Life Above the Clouds

Imagine you are in an airplane. On the ground there is a terrible storm. The plane assends, up and up, and as you move further and further up. You leave the terrible noises of the storm, the rain gets lighter. Finally you go through the clouds and the rain disapeers, it is quiet. The darkness has become light. All is calm, still, smooth. This is the life above the clouds.

We are all in this terrible storm of material life. Problems, senses, desires. But we have the power to fly up. We have the power. It takes work, it takes disapline, but eventually we do can live life above the clouds.


This was paraphrased from a talk given by Swami Tyaganandaji of the Boston Vedanta Society on June 17th, 2007.

If you are interested in listening to the whole talk, go to http://www.vedantasociety.net/lectures.asp and download the lecture as a free podcast on iTunes.

I hope you enjoy it. I thought it was a beautiful analogy. We are always free. Are true nature is the peaceful, calm, smooth, and bright. Our true nature is free flying above the clouds...and one day we can make it there.

 

Yes, a good simile.

Also, I like John C.Lilly's image 'the centre of the cyclone'. If we can find the eye of the storm, we can experience peace even whilst the hurricane of the world is howling all about us.

 

Thats beautiful Svg, The storm itself is also an illusion. Kind of like a schizophrenic's reality, it is self imposed. When we are cured of this disease by the calming of one's mind, and giving into good qualities like compassion, and move our attention to the paramatma within, we really see how beautiful the world really is. thank you for the lectures.

 

Self imposed?

How about a child born into a war zone? Is that 'self -imposed'?

And the beauty too would be part of the 'disease' it seems........

 

Yes, he is born in a war zone because of his bad karma. We should try to help him by moving him away from it.

 

Too bad then if they get killed by a bomb or something at age 3 before they've had any chance to move on.


Personally, I don't accept this idea of karma as a kind of punishment.

 

Please enjoy them. One of my favourite ones is the one about Sri Chaitanya...you should def. check that one out.

 

It is not punishment. It is consequences. Action and reaction.

 

In this article, a medic saves a baby in Iraq. She was born with a rare disease, it is her karma, but she did survive. The baby did not ask for this disease, but her karma turned out like this. One's actions in past lives and this life affects him or her in certain ways in present or future lives.

http://www.rd.com/content/the-baby-and-the-battalion/

It does not matter whether you agree with it or not, you are subject to it, just as I am. This is why certain people have certain tendencies in this life. That is why you are British and I am Indian American.

 

That depends on your perspective. Either way, in the case I mentioned it serves no purpose.

 

The reason the child was born in the war zone or other violent circumstances is indeed due to his karma, but that does not mean that we should think that 'he or she deserves it '.
It is our dharma ( right karma ) and responsiblity to help the child , who is a victim of his karma.

The Indian enlightened master,Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, the founder of the Art of Living Foundation states , 'Accept responsibility.The more responsibility you take, the more powerful you become. '

When ravi shankar was taking his classes in a certain area, his students over there, brought to his attention about a ruthless serial killer who was captured by the police , after a series of violent crimes. When his students asked him who was responsible for him, Ravi Shankar stated that he himself was responsible for it, and accepted the blame for it. This was in accordance with his principle and teaching of taking responsibility for everything.

And this is in a way something very important when you consider Albert Einsteins famous quote...

"The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing."

 

Trouble is, often when we try to do something, it only makes things worse.
Take the intervetion in Iraq for instance.

The world is dangerous for humans because of the basic frailty of the human form. We haven't yet learned as a race how to live here properly or in anything resembling harmony - but even if we could create a global utopia, there would still be danger.

 

Bhagavad-gita As It Is, Chapter 8, verse 15:

"From the highest planet in the material world down to the lowest, all are places of misery wherein repeated birth and death take place..."

No matter how you slice it or analyze it, this is the basic fact of life, no getting around it.

 

Unless and until a higher speices evolves here on earth, as per the ideas of Sri Aurobindo.

In his view (which I accept is speculative) the supramental race will not be subject to the infirmities or lack of power over the physical which characterize human life.

 

Who knows what horrible things that individual did in the previous life? Maybe they themselves were responsible for killing children or child abuse or something. You see only the cute baby in this life, but not the things that it did in the previous ones. Of course you are seldom one to budge from a viewpoint once you've decided on it, so Iwon't argue with you.

