Sunday, April 30, 2023

Heaven, Hell or No-thing?

What is our soul's destiny? What is the goal of the spiritual life? 

Is it to find happiness?

Is it to be good, and not bad or selfish?

Is it to earn the reward of an eternal after-death paradise?

Is it to avoid eternal punishment?

Is it to love God (whom you probably haven’t ever met)?

Is it to be virtuous in order to be prosperous?

Is it because you will feel better rather than worse?

 

 A Christian who accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and is baptized in the church can go to heaven if their sins are not overly egregious. After death, the Christian might suffer in Purgatory in order to purify the soul of the burden of their venial sins before at last entering through the pearly gate where St. Peter welcomes them into heaven (assuming their name appears in the good book). In heaven, some say they sing praises to the Lord, perhaps strumming a harp. Maybe they visit with family and friends. No one is really sure but forever is a very long time. Maybe there’s no sense of time in heaven? The explanation isn’t very complete. I suppose a good Moslem has a similar experience though I’ve heard that his rewards are more heavenly sensual in nature. But for all that, the idea is similar. There’s even the idea that at some future Day of Judgement one’s former physical body is resurrected and returned to your soul. I suppose for many people these rewards are enough for them to try to be good, but not too good.

Judaism is less interested, I’m told, in dogma and more interested in behavior (a very practical, and as it turns out, modern concept). But there is some talk of an afterlife. Details are sketchy, however.

Buddhism started as a sect of Hinduism much as the first Christians were Jews. As the centuries went along and as Buddhism more or less vanished from India much as Christianity left Palestine for Europe, it has taken on, in some of its sects or branches, a more nihilistic tone—even for some to claim they are atheists, though Buddha never said that. Buddhism is not straight-forward on the question of heaven because reincarnation remained in the canon from its original Hindu roots. In general, the idea seems to be that nirvana is achieved when the self is dissolved but as there is no concept of soul and only emptiness, Sunyata, beyond form, there is, appropriately, not much to say about it (ha, ha). No wonder they are more inclined to think about improving their next life. Who would wish to become nothing? It seems a bit like committing spiritual hari kari. No wonder the Bodhisattvas choose to return to help others! While this assessment is not entirely fair and in principle is not unlike the concept of dissolving the ego, Buddhism does not admit of God and does not discuss the transcendent state of freedom from samsara (the cycle of birth, life, death and reincarnation).

Hinduism affirms reincarnation and the states between reincarnation, the afterlife, as various forms of heaven and hell, though such states are temporary rather than everlasting. The end game of this otherwise endless cycle of birth, life, death, afterlife, rebirth moves toward enlightenment and then culminates in soul liberation. Enlightenment is the kind of awakening to the soul-Self (Atman) that, when it reaches its full realization, frees one from the delusion of separateness but not necessarily from the karma of past actions and identifications. Freeing one's soul identification from the past then becomes the next goal of the otherwise free soul called a jivan mukta. Once all past karma is dissolved by releasing one’s memory and identification with past actions, then one merges into God and achieves the final state of samadhi (there are different levels of samadhi). This merging into and union with God is often described with the metaphor of a drop of water, or a river, dissolving into the ocean. The drop of water or the water of the river still exist but have been merged into the ocean. Nonetheless, Hinduism is so old and there are so many branches of it and teachers in Hinduism that there’s no point even attempting to state what “Hinduism” teaches no matter how insistently any one branch or teacher proclaims their definition of liberation, known as moksha.

Paramhansa Yogananda (1893-1952), author of the now classic story, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” offered a nuanced description of moksha: the soul’s liberation in God. Freedom from all karma, he taught, allows the Atman, the soul, to achieve identification with what it has always been: the Infinite Spirit. Yet, from the dawn of time, so to speak, each Atman, each soul, carries a unique stamp of individuality. As all created things, mental, emotional or physical, are manifestations of the One, nothing is ever apart from Spirit no matter how dark it becomes. A rock is as much God as a saint, but the rock is simply unaware of “who am I” while the perfect being (saint) is “One with the Father” even if embodied in form.

The Self-realized saint then enjoys a two-fold beatitude: the bliss of God while in incarnate and in activity and yet with access to the vibrationless Bliss of God beyond creation.

