Spiritual Values to Win the Shadow.

Many people look for tangible and concrete things in life, but it is important to know that the so-called "abstract values" are even more substantial than those perceived through the senses – the true values which we should refer to in our life, such as compassion, freedom, happiness and Love.
The empiricists are prone to "measure and touch" happiness, to grasp all the things in the world. Such attitude is not an evil in itself, it becomes such when a man ignore his spiritual essence, sometimes even denying it completely. As far as, according to the positivist criterion, happiness is not tangible, in its absence a person falls into the dark malaise and depression.
Thus, lacking the feelings of compassion, charity, devotion to God and affection towards all His creatures, without solidarity with the creation, the experience of love cannot be realized. As a result, one's life turns to be boring and meaningless due to the lack of spiritual awareness.
Why do we make mistakes and suffer so much?
The reason is that we do not cultivate spiritual values sufficiently. Slowly forgetting these real values ​​that substantiate the human life, one tries to compensate such values by attachments to the worldly projects and goods, as illusory as ephemeral. Thus, while creating one's false identity, a man lives in a sort of a perpetual alienation.
In such a state of alienation, oblivious of his spiritual nature and ultimate destination, an individual lose the sense of life. Joy and sorrow, health and disease, birth and death follow each other as impermanent manifestations of existance.
Therefore a spiritual being, incarnated in the material world, despite an overwhelming aspiration for eternity, wisdom and happiness, experiences a considerable frustration, helplessness and fear because of an inability to access the bliss of its ontological nature, while struggling in the duality of the material world.
A wise man does not dream of becoming happy due to the impermanet things of this world. In all the traditions, albeit with different words, it was stated that "man cannot live on bread alone."
If we learn what to desire and how to value our life, we will become happy enjoying every moment of it, in spite of any psychophysical limit. By the grace of God, living in the prospect of immortality and love for God, a man can overcome loneliness and suffering so to experience fulfillment and spiritual satisfaction, always and everywhere.

How to build good relationships

PART II

The loss of awareness of our original essence results in a deep dissatisfaction and inner deterioration. People do not behave in a bad manner because they just wish so, rather because they are dissatisfied within.

How can we help people to feel satisfied?

Sensitiveness is not enough to empathize with the others so knowledge and discipline are required.

What about those people who do not even show sensitiveness?

We may learn to acquire, develop, find sensitiveness, which in Latin is called pietas. Sensitiveness can be found in atman, our spiritual matrix. We cannot trust the mind because when external circumstances change, our mental frame modifies consequently. For this reason we have to help people to start an inner search, to rediscover their real self. In this way, by developing such awareness, we can face the situations that otherwise could have become our limits, according to the changeable circumstances of life.

Our relations should not depend on external circumstances, we ought to learn to overcome them.

A great daily effort within needs to be done if we want to achieve this target. By conquering the inner enemies one after another, we lead ourselves to steadiness, tolerance, peacefulness. By practicing such attitude we learn not to react automatically to events, provocations, offences, abuses.

A person needs to modify one’s point of view. One may wear a heavy shield to protect oneself, but it will not be strong enough because it is only by switching and elevating our point of view that we reach a steady and broad inner confidence.

We miss a great deal of life which cannot be reproduced in the present span of time, if we carry on to identify as real what real is not. By modifying our point of view, our efforts, our dedication towards such an elevated mission will unveil to us the meaning of living.

It is not easy to succeed because we were born with a superficial mental attitude, with prejudices and tendencies acquired through behaviors we have brought back from previous lives. Performance of actions are pressing from our subconscious and lead us to repeat the same old mistakes. Therefore we need great care and attention to avoid circumstances that may put us at risk.

A person does not learn by punishment, rather by improving through education on an ethical and spiritual level, so that one may distinguish and filter between experience and its interpretation and between experience and reaction to events.

