Imminent Collapse of the U.S. Dollar?

As I am preparing for a talk tomorrow at the Ananda Sunday Service (in Bothell, WA, USA) on the subject of the existence of evil, my friend and teacher, and founder of Ananda, Swami Kriyananda (direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda) forwarded a YouTube video on the subject of the dollar's imminent collapse. It's about 10 minutes long and if you're interested here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3-vwYJiD8g

To students and members of Ananda worldwide this is hardly news. You know already that Swami Kriyananda has repeated this prediction which Paramhansa Yogananda gave repeatedly in the last years before his death in 1952. But we hardly need a yoga-master to tell us that the worldwide economy (dollar denominated) is in trouble and that the possibility of the collapse of the dollar isn't at least a threat!

But what the heck can you or I do about this? How can we be prepared for the possibility, whether extreme (as portrayed in the YouTube video), whether partial, short-term or permanent? From years of living with this prediction and with the steps some members of the various Ananda Communities worldwide have done, here are some thoughts (taken to a wide range of extremes or just a few steps):

1. Purchase a supply of food, but more than just 2 to 3 days of a power outage. Perhaps 6 months supply of canned or freeze dried food. I'm no expert but there's lots of information on the internet and places where this can be purchased. Don't forget water, too!
2. Supplies like prescriptions, flashlights, batteries, toilet paper and all the bare necessities.
3. Camping supplies and outdoor clothing: tent, blankets, sleeping bags, etc.
4. Bicycle?
5. Start a garden for food or at least have seeds and don't forget sprouting!
6. If you can, buy land outside a city where food can be grown and shelter can be taken.
7. Convert savings, at least partially, to exchangeable commodities. Obvious ones are gold and silver but there are many other bartable goods as well.
8. Get out of debt: this is trickier because it's possible you can later pay off dollar-denominated debt with worthless inflated dollars later, but this is hard to predict. If you have excess cash that you cannot otherwise put into commodities including decent land then maybe this is good especially if it's your home.
9. Get to know your neighbors or, if family, start planning with others who share your concerns.
10. Get out of the inner or large cities if you can. Riots and looting will start almost immediately in the worst case scenarios and food will disappear immediately. Water supplies may be shut off if and assuming most government services shut down due to lack of funds and payroll. (Virtually every government entity in America is technically already insolvent or will easily be.)
11. Buy land in the country with like minded people. Start a community with friends and family.
12. Learn to meditate. Pray daily. Join in with others of prayerful inclination to reinforce each other's faith. Read spiritually minded books.
13. Accumulate supplies not just for yourself but to help others, as you are able.
14. Curtail your exposure to entertainment and news that is filled with gratuitious violence or is fear-inducing. It's easy to stay abreast of important news through other means that are less impactful on your subconscious.
15. Don't panic and don't frighten others. Be calm and sensible. You'll sleep better at night helping yourself, your family, and being prepared to help others as well.

Well I'm sure I could go on but you get the general idea.

Oh, yes, evil DOES exist. Combat it with nobility of thoughts and actions and with the grace of God.

Hriman

The Holy Science - Part 3 - THE GOAL

Swami Sri Yukteswar now moves on to the second chapter.

Spiritual awakening is a process of remembrance (smriti is the term Patanjali uses in the Yoga Sutras). The guru awakens both a remembrance and the desire for liberation.  Hence: the goal! All desires must be fulfilled by the law of prana (energy) and creative visualization.

A deep habit can only be overcome with finality when we “know” from intuition it is no longer a desire or part of our true Self. Similarly when the soul awakens to the true nature of creation (see Part 1) and the power of maya (delusion), liberation becomes its prime goal.

To achieve final liberation the soul must transcend all influences of duality. In this state all desires are fulfilled and all suffering ceases. So long as we identify with the physical body and has not yet found the Self, suffering continues as all desires are yet to be fulfilled. Rebirth is necessary with its attendant disappointments and troubles.

Ignorance is the source of suffering and ignorance results from mistaking the unreal for the real. The unreal has apparent reality only by the flux of opposites and includes such qualities as egoism, attachment, aversion and (blind) tenacity.

Swami Sri Yukteswar then gives a more detailed analysis of this process. He starts with the statement that ignorance produces a sense of separateness of objects (egoism) and the consequent tenacious power (desire) of holding one's form separate and apart. From this comes the attraction to or repulsion away from other objects.

It is therefore from ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion and tenacity that we suffer.

Our true Self seeks existence (Sat) (immortality), consciousness (Chit) (Self-awareness), and unending Bliss (Ananda). [Satchidanandam]. These have nothing to do with anything outside our Self, but are the innate properties of Self.

We attain contentment, bliss, through the aid of the true guru who imparts the disciplines and ways by which the devotee achieves ananda. With a content heart it becomes possible to fix one’s attention on anything he chooses and so chit (consciousness) is followed to its source in its primal manifestation: Aum. In time and with deepening practice the sense of separateness is dissolved in the holy word and true baptism occurs as we repent of the sin of separateness.

Then immortality is achieved through power over delusion and realization of one’s indestructible and ever-existing reality. Now, at last, instead of merely reflecting the divine light, one is actively united with Spirit and has achieved Kaivalya, or Oneness.

Thus in his straightforward manner, Swami Sri Yukteswar describes for us the goal of life.

