Self-realization: how long naturally?

SRF Walrus

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SRF Walrus > SRF Teachings and Ideals > Self-realization: how long naturally?
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redpurusha Registered User (5/7/02 4:29 pm) Reply	Self-realization: how long naturally? I was just thinking over my time given for meditation and was wondering how long does it take to reach full-illumination? I went to the AOY and it reads that 1,000 kriyas (8 hours) per day for 3 years is equivalent to 1 million years nature brings. Furthermore, it states that yogis meditating (at this rate I presume) can achieve emancipation in "six or twelve or twenty-four or forty-eight years." I understand that a soul can be evolved already coming into a particular life thus having evolved some hundreds of thousands or even millions of natural years. So its not starting from zero. But my question is how many millions of years a soul needs to evolve naturally in order to achieve full-illumination? from this number I think we can calculate or gage how many kriyas/years (according to one's individual practice) are needed to attain salvation. Going by what P. Yogananda wrote in his autobiography (1,000 kriyas per day = 2 million years in nature = emanicipation in six years). Yogananda even compared kriya to mathematics; the results are directly related to one's practice. "One thousand Kriya practiced in eight hours gives the yogi, in one day, the equivalent of one thousand years of natural evolution: 365,000 years of evolution in one year. In three years, a Kriya Yogi can thus accomplish by intelligent self-effort the same result which nature brings to pass in a million years. The Kriya short cut, of course, can be taken only by deeply developed yogis. With the guidance of a guru, such yogis have carefully prepared their bodies and brains to receive the power created by intensive practice. The Kriya beginner employs his yogic exercise only fourteen to twenty-eight times, twice daily. A number of yogis achieve emancipation in six or twelve or twenty-four or forty-eight years..." -P. Yogananda (AOY)
username Registered User (5/7/02 5:44 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? This is addressed in some scripture, which I can't recall the name. If I remember correctly , it takes 108,000 years to reach enlightenment or maybe it was 1,080,000. Anyway, a heck of a long time. But, your passage from AOY says that with proper instruction from a guru ... carefully prepared their bodies and minds... The question is ... Considering everything on this board, can one consider guidance from mother center as "proper instruction from a guru"
Carbohydramoy Registered User (5/7/02 7:01 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? "What more quickly liberating thought than 'God is", nay, 'God'!
chela be4 Registered User (5/8/02 4:27 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? To consider Mother center as the Guru is an error. Paramahansa Yogananda is the Guru or choose one of the other five. Pray to them directly. Use the organization to get the printed lessons and perhas even to meet others on the path but do not consider that every action or word of council and direction from Mother Center is coming from the mouth of the Guru. It is just not so. Much love to all of you -ChelaBe4
crogman24 Registered User (5/8/02 5:42 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? B4: I could not agree more. One benefit of the Walrus is that it unmasks the organization for what it is, another cult wrapped around a wonderful Guru. That cult will fade but lets hope they don't take too many good devotees with them.
nisarga Registered User (5/14/02 10:48 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? How long to attain realization? A direct quote from Master in the Bhagavad Gita volume 2 page 695 " Wise men attain Me only after many births, because it is so seldom that even a sage understands that I-as the Indweller in the tinest atom and in the soul of man-am the Nearest of the near, attainable instantly". There it is, Master said it, " ATTAINABLE INSTANTLY".!!!!!!!!!!! Not tomorrow, not next life, not after 1 million kriyas, not after anything but NOW< NOW right NOW. This is the one quote that I live and die by.
chuckle chela Registered User (5/14/02 5:13 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Thanks to Carbo and Nisarga for great answers! Another answer, from another perspective, would be to say: "who cares?"