Remembering Shrila Prabhupada

 PART II

Due to God's mercy, Shrila Prabhupada was able to undertake the adventurous and difficult missions to satisfy the desire of his Guru Maharaja. He knew how to deal with risks, dangers, loneliness, sickness and temptations... Krishna blessed Shrila Prabhupada with such a success that, while originally owning nothing, his movement gradually reached a huge development, comparable to that of the richest and most envied companies, but even so Shrila Prabhupada remained always the person of the great inner qualities: no pride, no arrogance, no material ambitions or futile interests. He was exactly the same person when He went, with only 40 rupees in his pocket, to America, always dedicated to love for Krishna and for all creatures. Shrila Prabhupada had many talents, he was versatile, with great skills, but He was first and foremost a pure Devotee of the Lord.
He loved everyone, because in Shrila Prabhupada's opinion everyone was a potential devotee. He had always the same mood and the same tone of voice, sometimes He got vibrant, speaking with strong words, sometimes He reprimanded, sometimes He praised, sometimes He was moved, but His interest was always to improve the understanding of the devotees, their health, the image of the Movement. We must unmask the so fashionable artificial way to see an Acarya as detached from everyone and everything. Prabhupada was very interested in the success of the various services, he cared about everything working and running the best way, thus satisfying Krishna and encouraging the spiritual elevation of so many people.
Spiritual life does not mean a cold, detached attitude towards the world, we cannot live without relations, without affection, without empathy, without love. We just have to be careful to those we direct these feelings to. We should not prioritize what calls on the material level, but strive to fulfill our spiritual desires that represent our true essence. Prabhupada had Krishna in His heart and He was always thinking of what he could say or do to bring people closer to God. Krishna had a special relationship with Shrila Prabhupada who had a special relationship with Krishna: this was visible in every activity He had undertaken, either in those particular moments when, for example, He took the initiative to modify a service that maybe was stagnating, or when in the last days of life in this world He was brought in front of the Divinities on a palanquin because He was in a condition of extreme physical weakness and He could no longer walk. In every circumstance Shrila Prabhupada has proved to be a pure devotee of Krishna.
When I read the Bhagavad-gita, chapter twelve, shloka 13 to 20, I see Shrila Prabhupada. I have known many lovely devotees, but Prabhupada is the model for me.
Prabhupada was always connected to Krishna and helped everyone to offer their talents and energies to the service of the Lord.
The most beautiful part of Shrila Prabhupada is his being so devoted!
He was good at many things: a very good cook, a grammarian, a great preacher, a prominent philosopher and scholar; He was expert in playing music and in offering praise to the Lord, but His main feature was the pure and ardent devotion to God and His constant commitment to the spiritual education, in order to help others to become pure devotees of the Lord. Great it was, and surely still is, the satisfaction of Shrila Prabhupada to see people take seriously the path of Bhakti. And this satisfaction is the source of strength to all those devotees who carry Shrila Prabhupada in their heart.
Despite the apparent departure the Acarya lives forever with us, if we live with Him. As Satsvarupa Maharaja says in his book: "He lives forever ..."

The Real Success.

The  experiences of accomplishment that one can reach in her or his lifespan, sometimes can be conflicting with the self-image, possibly being the one of an unconfident person, a weak individual, too reliant on someone else’s opinions. If this self-image will not change, the outer accomplishment will be followed by inner troubles and unsteadiness. This is because the new higher equilibrium is such only when it is achieved with harmony and stability. To avoid this kind of situation one should conceive and support a self-image corresponding to what one would like to be and should be. If one will shape her or his personality in depth, then this person will be psychologically ready when an accomplishment or a better position will be achieved. Conversely, some individuals are afraid of their own success because they have not built yet an objective and positive self-image.

Powerful desires move things and alter reality. A person becomes what she or he craves to be. Egoistical ambitions do not lead to real accomplishment: the apparent success sooner or later will turn into calamity.

The immature management of resources and of desire's energy produces derangement and deep emotional troubles. Any waste and any improper use of the above is the cause of personal failure.

Anything we have: objects, affections, talents, must be employed to reconnect ourselves to the deep divine matrix, the raison d'être and foundation of our existence. If we do not do this, as explained by Shrila Rupa Gosvami, one of the greatest Vedic Tradition Master, anything gets contaminated and turns into poison. 

The perfection of existence (yukta vairagya) can be archived if we are closely connected to the Istha Devata and place all our resources to its service. Ambarisha Maharaja was the sovereign of the world, in spite of this he was not ruling it for his own egoistic enjoyment, but as a tool to serve God.  In order to run suitably that function maturity and awareness were needed, because who has so much energy can do great good things, but, if one is not cautious and do not have uncontaminated motivation in the way this energy is used, can cause great damages and bring harm to himself and everybody nearby. 

The most valuable resources, never to be neglected and never to be abused, are our fellow human beings, with their desires for advancement, their wishes for good, their projects, with their search for self-realization. We should not dare to waste even the smallest bit of their energy, we have to support instead their convergence, channeling, and sublimation toward elevated motivations of real good and real success. Sublimation will be possible if we encourage for taking a solid commitment for spiritual activities, with an active and energetic service offered with awareness and dedication to our spiritual Master and the Istha Devata. According to one of the most important and recurrent Shrila Prabhupada’s statements: "Bhakti Yoga is not just an idle meditation". Nor meditation means escaping from the world.

