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Shri K. Pattabhi
Jois
Shri K. Pattabhi Jois studied
yoga under his guru Shri Krishnamacharya and also
attended the Sanskrit College of Mysore, where he
became a professor of Sanskrit and Advaita Vedanta.
He and Shri Krishnamacharya developed the Astanga
Yoga series based on the purifying practices
described in the ancient texts. In 1948, he founded
the Ashtanga Yoga Research Institute in Mysore. In
1958, he wrote his classic book Yoga Mala, which
explores Astanga and Yoga philosophy. In 1998, David
Life was made a certified Astanga teacher by Shri K.
Pattabhi Jois. Both Sharon and David make regular
trips Mysore to study under him.
"Ahhhh Samadhi. Yoga is Samadhi. God is
One. Yoga is One. Philosophy is One. That's All. -
Shri K. Pattabhi Jois
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Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati
Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati had
an extensive background in Eastern and Western
medicine. In 1958, he founded the Yoga Society of
New York. Ananda Ashram, which he founded in 1964 in
Monroe, New York, continues to be devoted to Shri
Brahmananda Sarasvati's teachings and message, and
the ashram hosts many Jivamukti events. A Sanskrit
scholar, his life was dedicated to the union of
science and the spirit. He is the author of
Fundamentals of Yoga, The Textbook of Yoga
Psychology (one of the definitive translations of
Patanjali's Yoga Sutras) and Self Analysis and Self
Knowledge, along with many essays. He left his body
in 1993.
"Nobody is a fool and nobody is wise. It
is the space which makes you foolish or wise. If you
have space within your mind, then you become wise,
and if you have no space in your mind, then you
become 'otherwise'." - Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati
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Shri Swami
Nirmalananda
Swami Nirmalananda believed in
the potency of Self rule, and he called himself the
"Anarchist Swami." He inducted David Life into the
sunnyas (renunciate) order in 1990. Swami
Nirmalananda was a naturalist and a "mauni". He
practiced silence for 11 years. "Unless the
individuality is transcended, we cannot know what is
universality and unless we die while living, we
cannot know what is Eternal life. The mind can only
think one thing at a time and it always functions
within the realm of duality like good and bad,
pleasure and pain, happiness and sorrow. Unless we
rise above these pairs of opposites, we will not be
able to know what the integrated state of existence
is."
"Love not anyone, not even God! Our
picking and choosing love brings misery. Instead,
let God love you. Be Love itself." - Shri Swami
Nirmalananda
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World Parliament of Religons
Speech given by Swami Vivekananda
Concluding Address
Chicago, Sept 27, 1893
The World's Parliament of Religions has become an
accomplished fact, and the merciful Father has
helped those who laboured to bring it into
existence, and crowned with success their most
unselfish labour.
 My
thanks to those noble souls whose large hearts and
love of truth first dreamed this wonderful dream and
then realized it. My thanks to the shower of liberal
sentiments that has overflowed this platform. My
thanks to this enlightened audience for their
uniform kindness to me and for their appreciation of
every thought that tends to smooth the friction of
religions. A few jarring notes were heard from time
to time in this harmony. My special thanks to them,
for they have, by their striking contrast, made
general harmony the sweeter.
Much has been said of the common ground of
religious unity. I am not going just now to venture
my own theory. But if any one here hopes that this
unity will come by the triumph of any one of the
religions and the destruction of the others, to him
I say, "Brother, yours is an impossible hope." Do I
wish that the Christian would become Hindu? God
forbid. Do I wish that the Hindu or Buddhist would
become Christian? God forbid.
The seed is put in the ground, and earth and air
and water are placed around it. Does the seed become
the earth, or the air, or the water? No. It becomes
a plant. It develops after the law of its own
growth, assimilates the air, the earth, and the
water, converts them into plant substance, and grows
into a plant.
Similar is the case with religion. The Christian
is not to become a Hindu or a Buddhist, nor a Hindu
or a Buddhist to become a Christian. But each must
assimilate the spirit of the others and yet preserve
his individuality and grow according to his own law
of growth.
If the Parliament of Religions has shown anything
to the world, it is this: It has proved to the world
that holiness, purity and charity are not the
exclusive possessions of any church in the world,
and that every system has produced men and women of
the most exalted character. In the face of this
evidence, if anybody dreams of the exclusive
survival of his own religion and the destruction of
the others, I pity him from the bottom of my heart,
and point out to him that upon the banner of every
religion will soon be written in spite of
resistance: "Help and not fight," "Assimilation and
not Destruction," "Harmony and Peace and not
Dissension."
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