The Sanskrit word for "action" is "karma," derived from the
root "kri" which means "to do."

One does action and gets remunerated for it, in turn transferring
this remuneration to others for work done by them.

Thus, fruit has arisen out of action, and action out of fruit. From
time immemorial, life has been conducted in this manner. This is
called the wheel of karma.

To act with the motive of gaining fruits is to invite bondage.
Relinquishing the fruits frees us from all miseries.

Swami Rama

Freedom from the Bondage of Karma

In your meditation today....

May your body be still and comfortable....

May your head, neck and trunk be aligned....

May your breath be smooth, slow, serene, with no pauses....

May the flow of thoughts in your mind not disturb you....

May your meditation today bring you peace, happiness, and bliss....


Sound:
http://www.swamij.com/Sounds/MeditationToday24.mp3


In loving service,

Swami J

Love and attachment are two different things. Love means giving
selflessly, excluding non and including all. Attachment is possessing
something. In reality, it is bondage. There is a vast difference
between love and attachment. Western people say, "How can you live
without attachment?" Well, you can live wonderfully without
attachment. You can live on love. Love and attachment are poles
apart. One is the cause of freedom. The other is the cause of
bondage.

Swami Rama
Inspired Thoughts of Swami Rama

If anyone wants to be a student of the interior world, of the path of
light, if he wants to do inner research, he will have to understand
this point: one must have a purified, free, and one-pointed mind to
know and examine the interior Self.

If the mind is not free, if one is prejudiced from the very
beginning, influenced by a particular set of dogmas, doctrines, or
formulas, then one can neither conduct nor complete any research.

For conducting research within, one should be truthful, sincere, and
free from prejudices. Research should not be shaded by social and
cultural norms or religious fanaticism. It requires a totally
independent and unbiased mind. One cannot lie to oneself.

One should ask, "Am I really true to myself? Am I really a
seeker?"

Swami Rama
Choosing a Path

The music that fills the outer ear is but an echo of the inner
harmony. One who learns to make his whole being an ear, alone hears
the music of eternity. The unstruck sound, without drums and
trumpeting, soothes my senses, stimulates my mind, and fills my
heart. This inner music has consumed all the longings I had for
external stimuli.

Swami Rama
Love Whispers

The Self is the dearest of all things, and only
through the Self is anything else dear.
The Self is the origin of all finite happiness,
but it is itself pure bliss, transcending definition.
It remains unaffected by deeds, good and bad.
It is beyond feeling and beyond knowledge,
but it is not beyond the meditation of the sage.

Brihadaranyaka Upanishad

First your teacher introduces you to the real teacher within you,
which is called your own conscience. Then you start counseling
within: "I should not do this because it is not helpful. This is
creating an obstacle for me." The teacher inspires you, gives you
strength--that strength which is already within you. The teacher
introduces you to your own conscience and says, "My child, look
within and be guided by this."

Swami Rama
Inspired Thoughts

When one learns to forget all that one remembers, then in which
language will the mind think? The thinker has nothing to think upon.
Therefore, there is no thought and no mind. Only the Self exists with
its majestic glory, which is simply beautiful and indescribable. It
is an experience that elevates one to the heights of completion and
fearlessness, for there is nothing that is able to create fear. The
One exists alone in its entirety.

Swami Rama
Love Whispers

A Rare Friendship Between a Leopard and a Cow

GUJARAT, INDIA, May 12, 2003: A rare phenomena
has captured the hearts and minds of inhabitants
of a village in Gujarat. It all started last
October when a leopard began making regular
nocturnal visits to a cow in the village.
At first the villagers were leery of the visits,
but word soon spread about the unusual relationship.
Rohit Vyas explained, "It was unbelievable. They
approached each other at very close proximity
and the fearless cow would lick the leopard
on its head and neck." Efforts by the Forest
department to capture the leopard proved fruitless.
Soon the villagers were protecting the leopard.
Apparently its frequent visits have kept other
animals from damaging crops and crop yields
have gone up by 30 per cent.

