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object:01.04 - Motives for Seeking the Divine
book class:The Integral Yoga
class:chapter

Obviously to seek the Divine only for what one can get out of
Him is not the proper attitude; but if it were absolutely forbidden to seek Him for these things, most people in the world would not turn towards Him at all. I suppose therefore it is allowed so that they may make a beginning - if they have faith, they may get what they ask for and think it a good thing to go on and then one day they may suddenly stumble upon the idea that this is after all not quite the one thing to do and that there are better ways and a better spirit in which one can approach the
Divine. If they do not get what they want and still come to the
Divine and trust in Him, well, that shows they are getting ready.

Let us look on it as a sort of infants' school for the unready.

But of course that is not the spiritual life, it is only a sort of elementary religious approach. For the spiritual life to give and not to demand is the rule. The sadhak however can ask for the
Divine Force to aid him in keeping his health or recovering it if he does that as part of his sadhana so that his body may be able and fit for the spiritual life and a capable instrument for the
Divine Work.


*

Let us first put aside the quite foreign consideration of what we would do if the union with the Divine brought eternal joylessness, Nirananda or torture. Such a thing does not exist and to drag it in only clouds the issue. The Divine is Anandamaya and one can seek him for the Ananda he gives; but he has also in him many other things and one may seek him for any of them, for peace, for liberation, for knowledge, for power, for anything else of which one may feel the pull or the impulse. It is quite possible for someone to say: "Let me have Power from the
Divine and do His work or His will and I am satisfied, even if the use of Power entails suffering also." It is possible to shun bliss as a thing too tremendous or ecstatic and ask only or rather for peace, for liberation, for Nirvana. You speak of self-fulfilment,
- one may regard the Supreme not as the Divine but as one's highest Self and seek fulfilment of one's being in that highest Self; but one need not envisage it as a self of bliss, ecstasy, Ananda - one may envisage it as a self of freedom, vastness, knowledge, tranquillity, strength, calm, perfection - perhaps too calm for a ripple of anything so disturbing as joy to enter. So even if it is for something to be gained that one approaches the Divine, it is not a fact that one can approach Him or seek union only for the sake of Ananda and nothing else.

That involves something which throws all your reasoning out of gear. For these are aspects of the Divine Nature, powers of it, states of his being, - but the Divine Himself is something absolute, someone self-existent, not limited by his aspects, - wonderful and ineffable, not existing by them, but they existing because of him. It follows that if he attracts by his aspects, all the more he can attract by his very absolute selfness which is sweeter, mightier, profounder than any aspect. His peace, rapture, light, freedom, beauty are marvellous and ineffable, because he is himself magically, mysteriously, transcendently marvellous and ineffable. He can then be sought after for his wonderful and ineffable self and not only for the sake of one aspect or another of him. The only thing needed for that is, first, to arrive at a point when the psychic being feels this pull of the Divine in himself and, secondly, to arrive at the point when the mind, vital and each thing else begins to feel too that that was what it was wanting and the surface hunt after Ananda or what else was only an excuse for drawing the nature towards that supreme magnet.

Your argument that because we know the union with the
Divine will bring Ananda, therefore it must be for the Ananda that we seek the union, is not true and has no force. One who loves a queen may know that if she returns his love it will bring him power, position, riches and yet it need not be for the power, position, riches that he seeks her love. He may love her for herself and could love her equally if she were not a queen; he might have no hope of any return whatever and yet love her, adore her, live for her, die for her simply because she is she. That has happened and men have loved women without any hope of enjoyment or result, loved steadily, passionately after age has come and beauty has gone. Patriots do not love their country only when she is rich, powerful, great and has much to give them; their love for country has been most ardent, passionate, absolute when the country was poor, degraded, miserable, having nothing to give but loss, wounds, torture, imprisonment, death as the wages of her service; yet even knowing that they would never see her free, men have lived, served and died for her - for her own sake, not for what she could give. Men have loved Truth for her own sake and for what they could seek or find of her, accepted poverty, persecution, death itself; they have been content even to seek for her always, not finding, and yet never given up the search.

