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Spiritual knowledge refers to the core of our being, the pure self. Spiritual practices are those that help us gain the direct experience of this self. In the modern world we identify people by their level of education or by what position they hold, rather than by who they are. That is why we have difficulty distinguishing a truly spiritual person from one who merely holds a spiritual office. Spiritual knowledge is totally different from information about spirituality.

There are two sources of knowledge: direct, and indirect. Direct knowledge comes from within; it is a matter of revelation or personal experience. Only the knowledge that flows from the realm of direct experience has the capacity to guide us and help us in time of need. Indirect knowledge comes from books and other external sources, and when we are in need it is simply a burden on the brain. Revealed knowledge clears our mind; knowledge that we gather in the form of information clutters it. No matter how educated we are, or how many books we have written, if our own learning is not connected to the realm of the inner self, it is of little value when our emotions are in turmoil.

I have met saints with no formal schooling who had great spiritual knowledge. For example, I once knew a saint who could not even sign his name, and if you asked him about worldly matters he would smile and say nothing. Yet very learned people would come to sit at his feet and ask him spiritual questions, and he would answer them simply and clearly.

For a long time I wondered how this saint could have attained the profound peace that was always apparent on his face. Then one day in the course of my own self-study and contemplation I found the answer in the scripture Tripura Rahasya: Once you gain direct knowledge of your spiritual self, you begin to see things in the light of that experience. You spontaneously distinguish the pure self from the non-self, the real from the non-real, the eternal from the non-eternal. And because of your self-realization you no longer identify with the objects of the external world, including your body, mind, thoughts, and emotions. Non-attachment to this mundane world is a spontaneous outcome of self-realization. It is what the scriptures call vairagya, non-attachment. In fact these texts tell us that the highest state of knowledge is non-attachment, and they use the terms for “knowledge” and “non-attachment” interchangeably. More clearly, the knowledge that does not lead you to vairagya is simply information; it is not true knowledge.
If you have real knowledge, you know you are on a journey. On your way to your final destination, you pause at various rest areas. You are entitled to use the tables and other facilities there, but they are not yours. You can park your car and stay for a while, but you cannot build a house there—you have to move on. And while you are using a rest area you must follow the rules that have been established. You cannot claim that the place is yours, and before you leave you must clean up any mess you make.

That is what life is like. Use the objects that you encounter in your journey, and move on. But use them in the proper manner. They are not yours. Everything belongs to Nature. Whether you have achieved something through hard work or by chance, it is only a temporary gift. To know this, and to remain aware of it without losing that awareness for even a split second—that is spiritual knowledge.

People say they work hard. But, whose hard work is it? Is it the hard work of the body, breath, mind, or intellect? Where did you get all that energy? Energy comes from Nature. If you’re an inventor, how were you able to invent? It is because of your buddhi, your intellect, and if something goes wrong with it you will become unbalanced: you might suffer from Alzheimer’s or become schizophrenic; then all your intelligence will be gone. That means that the ability of your intelligence was not yours.
No matter what you have accomplished through your intellect, it was not your accomplishment, but the accomplishment of Nature. It has been given to you as a gift. Enjoy the gift with full awareness that it is a privilege to have it, and use it properly. And when that gift is passed on to the next hand, don’t feel bad. When you achieve something, it’s okay; when you lose something, it’s equally okay. That is called spiritual knowledge.

–Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD

Seekers who try to reach their goal by isolating themselves from the world are constantly struggling. And I can guarantee that they will never attain freedom from the world, because no matter how fast you run, you cannot run away from yourself. There is no such thing as finding freedom from the world. Those who understand that freedom means to reach the core being and become established in one’s Self—and that freedom does not mean running away from something—only such people attain the goal.

The greatest challenges facing practitioners today are sloth, carelessness, and the conviction that they don’t have time. They aren’t willing to work for spiritual attainment, but instead just sit there and hope somebody else will give it to them.

People want the highest, and they want it now. And that’s very good. But you always have to pay attention to the foundation. If you try to build a big structure without the proper foundation, the structure will collapse. People want to attain samadhi, but they don’t understand the value of attaining freedom from anger, hatred, jealousy, fear, and greed. Whatever they have, they don’t want to lose, and yet they want to have something very lofty—samadhi. These things don’t go together.

We all know the value of taking courses and doing lab work in order to become proficient in a field of knowledge. We also understand the value of experience. Whenever there’s an opening in a corporation for a particular job, one of the main qualifications is experience. But somehow many so-called spiritual seekers do not understand the value of taking the required courses, doing lab work, or gaining experience before applying for samadhi. They immediately want to become a spiritual CEO and sit on a powerful chair called samadhi. And they want to do this without completing any basic courses, without any knowledge, understanding, or experience. The wisdom of common sense is missing here—everything requires some basic qualifications.

