The Atma Jyoti Blog

People like lists. Even in the realm of religion, lists abound: the seven deadly sins, the four noble truths, the ten commandments, the five yamas and the five niyamas. On the web, list articles are among the most popular. Why? Let’s answer that with a list.

Lists are:

1. Easy to scan. With all the information on the web, people like to see at a quick glance if an article is worth their time.
2. Organizable. Lists make it easier to organize information and facts, and to see the relationship of each bit of information with the others.
3. Digestible. Lists break information into bite-sized bits, easier to comprehend.
4. Memorable. It is easier for the mind to remember and recall smaller key concepts, rather than large chunks of unorganized information.
5. Quantifiable. While a well written non-list article may have more information, a list provides an easily quantifiable amount of information which many people prefer.

On the Atma Jyoti Blog, as elsewhere on the web, list articles have proven popular. Below is a list of 21 of these articles. Take a look at the “share this” section at the bottom of each article and see how often they have been shared on Facebook, StumbleUpon, Twitter, and by email. And, of course, with or without numbers these articles are valuable for their useful spiritual content.

• 7 Ways to Purify the Mind
• 19 Exceptional Web Resources for Spiritually Minded People
• 4 Ways to Be Happy
• 51 Points on Meditation
• 3 Useful Meditation Tips
• The 10 Commandments of Yoga
• The 5 Great Causes of the Miseries in Life
• The 2 Essential Pillars of Yoga
• 8 Keys to Spiritual Success from Swami Sivananda
• 31 Reflections for August – Collected by Paramhansa Yogananda
• 14 Spiritual Ways to Celebrate Christmas
• 10 Bits of Wisdom from Paramhansa Yogananda
• Two Views on Meditation–and a Third
• The 4 Levels of Spiritual Understanding
• Sivananda Answers 3 Questions
• 5 Key Thoughts on Effective Spiritual Life
• The Top 10 Spiritual Articles of 2008
• 12 Key Concepts in Yoga
• The 5 Basic Mind Waves In-Depth
• 5 Hidden Gems for Spiritual Treasure Hunters
• Yoga in 4 Words

Now you can keep up with the latest from the Atma Jyoti Blog and Website with Facebook. Last night was the official launch of the new  Facebook Atma Jyoti “fan page.” Since Atma Jyoti means “Light of the Spirit,” we plan to post spiritual content there that is illuminating, uplifting, and perhaps also entertaining. Watch our wall to see links to our latest blog posts, and in-depth articles from our main website, which is a virtual spiritual library. Also we will highlight the best of the spiritual web.

We will also share photos of remarkable spiritual figures of the past and present, as well as photos and videos of exceptional and inspiring places we have visited.

This is just a sampling of what will be available, so if you are a Facebook user, visit our fan page now, click the like button, and tell your Facebook friends, and access your free ebooks available from the landing page.

When visiting you only need to type http://www.facebook.com/atma.jyoti.blog in your browser.

Last December in its Healthland section on the web, Time Magazine published an interesting article entitled “Explaining Why Meditators May Live Longer” by Maia Szalavitz. Below we excerpt some of the more interesting sections of the article:

“The image of the ancient but youthful-looking sage meditating on a mountaintop might be closer to reality than you think, according to a new study that found that after a three-month stay at a meditation retreat, people showed higher levels of an enzyme associated with longevity.

…Researchers led by Tonya Jacobs of the University of California-Davis compared 30 participants at a meditation retreat held at the Shambhala Mountain Center in Colorado with matched controls on a waiting list for the retreat. Participants meditated six hours per day for three months. Their meditation centered on mindfulness — for instance, focusing solely on breathing, in the moment — and on lovingkindness and enhancing compassion towards others.

After the three-month intervention, researchers found that the meditators had on average about 30% more activity of the enzyme telomerase than the controls did. Telomerase is responsible for repairing telomeres, the structures located on the ends chromosomes, which, like the plastic aglets at the tips of shoelaces, prevent the chromosome from unraveling. Each time a cell reproduces, its telomeres become shorter and less effective at protecting the chromosome — this, researchers believe, is a cause of aging. As the chromosome becomes more and more vulnerable, cell copying becomes sloppier and eventually stops when the telomeres disintegrate completely. Telomerase can mitigate — and possibly stop — cell aging.

