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gray
United Kingdom
28 Posts |
 Posted - Jan 06 2007 : 5:40:37 PM
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Hello,
Anyone noticed that the link to the Hindustan Times in lesson 141 is broken?
- Gray |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jan 06 2007 : 5:45:43 PM
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Hi Gray,
Yes you are right. That was unfortunate since the article in the Hindustan times was archived. I don't think there is any way to retrieve it really.
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weaver
832 Posts |
Posted - Jan 06 2007 : 5:46:57 PM
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Hello Gray and welcome to the forum!
Yes, the link is broken, they apparently took the page down. I couldn't find it in a search either.
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jan 06 2007 : 5:48:31 PM
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Ooops... Welcome to the forum Gray.. |
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Shanti
USA
4854 Posts |
Posted - Jan 06 2007 : 5:51:23 PM
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Hi Yogani,
I wonder if there is a way for you to post that article or make another lesson of it and point lesson 144 to this new lesson or change this lesson to show the article?... or would there be copyright issues? |
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yogani
USA
5195 Posts |
Posted - Jan 10 2007 : 11:21:40 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by Shanti
Hi Yogani,
I wonder if there is a way for you to post that article or make another lesson of it and point lesson 141 to this new lesson or change this lesson to show the article?... or would there be copyright issues?
Hi Shanti:
I'm afraid that the Hindustan Times article on "Bhakti - Science of Devotion" has been lost. It was one of two that came and went on their server in 2004-5, and I do not have a backup for the Bhakti one. However, the article was an abridged version of lesson 67, so the the original content is still here. Lesson 67 is linked in lesson 141 already.
The other article was from lesson 132 -- "What is Sin?" I do have an image file of that one.
Now that we have AYP books available in India Editions, more articles can make a much bigger difference, and we are working on that.
The guru is in you.
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yogani
USA
5195 Posts |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2007 : 08:06:27 AM
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Sometimes if you know some of the article you can find it on somebody else's server by doing a meta-search.
You post a unique combination of words in quotes and run it through a lot of
search engines. |
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Jim and His Karma
2111 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2007 : 12:03:41 PM
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If anyone has the old link, and, hopefully, a key phrase from the title or article, the old page can likely be found here in the internet archive (aka "wayback machine")
http://www.archive.org/index.php |
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david_obsidian
USA
2602 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2007 : 12:14:32 PM
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Good job Jim! I found the article on the Wayback machine. I have trouble posting the link here (some forum software glitch?) Here is a cut-and-paste of the article if you like:
Hindustani Times
Bhakti - The Science of Devotion
Yogani
February 19
Devotion is the most common yoga technique in the world, though it is rarely called "yoga." The focus of desire on a spiritual ideal is so common that the great religions are called "belief systems" or "faiths," as if nothing else but devotion exists in spiritual practice. Why is devotion so important?
Placing an ideal to strive for in our heart is more than a simple psychological mechanism. Directed emotional energy has great power. The act of desiring a high ideal is a transforming power. This alone will be changing us inside before we ever sit to meditate. Devotion is the first yoga practice, and the fire that lights all advanced yoga practices.
Like any of our spiritual abilities, devotion is a natural product of our opening nervous system. It is the most visible spiritual ability in everyone. There is a branch of yoga called, "Bhakti" that is concerned with optimising desire and devotion to the highest level of spiritual effectiveness. Having a basic knowledge of the methods of bhakti can have a huge effect on the course of our spiritual life.
Bhakti means, "love of God, " which means love of our highest ideal or truth. Whatever that is for us, loving it will change us, and inspire us to pursue spiritual methods. We know that love changes us. When we care about something or someone more than ourselves, we are changed. As the Beatles sang, "All you need is love." If we had listened, the earth would be paradise by now. We are not there yet, but we are on the way. Love was the right thing then, and it is the right thing now.
Who decides what our highest ideal is? Our guru? Our mullah? Our priest? Our rabbi? There will be plenty of suggestions. Everyone wants us to love their ideal. It is a game we have played for thousands of years. Love my ideal, will you please? Or else!
Only you can choose your ideal. It is what burns brightest in your heart. Maybe it is Jesus. Maybe Krishna. Maybe Allah. Maybe your guru. Maybe the inner light. It can be anything. Only you can know. It is personal. You will know it when you see it -- all goodness, all progress, projecting no harm. It will lead you home to peace and bliss.
In the language of bhakti, the chosen ideal is called, "ishta." If nothing burns bright inside, it is okay. You are reading these words, so you are moving toward your ishta. Your highest ideal is in your studying and in your interest to practice yoga. Your ishta is in you, and your desire is leading you to it.
Bhakti begins with that very first question: "Is there something more?"
First it is a fuzzy notion, a vague desire, a sense of wonder. That opening brings knowledge in. Who knows from where it will come? We grab on and start doing some practices. Some inner experiences come, some blissful silence, some clarity. We read the scriptures, and words that were just words before come alive with radiant meaning. Gradually, our ishta becomes clearer. We find ourselves in a relationship with what is happening inside us. Bhakti is getting stronger, and we are falling deeper into the divine game.
There is a method to bhakti. There are always desires. We want this thing. We want money. We want a lover. Even anger and frustration are desires - desires that have hit a wall, so the energy goes haywire, sending us hither and yon. The method of bhakti is in redirecting our desires. This is possible when there is silence inside from daily meditation. Our sense of self goes underneath the desires bubbling up, so we can see them like objects. Then we can nudge them toward our ideal. We favor our ideal when emotional energy comes surging up.
Suppose we are stuck at a traffic light, frustrated because we are late. A lot of emotional energy is there. We can take our frustration and redirect it. We let the red light go as the object of our frustration, and bring in our ishta as the object. It is like meditation. We easily favor one thought object over another. So now we are frustrated about our ideal. "Ishta! Why am I not merged with you yet? I am frustrated!" Now we have real motivation not to miss daily meditation. Not only that, our emotional energy, directed in this way, produces spiritual changes inside. It opens our nervous system. It is ironic that we can't change a red light with our emotions, but we can open our nervous system to God.
This method can be done with every emotion. We can quietly cultivate a habit of bhakti in life so the wheels of bhakti will always be turning. More spiritual intensity will come up. It is called "tapas." Tapas is bhakti that never stops, like an endless flame in us, and all of life becomes spiritual practice.
Mother Theresa of Calcutta said she saw Jesus in the eyes of every child she helped. That is tapas.
Remember the method of bhakti in your daily life, especially if you find yourself in a storm of emotional energy. That is prime time for bhakti. Just an awareness of the method of bhakti will open doors inside when emotions flare up.
The great nineteenth-century saint, Ramakrishna Paramhansa, was a master at creating huge waves of bhakti. He would sob on the floor at the statue of his Divine Mother, craving her inner touch. The more desperate he got the more he would direct it toward his ishta. He seemed like a crazy man. All the while his bhakti was working like a laser beam, burning every obstruction in his nervous system. By bhakti alone he became the divine.
Bhakti is a systematic approach to the application of a specialized kind of knowledge. Bhakti is the science of devotion -- a powerful science indeed.
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Edited by - david_obsidian on Apr 12 2007 12:33:22 PM |
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yogani
USA
5195 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2007 : 4:23:58 PM
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Thank you, David and Jim, and Gray for bringing this up originally.
I have placed both of the Hindustan Times articles on the AYP server, accessible at this link: http://www.aypsite.org/hindustan.html
Lesson 141 has also been updated.
The guru is in you.
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VIL
USA
586 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2007 : 4:29:58 PM
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Great lesson, yogani. A lot of wisdom to glean from those words:
VIL |
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Etherfish
USA
3615 Posts |
Posted - Apr 12 2007 : 10:37:43 PM
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I wonder if this article would help with wikipedia? They seem to need multiple sources to stabilize your status there.
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Edited by - Etherfish on Apr 12 2007 10:41:20 PM |
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Lesson 141 - AYP Articles - Hindustan Times, India
