Showing posts with label guru. Show all posts
Showing posts with label guru. Show all posts

Friday, July 20, 2012

Do I Need a Guru? Part 2



Swami Kriyananda (my teacher and founder of Ananda) was once asked by an interviewer, “Do I need a guru?” He smiled, paused, and replied: “No — — — unless you want to find God!”

You see that’s the problem with this question. Imagine someone asking himself, “Do I really want a life partner?” Most people don’t even question their desire for a life partner. In fact, they are eager (often, too eager) to find him or her.

There’s a story about Mozart. He was asked how it was he composed symphonies at a young age. His answer was, “I didn’t have to ask that question!”

Yes, we can speak philosophically about the need for a guru. I did that somewhat in the first article. And that is helpful for some people to understand more about what a true guru is and what a true disciple-guru relationship is really like. Such knowledge can plant a seed of receptivity. But so long as you are asking the question, you probably aren’t ready.

But when a person falls in love with someone, he doesn’t have to ask the question, “Do I want a partner.” (If he does, then, well, can he really say he has fallen in love?”)

But as to the question, “Do I need a guru?,” it can’t be answered on its own terms. The cliché “When the disciple is ready, the guru appears” is the only real “answer” to the question.

As a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda I am bereft of the actual physical presence of my guru and his personal guidance in my life as another human being. When my teacher, Swami Kriyananda, speaks or writes of his experience of Yogananda (whom we refer to as “Master”) it is very inspiring and instructive. Yet, I cannot easily put into direct practice these lessons because Yogananda (“Master”) is not here in my life in the same way.

I have met disciples of other, living gurus, however. While many have had at least one physical contact (meeting) with their guru, few have had direct, daily or even at-a-distance personal access to their guru. Some have been given specific and important guidance but most have only received general guidance, or a mantra and others no direct guidance at all. In fact, this is not uncommon. Some gurus don’t even speak. The number of direct disciples of a true master (not just a popular spiritual teacher) are very, very, very few.

The number of great saints (indeed, avatars, or saviors) are fewer still. But among disciples, only some are receptive on a deep level (or, put another way, “advanced” disciples). Read books on the lives of great saints (East or West) written by disciples and you’ll see immediately the truth of what I speak. Read the gospels and see how clumsy, ignorant, dense or stubborn were Jesus’ own disciples. Judas betrayed him directly but Peter denied him three times. Thomas was the doubter. All of them failed at different points along the way.

For many years I have taught classes based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda. I find that many students are wary or put off by the guru word. Many have ceased their studies at the crucial moment of being invited into discipleship. (Our meditation and raja yoga classes are not intended to “convert” students into disciples. The precepts of raja yoga are for everyone. But one of those precepts is that one needs a guru to achieve union with God. So as a matter of principle we teach the precepts of discipleship.)

Just so, many more are put off by the “God” word. But the reasons are as misplaced in the one case as in the other. Both are just words, but words that carry far more baggage than their three or four letters should be burdened with. (I won’t veer off the track and talk about the “God” word just now, however!)

It saddens me to see so many sincere souls turn away at the point where their desire to learn kriya yoga requires them to take discipleship to Yogananda and the line of Self-realization masters who sent him to America. For just as the “God” word can be understood from endless points of view — at least one of which would satisfy even the most hardened scoffer, so too discipleship is not at all the enclosure or imposition that so many students image it to be (usually without the slightest thought, but only reactively).

I don’t intend to dilute the guru principle or to suggest that students just wave their hand past the image saying “What ho!” as they take kriya initiation. Rather I am saying that most simply have no idea that what is being offered to them is the farthest thing from a threat to their freedom and character, for the guru holds the key to their own Self-discovery. But here, too, I don’t mean to so glamorize the idea that readers will immediately turn away from yet another pie-in-the-sky spiritual platitude. So if you’re interested, have a seat. Light up a peace pipe of curiosity and open-mindedness.

Let’s go to the beginning. You know, the Big Bang and all those cosmic gases. OK, then, let’s not. Let try another tact. When we look at this vast universe or the marvelous microcosm of the human body and mind, it is at least equally possible that the creation is a manifestation of a grand conscious intention as it likely that all this stuff came from nowhere and randomly evolved (driven in part by impulses of survival and procreation). The fact that we (indeed humanity since time immemorial) can sit here and can ponder the question as much as suggests that there is a tad bit greater likelihood of the former hypothesis than the latter.  

