Reflections on the Self Unfoldment Book by Swami Chinmayananda

In this chapter, swamiji has introduced us to the idea of action. One must remember that life is action. Thus, "none" can remain without action. What differentiates human beings from animals is that our actions have  a purpose, and a motive -- the truth of which is only visible within. The achievement of our goals are often clouded by that motive. Swamiji, in this chapter, divides human beings into three classes -- Laborers, Workers, and Persons of achievement. They form a continuum between utterly selfish work, as opposed to utterly selfless work. The figure below provides a summarized classification of the differences between the different typologies of personalities. It is important to note that the classification is not literal, rather figurative. The fundamental difference is in the level of egocentric actions, and its consequences for the individual. In general, laborers "labor" thorough life finding everything is a problem. Resistances are harder

This chapter extends the idea of trying to understand yourself as a science. In the chapter on religion, we focused on the idea that religion should facilitate a better understanding of oneself. Let us deviate a little bit before we come back to the original focus of this chapter. In order to better understand the world around us, we focus on defining each element carefully. So let us ask a simple question that many of us have learnt in early phases of studying biology. Why do plants breathe ?  The common explanation of why plants breathe is that they absorb carbon-di-oxide (co2) from the air, and water from the ground, through the roots and then the chlorophyll processes these as a transaction -- in the presence of sunlight. The thing to note in this example is that we do not observe this with naked eyes ! However, through detailed study, scientists have managed to break down this transaction into its components and understand the interactions between these components to lear

Understanding balance in life is a key element of spiritual growth. Ultimately the key is to gain a steady state of mind when we work and interact with the outer world.  A steady state of mind allows us to consider problems holistically, and act -- not in short-term -- aggrandizement, but long-term good. This is only possible when we are able to sacrifice pleasures that don't do us any good, rather harm us. It is in this context, a balance in pushing for success in the material world (a great job, a wonderful business, or peak of being in one's procession), has to be tempered with the understanding of what is the right thing to do in such an environment. This is possible if we understand the concept of Preyas and Shreyas. I will relate these concepts to the way our mind functions. The path of preyas is the path of pleasant. Eating candies, can be considered Preyas -- pleasant -- since many of us enjoy it. However, that in itself does not make it good. For example, too m

In this chapter, we focus on the role of religion. First, lets start with some basics. As individuals, we should all strive for "complete knowledge" of everything. However complete knowledge is often elusive. The key to getting complete knowledge is to understand that everything consists of both the gross and the subtle. Lets understand this with a series of simple examples. A TV show you look at consists of the show that you see, and the quality of effort that went into the show. A complete appreciation of the TV show would require us to not just focus on the show itself, but the individuals but the coordination that went on to make the show. Many times, we have seen classic movies being produced. These movies often come with "how we made it" videos, to provide an individual complete knowledge. Similarly, we (as individuals) have both the gross body and the subtle body. There is am amazing array of medical science that has studied the response of the gross bod

Dussehra, or navaratri, is a festival of the victory of the good over evil. The word comes from dasa-hara, killing the ten. We celebrate the victory of good over evil. For a long time, I have wondered what to celebrate, when Ram killed Ravana. Yesterday was the first time, I realized the real import. The 10 days in the festival in reality stands for the 10 senses, -- five organs of action (mouth, hands, feet, anus, and genitals) and five organs of perception (skin, eyes, ears, tongue, and nose). A majority of our actions are driven through the ten sense organs. That’s why, Ravana had 10 heads (Dasamukha, the one who reveled in ten senses).   The general idea of the 10 days of Dussehra is to follow the pursuit of Bhramacharya towards the lord. The true meaning of Bhramacharya (it is actually moderation in everything, not bachelorhood), but controlling the senses. Control does not mean "not enjoying" or starving. The control is for the bondage and attachment we develop to t

What is Happiness ? On the contrary, how do we treat unhappiness ? are both important questions to internal spiritual progress and personal progress. The book suggests that all sorrow come from two reasons. First is the revulsion to sorrow, and the second is yearning for joy. These two issues are important. Furthermore, the book defines that happiness is a state of mind. There is also an equation that we define happiness by: Happiness = Number of desires fulfilled/number of desires entertained. When the number of desires entertained is very little, and the number of desires fulfilled is large the happiness quotient is higher. Lets remember that this does not mean that a person minimize desires. We will learn later that desires are a function of vasanas. We just cannot avoid them. However, we must remember that there are two kinds of desires; (a) selfish desire and (b) unselfish desires. Unselfish desires have the quality of lifting up our vision and thoughts. So in the denominat

As we reflect on the highlights of this chapter, there are important issues to consider. In particular, as students, we must understand what we want from this book. The key is to think about what really holds us back in life ? Is it us, or is it the outer world ? How are these two related? This question is of paramount importance. The book enables us to answer these issues for ourselves. Without the reflection component of the book, it is impossible to get anything reasonable out of this book. I believe that the reflections are the most important aspect. In thinking about freedom, let us ask ourselves, what is true freedom? Freedom from our own inner habitual shackles, or freedom in the sense of can do whatever we want to do, whenever ? We always argue that outer freedom is a right of every individual, however, do we talk about inner freedom and how it can help us? Personally, I think that is the precise understanding we all need in order to make progress, and achieve our stated goa

My objective is not to unfold the self here. However, I certainly want to reflect on a key aspect that can lead to gradually unfold the self in this blog. How should we approach reading this wonderful book. My reflections have led me to consider proposing a general framework based on which Karma Yoga can be classified. It primarily concerns with two key characteristics -- Action and Attitude. Let me illustrate this by a simple 2x2. As a professor in Business, this two by two is a staple of my understanding of most concepts. Figure: The Karmayoga Framework Lets reflect on the above 2x2. To me the book is most useful if your attitude is fixed first on how you approach the process of self-unfoldment. If our fundamental attitude is wrong, the action, no matter what, is bound to result in an aggravation of ego. We just think we are better than others, and there is no concept of the "self" other than "myself."  The greatest opportunity of the book is i

Dear All, Welcome to this blog on the book "Self Unfoldment" by Swami Chinmayananda. The purpose of this blog is to provide an interactive forum for interactions for the Lansing Balvihar class for Self Unfoldment. As its instructor, I will be sharing my ideas on this forum, and certainly want more people to interact so we all can learn from it. Clearly, "Self unfoldment" is a two way process. As the student unfolds, the teacher (who is also a student) is still unfolding. It is like an onion that we keep peeling away, until there is nothing left to peel, but that ! As the name suggests, the book is really about unfolding the self. The book walks us through a step by step process into unfolding our inner world with the objective of knowing our true self -- hence the beautiful name (Self unfoldment). As we go through the various modules, I will be posting some of my thoughts on this blog. Sometimes, we can even edit some of the writings on this blog to reflect s