Hi weaver,
quote:
Weaver wrote:
Spiritual development can be seen in terms of consciousness being able to be aware of and handle more and more foundational and basic aspects of Reality, and being able to release itself from attachment from and identification with the more specialized aspects of ourselves and our immediate environment,
I also believe that there is no limit or end to (human) spiritual development.
As Yogani puts it, it is the ultimate example of less becoming more.
From
Self Inquiry by Yogani(which I highly recommend):
Some have claimed that this is the end of the ego.
Well, maybe by someone’s definition it is, but it is
certainly not the end the person. Rather it is the
expansion of the person to the level of divine
expression.
It is correct to say that enlightenment is the
end of identification and the simultaneous expansion of
divine engagement. It is the ultimate example of less
becoming more.
I don’t know whether there is or isn’t a limit. Haich talks about her guru in a past life in Egypt who was her uncle and high priest. Her father was the pharaoh and he and her uncle ran the country at the time. The one tended the spiritual and the other to the material needs of the Egyptian people.
According to her, they were both supermen or as they referred themselves, Sons of God. Her uncle’s karma didn’t require him to incarnate for 10,000 years after that life because he hadn’t engaged in many worldly acts whereas her father would have to incarnate in maybe 3000 years due to his being more involved with the world.
Both had the ability to elevate themselves at will to God consciousness. But did so only at certain times and mostly operated from the sixth level when attending to their duties as best I understand it.
At this time, she had been artificially able to experience the divine level in the sarcophagus of the great pyramid after a period of several years of yogic sadhana in the temples of their mystery schools. This was referred to as Initiation and she was then allowed to become a priestess in the temple. It seems to me to be a kind of ultimate shaktipat.
According to her, Raja yoga was very much a part of their spiritual culture. In this Egyptian life, after many years of yogic preparation of her nervous system, she achieved the sixth level and passed all the necessary prerequisite tests to undergo initiation, passed this test, and her task was to now achieve the seventh level by her own efforts.
She possessed your standard yogic super powers such as telepathy and controlling wild animals with her will.
Undergoing this Initiation was very dangerous and could result in death and so candidates had to pass highly selective tests in order to be allowed to take the chance to experience cosmic consciousness. Apparently some died during it and had to continue working out their karma in later lives. And some died after initiation, not having achieved it on their own efforts during that life and having to work at in subsequent lives as well.
She was one of these last. She failed to close a karmic door prior to undergoing her initiation and it was her downfall and she burned out her nervous system and committed suicide as a result.
If you achieved cosmic consciousness by your own efforts after your initiation, you were completely free and could not fall. You became a superman. Completely developed power and completely ethical.
I gave examples of these in my last post. Moses was raised by Egyptian royalty.
Her father and uncle had tried to warn her to experience physical love prior to undergoing her training as she could possibly release creative energy untransformed to a level tolerable by her body during the act if she lost control and burn out her nerves. She became super depressed after this and took her life. They both new her fate but because of karmic laws and not interfering with free will and stuff like that, they had to remain silent and let her learn the hard way.
She had to go thru several lives to reach her former level and achieve illumination in this life by her own efforts. She also re-established contact with her uncle. She said her father had reincarnated during the 1900s but was vague about who and where he was.
But she said that she still had work to do on her body after her illumination and that it was not perfect. So what is the ultimate that a human being can achieve? It is beyond me. Since she was fairly involved in earthly life, she will probably incarnate sooner than later.
She states that the amount of time spent on other planes between lives is a function of how material your desires are. this determines the strength of the the pull back to the earthly plane of existence.
I do not understand the subtle nuances and variations of individual karma and spiritual development. I don’t know how it all fits together. I don’t think it matters if I do either. This is under the hood type stuff. But I can grab on to something like ‘as you sow so shall your reap’ and use it to guide me in the real world.
So this story helps me, anyways, to rationalize the inconsistent behavior of some gurus and place them on a scale where they can be spiritually superior and still demonstrate some fundamental flaws. They can fall.
And people who place them on a pedestal and idolize them will learn their necessary unexpected karmic lessons when they do.
As her student, Selvarajan Yesudian said, she was a teacher who did not influence you but taught you not to be influenced. As Yogani says, “the guru is in you.”
OK. There is my book report. This story is, perhaps, a little out there, even for this forum, but this lady and Mr. Yesudian ran the largest yoga school in Europe for sometime after the end of WW2 until they both passed in the 90’s. And their books are some of the best I have read on Yoga. I thought I would post it because it relates to what weaver wrote and it also might inject a kind of interesting twist into the models of yogic history some people might have here on the website.
Her autobiography is called
Initiation for any one who is interested in this type of thing.
Best, yb.
