He said; She said; the world goes 'round

Scene: sometime after the novelty of a new relationship has worn off:

"Can you give me a hand here? I can't lift this thing?"

"I'm busy, can't you see. I need to finish this."

or is it: "When will you be back?" "Hard to say, depends on when I get things done."

He prizes his independence, freedom and self-sufficiency and doesn't feel he needs permission or approval for his plans. Focusing on his work and/or interests, he is self-absorbed and sometimes forgetful. She sees the two of them as partners, working together, planning and sharing; she's considerate, articulate and organized.

He doesn't like being held to perform according to someone else's expectations as to time, place or satisfaction. She expects him to know or support what she needs and to view her as his first priority just as she feels he is hers.

[Genders could be exchanged; used only for illustration.]

Independence vs commitment! Is one better or a higher priority than the other? We need to learn to stand on our own two feet and yet, we need to give and receive help. We are born helpless and need parents, teachers and mentors for the first two or three decades of life! And, truthfully, much longer even this.

Both represent important aspects of the experience of human life and the soul's journey towards freedom. Free will and independence are the core and the center of human life but connection and oneness is the soul's journey and goal.

The conversation I am framing is actually not really about men and women but using these archetypes or, if you prefer, stereotypes, as labels which make good handles for (static) conceptualizing--though poor handles for the reality of life's ceaseless ebb and flow.

When we are born and as infants we have yet to reacquire a strong ego self-identity. Gaze into the eyes of an infant and you see luminous consciousness, but very little ego. For the first few months of life, the infant is happy no matter who holds her. But as the months pass, an attachment forms to (usually) the mother.

The very growth and interaction with its parents could be described as a process by which the child is taught day after day that she is a separate entity and her likes and dislikes, the essence of ego, is inextricably linked to who and what she is. This includes her name: her handle. "Do you like this?" "Do you want that?" Incessant programming of likes and dislikes. Partly, this programming is instinctive survival and growth training.

I have heard it said that you teach a child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again: he'll only repeat the name of the bird and imagine that he now knows the bird because it has a name. Names are the mental handles by which we pour the essence of reality into a neatly and tightly sealed jar.

No sooner than this child grows through adolescence and towards adulthood and he is attracted to someone with whom he falls in love and, for a time, feel one again with another. This is short-lived yet the desire is strong enough that nowadays people will attempt it multiple times during their life. 

We are born as One. We grow as two. We seek to be One again. I suppose most people eventually simply accept one another's differences and take from the relationship the best they can and leave the rest. This is a realistic approach but it doesn't erase, though it might suppress for a time, the impulse for union, for completion, for expansion beyond the ego into a greater awareness. This impulse is the spiritual remembrance or impulse.

It has been said that "It may be a blessing to be born into a religion but it is a misfortune to die in one." Religion, like relationship, should teach us how to love purely and unselfishly and, eventually, how to love all as a part of ourselves.

The commitment needed in a relationship is similar to the commitment on the spiritual path. Both can sharpen our skills and depth of commitment but from the depth and safety of learning to love we can grow to love all as One. (This does not imply that we marry "everyone" only that we can expand our love impersonally, which is to say, without thought of self, to all.)

While remaining true to our commitments (both spiritual path and human relationships), we expand to appreciate, respect, and indeed love all as extensions of our soul-Self.

Spiritual journey is similar: we "date" by trying on different religious or spiritual costumes and ideas. Then we marry and become one (of those or one of "them").

If we are sincere and our chosen path is true, we will go beyond the support of the outer forms into the center of our soul's being. Later we emerge appearing perhaps to be as one (of those). Like the Zen saying: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water!

The spiritual path is necessarily an "inside job," so comparisons are tentative at best. Thus it is some of the mystics of Christianity, though persecuted by their own religious hierarchy, nonetheless emerged in support of the very same structure through which they passed beyond. I think in this regard of St. Theresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the more recent Padre Pio.

In marriage too there can be a mid-stage of hurts, betrayals, persecution or conflict, and a later stage of acceptance and reconciliation.

The lesson is to understand that, whether from the soul's perspective or the ego's, we ebb and flow between the need to be apart, centered in the Self or in our own needs and realities, and other times to be giving, serving and self-forgetful. This is as true in our relationship with God as it is in our marriage or partnership.

