Saturday, April 12, 2014

Why does God permit Suffering? Why did He create this mess?

A friend wrote:

Dear Hriman, I was cruising along in the Bhagavad Gita until a day or so ago. As soon as I came to a certain part I suddenly was stopped dead in my tracks. "Legend has it that when God first manifested the universe He made it perfect. Men and women, realizing the need for living in perfection, sat in meditation and soon merged back into Brahman. One or more similar attempts were made, all of them with the same result. God then decided, 'I must impose delusion on people. They must struggle, advance by trial and error, and discover that kind of action, and that attitude toward it, which will lead them to bliss and freedom'. Thus it is that we find ourselves in this 'pickle'".

I don't know about you, but this doesn't make sense to me. Is this "impose delusion" strategy the Bhagavad Gita's version of the temptation of Eve? It seems like a queer way for a Creator to act. So maybe this is all just a story and does not pretend to describe what really happened? 

But it did bring up to me a question I've never stopped to think about. Why should we love God? by whatever name you want to use for It. We didn't ask to be created. In a sense we are in this world at the behest of Something else entirely. And 'frankly my dear' this isn't such a great place! So am I supposed to love a God that put me and the rest of us here? Why? There's still no reason for us being at all. All the answers of all the religions and spiritual "classics" haven't yet come up with one that satisfies me in some simple way.

So I'm stuck at present. Not only with the Bhagavad Gita and Sanaatan  Dharma, but also with Christianity. Anyway, since my quandry came out of reading the B.G., and you encouraged me to read it, I figured I might as well ask you for your viewpoint.

Here are some thoughts I shared:

Yogananda often encountered this (doesn't anyone who thinks more deeply about wonder, "Why?") and on at least one recording says "I often fight with Divine Mother. You made this mess. You must free us!"

But he, as others before him, also said "When you achieve salvation, you will know, and you will not regret one bit of the journey, saying "What a great show it was." Yogananda also taught that "The drama of life has for its lesson that it is but a drama."

Stuck in duality, in suffering, separateness, and death, we cry out and say, "Why?" It seems all wrong somehow. God may be in bliss, but we aren't and He made us all, so isn't He responsible for it?

Religion doesn't exist to rob us of inspiration and the strength to overcome negativity, sadness, and despair. Religion doesn't exist to teach us that God is evil, or doesn't care about us, or doesn't feel our pain.

It has been said that God created the universe that He might know and love Himself through many; that He might play the game of hide n seek in the divine romance of duality. Swami Kriyananda writes that "it is the nature of Bliss to want to express and share itself."

Imagine you are immensely creative: perhaps like Shakespeare. You possess a love of life. Though perfectly happy in yourself, you are brimming with joy and ideas. So, like the mighty Bard, you set pen to paper to write the greatest story ever told. To make the story believable and interesting, exciting and inspiring, you need a hero and villain; you need tragedy and comedy. No one would bother to participate in a play that was all sweetness and light: way too dull.

As the playwright you are not evil for having created a believable evil villain to bring conflict and tension into the plot. Nor are you necessarily the swashbuckling handsome hero for the fact that you can write for him good lines and heroic deeds. You are untouched by the drama, for it, after all, is just a drama.

Now good actors know that they just play their parts, following the script even as they enhance it with their skill. Despite public adulation and attention, they remain are just themselves and are not fooled by appearances and plays which for them is simply their job, even if they can also enjoy because they do it well and skillfully. 

If they are but B grade actors, they begin to think of themselves as those roles and in time find themselves typecast, coming again and again to the theater to play those kinds of parts until they grow out of them.

In creating the universe God had to BECOME it. There can be nothing created that is separate from God, for God alone IS: I AM. Yet, God is untouched by the universe He created, while yet immanent in it, while yet the very essence of it: in short, the Trinity. God the Father beyond and untouched by creation; God the son, the innate and immanent intelligence, silent and still at the heart of all motion and in the center of all atoms and hearts; and, God the Holy Ghost, the invisible motion whose rotations and movements spin off all objects and thoughts.

Thus the creation is endowed with the same desireless impulse to create, share, and expand with infinite variety while yet remaining in Himself as the Creator. Armed also with the intelligence to perpetuate that existence, there comes a point in the outgoing power of the Holy Ghost that the emerging separateness gradually becomes "satanic," meaning self-aware, self-affirming and rebellious, seeking to be One unto itself, seeking knowledge and power, and seeking happiness on and as its own in the forms and activities of creation, rather than in communion with the Creator. 

As God is immortal, eternal, Self-aware and blissful in Himself, and as we are but sparks of that Infinity consciousness so we, though deluded to imagine our fulfillment in but His echo (the creation), naturally have the impulse to perpetuate ourselves, self-aware and happy. But in turning our backs on Infinity we grow small and in time as the wheel of birth, life and death, pleasure and pain turns ceaselessly and crushes our hopes repeatedly, we cry out for release from bondage. 