“Something about being on a retreat for three months changed the [amount of] telomerase in the retreat group,” says Elizabeth Blackburn, a study author who has won a Nobel Prize for her previous work on telomerase…. “A lot of things happened during the retreat. But the interesting thing was that the changes we saw tracked quantifiably with the change in people’s psychological well-being and outlook.”

In other words, people with higher levels of telomerase also showed more increases in psychological improvement.

…”It’s a very good study with interesting results in terms of health implications,” says Alan Marlatt, a professor of psychology at the University of Washington who has studied meditation for decades but was not associated with this research.

…In a study published a few years ago in Lancet Oncology, researchers compared 30 men before and after adopting lifestyle changes following a diagnosis of low-risk prostate cancer. The patients started meditating, switched to a healthy plant-based diet, exercised and attended a support group. Like the new study, the Lancet Oncology paper found increases in telomerase linked with reduced psychological distress.”

Read the original article here.

While, of course, this is not the purpose of meditation, it is interesting to note that the quest for the Divine has its positive side effects.

More Web Resources:

• A Life Well Lived – an dharma talk by the venerable Thanissaro Bikkhu. From the remarkable Dharma repository Access to Insight.
• Proofs of Reincarnation – from one of the most impressive collections of information about the afterlife we have come across: the website of Victor Zammit.
• Videos of our experiences in India – from our main website.

2010 was a year of growth for the Atma Jyoti Blog, with subscribers climbing from about 750 to 115o and more. The most read articles are surprising, being driven mainly by traffic from StumbleUpon and Facebook, aside from repeat visits from faithful readers. We rely greatly on your recommendations to others, and appreciate it when you add articles as your favorites to these sites. We try to make it easier with “like” buttons for Facebook, StumbleUpon and more at the bottom of each article.

Here are the articles our statistics tell us were the most visited in 2010:

• 7 Ways to Purify the Mind
• Humans: Are we Carnivores or Vegetarians by Nature?
• A Yogi’s Recommended Reading List
• 19 Exceptional Web Resources for Spiritually Minded People
• How to Misuse Your Power of Thought
• The Many Advantages of Vegetarianism
• Monkey Helps Blind People to Drink
• How to Choose Your Spiritual Name
• Sivananda Answers Three Questions
• Four Ways to Be Happy

We hope you continue to enjoy the Atma Jyoti Blog in the new year, and may you make it a spiritually valuable one.

In 1908 a book appeared on the shelves of American bookstores that was destined to garner interest throughout the world, so much so that today it has gone through more than seventy editions in America alone. This book was The Aquarian Gospel of Jesus the Christ by Levi H. Dowling.

It was a transcription of the psychic investigations of the life of Jesus made by Dowling into what is popularly known as “the akashic records.” It was not a translation of Jesus’ original Aramaic speech, but Dowling’s relaying of the concepts that underlay the outer words of Jesus, for that was what was conveyed in his investigations. For many the Aquarian Gospel is truly Light in Darkness, a fount of life-giving knowledge.

For some time Swami Nirmalananda has been commenting on this unique text, and in the past month much new material from his Commentary on the Aquarian Gospel has been added to the Atma Jyoti website. We encourage readers to explore these commentaries, which are full of wisdom and useful spiritual advice. Below is an excerpt from Swamiji’s article entitled “Jesus’ First Sermon.”

The Call to the Way

“Behold, the censor comes and calls, Whoever will may come; but he who comes must will to prune himself of every evil thought; must overcome desire to gratify the lower self; must give his life to save the lost” (Aquarian Gospel 67:6).

In America we often say: “There is no such thing as a free lunch,” and that is absolutely true. Nothing at all is free–there is a price that must be paid for everything. Sometimes we pay before we receive and sometimes we pay after receiving, but we always pay. In America we also used to jokingly way: “No tickee, no washee,” and that is another way of saying the same thing. So Jesus gives the people some sobering information–and right at the beginning as it should be. He does not hype and peddle the spiritual life, but tells them the price to even meet the King, much less enter the Kingdom.

• The censor comes and calls.

The “censor” may be a person or simply the operation of spiritual laws, but the seeker desperately needs the message:

• Whoever will may come.