Even the most devoted lover (whether of God or spouse) will have times when struggle, inner conflicts, outer demands preoccupy one's thoughts, emotions, energies and actions. And other times when absorbed in the love and contemplation of the beloved.

Only in enlightenment does the distinctions wholly cease, the inner and outer having merged into one.

Hope for a Better World? The Bunny & the Bird

The other day at our home on Camano Island I was standing in the kitchen brooding about this topic about which I am slated to give a talk at Spiritual Renewal Week (Ananda Village, CA) on Tuesday, June 29. As I was half-looking out the window immersed in thought, a furry brown movement out by the hedge along the street caught my attention. I looked more closely to see a small rabbit there munching away. Rabbits are the norm out on our lawn but this one was so small I couldn't see it well even with my glasses on. Then, suddenly, a small bird with an orange-colored breast appeared near the rabbit. At first, I thought it was a coincidence. Then as I watched, I saw them taking turns chasing one another playfully around a nearby bush: first one way, then back the other way. The bunny disappeared in the hedge and the bird hopped about along the edge poking its beak in the edge as if they were playing hide and seek!

This amusing scene snapped my deeper thoughts from their well but when I finished watching my mind announced: "Yes, THIS is the Hope for a Better World! A playful rabbit and a bird!

As Gandhi put it, "For, in the midst of death, life persists; in the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light persists.

In the year 2000, Padma and I, enroute to the Frankfurt Book Faire, stopped in Holland to visit her brother and some friends. Her brother had organized a family reunion of sorts except that their family, being Jewish, were decimated during WW II in the Nazi concentration camps. For several years, Padma's brother carefully researched the whereabouts of the few remaining extended family members. He collected photos and memorabilia, published accounts such as he could secure, and then invited their descendants and what few remained to a reunion. As I walked about the gathered photos, one photo caught my eye and has stuck with me all these years.

The year was 1945. Holland suffered greatly in the last year of the war with shortages of food and supplies. The Jewish population had all but vanished. Europe at large was destroyed and destitute. Yet here was a photo of a wedding. It was probably held in some small hotel in Amsterdam. Two people, one of which was a surviving member of the Gobets family, was getting married. What struck me as astonishing was that here amidst ruin was a tangible affirmation of life and love. How many who survived the war must have found, apart from relief that it was over, it incongruous to feel joy; to experience love; to dare to hope!

But if in pre-Covid days you've attended as many wakes, funerals or celebratory memorials as I have you see that amidst the tears are bursts laughter and gentle remembrances. Family and friends come together who would otherwise not see each other and their affirmations of friendship and love cannot be suffused by their loss. Joy, too, springs eternal.

Hope begins at a very human and not especially enlightened level. The hope that things will simply improve remains firmly fixed in the ceaseless flux of duality. This kind of hope is more like the carrot on the stick that keeps the donkey of the ego always pressing on for the green grass that surely must lay just beyond the next turn. But the ups and downs of this mundane kind of hope must eventually seek a more lasting reward. It's a good beginning, however.

Upwards four million have perished during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many did so with no loved ones allowed to be present. Many perished with little advance warning. Some were not even obvious candidates at risk. But out of the clouds of suffering and death, millions more, staying home, began to re-think their priorities. Many were happy to leave behind the daily grind of the commute to work; they found the satisfaction of being at home with children, spouse, or partner; of having time for yoga and meditation; the fulfillment of reaching out to neighbors; to staying more in touch with families and friends at a distance; to cooking fresh food rather than fast food. Many have come to the realization that they'd been living in a squirrel cage of ceaseless activities; For those who have survived the pandemic (and that's by far many MORE people than did not), a shift of priorities has been offered to them in the direction of a more fulfilling life.

But "hope springs eternal" because it is rooted in eternal truth. Nonetheless, the great drama of life must go on and our hope should aspire to something deeper than temporary relaxation from today's troubles. At this time in history, hope is what we seek because so much of what surrounds us bespeaks its opposite. I don't need to list the challenges to humanity and to our earth that we ourselves as a race of humans have created.

Furthermore, predictions made by Paramhansa Yogananda for the future did not include tiptoeing through the tulips of life. Many challenges await humanity and I cannot help but feel we are moving inexorably, like the Titanic plowing full-speed toward the iceberg of its demise. In our instance, Yogananda didn't predict we would "sink" but much suffering lies ahead especially for those who refuse to change. 

