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Ask the Yogi: Questions and Answers |
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This is the Q&A part of our site designed to discuss any insights or questions that you might have. After your question or statement is submitted, it may appear with the other questions listed below. You can also go down and see one of the previously asked questions. Then we encourage you to go to our community forum and join in on a topic being discussed, or start your own topic. All are welcome! |
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| Q: What do you think about the war on terror? A: Terrorists are like a member of a gang or the mob. They don’t represent any country, and like the mob they often live off the heroin market. They use violence and secrecy to accomplish their objective of fear and control. If all the nations of the world would donate troops and support in an effort to eradicate the terrorists. And inhuman administrations must also be addressed if a violation of basic civil rights is denied to its people. It shouldn’t be a question of whether a government is more socialistic, capitalistic, or communistic; today most governments are a combination of these. In a free society as long as the people decide what form of government they want, it’s really a question of what works best for them? The days of the brutal dictator are nearing an end. The world is becoming so small that any brutality in another country nowadays, is like what domestic violence next door used to be like. As humanity, we must strive for a life free of misery for all people everywhere. Hopefully someday no child will go to bed hungry, and no person or animal will be treated cruelly. And maybe we’ll even stop destroying the earth for our future generations. back to questions
| Q: What is self-realization? A: When you inquire as to ‘who you are,’ you see that you are not your body, your memories, where you live, and so forth. While you may identify with these things, they are not really the unchanging innermost you. These things are all constantly coming and going. However, you are you, no matter what age, the condition of your body, where you are, or what country you are in. As this search continues, and you eliminate everything that you ultimately are not, in the end you are left with a non-local free floating awareness. Perhaps you have heard the analogy of an onion; it’s like peeling the skin of an onion, layer by layer, until you find that there is nothing left inside! You eventually see that you are nothing but this awareness, a silent witness. You are simply witnessing this drama that we call our lives. You see that it isn’t really you in the real sense of who you are; who you thought you were is a character that has a role in this drama. The character exists because it thinks it does, and that is all. Through this focusing of our attention on certain characteristics, a person is conceived of. If, however, you look beyond the temporary conditions, you can see that it is actually the Eternal essence, or Holy Spirit, just pretending to be someone. In truth, God has become everything. Any ‘thing’ has only to go just beyond its self-conception to witness this fact. As long as we are caught up in our own Character (characteristics), we fail to see that we are also actually the consciousness to this drama. The seers tell us that all we need to do is remove what we aren’t, and then we are left with what we are- which is neverending. The secret is; when you are nothing (no-thing), you are the awareness of it all. back to questions
| Q: If everyone’s inner spirit is equally enlightened, why do people behave so differently? A: I like this analogy; what if you had three 100-watt light bulbs, and the first one you wrap in clear cellophane. The next one you tie a paper bag over it. The third one you put two paper bags over it. The bulb is just as bright in each case, but you can see perhaps no illumination from the bulb with two bags over it. With the bulb with one bag you can clearly see some illumination through the bag. You can see, however, the most illumination from the bulb wrapped in cellophane. Here, the bags represent our layers of conditioning, or mental and emotional baggage. It represents just how thick our egos are. If you are heavily conditioned, dealing with many layers of prejudice, then you experience less of your own illumination. As you start removing all your layers of conditioning- it’s that part of you who thinks you are a man who has a history, a past, your memory, and your thoughts. As we are busy being that person, we fail to see that we are really a free spirit, and that our ego is just this character in a play. In this analogy, when you remove all your conditioning down to nothing more than a very transparent ego, you have reduced yourself to nothing; you become your most brilliant, like a Jesus or a Buddha. back to questions
