Dharanas Book Two: Yoga Moment to Moment

By David Long

Here is a treasury of life-wisdom, in brief aphoristic form, gathered from ancient and modern scriptures,and from Eastern and Western philosophers and gurus.
Most of the dharanas come from the stand-point of non-dualism, i.e.,roughly "All Is One" or "Everything Is Consciousness."
But wisdom is wasted if it stays in our heads: it has to be worked into our lives. So this is not a skim-and-dip kind of book. Just follow the "How To Use This Book" guidelines and test each dharana out for yourself. Some you will discard, but others will be found to be effective and uplifting and taken on board.
Enjoy it and engage with it ! You will be in the company of Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Jesus Christ, The Buddha, Prophet Mohammed, Rumi, Albert Einstein, Patanjali, Sivananda, Sai Baba, B.K.S. Iyengar, Wayne Dyer, Eckhart Tolle and John Kabat Zinn, to name a few.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press AU
• Release date: Sep 12, 2019
• ISBN: 9781504319096

David Long

David Long, BEng (Hons), MSc, CEng, MIPEM, is a Clinical Engineer registered in the UK as a Clinical Scientist with the Health and Care Professions Council. He has over 20 years multi-disciplinary NHS experience in the field of rehabilitation engineering, specialising in the provision of postural management and custom contoured seating. Being a Chartered Engineer as well as a qualified clinician, Dave is particularly able to apply biomechanical principles to the assessment process, and to advise and assist with the more technical aspects of the required equipment. He is employed by AJM Healthcare who deliver a number of wheelchair services on behalf of the NHS. He also retains a contract with Oxford University Hospitals NHS Trust where he teaches on the Oxford Brookes University accredited Postgraduate Certificate in Posture Management for People with Complex Disabilities.

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Copyright © 2019 David Long.

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The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

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ISBN: 978-1-5043-1908-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-1909-6 (e)

Balboa Press rev. date: 09/10/2019

This book is dedicated to Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh.

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Thanks are also expressed to British comedians Morecombe and Wise and Tommy Cooper who, by their debunking of human pretensions and foibles, and their perfect timing, prompted a singular appreciation of each moment of awareness and a quest for a transcending reality.

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CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1:     How to Use this Book

Chapter 2:     The Dharanas, With Commentary

Chapter 3:     Engagement

Chapter 4:     Conclusions

Chapter 5:     Main Sources and Source – People.

Chapter 6:     Glossary

Chapter 7:     Further Dharanas

INTRODUCTION

Dharana is a Sanskrit word meaning concentration. It could be concentration on an object, a body-point, or an idea. Here we mainly use little gems of life-wisdom to contemplate upon, but also do some enlivening body-focus and mental exercises.

In compiling this book as a follow-up to Dharanas, The Direct Route To Divine Consciousness, published by Balboa Press in 2017, I am aiming at a slightly different readership, but both books are basically collections of dharanas or thoughts, sayings, contemplations or pearls of pithy wisdom.

As before, the compiler is not the author of the sayings (except where D.L. is indicated). The authors are gurus and mystics, Eastern and Western, alive or passed on, and you will find Greek philosophers, Sufis, counter-culture gurus, traditional folk sayings and even a car-sticker slogan.

The glorious thing is to see teachings from such widely divergent sources pointing towards the same truths about life. So on a couple of pages you may find Jesus, Eckhart Tolle, John Kabat-Zinn, Lao Tzu, Satya Sai Baba, Swami Sivananda, Wayne Dyer, Rumi and Epictetus, to name but a few.

The first Dharanas book was deliberately kept very brief, terse and to-the-point, and was intended for the busy man or woman in the street, with no particular background in yoga or mystical matters. But this Dharanas Book Two is more wordy and expansive and includes a much fuller commentary and discussion of the dharanas. It is less bare-boned and didactic and should appeal more to those with a yoga background or to those who have already spent some years on a spiritual path.

The first Dharanas book gave 110 dharanas as aids to access a state of divine consciousness, and the emphasis was on how to get there. In this second Dharanas book, there are 222 dharanas and the emphasis is not just on getting there, but also on staying there (or thereabouts), being there, and living there. This includes a consideration of how to notice when you slip away from heaven on earth, and how to get back there again smartly, and possibly with some humour, again and again. We should also consider what sort of self-talk, self-conditioning, and general living regime will help us stay there (without disrupting family life or requiring residence in the loony-bin.)

I did not begin this collection with any intention to draw out any particular conclusions, preferring to take the organic approach of waiting to see if any principles or sub-themes emerged - and they did! It would spoil things if I mentioned them now – let us see what emerges for you along the way. The working title for this book when I started it was simply Dharanas Book Two.

I do hope that you get as many moments of exhilaration and breath-taking upliftment from reading from the greats, as I did in assembling this collection. I believe that it contains much of the greatest life-wisdom of the last 2,500 years, and very practical life-wisdom, at that, which you can practice as from today. I do hope that you will want to return to it again and again to gladden your heart and inspire your daily living.

Dharanas are a very direct route to Divine Consciousness. They are direct because each one is brief and self-standing and does not depend on a long argument or series of steps. You just do them. Many of them are effective within seconds. They take you to a direct perception of The Divine from all sorts of starting points, including some very mundane and earthy ones. And they don’t just leave you outside, gazing at The Divine through a special window, they pull you in to share in that Divinity as an equal!

Chapter One

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HOW TO USE THIS BOOK

1. For the first reading, go through the dharanas in the order given. Don’t skim and pick and choose. Deal with what is in front of you.

2. First try the dharana ‘as is’, without referring to any notes or commentary. Have a couple of bits of card on hand to block out the rest of the page.

3. Read the dharana through very, very slowly, almost like a Shakespearean actor. You are trying to access every possible shade of meaning within the words. Then read it a second time, again very slowly.

4. Contemplate deeply and put it into practice there and then. If possible, sustain the dharana for two or three minutes.

5. Then read any commentary, if you wish. Perhaps contemplate further in the light of the commentary.

6. Consider if you can take it with you - in some sense - and engage with it easily, during the coming day. How will you do this?

7. I suggest that three dharanas a day is quite enough. It is a fairly intense practice.

8. The best time to do it is probably at 6 a.m. or 7 a.m. in the morning. The mind is strong and clear and is not full of thoughts about mundane matters. The worst time may be around 3 to 7 p.m., when many events of the day are being digested and energy levels may be low.

9. A good routine is: Rise at 6, attend to bathroom needs, shower, dress,