Fall Follies:Back to the Mideast we go?

The waning days of summer provoke nostalgia and a desire to enjoy one more relaxing day in the sun! Tomorrow is America's day of rest, Labor Day, celebrating the end of summer with one last flip of the bar-b-que'd burger before the turning of the leaves calls us to more serious pursuits.

Once again, the "Fall Follies" begin. On the larger scale there are, again, the drums of war beating 'round the world and predictions of WWIII. Economically, under the surface of happy smiley faces of improving economic statistics are doomsday soothsayers warning of the perfect economic storm about to roll over us like a tsunami. In personal lives, well, "shift happens" and is either in full swing or on the cusp, or so it seems for so many people these days.

Those of us, as I wrote about earlier, who returned from Spiritual Renewal Week at Ananda Village in California are blessed to feel a renewed commitment to our spiritual practices, attitudes, and goals. We have girded the "loins" of our fiery self-control towards inner peace, mindfulness, and devotion to high ideals and to our divine Beloved (in whatever form we aspire or worship).

In the worldwide parallel universe called Ananda, we are growing like tulips in Spring. We have openings in a new ashram house on Camano Island, a new farm in Half Moon Bay, California, new centers in cities throughout India, expanded properties in Oregon, Los Angeles, and much, much more. Ananda Communities and centers are bursting with life, creativity, and inspiration.

But the bubble of joy that is Ananda isn't shared by all. This world is a mixture. It perpetuates itself by constant change and an ever new parade of dramas. After the trauma of the Vietnam War and humiliating defeat there and all the political drama that preceded it and followed it, I thought we'd never again see a foray into foreign country. Well I was wrong: and not just once. Drama and national karma continue until we work things out to another level of understanding and wisdom.

If nations like America can help relieve the suffering and afflictions of those traumatized by civil war in Syria, well, I'm all for it. If yet another despot were to mysteriously bite the dust, well, too bad for him and good riddance. Will it prove effective? Is it righteous, moral, practical? Opinions vary, of course.

The rightness of an action is sometimes difficult to know in advance. Failure to act is still action. Intention plus results (and results can only be known afterwards!) is the best most can hope for. Success, moreover, is not only measured by the intended goal but by the consequences to all concerned: not just physical, but mental and spiritual, as well.

As I felt many summers ago on the eve of America's invasion of Iraq (when most of the country, including both political parties were all revved up and gung ho), I would feel better if other countries who share our values were cooperative. In the case of Iraq, they were not. That still didn't make the invasion or, today, the action proposed by Obama to Congress, right or wrong. But in this complex and interconnected world, it is at least comforting if nations of goodwill band together for a righteous cause. When they do not, it more readily calls into question the proposed unilateral military action. Still, it takes courage to go on alone.. Right or wrong, America has shown that willingness since its very foundations. But when is courage foolishness, or, worse? (Vietnam was supposed to be a limited scope of action, too.)

I, a mere citizen, once again, cannot know more than what we are told, for I have no first hand knowledge. I pray for right intention and right action, no matter what it is. And, that right action includes the welfare of innocent people. No matter what opinion I might hold, it is only an opinion. You and I have the luxury of our opinions, which ultimately are mere beliefs based (probably) on our emotions and predispositions. We do not have the burden of decisions which will, either way, affect the lives of many. Where's Solomon when we need him?

I would rather help people than bomb dictators to hell. But, well, that's my opinion, and, I know its simplistic. It may well be not an either-or, but a both-and. If our country intervenes, I would want it to be one member of a coalition and not, yet again, the U.S. Cavalry. Once again, that would be my hope. Still, I suspect the whole thing is a karmic booby trap or tar baby. Moreover, our national character is prone towards intervention, especially when injustice reigns. (In all wars, profiteering and atrocities exist. Just as people die in war, so too, some people act nobly and others, ignobly. These facts are not, in themselves, justifications for not engaging in a just war, if it be, in fact, just.)

The lineage of spiritual teachers who are my guides (Paramhansa Yogananda, his guru, Swami Sri Yutkeswar, et al) have said that our planet is in an ascending age. It is not a spiritual age but an energetic, restless, and chaotic one. It is a time of great instability. The consciousness of the preceding age lingers still, and holds positions of power in certain places and realms, notably those associated with that prior age: call it the medieval times. Institutions of religion or government which ruled with an iron hand and imposed strict social structures and customs are beset by this newer, more free, more individualistic age. The tribalism, prejudice, and ignorance of that age dictates that those not of your "tribe" are, by definition, your enemy.

