The Path

mercredi 20 décembre 2023

Loving the Life

1. The practice of the technique of the Holy-Name is the solution to all problems. For example, if you are looking to find your keys, instead of looking in vain everywhere, you sit down, close your eyes, practice the technique and find your keys... not with your eyes closed ; after meditating for a few moments, you open your eyes and search, then you find your keys.

2. Wouldn’t you have found them even without the Holy-Name episode ? I don’t know, what I do know is that every opportunity to “do the Holy-Name” is good. When you’re tense, a little nervous, like when you’re looking in vain for your keys, it’s good to calm down, to refocus.

3. If you are looking for the capital of Uzbekistan, without succeeding, you sit down, close your eyes and meditate for a few moments, then you completely mock the capital of Uzbekistan (Tashkent). You can also search on Google.

The practice of the Holy-Name

4. Emotionality, uncontrolled thoughts make you lose a lot of your means. You probably know that for exams, being in an evaluation position can make you lose your abilities. That is why meditating on the Holy-Name can only be beneficial.

5. That said, the practice of the Holy-Name, of the technique, does not have as purpose to favor your development, nor to allow you to find your keys, nor to help you to pass your exams, a good beta-blocker will do as well!

6. The practice of the Holy-Name is the basis of spirituality according to The Path. The goal is to realize the purpose of your coming to Earth, because there is one. Not knowing it does not prevent it from existing.

The Guidance

7. In my life, I have often been in a difficult situation. When you walk, in the winters, on a road in the middle of the causses, when everything is covered with snow and there is no track on the road and hitchhiking is impossible, when you are still very far from the first big town, when there is no dwelling in sight, you may feel helpless.

8. Still, I remember I didn’t worry for a second. I saw the morning sun light up all snow-covered things to make them shine like jewels and I felt the warmth, sweetness, thoughtfulness of the Holy-Name in my chest. I felt that this low sun on the horizon was the gaze of God staring at me and I was not afraid of it, because my God is love.

9. I had a smile and felt privileged. I was walking at a good pace without any further questions. Then, leaving an adjacent road, a 4L (Renault car) arrived and I was taken. The driver and his passenger sitting in the front, were two disciples of Lanza Del Vasto who took me to their community, to ''La Borie Noble'', in Haut-Languedoc (France).

10. Stories like that I could tell you for hours. These difficult situations that magically unravel, while you are in love with the Holy-Name, have made me discover the consciousness of Grace, of His Guidance, when the Lord gives you a helping hand. Some say, "Providence."

The joy of living

11. I am not an Inca and do not believe in the sun god, it is the fact of being conscious of the Holy-Name that makes God see everywhere. Anyway, is it not the truth ? Is God absent from anything, from somewhere, from anyone ? No, God is omnipresent since and forever. So when you see him, you are right.

12. With this vision, life is a party. Even if I am wrong, I prefer to be wrong in that sense than in the other, the one where everything is seen negatively. Life is short, live it in joy, as much as possible!

13. The important thing in life is to be happy to live, to fully enjoy Grace and to accomplish what you are supposed to accomplish. I am not talking about this famous individual “mission of life” of which so many people speak ; I am talking about the goal of human life, which is a goal common to all men. In terms of individual goals, that’s something else.

14. The important thing in life is to observe the agya, that is to say, the set of pillars of what makes the spiritual journey destined to make us fulfill the reason for life, it is realization.

15. ''364. The monk who makes dharma* his life, who revels in it, who meditates according to his techniques, certainly cannot deviate from the dharma. 365. The monk must not underestimate his progress, nor envy the progress of others; because the envious monk cannot reach the concentration necessary for vigilance. 366. Even if the progress made by the monk is small, he should not underestimate him; if his life is pure and his efforts constant, he will be praised even by the devas.'' (Words of the Buddha, Dhammapada)

* Dharma: spiritual path of the Gautama Buddha, equivalent to The Path agya.

lundi 11 décembre 2023

Grace according to the Path

Summary:

A Path practitioner experiences something difficult to explain: Grace. Christians say providence and there is a cousinage. Grace is a feeling, a certainty that God looks at us individually and takes care of our life in the best possible way, with the aim that we fulfill the raison d'être of our coming.

Grace in action is said to be: 'Guidance'. It is when circumstances, events seem to combine harmoniously to get us on the right track. When one feels in the right place to do what one is supposed to do, a sense of accomplishment comes to erase uncertainties, doubts and fear.

Grace is like a wind that blows all the time on the ocean. Our soul is embedded in the human body and desires to return to its haven of peace. In order for the ship, where we are embarked, to go towards this harbour we must hoist the sails. Then the wind of Grace can blow in, inflate them and move us forward. For the practitioner of La Voie, hoisting the sails means practicing the four pillars. That’s what this saying means: 'Help yourself and heaven will help you'.

