Self-Unfoldment

1. The Seeker's Confusion & The Path Within

When a new born baby enters this world of endless space all around, it suffers from the crunching atmospheric pressure and therefore feels lost, confused, confounded and even utterly miserable.

Initial spiritual confusion. Just as a newborn is overwhelmed by the physical world, a new spiritual seeker feels lost and confused upon leaving their ego-centered life. They've stepped away from familiar comforts like desire, possession, and vanity, but haven't yet found peace or understanding in the spiritual realm. This initial discomfort is a natural part of the journey.

Understanding brings ease. The path to inner peace and joy, much like a child learning about the world, requires diligent inquiry and understanding. By perceiving the logical rhythm and scientific contents behind life's apparent chaos and the behavior of others, the seeker can become more at ease. This subjective study, focusing inward, is the science of Reality, the core of Vedanta.

Life is how you see it. The poet says, "Life is a tragedy to those who feel; life is a comedy to those who think." This highlights that our experience of life depends on our perspective – whether we are overwhelmed by emotions or seek to understand through thought. Turning attention inward, as ancient sages did, is key to navigating the external world effectively.

2. Unlock Your Infinite Inner Potential

Vedänta uncompromisingly insists that man is essentially perfect, and therefore infinite are the possibilities that lie lurking in him.

Man's inherent greatness. Despite widespread suffering and failure in the modern world, spiritual literature declares that man is fundamentally perfect with infinite potential. We possess all the resources, ability, energy, and power needed for a supremely successful life, both for ourselves and others. The key is discovering, developing, and using this inner essence.

Success through transformation. A life well-spent is one organized for discovering inner potentialities and ordering behavior to nurture them. Success isn't about having many talents, but about exploring, developing, and exploiting at least one great talent. Our present and future welfare depends entirely on ourselves, not external help or the influence of others.

Cultivate your destiny. What we regularly encourage and consistently cultivate in our mind determines our character and ultimately our destiny. Intelligent thought choices can transform character, placing the entire destiny of life in our own hands. An intelligent seeker constantly asserts this privilege, ordering their future lifestyle day by day.

3. Master Your Mind, Master Your World

‘master the mind and you master the world’ was their slogan.

Inner reform is key. While science and external systems aim to improve the world around us, true happiness and peace come from reforming and reconstructing our inner equipment. The ancient religious masters understood this, emphasizing that control over the mind leads to mastery over the external world. Focusing solely on external improvements is ultimately futile.

The world is interpreted. The external world isn't experienced directly but is interpreted by our own mind and intellect. The same objects can bring joy to one person (like a lover seeing music everywhere) and sorrow to another (like someone in despair seeing a burial ground). Experiences differ because the experiencer's inner state shapes perception.

Organize your inner world. Since our experience of the world depends on the constitution of our mind, organizing our minds for equanimity and peace is paramount. Religion, as the 'art of living', provides the techniques to achieve this inner balance, enabling us to stand up to life's challenges efficiently, irrespective of external circumstances.

4. Understand Your Inner Tendencies (Vasanas)

Each one of us is thus a helpless expression of our own past – recorded in us as our väsanäs.

Vasanas shape perception. Our ability to evaluate situations and make decisions is conditioned by inherent tendencies or inclinations called 'vasanas'. These are impressions gathered from past thoughts and actions, forming the 'unmanifest' or 'unconscious' layer of our personality. They dictate our initial reactions to the world.

From vasana to action. Vasanas manifest first as a desire in the intellect, then as a thought in the mind, and finally as an act at the body level. For example, a drunkard's drink vasanas lead to a desire for alcohol, thoughts about drinking, and the action of grabbing a bottle. We often feel helpless expressions of these past impressions.

Exhausting vasanas. The path to freedom involves intelligently exhausting or eliminating these vasanas. When vasanas are healthy, problems are solved easily. When they end, problems end. World problems are seen as collective eruptions of individual vasanas. Through individual perfection, achieved by consciously choosing right action despite the pull of tendencies, vasanas can be eradicated.