Sadhana, methodical systematic practice, supplies these basic qualifications. Every day, study a little bit, practice a little, be inspired to achieve samadhi, and keep preparing the foundation by learning how to draw the mind inward.

We sit down to meditate, intending to turn our attention inward with one-pointed focus, but the mind keeps wandering around. We bring the mind back and it wanders off again. How can we make the mind steady?

First, make a strong resolution that you are going to do it. You can do it. You will do it. This is called sankalpa, firm resolve. Then nurture your resolve by reminding yourself how precious life is and how carelessly you have been wasting it. You have already aimlessly wasted 30, 40 years of your life. Whatever time is remaining must be used mindfully and wisely. Remind yourself: “The objects of the world about which I worry so much are simply means; they are not goals in themselves. Therefore, let me turn my mind inward and find and experience my own core being. And I’m going to do it!” This is called nurturing your sankalpa, nurturing your resolve.

Next, prioritize your life. What is really important? You have to remind yourself that meditation is important. This is normally missing—we have not yet understood that meditation is really something important. Because the mind has become extremely materially oriented, students often say things to me like: “I spend one hour working and I get $30. I sit in meditation and what do I get out of it? Just peace? It doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Unless you realize that being peaceful is good for you, you will not be inspired to become a peaceful person. You have to remind yourself how important it is to be peaceful. Do you want to live a life of fear? Anxiety? Insecurity? Do you want to be dependent on your sleeping pills? Do you want to be dependent on your therapist? Do you want to be dependent on your priests, pandits, churches, swamis, rabbis, and mosques? Or do you want to experience the freedom inside yourself that comes only from having a peaceful mind? Do you want to be a crazy person who is good at making a few bucks but who, before and after work, walks blindly without any purpose and meaning? You have to ask these questions in order to nurture your resolve. And once you do that, your resolution becomes quite strong and powerful.

Then, you have to find a living object on which to concentrate your mind. If the object of concentration is alive, that object will fill your meditation with life. Then when you withdraw your mind from the external world, immediately the mind finds this living focus to reside in.

Selecting an object for meditation is even more important than the process of meditation. If the object is not a spiritually enlivened, spiritually joyful object, then definitely the mind will slip away. That is why you need an experienced guide, one who knows which object is right and which is not right. The object of meditation cannot be selected randomly. An experienced teacher is one who is fully connected to the tradition; the tradition has been working for thousands of years to keep that object of meditation fully alive, so when it is passed on to a new meditator it begins to fill that meditator’s mind and heart with its own intrinsic joy and beauty. When the mind becomes focused on that object, the mind has less reason to run here and there.

So make your resolve, nurture your resolve, and then find the right object of meditation. The practice of meditation requires that you do it every day without interruption for a long period of time and with respect. You will not be able to do this un-less the object has its own inherent virtue and beauty. A living object can breathe life into the process of meditation. The rest comes from your effort to complete the process of meditation.

–Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD

Dharma—the virtuous path—means more than accepting the beliefs of a specific religion. To understand and fulfill our true dharma, we must learn how to cultivate a tranquil mind and a compassionate heart.

Dharmo rakshati rakshitah – “Protect dharma and dharma will protect you; nurture dharma and dharma will nurture you”

We follow our religion, and we consider it our duty. We discharge our religious duty by keeping God at the center of our faith. We all agree that God is our provider and protector, but we do not agree that your God is the same as my God or that he/she is the protector, provider, and guide of us all. This clearly shows how poor our understanding of God is. Our deep attachment to that poor understanding has led us into countless wars and caused unimaginable bloodshed. Only when society as a whole is experiencing unbearable pain do we begin to ponder the essence of religion and its ageless message: “Protect dharma and dharma will protect you; nurture dharma and dharma will nurture you.”

To help us understand what dharma is and the true meaning and intent of this ageless message, I will retell the story of one of the great souls who set the wheel of dharma in motion a little more than 2,500 years ago: Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha of our era.

The Story of the Buddha

The life of this North Indian prince was one of extremes. Although royal, he was born under a tree when his mother was traveling to her father’s palace. As she was dying in childbirth surrounded by a grieving retinue, gods descended from heaven to rejoice in his long-awaited incarnation. As he grew, Siddhartha excelled in martial arts, weaponry, politics, commerce, and the art of ruling a kingdom. He was carefully insulated from any sight of suffering. Dance, women, and wine filled his evenings, yet the first time he saw a sick person, a person inflicted with old age, and the body of a dead man, he renounced the comforts of the palace and set out to understand the full range of life’s contrasts and complexities.

