AGNI YOGA WEB TV
SERIES
„THE 10 PILLARS OF THE PRACTICE OF AGNI YOGA“
2nd Pillar: Rhythm of the Day
Ladies and gentlemen,
I am pleased to welcome you again to our program.
Today we are talking about the second pillar of the
practice of Agni Yoga: The rhythm of the day - and of the week, and of the
year.
The purpose of the practice of Agni Yoga is to
strengthen your spirit so that you can establish the rule of the spirit over
yourself and over the circumstances. In order to achieve this goal, it is one
of the first, oldest and most important spiritual exercises to force the
chaotic waves of events into a certain order and not to be driven by them back
and forth.
You must assign to everything its appropriate place.
You need to give the essential and important matters priority over the
insignificant ones
In these
words is contained the tragedy of our times. We find time without limit for all
kinds of petty activities, but we do not find an hour for the most vital. (Agni
Yoga 451)
It is important that you shape your life according to
the inner necessity of things and of the world-wide evolution. You must not
make yourself a slave of the ever-changing, fortuitous external conditions.
1. The Significance of Rhythm
Agni Yoga often speaks about the importance of giving
our life a harmonious rhythm: Life and death, sleeping and being awake, sowing
and harvesting, activity and contemplation, thinking and acting, spiritual and
physical work – again and again we see: A healthy life requires that we give
all aspects of our existence equal weight.
Some examples: If you are working incessantly for hours
and hours on the production line or on the computer; if you are focussing
one-sidedly on the physical side of existence while neglecting its spiritual
aspect; if you shorten your sleep for the benefit of the waking hours; if you
jump to and fro from one project to the other; if you are filling your time
with irrelevant matters, while losing sight of the essential, the really
important ones; if you give in to all requests and temptations that family,
relatives, friends, acquaintances, colleagues and club mates impose on you; if
you are once in a hurry and later sunk in idleness - then you are living
unhealthily in the long run.
Beware of
those who have no time. Being falsely busy indicates first of all inability to
make use of the treasure of time and space. Now let us speak about paltry
idlers and dullards, who clutter up the path of life. They are busy as a
pepper-box; they always have a bitterness against labor; they are as puffed up
as turkey-cocks. They think up a hundred pretexts to fill in the cracks of
rotten work. They cannot find an hour for the most urgent. In their stupidity
they are ready to become arrogant and to deny that which is most essential for
them. They are as unproductive as are the thieves of another's time. They must
be excluded from the new construction. For them can remain the carrying of
bricks. (Community 216)
The best work results you achieve, your health you
save, and all your abilities you develop evenly if you enforce the harmony of a
natural, healthy rhythm in your life.
2. Necessity of the Rhythm of the Day
There are mainly three reasons which make it
indispensable to set up a firm order of the day:
1. The material life with its real or apparent
commitments and distractions keeps you busy from dawn to dusk. The life of your
true eternal, spiritual individuality - the soul - cannot unfold unless you
reserve for it fixed times during the course of the day.
This is a millennia-old experience that you, too, will
make when you tread the spiritual path. Without a certain order, you run the
risk of granting too much room to the transitory matters and too little to the
eternal ones.
Toward what
shall we strive, to the finite or the infinite? (Fiery World I, 157)
2. We had spoken in the introductory Broadcasting
about the four spheres of life. Do you remember? Once you are on your way to
practice Agni Yoga, you will see yourself: You will not succeed to establish,
in the course of a day, a balanced relationship between meditation, serving the
Common Good and training by the teacher, unless you establish and maintain a
specific rhythm of the day.
There can be no question of a spiritual life, as long
as no specific times are being fixed and respected for retreat, meditation and
prayer, for the study of the Holy Scriptures, for the communion with the higher
world and the dialogue with the teacher, for self-education through physical
and spiritual exercises and for serving the Common Good and your neighbour.
Allow to melt in your mouth one of the most beautiful
and most important paragraphs of Agni Yoga:
Friends, you
find ample time for everything, but for the Highest you have only a few
moments. If you had dedicated only the time you waste at banquets to the
Highest, you would have become teachers by now! (Supermundane, 156)
3. Finally, we had already addressed and will mention
again and again: You cannot start and let end the day with the mundane hustle
and bustle. If your new, higher, spiritual life is to become a reality, you
must schedule in the morning, at noon and in the evening at least a quarter of
an hour, in which you put yourself into the higher state of an immortal,
invulnerable, powerful and joyful spiritual being - or more broadly, in which
you transform yourself into a spiritual disciple.
