This evening, Saturday, September 20, 2014, I will share some words on the theme of the Fall Equinox. I write these notes as part of my preparation. My theme is faith.
I have long been struck by the subtle but tangible feeling of upliftment and general energy that surrounds the four points of the solar year which are the two equinoxes and two solstices. I had never noticed them before until 2001 when my wife Padma, inspired by the description in "Autobiography of a Yogi" (by Paramhansa Yogananda) of how his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, celebrated the equinox and solstices, proposed we start the tradition of holding these celebrations here as well (at Ananda in the greater Seattle, WA area).
At that first celebration, September 22, 2001, which took place at the Ananda Community in Lynnwood (a place very much off the beaten path and towards which many first-time visitors seem to get lost enroute), we were standing outside the meditation hall minutes before the celebration service was to begin and no one had arrived! So, a little deflated, we went inside to wait. By 6:10 p.m., the room was full! Ever since then we have found that these celebrations attract many people, often for the first time, or whom we never see throughout the year, otherwise.
In case you are unaware of it, these four points of the solar year represent the passing hours when the sun and earth hover in very specific relationships. Speaking of the northern hemisphere, the two solstices are the points when the sun is "highest" (June 21, summer) in the sky and the hours of daylight are at their height and the point (December 21, winter) when the sun is at its lowest point and daylight hours are the fewest. The Spring (March 21) and Fall (September 21) equinoxes are when the hours of day and night are equal.
On an energetic level and in respect to human consciousness, the summer solstice represents the height of our vitality and creative energies. We are filled with both energy and en-joy-ment as we work in hopeful expectation of "profitable" and "productive" results (come Fall). The Fall equinox, we are filled with gratitude for the harvest as we also introspect upon the fruits of our labor as to how to improve our efforts in the period to come. In the Fall, we know that the winter is coming and we must gather, store, and protect our harvest to sustain us through the dark months ahead. We draw upon our faith that by our efforts and by divine grace, we will be sustained as we endure challenges and difficulties.
The Winter solstice celebrates the fact that soon the sun will now begin its journey of return. In the darkness is born new life, in the darkness of the womb where the seed fertilizes the embryo, in the ground where seeds lie, seemingly infertile but awaiting the Spring, and in our hearts where, at the center of our trials and difficulties, there resides the light of truth and of love. It is in our hearts and in the midst of the darkness, that the Christ child of love and wisdom is reborn. In this universal love which is the essence of life, unseen and in the apparent darkness of non-material realities (consciousness, itself), we celebrate our fellowship, our families, and our kinship in God.
The Spring equinox is a celebration of hope in the most obvious way. The new buds of growth, the beautiful and fresh flowers, and the birth of new life offers to us the promise of redemption, rebirth, and hope for lasting happiness. Life is reborn for those who have planted seeds of hope, faith and goodness and who have nourished those seeds with the sunlight of wisdom and the water of love.
Each of these four celebrations affirms our kinship as children of God. Whether recumbent or active, whether hopeful or retiring, sensitive souls rejoice in the fellowship of all life which has sprung from the unseen but intuited divine presence which resides in all.
I intend to share a little of a remarkable life, that of Louis Zamperini. The book and soon-to-be released movie of the same name, "Unbroken," chronicles a life of great struggle which, endured with faith, hope and vitality, proved victorious. Louis, born in 1917, and against great odds, became an Olympic runner and met Adolph Hitler in 1936 at the Berlin Olympics. In World War II, his bomber crashed in the Pacific and he endured 47 days at sea, harassed constantly by sharks and strafed by Japanese warplanes, floating without food or water. Picked up near the Marshall Islands by the Japanese, he endured torture, beatings, starvation and indignities beyond imagination until the conclusion of that war. Hailed a hero upon his return to California, the toll of indignity and torture held him captive until, hearing Billy Graham one day in Los Angeles, the dark night of his prayers in captivity blossomed into flowers of forgiveness.
In October, 1950, he went to Japan to meet, once again, his (now imprisoned) tormentors and to offer forgiveness. He spent the rest of his life in service to others. In 1981, he carried the Olympic torch in Japan (quite near his former POW camp). He died last July 2, 2014. A movie, directed by Angelina Jolie, will be released this December.
Our lives are lives of privilege, compared to what Louie endured and that of many millions throughout world today. Our privilege grants us the opportunity to transcend comfort and to seek the "truth that shall make you free." I've often wondered how and why some people, "....one," Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, "out of a thousand," turn within, look up and seek God in truth and in right action. I think it is because the seed of faith has been planted in our hearts, nourished in our bosom, often silently, most likely in past lives, and then begins to sprout when conditions are right.
Jesus told the story that "in a field two are working, one is taken and the other left behind." By this he means, that among people, otherwise identical outwardly in appearance or activity, perhaps one will find his faith awakened and will "leave" the field (meaning leave his mundane existence, if not in actuality, then in spirit). We never know the time or the place when God, "like a thief in the night," will call us from within.
Fall is an excellent time to go on retreat; to take personal and private seclusion: even, if, just for day when no one else is around. Take the time to reflect upon the harvest of your life, the seeds you have planted in this life: what blossoms and fruits will they bear? Is this fruit what you seek? Pray for the inspiration to be guided and the strength to be lead by faith from within.
Perhaps I see you this evening!
Blessings,
Hriman
Showing posts with label Swami Sri Yukteswar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Swami Sri Yukteswar. Show all posts
Saturday, September 20, 2014
Saturday, August 30, 2014
What is the best meditation technique? What is Kriya Yoga?
What is the best meditation technique? Can a device with sound or images or other electronic stimulation really deepen your meditation? Should I use a pre-recorded, guided meditation aid? Are all the techniques which use the term "kriya" the same? There are so many mantras and pranayams and gurus, where does one even begin?
The short answer ("All roads lead to Rome") has some validity and is a tempting rejoinder and end to all these questions, but . . . . the "real answer" is both subjective (personal) and objective (demonstrable).
A proper response also requires an understanding of the purpose of meditation, whether, too, from the one's personal motivation or from the tradition and history of meditation itself. But I have addressed the question of "What is Meditation" in other articles on this site. For my purposes, I will assume that our shared understanding of the purpose of meditation is primarily a spiritual one.
"What works best for you" is a fair yardstick although be forewarned that you risk "the blind leading the blind and both falling in a ditch" of ignorance. It's like practicing hatha (physical) yoga because it's a good body workout experience: just because everybody does it, it still misses the true purpose of yoga by a "country mile."
Let's start with the personal: the meditation technique that is right for you has to work for you; it has to appeal to you: enough in the beginning to be attracted to it, and enough in the end to stick with it. This is not the same thing as saying your technique is effortless, easy, and blissful. Think of marriage (or a meaningful profession or career) as a comparison.
Notwithstanding the internet, CD's, DVD's and old-fashioned books, it is also worth noting that no effective (and long-term) meditation technique is divorced from its source: the teacher (or tradition). Partly it's a matter of your own confidence and faith in that technique. If John Smith down the street writes a book on meditation, it might strike your curiosity but I doubt it's going to change your life through daily, deep practice. Both the message and messenger are equally important. Meditation is personal: never forget that!
Not only, therefore, must the technique appeal to you and work sustain-ably for you but you must feel a connection, confidence, inspiration and/or faith in the teacher and/or tradition from which your chosen technique has come. I will stop short of talking about gurus and a disciple-guru relationship. I have written of that in other articles on this site.
There is one further point on the question of personal: the teachings and philosophy that surrounds your technique and teacher. Meditation, viewed in the vacuum of this article discussing technique (as such), might seem disconnected from the need for philosophy, theology, or teaching. Indeed, many meditation teachers say just that: you can be an atheist and practice meditation. Fine: who would argue with that! (I've said it myself!) But that, too, is a philosophy and a teaching. And maybe that really inspires you!
Thus some meditators practice under the auspices of one of the many Buddhist traditions; or Indian traditions; or Christian monastic traditions, or Sufi, Taoist, or Shinto and so on.
So, on a personal level, and as my own teacher, Swami Kriyananda put it in a talk he gave: we need to find the "right teacher, right teaching and right technique" for US and OUR spiritual evolution. All three (like Father, Son and Holy Ghost) are integral components of a successful (i.e. life changing) meditation practice.
Now, let's move on to the "objective" aspects of techniques. Almost any sincere and intelligent effort to meditate will produce positive results. That being said, we enter into the science of meditation. Keeping this article to a reasonable length, let us simplistically say that a successful technique or sitting in meditation experience will yield a mind that is focused and free from random thoughts; a body that is perfectly still (being relaxed but alert); and a "heart" or "mind" that experiences an expansion of consciousness and/or deep satisfaction in the form of inner peace (joy, love, etc.). Let's just leave it at that for now, ok?
The science of meditation teaches us that there is an intimate connection between our mind and body through the medium of breath. Our breath (in its various and measurable attributes of inhalation and exhalation) reflects our state of mind. Our state of mind affects our breath. This relationship is the bedrock of meditation.
The mind, however, can be influenced by conscious and intentional body movements (think yoga, martial arts), by mental concentration (mantra, visualization and affirmation), and by inspiration (chanting, prayer, and devotional images). Each of these, relative to breath, are still somewhat "outside" ourselves. They are effective when employed intelligently, consistently, and as guided intuitively. But the ultimate tool and the source (both) is the mind which in its purest form transcends any specific mental image or physical form. The breath has more directly than any of these other techniques a psycho-physiological impact upon the mind.
I am not saying that breath techniques are BETTER than mantra or devotion, for example. Rather, I am saying that the breath, relatively uncolored and free from the image-making faculties of the mind (which, in the end are abandoned in the higher states of meditation), works directly upon the mind. In the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, the core sutra states that oneness is achieved when the mind transcends creating and reacting to stimuli (mental or otherwise): Stanza 2: "Yogas chitta vritti nirodha."
That fact doesn't invalidate the wide range of meditation techniques. St. Teresa of Avila discovered from direct experience how to go from formulaic prayer to silent, inner prayer and finally beyond all mentation into ecstatic, breathless states of divine communion. She was known to levitate and even bi-locate.
Nonetheless, the discovery of the mind-breath-body connection IS the science of meditation. It is HOW the mind rediscovers the transcendent state of pure consciousness even while in a body. Thus it is that breath techniques (aka "pranayama") abound and are very often at least part of the most effective and popular meditation techniques that are taught and practiced today.
I practice the popular Kriya Yoga technique as taught by Paramhansa Yogananda and his lineage (Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Swami Sri Yukteswar). It has been made known principally through his famous story, "Autobiography of a Yogi." Chapter 26 of that book ("Kriya Yoga") can be read for free online: http://www.ananda.org/free-inspiration/books/autobiography-of-a-yogi/.
While most of the popularly used pranayams focus on the breath, diaphragm, and lungs, Kriya Yoga focuses on the internal, subtle breath whose movements, yogis tell us, cause the physical breath. These currents of energy (known as "prana") revolve up and down in the subtle (or "astral") body which inhabits (creates, sustains, and, at death, leaves) the physical body. The intelligent vital Life Force of prana flows out to the physical body through doorways known as "chakras." Kriya Yoga organically and gradually teaches one how to control this life force so as to consciously coax it inward and away from its captivity in the organs and tissues of the physical body so its power and intelligence (which is divine) can reunite with its commander-in-chief, the Soul, residing in the higher(est) chakras in and around the head. This goal is the state of yoga: union with the Soul and then, eventually, with the Infinite Oversoul which is God.
Each conscious rotation of the prana in the astral body through the chakras is equivalent to living one full solar year in perfect harmony with the body, with the world and with the soul. Excluding the seventh chakra, the soul, the remaining six chakras becomes twelve by the polarity of the movement of prana up and down and through these chakras (producing, in turn, in each rotation, one breath cycle of inhalation and exhalation). These twelve constitute the true inner astrological constellations under which our karma (past actions) reside and which must be untied and released so their energy may seek soul-union above in the seventh chakra.
In this manner, Yogananda taught that the practice of Kriya Yoga is the "airplane route" to God because it accelerates our spiritual evolution by resolving karmic patterns without having to wait many lifetimes to work out each and every desire and make good each and every debt.
Kriya Yoga is not only a technique: it is a spiritual path. It therefore uses devotion, chanting, affirmation, mantra and good works, right attitude....in short all the tools of the spiritual "trade" that one sees universally employed. By adding this direct perception and control of our inner, soul anatomy, we have a meditation technique suited to our cultural inclination toward science (and away from sectarianism).