There are many stages described in the Hindu scriptures of the soul’s long journey through time and space and its concomitant levels of awakening. But in this article, we are focusing on the final stage: union with God. God realization is not barred by the fact of being incarnate in form, whether that form be the physical, astral; or causal. While it may be gainsaid that this final step is natural to the causal state of the soul, there are those who maintain that it is the desireless desire of God that the soul achieves its liberation while in the outer form of the creation as a kind of victory dance proving, like the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the supremacy of Spirit over matter.

Once merged into the Infinite, the memory of the soul’s many incarnations remain. While enjoying the bliss of union with God, the Infinite Spirit might send the soul back into the creation to fulfill the divine mission of redeeming other souls. Returning to form, such a soul is called, in India, an avatar: a descent of Spirit into form. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

It is also possible that the deep devotion of an incarnate devotee might be strong enough to call back into vision or even fleshly form, a liberated soul who is in fact the savior for that soul. St. Francis, for example, walked with Jesus. Paramhansa Yogananda was visited by the flesh and blood form of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar months of his guru's burial.

In God nothing is lost and all is achieved; all is possible.

Meditate, then, on the indwelling, omnipresent, immanent Spirit in your Self and in every atom of creation. "Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord is ONE!" The Infinite Spirit sends into creation in every age a divine "son" to call the children back into the blissful Fold. The "son" says to us "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by following Me." Krishna, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Paramhansa Yogananda and countless other "sons" (and daughters) of God have been sent. Do you hear their voice?

Blessings, friends,

Swami Hrimananda

 

 

Monday, April 24, 2023

What is BLISS? What might be its relationship to DEATH?

Ananda members, communities and centers celebrated the ten-year anniversary of the passing of Ananda's founder, Swami Kriyananda (a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda). Each of the many celebrations included comments on the remarkable and tangible intensity of bliss manifested by "Swamiji" especially in the last many years of his life. (Paramhansa Yogananda responded to Swami's question about whether he, Swami Kriyananda, would find God in this life that "yes" he WOULD find God but that death would be the last sacrifice).

 But what is the BLISS that we so often reference and sometimes risk doing so blithely?

Consider the nature of God as Infinite Consciousness? Surely that which is INFINITE must include everything that would be needed or desired; it must be whole and complete in its Self. Being INFINITE it must surely be INFINITELY happy and content!

Only when BLISS takes on the appearance of form does it separate its Self and, being INFINITE, it has the ability to produce INFINITE variety. In taking on form, BLISS, being akin to white light, must needs take on the color and attributes of that form. The emotional state of sadness has the attribute of, well, sadness. Whatever BLISS it came from is obscured by this form. Rocks, also, don't seem especially BLISSFUL. And so on. The creation masks the experience of BLISS by its very "nature." (I suppose one might say that a painting masks the nature of the artist even as it might, to those with "eyes to see," reveal something about its creator.)

This is why all spiritual practices attempt to lead us away from our form--including our moods, desires, fears and little-self preoccupations--towards the ORIGIN or CENTER of our BEING where alone we can sip the nectar of BLISS. Every night in sleep we find hints of this BLISS because the body and personality slip away into a state devoid of these attributes. But while sleep may refresh, it cannot transform because it is a less than conscious state while BLISS is a super-conscious state.

Meditation is the most efficient and effective technique of stripping away the "natural turbulence" of the mind in order to peer behind the veil of form to experience the pure but also natural BLISS which is our true nature. As it says in the Old Testament of the Bible, "Be still and know that I AM GOD."

What occurred to me, however, is that there might be a relationship to the well established idea that one dies in order to go to heaven. Yogananda in promising to Swamiji that he would see God but that death would be his last sacrifice, added a tiny bit of substance to this well established view. If this has any element of truth, then why? I think it is obvious and simple: in shedding the mortal coil, our consciousness expands, even if not to Infinity, at least more broadly. Stripped of so much of the burden of ego and body preoccupations, many (not all) people enjoy a certain degree of joy and bliss in the after-death states.

Yogananda also told Swamiji that Swamiji's life would be one of intense activity......and.......meditation. Swamiji evidently did NOT have the karma, or better yet, the spiritual dharma, of being a monk in a Himalayan cave. Neither do most sincere spiritual seekers, these days, I might add. That "intense activity" may be, in Swamiji's case, deeply focused and deeply in tune with his guru, but for all that is was nonetheless ACTIVITY that, by definition, obscures the indwelling BLISS. Thus, having completed his dharma in service to the guru, Swamiji achieved MOKSHA: eternal bliss and soul freedom.