This higher standpoint - as on a mountain top high
above the earthly life - you need to establish and defend constantly throughout
the day. You will see for yourself: If you do not manage to realize this, you
will sink into the waves of the material chaos.
To establish and to comply with a rhythm of the day
against all the odds means a first victory of the spirit over the
circumstances!
3. The Path of the Inner Monastery
We had already spoken of the need to look for a
teacher, if you want to make progress on the spiritual path (Broadcasting 5
"The Hierarchy" of the Series "Introduction to Agni Yoga").
Today we are going a step further and say:
If you want to be the - spiritual - disciple of a -
not incarnated - teacher, then your true home - the place, the community in the
spiritual world to which you belong – is the Ashram of your teacher. There you
have lived before you were born. There your eternal individuality wants to
return after the death of the physical body.
In the Subtle
World there are also ashrams of the White Brotherhood. Just as on Earth, they
are not numerous, for there also great discipline and tense labor are demanded;
and where are those who are willing to give themselves to greater labor instead
of the promised "rest"? (Helena Roerich, letter of 19.03.1936)
We had also already said (Broadcasting 10 "The
Supermundane World" of the Series "Introduction to Agni Yoga"):
If you want to belong to this "heaven", if you wish to live already
now in your personal paradise, then you must even here on earth adhere to the
rules and practices which are in force there - otherwise you actually are not
yet a true member of this illustrious community.
Among the rules that apply in this Ashram, is a fixed
order of the day; as in all communities led by great teachers, from the
Egyptian mysteries over the communities of the Pythagoreans, the Academy of
Plato, the Ashram of Buddha and the monasteries of the Middle Ages to the
community ideals of Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the Ashram of Mahatma Gandhi.
One should
learn to acknowledge all the higher laws and to construct life upon them. (Hier
143)
As long as no physical Ashrams of Agni Yoga exist on
earth, you must live in a virtual Ashram, in an inner monastery. This means:
You can visit the community, to which you belong, for the time being only in
spirit. You subject yourself to the discipline in force there, without the need
to particularly let this become apparent in the outside material world.
He who has
determined to master Agni Yoga must transform through it his entire life. This
most synthesizing Yoga exacts an obligation to construct one's entire life in
accordance with a discipline that is externally imperceptible. (Agni Yoga 163)
You live your life in such a way that you are not
physically, but in spirit a member of the Ashram of your teacher. As such, not
different from the situation when the Ashram would actually physically exist,
you are sent out into the world with various tasks and jobs during the day.
We shall discuss this ancient, fundamental spiritual
exercise "The Path of the Inner Monastery" in a later Broadcasting in
more detail.
4. Three Pillars
The spiritual day rests firmly on three pillars: The
times of the stay on the mountain top, in the Higher World, in the home of your
soul, in the Ashram of your teacher in the morning, at noon and in the evening.
This anchoring on the spiritual level provides a firm basis for your material
life. From this safe harbour, the next refuge already in sight, you can venture
to sail for a short, manageable distance on the raging sea of the earthly life.
Nothing can
confuse the traveller who already has caught sight of his home. (Fiery World I,
523)
In order to cope with the adversities of everyday
life, Salomon gave a wise advice: Always keep in mind:
And this too
will pass! (Fiery World I, 371)
This sage counsel you can best follow if you remember:
The run through hostile terrain takes only a few hours, then you can return
back to your paradise.
About a certain Japanese tea master, who was also a
Samurai, it is said:
Throughout
the day, he is fighting on the battlefield. After that, he devotes himself to
the tea ceremony. Nevertheless, he does not practice the tea ceremony between
the fights, but he fights between the tea ceremonies. So he takes at any moment
the path of a tea master. (Y. Inoue)
According to this model we, too, have to change our
way of thinking: The old attitude was: We are living and working in the world
and try to withdraw from time to time for refuge to some lonely, holy place.
The new attitude is: We are living on the spiritual
plane, in the Ashram of our teacher. We visit only briefly and temporarily the
physical sphere and return as soon as possible to our home – in fact not only
after the death of the body, but already now, on each single day. So, without
leaving the earth, we are leading a supermundane existence and are walking at
any moment the eternal path of the soul.
5. In the Morning
How does the day of a disciple look like? It begins at
5 o’ clock in the morning. You visit - obviously in spirit - your teacher in
his Ashram. There, three hours of physical exercises outdoors, prayer,
meditation, worship, studying of the Scriptures and training are on the
curriculum.