I will not conclude by saying "Kriya Yoga is the BEST technique" but it is a great gift to the world for those who feel drawn to it and inspired by its preceptors and precepts.
Blessings to you,
Nayaswami Hriman
The short answer ("All roads lead to Rome") has some validity and is a tempting rejoinder and end to all these questions, but . . . . the "real answer" is both subjective (personal) and objective (demonstrable).
A proper response also requires an understanding of the purpose of meditation, whether, too, from the one's personal motivation or from the tradition and history of meditation itself. But I have addressed the question of "What is Meditation" in other articles on this site. For my purposes, I will assume that our shared understanding of the purpose of meditation is primarily a spiritual one.
"What works best for you" is a fair yardstick although be forewarned that you risk "the blind leading the blind and both falling in a ditch" of ignorance. It's like practicing hatha (physical) yoga because it's a good body workout experience: just because everybody does it, it still misses the true purpose of yoga by a "country mile."
Let's start with the personal: the meditation technique that is right for you has to work for you; it has to appeal to you: enough in the beginning to be attracted to it, and enough in the end to stick with it. This is not the same thing as saying your technique is effortless, easy, and blissful. Think of marriage (or a meaningful profession or career) as a comparison.
Notwithstanding the internet, CD's, DVD's and old-fashioned books, it is also worth noting that no effective (and long-term) meditation technique is divorced from its source: the teacher (or tradition). Partly it's a matter of your own confidence and faith in that technique. If John Smith down the street writes a book on meditation, it might strike your curiosity but I doubt it's going to change your life through daily, deep practice. Both the message and messenger are equally important. Meditation is personal: never forget that!
Not only, therefore, must the technique appeal to you and work sustain-ably for you but you must feel a connection, confidence, inspiration and/or faith in the teacher and/or tradition from which your chosen technique has come. I will stop short of talking about gurus and a disciple-guru relationship. I have written of that in other articles on this site.
There is one further point on the question of personal: the teachings and philosophy that surrounds your technique and teacher. Meditation, viewed in the vacuum of this article discussing technique (as such), might seem disconnected from the need for philosophy, theology, or teaching. Indeed, many meditation teachers say just that: you can be an atheist and practice meditation. Fine: who would argue with that! (I've said it myself!) But that, too, is a philosophy and a teaching. And maybe that really inspires you!
Thus some meditators practice under the auspices of one of the many Buddhist traditions; or Indian traditions; or Christian monastic traditions, or Sufi, Taoist, or Shinto and so on.
So, on a personal level, and as my own teacher, Swami Kriyananda put it in a talk he gave: we need to find the "right teacher, right teaching and right technique" for US and OUR spiritual evolution. All three (like Father, Son and Holy Ghost) are integral components of a successful (i.e. life changing) meditation practice.
Now, let's move on to the "objective" aspects of techniques. Almost any sincere and intelligent effort to meditate will produce positive results. That being said, we enter into the science of meditation. Keeping this article to a reasonable length, let us simplistically say that a successful technique or sitting in meditation experience will yield a mind that is focused and free from random thoughts; a body that is perfectly still (being relaxed but alert); and a "heart" or "mind" that experiences an expansion of consciousness and/or deep satisfaction in the form of inner peace (joy, love, etc.). Let's just leave it at that for now, ok?
The science of meditation teaches us that there is an intimate connection between our mind and body through the medium of breath. Our breath (in its various and measurable attributes of inhalation and exhalation) reflects our state of mind. Our state of mind affects our breath. This relationship is the bedrock of meditation.
The mind, however, can be influenced by conscious and intentional body movements (think yoga, martial arts), by mental concentration (mantra, visualization and affirmation), and by inspiration (chanting, prayer, and devotional images). Each of these, relative to breath, are still somewhat "outside" ourselves. They are effective when employed intelligently, consistently, and as guided intuitively. But the ultimate tool and the source (both) is the mind which in its purest form transcends any specific mental image or physical form. The breath has more directly than any of these other techniques a psycho-physiological impact upon the mind.
I am not saying that breath techniques are BETTER than mantra or devotion, for example. Rather, I am saying that the breath, relatively uncolored and free from the image-making faculties of the mind (which, in the end are abandoned in the higher states of meditation), works directly upon the mind. In the Yoga Sutras by Patanjali, the core sutra states that oneness is achieved when the mind transcends creating and reacting to stimuli (mental or otherwise): Stanza 2: "Yogas chitta vritti nirodha."
That fact doesn't invalidate the wide range of meditation techniques. St. Teresa of Avila discovered from direct experience how to go from formulaic prayer to silent, inner prayer and finally beyond all mentation into ecstatic, breathless states of divine communion. She was known to levitate and even bi-locate.
Nonetheless, the discovery of the mind-breath-body connection IS the science of meditation. It is HOW the mind rediscovers the transcendent state of pure consciousness even while in a body. Thus it is that breath techniques (aka "pranayama") abound and are very often at least part of the most effective and popular meditation techniques that are taught and practiced today.
I practice the popular Kriya Yoga technique as taught by Paramhansa Yogananda and his lineage (Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Swami Sri Yukteswar). It has been made known principally through his famous story, "Autobiography of a Yogi." Chapter 26 of that book ("Kriya Yoga") can be read for free online: http://www.ananda.org/free-inspiration/books/autobiography-of-a-yogi/.
While most of the popularly used pranayams focus on the breath, diaphragm, and lungs, Kriya Yoga focuses on the internal, subtle breath whose movements, yogis tell us, cause the physical breath. These currents of energy (known as "prana") revolve up and down in the subtle (or "astral") body which inhabits (creates, sustains, and, at death, leaves) the physical body. The intelligent vital Life Force of prana flows out to the physical body through doorways known as "chakras." Kriya Yoga organically and gradually teaches one how to control this life force so as to consciously coax it inward and away from its captivity in the organs and tissues of the physical body so its power and intelligence (which is divine) can reunite with its commander-in-chief, the Soul, residing in the higher(est) chakras in and around the head. This goal is the state of yoga: union with the Soul and then, eventually, with the Infinite Oversoul which is God.
Each conscious rotation of the prana in the astral body through the chakras is equivalent to living one full solar year in perfect harmony with the body, with the world and with the soul. Excluding the seventh chakra, the soul, the remaining six chakras becomes twelve by the polarity of the movement of prana up and down and through these chakras (producing, in turn, in each rotation, one breath cycle of inhalation and exhalation). These twelve constitute the true inner astrological constellations under which our karma (past actions) reside and which must be untied and released so their energy may seek soul-union above in the seventh chakra.
In this manner, Yogananda taught that the practice of Kriya Yoga is the "airplane route" to God because it accelerates our spiritual evolution by resolving karmic patterns without having to wait many lifetimes to work out each and every desire and make good each and every debt.
Kriya Yoga is not only a technique: it is a spiritual path. It therefore uses devotion, chanting, affirmation, mantra and good works, right attitude....in short all the tools of the spiritual "trade" that one sees universally employed. By adding this direct perception and control of our inner, soul anatomy, we have a meditation technique suited to our cultural inclination toward science (and away from sectarianism).
I will not conclude by saying "Kriya Yoga is the BEST technique" but it is a great gift to the world for those who feel drawn to it and inspired by its preceptors and precepts.
Blessings to you,
Nayaswami Hriman
Monday, July 7, 2014
Go On Alone or "I'm with you"? Nishkam Karma!
A defining moment in my life took place on a jet airplane somewhere over Iran in June of 1976. I had travelled Europe and India for over a year by car and was returning at last to the United States. I was broke in more ways than one. Not defeated; nor sad, mind you, but perplexed over the simple fact that I did not find what I was seeking.
Oh, yes, it was an adventure, all right--driving from Germany through Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and then to the Indian subcontinent: down one side of India by car and up the other, with extended stays here and there, including Sri Lanka and Nepal, just to mention two.
But it was also a spiritual quest and in this I returned empty handed: like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and with her little dog, Toto. Not only was I not in "Kansas" anymore but I learned, as she did from the Wizard, that all I was seeking was to be found at home. "What you don't bother to seek within, you will not find without," said Swami Sri Yukteswar (in "Autobiography of a Yogi," by Paramhansa Yogananda). Or, as Mark Twain ruefully put it.....travel is a fool's paradise....wherever I went that fellow Mark Twain had to come, too (I couldn't get rid of him and his foibles).
But in the middle of the night at 30,000 feet, stretched out over several seats (in the old days when that actually could happen), I realized that what I sought I had not found on my own. There came to me by way of intuition (and not so much in words), the recognition and acceptance that my spiritual search needed to be in association with others of like mind. I realized too that I had been resisting this important reality.
It was not long after returning to my childhood home in Monterey, CA that I met my future wife, Padma. She introduced me to "Autobiography of a Yogi" and then to Ananda Village (and Swami Kriyananda). We soon moved there and the rest, as they say, "is history."
I have long thought that this revelation was done with me; I had received it, acted upon it, and life went on. But recently I have had to face the reality that this "chicken" (to quote my prior blog on being over 60 years old) had returned to the roost. It came in the form of a gift: a gift from my adult children in the form of a Vedic astrology reading! In this reading (by John "Drupada" MacDonald), I was told that, unlike my western astrology chart had told me, I was influenced by the sign Scorpio and by that of Virgo.
I have no interest in explaining these astrological terms (since it would only show my profound ignorance) but I will say that my decades long assumption that I reflected more the balanced and loving and outgoing aspects of Libra (sun sign) went up in smoke.
Ironically, the first thing I said to Drupada on our video chat (where he was to reveal to me the interpretation of my Vedic chart), was that "I had come out of my cave to speak with him." I don't know why I said those words, for I had never used them before to describe the small home office space I inhabit, but I did. He laughed and used my words to reveal my "scorpio" (hiding like a scorpion under a rock before emerging to sting someone) tendencies.
Further irony is that he says my chart indicates an upcoming period of greater public visibility while personally I feel just the opposite. Whether cave or rock, that's where I feel most comfortable at this point in my life.
I recall that as a young child I played long hours on my own. I'd play out in the sand, dirt, lawn, and gravel creating a pretend world of cars and trucks. My mother said I asked all the "big" questions which she claims she was at a loss to answer.
All my adult life I have had a consistent tendency to prefer working on my own, not wanting to involve or "bother" other people. At the same time I've realized that I (like everyone else) am largely incapable of accomplishing anything other than the trivial on my own.
Moving away from the uncomfortable subject of "me," I want to say that we humans and we as souls are not only social but we are part of the fabric of a greater consciousness and can never, never function on our own except in meaningless ways. The greatest artists, scientists, humanitarians and saints all were nurtured in a milieu that supported their unique genius.
Yet, at the same time, spiritually speaking, we face our "God" alone, just we must face death alone, no matter those who may surround us. Only we, alone and facing the seeming emptiness and darkness which lies beyond the realm of the body and the outer world, can confront the void and the infinite bliss which is God and which is our soul's true nature.
What an irony! In the world of action, which includes therefore, karma and our efforts to work out our karma and fulfill our soul's dharma to achieve freedom, we must work with other souls; other realities than our own ego. As an ego we are less than insignificant. As a soul, we are God incarnate, a spark of the Infinite flame. To the degree we live and act in attunement with the greater reality of Life which could be called God, we discover meaning and achieve fulfillment.
Our oneness with life confronts our existential aloneness in seeking God. These two realities are but sides of the same coin of the one reality. The ego must die so that the soul, which is eternal, can be reborn. The bridge might be called "nishkam karma." Nishkam karma is the way of action which leads to "inaction" (meaning: loss of personal doership, loss of ego).
We are enjoined by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, and by great scriptures and saints everywhere, to "act without thought of self-interest." To fulfill our God-given duties as best we can, calmly, joyfully, with excellence and yet, without attachment to the consequences: this is nishkam karma. In this action I act without thought of what I get in return, whether money, recognition, self-satisfaction....any thought of "what I want." Whether we withdraw or engage, either can be nishkam karma or just plain karma, it depends upon intention and consciousness.
