Develop a Clear Cut Aim

First, you must form a correct conception of how you wish to develop and perfect yourself. You must cultivate a clear-cut idea of what you want to become. This will give you a definite and clear-cut aim in life. Without such an aim, your life cannot move forward powerfully and progressively. You will be pulled in different directions and your mind will be distracted and much energy will be wasted. You can avoid all of these if you have a well-defined aim or a set of a few definite objectives. Then there is no confusion in your way. You know whatyou wish to attain and in which direction to proceed. Therefore, you also understand what is right and what is wrong, what is desirable and what is undesirable, what is to be accepted and what is to be rejected in moving towards your aim of life. Such definiteness gives you great
inner strength. It develops will-power. It makes you a positive personality. There will be no more negative trends in your life.

Swami Chidananda

Incarnations

But it can work through your individuality also, if you are in a state of unison with that. You can be an instrument in the hands of that power, when you are in unison with that in your deep feeling. They will propel you to act. These are the incarnations and the prophets, as they are called. They are individuals but they are working under the command of a universal force. The whole universal power is concentrated in one individual; that is an incarnation—like the entire power of the sun getting concentrated through a lens and acting at a particular spot. They are called super-human beings. The individuality is there for all purposes of perception, but they are treading in the heavens, actually speaking, because they have consciousness of earth as well as heaven at the same time. That is a peculiar state of jivanmukti, as they call it—you are liberated, and yet you are conscious of the whole of creation. It is an intermediary stage between ordinary human consciousness and Absolute consciousness. That is what is called incarnation consciousness,jivanmukti consciousness. It is an intermediary stage where you can become a cosmic worker, a world savior, as they call it. All the saviors of the world, the incarnations—Krishna, Christ, Buddha, whoever they are—they were intermediaries in the cosmic force, which operated through this physical individuality of theirs, as visible to the eyes. They were not thinking through the body. They were thinking through a larger area, and so we call them incarnations. That is, “incarnation” means the concentration of universal force in a particular body. And, you can also become that. You may become a world savior, a prophet, an incarnation, if the thoughts of yours are cosmic thoughts. And, you will not think in any other manner except that way.

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SWAMIJI: When you think, you will know that It is thinking through you. You will know it. Sometimes you say, “he is possessed by divine forces.” You get possessed by that, and you can know that it is working through you, somebody else is speaking through you.

Dr. P. C. Rao: Why don’t I invite the divine force to enter and say, “Now let us move forward.”

SWAMIJI: It will do that. It can do whatever is necessary for the evolution of the total universe. It is not doing it for the welfare of any particular individual. There are no particular individuals.

Dr. P. C. Rao: Then, why should I meditate, Swamiji?

SWAMIJI: So that you may know that it is the truth. You are always thinking you are somewhere, in some place. You have to remove that idea. There is a peculiar habit of the mind asserting itself as located in some place, in a particular form, in a particular condition, etc. This must be removed.

Sri C. G. Krishnamurty: What Dr. Rao says is if I am That, why not let That guide me in the proper line?

SWAMIJI: It will certainly guide you.

Sri C. G. Krishnamurty: If that is so, then why should I meditate?

SWAMIJI: It will guide you only after you become one with It. For that, you have to meditate. The government protects and guides the ambassador, but for that he has to become the ambassador first.

Dr. P. C. Rao: But, the ambassador is different from the government. He only carries out the instructions of the government. He is not the government himself. Government is a larger entity.

SWAMIJI: That is true. So, he is acting as a representative of the government itself.

Dr. P. C. Rao: Therefore, I asked at the very beginning, “Am I the agent?”

SWAMIJI: In one stage, you are the agent. There are three stages.

Dr. P. C. Rao: If I am the agent, I carry out these instructions. I can’t be held accountable at all. I am not answerable to anybody.

SWAMIJI: Certainly you are not accountable, provided you are having that consciousness.

Dr. P. C. Rao: Then it is conditional; you have introduced a proviso.

SWAMIJI: Otherwise, if in the middle you start thinking you are Mr. Rao talking, then it won’t work.

Dr. P. C. Rao: No, if I am the ambassador, I know that if the government gives me instructions, it is as the ambassador of that country; I go and give it. And if these instructions don’t fructify, if nothing comes out of it, or bad comes of it, I can’t be held responsible because I merely carried out the instructions given to me by my superior.

SWAMIJI: He is responsible only if he does something contrary to the government ordinance.

Dr. P. C. Rao: Yes. But you are also saying that I cannot even act contrary to the direction. You are incapable of doing so, because it controls.

