Real Yoga

When I first read this article by the Swami, I thought it was brilliant.

Maybe, by the time you get to the end, you too will feel like me.

As an aside, which will lead me to something else, I would like to tell you about a test that was done with snowflakes. Under the correct freezing conditions, 500,000 snowflakes were put under a microscope and photographed. They were then compared, and not one could be found to be the same as the other.

This test was repeated many times with the same findings. It is not to say that somewhere out there in the zillions of snowflakes in a storm that there may not be an identical one floating to earth, but these test seem to prove otherwise.

It is hard to believe, if one has driven through a whiteout snowstorm, that they are all different, yet different they are. I mention this for one reason only, and that is, the number of people that seem to think that because there are zillions of heavenly bodies out there, that surely there must be a replica of all the factors that go into making life here on earth as we know it.

If it is true that each snowflake is different, it does credence to the Gnana Yoga concept that everything OUT THERE has been conceived IN HERE (the mind) AND IS ONLY A PROJECTION of collective mind itself.

That is not to say we, as a collective unit, will not one day conceive of Alien life and in so doing make it a physical Kosha reality. But it will be WE, the collective unit that makes it so.

Just a fun mental game, but it brings me to the number of people that are still consumed with the idea of re–incarnation and other lives, other identities.

Just imagine if you will, a very hot humid day over the Pacific Ocean, and through the process of osmosis, water is lifted up into cooler climates of the upper atmosphere, forming dense water soaked clouds. That cloud will, under the right conditions, burst as a rain cloud sending rain to earth as singular droplets. Some of those droplets land on acid rich soil, others pick up other elements and minerals, and by that token become unique and different one from the other, until something new happens — the formation of small streams and rivers, inland lakes and ponds.

With each new formation, or different shape and form and content that occurs, something new happens, they all rush, either into a water table, or a torrential river rushing back once again into the ocean from whence they came. Now of course, what ever individuality, and collective spirit that rain drop became, is now once again lost in Union with its beginning, losing every aspect of its individuality.

Well, we are not raindrops, say some. Quite true, but just because we have a more complicated state of consciousness does not remove the fact that all life has consciousness. Each cell is held together by its purpose of being. To be a wood cell, a frog leg cell etc. By the way that same frog leg cell implanted on the belly of a frog will grow another leg out of his belly. It's genetic consciousness knows what it is meant to be — a simple frog's leg.

We, on the other hand, because of our complexity, have conjured up all sorts of unrealistic theories and philosophies to extend our own selves, beyond what is our only means of replication — our children. The concept of an individualized spirit just exchanging one body for another in a different time, AND at the same time , as some say, retaining memory of the former life, is nothing more than fantasy and wish fulfillment, that we exist forever.

Taking the same analogy of the ocean and the rain drop, SAT, or ever existence, can be realized only if that rain drop was to look beyond its accumulation of elements it gained on its sojourn back to the ocean, and realize its intrinsic nature of ocean only.

What one life gathers, in this state we know with its attributable state of consciousness, is totally lost when one unites once again in consciousness without attributes — Pure consciousness.

That's what life is, gathering attributes and becoming so attached to them that our intrinsic Being–ness is lost.

That is why Satchitananda can only be had in this lifetime. There is no other. The poor raindrop, so attached to its rivulet–consciousness may think it will return as the same, in order to learn more lessons, or to carry on its journey to perfection. Nope! What happens is once it becomes part of the ocean again it is then lifted and becomes another droplet without any attributes of its former self at all!

Used as an analogy only, the former idea helps one to realize that Samadhi can only be attained NOW. Turiya can only be entered into in this lifetime. You do not get another chance. So drop your attributes and become conscious of your intrinsic nature, which is your birthright, and which is SAT CHIT ANANDA..

Articles by Swami Harinanda and Yogi Karmananda are © 2026 and are licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

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