I may feel like withdrawing from the field of battle but, like Arjuna in the beloved Gita, I must "bear arms" and continue the good fight, serving the Light, working out my karma and fulfilling my divine dharma to "know, love, and serve God" in this world (quote from the Catholic Baltimore Catechism). There is not necessarily, however, any contradiction in reconciling the dharma, if it is such, to be more public with the dharma, felt inwardly, to be more in the Self. This is, at least, as I view it. Indeed as my teacher, Swami Kriyananda, used to say, "Reality is both-and."
"When this "I" shall die, then shall "I" know "Who am I"" "Thy will, Lord, not my will."
Blessings,
Nayaswami Hriman
Oh, yes, it was an adventure, all right--driving from Germany through Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan and then to the Indian subcontinent: down one side of India by car and up the other, with extended stays here and there, including Sri Lanka and Nepal, just to mention two.
But it was also a spiritual quest and in this I returned empty handed: like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz and with her little dog, Toto. Not only was I not in "Kansas" anymore but I learned, as she did from the Wizard, that all I was seeking was to be found at home. "What you don't bother to seek within, you will not find without," said Swami Sri Yukteswar (in "Autobiography of a Yogi," by Paramhansa Yogananda). Or, as Mark Twain ruefully put it.....travel is a fool's paradise....wherever I went that fellow Mark Twain had to come, too (I couldn't get rid of him and his foibles).
But in the middle of the night at 30,000 feet, stretched out over several seats (in the old days when that actually could happen), I realized that what I sought I had not found on my own. There came to me by way of intuition (and not so much in words), the recognition and acceptance that my spiritual search needed to be in association with others of like mind. I realized too that I had been resisting this important reality.
It was not long after returning to my childhood home in Monterey, CA that I met my future wife, Padma. She introduced me to "Autobiography of a Yogi" and then to Ananda Village (and Swami Kriyananda). We soon moved there and the rest, as they say, "is history."
I have long thought that this revelation was done with me; I had received it, acted upon it, and life went on. But recently I have had to face the reality that this "chicken" (to quote my prior blog on being over 60 years old) had returned to the roost. It came in the form of a gift: a gift from my adult children in the form of a Vedic astrology reading! In this reading (by John "Drupada" MacDonald), I was told that, unlike my western astrology chart had told me, I was influenced by the sign Scorpio and by that of Virgo.
I have no interest in explaining these astrological terms (since it would only show my profound ignorance) but I will say that my decades long assumption that I reflected more the balanced and loving and outgoing aspects of Libra (sun sign) went up in smoke.
Ironically, the first thing I said to Drupada on our video chat (where he was to reveal to me the interpretation of my Vedic chart), was that "I had come out of my cave to speak with him." I don't know why I said those words, for I had never used them before to describe the small home office space I inhabit, but I did. He laughed and used my words to reveal my "scorpio" (hiding like a scorpion under a rock before emerging to sting someone) tendencies.
Further irony is that he says my chart indicates an upcoming period of greater public visibility while personally I feel just the opposite. Whether cave or rock, that's where I feel most comfortable at this point in my life.
I recall that as a young child I played long hours on my own. I'd play out in the sand, dirt, lawn, and gravel creating a pretend world of cars and trucks. My mother said I asked all the "big" questions which she claims she was at a loss to answer.
All my adult life I have had a consistent tendency to prefer working on my own, not wanting to involve or "bother" other people. At the same time I've realized that I (like everyone else) am largely incapable of accomplishing anything other than the trivial on my own.
Moving away from the uncomfortable subject of "me," I want to say that we humans and we as souls are not only social but we are part of the fabric of a greater consciousness and can never, never function on our own except in meaningless ways. The greatest artists, scientists, humanitarians and saints all were nurtured in a milieu that supported their unique genius.
Yet, at the same time, spiritually speaking, we face our "God" alone, just we must face death alone, no matter those who may surround us. Only we, alone and facing the seeming emptiness and darkness which lies beyond the realm of the body and the outer world, can confront the void and the infinite bliss which is God and which is our soul's true nature.
What an irony! In the world of action, which includes therefore, karma and our efforts to work out our karma and fulfill our soul's dharma to achieve freedom, we must work with other souls; other realities than our own ego. As an ego we are less than insignificant. As a soul, we are God incarnate, a spark of the Infinite flame. To the degree we live and act in attunement with the greater reality of Life which could be called God, we discover meaning and achieve fulfillment.
Our oneness with life confronts our existential aloneness in seeking God. These two realities are but sides of the same coin of the one reality. The ego must die so that the soul, which is eternal, can be reborn. The bridge might be called "nishkam karma." Nishkam karma is the way of action which leads to "inaction" (meaning: loss of personal doership, loss of ego).
We are enjoined by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, and by great scriptures and saints everywhere, to "act without thought of self-interest." To fulfill our God-given duties as best we can, calmly, joyfully, with excellence and yet, without attachment to the consequences: this is nishkam karma. In this action I act without thought of what I get in return, whether money, recognition, self-satisfaction....any thought of "what I want." Whether we withdraw or engage, either can be nishkam karma or just plain karma, it depends upon intention and consciousness.
I may feel like withdrawing from the field of battle but, like Arjuna in the beloved Gita, I must "bear arms" and continue the good fight, serving the Light, working out my karma and fulfilling my divine dharma to "know, love, and serve God" in this world (quote from the Catholic Baltimore Catechism). There is not necessarily, however, any contradiction in reconciling the dharma, if it is such, to be more public with the dharma, felt inwardly, to be more in the Self. This is, at least, as I view it. Indeed as my teacher, Swami Kriyananda, used to say, "Reality is both-and."
"When this "I" shall die, then shall "I" know "Who am I"" "Thy will, Lord, not my will."
Blessings,
Nayaswami Hriman
Friday, March 21, 2014
Exploring: Do You Mind?
In the renowned spiritual classic, "Autobiography of a Yogi," the author, Paramhansa Yogananda, relates how a skeptical scientist once visited Yogananda's guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, and expressed his disbelief in God. Sri Yukteswar responded with the suggestion that the scientist spend a day carefully tracking and examining his thoughts. Then, Sri Yukteswar posited, wonder no more at the absence of the godhead!
By this he meant that our thoughts are so restless, random and self-involving that we have no interest or space for perceiving a higher reality and consciousness. In the same book is a quotation of an ancient poem that avers that conquering nations or wild animals pales in comparison to taming the mind.
No one who has attempted to meditate deeply and consistently can fail to recognize the truth herein. While some meditators may struggle with physical discomforts or distractions, all meditators struggle with restless, random, and even negative thoughts and their royal attendants, the emotions.
Am I less aware if I stop thinking? Or more aware? When we are distracted, busy, or frantic, we lack the clarity to address tasks successfully. When emotionally upset we can't think straight and we make mistakes. If you have ever stopped to gaze at a sunset or an entrancing scene in nature, you can only appreciate it deeply if you let your thoughts be still and drink it all in, isn't it so?
Those who have had experiences that are often described as "peak experiences" enter into a state of awareness that goes beyond thought but includes an heightened sense of awareness.
Take a moment to try something: Look up (as if peering a foot or so just past the upper eyebrows). Do so with an attitude of curiosity, of interest, and even calm adventure. Let a subtle smile play upon your lips as you do this. Cock your head to the side as if attempting to listen to someone soft-spoken (or a distant sound) whose words are important to you. Or, hold this pose (looking up and turning your head as if to listen) as if you need a moment to remember some past event or task you wanted to accomplish (but couldn't yet remember). In this pose, we automatically and instinctively release our thought processes in order to focus on recall (or perceive) something important. It's not unlike a computer which, when you click to retrieve a file, the cursor spins and all other computations or processes halt while it searches the hard disk for a file.
Try this little experiment sitting in your car waiting for the light to turn green. Or, before turning to the next task at your desk when you've just finished some other. Turn and gaze out the window with this "mudra" pose of curiosity, interest and listening! Each time you'll find that the mind obediently relinquishes its tight grip on your consciousness so that you can focus.
Another experiment is to imagine yourself attempting to thread the eye of a sewing needle. After wetting and curling the tip of the thread, you position it in front of the needle's eye and very carefully attempt to ease the thread through. At that moment your breath and heart becomes quiet and your thoughts quiet while focused on your task!
All this is fine in respect to outward tasks but when we sit to meditate, close our eyes, with the body relaxed into an upright natural position, we find almost immediately that we can barely count (mentally) to 10 without wandering off like some little curious monkey or puppy.
To meditate deeply one needs an effective technique and proper and sustained training with someone who has experience. No recorded meditation, book, or online lessons can substitute. Such things can "tell" you what to do but cannot convey the art of doing it.
While a heightened state of meditative awareness supercedes any techniques, the techniques prepare the body and mind to transcend the pressing and habitual demands of the body and mind. A superior athlete or performer uses warming up exercises and routines to get into "shape," both mentally and physically. So, too, does the yogi: one who undertakes the consistent disciplining of the mind as part of the journey towards self-understanding, increased awareness and Self-realization. A yogi is a kind of metaphysical scientist, exploring the realm and realities of consciousness using the tools of body and mind conditioning. The body needs conditioning in order that it cooperate rather than fight the effort to explore the mind. In fact, it goes much deeper than that but let's hold that for later, or, not.
Ultimately the state of true meditation is aptly stated as a kind of aphorism from the Old Testament, "Be still and KNOW THAT I AM---GOD!" I don't want to run off on a God-subject right now, and so for my purposes here, I want to stay on the theme of how to still restless thoughts in order that we can see, and therefore become a SEER (of reality) in an enhanced state of self-awareness and perception. The point is well made and more clinically by Patanjali in the second stanza of the Yoga Sutras: "The state of yoga-oneness is achieved by stilling all physical and mental processes." (Warning: loose translation!)
To explore the mind we have to transcend the mind: the lower, ego-active mind (and emotions, preoccupations, fight or flight, likes and dislikes). It is pure consciousness that the yogi-scientist seeks to look. It's the "Holy Grail" of absolute zero (aka perfect stillness), the speed of light (aka infinity).
The mind is bound to the body and its sense organs and its subconscious and conscious mind through the breath and everything the breath represents: ego. To untie the breath from body is not to physically die for the yogi-scientists of old discovered how to work with the breath and the mind to achieve states of deep quiescence. The masters of yoga can stop their breath and heart at will without any damage to the body, brain or nervous system. During the 19th and 20th centuries in India such demonstrations were conducted in the presence of western doctors and scientists.
As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in his now famous life story, "Autobiography of a Yogi," India's contribution to the treasury of human knowledge is breath mastery. So long as we are breathing in the normal way and the heart is beating, we are fighting "city hall" to achieve focus of the mind without outer activity.
Thus the yogis gave us various breath and mind control techniques. Absolute breathlessness may be the gold standard but long before achieving such a state, deep insights and states of expanded consciousness are achieved even as the breath and heart gradually come under our control.
But, you have to want it and you have to be trained on how to do it! The subconscious mind and the ego DON'T WANT TO DO IT. They want to stay in the driver's seat and feed upon random thoughts like small animals who move about constantly sniffing out morsels on the ground to munch on. These small "animals," if threatened, band together and in their combined numbers, though individually small, will bare their teeth and push you around, even kick you around, once you try to re-gain control over your own mind. "I don't mind" means I give up and succumb to the passivity of the subconscious and the reactive processes of my likes and dislikes and self-preoccupations.
Enter the bullfighter: MINDFULNESS! He's going to combat the stubborn bull of the ego-mind. He's a good fighter but he doesn't wrestle the bull with his bare hands. He's too smart for that. Instead, he uses consummate skill in handling his red cape to bring the bull under his control and command. The red cape attracts the bull's attention and by using it repeatedly, the torero can tire the bull and bring him into submission.
The bullfighter employs psychological techniques, displaying confidence, charm, and courage. For all his daring, however, he knows the bull is much bigger and can kill him, so he must be patient and skillful.
What we mean by this metaphor is that meditation techniques typically give the monkey mind something to focus on: the breath, a mantra, an image, or a sound....or some combination of these. By this internally focused approach, the mind and breath and heart begin to slow and become deeply calm. But, unlike a bull who lives only by instinct, our mind is of two minds: when it is time to meditate, part of the mind wants to and part does not! (You can guess "Who's who.")