Until such time, however, most souls wouldn't have it any other way. With the endless variety show of creation, it takes countless incarnations before we grow weary of the toys of creation. Like the baby who eventually tires of the new toys his mother drops into his crib to keep him busy while she performs the housework of creation, the baby at last wails and cries for the mother to come pick him up and put him on her lap. 

God remains silent until we, like the prodigal son, rise up from our prison of suffering and want, and begin the long journey home, willing to serve our Father, even as his hired hands. When He sees that we are coming, He will run out to embrace us as His own Son. 

From another angle, then, and returning to your comment about the story of God making his maya more powerful, it might as well have been us choosing to play in the dream of creation rather than come home "before dark." For are we not "like gods?"  ("Do not your scriptures say, 'Ye are gods?'")

No explanation can satisfy the intellect. Only the heart can find satisfaction in opening up to God's love. We can't really love someone we don't know. But we can pray to receive that love that we might return that love in joy and true happiness.  "Thou art the living Christ," said only Peter (of the disciples) when Jesus asked his disciples, "Who do men say I am." Only the heart knows the truth that "can set us free."

No man has revealed to us our birthright as children of Light, but our souls remember that we are not pauper but a prince. And so, in the long history of time, we begin to awaken. Great souls, living Christ-like saviors, walk the earth in every age to bring to humanity the good news of God's eternal promise of our immortality. The touch of God "made flesh" quickens our souls, lighting the lamp of divine love in our hearts.

The intellect can only walk us in the general direction but like Moses, it cannot enter the promised land of divine bliss. The ego (incl. intellect) must at last surrender. To slay the serpent of maya we must enter the desert of inner solitude, stripped and bleached of human desires and passions by the inner sun of wisdom. 

There we can lift this serpent of delusion upon the staff of the straight spine seated in meditation, in silent, inner communion. There, beyond the duality of intellect and the pull of the senses, there in the humble manger of the open heart, the Christ is born. In time, with self-effort and the blessings of grace, this universal, indwelling and eternal Christ will be resurrected.

Blessings,

Hriman


Friday, April 4, 2014

Easter Thoughts? And, why not?

I just finished a book on the spiritual life of Abraham Lincoln: "Lincoln's Battle with God" (Mansfield). The author describes how Lincoln, as a young man, questioned his Christian faith, made light of buffoon-like-ministers, decried sectarianism, dogmatism, and all the craziness that abounds in the name of religion. Lincoln openly and publicly cast doubt upon and scoffed at passages in the Bible. He wrote, but was wisely advised by friends not to publish, a tract essentially declaring himself a "scoffer." In his young adult years, his near-agnosticism and extreme use of reason haunted him, politically, all his life and beyond.

The narrative goes on, however, to trace Lincoln's "conversion" into a deep and abiding faith in God and love for the Bible. Nonetheless, he never joined any church and spoke but rarely of Jesus Christ. His widow, Mary Todd, however, claimed that seconds before her husband was shot by an assassin in Ford's Theater he was speaking to her about his desire, after retirement, to make a pilgrimage to Palestine, the land of our "Savior," as he put it.

Quotes from Lincoln's life are frustratingly at odds and often contradictory. But in this book old Abe is quoted as having remarked that no matter what doubts he might have in regard to the Bible, its clear spiritual authority and its overall positive and uplifting impact upon humanity simply makes it far easier and more reasonable to accept its sacred authority than to reject it. While the de facto thesis of the book, "Lincoln's Battle with God," was to show that Lincoln's faith evolved much further than this simple, tentative and reasoned conclusion, it nonetheless offers the example of a great and noble soul who, like many of our culture who go by the way reason and science, walked step-by-step from rejection toward the direction of a deeper understanding and acceptance of the Bible's true message.

After all, in our age of education, reason and scientific experimentation, and faced with the fractious and bickering and narrow mindedness of so many orthodox religionists, it is all to easy to dismiss the lot, throwing out "the baby with the bath water." Putting President Lincoln's example aside for a moment, let us move on to explore another perspective.

I have previously written about another book, "The Yugas," by authors Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz. Padma and I recently conducted a 6 week class on this book. "The Yugas" presents to us a view of history that is nothing less than revolutionary. In a larger sense, however, its view is also classically ancient, and it is simply this: we humans once, long ago, lived in a golden age of enlightenment. We lived in harmony with one another and all life and with our creator. We spoke the one universal language of intuition and had mastery over the forces of nature and consciousness. This view, shared by every ancient civilization, averred that our planet goes through a cycle of many thousands of years (aligned to the "precession of the equinox") that takes us through an ascending as well descending cycle of spiritual wisdom and material knowledge and power.