As Gandhi and M.L.King, Jr. taught, such institutions and people do not give up their power willingly. It is always a struggle. A dictator who can gas his own people deserves to be shown the door. How and by whom and when? We shall see. Yogananda, before his passing in 1952, made some radical predictions regarding future wars, economic collapse, and natural calamities on a wider scale, it would seem, than we have yet seen. Who know. Best to be prepared! Why, even government officials encourage us to have stocks of food; essential to our well-being regardless of future events is to have a network of family or community; finally, we cannot get "out alive," so faith in a Higher Power linked to a life of prayer, meditation and service expands our identity beyond the ego and thus can help free us from the shackles of fear and suffering.

Perhaps one hundred years from now we will see these mideast conflicts for what they probably are: no, not about oil or energy, or religions, but a clash of consciousness: old and tribal versus new and global. Yes, the characters are mixed bag on all sides, but with the long view of history we may see these skirmishes as the rising tide of global awareness and consciousness sweeping away the old to bring in the new.

Well enough of this talk. My deeper reflection has more to do with the "call of Fall" to get focused. The falling leaves herald a change in the air and we must not linger too long in the past. Whether personally or globally, therefore, "hang onto your 'hat." Be prepared to bid the pleasures of summer "adieu" and get centered and focused around what is important for your life's evolution towards truth and true happiness.

I love the summer and I welcome the fall. But, it's "back to (the) school (of life)" for us! The practice of meditation, prayer, devotion and selfless service, especially in fellowship with others of like-mind, is the single most powerful force for change in this world. The real power for change comes from our soul's oneness in God. Draw on that power in your life and offer your prayers for all those in need in these "interesting" times. Each of us are called to live our lives, however seemingly insignificant to others or to history, with faith, devotion to truth and to Spirit which is all truth, and with integrity.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

Tomorrow is a Tide that Sweeps Away the Past

As I stood on the banks of the Ganges in the world's most ancient (and continuously inhabited) city -- Varanasi, India -- I scanned the ancient riverside ashrams and crematory grounds, the orange-clad or naked sadhus tending their ritual fires, and the devotees bathing in the Ganges to remove their sins. The thought that came to me is that all of this will be swept away by the rising tide of change. Change is happening at an accelerated pace, especially visible in up and coming countries like India, but de facto everywhere.

In Varanasi, as everywhere, developers will see profits and opportunities in this haven of tourism and pilgrimage. Civic boosters will want to clean it up and give visitors have more comfortable places to have lunch, shop, and spend their tourist rupees. A few showcase sadhus can be reassigned to a special section for posterity's sake and authenticity. Mimic the old architecture but build anew and make it nicer for visitors. Whole blocks of the twisting and turning alleyway-streets will be razed for modern hotels, with pools and lawns (oh, and underground parking). Oh, yes...........can't you see it?

On my last two trips to India I went up into the Himalayas. I could see that the hill stations nearest the plains will soon be developed into second homes, gated communities, resorts, and yoga retreat centers. Many of them were created by the British precisely for recreation and vacation, and, a relief from the heat, squalor, and intensity of the plains. Are middle class Indians wanting anything different? They'll widen and straighten out some of the roads and voila! The rising middle class of India will escape to their beloved (and beautiful) Himalayan foothills. I can see it now. Ok, then, soon, or not too far off.

We can see this trend in America where nothing is very old. We can see it well established in Europe. They preserve and yet simultaneously upgrade and modernize a core area of some historical value and then let development proceed all around it. I think however looking far ahead -- afterall things do deteriorate --- these core areas will gradually shrink. More importantly, so will the interest of future generations in them. Do you see among today's young a burning interest in antiquity? I don't. They are more interested in their computer games, gadgets, and, of course, one another. I wouldn't be surprised that future city planners will find it convenient to preserve these old monuments virtually in a kind of digital museum where you can "walk" through the old Roman fort or castle wearing a 3-D sitting in a comfortable chair.

You don't need to be an avatar or rishi to see this kind of change everywhere. But in fact there are some avatars who have already predicted it. In the lineage of Paramhansa Yogananda, his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, announced a major correction to the Hindu calendar which, during several thousand years of the Kali Yuga -- the low ebb of consciousness in the unending cycle of time -- had gotten off, mathematically.

Sri Yukteswar, himself a great sage and astrologer, proclaimed that on or around the year 1900 the earth entered the second age ("Dwa" - Dwapara) and would begin its ascent into an age whose theme would be "energy." Soon thereafter Einstein announced that energy is the underlying reality of matter. The twentieth century saw the dawning of nuclear energy and the head-over-heels extraction of oil for energy which fueled an unprecedented surge in human development in all fields (including warfare). We have energy medicine and energy healing. Energy is all the rage, in fact.