 Authentic meditation inspires and motivates actions in the world, and it is able to solve real problems, to disentangle knots that grew in the mind. Authentic meditation does not evade or remove practical problems: it resolves them. It is based on the consciousness of spiritual matrix of all things, and the understanding of the subtlest psychological phenomena: how minds get entangled or stuck, and how it is possible to jump-start them, reactivate them, and purify them.

The Great Departure.

Dear devotees, please accept my obeisances;

All glories to Shrila Prabhupada and Shri Shri Radha Govinda Deva.

Jaya Shri Shri Nityananda Gauranga!

Jaya Shri Jagannath, Shri Baladeva, Subhadra Maharani Shrimati!

I hope to find you in good health and spiritually inspired.

Some days ago my dear disciple - Omkrishna Mataji - left the body and this mortal world and headed for the supreme eternal abode of Shri Krishna.

The two sons, daughters in law and grandchildren attended to her all the time in high spiritual consciousness, lovingly and with devotion.

Besides being herself a sincere devotee, Omkrishna Mataji had the great blessing in this life to live in a family of special devotees, all of them very dear to me.

One of her sons was next to her at the very moment she passed away, and has accompanied and sustained her by chanting uninterruptedly the Holy Names.

My most fervent prayers go to this disciple so dear to me, who was always cheerful, playful and joyful, who was so moved every time we met, and I’m also asking you to pray for her too.

I pray she can soon play happily in the company of Lord Krishna and His eternal companions and friends.

With deep emotion,

Matsyavatara dasa

School of Life: How to Learn from Good and from Evil.

The Sacred Texts tell us that without receiving mercy from the Spiritual Master and from the Supreme God it's impossible to overcome for good the egoistic attachment toward mundane things. In order to succeed, not only we need to have received divine benevolence, we must have kept it too.

In which way we can receive mercy? Firstly by seeking it ardently, and behaving consequently, by dedicating ourselves with diligence and faith to spiritual practices and so awaken Love and Awareness.

And in which way we can keep it? By offering it to others. Then and only then, through constant and coherent efforts toward achieving Bhakti in our lifespan, we will be increasingly able to discriminate reality from illusion, the essence from appearance, the eternal from ephemeral.

Mice see the cheese but not the trap. In the same way conditioned souls see the promises of pleasure in this world's things, but hardly can understand that this pleasure hides a trap. A mortal trap.

How to be detached from the world and its overwhelming beauties? How can we resist when we see something appealing, pleasing, good smelling and shining? We should think about it in connection to God. It is difficult to deny this world; the more we deny it the more we are attracted to it, risking to become hypocrites who refuse the world's attractions outwardly while inwardly craving them (Bhagavad-gita III.6). Therefore we should not refuse this material world's beautiful things, but to use them to serve God with Love, correlating them to our spiritual origin, and living them in the vision of eternity. Accordingly, in any circumstance of our life we can connect to the Lord and to our deepest spirituality. Even bitter experiences, the biting words we received, the mistakes we made, at the end can turn into gifts, only if we can learn from the lessons they offer us. Gratitude and appreciation can permeate everybody and everything appear in this world, because we make use of every experience to get closer to God.

This gratitude can be felt and can be expressed both when we receive "good things", and when we get "bad things", being conscious that the light of the day cannot be appreciated without the night's darkness.

As you would expect, it is necessary that we learn how to discriminate between vice and virtue, between good and evil, so we can choose once far all righteousness and be firm in sattva-guna, but also we must be aware that Reality is beyond. It is that pure spiritual dimension in which mundane good and evil are transcended, and they merge in the "sommum bonum": the supreme goodness beyond duality. And supreme goodness is unconditioned pure Love that change and purify everything. Such dimension can be reached when any desire we have becomes an offering to the Lord and all our perceptions are dedicated to His service.

By living in this perspective we will find treasures around each corner, hidden in any occurrence of our life. And we will walk toward death full of gratitude because we understood that by practicing Bhakti even death leads us to life.

Pilgrimage: a Journey of Search and Discovery.

Part I

A pilgrimage is a journey in search of the Divine inside and outside us.

It does not take place within a physical space, rather it occurs in one's mind and consciousness. Its most intimate purpose is a deep purification of the heart, of the intellect, of the memory, and of our being in its wholeness. If we live the Pilgrimage deeply and authentically, it may represent a turning point, a special experience, that, due to an extraordinary combination of elements, favouring the purification of consciousness, may allow us a sudden advancement, which possibly we would have not been able to achieve even through a number of  previous lives.

According to the Indovedic literature, the spiritual vitality of the pilgrimage location is related to the daily renovation of its sanctity by the holy people living there.