SWAMIJI: Sometimes it is possible in the intermediary stage to slip into ego consciousness. If you are continuously maintaining a universal consciousness, you are not responsible for anything. But that consciousness is not maintained always. Sometimes in the intermediary, earlier stages, the mind slips into ego consciousness and mistakes can be committed. Even Lord Krishna said, “I cannot repeat the Gita a second time.” He came down from that level. When Arjuna said, “Speak to me once again,” He said, “No, no. You are a foolish man.”

Dr. P. C. Rao: If you slip into it, while logically pursuing this, doggedly pursuing it, it means are you acting contrary to the instruction of. . . Even that slipping into that former direction—are you accountable?

SWAMIJI: You will not slip after a certain stage. It is a force of individuality. For ages and ages we have been living in this body, so it is having its say, even when you are meditating and insisting that “I am also there.” To overcome that feeling of body consciousness. . .

Dr. P. C. Rao: One can reconcile and say that it is the divine wish that it be like this.

SWAMIJI: You are not simply saying that it is a divine wish. You know that it is a divine wish and you will never feel that you are doing anything at that time. It all depends upon what you feel in your mind. What are you feeling? You will feel that you are not doing anything independently.

Swami Krishnananda

Skanda

No one can face the world except with the help of God. Armaments, military and police are nothing before the evil of the world. No one can overcome it, and it shall continue. So, the Skanda Purana says that the War-god was born from the universal contemplation of the great Creator Himself. The Samadhi-Bhuta Sakti or the energy born out of the great Samadhi of Lord Siva, whom we call Skanda, is the answer for all the evils of the world. The force of cosmic desire became a cumulative focussing weapon, as it were, and with a sixfold face the divine energy began to confront the multifaceted dark forces.

Swami Krishnananda

Things

“If you want something, you must assert that it has already come: ‘It is already with me.’ This is one of the psychological techniques people generally suggest; and it will immediately come. If you intensely want a thing, it will come.”

– Swami Krishnananda

The Law of Three

There are ideas which could stop all quarrels; such an idea is the law of three. ~ P. D. Ouspensky

When I worked at a psychiatric clinic as a young man, I was asked this question by a friend: If you could explain one esoteric idea to your colleagues at the clinic, which idea would it be? He was very surprised by my answer. I said that if the doctors and the nurses at the clinic truly understood the law of three, that that, in itself, would have the potential to change our whole approach.

At first the law of three seems theoretical, but it turns out to be a very helpful tool once you understand it and observe it in yourself and in your interactions with others. In a nutshell what the law of three means is that every action requires three forces. When three forces are present, things happen, actions are actualized. But without three forces—with one or two forces—nothing happens. There are various names for each force. The first force is called the active or positive or motivating force. The second force is called the negative or passive or denying force. The third force is called the neutralizing or facilitating or invisible force.

All esoteric laws work both on the scale of our inner world and on the scale of the world around us, but it is often true that a law, or a principle, will be easier to observe in particular sphere or area. I have personally found that the law of three is easiest to observe in my interactions with other people, so that’s what I’ll talk about here.
It’s generally not hard to observe the first and second force in an interaction. Let’s say that you want to go out to a restaurant or to see friends, and your wife (or your husband) doesn’t want to go out. You want to go out and you don’t want to go alone, but your spouse wants to stay home. You are the positive force, you want to act, but your spouse is the passive or negative force. She (or he) resists you. In this example what the law of three means is that if you do nothing but try to motivate the other person to act, you will only increase their resistance. No amount of first force can overcome second force. What is needed is a third force. In this case the third force can come from you or from the outside. Let’s say that your spouse wanted to stay home to watch a show or to do some research on the internet, and it happens that that night the internet connection at your house goes down. Their plan is ruined, and that might be enough to neutralize their denying force. In other words, they may now be willing to go out. The action becomes possible because their denying force was neutralized by what happened. What is more likely is that you will have to provide a third force yourself. You will need to think about the conflict in terms of neutralizing their denying force, not in terms of overcoming their denying force. Perhaps you will offer to do something for them in exchange—accompany them somewhere that they want to go in the next week or make them breakfast the next morning. The point in this example is that if you want a result, you have to stop playing a motivating force and start playing a facilitating force.

