Thanks, Zesayoga, that’s a good reminder for humility and not being a yoga snob.
Another thought. Savasana pose is a gentle way to contemplate death in all its mystery with a restful and complete attitude after yoga practice. Contrast that with how this teacher went about things (which in a court of law would in fact be assault and battery!). The teacher made the fear of death to be smaller than the fear of not being “spiritual” enough (ie, you still fear death, therefore you are a bad person); this being a mask for being fearful of not getting the teacher’s approval on your “spiritual” state. Using approval like a carrot and stick is done with students in schools, with employees in companies, with children in families, etc. However, it is at best a behavioral approach that aims to control responses, but never addresses the deeper issues of the human experience, and thus fails to support the person in their growth.
Yes I agree with the above …good point…
I think that Yoga is incompatible with fear and that we must develop a soul of a hero. It is not that easy for most of us, Patanjali says that abhinivesha is present even in some learned ones in Yoga. However I do think that there is some healthy stress in some dangerous situations, for instance being stressed and fully involved psychologically in the present moment to avoid a car accident. I am bound to human condition, maybe I will have fear of death or the unknown, maybe I will be at peace and think that the time has come. Right now while typing I am sitting comfortably, I am not scared but at the same time I am aware that my whole life is also a struggle for survival from the cellular to the collective level.
Philippe
There is a distinction between the fear of death and the innate desire for life.
Fearing the moment of death probably carries with it vibrations of previous ugly death experiences. Fear is a major inhibitor to acceptance/ letting go.
The innate desire for life is an in-built part of our experience. That is was gifted and is truly a precious donation plugs into that part of us that recognizes it as such and therefore will do everything to maintain this state.
There is (unknown to most) a time for dying. Thus living to the full we accept the moment of death with open arms. At least that is the goal.
[B]City Monk[/B] is relating an example where he experiences the true nature of where he was at, at that moment. Walking and talking and bringing these two into alignment, is the object of life experiences.
Seems [B]City Monk[/B] learned a good lesson of where he was at from this experience.
The moment of ‘croaking’ (Abraham’s brilliant terminology) is merely a moment of transition.
Let us live fully so that when it arrives it does not ‘bite us in the butt’ with surprise…
Yogically it is called conscious dying… now there’s a practice
Workshop anyone?
Something I find difficult in the Buddhist process is the word [B]detachment[/B]. I would/will find detachment from my sons and impossibility… I love them dearly and that would be a definite attachment when I die…I think…?
I noticed, in a documentary, that the Dalai Lama was watching an old film that had his father and Mother in it and himself as a child…he commented lovingly about them, excited at watching them on the film…laughing and very happy to see them etc…I wonder whether this detachment is much more subtle than the obvious interpretation that the word suggests…I keep meaning to ask a master about this word…detachment.
I have read in Ch’an Buddhist literature that when using the third eye, if you are presented with your family, you should 'cut them down with a mental sword’
So the scenes of family you must disengage yourself from in an Ajna state.
But in this life, great love surely is of importance?? …isn’t that what the Heart Chakra is developed for? So, I find this a confusing aspect of Buddhism
All comments are welcome…Suhas can you comment?
@Kareng - I can totally understand your interpretation of detachment, but believe me it is really very simple.
I realised this after several Buddhist Vipassana sessions.
Detachment is about releasing the emotional reaction (rather than response) to attachments. You will always love and hold dear your family and children. Love is a truly high spiritual asset to cultivate.
What is needed is the release from feelings of responsibility to someone else’s personal journey. Support in the form of loving kindness is great but any feelings or reactions toward them when they go about their life lessons need to be completely detached from.
Lighten up is the golden key in all this. Know that after the appropriate guidance given in formative years, they are (children) their own beings. Detachment from any emotional or habitually restricting practices is what allows for us all to observe and experience growth in all its beauty and challenge. Let go and let God is applicable for all…
Hope this helps… oh! and do not beat yourself up when you slip on the path, from one that has had more falls than I care to remember, I let go of self judgment and dust down and get on with it… and laugh heartily!
Thanks Yogadays…As prescribed By Master Buddha, do not believe what I say, question it yourself…so I tend to do this…(I also like doing it.!)
So its the emotional and habitual side that one needs to detach from and not a loving response…I’m still having to consider this… how much of a loving response is emotionally based?..hmm?
The middle way of course keeps me from being too hard on myself, and I truly don’t worry If I slip up, but thank you for considering this. but in the course of discussion on this Forum, points are raised and this is mine, for the moment… its more an intellectual point in the light of discussion of death etc…e.g. at the point of death, does my love for my sons, a knowing they will be missing me and me them be a form of attachment and therefore not a detached state?
