Integral Studies Academy team has reached to Swami Shankarananda Giri in an atempt to engage with the milenary wisdom of Kriya-yoga lineage and to bring to Monad ’ s readers and the Academy folowers an ever more integral perspective on life and its very pertinent questions . Swami has kindly accepted to answer our many questions and we are delighted to present here the first part of this opened diallogue of wisdom . Swami can also be found at kriya-yoga . com
In the same way the animals have reactions . Something is going to happen in the close future so they will have reactions but they do not actually know anything . They have reactions ; therefore they run away from the place where disaster is going to strike . We have the same , we used to know that . We knew , we had the right instinct and we had knowledge . But now we lost that knowledge and we lost our natural instinct too . Therefore we are born because we do not know anything and we have to learn .
You may be a pure soul but you don ’ t acknowledge it . Therefore you were born as a human being to know everything , to become all- knowing . And that is the state of God , a state of God who knows everything . And you are the one who could get the knowledge of everything and become God .
We are born only to have this knowledge . And the moment you will have it , then you will want to be free even from God the Father , the one who is maintaining you . That is the only reason you are born and born again , until you know everything . It is possible you will be born millions times and if you do not get the knowledge , you will have to die and come back again and again and again .
In this way you obviously have no freedom . Try to understand this .
It is not only about you but we are all in a queue , in a long line . And you are obstructing other people who are in line from other lives , who are also in the queue for their understanding . So you are occupying one space , one place . Physically you have a body , but you also have parents , land and properties . You are keeping people in the line behind you waiting and keeping also physical places for your use only , preventing others to step onto it .
So all you have to do is breathe . Breathe consciously as your breath is the source of knowledge , source of your life , source of everything . Breathe and get vidya – this is how true knowledge is called .
Desires . Having desires , we lack freedom . But where are the desires coming from and why ?
The human being was born with a physical body . And the five elements ( panchabhutani ) earth , water , fire , air and ether are the basis of everything physical that was formed . This is how our material world begun . The actions of the elements give birth to the senses , they control the senses and also destroy them . Duality in each chakra of the human being was established after creation of the elements .
The five senses ( tanmatra ) are the smell , taste , vision , sensation and hearing and they manifest from the five elements . And this marks the beginning of bondage .
Smell gives one the desire for taste , taste gives a desire for vision , vision for sensation and sensation for sound . Sound ( dhvani / nada ) provides the initial focus for practicing concentration . Sound produces the light ( jyoti ) and light produces the mind ( mana ). Mind is connected to the senses , sense organs , working organs and matter .
Our mind is the blind king of our life . I am saying “ king ” because is the mind is ruling our lives and it has its own kingdom . We could say that the mind is the king of hell , of the “ underworld ”. The mind is always ready to fight , argue , disagree , dislike and of course to creating desires . And it does all these through ego . The manifestation of the mind takes place through the combination of matter , working organs ( hands , legs , tongue , sexual organs and rectum ), sense organs and the senses , which are all “ below ” the mind .
Monad 3 / 2016 | Page 19