In the Shrimad Bhagavatam this concept is explained very clearly: they believe that holy people themselves are pilgrimage places. In the first canto of this wonderful masterpiece,  King Yudhisthira says to the great sage Vidura:

“Noble soul, the devotee who have the qualities of Your Divine Grace are themselves regarded as pilgrimage places. As you bring God in your heart wherever you go, the places you visit become holy places” (I.13.10)

When we enter a sacred place, in Sanskrit called tirtha, we meet the Divine (murti) and awaken people, sadhu, and this way, if we incline ourselves  properly, we can be pervaded by a great spiritual power, the same energy that permeates those places, behaviours and gestures of ancient sacred value.  This spiritual energy, which, in holy places, is brilliant and vibrating, can strengthen us in order to improve our personality and our changes in life, that, otherwise, we would have  never accomplished for lack of will and courage. Like a magnet that energy and spiritual strength attracts our  deepest thoughts and feelings, our ideal aspirations,  and brings us along a path of wonderful search for rediscovering ourselves, the origins of our life, and our highest realization.

First of all the pilgrimage place is an instrument to acquire virtue and knowledge, not a “horizontal” knowledge, limited to the things of this world, but a “vertical” knowledge that rises up to the highest pinnacles of awareness. For this reason we consider a pilgrimage like a journey between the earth and the sky: from the earth it takes us to the sky and from the sky it brings us back to earth, transferring in our daily life the intuitions, the comprehensions, and the realizations that we have experienced, welcomed, and harboured during the Journey.

All the efforts and inconveniences connected to travelling are part of the path of elevation. They should not to be seen as obstacles, rather they are extraordinary opportunities to overcome our limits, to dispose of  illusions and attachments. When we travel, it is easier to understand that none of the things outside of us belong to us. Who can claim to own wealth? Can we have power over youth or health? For how long? Those resources are given to us for a brief length of time and their quality and evolving utility depends on how we use them. Who can say “I possess a body”?  In truth, we are not even the owners of our body, and if we want to keep it forever, we would not be able to do it: it would be impossible. Sooner o later it will be taken away from us regardless of our will. We do not own whatever is outside us, we can only take care of it temporarily. However the soul and its powers belong to us, and they are inalienable and immensely great: the knowledge of the truth, the joy of the self, the nature of eternity. The essence of  life is to regain awareness of those intrinsic qualities we have lost, choked by the conditionings, and the contaminations of our character. During the Journey each one of us has the rare opportunity to achieve the discovery of the soul’s treasures.

Furthermore the journey exhorts us for a continuous effort of discerning, to separate virtuosity from vice, reality from illusion, sacredness from profane, the inner world from the outside world, aimed to avoid the mistake of exchanging the pure from the impure and vice versa. Holy places are not meant to be seen with your own eyes, we need to predispose ourselves with an elevated consciousness and visit them with the company of people who live and search santity, otherwise we run the risk to limit our vision at the physical level, and to be confused by external appearances.

The sacred place is a state of mind, not a physical reality. It is the reality of the soul where there is genuine love, control over impulses, caring for each other, awareness of the presence of God. During our pilgrimage in sacred places we may come across holy scenes, moments of eternal sacredness, but also situations of degradation and low civilization, exactly like one person may harbour elevated expressions of geniality and kindness together with abysses of degradation. This is why it is fundamental to develop and keep a clear vision about brightness and darkness, without letting slip from memory what is holy just because we saw what is not holy, taking a distance from the degradation only because it is often placed next to what is sacred.

For this reason, in order to feel the spirit of a holy place with this high sense of discernment, it is fundamental to be in company of people motivated like us, sharing the same purposes, and even better - with people who are already able to perceive the essence separated from what is redundant and superficial, via the teachings of the sacred scriptures.

Why are we lonely?

The search of love usually starts with a feeling of  loneliness, it is not just a problem of physical company, rather of awareness and inner power. Loneliness originates from a fragmented psychological image which as a consequence produces a kind of separation of a person from other people, from all the creatures, from the world and its Creator.

The solution of the problem of loneliness  is not to be found in a partner, so as to compensate the fear of being alone, nor it can be found  through the greedy possession of luxury items, nor through holidays as an “escape from reality”, nor by diving into a crowd of people, nor by burning out through a job that does not bring any satisfaction, nor by following religious principles in a conservative and passive sort of way. It will work instead, by starting to love people around us sincerely, without any selfish interest, with an attitude to expand even more the circle of love – never secluded to a single exclusive species –  and in doing so gradually heal our feelings of loneliness, uncertainty and frustration.