You have to nurture and encourage the higher mind so that it can assert itself. You have to want to BE STILL and know! There's a further thing, here, too: achieving a deeper state is not just mere matter of manipulating the breathing and heart. The state we seek is super-conscious and we cannot force it to obey our mere will by whipping its more mechanical parts. This state pre-exists our awareness of it. We have to enter, then, into a conscious, loving and giving relationship with it. At first, then, it is dual: I-Thou. Only in time, do we enter and become that state, which is non-dual. To do this abstractly is unsuitable for most people. Thus it is natural, indeed, necessary for most, that this state take on human form, or at least some form! This can take the form of a deity, one's guru (living or in Spirit only), or even a quality such as peace, love, or joy.
We must first clear the deck of the mind of restlessness. We must seek to be still. Only in the quiet chamber of the still heart and mind, in the relaxed body temple of the soul, will our Beloved enter. This state of perfect stillness must not only be desired, it must be "felt." This is where the art comes in and where one who has had some success with this proves far more valuable in the role of teacher than detailed instructions written in a book (or in a blog!). The intuitive "feeling" of a meditative state can be conveyed one-on-one to one who seeks it and does so with sensitive awareness and openness. (As an aside, this "transmission" need not require the physical presence of one's teacher, if such teacher is spiritually advanced. Attunement is, itself, first and foremost, an intuitive state of consciousness and intuition knows no barriers of time and space. This is why devotion to saints long departed from this earth can bestow tangible blessings on a sincere devotee.)
Do you remember how it was in the Old Testament that Moses, while leading the Israelites from captivity, could, nonetheless NOT enter the promised land? This means that our ego, no matter how sincere and energized through will power and desire, must subside in favor of receptivity and openness to receive a state of consciousness that is more expansive and that already exists. It too must, as we do when we meet someone, bow where spectators only stand and watch. Thus the essential and foundational requirement of humility, receptivity, and openness.
In more dramatic depictions of the self-sacrifice of ego, we have images such as Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac, his only son at the request of God--something no father would ordinarily consider. Martyrdom, intense prayer, personal sacrifice and self-deprivations and on and on.....all of these at least symbolize the core necessity that the ego submit itself to the flow of grace. These specific examples are not demanded or expected of mere beginning meditators, of course, and for most of us they are but illustrative. But, if one would stop for a moment, and consider the entry fee to achieve infinite consciousness, well, guess what the price is: yes, the ultimate. Fear not, when that time comes, even if, like Jesus himself who prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, "May this cup pass from me," you, too, will likely conclude, "Thy will be done."
Be not doubtful that the ego will resist this invitation (each time one meditates, what to mention at the final step of liberation!), but the irony is that our consciousness is not obliterated or submerged in the state of superconsciousness. Indeed, it expands with great joy into the Sea of Consciousness from which it has been sent! In God, nothing is ever lost. There is no time, no dimensions, no past, no future. All that we have been remains PRESENT. We simply expand and return home to Infinite consciousness. But the ego can never be convinced of this. It takes an act of faith, not just will, to meditate deeply. There is an intuitive gnosis, knowing, a remembrance (Patanjali calls it "smriti") that awakens and nurtures an individual to want to meditate
Ah, but I digress to the depths. Let us return, then, to the surface of our subject where the breeze is fresh and the sunlight bright, where birds chirp with delight, sitting on the patio in the morning sun, cappuccino and croissant at the ready.
Next time, then, let us explore the eight stages of meditation, inspired and given to us by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.
Enough a 'ready..........blessings abound as Spring flowers surround us!
Nayaswami Hriman
By this he meant that our thoughts are so restless, random and self-involving that we have no interest or space for perceiving a higher reality and consciousness. In the same book is a quotation of an ancient poem that avers that conquering nations or wild animals pales in comparison to taming the mind.
No one who has attempted to meditate deeply and consistently can fail to recognize the truth herein. While some meditators may struggle with physical discomforts or distractions, all meditators struggle with restless, random, and even negative thoughts and their royal attendants, the emotions.
Am I less aware if I stop thinking? Or more aware? When we are distracted, busy, or frantic, we lack the clarity to address tasks successfully. When emotionally upset we can't think straight and we make mistakes. If you have ever stopped to gaze at a sunset or an entrancing scene in nature, you can only appreciate it deeply if you let your thoughts be still and drink it all in, isn't it so?
Those who have had experiences that are often described as "peak experiences" enter into a state of awareness that goes beyond thought but includes an heightened sense of awareness.
Take a moment to try something: Look up (as if peering a foot or so just past the upper eyebrows). Do so with an attitude of curiosity, of interest, and even calm adventure. Let a subtle smile play upon your lips as you do this. Cock your head to the side as if attempting to listen to someone soft-spoken (or a distant sound) whose words are important to you. Or, hold this pose (looking up and turning your head as if to listen) as if you need a moment to remember some past event or task you wanted to accomplish (but couldn't yet remember). In this pose, we automatically and instinctively release our thought processes in order to focus on recall (or perceive) something important. It's not unlike a computer which, when you click to retrieve a file, the cursor spins and all other computations or processes halt while it searches the hard disk for a file.
Try this little experiment sitting in your car waiting for the light to turn green. Or, before turning to the next task at your desk when you've just finished some other. Turn and gaze out the window with this "mudra" pose of curiosity, interest and listening! Each time you'll find that the mind obediently relinquishes its tight grip on your consciousness so that you can focus.
Another experiment is to imagine yourself attempting to thread the eye of a sewing needle. After wetting and curling the tip of the thread, you position it in front of the needle's eye and very carefully attempt to ease the thread through. At that moment your breath and heart becomes quiet and your thoughts quiet while focused on your task!
All this is fine in respect to outward tasks but when we sit to meditate, close our eyes, with the body relaxed into an upright natural position, we find almost immediately that we can barely count (mentally) to 10 without wandering off like some little curious monkey or puppy.
To meditate deeply one needs an effective technique and proper and sustained training with someone who has experience. No recorded meditation, book, or online lessons can substitute. Such things can "tell" you what to do but cannot convey the art of doing it.
While a heightened state of meditative awareness supercedes any techniques, the techniques prepare the body and mind to transcend the pressing and habitual demands of the body and mind. A superior athlete or performer uses warming up exercises and routines to get into "shape," both mentally and physically. So, too, does the yogi: one who undertakes the consistent disciplining of the mind as part of the journey towards self-understanding, increased awareness and Self-realization. A yogi is a kind of metaphysical scientist, exploring the realm and realities of consciousness using the tools of body and mind conditioning. The body needs conditioning in order that it cooperate rather than fight the effort to explore the mind. In fact, it goes much deeper than that but let's hold that for later, or, not.
Ultimately the state of true meditation is aptly stated as a kind of aphorism from the Old Testament, "Be still and KNOW THAT I AM---GOD!" I don't want to run off on a God-subject right now, and so for my purposes here, I want to stay on the theme of how to still restless thoughts in order that we can see, and therefore become a SEER (of reality) in an enhanced state of self-awareness and perception. The point is well made and more clinically by Patanjali in the second stanza of the Yoga Sutras: "The state of yoga-oneness is achieved by stilling all physical and mental processes." (Warning: loose translation!)
To explore the mind we have to transcend the mind: the lower, ego-active mind (and emotions, preoccupations, fight or flight, likes and dislikes). It is pure consciousness that the yogi-scientist seeks to look. It's the "Holy Grail" of absolute zero (aka perfect stillness), the speed of light (aka infinity).
The mind is bound to the body and its sense organs and its subconscious and conscious mind through the breath and everything the breath represents: ego. To untie the breath from body is not to physically die for the yogi-scientists of old discovered how to work with the breath and the mind to achieve states of deep quiescence. The masters of yoga can stop their breath and heart at will without any damage to the body, brain or nervous system. During the 19th and 20th centuries in India such demonstrations were conducted in the presence of western doctors and scientists.
As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in his now famous life story, "Autobiography of a Yogi," India's contribution to the treasury of human knowledge is breath mastery. So long as we are breathing in the normal way and the heart is beating, we are fighting "city hall" to achieve focus of the mind without outer activity.
Thus the yogis gave us various breath and mind control techniques. Absolute breathlessness may be the gold standard but long before achieving such a state, deep insights and states of expanded consciousness are achieved even as the breath and heart gradually come under our control.
But, you have to want it and you have to be trained on how to do it! The subconscious mind and the ego DON'T WANT TO DO IT. They want to stay in the driver's seat and feed upon random thoughts like small animals who move about constantly sniffing out morsels on the ground to munch on. These small "animals," if threatened, band together and in their combined numbers, though individually small, will bare their teeth and push you around, even kick you around, once you try to re-gain control over your own mind. "I don't mind" means I give up and succumb to the passivity of the subconscious and the reactive processes of my likes and dislikes and self-preoccupations.
Enter the bullfighter: MINDFULNESS! He's going to combat the stubborn bull of the ego-mind. He's a good fighter but he doesn't wrestle the bull with his bare hands. He's too smart for that. Instead, he uses consummate skill in handling his red cape to bring the bull under his control and command. The red cape attracts the bull's attention and by using it repeatedly, the torero can tire the bull and bring him into submission.
The bullfighter employs psychological techniques, displaying confidence, charm, and courage. For all his daring, however, he knows the bull is much bigger and can kill him, so he must be patient and skillful.
What we mean by this metaphor is that meditation techniques typically give the monkey mind something to focus on: the breath, a mantra, an image, or a sound....or some combination of these. By this internally focused approach, the mind and breath and heart begin to slow and become deeply calm. But, unlike a bull who lives only by instinct, our mind is of two minds: when it is time to meditate, part of the mind wants to and part does not! (You can guess "Who's who.")
You have to nurture and encourage the higher mind so that it can assert itself. You have to want to BE STILL and know! There's a further thing, here, too: achieving a deeper state is not just mere matter of manipulating the breathing and heart. The state we seek is super-conscious and we cannot force it to obey our mere will by whipping its more mechanical parts. This state pre-exists our awareness of it. We have to enter, then, into a conscious, loving and giving relationship with it. At first, then, it is dual: I-Thou. Only in time, do we enter and become that state, which is non-dual. To do this abstractly is unsuitable for most people. Thus it is natural, indeed, necessary for most, that this state take on human form, or at least some form! This can take the form of a deity, one's guru (living or in Spirit only), or even a quality such as peace, love, or joy.
We must first clear the deck of the mind of restlessness. We must seek to be still. Only in the quiet chamber of the still heart and mind, in the relaxed body temple of the soul, will our Beloved enter. This state of perfect stillness must not only be desired, it must be "felt." This is where the art comes in and where one who has had some success with this proves far more valuable in the role of teacher than detailed instructions written in a book (or in a blog!). The intuitive "feeling" of a meditative state can be conveyed one-on-one to one who seeks it and does so with sensitive awareness and openness. (As an aside, this "transmission" need not require the physical presence of one's teacher, if such teacher is spiritually advanced. Attunement is, itself, first and foremost, an intuitive state of consciousness and intuition knows no barriers of time and space. This is why devotion to saints long departed from this earth can bestow tangible blessings on a sincere devotee.)
Do you remember how it was in the Old Testament that Moses, while leading the Israelites from captivity, could, nonetheless NOT enter the promised land? This means that our ego, no matter how sincere and energized through will power and desire, must subside in favor of receptivity and openness to receive a state of consciousness that is more expansive and that already exists. It too must, as we do when we meet someone, bow where spectators only stand and watch. Thus the essential and foundational requirement of humility, receptivity, and openness.
In more dramatic depictions of the self-sacrifice of ego, we have images such as Abraham being willing to sacrifice Isaac, his only son at the request of God--something no father would ordinarily consider. Martyrdom, intense prayer, personal sacrifice and self-deprivations and on and on.....all of these at least symbolize the core necessity that the ego submit itself to the flow of grace. These specific examples are not demanded or expected of mere beginning meditators, of course, and for most of us they are but illustrative. But, if one would stop for a moment, and consider the entry fee to achieve infinite consciousness, well, guess what the price is: yes, the ultimate. Fear not, when that time comes, even if, like Jesus himself who prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, "May this cup pass from me," you, too, will likely conclude, "Thy will be done."