The majority of people view yoga as a
system of physical culture. Very few
understand that yoga science is complete
in itself, and deals systematically
with body, breath, mind, and spirit.
When one understands that a human being
is not only a physical being, but a
breathing being and a thinking being
too, then his research does not limit
itself to the body and breath only.
For him, gaining control over the mind
and its modifications, and the feelings
and emotions, become more important
than practicing a few postures or
breathing exercises. Meditation and
contemplation alone can help the
aspirant in understanding, controlling,
and directing the mind.

Swami Rama
Path of Fire and Light

Probably if I were to play back tapes of my
past talks, it would be the same ideas again
and again. People might say, "The swami
says nothing new--the same old swami, the
same old stuff. Why do they listen again
and again?" I feel happy and they all feel
happy being there, so they make me happy
and I make them happy. We just spend a
little happy time together, that's all. We
just talk about something or do something
in the name of Yoga. Yes, that is the secret.
There is a joy in being together, that's all.
So that is the life of detachment. There is
no expectation. We just come together.

Swami Satchidananda Saraswati
Commentary on the Yoga Sutras

Here is a link to a page that outlines nine quotes
made by Swami Rama on holistic health:
http://www.swamij.com/swami-rama-holistic.htm

The emphasis is in the first point, which says
that, "The basis of holistic health lies in one's
understanding the purpose of his life and
learning how to achieve that purpose."

These nine excerpts are from the book,
A Practical Guide to Holistic Health.

A new article has been added to the website,
entitled: "What is `systematic' meditation?"
The purpose of this article is to discuss what
it means to go inward systematically, through
the four dimensions of reality, and how this
relates to yoga practices of meditation.
Here's the link:
http://www.swamij.com/systematic.htm

In loving service,

Swami J

Knowledge has a subject and an object.
Wisdom has neither.

Swami Jnaneshvara

The chariot is used by the ancient sages
as symbol for how to train your mind and
senses. Though most of us do not use
horse drawn chariots, the lesson is as
practical today as it was thousands of
years ago:

Click here for chariot driving instructions:
http://www.swamij.com/chariot.htm

In loving service,

Swami Jnaneshvara

You really do not need to know many things,
but you definitely need to practice what you know.

Swami Rama
The Art of Joyful Living

Dear Friends,

From time to time people ask questions like, "What is a swami?"
or "Why did you become a swami?" Sometimes these are difficult to
explain, so here is a new article that talks about these questions:
http://www.swamij.com/what-is-a-swami.htm

Included in that article is an article entitled "What is
Renunciation?", written by Pandit Usharbudh Arya in 1986 (Now Swami
Veda Bharati). This article has been a significant personal
inspiration to me along the way. Either scroll down the link above, or click
here:
http://www.swamij.com/what-is-a-swami.htm#whatisrenunciation

I hope you enjoy these....

In loving service,

Swami J

"A human being cannot live without doing karma,
actions. And when he does some karma he reaps
the fruits of the actions. And those fruits
lead him to do more actions and there is no
end. He creates a whirlpool for himself and
he cannot come out of that. Is there any way
that you go on doing your actions and yet
remain free from the bondage of karma? I say
yes. If you grease your karma with love, then
you will not have a problem. You have stress
today, 'My wife doesn't listen to me.' She
thinks, 'My husband doesn't listen to me.'
They both are going through self-created
stress. But if you simply change the concept,
there will be no stress. Stress has become
the biggest killer today. Everybody says I
have stress, I have stress. Why do you have
stress? Wife wants to control the husband,
husband wants to control the wife. Why do
you want to control anyone? This tussle is
going on all the time, in all families and
you call it family life and love. When I come
to your home, you all smile. When I go
outside, then you start fighting. I know
that and I understand. I think there can be
harmony in the family if there is understanding,
understanding on a higher level."

Swami Rama
A Personal Philosophy of Life

Quoted from the newsletter of the Himalayan
Institute Hospital, founded by Swami Rama
in India. For information on the newsletter, or
to subscribe, click here:
http://www.hihtindia.org/bulletin/hihtbulletin.html

The main website of the hospital is here:
http://www.hihtindia.org/

OM...

