Monday, March 27, 2017

A Call to Link Arms!

RAIN OF BLESSINGS - to be sent to Ananda members week of March 27:
MARCH 26 2017

A Call to Link Arms
Dear Friends,

Taking action and speaking out is in the air these days. People everywhere are asking, “What is my duty in respect to the suffering or injustices that I see around me? Even some of the recent pilgrims to India, confronted with the poorest of the poor in India, began some serious soul searching about their life choices.

After the presidential election last year, Hriman was invited (along with others in similar positions around the world) to respond to a survey from a researcher and author in Australia on the question of “What would the Bhagavad Gita say?” The book is in draft form at present but the range of views on applying the “Gita” to our times was astonishingly diverse, even polarized! It is not easy to know what is right action (dharma). Quoting the scriptures is not enough. Soul guidance is necessary. And, soul guidance is individual.

The yoga movement and the similarly aligned new thought movement have a long overdue tryst with destiny. Until recent times, one could describe our movement as peaceful but also marginal, having no united voice in society at large. That is destined to change.

It is destined to change because the voice of “oneness” is the obvious (and only) solution to the challenges faced by humanity. Imagine if even 10% of the world’s seven billion people meditated each day, seeking inner peace and higher guidance?

Ananda worldwide is about to launch an initiative which we are calling, “Be the Change!” The solution to life’s challenges and the key to health, prosperity and happiness lie within us. We may be called to be politically active; or engaged in humanitarian efforts, but if our own consciousness remains dominantly ego-active and ego-affirming, even our good intentions and efforts will be tainted. It is tempting to want to change  the world or help the stranger while yet not willing to change oneself or to help those closer to us. For most of us, our dharma is right in front us.

The Bhagavad Gita is indeed a call to arms. Primarily, however, it is an inner, personal battle, yet it is not only that, for it is in this world that we must act. To the degree we act in attunement with soul guidance, our action, that is to say, our “karma,” becomes freeing, which is to say becomes “yoga.”

Nor is our dharma always just personal. There are times in history that groups of people share a dharma. We are entering such a time. No longer should we practice yoga and meditation as a merely private physical, mental or spiritual health regimen. We are being called to “take up arms” in the struggle to share the light of divine blessings through the experience of yoga-meditation. 

For this, Paramhansa Yogananda came to the West. He came to plant the seeds of healing that are needed for the survival and the upliftment of humanity. Nor is it just he as one person. There have been and are others as well. More importantly, it is we, and millions like us, whose united efforts can “be the change” needed in the world today. To “be the change” is not a private matter. It is no longer enough to work for one’s own spiritual growth. 

For meditators who naturally prefer quiet and anonymity, it may be a personal sacrifice to take a stand, but this is a time, like the time of Bhagavad Gita, when we are called to link arms. 

Ananda is one such vehicle where your participation and contribution can make a difference. It may not be ours to know the fruit of our labors, for these we give to the only Doer, the sole Causative Agent: Divine Mother. But the blessings of our self-offering will accrue to the freedom of our souls and to that of others. 

Each Sunday in the Festival of Light we are reminded of the self-same sacrifice that the masters make for the world in returning here to help others.

Joy to you,

Nayaswamis Hriman & Padma