Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can

train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,

everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.

Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our

previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by

sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana

yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a

hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its

range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the

small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.

Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,

success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the

mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual

personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French

gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
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a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right

one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this

need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent

this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can

train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,

everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.

Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our

previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by

sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana

yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a

hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its

range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the

small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.

Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,

success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the

mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual

personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French

gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right

one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this

need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent

this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can

train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,

everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.

Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our

previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by

sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana

yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a

hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its

range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the

small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.

Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,

success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the

mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual

personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French

gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right

one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this

need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent

this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati

Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first

printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is

easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,

but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations

still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has

been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.

This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately

photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is

immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last

time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment

of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a

clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija

mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the

country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no

longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate

with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.

Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is

a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977

According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four

main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not

easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we

worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.

The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are

patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time

when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had

another fit, and is perfectly all right.

Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a

picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna

When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind

which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5

a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his

eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.

The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It

is important to be able to give something to others which they

can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an

integration of these four essential temperaments. For the

evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change

takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal

makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present

and previous incarnations.

We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be

purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to

our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be

exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?

Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very

12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever

the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She

wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we

are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another

one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and

his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a

miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all

night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so

powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its

effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with

thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality

must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the

balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves

awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.

Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a

fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of

incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there

are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.

The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his

education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still

you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing

her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood

experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.

Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar

mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and

while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful

mantra purges karma very quickly.

Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It

is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why

are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing

else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced

diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not

remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of

our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and

unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma

sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a

bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around

Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep

when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga

There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the

repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then

continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the

practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.

Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the

experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained

mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just

adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We

must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an

integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja

yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?

When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there

are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)

energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind

The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious

should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating

human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who

have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.

The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By

the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite

deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the

past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter

your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the

body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive

approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided

development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the

earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a

diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas

makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and

tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences

that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he

suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he

was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by

one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined

towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel

attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.

I know of many people who have changed completely through the

practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,

analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into

our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world

is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can

train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,

everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.

Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our

previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by

sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana

yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a

hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its

range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the

small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.

Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,

success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the

mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual

personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French

gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right

one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this

need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent

this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977

According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four

main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not

easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we

worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.

The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are

patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time

when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had

another fit, and is perfectly all right.

Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a

picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna

When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind

which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5

a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his

eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.

The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It

is important to be able to give something to others which they

can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality

we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga

sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup

of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.

We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of

selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be

purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to

our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be

exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?

Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very

12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever

the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She

wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we

are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another

one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and

his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a

miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all

night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so

powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its

effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with

thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality

must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the

balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves

awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.

Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a

fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of

incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there

are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.

The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his

education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still

you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing

her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood

experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.

Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar

mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and

while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful

mantra purges karma very quickly.

Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It

is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why

are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.
Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical

body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual

body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.

Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace

of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5

prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or

moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and

unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma

sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a

bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around

Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep

when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga

There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the

repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then

continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the

practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
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a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.

Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the

experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained

mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just

adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We

must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an

integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja

yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided
development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?

When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the
earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 2/5
prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there

are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)

energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a
diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas
makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind

The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious

should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and
tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences
that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating

human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who

have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he
suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he
was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 3/5
consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.

The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By

the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by
one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite

deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined
towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel
attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the

past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.
I know of many people who have changed completely through the
practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter

your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,
analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into
our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the

body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world
is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive

approach, life becomes rich.

Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality

Swami Satyananda Saraswati
Speech at the Gita Ashram, Monrovia, Liberia, May 1977, first
printed in YOGA,
Vol. 15, No. 8, August 1977
According to vedic dharma each person is a composite of four
main qualities:
dynamism, emotions, mysticism and rationalism. Some people
are predominantly
dynamic, others are more emotional, mystical or rational. Every
personality is an
integration of these four essential temperaments. For the
evolution of our personality
we have to integrate the four corresponding categories of yoga
sadhana into our
lives.
Sadhana is spiritual discipline or practice. Just as you train an
animal, the personality
must also be trained in order to be useful in this life. For the
balanced development of
our personality, we must practise an integral yoga sadhana. By
emphasizing one
aspect of sadhana, our development will be lopsided. If we eat
protein and nothing
else, what will happen? Just as we carefully provide a balanced
diet for the physical
body, so we must supply a balance of nutrition to the spiritual
body also. In the
Bhagavad Gita, Yoga Vashishtha, Srimad Bhagavata, and other
scriptures, an
integration of the four systems of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja
yoga and jnana yoga
is recommended. Those who overemphasize any one aspect of
yoga should remember
that this results in onesided

