Tuesday, August 2, 2011

O Holy Science of Yoga - Introduction

Beginning Wednesday, September 7 at the Ananda Meditation Temple, we will hold a 4-week series on the book that started it all: "The Holy Science," by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. Sri Yukteswar was the first in the line of Self-realization to write and publish a book. It was published at the request of the deathless guru, Mahavatar Babaji. Babaji asked Sri Yukteswar 'Will you not write a short book on the underlying basic unity between the Christian and Hindu scriptures? Show by parallel references that the inspired sons of God have spoken the same truths, now obscured by men's sectarian differences.'

Sri Yuktewar was a man of few words and a soul of not merely wisdom but God-realization.  Our exploration of his brief but deep tome will open up vistas unto eternity. In this series of blogs, I will offer hints of those vistas as teasers to that class.

In the Foreward to the Holy Science, Paramhansa Yogannada reminds us that the great Ones of East and West achieved their wisdom by realizing the Supreme Reality behind all creation. While their words may have taken different forms and employed different symbols ("some open and clear, others hidden or symbolic") - all spoke from the truth of Spirit.

INTRODUCTION.  Swami Sri Yukteswar ("SY") has divided his book into four sections, according to the four stages in the development of knowledge. To attain Self-knowledge one must have knowledge of the world around us. Therefore the first part of the book is a description of the truths and purposes of creation. The second part concerns the goal of life: immortality, consciousness & bliss. The third section is how to realize those goals and the fourth is the revelations of those who have achieved these goals.

It is in his introduction that SY reveals his profound and intuitive understanding of the history of our planet and the mechanism which accounts for the changes in human consciousness over a 24,000 year cycle. I would recommend the just published book, "The Yugas," by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz (Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City) for a more complete description of this seemingly abstruse theory and SY's insightful but complex explanation.

The "yuga theory" provides the objective basis for why humankind is ready and needful of this new and deeper understanding of the universal truths of creation and of all faiths.

So join me next blog post, for Chapter 1.