5. Shape Your Future: Free Will vs. Destiny

‘what you meet in life is destiny, and how you meet them is free will’– pause and think please.

Past shapes the present. The effects of the past, known as destiny (prarabdha), certainly influence us in the present, as the present is a product of the past. This explains the concept of destiny – the past must play a role in shaping our attitudes, abilities, and efficiencies.

Present shapes the future. However, existing in the present, we are not only the effect of the past but also the cause for the future. Man, unlike animals or plants, possesses a rational intellect and free will (purushartha). Like a log with a motor in a river, he can choose his direction, avoid obstacles, and reach a chosen destination, even while still subject to the river's flow (destiny).

Dynamic forward march. While we are helpless victims of past actions when looking backward, we become the architects of our future when looking ahead. The Upanishads declare that destiny is what you encounter, but free will is how you respond. Man's prerogative is to dynamically march forward, creating a glorious future through intelligent self-effort.

6. Build Character: Integrity, Control, Compassion

Satyam (truthfulness) is the spirit to live honestly our intellectual convictions within.

Foundation of strength. Achievements require willpower, energy, and the right attitude, built upon core values. Intellectual honesty (satyam) is the ability to live up to one's intellectual convictions, providing the courage and willpower to act despite challenges. Compromising ideals leads to a split personality and cowardice.

Conserve vital energy. Self-control (brahmacharya) is essential to conserve energy, preventing dissipation through uncontrolled sense indulgence. It means being masters of our enjoyments, not slaves. Excessive indulgence in any sensual pleasure, including talking too much or listening to the radio all day, breaks this vow. Intelligent regulation, not total denial, leads to sublimation.

Cultivate non-injury. Non-injury (ahimsa) is primarily a mental attitude: never mentally cursing or wishing harm to anyone. True ahimsa means the heart behind actions is full of love, even if external actions appear harsh (like a surgeon's work). Blessing everyone and wishing for their welfare, even while taking necessary difficult actions, embodies this value.

7. Efficiency is Yoga: Dynamic Action

‘Yogaù karmasu kauçalaà’ (Gétä – 2.50) – dexterity in action is known as ‘yoga’.

Efficiency is cultivated. While nature, machines, plants, and animals exhibit efficiency based on laws or instincts, man alone can cultivate and step up his efficiency to glorious heights using his rational intellect. This cultivated efficiency is the secret behind man's stupendous achievements and glory.

Yoga is the technique. The technique of cultivated efficiency is known as yoga. A genius is not born but evolves through self-discipline and self-development, discovering and utilizing latent dynamism. This involves three steps: generating dynamism, conserving it, and redirecting it into chosen fields.

Dynamism requires purpose. Generating dynamism requires discovering a goal higher than oneself and dedicating oneself to it with love and reverence. This ideal provides inexhaustible inspiration and strength, overcoming hurdles. Fatigue often stems from mental unrest due to lacking an inspiring goal, not physical exertion.

8. The Power of Right Thinking & Mind Control

Right thinking is a habit that can be cultivated.

Mind dictates life. The mind is the commander; if the mind is happy, you are happy. Mind is thought flow, and its nature is determined by the thoughts within it. Good thoughts lead to a good mind, attracting others. Failure often stems from inability to translate good ideas into correct actions due to lack of mind control.

Discipline through yoga. Disciplining the mind is known as yoga. It's not just physical postures but training the mind for right thinking and diligent activity. This involves substituting negative thoughts with positive, creative ideas to flush out mental filth. Reject wrong thoughts immediately and totally.

Introspection is key. To discipline the mind, one must first understand it by looking within. Introspection is the practice of observing one's thoughts, words, and deeds impartially. This daily self-analysis helps detect weaknesses (detection), which, when truly regretted, die (negation). Then, substitute opposite virtues (substitution) to grow steadily.

9. The Downward Spiral of Attachment

From ruin of discrimination he perishes’.