Especially in the morning, the susceptibility to
higher energies, to the receipt of comfort, strength, knowledge, teaching and
joy, is particularly great.
The decisive test is whether you manage to summon the
discipline to get up early and start the day in the Higher World. The teacher
offers you the benefit of his presence and his teachings - you will not want to
keep him waiting!?
The advantage of early rising is immeasurable. The
proverb rightly says:
Early to bed
and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.
It costs some effort and willpower to leave the world
of dreams and to return to the level of action and the earth's load. The spirit
needs some time to overcome the sadness that afflicts him after returning to
the stifling physical body. But whoever stays in bed for too long, steals the
time that is due to the Hierarchy.
It is imperative that you, before the earthly day
begins, first restore the consciousness of your immortality, your discipleship
and your higher mission; that you kindle again the inner fire of enthusiasm,
get in touch with your superiors and fill yourself with joy at the coming day
and its challenges. It is crucial for your mental balance that you start the
day in the sanctuary in the mountains and not in the chaos of the valleys.
Each morning
man is filled with fear for the future, instead of joy. (Supermundane 799)
At the beginning of the day, the disciple appears
before his teacher and reports for training and serving the Common Good. He
takes instructions and orders for the day. The teacher is pleased with everyone
who rallies around the flag, and sad about him who became lax or even deserted.
In these hours at the feet of the teacher you lay the
foundation for the transfiguration of the earthly day. You sharpen your will
and gather the energy that will be required to defy the world and take the
higher path for another day. You assimilate the spirit of the Ashram on which
you will have to draw in the next few hours. You put on your spiritual armour
that will protect and carry you in the world.
In order to
bear the entire burden of the awesome responsibility and ever-growing
difficulties, I affirm myself every day in joy and readiness to face the most
difficult. Great tempering of spirit and heart is necessary, for each day
brings us all sorts of trials. (Helena Roerich, letter of 22.07.1935)
You should not go into the world before having
rediscovered the joy at your path and the enthusiasm for your confirmed task.
If the course is not set correctly in the morning, you will, according to
experience, barely manage, during the day, to find the way back into the right
track.
6. In the World
Thus fortified, you descent - as Adam and Eve from
Paradise - from the mountain peaks down to the valleys. Now it goes joyfully
into battle!
It is
impossible to remain forever even in the best spheres of the Subtle World. Some
sorrow, not wanting new tests, but others, like good warriors, aspire to new
victories. (Br II, 265)
You must execute your orders, defend your higher
existence, further the growth of your spirit and struggle with opposing forces.
The world forms a gigantic training ground for you to
learn to reveal only the divine side of your nature. Only there, among other
human beings, in the middle of material life, you can test and confirm what you
have learned in the temple. Only there, not in the protected refuge of the
Ashram, you acquire the abilities of a master.
To accomplish your task, you have to leave your heaven
and descend down to hell. However, you return back to the Higher World in the
evening, and you are acting on the lower level exclusively in the name and upon
the orders of the Hierarchy.
Earthly life
is a duel with chaos. A lone, courageous warrior dons his heavy armor and sets
out in search of the dragon of chaos. The warrior has to leave the Supermundane
Fortress to seek out the most hidden monsters, in the most distant mountain
passes. The more difficult the achievement, the more luminous will it be, and
the more victorious the warrior on his return to the Stronghold. Man should
remember that his true Stronghold is not on Earth, and that all his earthly
labors should be performed for return to the Supermundane Stronghold.
(Supermundane 803)
May your mantram be:
Joyfully off
to battle - victorious back home!
7. Control of Thoughts
And now an important practical exercise:
When you are in the world, it is advisable, following
the tradition of the Liturgy of the Hours, regularly, best at every hour, to
control your thoughts in order to make sure that you are preserving the higher
consciousness of your supermundane existence.
Not for a
single hour should one extinguish within oneself this flame of lofty thinking.
It is beautiful if someone can always carry within himself a lofty thought.
(Supermundane 651)
You can briefly connect in spirit with your teacher
and read a sentence of Agni Yoga from a piece of paper carried with you for
this purpose.
The
affirmation of the Teacher should be repeated each hour. (Hierarchy 372)
You leave for a moment - in spirit - the low level of
this world and visit your home, your heaven, the Ashram of your teacher. The
recourse to this holy place, to the solemn atmosphere prevailing there, is the
best means to purify yourself, to rise again above the material circumstances
and to overcome doubts, wavering or depression.
