Real Yoga with Swami Harinanda - Free Yoga Lessons
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Real Yoga with Swami Harinanda - Free Yoga Lessons |
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December 25, 1928 to August 19, 2014
Sadly, I must inform you that Swami Harinanda passed away early in the afternoon on Tuesday, August 19, 2014. His death came quickly and without pain. As per his wishes there was no service nor memorial, although he would have appreciated donations to the SPCA or any animal shelter that you like. It goes without saying that this one–of–a–kind and great man will be greatly missed.
I first came to know Swami Harinanda around 1995. He was a customer of mine. One way or another, we got talking about spirituality and he mentioned to me that he was a swami. I must admit, I thought he was joking. But then I realized he was serious. We corresponded by email. Amazingly, I still have a printed copy of his early emails to this day.
Swami Harinanda was able to answer some of my basic questions about yoga and although I had started on the yogic path before I met him, talking to and knowing Swami Harinanda helped make my path more clear.
I was lucky enough to have met Swami Harinanda for the first time in April, 1996. I can remember the first time I met him as I drove up to his house. He came outside to greet me — I felt a great sense of joy and calm come over me.
The next day, Swami Harinanda personally taught me the science of yantra yoga at his dining table. I wrote down the principles of yantra yoga on both sides of a blank piece of paper as Swami Harinanda talked. It was a beautiful moment for me — finally my teacher had come. These lessons I still have to this day and still act as my foundation regarding yantra yoga.
Starting around late 1996 to 1997, I helped Swami Harinanda build an early web site. Later we expanded and moved his web site to this current location real-yoga.com. Swami Harinanda wanted people to see the words real yoga
— he wanted people to awaken to the truth of what real yoga is not. Swami Harinanda was not interested in yoga for health.
While building the real yoga
web site, Swami Harinanda didn't know what information we should add. So I suggested to him that we should add informaton that is not easily found elsewhere regarding real yoga. I told Swami Harinanda that myself and others want to know why we should practice yoga, what are the types of yoga, who are some famous yogis and a lesson in pure hatha yoga. So this is what we did. I asked the questions, Swami Harinanda wrote the content.
Swami Harinanda was a pure teacher. He would never accept money for teaching. Yoga or spirituality is part of universal knowledge that belongs to everyone. Therefore, one cannot charge for what already belongs to them. Swami Harinanda always said that a good teacher has a day job and then teaches on his or her own time for free. The teacher should pay for any room rental, etc — this is the sign of a pure teacher which Swami Harinanda was.
Swami Harinanda was taught or told personally by Ramana Marharshi to never accept payment and as Swami Harinanda would always say, Ramana Maharshi is never wrong.
Swami Harinanda did not go to meet Ramana Maharshi in India, instead, they met on the astral plane. Ramana told Swami Harinanda that he did not need to be in a cave or anything like that to be a good student of yoga. Swami Harinanda took those words to heart and lived a normal life while being totally dedicated to self realization.
Swami Harinanda knew many little or lesser known things about yoga. He really studied the theory of yoga and put himself into a position to meet people that would impact him. Somewhere along the way he learned the Master's Chant
, as an example, and many more things. Swami Harinanda would openly teach kriya yoga as well. Swami Harinanda loved the yogic life and just absorbed every little detail.
In 1996, I was personally quite ill and possibly near death. Swami Harinanda gave me the book on Karma Yoga by Swami Vivekanda to read. It was the best medicine I've ever received. From that day onwards, I fell madly in love with karma yoga. Knowing this, Swami Harinanda bestowed the name Karmananda
to me. I thank him very much for this honour.
Swami Harinanda was a good teacher, a good person and a good friend.
- Yogi Karmananda
jaideemarketing-karmananda -a-t- yahoo.com ... replace
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Advertisements: "Oh she's a very spiritual person." "He's so spiritual." "I've taken to the spiritual life" or "I have a spiritual calling". What is this spiritual "thing"? Everyone you meet seems to want to BECOME spiritual, as though it was something that one could attain. Well maybe you can, but then again, maybe you cannot. There seems to be an un-written code as to what spirituality is. Certainly if one becomes a monk or nun in some church, or with some religion or other, it is assumed they will be leading a spiritual life. Does spirituality have to do only with religions then? What about the humanist who has no religion, yet wishes to be more spiritual by not eating animal life, so that he may be more spiritual. Are vegetarians more spiritual? Gentleness? Wafting along on cloud nine? Being sweet and kind to everyone? Is It only the followers of Christ or Buddha or some other leader? What then about the good clean living, good to his fellow man, atheist? Can he be spiritual? How have we become so embroiled and lost in the reasoning and misguided concepts of what spirituality is. Is there really such a thing, or is it what we label everything on the "good" side of the scale and which cannot be known on the "bad" side of the scale. What about the spirit of the earth, the trees and all things natural? Various cultures speak to and use these spirits. Perhaps it is just beauty itself that is spiritual, and ugliness is without it. Well it can't be that because we know that beauty is in the eye of the beholder, so what is beauty to you may not be to me. The so called totally evil see great beauty in the pain and suffering they may cause others, in either a mental or physical way. Iago gloried in the suffering he caused Othello. I am just trying to find out what spirit can possibly be. We have been so conditioned to think from an early age about spirit. Our early Christian teachings told us that God breathed life into Adam and made him a living soul. Ah, there's that soul word again. Could that be spirit? Perhaps the breath is spirit. Surely it is not meant to be something that lives on after the body is dead and the breath is gone. Is it to do with the energy that Kerilian photography captures around the body? If it was, it soon disappears after a person dies. Even if, as some say, the spirit hangs around for a ten day period or so, couldn't that be nothing more than the rubbing together of decaying atoms? The dictionary gives it all sorts of meanings, from breath to animate or to be spirited, to the spirit if not the letter of the law, even spirits running around at the bottom of the garden, and spirits as in alcohol. It seems to me it is a word that should soon be dropped by the aspiring Yogi, as it can confuse an issue so huge as to delude him/her into thinking that he/she is spiritual, because of a certain life style, while those not taking that road may not be. Even worse is assuming that someone else is spiritual and in need of being followed. That is a real danger. In past gnana lessons I have made it abundantly clear that there is only you and the Atman. The you with attributes (ego, controlled by Maya) and you the attributeless SELF. The sooner you let go all the fancy thinking about spirituality and judgment of yourself and others, and get down to the work of uniting with SELF, you will see that there is really no such thing as Spirit. It is a word we use in most cases to explain something which we know nothing about and fall into the trap of getting caught up in the net of self deception. In one of my lessons I talked about sattwic food and a sattwic way of life. This is not meant to mean a spiritual way of life. It is meant solely for the eradication of passions, so that stillness and quietness is more easily attained, and subduing the restless mind is more easily achieved. I am going to go into this a bit more later, as now that you are able to see things from this Real Yoga perspective, we may investigate how even something like vegetarianism may be harmful to some - even if well balanced with all the amino acids, proteins and fats and carbs. |
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