Monthly Archives: September 2025

Echo From The Cave: 212

Tuesday September 23rd, 2025

Natural Laws—The Teachings of Yoga

Shri Mahayogi is teaching us that Yoga is the path to realize the Universal Truth, and that that Truth is nothing but our very own essence, our true Self.

Recently, I started to think about the existence of Shri Mahayogi. My approach started by simply trying to remember his demeanor, his smile, and the way he was speaking and moving his body. Even though I can’t say that I understand Shri Mahaygoi’s existence, just by thinking of his physical body, I realized that I don’t remember ever meeting a being who was more at ease than Shri Mahayogi. Natural—that’s the word that came to me when thinking about the way Shri Mahayogi was.

I was curious to know from where this sense of ease emanates, and when I thought about it, I then thought that he must know something that I don’t. Naturally, it must be so, because Shri Mahayogi is a Yogi who is permanently established in the state of Truth—however, I don’t think that I can say that I understand what that means either. So, I thought that I had to think of Shri Mahayogi’s state of ease from a point that I could at least try to sense or grasp.

While thinking about it, I recalled an incident from a few years back, when a senior disciple was expressing to me again and again that I needed to learn the Truth. At that time, I thought about what she said, but I have to admit that I didn’t understand what she meant by “learn the Truth.” One day after hearing the same advice, I asked: “What do you mean by learning the Truth? I thought that the Truth is something that can only be experienced.” Hearing this, she kindly explained that when we say “Truth” in Yoga, what it means is the Truth that is universal, and that that Truth is also the truth of our essence, which is called the true Self. The state of Yoga is the same as the state of Truth, and originally, the word Yoga referred to that state, though gradually the practice to go towards that state has also come to be referred to as Yoga. One of the things that learning the Truth as a practitioner of Yoga can mean, is learning the teachings of Yoga. Until I heard this, my mind never connected the teachings of Yoga to the Truth.

As I continued to think about Shri Mahayogi’s state of ease, along with the advice I’d received from that senior disciple—that I needed to learn the Truth, or in other words, the teachings of Yoga—I inferred that if Shri Mahayogi is permanently established in the state of Truth, his life must also be a manifestation of the Truth, and at the same time, he is an embodiment of the teachings of Truth, which I need to learn.

Now, if Shri Mahayogi is the Truth incarnate, that means that he also lives in accordance with the teachings of Yoga, and I infer that that is where his state of ease and his natural demeanor must be coming from. From this, I conclude that what Yoga teaches must be very natural, and that if we try to put what Yoga teaches into practice with enough effort and honesty, we will discover that those teachings are right here at this very moment of our everyday lives, and that they are not at all hidden or abstract, or something that only a few can sense and realize.

Gradually, I am starting to recognize that the teachings of Truth are the laws that govern our lives, though we do not sense them as such, because our minds think in ways that are incongruent with the Truth. Even so, I believe that if we can just synchronize our minds and actions with the teachings of Yoga, we will discover that they are in fact practical methods through which we can realize the Truth from which they emanate, and as a result, that state of ease that can be sensed in Shri Mahayogi, will slowly become our natural state too.

-Ekanta

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Echo From The Cave: 211

Tuesday September 16th, 2025

The Teaching and Message of “Loud and Noisy”

“…the way the world is, is nothing but the goddess herself; and behind it, the one body of Atman, Brahman always exists; and in order to enjoy herself with that immovable Atman, or Brahman, the goddess is disporting herself, manifesting herself in the forms of this world and in all things.”
—Shri Mahayogi,  From Pranavadipa Vol. 129. Testimony: “1 – What is Tantra?”

How Loud and Noisy!
The weekly gathering in the home of one of the gurubai begins with a one-hour meditation. We gather around the very spot where Shri Mahayogi took a seat on a number of occasions and gave Satsangha.

I look forward to that time of quietude each week, and the serene touch of Shri Mahayogi that seems to rekindle there again and again. And one particular week was no different, especially after what seemed like a rather busy period of time where daily life matters that needed to be dealt with just kept coming one after another and it seemed hard to make space and quietness in my mind, which was getting tensed up.

As the gurubai arrived, and the time to begin approached, the small gathering of neighbors in the backyard, just below where we were gathering on the second floor, seemed to also have more people arriving, and that small gathering was quickly growing into a party. As the time for meditation began, so too did the festive party music…and its volume was increasing!

I thought to myself, surely this is a difficult atmosphere to gather the mind for concentration and meditation, as if we are all sitting right in the middle of the party itself. But how fitting that I had been wanting to step away from the “loud and noisy” characteristic that daily life seemed to have as of late, but now the “loud and noisy” has followed me in the form of this party! Whether the reflection appears in the internal environment, or in our external environment, just as Shri Mahayogi always teaches, the mind follows no matter how we go from place to place, and no matter how much we wish for things to be one way or another, there is nothing that can be done to control the things or the people around us, the only thing we can do is work to transform our own mind itself.

How Perfect is This?!
In that moment, I suppose there were two paths for the mind to take. On one path, there would be the struggle of the mind to pull away from the loud environment, and the frustration or annoyance of these loud, unsuitable circumstances. And on the other path, there would be the full embrace of this circumstance, and the giving up of what my mind thinks of as suitable or not, or what I need or don’t need. But, I didn’t really think about any of that, and rather what dawned in my mind was a thought of amazement, “How perfect is this?!!”

It is as if Shri Mahayogi himself is superbly orchestrating a perfect moment for us to try to plunge into the meaning of the teachings most recently introduced in Pranavadipa (Vol. 129)!

“…and in order to enjoy herself with that immovable Atman, or Brahman, the goddess is disporting herself, manifesting herself in the forms of this world and in all things.”

These were the words of Shri Mahayogi that stood up and took the center stage of my mind. The goddess unrestrainedly manifesting into all things to enjoy that immovable Brahman—this noise itself must be the clue, the goddess Shakti taking us by the hand and showing us the way to Lord Shiva, and certainly, behind the noise and activity of the party, the immovable Brahman must be there—expansive silence and stillness without bounds.

How can I come to grasp, to sense and to feel this “loud and noisy” as the playful nature of the goddess, the immovable ever-present Brahman that reverberates in every sound and movement of that surface, and the joy inherent in that stark juxtaposition? This is the moment for trying to dive into that. This opportunity is given, and it is not just about this moment, or the next one hour, but this is symbolic of all the surface activity of daily life where it is so easy to get caught up, and a shift I need to make, is it not?!

While trying to throw myself in that direction, at the same time, there was an incident of Swami Vivekananda that also came to mind, as if to overlap with this moment. When Swami Vivekananda was learning under his Guru, Shri Ramakrishna, he complained one day to his Master that he couldn’t concentrate during his morning meditation due to a shrill noise of a whistle coming from a nearby mill. Shri Ramakrishna instructed him to concentrate on the very noise itself, and it is said that by doing so, he soon overcame the distraction.

Is this too a clue?

This anecdote, well, there is barely half of a sentence written about it in the biography of Vivekananda.[1] Perhaps it came to mind in this very appropriate moment because, in a way, when I was reading the biography most recently, I was wanting to know what Vivekananda’s meditation was like, what kind of mind he had as he approached meditation, what his concentration was like, and how he took his Master’s words.

Shri Mahayogi teaches that when it comes to the lives of saints, and this certainly includes the lives of the disciples of Shri Ramakrishna, there is much we can learn from the anecdotes that remain about their lives before the point of attaining realization or accomplishing some great works, for these are the times when their states are more like ours, in the process of learning. In the struggles that they faced, what they felt, how they thought, the guidance they received, that’s where there are many clues for us to pick up and use on our own journey.

Vivekananda was disturbed by a noise—just like us who are surely disturbed by a whole variety of “noises” that overtake our concentration, not only when we sit for meditation, but in the many things we do in our everyday lives. Why did Shri Ramakrishna instruct him to concentrate on the noise itself? He could have told him to meditate at a different time of day or in a different place. But he didn’t. Does concentrating on the noise itself then mean just literally that? Or, what is the reason behind why Shri Ramakrishna gave this instruction? If we look at the symbolic aspect of it, there may be much more to it than that. So, what is it, what’s the secret behind it?

Perhaps it really is as simple as it sounds, but, it’s a curious thing, because, thinking about Shri Ramakrishna, he worshipped the Divine Mother in the form of the goddess Kali, and he guided Vivekananda in this way too. Is there some hint here too about that very relationship between the disporting goddess and the immovable Brahman that Shri Mahayogi mentioned?

The time for meditation passed quickly, and I remain thinking about the message, about what Shri Mahayogi is trying to help me see and understand through these circumstances that were truly perfect—this hint that transforms the seemingly opposite surface of daily matters into a gate that opens to the underlying Brahman.

– Sadhya

[1] Vivekananda: A Biography. “In the Company of the Master.”

 

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Echo From The Cave: 210

Tuesday September 2nd, 2025

Learning Through Practice and Experience

In a previous article (Echo From The Cave: 208), I wrote about the value that the teachings of Truth, the teachings of the Enlightened Beings, can have for removing the suffering in our lives. Even though I believe that that is true, I also think that without our effort in trying to understand and practice these teachings, in other words, trying to live our lives every single day through the prism that the teachings of Truth provide, probably we’ll neither experience their true value, nor recognize the true value of the existence of the Enlightened Beings.

Nowadays, the common interpretation of the word “teach” in the English language seems to be “to show or to explain someone how to do something.” Based on this interpretation, we assume and expect that the teacher is showing or explaining something with the intention that we, who are listening or watching the example of the teacher, will learn what is being taught. And I suppose that we, who are there to learn, probably want to be able to have the same level of understanding or experience as the teacher one day.

It appears to be that one of the tendencies that we have is to assume that memorizing is learning; if we hear or see something and memorize it, we might believe that we’ve learned it. But, even though memorizing has an important role in the process of learning, I believe that actual learning comes through the experience of applying it, as its result. And I’d assume that if we look closely, we can admit that this is true when it comes to many experiences in our lives. But how are we to approach the teachings of the Enlightened Beings? Are we considering the process of understanding and learning the teachings of Truth as something different from the experiences in our lives?

Let’s look at an experience that might be more common or easier for us to visualize, for example, the experience of learning to play a musical instrument. We can memorize various things that have to do with that musical instrument, and we can watch the music teacher placing the fingers on the instrument in the correct spots, and we can even listen to the song being played by the teacher over and over again; but after that, can we say that we’ve learned how to play that instrument? We probably all agree that what’s necessary is a lot of practice, actually using our body and mind to slowly try to understand and emulate the action of the teacher before we can start claiming that we learned how to play through our own practice and experience. And then, most likely there’s no telling how far we may be able to deepen our mastery of that instrument, or how far our learning may be able to reach through our experience of playing that instrument, is there?

If I may, I’d like to share my small experience of trying to apply one of the teachings. In Yoga, there is a practice called mauna, which means silence. My understanding is that the beginning level of this practice is to speak less or to refrain from speaking unnecessary things. In my limited experience, when I attempt to apply the first step, the step of refraining from speaking, one of the results is that I can hear or notice what’s in my mind more, and that possibly can give me an opportunity to catch some of the things that my mind is doing or the things that my mind is actually wanting. For example, when I’m part of a conversation, there are many times when I want to say, “Yes! I know!”, but by not saying this assertion out loud, I can hear my mind complaining, and discover some of the things that my mind actually wants, like for example, “I want others to like me.”

Now, considering the teaching of Shri Mahayogi that, “the practice of Yoga is for the purpose of stilling the mind and realizing the Truth, or the true Self,” if I think about what the beginning stage of practicing mauna could mean in this regard, I think it is that mauna can lead us to an experience of recognizing the mind’s behavior, and initiating the journey of stilling the mind by discerning whether the mind’s desires are in line with the teachings of Truth or not. Then, eventually, we can renounce the unnecessary things that contradict the teachings of Truth within the mind.

For me, without this action of “refraining from speaking,” I don’t think I’d have the chance to witness my mind’s behavior, or most likely, it would be very difficult to recognize that my mind actually wants something else in that moment.

This example is just a small recognition that arose through trying to learn from the experience of working to apply the teachings of Truth, to apply Yoga. But if I look further at how life-changing the experience of learning through practicing the teachings of Truth can be and where it may culminate, there is an example that Shri Mahayogi describes in The Universal Gospel of Yoga, which indicates the highest stage of what Jesus taught: “I and my Father are One.”[1] I must say, before reading the part where Shri Mahayogi mentioned this quote of Jesus, “I and my Father are One,” and before learning that this quote is actually a teaching of Jesus, rather than just a statement, I had always thought that Jesus was simply making a declaration; but now, I’ve started to believe that, actually, this is his real experience, and that Jesus shared his experience in order to teach us that, one day, through the practice of the teachings of Truth, we, too, can have the same experience of Oneness with the Truth—which I believe in this statement Jesus calls “the Father.”

-Ekanta

[1] The Universal Gospel of Yoga. “Jesus and His Teachings.”

 

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