Sutras of the Inner Teacher: The Yoga of the Centre of Consciousness - Softcover

Jerry, Martin

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1588320294 ISBN 13: 9781588320292

Publisher: Unlimited Pub Llc, 2001

Synopsis

In the Himalayan Tradition of Yoga, the sage awakens within the student the divine flame called the Inner Teacher or Centre of Consciousness. This inner awakening is described with personal experiences that shed light on the mysteries of the guru-disciple relationship. Written as 108 sutras or brief aphorisms with extensive discussion and Sanskrit glossary, the text has a comprehensive western scientific commentary and bibliography that provide practical guidance for the new disciple about how to work with the Inner Teacher. The book integrates the Yogas of life and discipline on a foundation of meditation suitable for this stage of the spiritual path.

About this title

About the Author:

Drs. Martin and Marian Jerry, physician-scientist and clinical psychologist respectively, have studied and practiced Yoga since 1968 and were initiated into the Tradition of the Himalayan Masters by Swami Veda Bharati in 1982. They studied directly with the late H. H. Swami Rama for ten years in both North America and India. They are founding teachers of the Foothills Yoga Society in Calgary, Canada. They have conducted clinical and laboratory research on the effects of meditation and maintain an active interest in the medical and psychological applications of Yoga philosophy, psychology and practice.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

Sutra 2. The Centre of Consciousness is the Inner Teacher, the Inner Guru.

What is the Centre of Consciousness? Our spiritual preceptor, the late H. H. Sri Swami Rama, described it simply as the core or centre of one's being from which consciousness flows in various degrees and grades. Each of us has a divine core, a soul, called the Atman, or Self. We each carry a fragment of God within us. The task of the Spiritual Path is Self-Realization, to become aware of our spiritual nature within and to express it fully. The Centre of Consciousness is one of the first manifestations of Spirit, of spirituality, or of spiritual consciousness, as distinct from ordinary thoughts, feelings and sensations that make up our normal waking experience. This first manifestation is called the Inner Teacher or Inner Guru. It has many names in many traditions. It is a radically new aspect of consciousness in the sense that the acquisition of sight would be to the experience of someone born blind. Those who have vision can share that experience in ways that someone who is blind can only imagine. Likewise, those who know the Centre can recognize and communicate that experience with others who know. But the experience cannot be imagined by or communicated in language to someone who yet does not know. It is a secret that once revealed remains a secret. This kind of experiential direct knowing is what is referred to in the texts frequently as Knowledge. It is not knowledge as we understand it in the West in the sense of intellectual information or understanding about something. For imagination, conceptualization and language are faculties of the intellect whose constructions, however creative or bizarre, can only be based on reorganizations and transformations of elements taken from what is already known, from past experience. They cannot construct a radically and qualitatively new inner experience. The effect must always proceed from the cause; the effect is inherent in the cause. The tendency of Western science to try to explain such things as "emergent properties" of what went before, of something simpler, does not apply here.

"It is important to remember that the consciousness, the Atman or the Self, does not actually evolve. There is no evolution of the Atman, or soul. By the practice of (Yoga) we do not actually evolve; it is a process of involution. It is not true to say that our souls have evolved from the primitive state to our present developed state. The supreme existence, or the soul, is the same as it was thousands of years ago. It does not undergo a change. The only difference is that our lower self or the individualized self becomes aware of that supreme form slowly, step-by-step.

When we turn our minds from the outer world to the inner world, we come to know that there is an infinite facet of existence in us which can only be experienced in samadhi. It is not approachable through the intellect, therefore a sadhana like the eight rungs of Raja Yoga is required."

Swami Satyananda Saraswati (1989), pp 226-227.

About this edition

• Publisher: Unlimited Pub Llc
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 1588320294
• ISBN 13: 9781588320292
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 245