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| Q: How do we find lasting peace according to the eastern scriptures? A: Is there a YOU that is at peace and free now, that isn't dependent on anything? The answer in eastern religion is "yes;" it is the Soul that sees what is, and is completely unaffected by it. It understands what is, and is not swayed by the wants of the ego. When your ego lets-go of trying to perpetuate any specific idea about yourself, or defending yourself, or projecting anything at all, then you can experience a clear pure awareness. In this state there is complete peace and freedom. Here you see that things are what they are. Everything is what it is, and it is only what it is right now. When all your present desires momentarily cease, you see that you don't have to worry or be concerned about anything. You see that your ego, however, is what is determined to do all sorts of things; and is convinced that something must be done to insure the fulfillment of its expectations. Your inner awareness, however, also sees your ego and realizes that this is how the ego is designed to function. It sees that the ego is the subjective part of our psyche. It is operating on its own selective perception of reality. It is caught, so to speak, in a version of reality so that it interprets things in a specific way that is of interest to itself. It can even get into augments or conflicts with others who doesn't support its version of reality. It feels that it must support its own version of reality to feel justified; if justified, it feels validated in being who it has decided to be. Because of this relationship, it is seldom that the ego experiences inner peace for very long at a time. back to questions
| Q: Why do some religions believe in many Gods, like the Greeks and the Hindus, and Christians believe in only one God A: In the Bible they also accepted that there were other Gods. When Moses was with the Pharaoh, he never said that the Pharaoh didn't have his own God. He just said that his own God was superior and more mighty than the Pharaoh’s God. Even the commandment says "thou shall have no other Gods before thee." It doesn't say that there are no other Gods? In the Bible there are many references to people having different Gods, it just says that Jehovah, or Yawyay was the supreme God. Hinduism also believes in many Gods, but they also have a supreme God called “Brahman." Both religions believe that there is one supreme God. Just as Christianity says that Jesus was God in the flesh, and that God became manifest in Jesus; Hinduism says that they have had several messiahs like Jesus, such as Krishna or Rama. They also accept Jesus as a God-man, but they include these others as well. back to questions
| Q: What is the difference between what Christians say about the afterlife, and what is said in Eastern religion? A: Christians believe in an afterlife, and coming face-to-face with God (judgment day) after death. After then it is off to heaven or hell. The Hindus believe in the same thing, except they believe that being born and dying happens to us many times. Hinduism agrees with Christianity on the existence of an afterlife, but it says that we are born and die over and over. It says that after you go to heaven or hell, you eventually are reborn again on earth until you achieve Enlightenment or Christ consciousness. The Christian religion can fit right into the eastern tradition, like a piece of a puzzle. All the powers that Jesus is reported to have; walking on water, raising the dead, materializing objects, these are all powers said in Hinduism to be possessed by a true Spiritual Master. back to questions
| Q: How do we actually go about Self-inquiry? A: When you realize that you are not your name, your body, your address, your memory, and so on, you are eventually left with no noun. You are not something in particular at that point, you simply ARE. After meditating for some time on all of the questions that arise from this, you eventually see that you are nothing but this pure awareness. In this analogy, it is the pure unobstructed light of the bulb that illuminates everything else. You see that you are already that pure awareness, or pure light, like the example of the bulb in the cellophane (several questions back). We just need to let-go of our conditioned mind and thoughts. Instead, often our lives are spent in this constructed matrix of our own mental structures, beliefs, and expectations. In the earlier example, the bags are our conditioning or our beliefs. Hinduism and Buddhism says, that when we let-go of the very need of desiring anything, we can transcend our constructed self, and experience that “peace that passes all understanding,” or “Samadhi” in Hinduism, and “Nirvana” in Buddhism. back to questions
| Q: How can we change our conditioning? A: If our inquiry is sincere, we will more than likely see some things that we need to change. A productive spiritual practice is 70% inquiry, and then the rest is letting go of negative tendencies of the mind while aquiring loving tendencies of the spirit. This takes a lot of practice. That is where the work or real effort is involved. Meditation is the effortless state to precieve what is true, and the spiritual work comes through reconditioning ourselves through practice, and the repetition of reinforcing efforts. We should resist doing harmful things if we can, but eventually we will actually transcend the impulse through genuine compassion for others. There is a risk in just suppressing our feelings, because they can erupt at weaker moments. The way to change is to ask God for help, and constantly keeping God in your mind and the continual presence of good thoughts will eventually replace any bad tendencies. Since it is through repetition that we have originally become programmed in the first place, in this way we are simply using this same process to select a different response, and therefore a different result. back to questions