How many indigenous cultures and languages have already been destroyed. Those few who remain are dwindling in their commitment to traditional lifestyles. In the years and centuries to come they will all essentially vanish, leaving only remnants in the form of stylized, special-occasion cultural events or preserved places. Traditional religions, steeped in their vestments and robes and rituals, will steadily fade from relevancy, leaving also only traces of their past.

Nations, cultures, languages with their distinctive cuisine, clothing and uniqueness will surely retain vestiges of their past habits, attitudes, and history but they will be like the transplanted New Yorker living in Los Angeles who still has a detectable New York accent. It will be quaint and recognizable but like the Indian in the adjoining cubicle at Microsoft, his accent doesn't get in the way of his enjoyment of going to the gym or hiking in the mountains with the guy from Peoria next to him.

Travel, education, communication, technology and consciousness cannot but erode the isolation and uniqueness of formerly far-flung and exotic cultures. I sincerely hope that doesn't put Starbucks and MacDonalds on every corner from here to Timbuktu but, for a time, it might. It certainly is happening now, anyway.

Is the destruction of these traditional ways to be decried? Well, no doubt for many. But it would be like crying over spilled milk. Nothing can stop the rising tsunami of change and connectedness. The down side to the status quo is the status quo: warfare, terrorism, exploitation, prejudice, ignorance, distrust and hatred. Do we have a choice? I doubt it. We cannot have it both ways: on the one hand we want to see the world change for the better; on the other hand, we don't want to lose distinctive differences in cultures. These distinctions, unless paraded out only for entertainment of visitors, are also what separate us.

Will Indians stop wearing saris and Peruvians abandon their colored cloth? Already in India, modern young women don't wear traditional saris. They've taken some of the colors and fabrics and made them into more practical forms. Cultural characteristics and attitudes will survive just as blue eyes and blonde hair get passed from generation to generation. But they will survive only as remnants, reminders.

Already the world's cultures live and work together. For now that's mostly in the cities, but look again and travel again, the intermixture is seeping into every village, and even more so into remote corners because remote corners are strongly attractive to the adventurous! How many pop culture T-shirrts and baseball caps do you already see in the villages of India, Tibet, Nepal, Africa?

The ancient medieval church structures may be preserved here and there around the world. But with wars, famine, natural forces of deterioration, and economic depressions, one by one they will fall by the wayside because we are looking to the future now, not to the past, for guidance and unfolding wisdom. Our past history teaches us many lessons but it is the future that beckons us, for the past will be submerged in the rising tide of consciousness that is the ascending cycle into which this planet has just barely begun.

Every 80 to 100 years the entire planet's inhabitants is refreshed with new human beings. How much do you about your grandfather's life, character, problems and victories? Probably next to nothing apart from being your grandfather. Certainly this would be true of your great grandfather. For some it may be true of your father or mother!

In future centuries worshipers of each faith will honor their traditions and symbols and credos but will relegate these to a secondary status in favor of direct, inner communion with their "God" through meditation, acts of humanitarian and personal service, and fellowship with like-minded individuals.

The first Ananda movie, Finding Happiness, shows how small communities will flourish in coming times as a practical and natural balance to the crushing forces of modernization and globalization. We need practical ways to express our creative idealism even as we live in this new, global village.

So, feast not your eyes with too great sentiment upon the monuments and traditions of the past. Appreciate them for their universal impulse and ideals but look anew and look within for fresh expressions of the divine here and now! For as your body and mind will soon be buried in the sands of time, so too all this will vanish from our sight. Extract from the present, the past, and even the future the unchangeable NOW of God's presence. Saints and devotees have come into this Dwapara Yuga to create new portals, new shrines, new sacred places of pilgrimage where God's presence and grace, ever-new in flow and form, can be tapped. We can be a part of that effort to establish and affirm anew the sacredness of life, investing that grace into living forms and new sacred places.

Mostly, of course, it is within you. But as we are a part of a greater reality all around, it is also to be found all around! Rejoice and put your shoulder to the wheel of divine creative service and reflection.

Blessings,

Swami Hrimananda

reference: Religion in the New Age by Swami Kriyananda. http://www.crystalclarity.com/

A New Tomorrow Dawns Today! Easter 2012

Today, Easter Sunday, 2012, we honor and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ and his relevance to our lives. As Easter and springtime signal a renewal of life and hope, so too we stand in the midst of the dawn of a new age, a new tomorrow.

Paramhansa Yogananda unhesitatingly affirmed the birth, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He boldly claimed to have had many visions of Jesus Christ. In his autobiography he spoke of the resurrection of his own guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar who appeared to him in the flesh in a hotel room in Bombay some three months after his guru’s body was buried in the sands of Puri, on the eastern coast of India.

