THE MOMENT BY MOMENT LIVING’

Like herds that go for grazing, today young men and women go to college for learning. They fill their minds with great facts on the socio-economic political life of societies or the physical and biological realities of the earth, cosmos and life. An ambitious boy or girl would scale great heights on an untrodden path. Many come out of the college with their eyes bright, hopes great, head aloft and march forward for employment.

To many young men and women; life is the hope of drawing commensurate salary, a dream of their life-partner, known or unknown, the desire of owning a house to rest in, and a locomotive to move around.

Not many young men and women could ever realize that life is ‘THE MOMENT BY MOMENT LIVING’ flamed by one’s desire, hope, urge, fear, longing, dream and love. This moment by moment living could well be cherished by one’s attitudes, values, knowledge and works. This booklet in your hand tells you not where you stand, but how to stand. For in your aspirations and efforts one small quote of this book would serve you as a coal that you burn for energy and a pearl that you wear as an ornament.

Like coals and pearls that are brought out by digging the earth and diving deep inside the ocean, so too the quotes of this book are brought out by digging ad diving deep within myself…

And I dare not say I’m a sage,

But a friend or foe to me are the same,

I look on them with equals eyes

To make them look with proper eyes.

Establishing A Source Of Perennial Energy

The practice of pranayama is to achieve energy control. Prana is often equated with the breath, and pranayama, with breathing exercises. There is an intimate connection between the breath and the flow of energy in the body. Paramhansa Yogananda often said, “Breathlessness is deathlessness”. Yogic breathing exercises enable the practitioner to rise above the body’s normal need for breath.

“When the yogi, like a tortoise withdrawing its head and limbs into a shell, is able to withdraw his energy from the objects of sense-perception, he becomes established in wisdom” - Gita (2:58). Breathlessness is not kumbhaka in the sense of forcibly retaining the breath. Rather, true kumbhaka comes when the body no longer requires air for its maintenance.

The purpose of respiration is to expel carbon dioxide from the lungs, and to take in oxygen. In pranayama exercises, the breath is used to produce a state of equilibrium in the body, in which state the physical activity of breathing is no longer required to maintain it in a condition of equilibrium.

When one rises above the need to breathe, the heart pump also slows down, then stops altogether. When breathing becomes unnecessary, the heartbeat slows down and then stops. Between these two phenomena — the breath and heartbeat on the one hand and sensory awareness on the other — there is a close connection.

The energy in the senses, as in the whole body, relaxes and withdraws, as happens, to a lesser degree, in sleep. A sleeper may be called. He may even be shaken before he is even aware of being wanted. This diminished involvement with objective reality occurs because, during sleep, energy is partially withdrawn from the body and from the “sense telephones”. It is only when the “sense telephones” have been “switched off ” that the mind can wholly absorb itself in the inner world of meditation.

“One practice of yoga offers the incoming breath into the outgoing breath and the apana into the prana, thereby, through pranayama, rendering the breath unnecessary” — Gita (4:29). The physical breath accompanies the upward and downward flow of energy through the ida and pingala nadis in the spine. Indeed, it is this spinal flow of the energies known as prana and apana which prompts the lungs to inhale and exhale. Prana, more broadly speaking, means energy itself. Prana is Para-prakriti as opposed to Aparaprakriti, Nature.

The slow, careful conscious circulation of energy around the spine constitutes the ancient science of Kriya Yoga. This circulation magnetises the spine, and redirects the mental tendencies, samskaras, towards the brain in a way reminiscent of the realigning of molecules in a north-south direction in a bar of steel.

Similar to the bar magnet, the spine becomes magnetised in the sense that the energy, flowing ever more unidirectionally towards the brain, is drawn into the deep spine, the sushumna, where, with the awakening of the Kundalini, it rises through the chakras, lifting one’s energy and consciousness upward, towards God. Thus, the energy is brought to the spiritual eye, finally to become united with sahasrara — the “thousand-petalled” lotus — at the top of the head.

Speed and necessity….

"In the struggle for survival, the fittest win out at the expense of their rivals because they succeed in adapting themselves best to their environment. " –Charles Darwin

We need to understand the link between the speed of our work and how our mind decides the speed and pace of work. Our speed and pace of work is not a peripheral issue but is a deep mental issue. There are occasions when we are really fast and there are other occasions when we are not as fast as we have to be. We can not be slower or faster than we want to be. Everything has a strong reason in our mind.

We need to enter every activity as though our very survival depends on that activity. With this state of mind alone, we will be at the peak of our efficiency and speed.

While I write this I am reminded of a small story I read somewhere. A rabbit was being chased by a cheetah. As we know cheetah is an animal which can run very fast and the speed of a rabbit is no match for that of the cheetah. Even after a very long chase, the cheetah was not able to catch the rabbit. Ultimately the cheetah gave up chasing and asked the rabbit how it is able to run faster than the cheetah.

The rabbit replied, ‘It’s true that you are capable of running faster than me. But you see, you are running for your food, but I am running for my life!’ and so saying disappeared into the forest!

Now you will understand what determines our speed!