And yet, I remain hope-filled. Why? Not only did Yogananda predict that future challenges would eventually end and a period of peace would follow but that "the time for knowing God has come!" Sensitive study of human history through the eyes, stories and teachings of the masters reveals God's participation and aid continually offered to those who reach up to seek it.

As Yogananda wrote in his autobiography about Mahavatar Babaji:

The Mahavatar is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters — one with the body, and one without it — is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of materialism. Babaji is well aware of the trend of modern times, especially of the influence and complexities of Western civilization, and realizes the necessity of spreading the self-liberations of yoga equally in the West and in the East.

Hope for a Better World rests upon those who seek God first, God alone. Hope for a Better World exists notwithstanding what humanity has failed to do in terms of dharma. God and the angels are there to help us. The avatars are God's messengers in human form. Ananda Moyi Ma replied to a questioner's concern about the fate of this crazy world by saying "Don't you think that He who has made the world knows what best to do?"

Padma and I have been sharing excerpts and inspirations from the original lessons written by Yogananda. In one recent lesson whose topic was how to contact departed souls, Yogananda made a passing comment that "astral inhabitants study and help one another" and people on various planets. He went on to make the amazing statement that if it were not for the help extended to people on Earth humanity and the earth would "explode with sin." 

Let me recount a strange story that can be found in the Old Testament: Exodus, chapters 18 and 19. There was old Father Abraham sitting outside his tent in the heat of the day. The Lord appears to him along with three men (The Lord and two angels). Abraham invites them to stay and his wife Sarah provides a meal to them. Hiding in her tent she overhears the Lord saying that when he comes back in about a year Sarah will have given birth to a child. In the tent she laughs out loud because both she and Abraham were about 100 years old; but the Lord hears this and calls out to her to ask why she laughed, after all he was the Lord and if he says she will have a child...... But Sarah denies that she laughed! Charming, eh?

Then the three men go walking away and Abraham goes with them part of the way as a host often does when the guests leave. The Lord muses to himself out loud whether he ought to tell Abraham what he plans to do, for the Lord heard that Sodom and Gomorrah were very wicket and he was going down there to see for himself. Abraham is very surprised and questions the Lord whether he would destroy these towns which might include righteous people. Would he do it if 50 could be found who were loyal and righteous? The Lord admitted that for 50 he would not destroy the towns. 

So Abraham goes on like this openly questioning and chiding the Lord for lack of mercy as he "beats him down" bit by bit: first 50, then 45, then 40, then 30, 30, and finally 10 righteous souls!

Not only do these stories reveal an intimacy of conversation between God and Abraham and not only does Sarah feel she can lie and Abraham feel he can chide the Lord God, but God agrees that if even as few as ten righteous souls can be found the towns would be spared notwithstanding their evil!

How often I have doubted that God is paying attention or is willing to help. But it is not so. 

Although my topic is not primarily about Swami Kriyananda's book by the same name, his thesis is that the appearance and proliferation of intensional spiritual communities will uphold examples of "how-to-live" in Dwapara Yuga." I'm not going to examine this new age and its many futuristic implications for I want to focus on this idea that such communities are an integral part of the hope for a better world.

Partly this hope is based on the less than hopeful nature of human consciousness in these times: a nature and tendency towards personal self-interest that is only going to grow stronger. Examples of enlightened self-interest are necessary but such examples must be relevant to the culture in which they appear. In a time when people from all parts of the world will increasingly live together in urban, suburban, and rural locations, an intentional community grounded in spiritual ideals hold great promise to serve as examples.

Swami Kriyananda makes the analogy to the monasteries of the early and middle Ages. During what used to be called the Dark Age (somewhere between 500 and 1000 A.D.), the Christian monasteries served as beacons of spiritual light, learning, culture and art. Might intentional spiritual communities offer a similar example in this age? I think it possible. Much depends on just how deeply the otherwise unsustainable consumption lifestyle is impacted. While I doubt we will be blown back into the Dark Ages, I think it is possible that widespread economic depression, wars, earth changes, and pandemics can deal a major blow to "business as usual."

One of the persistent questions that surround the communities movement is to ask "To what degree do communities need to incorporate spiritual ideals in order to be sustainable?" The reason the answer is elusive is that one cannot easily define the term "spiritual." Swami Kriyananda leaves no doubt that without the force of a spiritual, ego-transcendent "glue," communities that nurture only the individual ego will end up being contractive. But as he asks relentlessly in the book, "Will it work?" We shall see.