Soros1 Registered User (5/23/02 8:31 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Crogman, Just to make sure I'm reading your post correctly, are you actually calling SRF a "cult"?? Jim R
crogman1 Registered User (5/23/02 8:48 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? I suppose you are kidding but just in case I guess I should make it plain that, yes, I am calling it a cult. It is not even a very good one. The central core of mindless drones set to do their bidding is small and getting smaller. Have you read this board at all? Monastics are leaving every month and not being replaced. Donations are down and the membership has not only not grown in years but is shrinking. Yes, a cult.
redpurusha Registered User (5/24/02 7:07 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Dear nisarga, sorry to burst your bubble but your interpretation of the quote about God being attainable "instantly" doesn't match up well with anything else Master said about contacting God. Here's a quote by Yogananda from the original Kriya Lessons (distributed during his lifetime). "Normally, the human body, brain, mind and soul undergo a complete change once every eight years, if the individual be progressive. The Scriptures say it requires about a million uninterrupted mundane years of human progressive natural evolution to clarify and sensitize and and enlarge the brain, mind and soul capacity so that they can hold and reflect all the knowledge in the Universe... If Luther Burbank could bring a walnut tree to the fruit-bearing stage in five years instead of the normal ten to fifteen years, it is reasonable to suppose that there must be a scientific method for developnig an all-wisdom producing brain within a few years, instead of a million-terrestrial years as usually required. "One must remember that one million years of evolution can be achieved in less than fifty years by perfecting one's technique, deepening concetration, and by increasing the number of times in the practice of kriya. Notice that Master says "perfecting one's technique, deepening concentration... etc" The unraveling of life's ultimate secrets, contacting the Infinite and attaining full realization of Cosmic Consciousness does not happen "instantly" for no reason. If it did then why there is hardly anyone fully self-realized? Instead, as Yogananda and the Scriptures teach, a soul progresses through right meditation, devotion, and living in harmany with God's laws. The particular verse you quote from the Gita, I believe, more realistically means that once you've made the right effort to find God's Kingdom, one day God's Light shines on you and you see Him face-to-face "instantly." Or that you can feel God in some degree, at any time you choose to go within. So in one sense it is instant. But there is a big difference, because right now I can have "instant lunch" noodle soup just by adding water, but until I properly still the mind and senses and go into the spine, I can not sit here by the computer and instantly have Samadhi in Cosmic Consciousness.
chrisparis Registered User (5/24/02 10:00 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Edited by: chrisparis at: 11/22/02 7:31:15 am
X Insider Registered User (5/25/02 11:48 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Enjoyed your thoughts. I see it that way,too. Don't know how I got hooked in to the SRF rigidity for so long. The SRF official channels would tell you to back off thinking about what you mentioned. They would say your "intellectual" thoughts are a waste of time and you would be better off meditating. Best to turn over your intellect to "the Guru". Not to mention your estate. You would be really blessed for turning that over!
chrisparis Registered User (5/25/02 12:27 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? I'm glad you enjoyed my thoughts. I've been studing about this for along time so I have a decent vocabulary, but the substance itself is TOTALLY beyond intellect. So I can write about it and sound over-intellectual. Oh, well. I have a hearty distrust of people and organizations that have a knee-jerk distrust of the intellect. It's a tool. Thanks again.
chela2020 Registered User (5/25/02 5:57 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? (This message was left blank) Edited by: chela2020 at: 7/1/03 5:27 pm
nisarga Registered User (5/25/02 8:54 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Redpurusha/ Thank you for bursting my bubble. That is my goal: to burst all concepts, all conceptual thinking. The very question of how long denotes a misconception. Dare I get really esoteric and ask the question, what or who is seeking realization? Is not the very idea of time and distance and a Path to travel a concept? Is not the very idea of a self to be liberated a concept? Don't we all live by concepts? Is one concept more "true" than another? Then we need to ask the age old question " what is truth"? This same question was asked over 2,000 years ago to a great man of realization. His answer was " silence". He did not answer in words or with the intellect or concepts. Yet he did answer with and through his silence. We can spend life times quoting each other from exulted and revered sources. Each quote nullifying and contradicting the other. When will the madness stop!!!?? When will the silence of truth and reality manifest in our lives? When will we leave the contradictory, fearful, selfish, dividing mind and bask in the sunshine of silent realization? Let us meet in the temple of silence where no warring concepts can divide and create the illusion of separateness. Where we all live as ONE>
caliyogi Registered User (5/26/02 9:14 pm) Reply	what scripture? where?? Hi, what scripture and where does it say about the million years?? I was very surprised Yogananda didn't give a reference to that, that is a very important claim, where is this said?? Thanks.
chota bhai Registered User (6/1/02 11:45 am) Reply	be still and know that i am God this thread makes me recall a recent entry in my journal. this thread is more concerning kriya and my journal entry is more concerning hong sau, but i think the essential ideas are related. i repeatedly have the reaffirming experience of the exceptional value of simple stillness. i once wrote a short powerful passage about it. but that was whisked away with the journal i lost in india. the inspiration for that passage came from a chance moment of radiant stillness while passing time in a seedy hotel in delhi. i had been staying in a peculiar spot in the mountains and had slipped into this trip of trying: trying to activate chakras, trying to raise kundalini, trying to harness and direct prana, trying to attain, trying to become. i left the mountains and spent a few days in amritsar. in an attempt to go from amritsar to rishikesh i accidentally ended up in delhi. i got reservations for a train out of delhi leaving the next night. so the next evening, sitting in a filthy hotel room, my bag packed and ready to go, i had time to kill. i sat to practice hong sau and entered a wonderful blissfull state. anyway, i had a similar experience this morning. for the past month i have been doing so much: pondering and plotting for political actions, reading lots of gandhi, simplifying possessions, vowing towards celibacy, struggling with lusts of the palate, reading this and reading that, stressing more than i would like to admit over school, intellectualizing, and so forth. But this morning i sat with deep concentration to practice hong sau. what wonder. what joy. the beauty of stillness, the ripple-less pond. i could sense all the little wavelets of thought and energy in my body and my mind. the more the wavelets subside, the greater the bliss grows. it is only in the absence of motion that true clarity of perception exists. it is only when one exists with true inner quietude that they are in a state of harmonious existance. IT IS ONLY WHEN ONE STOPS BECOMING AND LEARNS TO SIMPLY BE THAT ANYTHING REAL IS.
soulcircle Registered User (6/1/02 7:11 pm) Reply	Chota Bhai Chota Bhai, Thank You...outstanding! soulcircle
chela2020 Registered User (6/2/02 5:45 am) Reply	Re: be still and know that i am God (This message was left blank) Edited by: chela2020 at: 7/1/03 5:27 pm
A voice in the supermarket Registered User (6/20/02 9:04 am) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Hi, you contibutors. It is a good question that redpurusha posed. Here are more factors to consider or reckon with: A. Natural evolution is hardly a good influence. Example: Let us visualise: A man has become used to gang-robbery and killings and is reborn as a lion. But lions live by similar activities - they too kill in gangs. How on earth does a lion evolve away from that? The overlooked answer: By NOT doing what is deemed natural. So the "natural evolution" thesis has to be considered anew, I dare say. Consider it in the light of this: How did Indians get evolution in early times and till now? Through tapas, that is doing what is NOT deemed natural. It is "tampering or meddling or intervening with nature" somehow. Some means and ways may assist GROWTH IN SPIRIT, and that is the much desired fruit of ascetism, by and large. What is called Hong Sau can help that, too. In a larger picture, then, what assists MENTAL evolution is not flowing along in nature, but such as schooling, which is one form of tapas (asceticism). What assists spiritual growth of awareness, are not matters that many common people think highly of, but "freaking out" in some beneficial ways. Pardon the term. It matters to be aware that so-called spiritual evolution is had through "freaking" cleverly and beneficially, basically. Tapas is for that, and not all animals may have the means to it - for what I know? Good learning methods employ a fuller use of the brain. Mind mapping methods as taught by Tony Buzan, are beneficial. There are many books authored and co-authored by him.
Rosemarie7 Registered User (11/14/02 9:22 pm) Reply	Re: Self-realization: how long naturally? Edited by: Rosemarie7 at: 11/14/02 11:07:38 pm

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