Self Unfoldment

Self Unfoldment is book written by Swami Chinmayananda. This is a very

beautiful book, specially for the beginner into spiritual life. This is a very
good book if one wants to get a good foundational knowledge about
Vedanta.
Here are the important points from this great spiritual books.

The successful person is one who makes practical use of at least one
great talent that he or she possesses.

Following the Path of pleasant (Preyas) leads to short term pleasure

but long term disappointment.

Following the Path of Good (Shreyas) leads to short term

unpleasantness but long term true happiness.

People of inner strength choose Path of good (Shreyas), and emerge

as mighty personalities and lead a peaceful and happy life.

The only method for regaining oness true nature as the pure Self, is to
vigilantly and ceaselessly divert ones mind and intellect away from
preoccupation with the world of objects-emotions-thoughts, instead
divert it towards the awareness of the Self.

When we identify ourselves with the Higher in us, the lower

automatically drops away. (True renunciation / Sannyasa).

Pure Self will shine only if our mental equipment has become steady
and pure.

An action done without selfish desire (niskama karma) is the noblest of

all.

When we allow our ideals to be broken by our own weakness of mind,

we compromise and end up living a life of dishonesty (Asatyam).
This compromise causes split in our personality, becoming cowardly in
the face of further challenges in life.

We must be ready to consider and reconsider our ideals for a thousand

times and in light of all evidence accept or reject it. But once accepted,
we must have courage to stand by this ideal at all times. This is

called Truthfulness (Satyam), the source of will and courage to act

upon our deepest convictions. Such a person of indomitable integrity
finds he is master of every challenge and every situation.

The nobility inherent in integrity is rooted deep in the quality and

beauty of our intentions. If the spring of our thoughts is pure and if we
have the heroism to live unfailingly the great ideals we believe in,
however impractical and utopian they may seem, even if immediate
failures confront us, we will still have cultivated integrity, our great
inner treasure. Only such persons are true evolvers and leaders, rest
are adapters or followers.

Enjoy the world, but let not the world enjoy you. Eat food, but let not
the food eat you. Drink, but let not the drink, drink you.

A genius evolves through a process by which the source of dynamism

latent in oneself is discovered, tapped, awakened, poured out, and
utilized efficiently and to the best advantage.

This involves three steps:

1. Generating dynamism: Generate dynamism in our work by

choosing a higher ideal.
2. Conserving energy: Right actions, done with the right attitude,
enrich our vitality. Actions done with wrong attitude dissipate our
energy. Desire, hate, jealousy, passion all such qualities drain
our inner wealth and impoverish us. Affection, love, tenderness,
peace, equanimity these are all the virtues (punya) that enrich
our inner vitality.
3. Channeling energy into a chosen field of endeavor: To
focus our energy on what we are doing right now is the highest
creative act in the world.

When an individual has discovered new energy within him self, when
he has learned the art of stopping the dissipation and is able to fix his
entire energy on the piece of work at hand, a great joy starts evolving
up in his mind the joy of an artisan.

We can discover joy in the precision and perfection of the work that we
turn out, no matter what it may be. Whether others recognize it or

not, we have the satisfaction that we did our work as well as we could,
and a silent stream of joy fills our heart.

We often feel disappointed in the life, not because there is no

meaningful work in the world but because we are not discovering work
in which the functions of the physical body are in harmony with the
head and the heart. The person who can bring all these three aspects
of personality together in one field of activity works in an inspired
manner.

Inspired work not only brings forth higher productivity and efficiency,
but also provides a great dividend of joy for the worker. To work in this
way is the art of living.

We must first discover a goal from which to draw our inspiration. This
will flood a new enthusiasm in our mind. Then sincerity, ardor and
consistency of purpose automatically follow. Then we need to channel
our energy to achieve our goal without dissipating our energy.

The vital artery that carries out competence into the actual field of
work is our mind. Therefore, mental discipline is the secret of all
efficiency, the end product of all poised competence.

We must train and discipline the mind for the right thinking and for
correct and diligent activity. Right thinking is a habit that can be
cultivated.

When we deal with others, if we open up the sweetness of our

personality, more and more people circle around us, love us and are
ready to support our creative programs.

Positive qualities lie dormant in all of us, but they are often not
invoked. Everyone knows about love, mercy, cheer, kindness, joy and
the courage of conviction. We admire these qualities in others, but
when we act, we compromise our ideals.

We have wonderful ideas, but the instrument called the mind is not
available to us for the execution of those ideas.

Unless we can learn to master the mind, unless we gain control over
the instrument of expression, we cannot translate our ideas into
appropriate action. Failure in the world is never due to lack of
ideas.

