Adhyatma-teachings – Page 4 – A Trevor Leggett Adhyatma Yoga Trust Website

Pointless in Adhyatma Teachings

A middle-aged energetic business-man, member of a yoga group, began to think that he was not making proper progress. He practised regularly and did a good deal of service, but he felt that he was getting no new insights or experience. He asked the teacher, who told him: “It is good that you have become aware of this. Ask yourself whether at the end of your yogic practices or service you think: I have finished with that, now I will get on with my ordinary affairs; and whether at the end of an engagement in worldly affairs, you think, I …

Compassion Ration in Adhyatma Teachings

The owner of a small wine-shop in a not very prosperous district of Tokyo had to be a tough man, if only to deal with penniless alcoholics demanding a drink. One such wine-shop proprietor related this incident to a Buddhist priest. It was the end of the year, when debts have to be settled. Those who have collected the money owing, spend some of it on drink; those who cannot pay, hide from the debt-collectors or sometimes vanish to another part of the country. One evening just before the New Year, a little girl of about seven came into …

Words Versus Pictures in Adhyatma Teachings

“A hundred hearings are not like one seeing” is a classical Chinese saying, but it applies to what can be seen, not to abstractions or other things beyond the senses. There the hearings are worth a hundred readings, for reading is often too fast and superficial. Especially when re-reading a revered text, the eye races over the well-known phrases, and much is missed. Today the tape recorder offers a new aid to study: record the main texts, and play them every morning. The reading will reveal new depths. Clara Schumann, the world famous pianist, played the Chopin study in C …

The Power of Formlessness in Adhyatma Teachings

There is a story in many forms, in different cultures and traditions. It is a very old one in India, possibly from before the Buddha. The Gods do battle with the Titans and the Gods win. There is something strange about the victory but anyway, the Gods take all the credit to themselves. While they celebrate, a report comes that something mysterious has been seen in a particular place in the Himalayas, something the form of which cannot be made out, which seems to have no form and yet it is there! So Indra, King of the Gods, sends the …

Life into Life in Adhyatma Teachings

Life into Life The business of getting the necessities is, for many people, a boring necessity. It is livelihood, not life. For them, life begins only after the work has finished. This is especially true when the work has to be done alone, with no one to talk to. Making endless entries in computers down to scrubbing the floor and steps, it is said to be soul-destroying work, in which there is no progress. One is simply a replaceable element in a machine. From the point of view of yoga, this is a big mistake. It is in just those …

S’ankara Extracts

Extracts from S’ankara on the Yoga Sutras In these extracts the translator proposes to give some idea of the original material which this sub-commentary provides for the study of the Yoga Sutras. Purely technical discussions are not included. It is intended that the meaning should be lucid and clear to the general reader. general information about the book May/June 2000 The Parallel with Medical Treatment Introductory Note At the beginning of his sub-commentary, S’ankara compares the yogic methods to the four-fold classification of medical treatment. This is familiar in even early Buddhist texts, and it had been …

About TL

Trevor Leggett – A brief CV Trevor Leggett’s teacher of Yoga and its philosophy was the late Dr. Hari Prasad Shastri, pandit and jnani of India. Dr Shastri was commissioned by his own teacher to spread the ancient Yoga abroad, which he did in China, Japan and lastly for twenty seven years in Britain until his death in 1956. The Yoga is based on the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita but is to be spread on non-sectarian and universal lines. It has a clear-cut philosophy and training method. Trevor Leggett was his pupil for eighteen years and was one of …

Books home page

October 2000 Trevor Leggett’s books are concerned with Spreading the traditional Upanishadic Yoga of Cosmic Consciousness, based on the author’s training in a traditional Indian line and his translations of original Sanskrit – this Yoga process is centred on meditation Zen parallels from his translations of Japanese texts of Zen and Budo (knightly arts) Training stories of both traditions for daily life This site contains Information about the books Training Story Teaching Point Trevor Leggett Feedback Questions of the month

The Third Don’t Know in Adhyatma Teachings

Uesugi Kenshin was the Galahad of mediaeval Japanese chivalry, and like the Galahad of the Western Arthurian legend was somewhat tactless and even arrogant in his youth. Kenshin was keenly interested in Buddhism and came to hear of the discourses on Zen given at a certain temple by a great Zen abbot, also as it happened with the same Buddhist name Kenshin. The young Uesugi decided to go to one of the sermons and engage the abbot in debate afterward, so he rode up one day without announcing his coming and went in to hear the sermon. That day the …

One Dharma A Thousand Words in Adhyatma Teachings

Priest Horin, mediaeval Master of Kenchoji temple was asked by one of the Kenchoji gardeners who worked on the lands there, “Is there any virtue in the recitation, or listening to the recitation, of the sutras if you don’t understand the real meaning?” The priest said: “If someone takes a medicine, even though he may not know its virtues, still when he takes it there will be a good effect. And in the case of a poisonous drug, then though he may not know from the taste that it is harmful if he takes it that drug may kill him. …