Right Orientation
Right View – people have it all wrong.  They go to work in ignorance; they think the world is real; they think that they are individuals, and thereby seek to satisfy their personal desires.  Due to this, karma fires back at them.

According to Lord Buddha, the five elements are our five desires.  In those rest the six transformations.  Krishna tells us that these all happen in Nature, not in the Soul/Atman.  Thus, from mind to manifestation, the ignorant are binding themselves into Nature.

The four signs that Buddha saw led him at an early age to recognize the truth of suffering.  Asceticism did not lead to the illumined state.

"Suffering is" — In Buddha's Four Noble Truths, this first truth is used in a positive rather than a pessimistic sense.  This is because pleasure puts one to sleep; pain wakes one up.

The first thing one learns in this tradition (Vedanta) is that God is real and the world is unreal.  But people whine, "Oh no, the world is not real."  Did they not hear the first part?  That God is Real?  If they heard that, then they would realize that the world is God.  Only God is real.  Only God exists.

The seers state that the Soul is birthless and deathless.  Starting with right orientation is so important.  It is no wonder people do not have a spiritual life; everything they are taught early on is a dead end.  Great souls do not celebrate births or birthdays.  Why teach souls that consciousness begins at birth?

Knowledge is like a pair of magic glasses.  Put them on and all is Brahman.  Take them off and it is all maya, the world.

There is no other reason for coming here but to realize one's divine nature.  Everything else is futile.  Haven't you noticed?  Scientists have told us that everything is made of particles vibrating at a rate of a billion times a second.  This sounds like the shifting sands, not the bedrock of the Spirit.

Association is okay, but identity is not.  One is never the objects of nature.  One is never the formulation; one is the formulator.  And one can refrain from making and taking form as well, by breaking out of form.  That bespeaks of freedom.

Everything in creation bespeaks of a lack of equilibrium – a state of being out of balance.  Thus, the world is made of ignorance; not love, not intelligence.  This is a very profound philosophy that informs the soul of its predicament in maya.  Once this information has been delivered into the mind, then one can seek the intelligent particle underlying the demiurge to create, to formulate.  Then, and then only, do love and intelligence show themselves up as the foundation of everything.  Until then, neti neti, emptiness, and renunciation are the names of the game.

Name and form have covered formlessness, and you are that formlessness.  You are the sentient Principle.

The first step of spiritual life is to see that Nature and Spirit are connected.  The second step is to want to disconnect.

"Sheath," "upadhi," and "body" are just expressions for That which is "inside."  The vehicle/container can be destroyed, but nothing happens to the contents.  Teach your children this.

One has to make a distinction between the evolving and the nonevolving soul.  Also between the individual and the collective; otherwise, one's discrimination will be awry.

What are we to renounce as householders?  First look inside your mind for all those things you tend to brood on, then renounce those.

You did not come here to bring Brahman into the world; that is not possible. You have come to realize the world in Brahman.

If one does not believe in karma and reincarnation, then one's god is luck, fortune, serendipity, mercy, grace.  It is not then based on reason, and certainly not the experience of the seers.  Freud and Jung did not work with any Hindus in their lifetime, but focused only within the limited box of European mind which was fixated on the one lifetime scenario.  But even an ignorant Hindu will accept that he or she has lived many lifetimes.  We have a long way to go in the West.....

One problem with hatha yoga is that the practitioner sits and runs a hundred poses through his mind.  But thoughts of God? How many times do they come up in one session?  Probably not even once.  But it is meditation, union with God, that is the purpose of all Yoga.