Recently I was asked if it is not good to listen to music, watch television, movies, due to imposition on the awareness if your wanting to evolve, i.e. wanting to refine your nervous system.
To which I respond:
If you do everything that you should do to evolve exactly right, you don’t end up enlightened, you end up insane. Obsessing over the right food at every meal, the right exercise every day, do the right this, avoid the wrong that – it will drive you crazy! There are mantras for everything… before you sleep, when you awake, before you eat, when you rest, even when you go to the bathroom – you can’t do them all.
So what to do? You do your very best, but be easy with it. Pay attention to how you feel after you eat a particular food or watch a particular type of movie. Lean in the direction of what you feel is right. Crude influences culture crudeness in the physiology. But easy does it. Pushing, pushing, pushing yourself is a crude influence in and of itself. Specifically regarding music and TV, the same principle applies. A research study was done with different types of music played to crops of corn. Rock music had a negative influence and the corn grew more poorly than with no music. Classical music did well. Gandharva Veda ragas scored the best.
Some dogs are such ‘great mothers’ that they clean and nibble the pups feet and tails to the point of damaging them. Do not do that to yourself! Evolution is a culturing process. The environment and feeling level is critical. Be kind to yourself. At the same time, a lackadaisical approach yields lackadaisical results. It is a matter of balance.
The truth is, how your psyche functions determines how you hold that balance… how you tip the scales. This goes right back to cultivating discernment with the foundation being proper meditation. That is what purifies the physiology and psyche. So meditate and do your best to discern. Know that nature is on your side.
All water finds it way back to the ocean.
Such a great blog and so timely! I’ve been trying to take full responsibility for my pain, evolution, and self-care but in the process have ended up over-doing everything, personal processing, analyzing, meditating. I see so much conditioning and I want to get rid of it all right now! It feels like it’s resulted in dis-integration rather than the integration I desire. I think I just need to be easy with it, stop over-analyzing everything, relinquish the need to control the process to the nth degree, and trust that nature organizes best. I’ve been trying to force it, like forcing open the the petals of a flower. It doesn’t work and ultimately makes a mess of the flower. Your wisdom is well received and appreciated. My heartfelt thanks.
Another poignant way to look at how I’m doing. Thank you, Bramarshi.
Today I feel great sadness while remembering the events of 9/11/01 ,eleven years ago. All the people, on all sides, all the families, all the children. Bramarshi-how does what happened on that day map,-what are the connections? Are there distortions?
Interesting I was thinking about 9/11 also and wondering about the conditioning that has been established. Please understand I know what people lost that day and don’t want to minimize the impact on their lives. Is this a subject we can discuss or is it best to leave it alone for now.
Re “Music and TV”
Thank you! I remember a class in Rhode Island where I thought you said movies can bring out past life karmas and re-enforce energies that can take lifetimes to purify out of your awareness.
Still, there have been occassions when I’ve turned on the radio or the tube and in the moment heard something that went right in….as if the gods had delivered a message.
Nice to think that nature, the gods, can find voice even among the 900 channels of c*#! on tv. A lotus breaking through the mud perhaps.
We are creating a microcosm that maps on to the world. If you really want to do something about 9/11 then I have created the pathway and invite you to join me. As Mount Soma goes, so will goes the world. I have given the world the logistics of this for all who care to listen. There is, of course, the time lag. We act today for the future. Yet this is the best I can do so do it I will with all of my heart.
Jai Guru Dev
Thank you Bramarshi for your response – as often happens to me, I do not take it all in, yet sense the possibilities.
Jai Shiva Sankara
Jai GUru Dev.