Introduction to blog 19 – My Personal Journey in Om Divine Grace Yoga.

The four specific components of Om Divine Grace Yoga  are enumerated in the first five blogs Then blogs move on to a broad view of my own Om Divine Grace Yoga spiritual journey. Then comes  the teaching material associated with this pathway. Blog nineteen now continues with this material. Some of this is adapted from the Om Divine Grace Journey – which you can read on this site in various blogs.

Om Divine Grace Yoga is designed to enable practical use by a practitioner interested in this pathway. Of course anything here can be approached as just reading matter of interest.

Historically, this pathway is approached via a Guru for initiation and guidance. In our modern world this might not be feasible or practical, given the nature of this dark era (Kali Yuga). It may not be possible to get a guru who can assist you in this area.

It is necessary now to offer this spiritual pathway and process as an option for any practitioner, desiring progress. All this material will also become a book when all the blogs are complete.

My personal teachings gained from my journey in Om Divine Grace Yoga.

Being Divine

I am the Divine – please God help me!

True spirituality then is a radical perspective that accepts the move towards the transcendental, whilst yet being still in human state. It’s about being in one’s own Divinity, yet paradoxically finding that through external spiritual guides or through Divine Grace. This is very strange, because if indeed the guru is within, why is a “guru without” needed? If I am really a Divine presence, (beyond the human), why can’t I do it myself? (Getting to self-realization that is). In the pure Vedanta view, we are all, already realized, and it’s only a cloak of Maya that is deluding us. You can read about the initiation of this view in the Upanishads written at the end of the Vedic period. There are also many later writings about the philosophies involved, and this continued over the millennia until the present time. The philosophies were set up in ancient India, but in modern times there are some Western self-help writers who lean toward or borrow from Vedanta views.

It is very hard to make the spiritual changes required to be realized, and is not easily done under one’s own human power. It is a bit like asking a drunk to walk in a straight line. When you are affected by intoxication you cannot just do stuff! In this case you can’t go from A to B because you already at B. You just don’t know it. Or rather, that is not ones experience, realization, and hence perception regarding the mind-set.

No matter how intellectually spiritually astute one becomes, if you remain in a certain headspace of basically ego focused need, you ultimately go nowhere. This spiritual dimension cannot be made or experienced by the brains electro-chemical processes. Even if science takes us to longevity, even immortality and cures all mental deficiencies. Researchers cannot be trusted with God!  This is why we need external Divine interventions, which technically, or rather, as far some of the ancient teaching go, come from our own generated spiritual activities. We need to give up on our ego struggle and let our Deity come to the party. We enter, or rather simply exist in, a place powered by something other than who we thought we were. The deeper we go, the more it becomes an easier path, with less frustration about what’s going on in so called real life.

It can seem like our Deity or God is taking over, once we have come to be within the preserve of the Buddha, or Jesus, or Krishna. It is though a simple a natural native Divinity that has been uncovered, and then allowed to be in-charge. By all means stay with the personal external gods, guru, incarnation etc. if that is the choice or status quo. The spiritual experience can be is mostly the same, as what still is the case is that Sat, Chit, Ananda or Existence, Knowledge, Bliss. A choice is made to experience this state as a formless position or as one with form. (Having then the presence of one’s Deity)

The impossible is the nothing. Everything is on the table. Then the spiritual reaction is per moment-to-moment life practice. This practice is real in this life in some sense, as I am the witness of it like as in a dream. Though, I am truly real as a spiritual being. Experience all within and without, as Divine, when connected to the eternal Divine Consciousness. Oneness is like being just a one is a drop of water, which is not different from all the water in a lake. Eventually that drop of consciousness merges into the Consciousness.

It’s all about sex – or is it?

I suppose it is comes back down to sex. Even until the end of life the urge to engage in sexual activity can be quite strong. The urge to procreate has been not just strong, but a foundation of life. It’s driven is driven by a few chemicals in the body and unfortunately human beings make a huge deal out of it. For many it is the be all and end all of life. Sometimes through old-age or physical conditions the sex drive is significantly reduced. However generally it’s not so, and either natural impulse or desire marks the processes involved. Why wouldn’t it be so as really we are driven by sex for propagation of our future, plus also recreation interest? It’s a major backdrop to all our life experience, activity, and general being.