development.
Through the practice of karma yoga, bhakti yoga, raja yoga and
jnana yoga, we can
train the whole personality. This is what I want to tell everyone,
everywhere. It is
easy to attain temporary tranquillity through certain practices,
but to train the mind is
very difficult. To transform the entire consciousness into a creative
instrument is not
easy.
Transforming the mind
Some years ago some research was conducted to find out the
influence of kirtan on
the brain. When we do kirtan for half an hour, we feel relaxed.
Why? What change
takes place in the structure of the personality and in the hormonal
makeup
of the
brain? Research has found that during repetitive singing of kirtan,
the brain registers
the sound waves, which influences other wave patterns of the
brain. These waves
awaken alpha rhythms which immediately induce tranquillity.
Thus by singing kirtan we
get peace of mind. This is well and good, but maintaining that
state of mind during our
daily life is not so easy. The peace we gain by practising this
technique does not
remain with us through the complicated and confusing patterns of
our daily life.
Therefore, side by side with yoga sadhana which gives us peace
of mind, we must
also remember the necessity of transforming the very structure of
our mind. But how?
When we drive our car into the petrol station to fill up the tank we
find that petrol is
of different categories. But when this petrol was extracted from
the depths of the

earth, what was it like then? Crude oil is so dirty but after being
refined it becomes a
remarkable agent of energy. It can even provide the power to fly
an aeroplane.
Similarly, the mind, or chitta, which we have inherited from our
previous incarnations
still remains in its crude or raw state. In the mental body we have
so many things
which ought to be removed. When we become terribly angry or
very tense, when we
worry too much and pass sleepless nights due to family, business,
social or political
problems, then we feel the necessity of purifying the mind. We
must free it from all
these vrittis, those habits which we have formed in our
personality from the present
and previous incarnations.
We believe that the jiva or individual has undergone a process of
selfincarnation
in
8,400,000 yonis or wombs. According to science, evolution has
passed through a
fantastic panorama of existence, but despite these millions of
incarnations that our
jiva has undergone, we still carry a very crude mind with us. This
mind is composed of
three gunas: sattwa, rajas, and tamas, which are the essential
manifestations of
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prakriti or nature. The three gunas are also used in a social or
moral context because
they indicate the personality of a person. Nature manifests as
energy in nature there
are static (tamasic), kinetic (rajasic) and balanced (sattwic)
energies.
If we want to make the mind infinite, we must cut and polish it
just as we would a

diamond. They say that tamas makes a person lethargic, rajas

makes you violent and
sattwa makes you balanced. Therefore, tamas and rajas have to
be overcome by
sattwa, and this is accomplished through the process of dhyana
yoga. Dhyana has
been translated as meditation, but actually it means awareness.
This can be attained
through raja yoga, bhakti yoga, jnana yoga, laya yoga, mantra
yoga, and many other
yogic processes.
The mind is not thought or emotion. Thought and emotion are
patterns of mind.
Happiness is a state of mind and so is depression. Mind is
consciousness, awareness.
Mind is a storehouse of energy, shakti. The pure mind is pure
shakti. The mind can be
purified and corrected by following the methods most suited to
our personality. Those
who are very strong can take up the path of kundalini and kriya
yoga. For others who
are not so strong and who havent yet developed much
understanding of yoga, there
are other ways like mantra yoga or japa yoga.
The mind is much more than thought or feeling. The mind is like
an iceberg only a
small portion is visible, the remainder lies submerged under the
ocean. According to
modern psychology, the mind exists in three spheres: conscious,
subconscious and
unconscious. In Vedanta we call them: sthoola sharira, sukshma
sharira and karana
sharira.
Exploding the unconscious mind
The unconscious mind is very powerful. The word unconscious
should not be
misunderstood. The unconscious mind is like a storehouse. All
disease, success and