Much of the problem for those souls who die, is remaining attached to the earthly ties wrought in life. When these are toxic, they hold one in a space that disallows moving through to full release.
When a soul has unfinished business that too holds the cords in place. This is why it is so important to make one’s peace with firstly our parents and as much other business as we have created.
Releasing our children knowing that whatever may happen after we have gone is not our stuff, is an important factor. This release helps not only our journey but impels a quickening in the children to advance into their own story.
Look, we all feel the pain of departure and loss however it is important to instill the awareness of the reality of death. Nothing dies of importance. What is lost is merely the presence in physicality. Mourning is an important ritual, however reminding ourselves that we are all connected in every state and honoring that enables connection to be maintained.
Train now to let go of the missing through understanding the true nature of death. The true nature of eternal life. Buddhism expresses this admirably as do all faiths that have no agenda to hang onto it.
Yoga Days…Nothing dies of importance.
I think this will satisfy me, for now…Thank you YogaDays
Suddenly he got behind my back and started to choke me. I thought he is joking, but after few seconds I’ve realized that he is absolutely seriously want to choke me to death. And he asked: do you afraid now?? I got terrified, I got so scared that I’m going to die now! I started to fight back and… fainted…
After few minutes I was awake and he was sitting in front of me like nothing has happened and wanted to continue the conversation. I did not want to talk at all…I said so many beautiful words about fearless me, and everything I have said was a LIE, total hypocrisy from my side…but I really believed that I’m NOT FEAR TO DIE…
This is quite outrageous and abusive and an exploitation of a position of authority. This guru thinks too highly of himself or the elevator doesn’t go to the top floor. This is an entirely inappropriate way to make a point, and the man should be behind bars for assault.
I don’t have a guru and don’t want one, but if I did have one and if he tried something like this, and though I don’t believe in chakras, would have attempted a swift hard kick to the region of his muladhara chakra before he choked me out, and either way, he soonh would be my ex-guru, who would be facing charges.
Have to agree Thomas…however, its the sort of thing I can imagine might go off in India…there are plenty of crazies there!!!
[QUOTE=kareng;39663]Have to agree Thomas…however, its the sort of thing I can imagine might go off in India…there are plenty of crazies there!!![/QUOTE]
How do you think he would take it if we found him and choked him until he got the point we didn’t like what he did?
Of course we wouldn’t resort to violence to make a point, but it would be tempting to put that nasty and/or crazy man in his place.
Im afraid I would resort to violence if he did that to me!! Id give him a good old fashioned thrashing…and this is a person (me) who considers herself a pacifist, Buddhist!!!
I would take extreme exception to being bloody strangled!! Regardless of the point he was trying to make Thomas
[QUOTE=CityMonk;31729]Just a story about my spiritual endeavor.
I had a conversation with one guru. We were talking about the fear of death. I was saying that I do understand that the body will die off and something will remain, SO I wont die completely…nothing is important…and things like that
We had this nice conversation for about an hour.
Suddenly he got behind my back and started to choke me. I thought he is joking, but after few seconds I’ve realized that he is absolutely seriously want to choke me to death. And he asked: do you afraid now?? I got terrified, I got so scared that I’m going to die now! I started to fight back and… fainted…
After few minutes I was awake and he was sitting in front of me like nothing has happened and wanted to continue the conversation. I did not want to talk at all…I said so many beautiful words about fearless me:), and everything I have said was a LIE, total hypocrisy from my side…but I really believed that I’m NOT FEAR TO DIE…[/QUOTE]
This reminds me of a story I heard a very long time ago about a Guru nearly drowning an insincere aspirant. :lol:
I am not afraid of death anymore, now that I have re-established a loving connection that I had long since forsaken…If I am not in too much pain, I hope to be lost in deep meditation when that time comes.
The actual process of dying has me worried a bit though. I am not frightened, but very apprehensive about not being able to breathe and my mind shutting off before I am ‘ready’ to go.
I also learned not to fear death because I used to suffer every day from debilitating panic attacks. I felt I was ‘dying’ 3-4 times every day and subsequent visits to the hospital showed that I was in good health.
At first, I took prescribed tranquilisers. Then, I decided to go ‘If you are going to kill me, dear body, let’s do it right now and get this over and done with or else just leave me alone’. I was so afraid of dying, that I was forced to trivialise it just to live a comfortable life.