Thus, as an example of turning current opinions upside down, the appearance of literacy marked not an advance in culture but a decline: a decline because humanity could no longer retain knowledge without writing it down! (Sound, ahem, familiar?) The legend of the Tower of Babel also hints at the decline of intelligence and wisdom. From the perspective of the ancients, the so-called miracles of Jesus Christ, including his resurrection, are but hints of the powers of matter that are latently possible to enlightened humans and were in evidence in higher ages (while all too rare in the lower ages that include what we consider to be human history: roughly 2,000 BC - today).

Shifting now to another subject, a number of books have been written on the life Therese Neumann, a Bavarian mystic who lived through the Nazi era (she died in 1962) and bore on her body the five wounds of Jesus Christ. In addition, it was proven to the satisfaction of skeptical medical authorities that she did not eat food or drink water. She only partook of the Friday communion wafer. This was so for several decades of her life. Paramhansa Yogananda, whom I consider my spiritual preceptor, or guru, visited her in 1935. He attended one of her weekly trances in which she re-lived the experience of Jesus' passion and death. Yogananda said that these extraordinary manifestations were given her by grace so that she would be living proof that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ was real. During the first half of the twentieth century Germany epitomized the questioning, materialistic, scientific mind, even among Christian theologians and ministers, many of whom declared their doubt or even denied as preposterous the miraculous aspects of Jesus' life such as his resurrection after the crucifixion.

Shifting our perspective yet again, turning the prism of wisdom round about: imagine the impact on a person from the Middle Ages who would come forward in time to encounter the ordinary day-to-day marvels of our world such as cell phones, computers, television, the internet, air and space travel, just to name a few. To such a person, our world would seem fantastical and rife with miraculous powers.

Down through the centuries of our known history, hints of our human potential have been revealed to "those with eyes to see," east and west, in the stories of saints performing miracles such as raising the dead, bi-locating, levitating, demonstrating telepathy, foresight and much more.

According to "The Yugas," humanity is on an ascending escalator of expanding awareness. It may take many thousands of years yet to reach the zenith of human consciousness, but the rapid pace of increased knowledge and power, physical stature and longevity, and overall awareness supports, the authors say, this view. Humanity is still not very far along this path toward enlightenment, and so there remains much ignorance which, when armed with modern weaponry and communication, has produced violence and suffering on a scale never before seen in recorded history. Thus for now there are some, principally those of orthodox faiths, who believe human faith and morals are on the decline, not the ascendant. But the long and ascending view says this is temporary and is the result of the transition from old and to new, with the stimulated energies of the ascendant quickening, as it were, the old attitudes, prejudices, and mores. The struggle between old and new is, in this view, the birth pangs of humanity's unfoldment toward a higher awareness.

Here then we have, albeit only by reason and inference, an avenue by which we might reexamine the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. If there did exist in the dim past a golden age (as all great civilizations bore witness and for which there is a rapidly growing body of evidence, otherwise and heretofore considered merely anomalous) in which "men were like gods," and, if considering the pace and form of modern technology, why would raising the dead be so completely out of the running of reason? If energy cannot be created or destroyed, why should life and consciousness not know continuity and rebirth?

We take almost for granted that someday, Star-Trek-like, we will teleport our bodies across vast expanses of time and space. So, why not consider, even but tentatively, the possibilities?

There is an exponential growth in the testimonies of past life memories and a growing and consistent body of testimony in regards to the near-death experiences. Evidence is growing that consciousness exists outside the brain.

Celebrate, then, the promise of immortality of consciousness, immutability of self-awareness and the freedom from suffering that can be achieved in an eternal and transcendent expansion of consciousness. Easter represents the promise of redemption: the superiority of consciousness over matter, of consciousness AS the heart of matter and the promise of freedom in God. We have lived since the beginning of time and creation. We need only to march forward buoyed by the example of great saints and masters, walking where they have walked: toward the Light. In this way we resurrect our soul's changeless bliss from the tomb of change, time, space, and matter.

Perhaps more angles from the prism of Easter's message to come!

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman


Saturday, March 29, 2014

The Soul's Story of Redemption: Mary Poppins & The Saving of Mr. Banks!

We watched the Tom Hanks movie, "Saving Mr. Banks." I had no idea what to expect and I generally don't watch a movie that I have no inkling of its pedigree. But this was well worth it, and I rarely make movie recommendations.

I think the only aspect of it that might prevent the movie from becoming one of the all time classics is that it is close-to-essential to know the story (and movie), Mary Poppins, starring Julie Andrews and Dick Van Dyke (and produced by Walt Disney and first screened in 1964).