Be not doubtful that the ego will resist this invitation (each time one meditates, what to mention at the final step of liberation!), but the irony is that our consciousness is not obliterated or submerged in the state of superconsciousness. Indeed, it expands with great joy into the Sea of Consciousness from which it has been sent! In God, nothing is ever lost. There is no time, no dimensions, no past, no future. All that we have been remains PRESENT. We simply expand and return home to Infinite consciousness. But the ego can never be convinced of this. It takes an act of faith, not just will, to meditate deeply. There is an intuitive gnosis, knowing, a remembrance (Patanjali calls it "smriti") that awakens and nurtures an individual to want to meditate
Ah, but I digress to the depths. Let us return, then, to the surface of our subject where the breeze is fresh and the sunlight bright, where birds chirp with delight, sitting on the patio in the morning sun, cappuccino and croissant at the ready.
Next time, then, let us explore the eight stages of meditation, inspired and given to us by Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras.
Enough a 'ready..........blessings abound as Spring flowers surround us!
Nayaswami Hriman
Monday, October 14, 2013
Should We be Optimistic or Pessimistic?
Well, both are, at least, "mystics!" By this, I mean now "vague" and "uneasy." There is little more fraught with error than predicting the future. And that's my point, really. It's not the predicted or potential future scenario that should suggest our state of mind. As I enjoy saying: "You have to be present to win." And to take a bad joke further down, it's not the present "tense!"
Be present, then. Be calm, content (without being passive), even-minded (even in adversity), enthusiastic (without dependency on outcomes).......well, you get the idea.
In my last post, I described Dmitry Orlov's book, The Five Stages of Collapse. No doubt someone out there in a digital listening post has already taken note, for this book is subversive to the power status quo. Whereas Facebook postings of my sweet, newborn granddaughter attracted well over one hundred 'likes,' my blog on this book was almost entirely ignored.
Think how few Jews in Germany, even among the small percentage who had the means, got out? To quote Frank Zappa, the weird 60's rock musician social commentator, most think "It can't happen here."
Orlov's admittedly dire predictions based on a worldwide scarce resources consuming binge and red hot government printing presses desperate to hope for never ending economic growth and productivity gains in the future to pay our escalating present debt, are neither shocking nor new. We just think that "it can't happen here!" Those of us of the post world war "baby-boom" have no yardstick of comparable measure for the more commonplace boom and bust and wars and pestilences to which the human drama down through the ages is subject. We have lived truly in a bubble. Travel and communication reveals a very different reality for most of the billions of other inhabitants with whom we share this planet.
It is really NOT a question of optimistic or pessimistic; rather: realistic. The Ananda Community movement has succeeded or has been required to succeed at the margins of mainstream developing countries by banding together, pooling skills and resources, and coming up with products and services to serve the alternative and conscious, simple living community worldwide.
Bear in mind, that Ananda's "mission" is first and foremost a spiritual one: sharing kriya yoga and the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and his foremost public spokesperson (disciple), Swami Kriyananda. However, it is not entirely possible to separate the two messages. Yogananda was bold in spreading the message of a new age (based on the astrological and intuitive wisdom of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar) but he was equally blunt in saying it wouldn't be pretty (at first). As spiritual transformation is nothing less than annihilation of the petty ego, the dawn of new age of higher conscious won't be born without birth pangs.
While the spiritual message is indeed for everyone "with ears to hear," so is the second message: be prepared. I, as much as most, do not wish to be associated with some cultish group announcing the end of the world as we know it! But Orlov's book confirms the value of small groups of people helping one another, and others, and developing a new and sustainable way of life for human life on this planet, that we might not only survive to tell a happy story, but that human consciousness might grow towards a greater awareness of the oneness of all life, in outer harmony of action and relationship, in use and consumption of resources, energy, and creative endeavors, and, finally in attunement with God, our creator and true Self. It's a public service, so to speak, where everyone wins!
What part each of us plays in this tide is as unique as we are. But what is offered to see is the radical transformation in us as souls and in society at large, at least in its outer appearance.
It's good news, not bad news.....at least for those who can read the "head-lines." "What is Thy will, Lord?" "How can I serve Thee in others?"
Joy to you!
Swami Hrimananda!
Be present, then. Be calm, content (without being passive), even-minded (even in adversity), enthusiastic (without dependency on outcomes).......well, you get the idea.
In my last post, I described Dmitry Orlov's book, The Five Stages of Collapse. No doubt someone out there in a digital listening post has already taken note, for this book is subversive to the power status quo. Whereas Facebook postings of my sweet, newborn granddaughter attracted well over one hundred 'likes,' my blog on this book was almost entirely ignored.
Think how few Jews in Germany, even among the small percentage who had the means, got out? To quote Frank Zappa, the weird 60's rock musician social commentator, most think "It can't happen here."
Orlov's admittedly dire predictions based on a worldwide scarce resources consuming binge and red hot government printing presses desperate to hope for never ending economic growth and productivity gains in the future to pay our escalating present debt, are neither shocking nor new. We just think that "it can't happen here!" Those of us of the post world war "baby-boom" have no yardstick of comparable measure for the more commonplace boom and bust and wars and pestilences to which the human drama down through the ages is subject. We have lived truly in a bubble. Travel and communication reveals a very different reality for most of the billions of other inhabitants with whom we share this planet.
It is really NOT a question of optimistic or pessimistic; rather: realistic. The Ananda Community movement has succeeded or has been required to succeed at the margins of mainstream developing countries by banding together, pooling skills and resources, and coming up with products and services to serve the alternative and conscious, simple living community worldwide.
Bear in mind, that Ananda's "mission" is first and foremost a spiritual one: sharing kriya yoga and the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda and his foremost public spokesperson (disciple), Swami Kriyananda. However, it is not entirely possible to separate the two messages. Yogananda was bold in spreading the message of a new age (based on the astrological and intuitive wisdom of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar) but he was equally blunt in saying it wouldn't be pretty (at first). As spiritual transformation is nothing less than annihilation of the petty ego, the dawn of new age of higher conscious won't be born without birth pangs.
While the spiritual message is indeed for everyone "with ears to hear," so is the second message: be prepared. I, as much as most, do not wish to be associated with some cultish group announcing the end of the world as we know it! But Orlov's book confirms the value of small groups of people helping one another, and others, and developing a new and sustainable way of life for human life on this planet, that we might not only survive to tell a happy story, but that human consciousness might grow towards a greater awareness of the oneness of all life, in outer harmony of action and relationship, in use and consumption of resources, energy, and creative endeavors, and, finally in attunement with God, our creator and true Self. It's a public service, so to speak, where everyone wins!
What part each of us plays in this tide is as unique as we are. But what is offered to see is the radical transformation in us as souls and in society at large, at least in its outer appearance.
It's good news, not bad news.....at least for those who can read the "head-lines." "What is Thy will, Lord?" "How can I serve Thee in others?"
Joy to you!
Swami Hrimananda!
Sunday, September 1, 2013
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
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
Friday, March 29, 2013
Kolkata: Home of Saints, Avatars, Poets, Scientists & Revolutionaries
Part 2 in Pilgrimage to India series:
In the pre-dawn darkness we boarded the train from Puri to Kolkata: the same train and tracks that Paramhansa Yogananda and his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, would have taken together from about 1910 to 1920. (Sri Yukteswar would have gone there from 1903 to 1936 by train.)
Yes, indeed, the train looked like it was the same one, too. You couldn't open the windows or even really see out of the train windows and the bathroom was simply a hole in the floor: need I say more? It was, however, air conditioned, but even that was mostly an affirmation. For nearly eight hours we rode north along the coast and inland before arriving at Howrah Railway Station, Calcutta: perhaps India's greatest and largest and most famous railway station. Here Lahiri Mahasaya, Paramhansa Yogananda, Swami Sri Yukteswar, innumerable devotees and perhaps even Ramakrishna and most certain his great disciple, Vivekananda, and also Ananda Moyi Ma would have boarded and exited trains!
But Howrah was surprisingly tidy and quiet: not at all what I expected. There's an old building, where we de-trained, and a newer one. The rail yards are quite large and extensive. We boarded our tour bus but instead of crossing the Hoogli River into Calcutta by the Howrah Bridge, we circled around and entered the city across a brand new, modern suspension bridge to soon arrive at our hotel, the lovely and welcoming Kenilworth. (The Hoogli River is a branch of the Ganges as she splits apart to become the "mouths" of the Ganges flowing into the sea. For our purposes and that of most Indians, she is the Ganges!)
Fresh from the train ("a euphemism, merely, we were covered with soot" -- Autobiography of a Yogi), we soon got back on the bus (after depositing ourselves in the lovely and refreshing Kenilworth Hotel) to visit Yogananda's increasingly famous boyhood home at 4 Garpar Road, Calcutta. Somnath, the husband of Sarita (they have two grown daughers), is descended from Yogananda's younger brother, a well known artist in his own right, Sananda Lal Ghosh. The family, with assistance from devotees, have restored and now maintain the home for the purposes of serving devotees from all over the world. Treasures in photos and paintings (including colorized photos), personal belongings and of course a place of pilgrimage await all who come with devotion. Yogananda's bedroom; his attic meditation room; the spot where Babaji stood to bless his journey to the West....this and much more bring the great guru to life in his youthful vitality.
We had two visits there; the second one came three days later, on March 7, the day that commemorates Yogananda's "mahasamadhi" (conscious exit from his physical body). (On that day in 1952 in a crowded banquet room of the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles, Yogananda left this world speaking of his India and his America!)
So we chanted and meditated, taking turns meditating in Yogananda's bedroom and in his attic meditation room while having our central spot in the upstairs living room. On March 7, we had a discipleship renewal ceremony. All told, I think I can speak for most of us in saying this home was one of the trip's many highlights. The family served a catered lunch to us on that Thursday, March 7 and shared some time-honored stories of Yogananda's upbringing.
On March 5, the day after our arrival and after our first visit to Garpar Road, we visited the home of Yogananda's boyhood friend: Tulsi Bose. It is down the block and around the corner. You could never imagine it being what it really is: one of India's most precious shrines, but unknown to all of India and the world. For reasons of destiny, Yogananda's own home contained too large a family and was too busy a place for his youthful spiritual search. Divine Mother caused him to seek and meet young Tulsi Bose, whose home was quieter and better suited for satsang (spiritual gatherings), although considerably smaller. Master (Yogananda) spent much time there both as a high school and college student but also upon his only return visit to India, spanning 1935-1936. Stories from family and friends abound, for Yogananda's return to India was a big sensation throughout India but most certainly in Bengal: local boy does good! He was as much a spiritual sensation and sought-after speaker in India as he had been during his barnstorming days in America in the Twenties and Thirties.
There is what is now an old somewhat fragile guest chair in the tiny (12' x 15' ?) downstairs living room where the likes of Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar, perhaps Lahiri Mahasaya, plus one or more of Lahiri's most advanced disciples, Swami Vivekananda, anyone?, and who knows how many other saints (and I think that includes Ananda Moyi Ma, and maybe even Ramakrishna's widow, Sharda Devi?), had sat and where chanting, meditation, and high spiritual experiences, too numerous to attempt to catalogue here, had taken place. Just try sitting in that chair: a kind of "electric" chair! But be careful: it is very fragile!
Upstairs is the tiger skin that Sri Yukteswar meditated upon; plus the deerskin of Yogananda and the bed where they had slept at various visits. We took turns sitting on these to meditate! In an tiny upstairs meditation room are relics so numerous they've yet to be classified. One that stands out for most of us is an iron trident said to be given by Babaji to Lahiri, Lahiri to Sri Yukteswar, S.Y. to Master, and Master, having left it with Tulsi! The trident is the symbol of Shiva! Talk about "power."
I doubt anyone left there empty-hearted: awe-struck, at minimum, inwardly quiet and blissful, probably. And over all this tiny domain their reigns a queen of hearts, a custodian-saint worthy of the privilege: Tulsi's now elderly daughter, Hassi Mukherjee. Hassi was blessed by Master in 1936 when Hassi's mother, Tulsi's wife (chosen for him by Master), was pregnant. Years later Hassi, as a young girl, spoke to Master in Los Angeles by telephone when he would ring up to see how the family was doing. Master always watched over his extended, human family, even from afar, in America.
After a catered lunch in this tiny home, we motored to the nearby Dakshineswar Temple, home of Ramakrishna's life-long lila (life drama) -- as resident "avatar!" We chanted on the very spot in the portico opposite the statue of Divine Mother (Goddess Kali), where Master had an experience of Divine Mother as he describes in his autobiography. We watched the sunset across the Hoogli and meditated in the bedroom where Ramakrishna lived for 30 years.