The charming prince or the fairy with turquoise hair of the fairy tales, that will love and trust us, will unlikely appear unless we start to appreciate and love everybody else. After all  love is not something that lands on us accidentally: we experience and grow it with the attitude and the behavior of our daily life. By learning to relate with the persons around us with love, and making this mind-set a life practice - since to feel affection is a potential capability of all living beings - by practising love this quality develops and becomes an effective ability to love.

Paradoxically enough, if nowadays couple relationships do not last it is because love is not considered as a priority any more, but other aims are being focused on: useful and comfortable means like gratification of senses,  social and economical status. But love requires respect of the beloved as a spiritual essence, as a unique person; only in this way we may be able to help the others to realize their potential values, and find deep satisfaction by rediscovering and expressing the best version of themselves. For this reason love means knowing the other deeply.

Love and thus the solution of the problem of loneliness, is the ripe fruit of a conscious, active and dynamic effort towards reaching our deep self until we experience a real feeling of communion and reunion within diversity, by appreciating the peculiarities of each person, without falling in affectionate dependency or strong attachments. We can share something with the others only when we really possess it. 

Love relationship, when thoroughly experienced, reaches its height in the realization of our relationship with God, the unique source of the variety of human beings and all that exists, being the source of love itself.

Love is a universal and indispensable quid, an intrinsic  modality of the being, that must be neither denied nor repressed, rather oriented and gradually elevated towards constructive evolutionary levels. Within love, the female and male features try to unite in order to find again the fulfilment and deep satisfaction in order to integrate themselves. By reaching maturity such integration may be conceived on the individual level as well.

How Can I Become a Peacemaker?

Part II

Every religious tradition, if  authentically lived, conveys a universal vision because it teaches, even though in different fashions and manners, that nothing is separated from the rest, that each part is connected to the whole and that the whole is connected to each part. The term “religion” comes from the Latin "religere" which means ‘gather, unite’, the same as the word yoga derives from the Sanskrit root yuj having the same meaning: ‘connect, unite’. Without Yoga, without the reconnection between the individual consciousness to the cosmic Consciousness, peace cannot be sustained because we can realize it only when the person has acquired a deep awareness of the marvellous subtle network we are part of, when we perceive the common Source that all is connected to the whole and that our well-being implies the well-being of the others. 
Love for God is the highest warrant of peace because loving God means to love all living beings too, by considering the common origin and the indissoluble reunion with Him. One of the fundamental texts of Indovedic spirituality, Bhagavad-gita (V.29) explains that peace is reached by those who, through the recognition of  God as the beneficiary of  all sacrifices and of all austerities and the Supreme friend of all human beings, offer their service and their pure devotion to Him. The essence of Bhagavad-gita is bhakti or love for God that includes love for the world and all the creatures, as expansions (and Epiphany) of the Absolute. In this tradition the value of ahimsa or “non-violence”  is not intended solely in the respect of human beings, rather in the respect of all living creatures because compassion, solidarity and mercy cannot be and must not be reserved to a sole race or a biological specie. The path that leads to peace follows inevitably the way of consciousness,  because its vision is not seen apart from a universal vision, indeed it is aware that there are indissoluble ties that unite mankind to wholeness.
The progressive understanding of this union and a conduct coherent to it, contribute to the diffusion of the harmony among all creatures. This exercise of comprehension should be developed in the respect and appreciation of every authentic path, on the laic and religious levels,  with the awareness that there are different modes and multiple ways to approach progressively the holy Reality that is the essence of all that exists, in all its infinite manifestations, that is revealed as the Divine as supreme source of life, superior principle of harmonization, unity and peace.

The Help Everyone Needs

The path of spiritual evolution is marked by different phases, breakthroughs,  deviations and stagnations, falls, imprisonments and  progressive liberations.
Even the man who has testified the important improvements on the path of spiritual realization and is sincere in his intention to evolve, is still bound to make mistakes and therefore is subject to karmic conseguences due to the remaining unsolved conditionings. 
However it is at the time of crisis that a person needs our affection more than ever, needs our help through comprehension  and forgiveness in order to try once again and overcome the limits, that had been structured in the numerous past lives.
As I have been observing for decades, the persons meet a lot of difficulties along the path of evolution, and it is rare that one proceeds steadily and coherently, rather everyone makes steps backwards and forwards according to one's peculiar characteristics: the individuals most advanced in the inner growth are those who make more steps forwards than backwards.
Through their walking towards spiritual love and perfection all these souls in the prakriti world need encouragement, most of all when they are in the process of rolling back. A sincere help received at the most crucial moments of life is the best call in order to carry on along the right path.

