Bindu 23 - engelsk 7.p65 - Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School

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One day, a close friend, the painter Knud Hvidberg, dropped by, wanting me to come along to a lecture on yoga, I resisted at first. There were so many lectures, and so many Indians and others travelling around... I had enough with my own yoga, I thought; it was intense and exciting. But Knud insisted and showed me a picture of Swami Satyananda from the newspaper. This made me change my mind. He seemed somehow familiar, and at the same time both intelligent and practical. I went, reluctantly, to the lecture. Swami Satyananda gave two public lectures in Copenhagen. One evening he spoke about mantra and guided a meditation afterwards, based on such a sound. The second evening the topic was on how to use a psychic symbol in meditation and it was also used in the following meditation. What he said fell upon fertile soil with me and my experiences that evening convinced me of the value of his teaching. My psychic symbol appeared for the first time and I still use it now, almost thirty years later. “When one, through one’s practice, has begun to come in contact with not only the subconscious but also with the unconscious, with the things where it is almost impossible to penetrate, then the psychic symbol appears as a life line...” (Swami Satyananda) When I found a small, modest brochure on a chair at the rear of the hall, on some courses he was giving in Kriya Yoga that same year in India, then I had something to think about. Kriya Yoga was precisely the meditation I wanted to learn most of all! But did I really have to travel to India for it? Normally I was of the opinion that things were always found close at hand and that the first was the best - but maybe... After weeks of deliberation, I realised that this was indeed the first time I had 20 an offer to learn Kriya Yoga. Together with Knud Hvidberg, I left by train to Moscow, and plane, via Tashkent and Kabul, to Delhi, and eventually to Monghyr, to my teacher’s ashram and school. Training in India Just as had been for Swami Satyananda, so it was for me. The training in the ashram did not have the objective of generating lots of fantastic experiences. On the contrary, one is to a certain degree sheltered from developing too many abilities, so as not to lose sight of the goal. The period in the ashram should form a solid foundation for the unfoldment of life, both inwardly and outwardly. After learning Kriya Yoga, I remained in the ashram, because I realised that I had found a teacher capable of helping me to strengthen the bridge between the normal external life and the new inner world that I was in the process of conquering. Sannyasa At Shivaratri, the 15th of February, 1969, I took Sannyasa diksha in the Paramahamsa order, Dasanama Sannyasa’s spiritual order, founded by Srimat Sankaracharya (788 - 822), in the branch of the Swami tradition called Saraswati. I was alone in being initiated that night. There was, apart from Swamiji and myself, just one other Swami present as witness. Besides the initiation as Swami, earlier “initiations”, that I had in the form of visions and experiences in meditation, were also confirmed as very real and as something I could continue with. My teacher knew, that yoga was not just a hobby for me, but that I needed a large degree of freedom and independence. He confirmed this with my initiation. Let me quote a fragment of what Swami Satyananda has said and written about Sannyasa, to be a Swami, which means to master oneself: “Sannyasa has arisen as a means to overcome and remove conditioning of the mind, false beliefs, dogmas, concepts, etc. that prevents the mind functioning as a perfect instrument. It has been adopted by those people who wanted to free the mind of its bondage and thereby gain an insight into the deeper aspects of existence. It seems to have existed, though not under the specific name of sannyasa, since the dawn of history. It arose with the progressive development of society as a means to liberate the individual from the indoctrination inherent in the particular society in which he lived. It is more than possible that ‚primitive‘ man had no need for any form of sannyasa, for he was probably harmonious in his way of life, integrated with his deeper being and able to perfectly combine worldly and spiritual life... Therefore, sannyasa arose simultaneously with the advent of social living as a means for man to reintegrate himself with his deeper nature. As social pressures become greater, so man becomes excessively ambitious, neurotic and egotistical. It is these and other discordant tendencies that imprison man and cause him to remain at and function on the surface layers of his being...” Outwardly it usually implies that one chooses to wear the orange colour. This act expresses an attitude and declares that one is part of a tradition. But orange is also worn because of its activating effect on the one who spends a lot of time in meditation and teaching meditation. It is a neutral clothing which, to a certain degree prevents
AND “SOMEWHERE ELSE” CLOUDBURST EXPERIENCES THE MEETING WAKANTANKA HAD PROMISED WAKANTANKA HAS CHOSEN YOU TO BE INITIATED BY US INTO THIS WORLD. WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN YOU, IN THE WORLD YOU COME FROM, CLOUDBURST. YOU ARE IN OUR RUNNING BEAR IS YOUR TEACHER... WORLD... WE, THE SPIRITS OF FIRE AND THUNDER, ARE AS OLD AS THE WORLD. THEREFORE YOU SEE US AS SIX OLD MEN... ...HE KNOWS US AND WE KNOW HIM... BUT IT IS A LONG TIME SINCE HE VISITED THE LAND OF THE SPIRITS... WE REPRESENT WEST, NORTH, EAST, SOUTH, THE SKY AND THE EARTH... WE ARE GATHERED HERE FOR YOU TO COME TO AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE FORCES WHICH WE EMBODY, AND FOR YOU TO LEARN NOT TO FEAR THEM. THESE FORCES ARE THE FORCES OF NATURE, NATURE OUR MOTHER. IT IS NECESSARY TO RESPECT THEM AND LIVE IN PEACE WITH THEM. SIT DOWN AMONGST US. YOU HAVE HEARD WAKANTANKA’S VOICE AND YOU HAVE OVERCOME THE SUFFERING OF THE BODY. THE FIRE THAT BURNS ALSO CLEANSES. YOU HAVE BEEN BURNT BY FIRE, YOU HAVE BEEN CLEANSED BY FIRE, AND YOU WILL BE HEALED BY FIRE. FROM NOW ON THE FORCES OF FIRE AND THUNDER LIVE IN YOU. THEY WILL MAKE YOU A SEER AND HEALER AMONG YOUR PEOPLE. SHOW THYSELF WORTHY OF THIS PRIVILEGE. © 1995 Lombard - Derib Comics are a popular form, which most often contain no deeper meaning. All the same it can, like any other media, be used to convey “secret” messages, just as fairy tales once did. The central character in the comic, He who was born twice, and his encounter with “the elders,” I came across 16 years after my vision. It contains an account very close to my own experience, except my communication was non-verbal and those present were experienced as yogis (siddhas). The similarities however were great: e.g. both the Indian boy and I had left the physical dimension and found ourselves on a completely different plane of consciousness.q role-playing when one dresses according to different moods; and finally it turns its back on materialism in preventing one from dressing provocatively or flamboyantly - yet another aid for stabilising the mind. It can be mentioned as a curiosity, that many indigenous people dress alike in their tribes, or are naked, as they share everything and unreservedly help each other. In certain tribes in Africa they even dress in the same “geru” or orange earth colour that since the seventh century is part of the swami tradition. It must however be mentioned that the participants of our various courses, naturally do not have to wear orange. It is something we do for our own sake, as teachers in an ancient and contemporary tradition. That the aforementioned thoughts not only stir in Swami Satyananda’s mind, is shown by the following passage from Peter Nilson’s book Home to Earth. It deals with the more material side of the problem: “When we left the pastoral age [the food gatherer’s age], we took the first step towards a catastrophe, we opened the door to misfortune and misery which is today threatening our existence... Farming, which no doubt gave us food and prosperity, can paradoxically also have made us starving and poor and led us towards our present epoch’s 21
Page 2 and 3: A yoga school sees the light of day
Page 4 and 5: Yoga for pregnant women - before, d
Page 6 and 7: The shoulder pose is one of the pos
Page 8 and 9: Some look intensely at the yoga exe
Page 10 and 11: others. Nothing is final or permane
Page 12 and 13: But I was actually awake and well w
Page 14 and 15: asic reactions to life, and that th
Page 16 and 17: Heinrich Böll, as well as Franz Ka
Page 18 and 19: society lives on its own illusions.
Page 22 and 23: population catastrophe. Rousseau wo
Page 24 and 25: As to being a yoga teacher, I do no
Page 26 and 27: and show you how to return to yours
Page 28 and 29: This was a little about my life as
Page 30 and 31: Håå International Course Center -
Page 32 and 33: Yoga, Tantra and Meditation in Dail
Page 34 and 35: Read Bindu - previous issues are st

Bindu 23 - engelsk 7.p65 - Scandinavian Yoga and Meditation School

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