What a day that was!
Calcutta has an interesting role in the history of modern India: from the mid to late 19th century until about the 1930's (as I understand it), West Bengal spawned a rise in nationalism and national and cultural pride through the genius and courage of such great souls as Rabindranath Tagore (poet laureate), J.C. Bose (scientist), reformers of Hinduism, revolutionaries, and, of course, an entire line of avatars! For those interested in historical matters, and who find synchronicity fascinating, it is well worth researching.
Calcutta has an interesting role in the history of modern India: from the mid to late 19th century until about the 1930's (as I understand it), West Bengal spawned a rise in nationalism and national and cultural pride through the genius and courage of such great souls as Rabindranath Tagore (poet laureate), J.C. Bose (scientist), reformers of Hinduism, revolutionaries, and, of course, an entire line of avatars! For those interested in historical matters, and who find synchronicity fascinating, it is well worth researching.
Wednesday, March 6, we crossed the Hoogli and went upriver to the town of Serampore: actually, Sri Ram Pur (city): site of Swami Sri Yukteswar's home. The home is mostly gone and now off limits to visitors, being occupied by what we assume are his descendants. Instead, there is a small shrine next door where we meditated for a while.
Then we walked through the ancient and quaint lanes to the riverside to the Rai Ghat, where Babaji once appeared to Sri Yukteswar to congratulate him on the completion of his book, The Holy Science. (Babaji had asked and commissioned S.Y. to write this tome which was intended to announce the basic message of these avatars: that the underlying message of Christ and Krishna, of Christianity and Hinduism, is the same.)
At this bathing ghat, too, did S.Y. and his disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, would come in the early morning to bathe in the Ganges. Here we sat around the aged banyan (where Babaji and his band had stood to greet S.Y.), and chanted joyfully as throngs of locals pressed forward in curiosity. The experience was exhilarating. What a contrast between our hearts and minds and the mundane scene and thoughts of those around us. Presumably they did not understand our joy, though I would guess they have become somewhat accustomed to these groups of Westerners (and Indians) coming throughout the year to sit under the banyan tree and meditate.
These simple shrines and places specific to Yogananda and his line are yet to be particularly of note to modern Indian culture. Thus their seeming invisibility to the culture contrasts sharply with the intensity of feeling and magnetic draw they have for certain souls from around India and the world.
Then we walked through the ancient and quaint lanes to the riverside to the Rai Ghat, where Babaji once appeared to Sri Yukteswar to congratulate him on the completion of his book, The Holy Science. (Babaji had asked and commissioned S.Y. to write this tome which was intended to announce the basic message of these avatars: that the underlying message of Christ and Krishna, of Christianity and Hinduism, is the same.)
At this bathing ghat, too, did S.Y. and his disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda, would come in the early morning to bathe in the Ganges. Here we sat around the aged banyan (where Babaji and his band had stood to greet S.Y.), and chanted joyfully as throngs of locals pressed forward in curiosity. The experience was exhilarating. What a contrast between our hearts and minds and the mundane scene and thoughts of those around us. Presumably they did not understand our joy, though I would guess they have become somewhat accustomed to these groups of Westerners (and Indians) coming throughout the year to sit under the banyan tree and meditate.
These simple shrines and places specific to Yogananda and his line are yet to be particularly of note to modern Indian culture. Thus their seeming invisibility to the culture contrasts sharply with the intensity of feeling and magnetic draw they have for certain souls from around India and the world.
Then we crossed town to visit with the descendants of Master's elder brother, Ananta. Durlov, his wife, and his son greeted us and feed us a delightful lunch and regaled us to with family stories. Ananda members had, some years ago, intervened to help the family (in the spirit of Yogananda, himself, who always assisted his large, biological family, when in need) find a suitable place to live.
Next stop: Swami Kriyananda at Ananda Community, Pune! Pack your bags, we are off again!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Pitfalls of Meditation Revealed!
As one who has meditated for most of my adult life and who
has taught meditation for some twenty-five years, you might not expect me to
bring up the subject of meditation’s pitfalls or shortcomings. Perhaps it’s a
truth in advertising campaign.
A very good friend of mine and I were discussing the
spiritual path and brought up a common issue for those on the meditation path:
the dark side. But let me digress and build a foundation, because there are
many forms and approaches to meditation.
I practice and represent the kriya yoga meditation taught by
Paramhansa Yogananda. I was ordained to teach and initiate others into the kriya
yoga technique and path by Ananda’s founder, Swami Kriyananda, who was ordained
personally by Paramhansa Yogananda.
Millions have read and have found inspiration from Yogananda’s
now famous life story, Autobiography of a
Yogi, and from his teachings which are very positive and emphasize “ananda,”
the joy of the soul which is discoverable with special efficacy through the art
and science of meditation and the advanced technique of kriya yoga. (Worry not,
however, there is no claim to exclusivity here.)
Yogananda taught that in this new age (which in India is
termed “Dwapara Yuga” – the second age), the impulse of spiritually minded
souls would be to bring “Spirit to work” rather than to withdraw from the
material world in search of God. Few people today are spiritually inspired by
extreme forms of penance, austerity, or suffering. Rather, we find that love
for God and love for all beings and all creation is what inspires and motivates
us to embrace high ideals.
In the Ananda Sunday Service, the Festival of Light, we read
aloud that “whereas suffering and sorrow, in the past, were the coin of man’s
redemption, for us now the payment has been exchanged for calm acceptance and
joy.” It goes on to say that “pain is the fruit of self-love, whereas joy is
the fruit of love for God.” Yogananda emphasized therefore the positive aspects
of the spiritual life.
Kriya yoga is a part of raja yoga which is, in turn, an outgrowth
of the Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras from which comes the 8-Fold Path of spiritual
awakening. In the raja yoga techniques of meditation, concentration is
emphasized together with devotion. Both are practiced in the context of raising
our energy and consciousness from the lower centers in the body to the brain
wherein resides the seat of enlightenment. What this implies is a strong and
positive focal point and direction for one’s meditation.
Raja yoga meditation (which by definition includes kriya
yoga) is directional. While all meditation must be mindful, for what else is
meditation if not an expansion of self-awareness, it is not passive or
contemplative. This may seem contradictory or paradoxical but it is a both-and
experience. The more important point, however, is that it is not primarily
focused on the dark side, so to speak. It is not an effort to plumb the depths
of our delusions and blindnesses in an effort to root them out like weeds. By
holding our consciousness and energy up to the light of the superconscious
level of our soul we banish blindness and darkness, in effect, we turn on the “light”
and the “darkness” vanishes.
Or, does it?
Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras have much to say about the obstacles
and delusions of the mind, the subconscious, of delusion, and of past life
karma. He has much to say about the need to be truthful, non-attached, kind
etc. etc. There is nothing in the 8-Fold Path that suggests suppression or
denial of negativity or darkness.
So while the emphasis in raja yoga may indeed be a positive
one and once that works with moving “energy” upward, there is no lack of tools
or awareness of that which holds us down.
My teacher, Swami Kriyananda, has pointed out that in
raising energy to the brain (to the higher wisdom centers), we risk inflating
the ego’s self-involvement. Indeed, meditation can even enhance enjoyment of
sense pleasures. The ego (sense of separateness) is the first aspect of our
soul’s fall from grace (from the beginning of time) and its last great
struggle.
This is just one of many reasons why humility and devotion
to God and guru is so essential and part and parcel of the path of meditation
and the spiritual path in general. Patanjali enumerates at great length the
powers that come to one who rises in wisdom towards enlightenment. Many,
perhaps all, who seek God with increasing success must encounter the
temptations that come with spiritual power. Jesus was tempted that he might
have dominion over all creation if he would but worship Satan (creation itself)
for its own sake, separate from God.
It is no coincidence that Yogananda linked meditation with
fellowship. (So, of course, did Jesus Christ in quoting the Old Testament he summarized
his teachings in two parts: love God and love others as oneself.) At
Ananda this includes one of our central aspects: intentional community. But not
everyone is going to live in an intentional community. But for all of us, association
with others like-mind (which includes the company of those of greater wisdom)
is necessary and essential. Only a highly advanced soul can spiritually afford
to go on alone.
Swami Kriyananda tells the story of a businessman
in Vancouver, Canada who decried his day job of making money while yearning for
his meditation time at home. “What a waste,” Kriyananda thought. Outward
activity should help our meditation and meditation should help our daily life. Meditation
should be an attitude, a complete way of life. What we do during the day should
feed, inspire, and inform our inner peace and meditation practice, just as
meditation should enliven with even-mindedness, creativity, and calmness, our
activities.
I have made it a campaign from time to time over the years
to help remind meditators not to mistake meditation for the goal of meditation:
union with God. It is so very easy to enjoy meditation for its own sake. It is
so very easy to reap the benefits and rewards of meditation for that good
alone: health, creativity, energy, vitality, intuition, peace, and joy (to name
but a few). We might indeed gain dominion over all matter but lose our soul to
the “devil” of material delusion or to the affirmation of ego separateness.
The final frontier is to offer ourselves completely to God,
risking what, to the ego, seems to be annihilation but to the soul is
completion, oneness, and fulfillment, indeed, the gaining of Infinity and the
loss of absolutely nothing! It takes great courage, however, and the grace of
God and guru to step out of the cage and fly towards the Light.
In the positive upward thrust of meditation practice it is
sometimes a fact that the meditator loses touch with self-awareness, rather
than gaining self-awareness. For most meditators this is because they fall into
the habit of becoming semi-subconscious. This is when thoughts take over or one
enters a stream of consciousness state. Real meditation begins when our thoughts
are still. Patanjali’s most famous sutra, Yogas
chitta vrittis nirodha, could be interpreted as “One enters the state of
superconsciousness only when thoughts, mental-images, and feelings related
thereto cease.” There are also states of blankness, including at least one termed jada samadhi, that do nothing
spiritually but which demonstrate the power to enter a suspended state of
consciousness where time, motion, and decay stand still.
Long-term meditators who fall prey to subconscious states
are sometimes seen meditating with a a slumped posture, a head that droops down
or sometimes to the side, by bobbing downward or to the side, rocking back and forth (a pseudo-kundalini movement), or a sudden shift (marked by a brief, sharp breath) in breath
pattern to a long slow exhalation indicating entry into semi-subconsciousness. They might experience burning eyes, and their upward gaze begins to lower from their superconscious position (which consists of gazing intently but serenely into
the point-between-the-eyebrows). As thoughts subside in true meditation, the
breath becomes almost invisible, even ceasing for periods of time. In
meditation one feels more dynamically conscious even if time, surroundings, or
body-consciousness slips away. One never comes out of true meditation
wondering, “Where was I?” In meditation the “I” is always present: at first,
separate and self-aware of the process of meditation; later, expanded into
higher states without sense of separation but with complete and total
consciousness.
When there exists a firewall between what we experience in meditation and what we experience during activity, we find that we go “nowhere fast” (spiritually speaking). Sadly, I suspect this is the reality for most meditators who are not yet integrated.
Ananda Community residents are blessed with unceasing
opportunities to do spiritual work together, to live and meditate together, to
worship together, and to study together. This is an integrated way of life that
will be the pattern of dedicated spiritual living in this age. Not necessarily
by monks and nuns, but including couples and couples with children, this
complete way of life offers great promise to millions in the hundreds of years
to come.
When I first came to Ananda Village in 1977, I did not
understand this. Raised as a Catholic, I understood monasticism but didn’t yet
appreciate this new form of ashram, this new form of religious dedication, and
indeed a new way of life and religious “order.” Yogananda put it this way: “Church,
work, and family” all in one!
Getting back to our subject, then, meditators (whether
Ananda Community residents or everyone else) are challenged by the need to
include contemplation, introspection, mindfulness, and spiritual counseling in
their toolbox for the path of meditation. In addition, regular selfless
spiritual service and association with others is needful wherever you are.
A book (indeed books have been) could be written, on making
the day more meditatively mindful. I dare not launch in this direction for
there are so many tips and techniques. But my real point is that there may well
be some psychological obstacles, pitfalls, delusions, or addictions so strong
that one should seek counsel and contemplation, as well, as activating will
power to deal creatively and energetically with them.