 

Since vengence doesn't interest me, it makes no difference.


And in saying that, you're supporting my previous statement that karma is often seen as a form of punishmnet or retribution.

I just don't think the universe functions like that.

As William Blake said:

"every religion that teaches vengence for sin is the religion of satan".

If you can convince me otherwise, I'd certainly change my position.But it is hardly true to say that you have shown much flexibility in the past is it? So careful that it's not the pot calling the kettle black.....

The truth as I see it is that we can't say if re-incarnation is true or not. Where past life experiences, which is really all we have to go on, are concerned, they can be explained in other ways. So it is a hugely speculative thing to explain away pointless suffering and death with a bland 'they deserved it' type attitude.
It may help prop up your mental belief system, but it is an attitude severely lacking in either compassion or common sense.

 

I don't understand what you mean by this. If you go hit a truck because you were driving carelessly, you will get hurt. karma works the same way.

 

Bill...regarding post #16: What other explanations can you suggest?


I've always understood the ideas of reincarnation and karma as mechanical, laws-of-the-universe processes.

The idea of an emotional vengeance being inherent in these processes is more in line with the angry and punishing Judeo-Christian Jehovah than with sanatana-dharma or Hinduism in general.

The explanation I've heard in ISKCON is that samsara or the cycle of karma, birth, death, and rebirth is a simple concept, but in working reality is infinitely complex, beyond our human capacity to understand intellectually.

I know that's much similar to Christianity's original sin in the sense of being a down-pat blanket statement, but I can't think of anything better.

 

It is not enough to help(though that too is important ) . Right wisdom on how to do so , is also required.

Wisdom and action should go together.

Righteousness is truth (or wisdom) in action.


There is a saying in the panchatantra , that a wise enemy is better than a foolish friend. A foolish person , trying to help his friend, made a mountain out of a molehill of his friends problem.

I don't think the british-american invasion of iraq is a wise decision. It is mainly a reactive action on the part of the americans , whose ego was bruised after the 9\11 debacle, and they wanted someone to vent their fury on. It was not at all proactive.

Iraq is a secular country. Invading it , has nothing to do with the war against islamic terrorism. Saddam hussein himself had crushed ruthlessly both shia and sunni efforts at power and to make iraq a theocratic country.
Iraq was also a democracy, unlike many other arab nations, and western films, values and culture was popular among them.

You can only accuse saddam and iraq of arab jingoism(invasion of kuwait ) not all islamic terrorism.

However the invasion of iraq will change all that.More than 650000 iraqi civilians have died in the war, and thousands of british and american soldiers too have died. And an american commander over there , has recently said that the war in iraq will take a decade or so, which means many more lives will be shed.

Iran is taking an active interest in promoting the shia cause in iraq.

And probably , by the time the americans and british leave iraq , losing much of their manpower and resources in the process, it would have become an islamic theocratic nation like iran and a breeding place for terrorists, the very thing which the americans and british were claiming iraq to be in the first place even though it was secular. See the supreme irony.

 

We are not talking about emotive reactions like vengeanance, but plain and logical 'cause and effect ', which is quite evident in our own life as well.

I myself was a skeptic with regard to reincarnation, but after going through and inferring from all the data i could muster, I now see that it is as real as anything else.

I had talked about the 'eternity process' a technique developed by the indian enlightened master, Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, to realise the memories of our past lives.

http://www.hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=222086&page=1&pp=10

Many of my friends, all educated and intelligent , who had gone through this technique , and told me that it is true . They had realised the memories of their past lives, and also told me about it. In fact it was a past time of mine, to hear about their past lives, which was very interesting and fascinating, and which revealed many facts of nature and psychology.

And not only my Indian friends, but also well educated foreighers Japanese, europeans, jews, too had gone through this technique, and told me that it is true, and had talked to me about their past lives.

From the conversations, I could clearly discern a pattern and link between the events in ones present life to the events in ones past lives, including likes and dislikes and talents and inclinations.

This is a veritable fact, and ignoring this is really a crime, as it can open up many new fields in human knowledge , which can enhance the quality of our life very much, and bring around much needed wisdom.