The key word here is WILL. Jesus does not say that those who wish to, realize they should, or feel like it–“inspired” or “moved” or “called”–may come, but only those who put forth their intelligent will in sustained effort can meet the King of Spirit.

I once saw a cartoon in which a drunk was lying in a gutter and asking a Salvation Army woman: “Can you save me here, or do I have to go somewhere?” This is the attitude of most “seekers;” they want a free handout with no obligations. It will not happen. Even the Prodigal Son had enough sense to say: “I will arise and go” (Luke 15:18). We must elevate our consciousness and then leave our present status behind and press on to the heights of spiritual realization. Swami Vivekananda’s message to the world was: “Awake! Arise! and stop not till the goal is reached!”

There are a lot of actions that accomplish very little, so Jesus now tells what must be done to meet the King of Glory.

• But he who comes must will to prune himself of every evil thought.

“Thought” includes all frames of reference, attitudes, and mental conditionings that perpetuate ignorance and delusion–the only real evils without which no evil words or deeds can occur. When purification of the mind–which includes the heart–is complete, then we will see for ourself that the Kingdom and the King are truly at hand, welcoming us.

• Must overcome desire to gratify the lower self.

The lower self is all that we call ego. When the ego is not given even a scrap to feed on, then we will feast in the Kingdom of God. We must not placate or stifle the ego, we must banish it entirely, dissolving it forever.

• Must give his life to save the lost.

It is not enough to stop being selfish; we must start being charitable and merciful, doing all we can to uplift others and encourage them in their evolutionary journey, sharing what we have been given. “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8).

Not many…

“Then said one unto him, Lord, are there few that be saved? And he said unto them, Strive to enter in at the strait gate: for many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able” (Luke 13:23, 24).

“Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13, 14).

These are the simple facts. It is not that God’s standards are so high, but that man’s standards are so low. As John Oxenham’s poem “The Way” says:

To every man there openeth
A Way, and Ways, and a Way,
And the High Soul climbs the High Way,
And the Low Soul gropes the Low,
And in between, on the misty flats,
To rest drift to and fro.
But to every man there openeth
A High Way, and a Low.
And every man decideth
The way his soul shall go.

That is the complete picture.Therefore Jesus says:

“The nearer to the kingdom gate you come, more spacious is the room; the multitudes have gone” (Aquarian Gospel 67:8).

Worldly people are obsessed with numbers. (“Four out of five New York doctors recommend…” sold a lot of cigarettes when I was a child.) When they decide to play religion they either seek out a big, mega-organization or a small, elite group in which they shine as the proverbial big frog in a little pond, one in which they will be noticed and catered to. But the Forecourt of the Kingdom is very spacious because few are truly seeking what it has to offer. The world is its very effective competition, and the multitudes crowd its ways. The King is not disappointed, for He knows that it has always been this way, and always shall be, yet in time all will come and enter. This is the law of evolution.

Yogananda said that when man tells God: “I have no time for You,” God says: “I will wait.” And so he does, knowing that after many ages we shall all enter and dwell with Him. The Path will always be trodden by the blessed few, and the wise make sure they are one of the blessed.

More about the inner side of Christianity:

• The Christ of India
• May a Christian Believe in Reincarnation?
• The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ –By Nicholas Notovich.

THE COMMENTARY ON THE DHAMMAPADA, by Swami Nirmalananda Giri, has recently been completed, and has been posted in full at the Atma Jyoti website, and is also available as a free PDF download. This is the completion of a years-long project, and students of practical spiritual life will find it an invaluable aid to their practice.

History of the Dhammapada

The Dhammapada is not a transcription of a single talk by Gautama the Buddha. Rather, it is a collection of his words on the most important subjects for those seeking Nirvana. It was compiled only three months after his passing away by his enlightened disciples (arhats), who gave it the name Dhammapada, which means “Portions of the Dharma” or “The Way of Dharma.” The Dhammapada consists of four hundred twenty- three Pali verses that were gleaned from about three hundred discourses of the Buddha. It is a distillation of forty-five years of teaching. The translation mostly used in this commentary is that of John Richards.

Here are links to the online Dhammapada Commentary articles: