals. They have lived in packs since the Stone Age as a means for survival. Also, I don't use the term spiritual group exclusively because people are just as easily seduced by peers, gangs, fraternities and radical groups. I'll use my personal experience to explain the above perhaps complex theory.

I grew up in a family, a society, and amongst peers where I felt real security was lacking, sometimes intensely. As a youth, I loved hearing stories about how people found their heart's full (complete security) from a perfect all accepting and loving social group with a seemingly supernatural caretaker or God. Thus in my brain this image of what an ideal tribe was, is burned into my brain.

I meet the BKWSU in quite an insecure time of my life. I see their museum. If any one remembers, it's more or less the 7 day course in a room complete with light show and commentary about how God has come down etc. On seeing the museum, my sensory interpretation of the BKWSU tribe registers in my mind but because the information I perceive has similar characteristics of, not just my ideal tribe, but THE ideal tribe, I unconsciously superimpose my own picture blueprint of salvation on this 'long lost and now found, most beloved' tribe and feel as thought I am in absolute ecstasy.

The ecstasy slowly fades as I learn more about the BKWSU and their inconsistencies with the 'facts' they previously sold to me. The more I learn about the BKWSU the more my own subconscious belief that I have found salvation also fades away. At this point being in this tribe just doesn’t feel right anymore.

That's it in a nut shell. Now, as with a tribe, the interplay with individuals or a concept of God is also similar. In regards to the second part of what you mentioned alladin, I say lets all go make love in the all and everything part of the forum for a thorough exploration on lust, passion and heavy breathing.

ex-l, your theories sound sound, perhaps we are looking at the same thing from different levels.

Dear andrey,

Thank you for sharing, no doubt people reading all this will get a lot from the perspective you share from.

Just for the record, despite what my handsome avatar may imply, my posts are not based on any direct ideologies from the Matrix movies. My post are from my own personal way of seeing life which I base on years of trial and error of what theories and facts have produced the best results in my life. I am not a secret agent from Warner Bros. trying to sell more of our DVDs.

References for what I say are vast, vary and sometimes are incongruent and need some creativity to add together, but specifically if anyone wants more info on what I said in this topic, good solid condensed sources of information would be Neuro-Linguistic Programming for Dummies, Three Levels of Power and How to Use Them, by Caroline Myss, the National Institute on Drug Abuse website, and works by Patrick Carnes. There was another great love and relationship book I read back in the days when I was trying to make things work with my ‘soul mate’ (one of them anyways) but I can’t remember the name.

Neo,

I am grateful for and agree with the "tribal concept" you offer. Looking back at my life and my entrance into the BKs, it would make complete sense. I think we can look to the sort of books (and movies) we were heavily influence by to create this "mythic tribe" and I think for the majority of BKs of my generation, they were the same ones, e.g. Autobiography of a Yogi, Bible, Gita etc.

Indeed, one might extrapolate futher and suggest that the constant references back to the pre-programming of the Gita, the Mahabharata and the Ramayama are effects to recall and re-inforce the existing pre-programming of the proto-BKs. "You've read the book, now live the movie!!!".

Remember the largely dysfunctional family background of early BKs and Lekhraj Kirpalani usurpating of the role as 'The Perfect Lover'. There was no incorporeal God, only Husband of the Subjects (Prajapati) God Brahma who was also Krishna. That is like Lekhraj Kirpalani playing BOTH the roles of Charlton Heston as Moses and Elvis Presley (Or Morgan Freedman and Keanu Reeves if you are younger) to their sub-conscious minds. A supporting Father cum husband that makes no sexual demands on them - to replace their faulted ones - and the most romantic poetic lover.

No wonder 'The They' are keen for BKs NOT to be re-programmed by other movies and novels outside of the acceptable canon and to dismiss other religious tribes.

Karma is in the soul. These are the actions that the soul performs, the role that is recorded, that we cannot change, but don’t know.

To me that sounds more like sanskars.

Where and what are the mechanics by which karma affects matter and how does it bring about reactions? Please see topic on karma.

According to Gyan there is astral body (subtle body) and causal body (the seed like soul).

Would I be correct in saying these were your own churnings? Did the subtle body exit before the Subtle Regions and did the Subtle Regions exist before the Confluence Age?

Well put ex-l, not to mention that most of the extremely fanatical BKs (I was!) were primarily influenced by abstract archetypes in their youth rather then science and facts. Who can blame us? Science is still in its infancy and the world is still primarily dominated by abstract belief mixed with hopelessness (which is often comforted with repression).