The spinal column, a spiritual barometer
Whenever you find the mind dwelling in lower regions*, make it rise. This is a secret most people do not know. *(lower regions are the 3 lower chakras, below the navel).
The spinal column is, as it were, a kind of spiritual barometer.
We should never allow the energy to remain in one of the lower centres and always force it to flow upwards.
This is very hard in the case of the beginner, but there is no other solution if you really want any ultimate solution.
This alone can save us, for as long as the energy is allowed to dwell in the lower centres, the question of true Brahmacharya, continence, does not even arise.
No one can remain pure and at the same time allow his energy to remain down there.
Control, sublimation, transmutation
When he who later was to be Swami Turiyananda, came
to the Master, he was a tremendous hater of women. He was a strict
Brahmacharin, and had always observed the strictest chastity. So the
Master asked him, “How do you look upon woman?”
Swami Turiyananda promptly replied,
“Sir, I feel as if a tigress were going to devour me. I hate them all.” Then Sri Ramakrishna said,
“My boy, you cannot go beyond their clutches by hating them.”
Control is the first step, sublimation the second and final
one.
We can only think of others as Divine, to the extent in which we
think of ourselves as Divine.
When we think of ourselves as lust-bound, hatred-bound, as animals and weaklings, then we can only look upon others as animals too. This is the great point to note inspiritual life.
There are some people who without themselves rising to a higher plane, want to have higher ideals. This is quite impossible,
except by entertaining empty, shallow theories.
As long as we ourselves remain on the lower plane, the brain remains clouded. Then the sense-objects really possess a
certain charm.
But when we rise to the higher plane, the same objects look quite different and have no attraction whatsoever for us.
Rise to the plane of the Spirit. See body and mind only
as something ensnaring the Spirit.
Swami Yatiswarananda
READINGS ON THE GOSPEL OF SRI RAMAKRISHNA
Wiesbaden, Germany April 26, 1934
through January 9, 1935