Attachment's origin. The Bhagavad Gita describes the ladder of fall. It begins with continuous thinking about sense objects (dhyana), which leads to attachment (sanga) to them. This attachment, fueled by continuous thoughts, grows into longing or desire (kama) to possess the object.

Desire leads to anger. When desire is thwarted, the frustrated desire-thoughts turn into anger (krodha). Anger clouds reasoning, leading to delusion (moha), where one sees things falsely and makes wild judgments. This delusion causes loss of memory (smritibhransha), meaning the loss of wisdom gained from past experiences.

Loss of discrimination. With the loss of memory and wisdom, the power of discrimination (buddhi) is lost. Discrimination relies on past knowledge to judge present experiences. Man's superiority lies in this faculty; without it, he is worse than an animal and perishes (pranashyati). This entire fall is caused by a slip in self-control, allowing wrong thoughts to swell into an irresistible flood.

10. Discover Your True, Divine Self

That Principle, by whose mere presence, the intellect thinks, the mind feels and the body perceives, is the Subject – the substratum for all the experiences of the body, the mind and the intellect.

Beyond body, mind, intellect. Man, the experiencer, uses body, mind, and intellect as instruments but is distinct from them. Just as an observer is different from a telescope and the object observed, the Subject is different from the instruments and fields of experience (objects, feelings, ideas).

The illuminating principle. Body, mind, and intellect are inert; they gain sentiency and express life only in association with the life principle, the Subject. This divine spark, the spiritual center, is the Atman or Self. It is one and the same in all beings, like electricity powering different appliances.

Layers of illusion. The Self is enveloped by five layers or sheaths (panchakosa): food (body), vital air (physiological functions), mental (emotions), intellectual (ideas), and bliss (vasanas/ignorance). These are matter coverings, distinct from the Self, which is the innermost core. Identifying with these layers superimposes their sorrows onto the pure Self.

11. Meditation & Japa: Techniques for Inner Quiet

Japa is the training by which the ever dancing rays of the mind are persuaded to behave with some order and rhythm and thereby generate in their cooperative effort, a single melody of mantra chanting.

Withdrawal from the outer. Meditation is the path to the Self, requiring withdrawal from sensual activities and the five sheaths. This begins by disengaging attention from the world through selfless service, devotion, and scriptural study. Choosing a quiet place and time helps, but true tranquility is internal.

Quiet the inner instruments. The next step is withdrawing attention from the physical body through relaxation and thought massage. Then, quiet the mind by observing thoughts without initiating new ones (thought parade). This prepares the mind for chanting.

Japa and Dhyana. Japa (repetition of a mantra) trains the mind for single-pointedness, fixing it on a divine idea. It works on the principle that repeated thoughts create attachment, here to the divine. Japa leads to dhyana (meditation), a conscious attempt to maintain the mind in one channel of divine thoughts, culminating in a state of thoughtless silence where the mind transcends itself.

12. Keys to Progress: Patience, Faith, and Action

Regularity and sincerity are the secrets of success.

Slow and steady progress. Spiritual progress is not achieved through hurry or revolution, but through slow, steady, and continuous evolution, like natural creative processes (flower blooming, sunrise). Impatience hinders progress. One must prepare the ground and wait for the meditative state to descend.

Optimism and surrender. Pessimism is dangerous for a spiritual student. Faith in ultimate goodness and a loving Lord fosters hope and contentment. Instead of condemning oneself for imperfections, surrender them to the Lord. This act of surrender, whether emotional or intellectual, leads to the meditative mood.

Consistent effort. Regularity and sincerity are paramount. Meditate daily, ideally when disturbances are minimal. Even when not in a meditative mood, sit for the allotted time; these efforts, though seemingly unrewarding, erode delusion. Never give up, even after failures. Fight the mind's rebellions, call for divine help, and strive on until the goal of realizing the flameless light of Consciousness is reached.

Last updated: May 4, 2025