The Abysses of the Mind and the Highest Peaks of Consciousness (part 2/2). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

Although at times it seems to have no reasons to fall into a crevasse, we can witness that the gap is real for whom can perceive it. The same goes for the ecstatic experience which is usually ignored to the majority of people, but for the great personalities who has realized themselves, it may become a permanent reality, which in a single brush erases all the world attachments together with the taste for the sense gratification. One doesn't reach that experience by mere comprehension or due to the limited human efforts; it thus manifests thanks to the divine mercy and it is the divine mercy that helps us to get out of the crevasse: combined to our our personal effort, it brings clearness within us and start  to make the river of life flow again. In this way our happiness will also start to flow again freely, with no more obstacles of the past choices.   We cannot live lofty experiences at present if in the past we failed to recognize the existence of the crevasse with its characteristics, consciously choosing the way that takes us to the enlightened Hill, to the highest Sky, just like Virgilio explains  to Dante at the beginning of the Divine Commedy and like Krishna  says to Arjuna oppressed by a deep existential crisis at the beginning of the Bhagavad-gita. One does not fall into the crevasse at once, nor he reaches the peak in an instance. Such high ascent is the result of a constant work turned to avoid and correct the mistakes promptly, to coordinate all the efforts with the purpose to evolve and animated by the honest desire of spiritual self-realization.
Enviousness,  jealousy, lust, greed, anger, craving for fame – these are all the ropes that make one drift down the crevasse. On the other hand, mercy, compassion, humility, patience, forgiveness help to ascend. Those spiritual qualities, typical of authentic brahmanas, are the most elevated qualities to develop;  that is why the brahmanas who coherently practice and live them should not be submitted to power because these qualities represent the highest target. In Bhagavad-gita XVIII. 42 Krishna describes the main qualities from which many others originate; those who wish to reach the highest peaks of consciousness  do not have to learn them just by heart, but to catch the essence, how they are lived and taught.
Those qualities should become our nature, should enter each part of our being, in order to transfer ourselves gradually  from tamas to rajas, from rajas to sattva guna; only then we will avoid the risk of falling down the crevasse and our journey will be an evolution in progress towards the highest peaks of Bhakti, empowered with faithful and devoted love for Krishna. The practice of Bhakti is the most powerful instrument of evolution that allows us to develop the qualities described before and, in its greatest expansion, it is the highest  spiritual peak to reach. In the journey towards supreme Bhakti, authentic love and happiness increase step by step.

The Abysses of the Mind and the Highest Peaks of Consciousness (part 1/2). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

Sometimes in life human beings make rather difficult, painful experiences, in which people seem to fall into a crevasse, an abyss, very close to annihilation; there are then, most seldom, other people who touch brightening peaks, with an extraordinary expansion of consciousness in which they experience – even though for a few moments – an irrepressible happiness. In the middle, between these two positions, stand the great majority of humanity that carry on an ordinary mediocrity.

Very often I witnessed the experience of the abyss among many people I met, who had asked me for help. A couple of times, between the age of 10 and 30, I found myself on the brink of the abyss, I was at risk, but thanks to the divine mercy I was supported and saved from that devastating experience. Such experience doesn't manifest itself in one's life out of conscious intention but because of a series of factors that have been produced by one's own thoughts, deeds and motivations. We can learn to foresee and recognize it from a series of features, symbols, signs and warnings, related to its original causes. I feel very much sympathetic towards people who happen to face this experience of the abyss, the black whole, a total disorientation; the person feels like drifting downward and there is no end to the crevasse. In that condition of consciousness there is no way to get any better, but only to get worse. Who wishes to do so, may accept my reflection to question oneself and try to understand if and how often, one has found oneself in life on the brink of the abyss, or close to it, when and how he managed to avoid the collapse.

By describing this state of consciousness, I would use the following metaphor: the river of life that suddenly stops flowing. Water remains still and runs no longer. There seems to be real obstacles to cause the obstruction, but they are mainly produced by the doer of that experience. It is the person itself that creates its crevasse and falls into it. Can the elevating experience be also the result of inner projections? I would be inclined to confirm and approve both statements because there is a strong logic link to it, but thinking on this delicate theme, through praying and meditating, I could deepen my comprehension as follows. We are to decide which direction to take, either into the crevasse or towards the peak, however the crevasse and the pike exist, they represent a possibility, it is up to us to decide whether to accept or refuse either one or the other. According to my comprehension, the Shastra and the Sadhu teach that abysses and peaks exist independently from us, but we make them happen in our life by everyday choices. Either a period of mourning, or the death of a child which is a desolating loss for a mother, or for the sake of our ego, any person may fall into an abyss, but the same person can also choose to transform that event in a precious and saving opportunity in order to reach the highest peaks of consciousness.