tragedy in life originate in the unconscious mind. The experiences

that you have had
in life, important as well as unimportant, are all registered there.
It is something like a
hidden camera in the street. Everything that passes within its
range is immediately
photographed. In the same way, whatever experience you have is
immediately
transferred back to the unconscious through the indriyas or
senses and the mind.
There they are stored in bija or seed form. This process starts
rights from the time
when the child is in the womb of the mother. From the fourth
month of pregnancy,
children have certain experiences which are embedded deep in
the unconscious mind.
Through the practices of kundalini, kriya and laya yoga, the
unconscious mind can be
exploded. What happens when we explode the unconscious mind?
Here is an example
of how an ordinary, insignificant experience can cause great
damage to ones mind. In
our ashram there was an intelligent engineer who could not
manage to complete his
education or hold his job. Every morning from six till nine, he
would go into a fit of
depression. He became so restless that sometimes he felt he was
going to die. In
these fits of depression, he could not sit quietly, walk or talk. He
left his career as a
bright mechanical engineer in the UK and wandered around
Africa. Finally, he came to
India and found his way to our ashram.
One morning he was on the roof terrace and on the street below
he saw a pig eating
human filth. This is quite a common scene for those of us who
have lived in Indian
villages, but for this young man it was something new. The
moment he saw it, he

suddenly remembered an incident from his childhood. When he

was eight years old, he
used to go fishing. One morning when he was preparing his
tackle, he opened the
small tin in which he kept little maggots for bait. He had forgotten
to empty it the last
time he had gone fishing, and when he lifted the lid hundreds of
flies swarmed in his
face. The moment he saw the pig eating human filth, his
unconscious exploded and
this deep childhood memory came out. Since then the young man
has never had
another fit, and is perfectly all right.
Karma
Every action, every thought, every place is an experience. A
satsang or a lecture on
the Bhagavad Gita is an experience. Even an ordinary experience
can become very
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consequential in later life. There are so many types of karma.
Charity is one karma
and plundering someones property is another. Even if you dont
do these things, still
you are making karma. In the Gita, it is said that there is not one
moment in life in
which a person is free of karma. Only in samadhi can you
completely do away with
karma, otherwise not. Modern psychology and yoga agree that
even during deep sleep
when you are not aware of time and space, name and form, your
mind is still working.
Remember that the unconscious mind is the storehouse of all past
experiences or
karmas, not only in this life, but in our previous lives as well.
The unconscious body is called hiranyagarbha, the golden egg. By
the practice of
mantra sadhana we can penetrate it deeply and eliminate all
kinds of karmas, one by

one. That is why they say that by the practice of mantra one
becomes free from the
entanglements of karma.
Every action is born of a deep karma. Every thought, movement,
success, failure is a
reenactment
of one of our previous experiences. Here is another example, a
clinical
case concerning a husband and wife who loved each other very
much. They were
very happy together at home, but whenever they went out to
dinner, for a walk, on a
picnic, etc. they always fought. Why? When the husband was a
child of four, he
walked into the bathroom when his mother was taking a bath. She
quickly covered her
body with a dirty housedress, pushed him out and locked the
door. Now, whenever
the husband is at home, his wife is engaged in housework. She
wears an old
housedress and he loves her. He is still working out the problem of
the old dress with
which his mother covered herself in the bathroom. Whenever his
wife is not wearing
her old housedress, he doesnt like her! Such simple childhood
experiences can cause
so many problems. Many good people suffer unnecessarily
because they are unaware
of their karmas and how they fructify.
Mantra yoga
There are two ways of practising mantra yoga: one is the
repetition of a bija mantra
like Aum, Hrim, Shrim, Klim the other is using the name of ones
guru or favourite
deity. Nowadays we have lost touch with the original mantra yoga
system. If we feel
devotion for Shiva, then we practise Om Namah Shivaya. If we
feel more inclined

towards Rama, we repeat Sri Ram Jai Ram. When we feel

attracted towards Krishna,
we say Om Namo Bhagavate Vasudevaya. But according to
mantra shastra, the
mantra must be very carefully selected to suit each individual
personality. The bija
mantras are very powerful. They can allay the strong influence of
karmas. Mantra
should always be practised with a mala. Even in meditation when
mantra is
synchronized with the breath, a mala is still used.
Japa and antar mouna
When practising mantra, a lot of things come up in the mind
which would not come up
otherwise. When past incidents arise, what do we do? The usual
response is to
suppress these thoughts because we are more interested in our
mantra. So when we
are practising japa and a thought come, we push it out another
one comes and we
push it out. But this is incorrect. We do not want to avoid karma,
but to eliminate it.
Therefore, it is necessary to observe each thought and let it pass
of its own accord.
Thus japa yoga must be followed or accompanied by antar
mouna, the process of
witnessing our thoughts. When we are practising mantra and a
thought comes into
our mind, we must stop for a moment and see the thought,
whatever it is, then
continue the mantra until another thought comes. During the
practice of japa and
antar mouna, over a period of months the significant and
insignificant memories of the
past flash into our mind. These memories should be seen very
clearly if we want to
purify our mind. Every experience we have during mantra practice
or meditation has
an important bearing on our life.