Next blog article is chapter 3, THE PROCEDURE. To enroll in this 4-week class series which begins Wednesday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. at Ananda Meditation Temple, go to the Ananda website: http://www.anandaseattle.org/activities/BothellClasses

Blessings,

Hriman

Holy Science - Part 2 - Chapter 1 - THE GOSPEL

Holy Science – Part 1

Swami Sri Yukteswar (SY) was asked by Mahavatar Babaji to write a book showing the underlying essence of Jesus’ teachings and those of Krishna. By extension, this is to say to show the essential truth underlying all faith traditions.

Truth is called by many names by men but truth is one and eternal. “Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord our God is One.” By so many words, rituals, and symbols perhaps the most universal truth teaching is to say (in numerous ways) that God (by whatever name or no name) exists and is the sole (or essential) reality behind all appearances. Thus begins Chapter 1 (The Gospel) of The Holy Science.

Perception by man of this truth is thwarted by the hypnotic influence and stimuli of the five senses of the human body. We identify reality with their reports. Consequently, the divine presence remains hidden to us until we can stimulate and develop our inner (sixth) sense through the all-seeing “eye” of intuition.

The One, absolute and Self-contained began creation by become two. God so created the world by making himself dual: the power of his Shakti (joyful energy) and his omniscient feeling (consciousness or chit). These form God as nature, God as manifested. In the microcosm of the Self, we have our will power (with enjoyment underlying it) and we have self-awareness as that which enjoys. This dual power could also be described as the outgoing (repelling) force, and the inflowing (attractive or Love) power. This dual power has a sound which is called the Word (or the Aum, or Amen).

The creation through Aum has four elements: vibration (intelligent word), time, space, and particle (atom and individuality, or separateness of objects). (These are the four beasts of the Book of Revelation in the Bible who attend the throne of God.) The Holy Ghost vibration of Aum is God manifested and manifesting creation through the principle of dwaita, duality, and its spinning hypnotic effect, maya. Though made manifest through God’s Light, the divided parts of the creation do not comprehend their reality or source.

First, individuality must become self-aware. This is the human stage with our highly developed cerebrospinal centers (the chakras). Then we find the competition between the pull upwards toward Sat (truth or God) or downward toward avidya (ignorance). Separateness, as an idea which creates separate forms, is energized toward individuality and individual consciousness by the universal intelligence and feeling state of chit. From this develops the illusion of individuality (ahamkara-ego). Here we have the dual pull of Buddhi (Intelligence) toward ultimate reality (Sat), and the pull of Manas (blind sense-Mind) (ignorance-avidya) seeking enjoyment from and within the creation itself. Underlying all creation – whether the outgoing force or the inward force – is the impulse towards bliss (or Love, or Joy).

SY then embarks on a comprehensive (not necessarily readily comprehensible) dissection of the three bodies of man (and all creation): physical, astral, and causal. He describes the essential components of each. Chitta, the calm state of mind with its sense of separateness, has five pranas (aura electricities-Pancha Tattwa) which constitute the causal body. These five in contact with the three gunas (aspects of nature, being enlightening, energizing, or darkening) produce fifteen astral attributes plus four aspects of mind for the astral body. These nineteen are the five senses, the five powers of locomotion (hands, feet, excretion, procreation, and speech), the five natural objects of the senses, and four aspects of mind: intelligence, sense-mind, ego, and feeling.

The physical body then is manifested through five elemental forms of space, gas, fire, liquid and solid. The nineteen astral attributes added to the five of the body constitute the twenty-four elders of creation mentioned in the Book of Revelations. These are the building blocks of individuality that set into motion the drama of creation.

On the macrocosm of creation, SY describes seven spheres (swargas) of creation, with seven centers (chakras or Sapta Patalas) in the human microcosmic universe. Together these fourteen stages of creation are called the Bhuvanas. The Spirit in creation is hidden by five sheaths, or koshas: feeling, intelligence, mind (as focused upon and limited by the senses), life force (prana), and matter.

As the twenty-four elders of creation are in place, the power of Attraction (Divine Love) begins to manifest, first attracting all atoms toward each other to form the five elemental forms of creation (space, gaseous, fire, liquid, and solid) and then evolving each stage of creation beginning with the minerals, then vegetables, animals, human, astral (angelic), and lastly emancipated from all koshas. As each stage emerges, one kosha is shed to reveal more and more intelligence and feeling then at last divinity (Oneness).

Introspection reveals our dream-like and idea-based sense-bound perception of reality and individuality. It is through the power of the sat-guru (savior or preceptor) that the divinity behind all forms is revealed to truth-seeking souls. Baptism, or rebirth in the sacred river of Aum, is symbolized by holy water and rivers whose sound, like many waters, is heard in deep guru-given meditative states. Thus the universal meaning and significance of rivers and of water. In merging into the inner Light, by degrees, do we reclaim our eternal birthright as sons of God.

Thus is a summary of Chapter 1, the Gospel, showing the nature and process of creation and of salvation. Don’t forget about the class series on this subject: it begins Wednesday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. at Ananda Meditation Temple. We are working on a streaming video presentation for those at a distance, but this latter promise is not yet a reality as of this date. Either way, you can register on line at www.AnandaSeattle.org

Blessings, Hriman