Siddhartha’s voracious appetite for learning led him from ashram to ashram and from teacher to teacher. He studied a broad range of traditions, and then put his knowledge into practice by committing himself to intense meditation. Eventually he attained nirvana, a state of enlightenment filled with compassion and wisdom—a state of total clarity and peace. From that time on, people honored him as Buddha, the Enlightened One.

The Wheel of Dharma

Now the Enlightened One returned to the world, paradoxically becoming more active than he had been as a prince. He traveled and gave discourses. For all intents and purposes, his was the life of a spiritually enlightened leader. He led a movement that came to be known as dharma-chakra-pravartana (the rolling out of the wheel of dharma). All the while, he refrained from speaking about ten topics, including the subject of God.

Why did Buddha, who is regarded as a divine incarnation, carefully refrain from involving himself in discussions about God? During his lifetime, India possessed thousands of scriptures. Many were believed to be living revelations. All proclaimed God’s existence and delineated methods for reaching God and receiving his grace. And yet society was torn by strife. The exploitative nature of religion was as damaging as it was to become in the West during the Middle Ages. People believed in God, but that belief did not make them free from fear and doubt. People believed that God was one and all-pervading, yet that belief did not lead them to experience their underlying unity. People believed God was an embodiment of love and compassion, yet that belief did not stop them from embracing hatred and cruelty.

Sadhana & Enlightenment

Prince Siddhartha grew up surrounded by these lofty beliefs and their contradictions. In his early adulthood he began pondering why individuals and society were drowning in darkness. Then he went a step further and worked hard to discover the cause of human misery for himself. This led him to renounce his palace, the kingdom, and all the honor and prestige that were his birthright. At the dawn of enlightenment, it became clear to him that mere belief in God does not automatically make us good, and that lack of such beliefs do not automatically make us bad. Mere belief does not take away our doubts and fears. Mere belief does not stop us from being negative and destructive. To have a positive effect, belief must be grounded in the direct experience of the truth. Direct experience requires a clear, calm, and tranquil mind, and this mind has to be turned inward. Turning it inward requires practice, and this practice is called sadhana.

Siddhartha committed himself to sadhana. This enabled him to cultivate a clear, calm, and tranquil mind, and eventually, with that mind he discovered his own inner being. This self-discovery is called enlightenment. It is a matter of direct experience. In that state of enlightenment, did he see himself? Did he see God? Did he come to know the source of the universe? Buddha did not consider such questions as important as the understanding that there is sorrow in the world, and sorrow can and must be eradicated. He emphasized practices for cultivating a clear, calm, and tranquil mind, and he emphasized the importance of cultivating a compassionate heart. He proclaimed that through methodical practice, one acquires clarity of mind (prajna) and the virtue of compassion (karuna). Prajna and karuna are inherent virtues of enlightenment. Sorrow and the subtle causes of sorrow come to an end once and for all as a result of enlightenment. Therefore, Buddha called enlightenment nirvana, the state of illumination free from sorrow.

Hundreds of sages who lived before Buddha attained enlightenment and taught their fellow beings the essence of dharma. But with the passage of time, layers of custom, superstition, dogma, prejudice, and lifeless rituals obscured those teachings. As blind beliefs replaced practices, the society became divorced from the transformative power of the teachings of the enlightened ones. Buddha revived those teachings. During the 40 years after his enlightenment, he lived the life of a karma yogi. He dedicated every breath to the welfare of others. The result? A movement began—a movement toward personal transformation and the revitalization of society.

Personal Dharma & Social Transformation

This movement brought enlightenment within individuals as well as enlightenment in the external world. Those who were part of the great movement gained a direct experience of the mind as the cause of both bondage and liberation. The mind constitutes our private world. A mind filled with animosity manufactures enemies in the external world, and a mind filled with love and compassion fills the world with friends: as we think, so we become. That is why the scriptures say, “Upon protection of the mind, the whole world is protected, and upon its destruction, the whole world is destroyed.” Cultivating a virtuous mind, therefore, is our dharma.

Human history shows us that as long as we were able to cultivate and sustain a virtuous mind we were protected and nurtured. We lived peacefully and happily, with or without a belief in a particular god or goddess. We were able to uphold the honor and dignity of our family, community, culture, and religion without tarnishing others. We were protected from our inner enemies: anger, hatred, jealousy, and greed. Inner freedom gave us the opportunity to create a peaceful society.