Whatever mass of knowledge (From parents, teachers, degrees, PhDs)

we may have acquired, we can still be utter failures in life unless we
can learn to make manifest that knowledge out into the world through
our mind.

If the mind is happy, we are happy. If the mind is unhappy, we are

unhappy. Our entire life is dependant on the mind,but very few of us
know it.

Each thought, word, and deed should emerge from you, bearing the
seal of your own recognition. Post a portion of your attention as a
sentry on the watch tower of your intellect. Let it be silent observer of
the machination of the mind: the motives, intentions, and purpose that
lie behind your every thought, word, and deed.

At the close of the day, everyday practice the thought parade, review
your whole days activity by standing as a witness. This is
called introspection. Practice it daily.

Soon you will start finding weaknesses, faults and animalism in your
daily transactions. This is call detection.

Moment you have detected these weaknesses and feel ashamed, they
die. This is called negation.

Substitute its opposite virtue in personality. Repeating this daily makes

it your new character. This is calledsubstitution.

Our mental moods determine our actions, so does our physical

attitude, and vice-versa. Of the two, strengthening the right physical
habits is easier; then training the mind becomes more simple and
sure.

Human being has unique capacity to stand apart from his surging
desires and exercise self-effort (purusartha), which helps him
choose actions regardless of his tendencies (vasanas). By
consistence self-effort, the human being can successfully eradicate
his tendencies (vasanas) and transform his life.

Law of Karma says that, if we look ahead (instead of past), we

become the architects of our own future. When we choose our present
actions by applying self-effort, we create a future of our choice.

The freedom to modify the present and thereby to create a better

future or for worse is called self-effort.

The now alone is the auspicious occasion for initiating our new plans.
Delays are always dangerous, useless and barren. Today is the only
day to attempt any great and worthy purpose. Opportunity comes to
all of us; the diligent ones catch hold of it, the foolish ones let it pass.

Vasanas are created during the contact of our body-mind-intellect

equipment with the fields of its play in the world. And it is in this same
world we must exhaust the Vasanas and not by sudden dash into an
isolated cave in the Himalayas.

Whenever we act in the outer world with egocentric desires, the

activities leave their footprints in our minds and propel us to repeat
the action again and again.

An act by itself cannot leave any impression in us, but ego-centered

acts, prompted by desire gratification, generate a fresh, new growth
of vasanas.

The secret of purging our vasanas has been called karma yoga, the
path of action. If we fix our vision high and act in a spirit of surrender
and dedication in the outer world, the mind becomes purified and
the vasanas automatically exhaust themselves.

Gita gives three injunctions for a karma yogi :

o Be concerned with the action itself.
o Do not be concerned with the results of your action.
o Dont delude yourself into thinking that the above means
inaction.

Three methods to change our thoughts :

o Reducing the quantity of thoughts. This is done through Karma
Yoga (Path of action). Best suited to active people who have a
combined temperament of intellectual plus emotional orientation.

o Improving the quality of thoughts. This is achieved

through Bhakti Yoga (Path of devotion). Best suited to
emotionally tempered people
o Changing the direction of the thought flow. This is done
through Jnana Yoga (Path of knowledge). Best suited to
predominantly intellectual people.

Hatha yoga is recommended for physically centered personalities. It

prepares for other paths.

We are essentially divine, but divinity in us is covered by a veil of

thoughts.

An agent who is free from attachment, non egoistic, endowed with

firmness and enthusiasm, unaffected by success or failure is
called sattvic (pure). ( Bhagavad GitaXVII-26 )

That pleasure which arises from contact of the sense organ with the
object, which is at first like nectar but in the end it is like poison, that
is declared to be rajasic (passionate). ( Bhagavad Gita XVII-38 )

Darkness, inertness, heedlessness, and delusion these arise

when tamas is predominant. ( Bhagavad Gita XIV-13 )

We say: My body, my emotions, my thoughts. The possessor is

different from the possessed, just as I am notmy car or my dog. The
pure Self is distinct from Its body, mind and intellect. This supreme
Possessor, the pure Self in all living beings, is the one all-pervading
Consciousness.

We cannot use the intellect to see Consciousness directly, just as the

eye cannot see itself.

To realize the Self is to transcend the three bodies. But many of us try
to clutch onto the three bodies while trying to reach toward a higher
state of bliss.

Veiling power in intellect and process of removal :

o I dont know => by listening (sravana) to spiritual master or
scriptures.

o I cant understand => by reflection (manana). Use intellect to

reflect upon the listened concept.
o I have no experience => by meditation (nididhyasana). By
sustained and sincere practice you start dwelling into the
understood concepts and cross the last veiling power and
experience the union with pure Consciousness.