If you have an anger problem and are a meditator, you need
to find creative ways to connect the dots between them. Hold your anger as
calmly as possible in your meditation and offer it to God and guru. Work
actively when it flashes to bring it under your control. It astonishes me how
many long-term meditators are as yet unaware of their attitudes and behavior.
Swami Sri Yukteswar (Yogananda’s guru) was famous for saying, “Learn to behave.”
We must walk our talk but we can’t do this unless we are aware that there’s a
yawning gap. “Mind the gap,” I like to say: we all have a gap between our
self-image and our actions. That can be good if it is an incentive to close the
gap but once the gap widens too much, we disconnect.
It’s ok and indeed helpful to hold up to the superconscious
mind and to your guru’s grace, your problems, your delusions, your shortcoming
for healing and light. Don’t make a big focus of it but don’t suppress, deny or
ignore them either. Do this, typically, at the end of your meditation when you
are hopefully the calmest and most uplifted.
“Connect the dots” between all the chakras; raise the “kundalini”
of separateness into the Light of God. Be at peace not just in meditation but
in speech, emotions, thoughts, and action.
Blessings to you,
Nayaswami Hriman
Friday, January 6, 2012
Who is Paramhansa
Yogananda?
Mukunda Lal Ghosh was born January 5, 1893 in India.
Destined to become one of the first swamis to come to America (he came in
1920), he became a sensation in America, touring in the 1920’s and 1930’s to
crowds of thousands of people in cities throughout the USA.
This time of year the Ananda Communities and centers around
the world are among the thousands who commemorate Paramhansa Yogananda’s life
and teachings. At his initiation as a swami when a young man by his guru, Swami
Sri Yukteswar Giri in Serampore (near Calcutta), India, he took the monastic
name Yogananda: “union with God in bliss through yoga practice.”
Years later his guru conferred upon him the honorific “Paramhansa,”
an acknowledgement of his disciple’s high spiritual realization. Yogananda came
to America in 1920, returned to India for a last visit to his guru, family, and
homeland in 1935-36, but otherwise stayed in America and became a U.S. citizen.
He established his headquarters in Los Angeles in the mid-1920’s. He left this
earth plane in 1952.
Those are the barest facts of an extraordinary life. We who
are his disciples honor his contribution to the world and to our lives especially
at this time of year. At Ananda this celebration concludes the holiday season
at about the same time as Christians historically commemorate the three wise
men coming from the east to honor the Christ child.
Paramhansa Yogananda is most famous for his life story, “Autobiography
of a Yogi.” This book, first published in 1946, has been read by millions in
many languages around the world. For modern ears, hearts, and minds, Yogananda
opened up for westerners insights into the mysteries of Indian culture and
especially its timeless precepts, practices, and its modern saints and sages
with their extraordinary powers and states of consciousness. As a work of
literature his autobiography stands tall in the pantheon of twentieth century
writings.
But it is not the details of his life or even his
consciousness that I wish to reflect upon here. Swami Kriyananda’s own
autobiography, “The New Path,” details life with the “master” with such wisdom,
humor, and love that I must refer the reader to this parallel work of art and
inspiration.
One hears a common saying that “When the disciple is ready
the guru appears.” For the relevant question is not “Who is the greatest guru
(or teacher)?” The more important inquiry
is “Who am I” and “What kind of a disciple of life and truth am I?” The law of karma
(action and reaction) and the law of attraction and magnetism remind us that the
world we inhabit is filtered by our own magnetism such that we attract to
ourselves those circumstances (and people) best designed to reflect back to us
aspects, high or low, of our own self.
So rather than ask ourselves “Who was Yogananda” we can also
ask ourselves “Who am I?”
Some see in him a world teacher and avatar whose life has started a revolution in spreading the practice of kriya yoga into all nations that millions may have a direct personal perception of divinity and hence empower humanity to make the changes needed to sustain life, health, prosperity and God remembrance in all nations.
Some see in him a world teacher and avatar whose life has started a revolution in spreading the practice of kriya yoga into all nations that millions may have a direct personal perception of divinity and hence empower humanity to make the changes needed to sustain life, health, prosperity and God remembrance in all nations.
Others will see him only as another in an endless procession
of teachers from India seeking to profit by the prosperity of the west. Perhaps
some will see more flamboyant or more recently popular teachers as the real “deal.”
No matter.
It depends what we are capable of seeing and seeking. It is
enough for me that he has changed my life and the lives of uncountable others
worldwide. Who am I to speak of him as an avatar? I wouldn’t know an avatar if he was
a card-carrying member of the Avatar Club. Even if I were to be so unrefined or
unaware as to simply find inspiration and practicality in his words and yoga
techniques and ignored him altogether (because no longer incarnate), my life
would not be the same.
The question is by what influence and magnetism has he, whom
I have never met, inspired me to leave everything of a material nature (career
and life in the “world”) as a young man, move to a poor and rural intentional
community in the Sierra Nevada mountains, and dedicate my life to the daily practice
of meditation and service to spreading Yogananda’s ideals and practices? Were I
alone, then you’d have to conclude that I am just basically weird. But hundreds
and by now thousands have done the same.
And we are not talking the disenfranchised or the “sick,
lame, and lazy” (as my old father, God rest him) would have said. The people I
associate with are highly educated, high energy, creative, noble-minded, kind,
compassionate and dedicated people who are very aware of the world we live in
and eager to serve God through humanity and through kriya yoga.
Yogananda’s influence has spawned a network of intentional
communities, schools for children, yoga centers, publishing, nature awareness
programs, creative architecture, new forms of music and worship, a cooperative style
of leadership and decision making, creative parenting and harmonious
relationships.
The chief architect of this expansion has been the foremost
of Yogananda’s direct disciples in the service of humanity at large: Ananda’s
founder, Swami Kriyananda. Kriyananda’s influence reflects not only his dynamic
will but his attunement with his guru, Yogananda. The worldwide work
of Ananda is largely a transparent expression of Yogananda’s guidance. Though
stamped indelibly with Kriyananda’s signature, members and students of Ananda
function independently, creatively taking seed inspiration (rather than any
detailed blueprint) from Kriyananda’s guru-guided creativity. Kriyananda, as
such, functions more as a focal point and funnel for energy rather than a
personality. The result is that scant attention is paid him in the way we see so
many spiritual teachers being fawned upon or held high upon a pedestal of
undying admiration.
Ananda is not a top-down hierarchical organization, though the
value and importance of inspired and supportive leadership is emphasized.
Cooperation rather than coercion is the guiding principle. The spiritual
welfare of people is the measure of success, not the otherwise worthwhile and measurable
accomplishments of Ananda as a spiritual work. Thus the Ananda centers and
communities function independently but in cooperation with its first and
original community in California. Europe has its own central vortex just as
India has two parallel centers: one rural, the other urban.
Yogananda created a new system of tension exercises at a
time when millions were just beginning to seek forms of exercise. Less than
a century ago exercise for its own sake was only for aristocrats and a few
privileged athletes. Already we see the incidence of injury from running,
weight training, extreme sports and even intensive one-size-fits-all yoga. He
created numerous formulae and recipes for the future millions of vegetarians
even as our culture flounders fanatically with every extreme dietary fad that comes along each year.
He spoke of a future when international criminals would cause havoc in
every country and how an international “police force” of freedom-loving nations
would be required. He predicted that English would become the “lingua franca”
of the world. He also warned of future wars, cataclysms, diseases, and economic
devastation as a result of unparalleled greed, exploitation and ruthless
competition.
Yogananda with words of great spiritual power “sowed into
the ether” a call to high-minded souls to go out into rural areas and create
small communities, pooling resources, skills, and living close to the land in
what we now realize and describe as a sustainable lifestyle. He predicted that
a time would come when small communities would “spread like wildfire,” presumably
as an antidote the crushing and impersonal forces of globalization.
Each of these concepts, precepts, and trends are taking
shape in the lives of people like you and me, around the world. Yes, it’s true
these things would be happening with, or without Yogananda. But to come as a
divine messenger to bless these efforts is as reassuring as it is an ancient
tradition (to seek divine blessings upon one’s journey and new undertakings).
Those who are in tune with these trends are, in their own way, drawing upon
those blessings whether they have heard of Yogananda or not.
In theological matters, how many like you and me are weary
of sectarianism and desirous of harmony between faiths? It is not religion we
should fight but selfishness, greed, and delusion. To this end those who love
God should help, support, and respect one another. But how can we find our way
out of the box of our dogmas and customs?
All theological bypaths meet in the sensorium of inner
silence. God as One, God as many, God of many names or no name are all found
united in silent, inner communion. The only real idol worship is found in the
worship of matter, the senses, and the ego. These are the false idols, not the
saints or deities who serve as symbols and aspects of the One beyond all
symbols.
Thus it is that our own and personal vision of reality draws to us the
life and teachings of such a one as Paramhansa Yogananda. To achieve Self-realization, he said, we must simply improve our “knowing.”
A Happy Birthday to Yogananda and to all of us!
Nayaswami Hrimananda
Thursday, September 15, 2011
What does an Avatar Know? or, Feel?
[[edited and revised Saturday, Sept 17]]
The nature of divinity incarnate must surely remain one of humankind's greatest questions and mysteries. You may question that statement but the key to understanding it lies in the simple realization that our "answer" reveals our own nature as well.
I often state in my classes and talks that the answer to "Who is Jesus Christ?" shows us "Who am I?" Is the avatar a divine creation, a puppet? God descended into human form? Is the avatar human like us, and if so, to what degree, to what extent? How did such a one come into being an avatar? By divine fiat or by self-effort? Is such a state unique or do all of us have the potential to achieve it?
We are, to ourselves, also a mysterious concatenation of moods, ideas, actions and feelings. Our sublime states all too frequently descend to the mundane, or lower. We want our deity (our image of perfection) to be clear, clean, and essentially one-dimensional. Look what inevitably happens after the avatar leaves this earth. Even Yogananda who died only in 1952 has been cast by some of his disciples in the one dimensional terms of a strict disciplinarian, or as the founder, merely, of a monastery. In Swami Kriyananda's latest book, "Restoring the Legacy of Paramhansa Yogananda," he describes how in a few decades Yogananda's own disciples have been steadily re-making his image in their own image.
Jesus Christ was crucified once but his image, teachings, and persona have been crucified daily for centuries such that for many Christians and non-Christians he’s been reduced to a wooden crucifix or a spiritual victrola in a sad monotone of “Thou shalt!” Gone is the joyful camaraderie he had with his disciples, the adventure of living and learning from him, the joy and inspiration they felt in his presence. Who would be attracted to a sad and somber saint?
It is taught in India and is taught by Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the popular and renowned spiritual classic, "Autobiography of a Yogi") that an avatar is free from karma and acts in freedom (without personal desire). Is this always and under all circumstances? Is personal desire different than the influences of or appropriate responses to circumstances?
To what degree does such a one feel human joys and sorrows? A further question is this: to what degree does an avatar have access to omniscience? Let's explore this multi-faceted diamond of consciousness where infinity is crystallized into human form. Swami Kriyananda once used the example of an inverted triangle wherein the tip (pointing downward) touches earth in human form and the base (above) stretches to infinity.
Here are some examples (mostly from "Autobiography of a Yogi") for us to consider:
What do the rishis and scriptures tell us about the avatar? An avatar is considered to be an incarnation of divinity. In the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda this definition is clarified to state that such an soul is like you and I, but has achieved Oneness with God and cosmic consciousness. This achievement occurs over many lifetimes and its victory is the combination of self-effort and divine grace. An avatar is freed from all past karma and has the power to help an unlimited number of souls and to dispense any and all levels of God-realization according to the will of "the Father who" sends him.
Others speak of an avatar as a direct manifestation of God or some aspect or diety (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva), but Yogananda did not use the term in that way. This is more or less how Christian theology defines the nature of Jesus Christ. But Yogananda pointed out that Jesus and his direct disciples made it clear numerous times that what Jesus attained all souls have the potential to become ("sons of God"). The avatars, Yogananda taught, do not come to show off, but to show to us our own highest potential.
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita describes how he (and others) have come repeatedly down through history and may play a visible role on the stage of human history or be behind the scenes (like Babaji). Therefore it is clear that an avatar comes and takes on many different roles and personalities. Discerning the chain of incarnation is beyond the scope of any except the most spiritually advanced and probably is only truly made known by the avatar himself.
