I read this: “The harmonious balance of reason and feeling leads to intuitive perception and the ability to know what is Truth. Achieving this balance, men and women become gods.” I was wondering how this balance is achieved, physiologically speaking. What is the connection between ida and pingala nadis, the right and left hemispheres of the brain, and reason and feeling? Are reason and feeling balanced by a balanced flow of energy through the ida and pingala nadis?
—Santiago Gonzalez, Mexico
Dear Santiago,
Yes, balancing ida and pingala (our inner male and female current, or solar and lunar current) helps us to balance reason and feeling. It helps us most of all to make them more intuitive. Reason and feeling both calm down when we balance ida and pingala and both reason and feeling, when they become calm are intuitive.
On this path we use Kriya Yoga to balance ida and pingala (the currents representing duality). We don’t only balance them. When the currents of ida and pingala get gradually withdrawn into the sushumna, by Kriya Yoga, we enter into deep superconsciousness, and only then can we truly “become gods.”
In other words, both reason and feeling will finally make us “become gods” when they are bathed in superconsciousness. Meditation is required for such an enjoyable “bath.” Then we will have what Yogananda also calls “pure reason” and “pure feeling.”
This balance, however, is achieved not only in meditation but very much also in our daily life. If you tend to be very reason-oriented, it is advisable to work on balancing it with feeling. Yogananda said that often men are more reason-oriented and women help men to get more into the heart.
The opposite is equally true. Emotional people (more women than men) need to get balanced by applying more reason. Men often help women with this task.
Have you read these words by Yogananda?
“Pure reason and pure feeling have intuitive qualities. Pure reason sees as clearly as pure feeling. Women have a keen intuition. They lose it only when they become overexcited. In logic or reason, if the premise is wrong, the conclusion will be wrong, but intuition or pure feeling can never be wrong.”
“Pure reason and calm feeling lead to intuition. Therefore, the first requisite in developing intuition is to calmly reason and calmly feel everything. Intuition is developed by exercising common sense, daily introspection, depth of thought, focused activity, calmness, and, best of all, by meditation and holding to its calm after-effects.”
Then we will have what Yogananda also calls “pure reason” and “pure feeling,” the divine man and woman inside of us. And lo, we are on the path to “becoming gods.”
All the best for your inner balance between “god deep calm reason” and “goddess deep calm feeling.”
Jayadev