Let’s take another example. Let’s say you’re sick and you need to go to the doctor, but you don’t have the money so you do nothing for a number of days. The first or motivating force is being sick. The denying force is having no money. You go round and round in your mind about what to do, then a friend or a family member offers to give you the money. That is the third or facilitating force. Using this same example let’s say that money is not an issue. Let’s say that you mistrust doctors, that you’ve been sick like this before and have gone to a doctor and gotten antibiotics, and that it didn’t help. Again the motivating force is being sick or needing help, but this time the denying force is a lack of knowledge about what will help to make you better. In this case maybe a friend tells you about some herbs or supplements that have helped him in the past or about an acupuncturist. This new knowledge of a different approach neutralizes your apathy and allows you to take action and find a treatment.

The third force is sometimes called the invisible force because we are all third force blind; that is, we tend to focus on the first and second force and miss the necessity for a third force. It is how we think: this is what I want and this is what is keeping me from getting it. This type of thinking was very prevalent at the clinic where I worked. Aims were set for the patients and obstacles were discussed. We often treated depressed patients by motivating them. If they were apathetic, we told them that life was worth the trouble, that it was interesting or fun. We motivated them to act by overwhelming their negative and passive view of the world. The problem with this approach was that, in almost all cases, the patients never learned to motivate themselves, so that as soon as the stimulus that we provided was removed, they fell back into their old habits. If we had been more intelligent in our approach, we would have played a third force, not a first force, and tried to find a way to neutralize the denying force they felt in their lives outside the clinic.

Let’s take one more example: you have an old car, it runs okay, but you’ve been thinking it’s time to get a new one. There are advantages on both sides. The positive force in this decision is having a more dependable and perhaps more fuel-efficient car. The negative force is not wanting to have additional debt. You may go for months in a kind of indecision about what to do. But eventually something will happen. Maybe you will lose your job, and so you will definitely decide to keep the old car and fix it up as you can. Maybe the old car will break down and you will decide that it’s not worth fixing and will buy a new one. Maybe you will find a great deal on a nearly new car and decide to buy that.

The point of all these examples is that before the third force arrives, nothing happens. Again: without three forces—with one or two forces—no action or movement is possible. The first two forces, motivation and resistance, simply circle around each other. They do not move toward an action or a conclusion.
We need to teach ourselves to see the law of three. This type of knowledge is not innate or instinctive, but once it’s pointed out, and you begin to see it, you will wonder how you lived without it.

 

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In the example with the mother and daughter, I would suggest that the mother is probably trying to play a first force in her daughter’s life, and the daughter is reacting by playing a second force. The way to stop the daughter from playing the negative force is for the mother to begin to play a third force. This require a certain amount of passivity and acceptance on the mother’s part. Playing a third force means that you try to see what the other person wants, instead of telling them what they want. Once you’ve accepted their aims, then you do whatever you can to neutralize their denying force. 
With the neighbors perhaps a third party is necessary to negotiate. I don’t know it depends on how bad the relations are. 
It’s very telling that all your examples have to do with changing other people. You might find it more profitable to observe inner considering and to learn to practice external considering. 
Here’s a link to article on this subject. http://bepresentfirst.com/being-present-and-other-people/

Article from http://bepresentfirst.com/law-of-three

 

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APS: It has just occurred to me that the Law of Three is found in India in the trinity of Shiva (husband), Parvati (wife) and Ganesha (son). Ganesha is famed for being the “remover of obstacles” and is often invoked for this purpose. He is the facilitating force in the equation.

 

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Gems from Swami Sivananda

If a desire comes and if you fulfill it, that samskara which caused that desire, gets more strengthened. The implication is that by fulfilling a desire, the desire never ends. You can never put an end to desires by fulfilling them. Just as the hungry flames will not subside by any amount of ghee poured in it, similarly the desire gets strengthened by fulfillment.

Non-cooperate with the mind. Do not fulfill desires, when they arise in the mind. It is the nature of the mind to desire. Mind and desire are synonymous. Non-fulfilment of desire is the only way of attaining mastery over the mind. Countless desires may arise; be silent. Do not say, “Come along, I will fulfill it.” It is only when you make the mistake of saying, “I am the mind”, “I am desiring”, you commit a blunder.

Only when the mind is purified, it becomes your guide. Till then non-cooperate with it. Then the mind will cease to be the mover of the human, and the human will become the mover of the mind. You should be the independent mover of the mind. Then you become Manojit or Indriyajit. That is what an aspirant has to become. The law is, desires never perish by fulfilling them.

The desires that come on the surface of the mind have their roots in the subconscious, and in as much as the roots are hidden, you will have to do daily the digging of the mind, and delving to the root of these desires. Set apart a time when there is no external distraction, sit in a secluded place and feel that you are the witness of the mind. Just allow the mind to wander for a while and see how it behaves and try to delve within.