So why is it such a problem? Why is it such a problem in regard to religion, spirituality, and the lives of nuns or monks, (as an extreme example)? Is it a problem because we have made it so, as we have made it more than it really is in importance? Is it because we have made it into something that we are fascinated, obsessed and addicted to by most in general? I hesitate to say, “in general”, but because the statistics are there, it’s throughout the population at a quite dysfunctional pervasive level -quite possibly!

Now where do we go with this if we want to have spiritual enlightenment, or deep connection with the Divine, or some release from the cycle of birth and death? Or to even make sure we go to heaven?

If you look at the Hindu gods and goddesses, all the main gods are male, and they all have female consorts in mythology. They also have progeny, or quite often they have something similar to harems or polygamy. So yes, it has been that sexual prowess in those historic terms seemed to be part of the life styles of powerful men, including the prophets of religious history. Ignoring this historical patriarchy and scripture injunctions, the issue is whether the sex drive is compatible with the spiritual journey, or if it creates some problems. (It does!).

Does sex create problems for everyone? Even if it doesn’t, then the outcome of sexual activity is more progeny, which is surely a problem in terms of the capacity of the earth and numbers of people to feed. Some say this is a major problem. Too many people all generated through sexual activity!

There is another way of seeing things. This is to say that sex is a means and a help in our spiritual journey. This is the view of some who practice Tantric Philosophy. Actually it is the view of Tantra that sex is inseparable from the spiritual journey and more or less necessary for it. In the tantric view you have to have sex with 100% undivided attention, in order to be on track with your meditation!

The truth is probably somewhere in between all views or any extremes, as previously mentioned or hinted at. Sex is driven by chemistry in the body and as a side issue, most of our mental health problems are, (so we are told), Just driven by neuro-chemical activities. A lot of what we are really concerned about here is actually very simple – just functions as a result of having a body and brain.

Not a big deal then!  Well it’s not a big deal if you have means of moving past the limitations, the patriarchy, the mind/body conundrum, the religious injunctions, the societal norms, and especially any hormonal imbalance or excess.

This is promotion for the tantric path of meditating on the kundalini and associated chakras, using mantras is associated with those centres. You want something that will crossover and connect the Divine from the mundane, (including sex activity). Just like connecting strengths/skills to actions. Do you want to connect the natural energy to natural actions leading to natural Realisation?

In the Divine there’s no good and bad.  Sex is somewhat irrelevant down the track maybe, but it is now extremely relevant and powerful as a tool to enhance higher consciousness attainment.

Recognize the energy of the chakras, particular those lower chakras allied to sexual energies. Find out the mantra associated and incorporate them in one’s mental repetitions of mantras. By doing so, there will be generated a connection from the sexual content of the body to the inherent underlying sound of that content, which relates to the subtle energy of the transcendent Divine.

In the Divine the sexual energy is very potent and strong, because it is about unity. It’s seen as such in some figurines of the Hindu/Tibetan pantheon. They are in union of sexual congress. There are also images of God/ Goddess is being as one body – half and half. This Divine Union – where is it? It’s where the sex drive between two has been united – two to become one. “The two shall become one flesh”, which historically has meant a union of man and wife. Nevertheless the union can be achieved between any two, despite what religious instructions or injunctions say. Simply it is about union that becomes spiritual, because two beings are merged into one. This is also the root origination of this whole business of falling in love, making a connection, finding a life/soul partner.

So don’t underestimate sex in the spiritual journey. It is overarching, over powerful, and everywhere, and we need to be with it, use it, and not get into addictions or obsessions, nor crazy relationships because of it. We can placed our practice in in tantric activities as a means to greater Divine Union.

Find the True Self – then you are the Transcendental One. Then……?

(To be continued).