Not just hearing or reading, but absorbing the great ideas contained in
the scriptures, assimilating them, and living the values expressed
therein will produce radiance in our lives.

To regain that blissful nature, which is always yours, but veiled by the
three gunas, you have to reduce the rajas-tamas impurity, thus
increasing the sattvic component of your nature. When you develop
sattva to its absolute purity, you are poised to transcend the gunas, to
move beyond even the smallest trace of sattva into the state of Selfrealization.

In all likely would every pilgrim may start with Dualism progress to
Qualified Nondualism and then experience Nondualism.

An individual, who has realized that the individual ego (jiva), the
universe (jagat), and the Lord (Isvara) are all merged into one, is
a jivanmukta, one liberated even while living.

The process of cleansing or removal of ignorance is called spiritual

practice, or sadhana.

In spiritual practice, it is not how much we read, but how much we

understand, reflect and meditate upon the concepts. The quality,
intensity, sincerity, devotion, understanding, and enthusiasm of heart
with which we do our sadhana determine the true heights to which we
rise in our self-mastery.

Before our minds can be fit for higher contemplation and finally for
realization of the divine Self, we have to develop our sense of
detachment from the fascination of the world, and we have to cultivate
such detachment at the mental level. Mere physical retirement from
world is not detachment.

Every human being has a purpose in life and should use the world to
fulfill it.

Live a life of dharma, that is, we should fulfill the duties that our
nature imposes on us.

The Self is not attained through discourses or through memorizing

scriptural texts, or through much learning. It is gained only by him
who wishes to attain It with his whole heart. To such a one, the Self
reveals Its true nature. (Mundaka Upanishad II:3)

In order to reap the blessings of our spiritual search we need to create

a new habit in the mind, the habit of seeing our identity in the pure
Self, not in body, mind, or intellect. The various paths prescribed by
the great masters of the past help us in developing that habit.

The mind learns to accept new habits of thinking through meditation.

In meditation, the mind dwells only on one thought, a thought that
reminds us of the Lord and our own pure and limitless nature.

To start meditation we need to purify our habits in our daily

transactions. Purifying our inner personality leads to conducive
atmosphere for meditation.

When a mind is constantly chanting a chosen mantra, it reaches a

state of single pointed attention, the beginning stage of meditation.
Thus Japa is a training for the mind before starting meditation.

One of the important principle of Japa is the fact that attachment is

caused by repetition of the though. Thoughts running continuously
towards an object directly increases our attachment to it. By
continuous repetition of the name of the Lord, we get attached to HIM
and detached from the outer world of objects.

In quietude, the mind can bring forth new ideals, solutions, and
endlessly creative ideas.

In its purest form, meditation is a point at which the meditator, the

meditated, and the meditation all merge into One.

Regularity and sincerity are the secrets of success in meditation.

Evolution is not a matter of hurry-burry. Let it come to you. It is
similar to sleep it comes by itself when you are ready.

Initially you may find difficult, But, remember meditation is meant for
the imperfect.

Surrender to Lord (Ishvar Arpan), devotion (bhakti), faith (Shraddha),

patience (Saburi), regularity (nityatva), burning desire (mumuksutva)
etc. are most essential ingredients for meditation practice to be
fruitful.

The mind is available for remolding when it is in a cheerful, happy

mood. This cheerful, happy mood is the beginning trace
of sattva serenity.

As a meditator, you are trying to persuade your own mind, not anyone
outside.

Not only during meditation, but also in your outside activities, in the
long run, a healthy and cheerful mind will produce a better
performance.

Among the very first signposts to show that you are on right path is
the gathering joy within, a stability and poise in spite of problems you
may meet outside.

Surrender your anxieties at the feet of the Lord or the teacher, When
you are surrendering unto Him, surrender all your roles. And then start
meditation.

As you continue your meditative practice, you will learn to withdraw

more and more from the sense appetites and the anxiety to hoard.
Your daily sadhana will deepen in ardor, broaden in love, and expand
to touch new realms of spiritual experience.

When your whole being is centered in ardent invocation of the Higher,

you are gradually transformed and discover that you attain the very
attributes you are worshipping.

As you rediscover the truth of your own nature, the pure Self, you gain
an unshakable peace and never-ending joy. Recognition of the Self is
the crowning victory in life. This is Isvara darsana, the vision of God.

Once you own that vision, no outer circumstance of sorrow or joy,

insult or respect, failure or success, poverty or riches, disaster or
progress can touch you. You are above all circumstances.