Action or Renunciation (part 2/2). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

The perfection of renunciation

In Bhagavad-Gita Krishna explains that the perfection of renunciation is not a simple physical detachment from the objects of the senses, but rather an emotional detachment from them (vayragya).

Tyaga is a first phase which must necessarily be exceeded in order to mature the real detachment, the emotional one, because an artificial detachment from things and people while going on longing for them, is a behavior that Krishna defines with the term “hypocrite.” (Bhagavad-gita III.6)

Therefore a true success in renunciation can only be achieved by getting rid of the egoistic desires and regarding this point there is an important teaching of Krishna:  “Both parting with action and the devotional action lead to the path of liberation but, of the two, devotional action is better”. (Bhagavad-gita V.2)  

The mere avoiding of the objects of the senses is a hard way that is not sufficient to achieve perfection (Bhagavad-gita III.4); transformation and sublimation of desire is possible by undertaking  the evolutionary path that starts from tyaga (physical detachment), passes through vairagya (emotional detachment) and reaches Bhakti (a devotional action offered to God).

The final teaching of Bhagavad-gita describes the best form of renunciation, that is, the action performed without egoistic motivation or attachment to its results, but in a pure spirit of love and service to the Supreme Lord. This highest form of renunciation is defined yukta-vairagya, the renunciation of the one who, having purified one's consciousness, offers everything to God. 

Such a devotional action performed in Bhakti spirit leads to transformation and sublimation of all the energies of the being, and thus it is considered even superior to renunciation, as it allows the human being to taste the complete and blissful relationship with God that can not be experienced due to a simple renunciation. 

Krishna exhorts Arjuna: “Perform your duty in order to satisfy Vishnu and you will stay forever free from the conditionings of the matter” (Bhagavad-gita III.9).

Bhagavad-gita teaches an attitude far both from an illusory identification with the immanence (the “world” and the  “flesh” of the Gospel), and from some abstract spirituality that denies the matter and neglects the physical body. 

Krishna urges to act efficiently, fully and with detachment, but without a desire for power and possession, a sacred action offered to God with joyful devotion.

In Taoist terms, it suggests a dynamic balance of opposites, action and inaction, obtained due to the superior knowledge that allows to live fully in the material world fulfilling one's duties without pseudo-meditative evasions and, at the same time, to be open to a real meditative dimension, that is meta-historical and meta-temporal one, of communion with the Divine.

Action or Renunciation. (part 1/2) By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

The Art of Perfect Action

In the third and fifth chapters of Bhagavad-gita Krishna explains to his disciple Arjuna the art of  perfect action.

The perfection of action – karma yoga – can not be reached unless one obtains a clear understanding and a proper discernment of what is beneficial and what is harmful for the spiritual evolution of the individual, that is why the right behavior, or acara, can be achieved only if the right knowledge, jnana, has already been acquired. Jnana can be completed and improved only with a proper practice that leads to vijnana, realized knowledge, the wisdom: the knowledge transformed in action and applied with creativity in the right time, in the right place and under the right circumstances. 

Bhagavad-gita answers to a complex question raised by Arjuna to Krishna: what is better - action or renunciation?

Krishna, in an admirable way, explains that it is impossible to give up acting completely: in reality the so-called inaction does not exist. Everyone in the world is inevitably obliged to act, there is no life without action, even a single breath implies some movement, by a rhythm which is integral to life (B.g. III.5). As Krishna states everybody acts according to the tendencies acquired during the previous life experiences; even the wise cannot refrain from action, not even for a moment, but his way of acting is completely different in nature compared to the one who is unaware of true knowledge and whose motivation is impure.

Krishna urges Arjuna with the following words: “Carry out your duty as action is better than inaction. Without acting the man is unable even to maintain his body” (B.g. III.8).

Therefore renunciation should be understood not just as a complete abstention from acting – that would be impossible – but as an abstention from the impure activities, that implies avoiding the objects of the senses (tyaga), people and experiences that can lead us astray from our spiritual path.

Once Arjuna has understood this important teaching, Krishna reveals higher truth and, in the fifth chapter, declares that both renunciation from action and devotional action lead to liberation but, of the two, the devotional action is better.

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.