So, if for the sake of discussion and contemplation, we posit that the universe and we ourselves are manifestations of consciousness (some objects being more successfully self-aware than others, say people vs. rocks), than we can say that some species (and some among such species) are likely to be more aware, more intelligent, and more creative than others. We might step upon the high mountain of perspective and see that evolution seems to go in the general direction of greater and greater intelligence and self-awareness. The mental boundaries of a child would be suffocating to an educated, world-traveling, sophisticated and mature adult. Heroes of justice and compassion break the boundaries and self-enclosure of ego-affirmation and self-interest to include the well-being of others, yea, the whole world, with their own. Such heroes inspire others to break free from ego as well.

In every field of human striving, we see the greatest of these breaking self-enclosing boundaries of culture, tradition, or orthodoxy. If God is consciousness itself, and we find ourselves conscious and self-aware, and we can observe that there are some who transcend what is considered normal ego satisfactions for a much greater reward, it shouldn’t threaten us that there may be some souls who have “found God” (meaning an overarching field or state of consciousness). Why should this be a threat? Is it not, in fact, a promise? Is it not a promise that our own immortality lies beyond the confines of the ego and the physical body, just as the energy that animates our body is the same energy in all bodies and in all objects? That energy is neither created nor destroyed, but only changes form -- or so science tells us!

The question legitimately asked is whether such a state of being precludes, destroys, or eclipses that which we call “I?” Again, like the “God” word, maybe the question is misleading and unhelpful? If energy cannot be destroyed, certainly the consciousness out of which the energy arises cannot be destroyed either. It may change form; it may expand (like gas when heated), but it is still consciousness! In fact, it is just as likely that what we call “I” is simply that universal consciousness particularized (like water vapor cooled and made hard into ice) and identified with the limited life span and appearance of one physical form.

Still, the question haunts us: if I expand my consciousness into God consciousness am “I” not destroyed? Who could not but admit that the “ego” as we know it would evaporate? But instead of being destroyed, consider that it is being released from its frozen and locked state to expand towards infinite consciousness. If consciousness underlies all matter than ours is freed from its prison of ego identity! And, as all things come from, exist in, are sustained by, and are withdrawn back into pure consciousness, even the very memory of the limited “I” remains forever in the universal consciousness. What a liberating thought!

Put this another way: when I was a child, my world was a small world of playthings, my house, and my family. Now, as an adult, my world is much bigger. I am still the same person and my childhood memories and experiences are still part of me and are not lessened by the experiences which I have gained as an adult. I have expanded and I have not lost, but instead I have gained. For most of us who are far from perfected beings we seem to have lost the specific memories of childhood but experiments have shown that under hypnosis memory of many things is rediscovered and was always there.

This is why, in part, one can have a guru who is in a human body or not in human body. What the guru has to offer is not limited by a human body because consciousness is infinite and a true guru has achieved Oneness with the Infinite Consciousness. “I killed Yogananda long ago,” he said. “No one dwells in this form now but Spirit.” But, at the same time, for those of us still trapped in human form, it is far easier and effective to invoke God-consciousness in a form that we can either see with our eyes or visualize with our inner eye or invoke through devotion (the latter two powers being more subtle, more of consciousness itself, are actually more effective than merely “laying eyes upon” another human being). Many people meet a true guru while he or she lives but are not changed. It’s an “inside” job, so to speak.

You see it is ALL CONSCIOUSNESS. The guru is like a swimmer with a mask on who can swim and see the fish under the surface while we, without our diving masks on, cannot see the fish below. To us the depths are opaque, mysterious, even threatening. To see, to become a seer, is what we were born to achieve and this is one reason why it is taught that we must have true guru — because “tat twam asi,” Thou art THAT. The purpose of God’s creation is for souls to become Self-realized. It is not, as is commonly thought and taught, to escape the creation in rejection. It is to realize that the creation is but a dream of the Creator. Therefore there must be some who have achieved this goal and it is such souls who can teach others how to do the same. That's not a threat. It's a promise, though, to the ego, it is a threat, for sure!

And, it is they who come to awaken our lost memory of our true Self. God comes to us in human form because this creation IS God made flesh and dwelling among us and within us. But He is hidden in most things and people, but becomes Self-aware in those who have become Self-realized. Thus from soul-to-soul, one-by-one, we awaken like dreamers back to life from our dreams. The idea, so common to many, that “Why can’t I go to God directly? Why do I need a guru?” is again a case of asking the wrong question. Like Dorothy and Toto in the Wizard of Oz, what we are seeking is right here.