| Q: Do things themselves actually have meaning then? A: Yes, in a relative sense. They are relative to everything else. It’s impossible to establish a coorlation between a single atom in my fingertip, and the present position of the moon to the earth; however, there is a certain correlation in this case no matter how subtle. It is far clearer however, to connect the correlation of a baseball rushing toward my head, and the subsequent rupturing of blood vessels on my scalp as the ball hits me. In this example the result is obvious, but there is actually a very real interrelationship in both of these examples. Seeing is simply observing something without reacting with any of our opinions or judgments. When you see, it is a very different experience than interpreting something in a preconceived way. back to questions
| Q: Could you tell me if there is anything really supernatural? A: We tend to think that something definitely is physical, or it isn’t. In each dimension some things are almost existent. There are also other beings here from other dimensions, which do not have a comprehensive life here on earth. Their life is more focused in another reality, another dimension. I have seen these beings occasionally. It’s like you see them, but not the sustained way I see you. Maybe out of the corner of your eye, in a reflection, or when you start to look away, they are there. Or like a transparent barely visible image. You can say that they are where you are, but they may or may not be there in the next moment. They almost exist in this reality, but not altogether. This is true of some UFO’s, ghosts, and angels. back to questions
| Q: Why is there so much violence in the world today? A: Many people tend to think that the past is only our past? Actually, the past is also our future? Jesus put it this way, “yea shall reap as yea has sown,” and Buddha called this karma. More souls are being born these days (evident by our population increase), with a lot of violent history to be relived. Let’s say that you are in the First World War and you kill someone; then the way karma works is that you may be reborn again and get killed in the Second World War. This is a very simplistic way of putting it, but the principle is true. It becomes a vicious circle. Jesus proposed a way to break the circle; he said to love those that despise you. What he was saying is; to end this circle of violence we need to break the cycle. However, when you look around the world today, the theme seems to be more about retaliation. However, the only solution is what Jesus said, to stop the fighting. Raise the white flag, and put down our weapons. Each time someone kills someone from another group (whether it's a Sunni, Shite, Muslim, Palestinian, Christian, Hindu, or Jew), the cry is for revenge and someone else dies. Then, ironically, these souls are eventually reborn, and they take turns killing each other again. That’s why Jesus spoke of “turning the other cheek,” and the importance of love and forgiveness. back to questions
| Q: What determines what we see? A: One person looks at the world and sees happiness; another person sees corruption, it depends at any moment on how you look. Your perception is the focal point of your world, and when your mind changes, the scenery follows. Because the world is just a creation of what YOU see. We tend to interpret the events in our world according to what we first assume they are. Take for example, someone who was mistreated by their parents as a child, they may now see the world as a place where you are most likely to get mistreated. They expect others to mistreat them. They may even interpret other people’s actions as harmful, when they may not be at all. We all know people who are like this. back to questions
| Q: I believe that we will ‘reap as we have sown,’ but I can't understand something where thousands of people die? I have had to question my beliefs about God in the face of what has happened in our country. A: The beliefs that you have previously held; was it easier when it involved someone else? Yes, I thought of it more intellectually. A: So, what causes you to doubt your beliefs now? There has always been violence. It may vary from place-to-place and from year-to-year, but it's always been present historically. There have always been wars, murders, corruption, and so on. Over the centuries even extreme violence has always been there, when groups have plundered and slaughtered thousands of other people. During World War II alone it is reported that over 50 million people were killed, and most of them were civilians. Ten million men, women, and children were also rounded-up and asphyxiated in gas chambers! Haven't large numbers of people died over and over throughout history? Haven’t different groups persecuted each other for a long time? We tend to think that life today is different than life has been for people in the past. Whether we experience violence or not in a particular lifetime will depend on our fate. There may be someone who lives somewhere and they live their entire life without ever seeing violence or murder. Someone else may live in a neighborhood where drive-by shootings and muggings are common every day. We do reap as we sow. back to questions