Part of the answer to that perennial question revolves around the extent to which a community has a group purpose and not just the intention to fulfill the needs and development of the individual. Here's an excerpt from the book:

"To return to cooperative intentional communities: Their real purpose should be to inspire people toward actual ends, both communal and individual. Intentional communities would be of little practical service if they encouraged people merely to live together as friends on the same property. Goals are needed to inspire the whole group. If their boat – to return to our former analogy – lacks both a rudder and a compass, it will simply drift. And if the group has no positive purpose, even though its members enjoy their friendly interaction together, it will bring most of them, after a time, the feeling that something is amiss.

Communities offer an especially practical path to self-conquest. They require outer goals, also, toward which their members can aspire together. If it were only a question of everyone’s exploring his own potential, people might as well become hermits. But people need one another. Good company and good environment: Both are needed – as much so as the body needs nourishing food. Communities that are dedicated to high principles are an important way of inspiring people to make an effort that few would make on their own.

With the confusion of opinions, the raw emotions of divisiveness, there still stand out the stories of someone who paid for another's groceries at the supermarket. Among those who embrace conspiracy theories, among those who rail against vaccines, are still souls who love their families, do good work, and aspire to idealism. General Robert E. Lee chose out of loyalty to fight for his home state in the Confederacy and yet he was no less a noble soul.

I'd like to segue into some thoughts about the book, Hope for a Better World, by Swami Kriyananda. The talk I gave and the subject with the same name isn't necessarily focused on the book but it has much to offer. This book is a companion to another book, Out of the Labyrinth. Swami's analysis of the leading lights of Western science, economics, psychology, politics, and philosophy is extraordinary in its simplicity and wisdom. Like the child proclaiming "The emperor has no clothes," Swami asks each one, "Does your philosophy work?" He shows that their cups of conflict are not half-empty, but at least half-full, or, as I would like to put it, hope-full. You and I may feel little to no interest in or influence from the nihilistic likes of Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Freud, Karl Marx or Charles Darwin, but they have profoundly impacted history, especially in the twentieth century with the gospel of conflict and competition.

The mechanistic and materialistic worldview of the West has more than shown its flaws in the hundreds of millions killed in wars and genocide; in exploitation, poverty, economic depressions, suicide, drug and addictions of all kinds. At the same time, the sectarian dogmas of religion echo this same gospel of conflict and competition rather than offer humanity a scripture of peace and harmony. The West was trapped in its own aggressive success. Having conquered the world, we lost our soul. It was from the East that a new dispensation of hope was to come in 1920.

As the prior speaker has shown us, we have entered an age where individual self-interest, awakening intelligence, and awareness of gross and subtle energy characterize our slowly advancing civilization. This is the foundation of hope for a better world: we are getting smarter. And I don't mean we are getting more technological! 

Increased intelligence, awareness of the world around us, and a greater degree of vitality and energy cannot but help, in time, to bring the world together. At first, however, we are like teenagers eager to party. Selfishness, sensuality, and high-risk behavior would seem to suggest a lessening of intelligence and awareness of others and so it is when energy leads the trio. But travel, social media, education and the admixture of races, religions, and cultures feed a growing and sobering awareness. Even if at first, the reaction is repulsion, in time, by force of practical necessity and common sense, we cannot help but see ourselves and our world in a new and inclusive light.

But something else is needed. I think of the nearly two millennia after the life of Jesus Christ. For all the woes and barbaric inclinations of those times, what would have been the fate of peoples if Christ's teachings and the lives of the saints had not existed? The Christian religion had, itself, plenty of internal corruption but for all of that, not even historians deny its civilizing influence.

We today also need our version of Jesus Christ. This promise of hope is clearly expressed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: "When virtue declines and vice predominates I incarnate into human form to destroy evil and re-establish virtue." (B.G. 9:7-8)

Since this new age, Dwapara Yuga, is still fraught with materialism and only stands halfway to dharma, we can expect that self-interest will strongly default to selfishness and that intelligence will follow the selfish emotion while greater awareness will show but new opportunities for self-enrichment. Ours is a mercantile age where the "business of humanity is business."

Yoga: raja yoga and kriya yoga: have been sent to the West in scientific forms to offer sensitive hearts a way out of narrowness, pride of pedigree, nationality or religion, into the blue skies of universality. As we are personal, so too universality must be personal, too. Not narrow, but committed and individually creative.   

Putting Meditation To Work!

If meditation helps us to live our life more calmly, think about its opposite. Imagine that you're late for an appointment and can't find your car keys or your phone. Maybe you are burdened by a deadline at work. Your movements are jerky and your mind is going "a mile a minute!" You can't focus and you are distraught!

Then, before you know it, you knock over your cup of coffee. It spills all over your papers, perhaps your clothes. Things go downhill from there, right?

Remember this tip: "Restlessness is the precursor to failure (disappointment, mistakes, and/or negativity)."

It, therefore, holds that "Patience is the quickest road to success." This well-known axiom encourages us to "do it right the first time!" But only by calm and quiet confidence can we ever truly succeed. And what is success? It is more than accomplishing a goal. True success is the satisfaction of one's conscience and peace of mind. Nor is peace achieved by passivity or fear or refusal to engage in what must be done!

I want to share with you a "peace" of counsel given to me by my yoga teacher. It has guided my life:

The more you seek rest as the consequence of doing, rather than in the process of doing, the more restless you will become. Peace isn’t waiting for you over the next hill. Nor is it something you construct, like a building. It must be a part of the creative process itself.

This brings us, therefore, naturally to the one human activity that most effectively brings to our mind, heart, and body relaxation, calmness, and confidence: MEDITATION! The mental and physical benefits of meditation can be sought for their own sake or as a stepping stone to higher consciousness or spiritual growth. But here, for my purposes, I want to focus on meditation for true success and happiness. In India from which comes to us the science of meditation, there is a famous saying (so representative of its traditional culture): "To the peaceless person, how is happiness possible?" (And I would add: how is success possible?)

Meditation isn't complicated but neither is it easy. Like exercise and diet, it takes will power and intention. But like all other valuable habits, it won't work through guilt or tension. You have to WANT to meditate in order to get to the point where it is ENJOYABLE. Enjoyment and results are achieved after learning how to meditate and persisting in developing the art of it, not just the science of it.

Sit upright but in a relaxed but alert natural posture: chest up slightly; head level; shoulders relaxed; palms upward on the thighs. Open or close your eyes as you feel. (As you internalize it will be natural for most people to close their eyes.)

Take a few long, slow but enjoyable breaths. Let the "stomach" (actually, the diaphragm) expand out as you inhale slowly. As the inhalation progresses you will feel your rib cage expand outward to the sides. Then, finally as you complete the inhalation, the upper chest may rise just a little. Don't force it, however. Like the strokes of the brush of an artist, your controlled breathing should feel "right" not forced.

You may pause briefly at the top of the inhalation but it is not necessary. Exhale with a controlled release. The exhalation can be slightly longer (if you were timing it) than the inhalation. You can pause or not pause after the end of the exhalation but just continue this controlled breathing for at least three to five breaths.

Usually, three to five breaths will trigger a sense of increasing calmness, but if not, continue for a while and learn to anticipate a sense of peace and quiet satisfaction coming over you. Then cease your controlled breathing, and sit quietly. Relax not just your body but your mind. Since the mind is happier if we give it a focus, let that focus be on your natural (no longer controlled) breathing. Observation of the breath is a time honored and universally effective practice. Your observation can be in the chest (lungs etc.) or in the flow of inhalation and exhalation in the natural channels of the nose.

If your mind needs a bit more to chew on, create a word formula or a personal affirmation. I am peaceful; I am calm; I am confident.....etc. etc. Don't TRY to concentrate. Relax into interested attentiveness on your practice. It's the same attentiveness you might apply to watching a movie, reading a book, engaging in a sport or exercise, or cooking--anything, in short, that you WANT to do!

At the end of your time (it's not length of time; it's QUALITY of calm focus and resulting peacefulness), ask your intuitive self a question that might be on your mind. Ask in positive, not negative terms. In your calm state, be open to a variety of responses, even one that your mind otherwise might reject. Feel for what is the right action or attitude to take in that situation. Pose alternative solutions to your intuitive mind.

Or, at the end just bring to your mind the image of a loved, friend, neighbor, or co-worker who could use a little "peace of your mind" for their health or daily life. Send that "peace" to that person without any consideration of desired results. It's a peace gesture, in other words.

You see: it's THAT simple.