In the existence of a practitioner of The Path

There is one essential thing: Grace.

As always, with regard to the subtleties of things relating to the spiritual realm, this notion of Grace is difficult to explain to those who are not familiar with it. For Christians this word has many meanings, the main one being that 'Grace is a supernatural aid granted by God to men to make their salvation, which is escaping eternal damnation. It can also correspond to forgiveness, affection, love and divine benevolence. '' (Wikipedia)

Do not confuse Grace and Providence, even if the word providence and the word providential have long since taken on a very similar meaning to that of the word "Grace". From a theological point of view providence is God’s plan, His will for the world, having an influence on events. Unwilling to speak in place of all practitioners, I give you my explanation of Grace from the point of view of The Path: Grace is the Holy-Name in action

This explanation is simple, but you have to be familiar with the notion of Holy-Name! Explanations are given in other texts of the blog. To sum up we can say that 'The Holy-Name is the force of God', his energy, his perceptible force also on the phenomenal plane. For the Taoists, I would say that God is the Tao while the Holy-Name is the "De", that of the word Dao-De-Jing also named "virtue of the Dao".

In the same vein, by comparing Christian mysticism and that of The Path, we can say that the Guidance would approach the notion of providence. Grace and guidance are done H24 but to experience it there are certain conditions to fulfill. Being aware of it is one of them. Acting in harmony is another. Karma is the result of thoughts, words and deeds, Guidance, Grace in action, is the result of deeds done in all conscience, in inaction (service).

Hoist the sails

The wind blows as it blows, no matter what the thought,

the opinion of men.

On the other hand, as regards the wind, what man can do

is to hoist the sails

allowing his ship to advance.

To continue with this metaphor, let us say that the ship of the human being is its incarnation, that the ocean is the life and the path to travel through its existence. The wind of Grace is constantly blowing towards the goal. Sails are the appropriate actions that human beings can take.

On The Path an appropriate action is an action to deepen one’s awareness of bliss. The Observance of the agya, the practice of its pillars are just actions, but the right action is one that is done in consciousness, without attaching itself to its fruits. It’s the best way to hoist your sails.

Grace always blows upon the world and the creatures who live there, working for divine guidance towards the fulfilment of His purposes. The difference between an individual who is aware of Grace and an individual who is not aware of it is the same as between a person who is drowning and who is being bullied by the rescuer and another who is struggling.

By allowing oneself to do so, one allows the rescue to succeed in harmony. By struggling we come out of harmony and, if in spite of all the successful rescue, it will have been in fear and suffering.

A adept observing the agya will find, over time, that Grace exists and has an influence not only on his state of mind, but also on the course of his existence. When one is in a harmonious dynamic or generates harmony and the Holy-Name, His Guidance is harmony.

This Grace will not always avoid the discomforts, the pains caused by the aberrant functioning of human society, but the purpose of existence is not to be happy in this society.

Grace does not always erase daily worries,

the rages of teeth

but the consciousness of it allows,

when the weather is stormy,

to wait for the good weather to return

without further ado.

The more a adept is attentive to the Holy-Name, in Observance and the more Grace, His guidance is evident to him. This evidence allows him to go in the direction of harmony.

"The initiate lives in the Grace of the world

among the beings who also live there.

Bhaktimàrga 163

Contact email: lavoie.eu@gmail.com

dimanche 3 décembre 2023

Techniques

The formal, deep meditation of The Path is one of the four pillars of his practice (agya). The other three are satsang, service and angas.

To meditate, the initiate in The Path has four techniques that allow him to distance himself from the activities of the mind. Some of these techniques can only be practiced sitting down, like music (or sound, “Nada”) and light.

A technique can be practiced sitting down and can also be practiced while doing what we have to do, it is the technique called "Holy-Name". The service (inaction or Wu Wei from Lao-Tzu), one of the pillars of practice, is to do what you do, throughout the day, by practicing this technique.

The last technique; that of the Nectar is practiced during the day, outside of the time of formal meditation, either alone or at the same time as the technique called of the Holy-Name. By meditating with the so-called technique of light, one can see shining light behind the screen with his closed eyelids.

While meditating on the music, you can hear melodious sounds in your right ear. The Holy-Name technique allows you to concentrate without having to pronounce a mantra or make a particular posture, which allows you to use it throughout the day.

None of these four techniques is a body posture or a mantra. They are revealed to those who request them.

These techniques are not an invention, many traditional mystical "currents" in India teach all or parts of these four techniques. Techniques do not do everything and meditation is only one of the four pillars of the agya (sadhana or dharma for Buddha Gautama). Inner posture or motivation also counts, and spiritual virtues, such as humility, simplicity and constancy.