All our time we are engaged in drawing the mind outward. Now make the mind go inward and try to see within yourself what is going on. It requires regular practice, or else we will be thinking we are looking into the mind, but in the processes, we would be drifting with the mind. You should delve inward and introspect. You must do twofold process. One is diverting the mind’s rays inward, and when you go inward, focus keenly on a certain part of your mind and analyse it, dissect it.

One is that we should not go inward with partiality. If you are studying the mind, be impartial, because this introspection is done with the purpose of ejecting out all that is undesirable and supplying all that is required.

If after studying the mind, you are full of self-satisfaction, if you are satisfied with whatever is there in the mind, such introspection and self-analysis will serve no purpose. You should have a critical attitude. Otherwise, the benefit of introspection and self-analysis will be lost.

If as a result of your introspection, you find in your mind certain traits which are not desirable, you should find out the means of removing those defects. Self-justification, self-approbation, are not what is meant by introspection. Once you find out your defects, be practical. Have some effective device to remove the defects.

You should find out how to make the best capital out of what you have discovered in your moments of self-introspection and sadhana. Thorough purification can only come, if there is detailed, impartial introspection, followed by practical measures to remove the defects. This introspection should be done daily. Daily you should throw out some rubbish from within the mind. This is the process of purification.

There are two more important steps that one has to take in living the divine life. Each sadhaka should bear in mind that divine life is to be lived in small details. If you are divine in small details, you can be divine in big things. You cannot afford to be undivine in small actions and expect to be divine fundamentally. If your Yoga becomes practical in little things, then great achievements will come as a matter of course.

Some sadhakas think that details do not matter much. They think that it does not matter if they use harsh words occasionally. The sadhaka thinks, “There is no harm in uttering a harsh word. I am quite calm inwardly. God wants only the heart.” But a calm heart cannot come unless every word of yours is full of love and compassion. The heart is made up of only the sum-total of all little actions and words. It is not possible to have a wonderful heart inside, and indulge in every type of actions and words.

Every action goes to form one’s character even as every drop goes to form the ocean. Day-to-day movements of the human constitute the very essence of divine living, the very essence of Yoga and Vedanta. One should not commit the mistake of being content with the idea that by merely having a great idealism, it will manifest itself as perfect goodness in one’s actions, words and thoughts.

Unless you are careful in your day-to-day life and mould your life in accordance with your idealism, it cannot bear fruit. If you are careful that the broad principles of divine living are observed, the edifice will come by itself.

What are those broad principles? Truthfulness, compassion, purity — these have to cover your entire life down to the minutest details. Your whole life, at least in the beginning, should be characterised by restraint. You should restrain your tongue. Do not think that you can eat anything and say anything and meditate well. If you think so, you are deceiving yourself. Yoga is not a toy, which you can easily take and play with. It is like an iron-fort, lodging well-equipped soldiers.

Every action should be done with proper examination. The quality of food that you take, its quantity, and the time you take food, all are important. A little immoderate food, or improper time of taking food may affect your system and render meditation difficult. So, too, with the thoughts you entertain and actions you are engaged in. The whole body and mind should be restrained. You should live a life of moderation.

Differences End Forever

Everything in this world has got a spiritual message to convey. Learn from everything. All is Brahman. When this truth is intellectually recognized, and intuitively realized, then all feelings of differences end forever.

Swami Sivananda

I Am

Time

Time is the mode of the mind. It is a mental creation. Time is a trick of the mind. It is an illusion. Brahman is beyond time. It is eternity. Go beyond time, and rest in the timeless, eternal, imperishable Brahman.

Swami Sivananda

Worshipful homage unto the one, non-dual, all-pervading and indwelling Reality that shines in the hearts of all as the witnessing Consciousness! May that all-blissful One manifest Itself in the hearts of all sincere seeking souls as blissful awareness! May the divine quality of that Supreme Reality manifest in your heart, mind and intellect, and may Its divinity be expressed by you in your thought, word and action! By thus manifesting the Reality that indwells your body temple, may your life become really and truly divine!

Swami Chidananda

Action

The whole gospel of the Bhagavadgita is nothing but the technique of the blending of knowledge and activity. We usually think that knowledge means not doing anything and activity means working without knowledge. Sri Krishna tells us that knowledge does not mean understanding without work, nor work means activity without knowledge. It is very difficult to understand what knowledge and action are. Action is the outward expression of knowledge, and knowledge is the inner reality of action. This may be said to be the central theme of the Bhagavadgita.

Swami Krishnananda