If you don't know the Mary Poppins story and movie, well, you can skip this blog article, as I don't want to take the time and space to explain it. 

The lead character, the author of the original Mary Poppins story, "P.L. Travers," is played by Emma Thompson, of Shakespeare play renown. I do not know to what degree the movie, "Saving Mr. Banks," follows the real story of the author but, no matter. 

Why, "no matter?" Because truth is greater than fact. "Saving Mr. Banks" is a story of redemption. In this archetypal genre, such stories have for their truth the reality that we are need of redemption from the past, from ignorance, from delusion. Every great classic story of redemption involves the wisdom and love of another person who aids in the process of releasing the past and finding one's true Self. In the world of spirituality, God takes the form of the guru to lead us home to soul freedom.

This story of redemption is what makes this movie great. Well, ok, not just the story, but the acting, scripting, and, to whatever degree the facts behind it are true, all give it power beyond philosophy or mere intellectual analysis (like I'm doing!).

In this story Travers is a young girl whose father is an alcoholic and his disease destroys him and his career in banking--a career that stifles his creativity and his joy in life. As a young girl she watches her mother's attempted suicide, her father's public humiliation, and finally his death. As a young woman she achieves some financial security from her writings, beginning with the Mary Poppins childrens story that she writes. 

The movie unfolds via flashbacks and fairly slowly, but it crescendos in the realization that her beloved children’s book is her own attempt at redeeming her father, Mr. Banks. It is Walt Disney himself who unlocks the door to her secret. So, too, does her chauffeur (played by Paul Giamatti--leading role in and as "John Adams").

The acting is superb; the lines and music priceless; but the cathartic lesson is timeless. 

As souls we are prodigal; we are lost in the wilderness of our own separateness. The pain of separation, the existential angst, drives us to desperate measures of resolution: including destructive behaviors such as alcoholism, just to name one (of the more popular) of an infinity of ways to "lose our mind." 

Sticking, though loosely, to the story line, Mr. Banks is a free spirit. He loves his wife and his children and the last thing he's good at is buckling down to support them. His free spirit rules him however and soon produces the clash between his spirit and his actions; between his free spirit and the consequences of his own actions in a material world split by duality, a fatal dichotomy is created. 

He resorts, then, to alcohol to ease the stress and anxiety of his nonconforming behavior. But his habit leads him step-by-step down the rabbit hole, and his family suffers with each his humiliation. But he adores his children and especially our protagonist, his daughter.

She, in turn, innocent as a child and not understanding, but experiencing the tragedy of her parents' respective death wishes, despite their love for her (and her siblings), grows up deeply cleaved and soon shuts out the inner child who is playful, imaginative and free. She develops a compulsive personality that is so rigidly and merely factual, that few can abide her presence. Being a lone writer then suits her just fine. She controls the world around her rigidly and makes no accommodation to her own strict rules and perceptions, sparing no expense of the comfort of others.

In time and in her later years, however, the world catches up with her. She has spurned Walt Disney's annual appeals for movie rights but finally succumbs because she is about to lose her home due to financial woes caused by her own need to be perfect (and thus unable to be creatively inspired as a writer).

Well, the rest of this story is simply the story. You'll have to watch it yourself. As Mary Poppins helps free Mr. Banks (in the children’s story) so he can fly his kite, so P.L. Travers eventually is freed from the straitjacket of her rigidly correct and reasoning mind. In short, she finds redemption.

We have then a classic story whereby the spirit which is within us is held ransom by our fears or rejection of the world around us, its expectations of us, and our proper role in it. It is painful to love, to be vulnerable, to be spontaneous. But our free spirit must also remain in touch with Spirit so that it doesn't descend progressively towards a hell of our making: the subconscious, disconnected from the reality of the world around us. We can retain our innocence--which is our soul's eternal joy, untouched by suffering and death--if we seek that innocence at the heart of all that we do; at the heart of all that is dutiful and right for us to fulfill. It is we who create the tension between the "ought" and the "is." Once we view the world as a battle of wills between what we want and what it wants, it’s a fight to the death: the death of our soul.

"Joy is within you" even as you "do as you ought." This is the secret of redemption. The inner joy of which we speak is of God. It is transmitted to us by those souls who have achieved it as a permanent beatitude. Great saints can show us the way to the freedom of the soul. Freedom is not doing what you want, but doing, with joy, what is right.

What a difficult and daily lesson for each and every person who makes the effort to live intentionally, to live consciously, and, better yet, to live super-consciously, in harmony with the Divine Will, with the divine "lila" (movie or play), and in concert with the great script of our life’s dharma.

So, now, you can watch "Saving Mr. Banks."

"Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down."

Nayaswami Hriman