The Science of Meditation (part 5). By Matsyavatara dasa (Marco Ferrini)

In the Veda “Vac” is the root-word that creates the Worlds. It is so, as we reveal our mood with the use of words and they must be as true as possible, since before deceiving others we deceive ourselves. The word, as the action, is however just an exterior manifestation of an inside process, the process of reflection, vicara, of thought and before it of desire. In the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad it is explained that “Man is nothing else but desire”. Thus, it is essential to select one’s desires, since quite a few reside in the unconscious: “an entire herd of pawing horses” quoting Plato. We are supposed to orientate and direct these unconscious drives, as soon as they are crossing the threshold to consciousness or conscious thought, becoming thus aware. Our temperament is the result of a concatenation of desires, thoughts, reflections, words, actions, repeated actions that involve an interaction of more or less emotional factors, becoming tendencies, salient features of our character that incites the actions to take, if we do not funnel it in the right way. In order to act upon these quasi-unconscious phases, it is necessary to accede the dimension that resides beyond the threshold of awareness; there are different ways to do it as meditation, prayer and dreams that Freud indicates as “the royal road to the unconscious”. All these ways can help us in exploring our internal dimension and expanding the lightness of our consciousness, thus restricting the darkness of the unconscious, as well as of the unknown, leading us to a deeper acquaintance with ourselves. The application of these techniques requires different theoretical and practical areas of knowledge, that can be experienced in daily life. Meditation experience can endure while talking, walking, eating, sleeping: we do not meditate just when we sit in a crossed-leg posture. But to reach a constant meditative state and to be always aware about our deep nature and its interaction with the phenomenal exterior, we need to consider some aspects: first that our psyche is like an arena, where titanic oposing forces are continually raging and struggling. 

Sometimes these are entropic tendencies, sometimes they are syntropic, evolutive or devolutive ones, good or bad for health. Through the potency of the mythical language, it can be defined as the ceaseless fight between Good and Evil. There are several obstacles to meditation; Patanjali outlines these obstacles, like distraction, vikshipta, obfuscation and blunting of consciousness, the lowering of attention, mudha, whereas a selective attention is fundamental to succeed in meditative practice.

Another central aspect we have to consider about meditation concerns the individuality. Every individual is peculiar to himself, everybody is an individual with his own path, there is no sameness within these terms, since everyone has a human story and personal experiences.

According to the three modes of material nature and the work associated with them, the four divisions of human society are created by Me. And although I am the creator of this system, you should know that I am yet the nondoer, being unchangeable.

When the subject, the spiritual being, leaves his physical body he travels incorporated in a psychic bubble constituted by samskara and vasana; the strongest tendencies will particularly determine the nature of next birth, consequently the place, the belonging to a certain species and other factors related to a new material body designed to be inhabited by that particular jiva.

The psychic structure differs by the experiences we carry forward from our previous lives and, life after life, it determines different births also for monozygotic twins, what about “simple” brothers, fellow countrymen, compatriots or people who shares the same culture. The influence of the three archetypal forces, guna, that compose the material nature, prakriti, and the background of recent or less recent past actions, karma, are individually different, therefore, when a person wishes to start a meditation practice it is suggestible to get acquainted with him/her personally, since they should be assisted and introduced in a special manner, peculiar to them and according to their guna and karma. If the individuality, the specificity of that particular model of personality, is unique, then liberty should be conceived as its natural corollary. No practice can deprive individuals of their liberty and no Master shall deny liberty to his disciples. There shall not be any induced suggestion, but obedience related to free will to accept an offer from a model considered pre-eminent by the individual. In this relationship the liberty of the meditator must always be respected, because the person will be able to meditate to the extent that he or she will be free. Certainly, he will make mistakes, he will not avoid to be subject to mental automatism typical of who knows how many past lives, he will not immediately succeed to renounce and get beyond all obstacles, like mind conditioning, a certain habit, food or beverage, a relationship etc… but if we know the positive sense of liberty and recognize the specificity of that pattern of transitory personality, then the individual will be free to express himself accordingly to his or her consciousness level, without any destructive imposition, but rather by offers infused with the pure spirit of bhakti, loving relationship, prema, with an affective investment, as Love by definition does not need any counterpart, it is self-sufficient. Another important factor in meditation is the social integration, not with a corporatist meaning, much less of caste. Social integration means the capability of harmonic interaction, constructive, evolutive and with all creatures, the attitude to valorize any creature, whether they are birds, reptiles, fishes and what about men, potential travel companions from whom we may learn, in order to grow and develop spiritually. In a certain sense, all that can fall within one of the most important abstentions Patanjali indicates: Nonviolence, ahimsa. Finally, one fundamental element for an effective meditation practice is the spiritual tension, that irrepressible need every human being has to apply and orientate towards ideality. Meditation cannot prescind from the necessity we have to realize our Inner Identity.