Each day is a life to one who divides.
The child is the next life to one who multiplies.
This and the next life is real life to one who adds.
This life brings death to one who subtracts.
Forget mathematics, and Know the One.

Swami Jnanesvhara

A new addition has been made to the website, a description of the
soham mantra, which is used along with the breath. It has been called
the universal mantra because it is already flowing with exhalation
and inhalation, and everybody breathes. Here's the link:
http://www.swamij.com/soham-mantra.htm

May your meditations bring you peace, happiness, and bliss.

In loving service,

Swami J

Albert Einstein insightful quotes at SwamiJ.com:
http://www.swamij.com/einstein.htm

Dear Friends,

It is said that 125,000 recitations of a mantra
will bring mantra siddhi, the realization of a
notable level of benefit from the mantra.
Believe it or not, following is a link to a page
that has 125,000 repetitions of the OM mantra.
While this web page is created in a spirit of
playfulness, who knows, it might just have
an effect to scroll down it one time!
Here's the link:
http://www.swamij.com/om-mantra-125000.htm

In loving service,

Swami J

Additions to website:
http://www.swamij.com/additions.htm

Dear Friends,

A new section has been added to the website
on Kundalini Awakening. The section has a
total of 8 web pages. After you click on the
link below, be sure to click on the 6 graphics
to go to the other pages, as well as clicking
on the Index link.

Here's the link:
http://www.swamij.com/kundalini-awakening.htm

In loving service,

Swami J

A human being is a citizen of two worlds,
and he or she has to develop the ability to
have access to both without any confusion.
Clarity of mind comes if you have learned
to direct your mind according to your
desire and goal.

The world within and the world without are
two entirely separate realities. The external
world dissipates energy, but the internal
world showers blessings that fill the
vacuum created by the world.

Swami Rama
Sadhana

To help you find things on the website,
an extensive Site Map has been added.
It is near the top left of the Home page:
http://www.swamij.com/index.htm

Or, here is a direct link to the Site Map:
http://www.swamij.com/sitemap.htm

Also, there is a search engine at the top left
of the Home page. This search engine searches
only the SwamiJ.com website. If you are
trying to remember where you saw something
on the site, just type in a keyword or two.

I hope you find these useful.

In loving service,

Swami J

In an online article of the July/August
2003 issue of LA Yoga Magazine, the
widely recognized scholar on Yoga,
Georg Feuerstein is asked by the
interviewer Julie Deife, "How would
you describe Yoga in the US today?"
He responded:

"It's a mess. And you can quote me on
that. Anything that comes to America
or the West in general, immediately
gets individualized and commercialized.
There has always been great diversity
in traditional Yoga, and this diversity
was based on the experience of masters.
Today even beginning teachers feel
qualified to innovate and create their
own trademarked Yoga system.

"So, looking at the Yoga movement today,
part of me feels very saddened by it,
but then I also see that it contains
the seeds of something better. Also,
amazingly, Yoga can be beneficial even
when it is reduced down to posture
practice. But people shortchange
themselves when they strip Yoga of
its spiritual side."

Georg Feuerstein has published many
excellent articles on his website that
are well worth reading:
http://www.yrec.org/publications.html

In loving service,

Swami J

Dear Friends,

A new article has been added to the website,
entitled "Mysticism, Yoga, and Religion":
http://www.swamij.com/mysticism-yoga-religion.htm

I hope that you find it useful.

In loving service,

Swami J

Dear Friends,

A new article is on the website entitled
"Uncoloring your Colored Thoughts", describing
klishta (colored) and aklishta (uncolored)
thought patterns, which is a primary goal
of meditation, so as to allow the Self to
come shining through. Here's the link:

http://www.swamij.com/klishta-aklishta.htm

Hope you enjoy it.

In loving service,

Swami J

All sadhanas (spiritual practices), techniques,
and disciplines are actually means to train the
mind. And the foremost part of the training is
to make the mind aware that Reality lies
beyond itself.

Swami Rama
Meditation and Its Practice