Ruler of the castle of nine gates. By Matsyavatara das (Marco Ferrini)

An evolutionary journey requires a conscious use of our senses, at the risk of being trapped by the illusory nature of our perception of reality: our energy may thus be absorbed by that of the objects around us and the psychological pressure they exert on the mind (vritti). Every action we enact produces a tendency that is enforced through repetition: these repetitions develop into habits that ingrain attachments that are difficult to dismiss. Hence the relevance of carefully selecting our experiences.

In the Bhagavad-gita, Krishna  (V.5/13) encourages Arjuna to become the ruler of the castle of nine gates: the body is the castle and the nine gates are represented by the orifices that connect him to the outer world.

Body and mind are a laboratory where we can experiment elevating our goals: “you where not meant to live like brutes but to follow virtue and knowledge” (Dante’s Inferno Canto XXVI).

Nature (alias prakriti) is actually an expression of the spirit and should be a tool for evolution rather than quagmire that absorbs us in its quicksands.

Spirit and matter are not oppository within the conscience of those who have attained spiritual realization. Thus all that is created, all creatures and the Creator represent an undivided triad. It is a single entity that splinters and diffuses itself in infinite expressions. We must experience our knowledge of reality with a proviso: that reality may not become a tomb for our soul. 

If we are unconnected to superior values we are consumed by vices or by whatever we have come to depend upon simply because it conditions us.

The Bhagavad-gita teaches the art of being rigorous, self controlled, wilful and determined: to what avail?

The aim is to rediscover our primeval condition of knowledge, eternity and bliss. Yet even this understanding alone is inadequate because we need to put these qualities into daily practice so as to prevent them from becoming an abstract and purely theoretical knowledge that alienates us from society and the human adventure. 

Deep-rooted and authentic wisdom leads to compassion, solidarity with all creatures and to the extraordinary experience of sharing and Love.

The Science of Meditation (part 6). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

The principles of liberty, justice and love are irrepressible and everyone tends to realize them, hence, insofar we dedicate ourselves to developing our idealities, we act ecologically for our environment; it means that we do not just help people who live with us, but the environment in general and we integrate ourselves into Humanity and with all Creatures. This ideality can be initially experienced in a sporadic way with the practice of occasional meditation, but it should become a whole life modality daily constant, in order to reach the perfection of meditation.

Perfection does not exist from a human perspective, but what exists is a tending toward, moving toward, nevertheless there is no need to fear for taking action and to think that, since we are not perfect, our action will be imperfect. Anyway, it will be imperfect, but if we take first steps in the right direction and move toward perfection, each step will carry us back into the essential, inner happiness with full satisfaction, santosha, and contentment, tushti, that make the person extremely tolerant and humble. Regardless of social position, heralds or uniform and colors we wear, what determines the level of realization we can reach are our humbleness and tolerance. For this reason, awareness and wisdom should be transformed in emotional detachment, detaching ourselves not just from what is aimless, but from what is harmful and is an obstacle on the path to evolution. The first level of detachment to be realized is to retract senses from their objects (pratyahara), in order to avoid that senses become like wild horses, without any violent opposition or repression, but converting them into an evolutionary path, useful for our inner growth. This renunciation is not a brutal deprivation dictated by dogmatism or prejudice, on the contrary, it is an appealing and effective abstention we practice naturally when we have been given something superior: the incarnated soul can abstain from sense enjoyment, although the craving (for sense enjoyment) remains. But if the soul becomes detached by experiencing the superior pleasure, it will remain steady in the spiritual consciousness.

Translated literally from Sanskrit param means “superior” and drishtva “having seen”: when we will develop a superior vision, we can renounce an inferior one. We do not have to fear inhibition: some cerebral areas, as well as some organs in the body, are inhibited when we do something requiring to focus our attention. It is certainly not such kind of inhibition that may block our evolutionary path, on the contrary it is something we can dominate by ourselves, so we can deal with it in a sensible and expert way when we give up something inferior for a superior benefit. This act can be called asceticism, in Sanskrit tapas, that is our capability to renounce with a volitional act, with deliberated intention, something inferior for something better. It involves an extraordinary coherence and a plan to achieve liberation from conditioning, thus to dissolve virulent samskara that affect the individual behavior. The resulting benefit is extended to all those feelings of guilt and complexes that populate our unconscious, which stemmed at some point in our lives and in our existential history, thus dissolving negative effects and setting the individual free from the imprisonment suffered till then. Although meditation does not exhaust itself in the meaning of ascetism, the latter constitutes a detail that cannot be overlooked; it is associated both to prayers an right acts for the benefit of all creatures, harming as little as possible (ahimsa), for example by living on natural and wholesome food, that involves minimum of violence: cereals, vegetables and legumes. So, our aim should be to provide an ongoing way to structure our lives, focusing on the highest evolutionary level in this segment of existence, consequently striving for a more evolved physical body in our successive live. The Vishnu Purana explains there are 400.000 varieties of evolutionary human species, like human, subhuman, superhuman, saints and brigands, various types as much as there are various psychic structures and related chthonic impulses arising from the unconscious. These drives can affect individual behavior, they can dominate a person inexorably and, when destructive and antisocial, lead him or her to commit horrible crimes. To know that some of these forces could be irrepressible and beyond an individual’s own control, has made possible in the Jurisprudence context that similar cases are not be condemned to prison but treated in Judiciary Psychiatric Hospitals. Anyhow, before arriving to such extreme and severely compromised situations, there are prophylaxis and preventive treatments focused on resolving, that can be applied. Meditation practice is associated to them and represents a concrete example.