Showing posts with label Memorial Day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Memorial Day. Show all posts

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Memorial Day in America: The Great Yagya, Wheel of Life!


The purpose of Memorial Day (celebrated in America) is to remember and honor the sacrifice of those who have given their lives in defense of their country. Whether or not you, or me, or history judges their sacrifice as justified, they gave their full measure and thus honor is due to all.

I think of the great and noble man, and war hero, General Robert E. Lee of the Confederate army.
He is quoted as saying “It is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we should grow too fond of it. Duty then is the sublimest word in the English language. You should do your duty in all things. You can never do more and you should never wish to do less.” 

History may judge that he made the wrong choice (he had been offered the leadership of the Union army), but he followed what he deemed to be his duty and to that degree, then, he was victorious. Both then, and ever since, he has been adjudged in error. In recent years, statutes to his honor have been removed in various cities in the American South. America’s Civil War was anything but civil and it was a holy war to free enslaved peoples: of this there is no doubt. Yet each must act in accordance with his own sense of duty.

Or, as Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita puts it: Perform those actions which your duty dictates, for action is better than inaction. Without action, indeed, even the act of maintaining life in the body would not be possible. (Gita 3: 8)

I once asked Swami Kriyananda (founder of Ananda and a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda) about the righteousness and karma of the Allies in WWII having unleashed the atom bomb in Japan and having firebombed the cities of Germany. He dismissed my unspoken but critical view of these decisions with the equivalent of “all is fair in …. war.” 

Difficult times call for difficult decisions. You can only hope to do your best. The outcome is what determines the rightness of a decision. The victory of the Allies gave birth to the Iron Curtain but nonetheless deflected for a time the spectre of greater enslavement and hopelessness.

It is no coincidence that India’s greatest scripture, the Bhagavad Gita takes place on a battlefield where the first question asked is whether it is righteous to fight. But military warfare and its righteousness is not my real topic this day of remembrance.

Let us also remember those great saints and avatars who have given their lives to spread the message of Self-realization (our soul’s eternal life in God) to all “with ears to hear.” When a soul has become freed from all present and past karma but elects to answer God’s call to return into human form for the upliftment of others, it must bear the burden of the limitations of earthly existence even if that burden is not engendered by its own past actions. Human existence, even for a freed soul, entails some loss of divine contact, just as Jesus on the cross momentarily cried out to Elias or as Yogananda wept inconsolably for the death of his earthly mother. 

While that loss is never permanent nor is it the cause of actions fired by desire, the temporary eclipse of the immortal and omniscient bliss of that soul is surely a painful or burdensome loss. Even avatars, however briefly, confront their impending death with some trepidation; such was the case of Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane and both Lahiri Mahasaya and Swami Sri Yukteswar (as recorded in “Autobiography of a Yogi”).

Whether soldiers or saints, “Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” John 15:13. The intention that motivates a conscious action ties the consequences to the doer of the act. The results of that act shape the nature of the act’s consequences. (If one (a saint or master) has dissolved the sense of doership, then the consequences of his action accrue to the benefit of others.)

Jesus’ response to God’s call to sacrifice his human life on the cross was faced in a different circumstance by Abraham who was asked by God to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The sacrifice of one level of existence to achieve or for the benefit of a higher level of consciousness is the way by which God has created the world.

In Chapter 3 of the Bhagavad Gita, Krishna explains to devotee Everyman (Arjuna) the purpose of “yagya,” or self-offering:

10. Prajapati (God in the aspect of Creator) brought mankind into manifestation, and in so doing gave man the potential for self-offering into a higher (than human) awareness (through yagya). Along with this gift He enjoined mankind, “Whatever you desire, seek it by offering energy back to the source of all energy.
Let this sacrifice (yagya) be your milch cow of fulfillment.”

11. (Prajapati continued:) “With this offering, commune with the devas (shining angels), that they may commune also with you. Through such mutual communion you will arrive at the highest good.”

12. (Prajapati concluded:) “By communion with the devas you will receive from them the (earthly) fulfillments you desire. He who enjoys the gifts of the gods without returning due offering (of energy) to them is, verily, a thief.”

The above is, for westerners, an unusual, even odd way of stating what we know of sacrificing the present for the future. It is investing in our future by refraining from present enjoyment. We in the West know all about “investing” whether for retirement; or investing in a college education, or the future of our children and so on.

Nature too teaches us that all life offers itself into the greater life of others as an integral part of the cycle of life. The great “water wagons” of rain clouds unleash their precious cargo that life might be revivified. The sun consumes itself to give us energy and light. Microscopic life forms are consumed by larger life forms all the way up the food chain. Plants grow, live, and die for the nourishment of other life forms. And, returning to our beginning, soldiers give their lives in defense of their nation and their people.

To lose weight we must sacrifice a few simple pleasures! To sustain bodily strength we must take the time and make the effort to exercise. To nourish a friendship we must learn to hold our tongue and to accept others as they are before considering how we might help them (if they are open to our help).

To fulfill our duties in work and service, we must sacrifice some of the time we might otherwise give to relaxation and recreational pursuits. Parents sacrifice the pleasure of one another’s company and many personal pursuits and friendships by serving the daily needs of their children.
   
The great wheel of life is sustained by sacrifice. From the saints to the soldiers, this is one of our soul’s great lessons and therefore we celebrate this day of Memory.

May each and every one of us surrender to the great wheel of Divine Life, offering ourselves into the fire of dharma and purification that leads to our soul’s true home in Bliss.

Swami Hrimananda
USA Memorial Day 2019
   

Wednesday, May 30, 2012

Memorial Day - What is self-sacrifice?

Yes, ok, so Memorial Day was just the other day! Well, I was a bit busy but that didn't stop me from thinking about it. Now if you think this piece is about soldiers sacrificing their lives, well, it's not. But the theme of Memorial Day made me think of this topic: self-sacrifice.

Students and devotees of the Bhagavad Gita (India's most beloved scripture) are aware that the theme of sacrifice appears throughout the "Gita." The term used (from Sanskrit) and (crudely) transliterated is yagya.


The idea of sacrifice went out with sinning and hair shirts just a few years ago. Nowadays nobody talks about sins (or wears hair shirts). We just look for our bliss: it's more fun, besides. Sinning is, like, so passe. Besides, I think we got that sinning bit all wrong. "Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa!"

We do seem to pay lip service to servicemen (and women) who have in fact sacrificed their lives or health (physical or mental) in wartime. How many go into battle to honor and serve their country and willing to give their lives for it is difficult to say. There are as many reasons to be in military service as there are soldiers and by no means all of them do so with honor, dignity or conscious intention. That's not a criticism, it's a fact. Think of all the soldiers  and sailors down through the ages that were "inducted" (perhaps against their will), or enlist for economic or social reasons, or, even, out of complete ignorance of what they are getting into! Well, anyway. I said I wasn't going to talk about that.

My point remains that self-sacrifice is about as popular as wanting to catch a cold. On the other hand:

Few question the instinct and rightness of self-discipline for recovery from addiction, losing weight, regaining one's health, saving for retirement, going to night school to get a degree, practicing meditation, exercising and any number of other obviously useful acts of personal self-discipline.

It has been well said by others more informed and intelligent than I that our society (America and others) inclines more to indulgence than delayed gratification. I just heard today repeated on National Public Radio the relatively well known study that documented that children who postponed for fifteen minutes having a marshmellow now so they could have two of them a little later did better as young adults in achieving their goals and happiness.

It is commonplace to bemoan excessive spending and lack of savings, and, an embedded sense of personal entitlement and on and on. And I guess I'm be-moaning along with the rest of them.

But this concept of yagya, self-sacrifice for a higher good, intrigued me since long ago when I first read of it in the Bhagavad Gita. Now, being raised Catholic, I was big into sin and into Jesus' sacrifice on the cross for our sins. And I knew the story of Abraham being tested by God by being asked to sacrifice Isaac, his son (in the end, he didn't have to: "Just testing you!" God said. "What, my intelligence?").

The Bhagavad Gita talks in terms of how all worthwhile things, including material life itself, is achieved by offering oneself in gratitude to a higher Source, to God. Krishna encourage us to see all things as coming from God and seek all fulfillment in attunement with God. Jesus put it this way: "Seek ye first the kingdom of God and its righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you."

In other words, understand that true happiness comes from living for a greater reality (by whatever name) than self-gratification. Rather than eat for pleasure alone, eat healthy and vitality giving foods for nourishment  (lest through a junk food diet it later "eats" you!) Sex enjoyment, too, becomes perverted the more we seek it for its own sake rather than as an expression of love, friendship and commitment (and as a means of bringing to earth through love, other souls). Rather than to see your work as merely for personal gain (income or status), see it as a service to God through your fellow man. Rather than to see the earth's bounty as ours for the taking, for exploitation, see our access to it and dominion over it as a gift from God to be stewarded and sustained for all generations to enjoy in harmony. And so on.

Yagya, then, means, among other things, to live in the consciousness that we are all One. Thus to behave selfishly is to be short-sighted and to seek ephemeral, sensory or egoic satisfactions at the expense of long-term happiness. Ice cream tastes good "going down" until, after a few years, it stays down (and around the stomach and arteries, so to speak).

In the happiness of others we find freedom from ego. What we give or share with others freely opens our heart and affirms our security in a larger reality. What we receive in return is a hundredfold.

Some would say self-sacrifice is also manifested in what so many bemoan as having disappeared: the good 'ol fashion work ethic. Well, all I will say is that willingness, generosity, a creative and noble spirit, an attitude of wanting to serve and to help others appeals to me more than a good "work ethic." How much of this term came with grim sacrifices which resulted in resentments?

It is only the ego, the small and selfish self, that balks at the expansive attitude of yagya. Think of yagya as an  investment: in our long term happiness and that of others. Only a hard hearted spirit can pretend to be happy at the expense of others, or in the face of their travails.

So you see, it IS BLISS that we are talking about. The difference is that sacrificing to avoid sin is how the ego sees it, but investing in one's happiness (by investing in the happiness of all, e.g.) is just good sense and an investment in BLISS.

Of course if you are watching carefully you might just see a rat scurry by. That rat is the ego perhaps getting a little smarter and going for what we used to call "enlightened self-interest." The golden rule requires no belief in heaven, in God, or bliss eternal. So, you are right, There's a catch and you caught me.

You see the rat of ego remains. So long as we think we are the doer, being good (for a change) instead of being selfish, it's still just us. We might indeed be happier and more self-satisfied, have more friends, and better health, but it's still just me and I am as mortal and frail as before. My selfishness has just gotten more refined. But, it IS an improvement.

To truly understand and reap the rewards of God's creation, it is ultimately for our own eternal satisfaction that we understand that the essence of yagya is to offer oneself into the higher Self of All. For when we say "We are One" this means, as Paramhansa Yogananda put it, "When this "I" shall die then will I know "Whom am I."  The more the sense of doership and separateness dissolves into the greater reality of an ever expanding awareness of self, the closer to real bliss we can come. One lifetime or many lifetimes, it doesn't make much difference because "living for God" is it's own reward and if we focus too much on measuring we defeat the purpose which is to go beyond all measure.

Yagya to you,

Nayaswami Hriman