I know of many people who have changed completely through the

practice of japa
and antar mouna and they were amazed to see how it happened.
One French
gentleman had a hernia and hydrocele. He left his job and went to
his sister in the
country. He told her that he was completely broken and could no
longer work. There
was no point in prolonging his life, he said, as he felt only pain
everywhere. His sister,
12/10/2015 Integral Yoga Sadhana for a Balanced Personality
http://www.yogamag.net/archives/2007/fjune07/integ.shtml 4/5
a staunch devotee of yoga, told him to put some cream on his
eyebrow centre and
concentrate on that point. One day while the French gentleman
was practising this, a
terrific sound exploded somewhere in his brain. Surprisingly his
hernia was cured and
his hydrocele problem was completely resolved for him it was a
miracle. When I met
him, I asked what had happened when he was concentrating on
bhrumadhya, the
eyebrow centre. He said that when he was a schoolboy he went to
the fish shop and
while eating, a fish bone got stuck in his teeth which later had to
be removed by the
dentist. When he was practising concentration on his
bhrumadhya, he saw fish coming
out of his mouth. After that, he too became a great devotee of
yoga.
Therefore, when practising mantra, do not discard or repress the
experiences which
arise. You may think that while practising mantra, worldly
thoughts should not enter
your mind, and if they do, then it is your duty to remove them in
respect for the
mantra, but this is incorrect. According to yoga and psychology,
we must observe,

analyze and respect whatever thoughts or experiences come into

our mind while
practising japa.
You will find that if the mantra is correct, it will work immediately.
If it is not the right
one for you, it will still work, but slowly. To be powerful the mantra
has to correlate
with all of our qualities and tendencies. The tantra and mantra
shastras say that all
mantras, with the exception of Aum, are classified into twelve
main groups with five
subdivisions. Only Aum can be repeated by anyone at any time,
without restriction.
The mantras which are used to explode the unconscious mind are
very important.
People with devotion for the Devi, particularly Durga or Kali, have
fantastic
experiences while practising her mantra. Many of my disciples
had terrifying dreams all
night after receiving her mantra. This is because the mantra is so
powerful that it
immediately starts exploding the karmas from the unconscious
mind. Just as a strong
purgative makes you go to the toilet every five minutes, so
repetition of a powerful
mantra purges karma very quickly.
Science of yoga
The science of yoga aims at perfecting human life. Every ordinary
person has
extraordinary potential, but to develop this a strong and
welltrained
mind is
necessary. Through the practices of yoga we can gain complete
mastery over the
body and mind. The West gave technology to the world and made
life very
comfortable, easy and quick. India can give yoga and spirituality
and the whole world

is crying for it. People in the West are fed up and frightened of
technology. They
want a science to allay their fears and give them peace.
Only the system of yoga which is still alive today in India can
adequately fulfil this
need. Therefore, all Indians wherever they are, must represent
this science correctly.
Yoga is knowledge, not miracles, witchcraft or superstition. Yoga is
a science which
can be studied, practised, experienced, understood and explained
by any educated
and wellread
person. Yoga can improve relations and create international
goodwill. It
is important to be able to give something to others which they
can cherish deep in
their hearts.
I give free discussions on yoga everywhere I go because I am fully
convinced of its
effectiveness. My experience and experiments in life with
thousands and thousands of
people, East and West are my proof. Now it is the duty of those
who know that yoga
produces an integrated personality to acquaint themselves with
all aspects of yoga. It
is no use saying that bhakti yoga alone is enough. If it were, why
are religious people
lying ill in hospitals and taking so many pills? Why are they unable
to sleep in their
cosy beds? Religion is bhakti yoga. We need an integrated
approach to life. Just
adding salt to the vegetables does not make a tasty dish. We
must combine many
spices. Life is too complex for one aspect of yoga to suffice. With
a comprehensive
approach, life becomes rich.