One of the most beautiful Buddhist mantrams and the
best weapon against temptations says:
I take refuge
with the teaching, with the teacher and with the community. (see also Community
201)
You should be asking yourself at this moment: Do I
behave as befits a worthy disciple and in a way that is a credit to my teacher?
Do I have in mind that the teacher is watching me constantly? Do I execute
conscientiously his orders and instructions? When returning to the Ashram in
the evening, will I still be able look him into the face? Did I express in the
last hour my divine or my animal nature? Am I still on the path, or did I
deviate? Have I further approached the higher spheres or did I move away from
them?
Every hour
repeat to yourself: "Nothing will hinder my race to the Teacher. I will
not descend!" (Leaves of Morya’s Garden II, 266 [269; Part Three I 9], 42
[Part One VIII 12])
We had already said in the previous Broadcasting (1st
pillar: The defence of the higher Consciousness): As soon as you lose control
of your thoughts, you threaten to sink down to a mere mortal.
8. At Noon
At noon, the disciples gather again in the Ashram, if
not physically, then at least in spirit. This column in the middle of the day
is important to support the spiritual building within which you wish to
securely dwell.
If you are in the midst of the world, you do not have
to take a long time out. A few basic thoughts of connection, affirmation and
elevation, of joy at the imminent return home are sufficient. Even during the
worst strain of earthly business, a short withdrawal is always possible.
Take advantage of this short break to remember your
true nature and mission, to recite one or the other mantram and to draw from
the reservoir of good thoughts that you have stockpiled in quieter times for
this occasion.
One should
stockpile good thoughts; only they will make possible an easy ascent to the
Heights. (Supermundane 808)
This short meditation will be primarily a purification
from worldly radiations, bad thoughts, moods and desires. You will learn how
helpful it is to throw off the burden of physical oppression and to rise, even
for a brief moment, to a better world, your true home.
9. In the Evening
In the evening, teachers and disciples meet again for
two hours of temple work. Now is the time to detach yourself from the world, to
mend the battered spiritual armour, to meditate and to heal your wounded soul.
You take in again the spirit of the Ashram, which threatened to be suffocated
during the day in the world.
Prayer is
good at any time, yet there are two periods of change of currents when turning
to the Higher World is especially desirable — at sunrise and after sunset.
Besides, upon going to sleep it is befitting to invoke the Higher World. It is
necessary to purify one's consciousness before the entrance into the sacred
Gates. (AUM 71)
Whatever happens to you during the day: It must carry
you the certainty that you will return in the evening to the world of the soul;
that you will be able to clean yourself in meditation and to find back to the
divine peace. Just like in the morning, so in the evening as well you have to
raise and consolidate your ideal, the guiding principle of your life -
otherwise your spiritual Ego will not be able to survive in a material world.
Like at death, you appear before your master. Like at
death, you will have to account for every thought, every word and every deed of
the day; for everything that you undertook or failed to carry out in the name
of the Hierarchy.
If people
were able to give themselves an account of the quality of a day, they could
avoid many difficulties. (Fiery World II, 115)
Did you comply with the rule of the disciple? Did you
take advantage of the opportunities for ascent that were offered to you? Did
you contribute another stone to the building of the New World? Did you come
nearer by one step to the higher spheres? Did you execute their orders? Did you
implement the plan which you yourself have formed in the morning? What can you
do better tomorrow?
When we meet
our highest Guides, we must find the strength to ask whether we have fulfilled
our tasks. They will tell us where we have succeeded and where we have failed.
(Br II, 195)
The idea that this day might be the last and that you
might stand before your eternal judge tomorrow, will show you how much there is
left to do, how you can better use the little time remaining for you, and how
shameful it is to miss the opportunities for advancement provided by each new
day.
The decisive test is, after the earthly day, not to
indulge in distraction, but to shake off the secular spirit and return to
contemplation and collection within the higher self. The spirit needs some time
to purify itself from the hostile radiations to which it was subjected in the
world - but then he can, after the toils and troubles of the day, enjoy the
pleasures of meditation.
Hours of
happiness — thus We call that step in the development of consciousness when,
without turning away from life, Our co-workers are given the opportunity to
join Us in Our Abode. (Agni Yoga 338)
The concept of the Inner Monastery allows you to
return in the evening - as at death! –to the home of your soul. You can
actually die for the world! You can leave all your burdens and worries behind and
live in a higher sphere in which there are no material oppressions and
restrictions.
You can reflect on each earthly day the salutary
rhythm, the eternal alternation of life and death, of rebirth on the material
plane and rest in the supermundane world.