He came from the east as, in fact, did Jesus Christ, not “to destroy, but to fulfill the law and the prophets.” But he faced the dawn and spoke to the future of humanity of hope for a better world. That hope, which was vibrant in the first years of twentieth century was soon shattered by the "war to end all wars," which heralded only more and greater and unceasing  conflict ever since. That century saw two world wars and the deaths of untold millions of people, combatants and civilians alike amidst the appearance of a new and terrible weapon of death: the nuclear bomb. And yet in the hearts of millions, hope remains, progress is being made.

Jesus Christ, by contrast, was born amidst the dark age of ignorance, known as the Age of Kali. He spoke therefore only in parables. His disciples expressed their frustration but in time were instructed privately in matters direct and esoteric. The deeper teachings of Jesus were hidden from public view. His journey to the east as a young man was erased from the accounts of his life. His references to reincarnation were purposefully oblique because the consciousness of humanity could not see beyond the reality of physical form. In the centuries that followed his life humanity was to see the destruction of civilization and knowledge as it was known in his time. His teachings alone, though hopelessly crucified daily by ignorant self-styled representatives of it, to the extent embodied in the lives of his true disciples, were nonetheless the only light of civilization for centuries to come. Hope for a better world would await the future coming of another “son of God” for an age with “ears to hear.”

But the new age would not dawn peacefully because the institutions and consciousness of Kali Yuga are far from surrendering their claims willingly. During Yogananda’s life, the British empire which once ruled the waves (and Yogananda’s homeland of India) and upon which the sun never set was destroyed. Yogananda taught that the divine purpose behind that empire was to unite the world in preparation for the new age and to introduce the principle of rule of law, individual liberties, and even the English language as the future “lingua franca” of the world. This new era of consciousness, which we call the Age of Dwapara (meaning “second age”) was born, however inauspiciously, at the beginning of the twentieth century.

The pace of change ever since has been both exhilarating and frightening: both hopeful and fearful. Almost immediately at the dawn of the twentieth century came a lightning bolt of scientific (and philosophic) discovery: Einstein’s declaration that all matter is a form of energy. Thus Dwapara Yuga is an age of energy awareness and energy consciousness.

Thus we have seen in our lifetimes:

1. 1.      an explosion in the search for and consumption of energy resources to power a whole new way of life and civilization; this is matched with a crises and concern for sustaining cheap energy resources and mitigating or eliminating the negative impact of our energy consumption;
2. 2.      we see a rising and urgent interest in alternative medicine and energy healing as holistic illnesses surface in tandem with our awareness of our body as energy; we have become aware that health is the product of the quantity and quality of our energy;
3. 3.      the vitality and cleanliness of food, water and air is of urgent concern; the need for locally based and sustainable food sources is spawning an entire new industry and inspiring a new generation of Dwapara pioneers;
4. 4.      energy consciousness in society, business, and politics translates into the pressing need for cooperation rather than competition and exploitation on a global as well as local scale;
5. 5.      in religion, strident sectarianism threatens the very foundation, source and value to humanity that religion should offer; the need to see the underlying harmony and unity among all faith traditions is as vital a concern as any environmental or political issue; the nonsectarian practice of meditation is steadily replacing dogmatic attachment to outward forms and beliefs into the expansive and joyful direct perception of one's higher Self, the Self of All.
6. 6.      in behavior, morals and ethics, all is fair and all is game in the frenetic whirlpools of dissolving traditions and cultures; the expansion of consciousness of Dwapara Yuga is destroying the rigid boundaries of Kali Yuga; at first there seems unleashed not only freedom but license and licentiousness; the self-centeredness that seems to be emerging in Dwapara will be balanced by an expansion of self-awareness  and sympathies for the greater good of  all. 
7. 7.   personal freedom of Dwapara will unleash the energy of self-initiative, creativity, and individual conscience. These will gradually overtake the power and dependence upon the centralized authority of tribe, culture, government or religion.

Fear of the rapid pace and consequences of change and the direction of civilization has halted the otherwise necessary and natural expansion of sympathies that Dwapara Yuga invites. In every country in the world, during the last ten or twenty years, two steps backward toward authoritarianism and violence is evident.

But the march of Dwapara continues. The internet, whose freedom and openness is under assault, nonetheless is spreading awareness like the light of dawn to all nations and all people. Nothing can stop the halt of progress through education and greater awareness of ourselves, our neighbors, our planet and our universe that is streaming toward us like a flood.