That means what? That men, country, Truth and other things besides can be loved for their own sake and not for anything else, not for any circumstance or attendant quality or resulting enjoyment, but for something absolute that is either in them or behind their appearance and circumstance. The Divine is more than a man or woman, a stretch of land or a creed, opinion, discovery or principle. He is the Person beyond all persons, the
Home and Country of all souls, the Truth of which truths are only imperfect figures. And can He then not be loved and sought for his own sake, as and more than these have been by men even in their lesser selves and nature?
What your reasoning ignores is that which is absolute or tends towards the absolute in man and his seeking as well as in the Divine - something not to be explained by mental reasoning or vital motive. A motive, but a motive of the soul, not of vital desire; a reason not of the mind, but of the self and spirit. An asking too, but the asking that is the soul's inherent aspiration, not a vital longing. That is what comes up when there is the sheer self-giving, when "I seek you for this, I seek you for that" changes to a sheer "I seek you for you." It is that marvellous and ineffable absolute in the Divine that Krishnaprem means when he says, "Not knowledge nor this nor that, but Krishna."
The pull of that is indeed a categorical imperative, the self in us drawn to the Divine because of the imperative call of its greater Self, the soul ineffably drawn towards the object of its adoration, because it cannot be otherwise, because it is it and
He is He. That is all about it.

I have written all that only to explain what we mean when we speak of seeking the Divine for himself and not for anything else - so far as it is explicable. Explicable or not, it is one of the most dominant facts of spiritual experience. The call to selfgiving is only an expression of this fact. But this does not mean that I object to your asking for Ananda. Ask for that by all means, so long as to ask for it is a need of any part of your being
- for these are the things that lead on towards the Divine so long as the absolute inner call that is there all the time does not push itself to the surface. But it is really that that has drawn from the beginning and is there behind - it is the categorical spiritual imperative, the absolute need of the soul for the Divine.

I am not saying that there is to be no Ananda. The selfgiving itself is a profound Ananda and what it brings, carries in its wake an inexpressible Ananda - and it is brought by this method sooner than by any other, so that one can say almost,
"A self-less self-giving is the best policy." Only one does not do it out of policy. Ananda is the result, but it is done not for the result, but for the self-giving itself and for the Divine himself - a subtle distinction, it may seem to the mind, but very real.





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01.04_-_Motives_for_Seeking_the_Divine

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01.04_-_Motives_for_Seeking_the_Divine

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IN WEBGEN [10000/12]

Wikipedia - Hegel's Idealism: The Satisfactions of Self-Consciousness -- 1989 book by Robert B. Pippin
Wikipedia - Person -- Being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness
Wikipedia - Self-consciousness (Vedanta)
Wikipedia - Self-consciousness -- An acute sense of self-awareness, a preoccupation with oneself
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/34788022-self-consciousness-and-objectivity
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8368122-hegel-on-self-consciousness
Psychology Wiki - Self-consciousness
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - self-consciousness-phenomenological
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - self-consciousness
Junjou Romantica 3 -- -- Studio Deen -- 12 eps -- Manga -- Comedy Drama Romance Shounen Ai -- Junjou Romantica 3 Junjou Romantica 3 -- After living together for three years, Misaki Takahashi and Akihiko "Usagi" Usami's relationship has been progressing smoothly. However, all great relationships have problems, and theirs is just beginning. With a new rival on the horizon, Usagi worries about Misaki's feelings towards him. -- -- Meanwhile, Ryuuichirou Isaka has always loved to intrude on Misaki and Usagi's love life, but his own love life hasn't been all smooth sailing—Isaka and his secretary Kaoru Asahina have been dating for a few years; however, Asahina prefers to keep their professional and private lives separate, often leading to troubled waters between them. -- -- As for Nowaki Kusama and Hiroki Kamijou, now that their careers are finally taking off, they hardly see each other anymore. With the time they spend together lessening, doubts and insecurities threaten to creep in between them. On the other hand, the 17-year age gap between Shinobu Takatsuki and You Miyagi has been a constant barrier in their relationship, but as they learn more about each other, their self-consciousness continues to fade. -- -- The beloved couples of Junjou Romantica, Junjou Egoist, and Junjou Terrorist are back again, this time with a new addition: Junjou Mistake! -- -- 96,777 7.73
Reflexive self-consciousness
Self-consciousness


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