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Contact email: lavoie.eu@gmail.com

The Sadhana of Happiness

1. In all my life, the most beautiful things I have experienced, the most authentic, the deepest, the most satisfying, the most fulfilling have come from the Observance of agya, from the consciousness of Grace.

2. I am not saying that profane, human love did not count; I was very much in love with a woman and it was very intense, but this love does not last and induces great suffering when it ceases.

3. The consciousness of Grace is the consciousness of the Holy-Name. Initiates, observants know what I mean by "Holy-Name", or "Word". This consciousness can also be said: «consciousness of Grace», because Grace is daughter of the Holy Name.

The Bliss

4. Christians speak of “providence”, but providence is a helping hand from God, who comes to help you, when Grace is not only that. Grace is also the characteristic of the sacred, the beauty, the elegance, the sweetness that there is in all things by the virtue of the Holy-Name.

5. What you feel, in consciousness of Grace, is bliss. Try entering the word “Bliss” in your computer’s search engine and you will find that there is nothing except a chapter of the New Testament (in french).

6. Bliss is said: "ananda", in Sanskrit. If you put that word in your search engine, you’re not going to get much, other than the meaning of the homonymous first name and, once here and there, the definition of “pure happiness”.

7. To be aware of bliss is to say: "çitananda" and the perfect consciousness of bliss: «satçitananda». This is the bliss that one experiences in consciousness of the Grace of the Holy- Name (or satnam).

Source of Bliss

8. Bliss is happiness that doesn't come from something or someone outside ourselves. It comes from within.

9. What induces this state of consciousness of bliss? Sometimes it is an event that provokes it, by immersing us in our interiority, like a sunset, a beautiful person who looks at us with love, the end of a perfect day, etc.

10. Other times, it is this interiority that puts itself forward and makes us see the world, life, with its eyes. It happens when you go to her, to the inside.

11. To move towards interiority, there are practices of an authentic spirituality, such as service (or inaction of Lao-Tzu), deep meditation, devotional singing, rituals, etc.

12. By having an active approach, we are most likely to know the bliss other than by reading the definition. As long as we have not experienced bliss, it tells us nothing and then, when we have experienced it, we stop doing it again.

True Happiness

13. Harmony and simplicity are doors to bliss. Do you have any idea how difficult simplicity is? Try to be simple, once, to see! If you have at heart to know bliss, strive for simplicity and harmony. I know our time is not one for simplicity or harmony, but you?

14. I'm sure that happiness is something that speaks to you more than bliss. Bliss is true and profound happiness! So what does it mean? How do you get to know it?

15. Do you think happiness falls on you without you doing anything about it? No, I know you understand that happiness is earned, that you have to do things to earn it.

What to Do Or Sadhana

16. Bliss is the same thing: it’s not going to invade you without you doing something about it. What are you willing to do to be happy? What are you willing to do to know bliss?

17. Spiritual practice, as we understand it on: «The Path» is what it takes to know bliss. It’s as simple as that.” It is a perfect summary of authentic spirituality (historical channel): «Spirituality is the way to know bliss».

18. What should be done for this? What should be done is to follow the sadhana (agya) of The Path. The word "sadhana" means, in Sanskrit, exactly "what to do!" Crazy, right? Therefore, the sadhana of The Path or agya, is the way (màrga) to the consciousness of bliss.

19. To follow this sadhana, you need to know the particular meditation techniques of The Path and for that, ask for Revelation. This Revelation does not cost money and is done by internet, by Skype. It lasts more or less two hours. Do not hesitate.

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This satsang may help you in your spiritual research, I hope, but I must say this: it was said at the house where I live, recorded and then transcribed for the initiates who received the Revelation. The full 'benefit' of this satsang can only be achieved if you have had this Revelation and practice the four pillars. For more information, contact lavoie.eu@gmail.com

vendredi 24 novembre 2023

The Order of Things

1. The observants know that The Path is a spiritual path composed of three practices and a pillar of moral recommendations, the agya. They know that these practices are service, satsang and meditation. This triptych is not only observed on The Path; in India, other spiritual paths have more or less this sadhana (what to do).

Inseparable pillars

2. The observants know that one cannot decide one’s own selection among these practices, adopt some and omit others: they form a coherent whole and are interdependent. The consciousness of Grace, of its guidance in our existence, can only be realized on the condition that the agya is respected in its entirety.

3. If you meditate formally, without working to remain throughout each day in consciousness of the Holy-Name, by the practice of the homonymous technique, it is useless, like being in service without having satsang, except in cases of major force, like no internet connection, no access to satsang or simply blindness. In this case, that of blindness, it will be possible to request to receive audio satsang, with the help of third parties for the download.

The sharing of time

4. Then, we do not always know how to measure each of the items, of the agya pilars; in terms of time, how much is the minute of satsang, the minute of service and the minute of formal meditation worth?