Hope for a Better World comes to us to with the rays of light from the new dawn of Dwapara. But Dwapara is an age of rapid change and unceasing instability. Its vitality can threaten destruction but those souls of goodwill can harness Dwapara's rising power for good by going within, to the calm and wise center of intuition. 

Individual liberties and freedoms are the outer form and leading edge of Dwapara. But its invisible inner counsel reminds us that true freedom is not doing merely what we want, but having the wisdom and courage to do what is right. No outward ruler or authority can contain the energy of Dwapara. Only individual conscience can do that now. Only conscience can stem the tide of misuse of personal, economic, military, or political power.

Thus it is that the overarching Intelligence of the One from whom the many have come has sent its sons, its children to be wayshowers: Jesus Christ said it even in the midst of Kali Yuga: the kingdom of heaven is within you! Jesus, in cooperation and communion with the rishis of India, and in attunement with the divine will, has sent to the West and to the world the sacred keys of awakening through yoga-union: the science of meditation and the technique of kriya yoga.

Kriya yoga is the energy medicine of the soul. As we learn to awaken and unite with the subtle but powerfully intelligent currents of energy and consciousness that create and sustain the human body, we are baptized in the river of life that brings to us the intuition, wisdom, vitality, and creativity with which to flow and adapt to the outward currents of Dwapara Yuga. 

Finding the unalloyed happiness of the soul within, we can shine and share the light of wisdom upon the earth as it is reborn into Dwapara Yuga. Ours is not only the privilege, not only the opportunity, but the obligation, for while the victory of Dwapara is assured, the extent of suffering which is resulting from the clash of consciousness between old forms and new energy can only be mitigated by soldiers of peace and messengers of mercy.

May this Easter resurrect in your heart the commitment to simple living and high ideals, of living in harmony and cooperation and in dedicated service to the flow of divine grace that can guide the boundless energies of a new age. Seek divine contact through the scientific techniques of meditation and express the divine will, wisdom, and love through selfless service to all. Be the hope for a better world that you seek for yourself, your family and for all.

A blessed Easter to you,

Nayaswami Hriman

[If you enjoyed this article, you will find more insights and wisdom for a new age in Swami Kriyananda's collection of essays, "Religion in the Age." See http://www.crystalclarity.com/product.php?code=BRINA Available at Ananda in Bothell, WA or at your local East West Bookshop.

Armageddon or a New Age? A New View of History

I would like to invite you to a revolutionary revelation that has come out in a newly published book called THE YUGAS, by two friends of mine, Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz. This weekend the East West Bookshop hosts a talk and workshop by Joseph Selbie: Saturday night, 7 p.m., and Sunday, 1 p.m. Tickets can be purchased online at www.eastwestbookshop.com

You don't want to miss this, and the book which these two great souls have written. Coincidentally (if you believe in coincidences), I have just, this week, begun a course at Ananda Meditation Temple on the book, The Holy Science, by Swami Sri Yukteswar. It is upon the revelation given in the introduction to this book that Joseph and David have built upon, now over 100 years since the Holy Science was first published.

Western science posits that not many thousands of years ago humankind were just a scotch above apes, living in caves, foraging, hunting and gathering. But the accumulation of anomalous facts and discoveries is pushing this view of progressive history off the cliff of human knowledge.

Instead, every great civilization of the B.C.E. attested to the existence of a higher age in the dim, pre-history of time. Evidence continues to mount in favor of this point of view. As a simple example, we are pleased to imagine that literacy is evidence of growing intelligence. Is it possible that literacy is just the opposite? Just as we, today, need to write things down because of being plagued by faulty memory, perhaps it is so that literacy arose in response to the need to "write things down" which, prior, were conveyed in a verbal tradition and memory?

Yes, this revelation will turn our view of history upside down. And, just in time, for the question of Armageddon vs a New Age is no armchair philosopher's topic. Science seems to be giving us unceasing insights into knowledge of the natural world while human behavior seems to be plaguing us with selfish and destructive patterns of exploitation, abuse and prejudice. Or, is it?

Up through the Renaissance of western Europe we believed in the past higher knowledge and wisdom of a long forgotten classic age. Only with the dawn of the age of exploration, reason, and industry have we switched to look ahead for ever expanding vistas of awakening.

But by what mechanics can such cycles of consciousness ascend and descend upon mankind? Learn the secrets of the stars known to the ancients whose descendents, in desparation, erected the great megaliths in an effort to track the celestial motions that influence the history mankind!

How can we understand past, present, and future history and trends that we might live a more aware and conscious life? Come this weekend to learn more. It is fascinating, inspiring, and utterly up-setting of a world view with which we, in the west, have been raised. You will not be disappointed.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman