Spiritual Pathways

Hellenistic marble sculpture; Metropolitan Museum, New York The Bhagvat Gita is an ancient revered scripture of Asia containing much spiritual knowledge. Let us begin with one of its verses about a yogi, “He who is able to stand here on earth, before casting off this body, the urges of lust and anger, he is a yogi – a harmonized soul, a happy human.” Chapter V, Verse 23, Bhagvat Gita Along with other desires that plague humans, lust remains a prominent one. It is said that some of this weakness remains even with the gods. Nevertheless, it is something the yogi constantly works to overcome. When one has overcome lust, nudity or sight of organs of procreations, that excite most humans, cease to excite the yogi any more than other body parts that the Lord gave humans. It is for this reason that sects of yogis in ancient times often shed all their clothes and walked about dressed in nothing more than the sky. Many still do. Ancients Greeks were similarly spiritually e...

6 “Theologians may disagree, but mystics of the world speak the same language.” ― Meister Eckhart Leaving behind ambitions of world and attainments of the world, most of his wealth and property, keeping only the minimum necessary to sustain his remaining years, he became a recluse. He entered the forests on the mountains and set up his abode there. Now he had become a hermit, a mystic yogi. At first his sleep was disturbed as he tossed and turned through the night, as he resolved the dilemmas and anguish that fall on all of us as we face the world of gain, ambition and desire. In time though, the tossing and turning subsided. Once again, his sleep became as sweet as it was when he was a child. He would wake up early with the same delight that a child wakes up when it is holiday from school, for every day is a holiday now, each day with its own new magic. He now enjoyed flowers of the forests as a child enjoys his colorful toys. A walk through the trees was as joyous ...