5. For service, that is, action in attachment to the Holy-Name, the practice of technique, the goal is to be vigilant from sunrise to sunset. There remains the question of satsang and meditation… Meditation must be practiced every day, unless there is an accident beyond his control. How long? Forty-five minutes is a minimum.

6. For my part, I meditate two or three times a day, in the morning and in the evening, I should say at night and a little in the afternoon, but it is according to his taste and his possibilities. At one time, I meditated ten hours every day, three times.

7. It is also a good idea to take a few “Holy-Name breaks” during the day, when we stop all activity, sit down, close our eyes and meditate on the Holy-Name… These breaks do not need to last long, two or three minutes may be enough, depending on its taste and possibilities.

8. With a little experience, we find the solution, that said, things can change, for example, if there is a minimum of time, for formal meditation, there are no limits, you can meditate as long as necessary as it does not negatively affect your daily life.

Respect for one’s duties

9. The practice of formal meditation must not prevent you from assuming your daily obligations towards your loved ones, your own hygiene, your work and your "domestic" life. All ancient spiritual books, having to do with The Path say so.

10. “The wise does his duty, he does not have to.” (Dao-De-Jing, excerpt from 27)

11. ''The consciousness of Grace comes to Men who fulfill their duties with dedication and by Observance of the pillars of the true way. Duties are given by knowledge (non-appraisal) and knowledge comes from the consciousness of Unity.'' (Bhagavad-Gita, 3.15)

12. The observance of the pillars of The Path must not hinder the fulfilment of one’s duties, that is to say, one can do so, to fulfil one’s obligations and duties in service, that is, in the consciousness of the "Holy-Name", by the practice of the technique of the same name.

Order of spiritual things

13. Something I know is that spiritual realization, through the observance of agya, works in the following order: meditation, satsang, service. This ad can cause confusion and generate the question, "Yes, so what? That is?"

14. In meditation, one communicates with the harmony of Unity, Lao-Tzu said: «Dao». This inner contact, with the essence of everything, ploughs the ground of our consciousness. Next, satsang sows the seeds of understanding and service causes these seeds to take root and allow them to grow and bear the fruits of realization.

15. Deep meditation, or dhyana, awakens what was dormant in us, consciousness, this beautiful sleeping, but how many meditators know dhyana, the consciousness of bliss? Whatever, dharana* already prepares the consciousness to receive satsang.

* The first phase of meditation, when the mind concentrates on extracting itself from the consciousness of vrttis or mind fluctuations. 'Deha-bandhashchittasya dhâranâ'. Dharana is the perfect concentration on one point.' (Yogasûtra, 3.1)

16. Even if we do not experience something phenomenal, in formal meditation, to do so, to apply ourselves daily to this asceticism, to “be in the agya” and to be aware of Grace in our life.

17. In formal meditation, what counts is to arrive on your zafu (meditation cushion) prepared for contemplation, quite calm and internalized. If you have spent your day distracted, in the throes of your emotions, moods and thoughts, how do you want to meditate on your cushion?

18. It is customary to say, "Service and satsang are the antechambers of meditation."

Meditation: instructions for use

19. One of the interests of service is to prepare you to meditate… this also applies to satsang. What also matters is to stay perfectly still, I mean, to not move anything, not even a little finger! Like tetanized, but supple, cool.

20. Then, what counts for meditation is to practice the techniques taught in the Revelation, as I taught you. Do not adapt them.

21. If you have a health concern, open it to me, by e-mail, I will answer you. For example, if you have glaucoma, the technique of light must be adapted. If you have tinnitus, the technique of music will be difficult, if not impossible, to practice.

22. When you have achieved mastery, samyama, deep meditation, dhyana, can begin. When dhyana begins, be like a lizard in summer, standing still in the sun, on a dry stone wall.

23. Above all, do not lose sight of the reason for your meditation: why do you meditate? Intention counts as much as the practice of techniques. I know a reason to meditate that gives the most chance to find peace and satisfaction in this practice: the will to be in the presence of God.

24. Know that God is not a man, nor a woman, that he is infinitely great, never born and immortal, omnipresent and omniscient. One day, scientists will find an equation, the first of all, which gave life to Creation and will show that this equation has a will, a purpose.

25. "1.1. In the beginning was the will* of God. 1.2. In the beginning, the will of God was the unique expression of the Whole. 1.3. All things have been done by this will and nothing that has been done has been done without it. 1.4. Life comes from this will of God and his light."

* Will: the Greek word "logos" (Word, Verb) can be translated as "will", "plan". Here it is the will, the plan of God. We can say, using the word «Verb» that the Word was with the Whole, that it was the Whole, as in the usual translations of this Greek word in Genesis.