| Q: Many people today believe that our governments have engaged in many enterprises led by greedy men, that have resulted in serious disadvantages to other countries. Is this going to affect my fate because I'm a part of this country? A: Yes. As long as you believe yourself to be who you think you are, then you will be subject to the consequences of your assumed actions, and the actions taken by others on your behalf. This may be to maintain your economic or social advantage on this planet. As long as you stay in character, you experience the consequences of that character. For example, let’s say you are an actor, and you are portraying a character that is in a failed marriage, and suffering form cancer. When you walk off the stage, are you still suffering from these circumstances? While on stage whatever circumstances your character seems to be involved in, continue as long as you are involved in the life of that character. When you are that person, and you act in whatever way you act, there are specific consequences. We’re all feeding off each other’s lines; we’re all actors reacting to each other. There are no consequences, however, to the pure witness or your inner (higher) Self. The witness is not involved in the action-reaction phenomena. When as a witness you transcend the drama, then you have just stepped off the stage. At that point you no longer identify with a history, and you're watching this person instead. However, when you are not a witness, you can't help but feel that you are a part of the culture, and identify with this character that you think you are. Once you “are,” this person, then there are on-going consequences to being that person; enjoying whatever that person thinks that they are enjoying, for whatever reason they enjoy it. It depends on who you are. Do you see why enlightenment is regarded so important? back to questions
| Q: Why is the reaction, or Karma, of what we do often delayed? A: If a reaction to us was always instantaneous, our behavior would naturally be modified through the immediate consequences, but you would not necessarily grow through understanding. We would be like a completely conditioned person. For example, if as a child I touch a red-hot stove, I will avoid touching a hot stove again due to my memory of the pain. The connection between touching the stove and the resulting pain is undeniably clear. Likewise, if I were to emotionally hurt someone, and then immediately have this same experience of hurt as that person, then in the same way I would avoid hurting others in the future to simply avoid this hurt to myself. This wouldn't mean that I've learned compassion, or that I've learned to care about others. On the other hand, if the pain I have caused someone else is delayed in coming back to me, this gives me the opportunity to learn over time what it actually means to be hurt, by experiencing the pain that I have caused others. Eventually I will avoid such actions in the future due to an understanding of what it means to hurt someone, rather than just wanting to avoid any immediate pain myself. back to questions
| Q: Do I have any control, or is there just cause and effect? A: Let's say that at this moment in your life you are playing the part of a widow who has just learned that her dearly departed husband was killed by friendly fire overseas. And, of course you are in grief and outraged- right? You are saying to yourself, this is deplorable, that our own forces have killed my husband! At that moment, perhaps any other reaction is not possible for you. You are completely upset by this particular reality, and you are very much in an anger game. But, what if you say, what a crazy game! This is the part where my husband leaves this world…. I wonder what will happen next? Do you see what I mean? This may actually come in time, but this may not seem possible at first. However, eventually it may very well happen for you. When you see things from a higher perspective, and you are just watching something unfold, you see that things are just the way they are because of what they are. You see that all things happen for a reason; they unfold as they will. You see that there is no need to regret or worry how things will turn out. This is also what Buddha taught. back to questions
| Q: What is the significance of politics? A: During different time periods in history it may be very advantagous for us to align ourselves with a particular group if we can, and try to associate mostly with those peers. There is strength and power in numbers, and many people want the security of being part of an influencial group. This is a part of politics. If nobody wants me, then I may have trouble. That is also why when people are trying to find the truth they may need to place themselves in a vulnerable position by disassociating themselves from any group, or friends until they can see for themselves a more expansive picture. During this "dark night of the soul," they may realize that what they have believed up until now is an illusion. You may see that any concrete reality that you have had seems at best more of a half-truth or illusion. You see that what you thought was reality, isn't ultimately. At these moments you may not know at all what to believe, or what is real. And, if you can just surrender completely to this unknowingness, and just let the universe be along with yourself, you can actualy experience what simply is. Instead, politics is what we try and make of our experience, and the alliances that we create out of fear and self-centeredness. back to questions
| Q: Some religious leaders have preached non-violence, while others have encouraged people to fight, and I've always wondered which is the better thing to do? A: The eastern scriptures tell us that a wise person knows that sometimes you fight, and sometimes you cooperate. If you are severely outnumbered, then to fight might surely result in defeat. So perhaps it is better to surrender, or non-violently resist. For example, the Jews would have been slaughtered if they had risen up against the Romans. Jesus taught to simply "give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's, and give unto the Lord that which is the Lord's." At that time, Jesus would have certainly led the Jews to slaughter in a full scale war against the Romans. The Indian prophet Krishna on the other hand encouraged the Pandavas to fight a battle with their cousins the Kurus. The Pandavas had a chance to win a victory against an evil adversary, and Krishna said that it was surely righteous to fight a deserving battle against evil rather than to give in to evil. Again, they had a decent chance to win. Krishna said to Arjuna that it was spiritually proper to fight against injustice, especially when being a warrior is what he has been preparing himself for. If you have a reasonably good chance to defeat those who want to selfishly destroy you, you should defend yourself. However, what if you are extremely outnumbered, and to oppose an enemy would surely end in your group's defeat, what would you do then? You could fight to your death! Some have done that simply out of principle. Yes, you could fight till the end, and many throughout history have. However, also you could non-violently surrender to your opponent in hopes that you might be in a more advantageous position in the future. I would rather die than to be tortured, however, what if you could live a decent life perhaps under a more-or-less fair ruler? Gandhi knew that a battle against the British would surely end in defeat for his countrymen, so he also encouraged non-violent refusal to cooperate. And he fought this way for India’s “self-rule.” back to questions
| Q: What if you are having trouble accepting something horrible that has happened? A: What if you do really suffer, I mean really feel your pain? Then, eventually brought your feelings in sync with your reality? I suspect that, this is what people mean when they say they "got over something." Sometimes it is as if we can't let certain emotions go at that time. It's at times like these, we must sometimes grieve to allow ourselves to move on. For example, if a person put their child into a grave and did not cry, we would be liable to suspect this parent didn't really care about their child's death. Can we really say that? What if this person has grieved a great deal, and we see them at a moment when they are finally at peace with what has happened? Perhaps they are smiling, and you think they should be in grief? We don't always know what is going on inside a person. Often we try and find people who agree with us, or we may try to convince others to feel what we are feeling. The battle for each of us begins when we actually really feel some pain or despair. It is a question of whether we can accept what happens. If you said, "I can't believe that someone did that!" If he did, you can continue to be startled and not accept it, or accept it. When a mother says, "I love my son even though they he has done something really bad," then her love is without those conditions. Another person may have a hard time accepting something that happens, like terrorism and war, but this happens whether it makes us feel good or not. The reality is that these things do happen. back to questions
| Q: Who do you think is Enlightened today? A: Deepak Chopra, Neale Walsch as God, Ram Dass, and Vethathiri, for sure. And in the last 25 years there has been Krishnamurti, Nisargadatta, Rajneesh, and Muktananda for sure, to name a few. back to questions
| Q: Is there a new age coming? A: It is believed that in this century the human race will quickly evolve spiritually, so that it will be possible for more people to love each other unconditionally, and that this has been more difficult during our present age. There are those who predict that during this century eventually we will regard others as our true spiritual brothers and sisters. It is believed that as we learn to accept others, and really love others regardless of their nationality or culture, we will eventually see more a state of peace throughout the world. Unfortunately, it is also prophesied that these changes are very gradual, and that as we move more toward this kind of world-wide acceptance, the separate interests between people, nations and cultures, will also want to hold tight to their own self-serving way of thinking, and these groups may even become more violent and threatened as this goal for universal peace continues. Most people agree that there will be some serious battles before lasting peace is achieved. back to questions home | recommend | community |  | |||||||||||||||||||||