May BLISS be your guide,

Swami Hrimananda

Sunday, April 9, 2023

Easter: Our Soul's Victorious Destiny is Assured

 


Mark 14:36

Abba, Father, all things are possible unto Thee: O my Father, if it be possible, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done

In this passage we discover the key to resurrecting our soul: the courage to do the will of God; the wisdom to do what is right. All action is karma (karma means, simply, "action"): but that action which reveals the soul’s power is "yoga" (fulfillment). Thus, wisdom guided action is "karma yoga" (achieving soul-freedom through right action and grace). Everything else is just more karma!

The resurrection of Jesus Christ affirms the power of higher consciousness over lower consciousness; of Spirit over matter; love over hatred. Jesus’ embrace of his dharma—the will of the Father—produced the victory of the resurrection. It is the necessary consequence of Jesus’ embrace of his Destiny—his acceptance of the will of God.

Jesus didn’t hide from the temptation to want to duck the bullet of his crucifixion; he admitted he would have preferred to give it a miss; but he submitted the decision to the One whose love alone counts.

We all have that choice; indeed, sometimes we make the choice to align with what is right. Often that choice is not convenient to our liking. Even to ask inwardly “what is right?” rather than to act impulsively on our desires or fears is a victory. How few do even this much.

In the "feel good" world of new age thinking, it is not uncommon to hear the mantra "If it's meant to be it will happen." Or, "everything's lining up for me" (to do what I want to do). Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the classic life story, "Autobiography of a Yogi," wrote a poem dedicated to his guru-preceptor (Swami Sri Yukteswar). In that poem is this sentence: “if all the gods protect me by the parapets of their blessings, but yet I receive not thy benedictions, I am an orphan, left to pine spiritually in thy displeasure.”

Applying that sentence to our own life's desires it suggests that we sometimes think that just because all the planets of fate and circumstance support our desire and because fulfilling it “feels right,” this must surely mean that it is God’s will. But karma is NOT necessarily dharma! When our ego calls the shots, emotion is its sidekick; but when Krishna, our soul, drives the chariot of our life, the white horses of dharma bring us to victory. There is a motto from India that says "Jato dharma, tato jaya" (Where there is dharma, there is victory!)

The truth of the facts of Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection are less important to us than the example his heroic choice offers to us. It's generally not the big decisions that move us upward or downward, spiritually. It's the day-to-day, seemingly inconsequential choices, that determine the direction of our path to soul freedom.

The allegory of Adam and Eve exists to shed light on what is the most important choice, and indeed, perhaps the only real choice we are given. We can seek to do what is right and in alignment with God's will (our dharma), or we can decide to do it "our way." All other day-to-day decisions like the Easter bonnet or the designer shirt you are wearing are the consequence of external influences and the complex matrix of past choices made under such influences including that of the demands of ego and body. 

Christianity has focused its devotion and narrative upon the crucifixion rather than the resurrection. That focus is natural to the ego which is more concerned with what it is asked to give up rather than the more important reasons for doing so. The truth-aspiring ego must step-by-step accept God's presence and guidance. In doing so it prepares itself for the final act of self-offering that God will ask of it: its own crucifixion. Like the great and noble Prince and warrior Bhishma in the Indian epic of the Mahabharata, only the ego can consent to die and to surrender to the redeeming power of grace. God does not impose salvation upon us.

The lesson of the resurrection is erroneously seen by some to be a promise of regaining one's human body after death. No! The lesson is the victory of Spirit (and the soul, made in the image of God) over all matter, even death.

As we say each week in the Ananda Festival of Light ceremony: “and whereas in the past suffering was the coin of man’s redemption, for us now the payment has been exchanged for calm acceptance and joy. Thus may we understand that pain is the fruit of self-love, whereas joy is the fruit of love for God.” As the medieval saint—St Francis de Sales said: “A sad saint is a sad saint indeed!” This represents a new understanding of how and why to seek God because suffering no longer inspires truth-seeking souls. The joy of seeking God, however, DOES!

The resurrection proclaims to us the inevitability of our soul’s freedom in God. Our choice is whether to accelerate the timing of that victory or to delay it. That is all. There is no time in eternity and we are as old as God. God will wait forever if need be but eventually our soul’s memory of bliss and freedom in God will awaken to the “anguishing monotony of endless rounds of birth, life and death” and will, like the prodigal son of Jesus’ parable, begin the journey back to its home in God.

Happy Easter, friends!

Swami Hrimananda