The history of India is a living testimony to the power of inner peace. From the time of Buddha in the 5th century BCE, all the way to the 5th century CE, people were able to hear, heed, and practice dharma in their daily lives. During the course of those 10 centuries, the wave of armies sweeping across India—led by Huns, Kushans, Kambojs, and the rulers of Asia Minor, among others—were peacefully welcomed and absorbed. Only when people forgot the essence of dharma and began to live painfully with their own divided and tormented minds did they fail to coexist with their own fellow beings.

Fractured minds built a fractured society. The India that had been a melting pot invested its energies in building walls between different groups: Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, Muslims, and hundreds of others. In other words, when dharma declined, illiteracy, poverty, inequality, racial discrimination, and the oppression of women sapped the vitality of their society. This happened in other parts of the world as well as in India.

Spirituality for the Modern World

Look at the condition of the world around us today. See how unclear we are about our dharma, how consistently we fail to practice it, and the effect this failure has on us at both the personal and the collective levels. We have more objects in our possession than our ancestors ever dreamed of. We are bigger and fatter in every respect. Everything is big—big churches, big corporations, big cities, and big, wealthy people. We hardly notice that next to all this is another set of “bigs”—big anger, big hatred, big greed, big possessiveness, and big violence.

The gap between the rich and the poor becomes wider every day. The rich get richer while more than a billion people live in abject poverty. Wealthy people dress themselves in designer clothes and dine in posh restaurants, while millions, especially the young people of Southeast Asia, are sold into slavery and prostitution. In Africa, millions of children roam all day in search of food, scavenging and digging up banana roots and other plants.

We see these extremes all around us, but it never occurs to us that it is these very extremes that give birth to extremists. When terrorist attacks in New York and Mumbai shock the world, we gather our forces to hunt down terrorists. As a short-term solution, that may be the right course, but we must not forget the truth that inner unrest contributes to external chaos, while inner peace restores peace in the external world. Cultivating a peaceful mind is the only way to live a peaceful life. Cultivating such a mind constitutes the core of our dharma.

Dharma for the 21st Century

The dharma of the 21st century demands that we first make a qualitative change in our minds, infusing them with the higher virtues of love and compassion, giving and sharing. This is called cultivating a virtuous mind. It presupposes that we keep our greed in check. We must control our lust for power and possession. And we have to open our minds and hearts to a proven reality: there is a collective consciousness and we are part of it. Collective consciousness is inside of us and we are inside of it. This interconnectivity gives rise to the reality that what we do to others is what we do to ourselves. This is the law of karma—an unavoidable law that ensures that as we sow, so shall we reap. Practicing dharma requires that we keep this immutable law in the forefront of our minds and treat others the way we want to be treated.

Hindus have been waiting for Lord Vishnu to incarnate as Kalki to fix the world in their favor. Buddhists are waiting for the pending incarnation of Maitreya, the next Buddha. Christians are waiting for the second coming of Jesus. Yet if we create a virtuous mind and fill this world with the virtues of love and compassion, these great incarnations will walk into our lives while we are here on earth, and we will be the recipients of their loving grace. Mere waiting won’t do. What is required is a sincere commitment to personal transformation. It all begins with the recognition of our personal dharma and the determination to practice it in our daily life.

–Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD

(reprint from Yoga International Magazine)

Holistic heath expert Carrie Demers MD., answers your questions about insomnia.

Build toward a safe and confident handstand by applying the principles of persevering practice and non-attachment.

By Mark Stephens

Part of the sublime nature of hatha yoga is the infinite potential it offers for deepening, refining, and evolving our practice as a process of self-transformation. At first, a new asana or pranayama technique might seem altogether daunting. But through abhyasa, or persevering practice, we stay fully committed to the path, and with vairagya, an attitude of non-attachment, we embody our higher intention instead of identifying with the outcome of the pose or the completion of a goal.

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Served with a smile, your holiday guests won’t even notice that these delicious, flexible recipes are vegetarian.

By Deborah Willoughby

Preparing a holiday meal for a mixed crowd of vegetarians and omnivores is tricky. People who eschew meat sometimes get a bit crusty when it shows up in their vicinity, while their opposite numbers expect it to anchor the main course. I’ve found that no matter how skillfully I disguise it, substituting tofu leaves the omnivores feeling underfed. The last time I tried—back in the ’80s—my brother threatened to smuggle pheasant or a brace of quail into the dining room for sustenance. My subsequent discovery of Deborah Madison’s recipe for Cheese and Nut Loaf solved the problem. Complex and tasty, with a texture pleasing to omnivores and vegetarians alike, it has become a holiday tradition at family get-togethers—at least when I’m the designated cook.

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The Royal Path
by Pandit Rajmani Tigunait, PhD

The life of an individual is like an iceberg floating in the ocean of cosmic existence — only a small portion is visible at any given time.

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