After confronting my anxiety and my fear of death, it took about a fortnight for it to totally vanish.
CitiMonk doesn?t want us to dwell either on the weird ?choking to death? incident or her reaction to it. She says, ?The point is that we BS about many things we have no idea about? and I totally agree. Looks like these days, everybody has opinions about politics and Yoga as they touch our daily lives. Many people take it as a right to comment on, evaluate and dismiss Yoga concepts without finding any need to first qualify for doing so. It is a lot easier to appreciate that many years of studies are needed to understand things like atomic energy, but they demand kundalini to rise up to illuminate the brain like a light bulb for their naked eyes. And with audacity of a fifth-grader trying to evaluate a doctoral thesis, they feel free to reject it if it doesn?t.
But the thread ?do you have fear of death? is basically a little deceptive question. Of course any living creature has that fear, including even the flora and fauna. ?Fight or flight response? too is built into a living system. Hardly debatable points these. However, the underlying assumption that Yoga wants us to give up the fear of death appears misconstrued; a wrong interpretation. For example, CitiMonk says in post #23 ?We all talk beautiful philosophical talks about how we understand that we should not fear, that is unavoidable… sooner or later… We talk like we know what we are talking about, but then we REALLY face it we freak out so bad that it becomes shameful to recall all what you have thought and what you have said about it.? Its not for nothing that avidyā (ignorance) is considered the biggest obstacle in Yoga.
The deception here is a belief that ?Yoga asks us not to be afraid of death? and its corollary that ?as long as you are afraid that is a deficiency?. On this thread, as well as on many others, many responders seem to lose sight of the fact that Yoga is a long journey. It brings about transformation in very gradual progression. There are innumerable trials and errors, none to be ashamed of.
Sage Patanjali describes a desire to live as a hindrance, but says in sūtra II.9: ?An intense desire to live is very natural, and universal. The desire is pronounced in the form of attachment with worldly objects, since that provides a context and a reason for living. This desire causes all beings to stay attached to the gross and to bear the resultant pain. Thus, low awareness keeps one confined to the gross physical body until death brings an end to it.?
What is indicated here is a milestone in Yoga?s transformative process where dissolution of desires results ultimately in the demise of this last desire. ?Giving up the desire to live? seen in isolation, of course appears fundamentally flawed. Sage Pata?jali is simply pointing out that a desire to live is still a desire and would bring its natural painful consequences. Yet it is not suggested that this desire needs to be given up tomorrow. The Yogīk path is a long journey that brings about a metamorphosis in many ways. The desire to live is the last threshold to cross.
Can you really decide not be afraid of death? Can you will it? Can you practice asanas or some exercises to make that possible? In Yoga, the answer is ?no?. The Yogic process is of understanding how and why the desire to live is intense and self-perpetuating; why is it so innate that we don?t even recognize it as a desire. Sage Pata?jali also adds emphatically that ?this desire is experienced even by the very wise? regardless of how they may pretend otherwise.
In Yoga framework, there is even deeper meaning to this. The three planes of the universe (gross to subtle) have a hereditary structure. Death on the physical plane does not coincide with death on the astral plane. The astral self continues to live after the physical death. So, when your awareness is completely released from the physical plane to the astral, it can be carried beyond the physical death. Yoga teaches how to expand and deepen awareness that remains unbroken by death.
This is how finally we come to non-attachment. We know that our awareness is sensory. Any desire projects itself and instigates the senses to perceive. Desire to live is no exception. Pratyāhāra, enables a conscious non-attachment of sensory impulses with the thought/ form-making process. This in turn, disables a desire that eventually diminishes and dies. Desire to live is the last one to go. By that time the spiritual progress culminates in an ability to discern all objects as composed of the Spirit and the Mind-matter. This solves the mystery of life itself and the desire to live (as a physical body) is rendered irrelevant. But let us not learn to walk today and aspire to run a marathon tomorrow. Practice with patience is a key to Yoga. Eventually, we develop a relaxed indifference to death.
Thank You so much Suhas…I am keeping this post …I have a very small collection of things I have found difficult to comprehend.in Buddhism .like the full meaning of detachment and how I felt about it honestly.
You have expressed it [B]perfectly[/B] for me to understand. This has been an on going misunderstanding for me and I know it might seem simple to others, the word detachment, but it hasn’t been for me for the reasons I have written further up on the posts…not the ones above but on Page 3
I somehow knew you would hold the answer. I cant thank you enough!!
My kindest regards to you Suhas Kareng