And if you are thinking (as I know you are), “Well if God is within me, I ask again, why do I need a guru?” Ok, fair enough, but have you found God? How do you know that by self-effort alone you will achieve success? Upon whose testimony in this effort are you relying? The testimony of the ages is that God sends his prophets, his messengers, his saviors to bring us "salvation!" Why is that so difficult to accept? We see its equivalent in every field of human activity that is worth pursuing. Every field has its masters, its geniuses, its wayshowers. You see this is where the rubber of self-effort meets the road of God’s grace in the form of the guru. 

Only those who have tried with great effort, common sense, and intelligence come to the realization that they need help! Such ones are “ready” and, sure enough, the guru appears! Do you see now?

If you find yourself drawn to a great guru, like Paramhansa Yogananda and the path of Kriya Yoga, what is stopping you? Toss aside false notions of being imposed upon or limiting your choices. When you commit to someone in marriage do you bargain for the right to keep shopping? If you seek the help of a world famous doctor to help cure you of a potentially fatal disease, do you pick and choose among his treatments, going, at the same time to others?

Blessings to you,
Nayaswami Hriman

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Do I Need a Guru?

This question and subject is far bigger than a blog article can do justice to but I had a few thoughts. Tomorrow we conduct a discipleship initiation for about a dozen souls taking discipleship to Paramhansa Yogananda through Ananda and my mind is dwelling on the subject for the purpose of sharing a few remarks on that occasion.

There is, on this subject, much talk of gurus but little, if any talk, about disciples. The first sentence of Paramhansa Yogananda's famous "Autobiography of a Yogi" refers to the "disciple-guru" relationship as the "concomitant" aspect of the Indian culture's search for eternal verities. The question has to be "What is and am I a good disciple" of life, of truth, of God (in whatever form I aspire to know)?

It is only when we have struggled and aspired to know God that we come to discover two inextricably linked realities of that search:  1) it is very, very difficult, and 2) the aspiration presupposes the desire and possibility of becoming one with God.

Until a person has made a sincere and sustained effort one cannot possibly achieve these two discoveries. And, not only sincere and sustained but an intelligent and intelligently guided effort, rather than something random and halting in fits and starts.

When God is "wholly other" we are free to imagine just about anything, including how great we are for imagining it. Then we can say we speak to God and that our ideas and impulses are surely God-ordained inspirations and no one is the wiser, including us!

But when we strive arduously and intelligently towards perfection and ego transcendence then not only do we see what herculean challenge we face but we also get glimpses of that very same divinity and realizations of our own potential. It is then, and only then, that the "guru appears." It has been well and frequently said that "When the disciple is ready, the guru appears."

This appearance of guru includes the appearance in our thoughts and in our heart that we "accept" our need for a guide. For as we begin to see our Self, then, and yes, only then, can we "see" the guru. The guru is a flawless mirror of our own, higher Self. We must have this twin epiphany that we need help and yet at the same time we see the possibility of divinity in human form. Until then we are like Don Quixote, jousting windmills of our own febrile imagination about what is God, what is the spiritual path, and what it is all about.

When I returned from India in 1976 after over a year of spiritual searching and sat in the darkened and nearly empty airplane somewhere over Tehran, there arose in my heart the silent acceptance that I could not do this on my own. It was soon thereafter that I discovered Yogananda's autobiography and the existence of the fledgling Ananda Community, founded by a direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda.

Returning to the guru's appearance, then, it may come through a book, such as "Autobiography of a Yogi." It may come more dramatically in meeting one's guru. I have had some aspiring devotees proclaim that "I am ready to meet my guru and be guided." But I can easily, sometimes at least, perceive that they would collapse like a house of cards at one tiny poke at their ego. Most have no idea of what it is like to not only be in the presence of a true guru but to live and serve under his guidance on a day-to-day basis. Disciples there can be many, perhaps far and wide, but close disciples are always very few.

So to those taking discipleship tomorrow I say "Congratulations" for you have seen the "promised land." On some level you have seen what it takes and where it goes. What it takes is help and where it goes is to freedom and true happiness.

A guru seeks only to be our friend and guide, nothing more. How sad or simply ignorant are those who resent, resist and repudiate the concept all together on the basis of their independence. They have no idea of what it takes. They have no idea how bound they are to their own karma, likes, and dislikes. And that's ok, too. But for those who are inspired to open their hearts and minds to the intelligent, sometimes stern, but always seeking only our own highest good, divine friendship of a true guru (whether in human form or cosmic form), I say to you, "blessings!"

Nayaswami Hriman

Saturday, December 4, 2010

Jesus: the Yogi-Christ

As we enter now the Christmas holiday season, it is an opportunity to reflect upon its true spiritual meaning. Many a visitor to an Ananda temple has remarked upon the picture of Jesus Christ at the center of our altar. Some in horror, others with relief, and still others, indifferently, but many simply are puzzled by it. What is its significance? Why in the center of the other pictures (Lahiri Mahasaya, Babaji, Swami Sri Yukteswar, and Paramhansa Yogananda)?

I, for one, do not consider myself a "recovering" Catholic. I was raised in a devout Catholic home. I even studied for a time for the priesthood, and completed, all told, sixteen years of Catholic education. I treasure my experience but somehow was blessed not to have either experienced or taken seriously any of its renown shortcomings: either in its priests or nuns, or in its theology. Yet, as for many like myself, it simply wasn't enough to satisfy my heart, mind, and soul.

Did Yogananda place Jesus on his altars to gain some measure of acceptance in this heathen (Christian) land to which he had come? Or is there more to it? For starters, there isn't necessarily any deep significance that Jesus' picture is at the center of the other pictures. In fact, that placement isn't universal at the various Ananda centers around the world.

Yogananda explained that Jesus appeared to the Yogavatar Babaji (an incarnation of Krishna of ancient times) and asked Babaji to send to the West someone who could resurrect the practice of silent, inner communion (meditation). This practice had once been prevalent among renunciates and monastics down through centuries but had been abandoned in favor of rationalism and in response of the Protestant rebellion against anything mystical or sacred (and beyond therefore reason). The church had wanted to seem modern and less secretive to the fastly shrinking world and clash of cultures and religions amidst the growth of science and widespread education.

But as Christianity in general turned toward conversion of the heathens in the many countries its culture had imperialistically conquered, and turned toward belief, the efficiacy of ritual, and the need for social activism, introspection and meditation all but disappeared.

Yogananda went further to state that silently Jesus and Babaji help guide the course of history through hearts and minds that are attuned to their vibrations of wisdom and peace. He said that he had telephathically conveyed to Adolf Hitler the idea to betray Russia by invasion and thus open up the needed second front that would ultimately prove his undoing. He made a similar statement in regard to the discovery of antibiotics which have saved millions from death and great suffering.

Two Catholic mystics appeared in the 20th century to give tangible testimony that Jesus lived, died, and was resurrected some two thousand years ago: Therese Neumann (Germany) and Padre Pio (Italy). Each bore the wounds of Christ and each exhibited other miraculous signs to affirm their guru's past and present reality in stark contrast to the materialism and scepticism of modern man. There are numerous books and even movies that detail their extraordinary lives and testimony.

But the science of meditation is for all peoples, all faiths, and no faith. It was, in ways unseen to our eyes, the divine plan that through the dark and destructive centuries of the last three or four thousand years, the East would retain, if even in relative secrecy, the knowledge of consciousness and the science of exploring it through meditation, while the West would specialize in the exploration of the natural world in which we live.

The time has come and the necessity to do so is clear that we unite the best of East and the best of the West for the general upliftment and benefit of our new and globally connected humanity. Religion, as we have developed through the last many centuries, has lost its elasticity and inspiration in its general decline into sectarianism and mere belief. A new "religion" or new expression of eternal and universal spiritual truths is needed and has come to the world from the east, like the three wise men.

In the life of Jesus much has been written and speculated about those missing years of his brief life of thirty-three years. The question of the identity of those three wise men and the possibility of the connection between those missing eighteen years and the wise men has arisen as well. Jesus' inexplicable relationship with John the Baptist wherein Jesus seeks his blessing upon his own ministry, lauds John's spiritual stature, while yet John himself deprecates himself as unworthy.

These and many more curious connections we will explore in an upcoming class at the Ananda Meditation Temple, Tuesday, December 14, at 7:30 p.m. To register online, go to http://www.anandaseattle.org/activities/BothellClasses. You may register and, optionally, you may prepay. If you prepay there is a 10% discount.

Questions have also arisen regarding Yogananda's own relationship to Jesus. Swami Kriyananda describes his private conversations with Yogananda regarding that relationship. Our class will explore these unpublished revelations as well.

Blessings and a holy holiday season to you!

Hriman