10. Example of an Order of the Day
To give an example, we cite the order of the day of
the Tabenisi Ashram in Hamburg:
5:00
Awakening
5:15
Gymnastics (Hatha Yoga)
5:45
Morning toilet
6:00
Communion with the Higher World (Meditation)
7:00
Study of Agni Yoga
8:00
Work for livelihood, if necessary outside the Ashram
10:30
Breakfast
11:00
Work
for livelihood
13:45
Return
to the Ashram, Meditation
14:00
Training and service in the Ashram
15:30
Evening meal
16:00
Training and service in the Ashram
18:45
Gymnastics (Hatha Yoga)
19:00
Evening toilet
19:15
Study
19:45
Communion with the Higher World (Meditation)
20:30
Personal Time
22:00
Night's rest
Some topics (for example only two meals per day, only
half-day professional work) we shall discuss in detail in later Broadcastings.
Of course, this is an ideal that may not be possible
to be realized by everybody in every life situation. What is important is not
necessarily that you exactly imitate this practice. However, it is crucial that
you set up and maintain your own rhythm in accordance with your particular life
situation.
Of course you may grant yourself easements or times
out, for example on the weekend or on vacation. The important thing is that
your higher self determines the rhythm which is necessary and wholesome for
you, and that it is not the laziness of the body which rules your life.
To give a simple example: You should determine the
night before the hour on which you will get up the next morning - and this
according to the existing needs: Maintenance of the higher connection, training
and service. You strengthen your spirit, you establish the rule of the spirit,
if you actually carry out this intention. You weaken your spirit if you give in
to your body and stay in bed longer than you yourself have determined the night
before.
11. Rhythm of the Week
As the day, so the spiritual week rests firmly on three
pillars: The disciple will fix on Sunday, on Wednesday afternoon and again on
Sunday unalterable times, which are dedicated to the realization of a higher
life. Between these oases of calm, peace, ascent and elevation, the roaring
life is only a brief interlude, which can easily be mastered.
Even God has rested on the seventh day (1. Moses 2, 2). So we, too, should hold
on to this healthy practice, preserve the Sunday rest and maintain a wholesome
rhythm of active and contemplative life in the course of the week.
If you are prevented by the circumstances to find, in
the course of each day, time for higher communion, training by the teacher and
service to the Common Good, you should at least reserve room for these
essentials during the course of the week.
12. Rhythm of the Year
Regarding the rhythm of the year, we need to
rediscover and get used to the fact that everything has its time. Every hour of
the day, every day of the week and every month of the year has a specific
energy which can only be used at that particular time.
There are whole periods of waiting and grasping the
right moment, of planning and execution, of seeking and finding, of destruction
and construction, of sowing and harvesting. What success will you have if you
begin to sow, when it is time to harvest?
To every
thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: A time
to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that
which is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and
a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn and a
time to dance. (Ecclesiastes 3, 1-4)
We need to explore – or to rediscover - the meaning of
the seasons: Autumn as the time of harvest; Advent as the time of reflection on
the spiritual foundations and of the forging of plans for a new beginning;
spring as the time to proceed with fresh energy to the realization of our
projects; St. Michael’s Day as the final battle before the harvest, and so
forth.
You should use your vacation days at least in part for
contemplation and spiritual progress. You might for example participate in a
seminar or a retreat in Tabenisi. It is an extremely useful, age-old tradition
that those who are clamped in work and family life, spend on a regular basis -
rhythmically! - certain times in a holy place, a monastery or ashram, in order
to lead the ideal life of a spiritual disciple at least for one or two weeks a
year.
The religious feasts of the annual cycle and the days
of the solstice are fixed points that give the course of the year spiritual
order and rhythm.
Memorial days
establish a useful rhythm. (Fiery World II, 148)
The remembrance days of the saints and heroes of faith
of all peoples, all times and all religions are like beacons whose brilliance
illuminate our everyday life. The community will celebrate them in a dignified
way as times of elevation and of spirituality.
Solemnity is
intensified during days commemorating Great Heroes. We send forth benevolent
thoughts at each of humanity's holy days. (Supermundane 125)
Let us summarize at the end of this Broadcasting: Curb
the waves of life through a salutary daily, weekly and annual rhythm. Imitate
the great teachers of all times, by joining their everyday discipline in all
the details. The concept of the Inner Monastery gives you the unique
opportunity and the immense pleasure, really - in spirit - to participate in
the everyday life of your teacher!
Only thus will "succession" turn from the abstract concept of a Sunday sermon to a living reality. Only thus you can strengthen your spirit and move forward on the path.