Swami Kriyananda, contemplating the paradox of Yogananda having once been William the Conqueror, once asked Paramhansa Yogananda what it means to be an avatar under such circumstances. Yogananda's terse reply was that "one never loses his sense of inner freedom." The clear iimplication is that, as William, he did not necessarily access (openly at least) his omniscience and prescience. So far as we know, he made no disclosure of knowledge of his longer-term purpose or his spiritual stature. Perhaps such knowledge was simply unnecessary to the fulfillment and conduct of his role as William.
[As an historical aside, historians show that William set into motion a chain of events whose significance grew over time. The government that he established and that was brought to greater completion by his youngest son Henry I created a new political form that, in time, produced the Magna Carta and subjected even kings to the rule of law and due process, and, established the concept of inalienable human rights and liberties. The political stability and power of Britain was to eventually give birth to the founding of America, to the beginnings of globalization and exchange of knowledge between east and west (through its empire), and to the spread of the English language as the linga franca of the world.]
In the book, "Conversations with Yogananda," Swami Kriyananda reports that Yogananda also clarified that an avatar does not necessarily act or have at his disposal in every moment cosmic and omniscient knowledge. Functioning as he must in a physical body, he, like ourselves, must deal with the material realities and human egos which surround him. In fact, while enjoying, let's say, a meal, he may be calmly present and enjoying that experience, chatting away merrily, without regard for or need to elevate himself to a transcendent level. If you ask him "What year did Columbus sail the ocean blue?", he may pause, try to remember, and even get the date wrong! For in that setting, there's no compelling spiritual need to prove anything or help anyone, so his ordinary human memory suffices for the task at hand.
But that's a far cry from what many people do: avidly wolfing down a sandwich, completely forgetful of the Self! For when the need arises, the avatar has a "divine security clearance" and higher access to cosmic knowledge! They demonstrate this time and again, certainly at least to those "with eyes to see."
But when and how does he access that higher knowledge? Can he just "dial up" God the Father and ask him about so-and-so? What is difficult for us to understand is the "I-ness" of an avatar. Yogananda said that even an avatar has to have an ego to deal responsibly with his body and in this world. Thus our inquiry today is the attempt to discern that spectrum of motivation and awareness possessed by one who is free in God.
We see in the life of Jesus, of Yogananda, and many others that they prayed frequently to God (as Father, Mother or in other forms dear to them) for guidance. They attribute their miraculous powers to God, not to themselves. So whether in reality or for our benefit, there seems to be a veil in place between omniscience and their level of consciousness in human form. But many avatars have raised the dead, healed the sick, spoke prophetically, or disclosed the thoughts or past lives of others. Sometimes these incidents were spontaneous; other times, the avatar prayed beforehand or otherwise showed himself going within for divine sanction or power.
Yogananda said of himself (and Jesus and Krishna similarly), "I killed Yogananda long ago. No one dwells in this form but He." There seems therefore to be a flow of energy between the avatar in his human form and the avatar in his cosmic consciousness. There seems to be an I-Thou interchange which, while different in degree, is not different in kind from our own efforts to attune ourselves to God's presence in our lives.
Absence of personal motive would be another approach to trying to discern the consciousness of the avatar. Thus we see illustrated in the life of William the Conqueror a steady flow of actions based on moral, ethical, political, and religious rules, precepts, and standards of behavior. Although some of his actions, looked at through the lens of 21st century mores may seem ruthless, living as he did in the Dark Ages ruthlessness (as we would define it) was not only accepted in his time but expected, for few royal subjects would respond to anything less. Reluctance to take on battle would only have been interpreted as weakness; likewise, as would anything less than the commitment to win and to be victorious or the willingness to punish enemies in accordance with standards of the time. (In fact, however, both William and his youngest son, Henry I, showed remarkable forebearance and magnanimity over their self-styled enemies.)
An analysis of history shows us that William was no mere interloper taking advantage of political instability to expand his dominion but the rightful heir and protector of the British crown. He was supported by all the princes of Europe and by the papacy in his claim. Similarly Henry I (who may very well have been Swami Kriyananda in that past life) conducted his royal affairs in a manner that showed that he was fulfilling "the will of his father" in establishing the British kingdom and Normandy on principled grounds. [See the fascinating account of their lives in Catherine Kairavi's newly published account, "Two Souls, Four Lives."]
An avatar willing accepts the limitations inherent in human form when he incarnates. This includes going through the human stages of infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. The avatar experiences the joys and sorrows of human existence. But the avatar's incarnation is not propelled by karmic complusions or ego-oriented desires, and, instead, is inspired by a desire to help others and fulfill the divine law.
If you willingly went to jail, though innocent of any crime, in an effort to spare another person who might have been wrongly accused or who would suffer unnecessarily from the experience of incarceration, you would still be innocent of the crime. But there you would be in jail and you'd have to accept the limitations, rules, and daily humiliations of prison life. Were you to protest your innocence, you would be ignored by fellow inmates and jailers alike, for we all know that in prison, "everyone's innocent!"
A grandparent might thoroughly enjoy playing catch with his grandson or a father wrestling with his son without ever losing the sense of his role. Even in the spirit of rivalry or competition, the grandparent or parent probably experiences the "game" with a greater sense of detachment than the child who perhaps plays in earnest or with abandon.
An actor, practiced and well honed in his skills, might with confidence play his role upon the stage with immersion into the role while acting. While doing so it is unncessary for him to remind himself that he's not, say, Hamlet, for on an existential level there is no confusion. Moreover, arriving home after work, he greets his wife and children as himself, and no taint of his stage persona or role lurks or stains his own consciousness.
Yogananda taught that Jesus did not suffer on the cross for himself but felt grief for the ignorance and the consequent (if future) suffering of his tormentors. Jesus' greatest victory was not even his resurrection but the forgiveness he expressed even while hanging on the cross. Yogananda went further to state that Jesus could have, at any time, transcended the physical pain of his agony. As Christians teach that "Jesus died for our sins," so Yogananda taught that a true guru (an avatar) can take on karma of his disciples. He himself endured physical illness and explained that it was for the purpose of taking on karma of his disciples. Such is the great gift of love and divine friendship the guru offers.
If your friend loses a loved one to illness or a sudden, fatal accident, will you tell her that "The soul is eternal and does not suffer? Or, that death has no true reality and therefore she shouldn't grieve?" Well, I hope not! Yogananda as a boy felt the grief natural to a child when he lost his mother. Later Divine Mother appeared to him to reveal that it was She, herself, who was his mother in that life. This consolation would have dissipated any vestige of sadness that may have been retained. But his grief need not have been merely the grief of human delusion but the grief appropriate to his condition and his circumstances. I believe that such a one, like the actor, can genuinely experience grief while remaining untouched within. This is demonstrated by the lack of residual or recollected pain in the future. The ordinary human being takes many years to recover from grief and very often re-experiences again and again, perhaps, over time, less often, or less intensely but all too often for the remainder of his or her lifetime! The avatar, by contrast, like writing on water, undergoes the human experience and then moves on, untouched.
Remaining in his human "self" and eschewing the power to withdraw to his omniscient Self, I believe that Yogananda experienced and expressed his loss as a child, even as the quiet, inner, watchful Self remained intact and withdrawn from the drama.
Swami Kriyananda has also commented on what might be somewhat particular to Yogananda's "lila" (the way he behaved and related to the world around him). Kriyananda explains that Yogananda willingly experienced various human emotions and circumstances even when he could have just as easily chosen to transcend them. Being free, he was unafraid or had no need to protect himself from the power of maya. He wore his wisdom like a comfortable old coat and had no need to affirm his transcendence. This was demonstrated at times when he was mistreated, misunderstood, humiliated, incurred or accepted physical pain, human grief, or enjoyed the simple pleasures of good food, in his infectious humor, beautiful scenery, sports, and the pleasure of the company of friends.
Sri Yukteswar tells the story of his childhood attachment to an ugly dog and how he could not be dissuaded from wanting that dog by more attractive substitutes! Lahiri may have had a past life desire for a golden palace but perhaps that desire was gone and perhaps Babaji simply resurrected that past desire to honor Lahiri's re-awakening and initiation in the form of that golden, bejeweled palace on Drongiri Mountain?
Still, let's assume that each them actually had, as avatars, these desires. Is that possible? Imagine that you are an avatar and that you are free from the delusion and shackles of desire. But then you willingly incarnate to help others. In so doing, you must cloak your cosmic spirit in maya. Your cosmic consciousness must be "squeezed" into a human body, so to speak. You descend into the womb of maya for the sake of struggling souls. This means you will be surrounded by and even temporarily exposed to and tempted by maya's power. Remember, for example, the temptation of Jesus (Yogananda said Jesus had long ago been liberated). An avatar, being free and retaining that freedom, can "play" in the storm of delusion with a kind of absolute impunity while even yet allowing the law of duality to influence or circumscribe his inner freedom during the "lila" of the experience.
Thus, should the circumstances surrounding the avatar (as a child, a warrior, a husband, etc.) call for grief, desire, warfare, he can enter the fray and may be, for a time, wholly or seemingly immersed in it. But when he "comes out of it" he can instantly detach the vrittis, the energies, from his consciousness, just as a professional football player can pound the heck out of the other team, leave the field satisfied and not be the least bit personally angry with his opponents. In the great epic of India, the Mahabharata, it is said that the good guys and bad guys met in Swarga (heaven) afterwards for a party! An avatar is perhaps like you and I working in the garden. We necessarily get dirty, but we can come inside the house, take a shower and the dirt is gone. It has no ultimate power to affect us.
Have you ever been in an embarrassing situation while yet laughing at yourself or mentally saying to yourself ("This will make a good story!")? Have you ever had a great idea and you knew instantly it was just perfect? Then, as you go about sharing, energizing and manifesting that idea you find that there is little or no sense of ego or pride in the idea: just the joy and satisfaction of its manifestation? In the midst of the flow of inspiration, talent, and skill we can feel "the force" without necessarily involving the ego beyond the necessity to stay present and focused on the task at hand. Isn't it so?
Some people (maybe in their business life, artistic talents, or inventiveness) just seem "to know." There's no great angst involved. There's no agony of reasoned analysis, or impassioned affirmation. "He who knows, knows." It doesn't require hindsight (conscious analysis of how you know) or foresight (conscious awareness of what it all means or what will result). It simply IS. We all have probably had this experience sometime, somewhere! Imagine the level of calm, inner confidence an avatar must possess! What freedom!
With these examples and illustration, perhaps we can intuitively sense even a fragment of the consciousness of an avatar who lives and acts in this world of duality. At the same time, we must be careful not to imagine we can define or in any way limit that consciousness, for it expresses Infinity itself! Their lives offer to us a window onto the uniqueness which is our true Self, and the permission and duty to play our roles with passion, creativity, joy and yet, like a great actor, without ever being touched by its drama.
Yet for us to "see" who is an avatar, to detect divinity in another person, and to finally uncover divinity in ourselves we mustn't be fooled by outer appearances. (Like the picture-perfect sadhu in India who approached Swami Kriyananda to say, "Want a picture? 40 rupees!") It takes sincere and sustained "sadhana" (meditation, introspection, right attitude and right action) to develop the intuition that we may have "eyes to see, and ears to hear."
Imagine it! Act it! Be-come free!
Blessings,
Nayaswami Hriman
The nature of divinity incarnate must surely remain one of humankind's greatest questions and mysteries. You may question that statement but the key to understanding it lies in the simple realization that our "answer" reveals our own nature as well.
I often state in my classes and talks that the answer to "Who is Jesus Christ?" shows us "Who am I?" Is the avatar a divine creation, a puppet? God descended into human form? Is the avatar human like us, and if so, to what degree, to what extent? How did such a one come into being an avatar? By divine fiat or by self-effort? Is such a state unique or do all of us have the potential to achieve it?
We are, to ourselves, also a mysterious concatenation of moods, ideas, actions and feelings. Our sublime states all too frequently descend to the mundane, or lower. We want our deity (our image of perfection) to be clear, clean, and essentially one-dimensional. Look what inevitably happens after the avatar leaves this earth. Even Yogananda who died only in 1952 has been cast by some of his disciples in the one dimensional terms of a strict disciplinarian, or as the founder, merely, of a monastery. In Swami Kriyananda's latest book, "Restoring the Legacy of Paramhansa Yogananda," he describes how in a few decades Yogananda's own disciples have been steadily re-making his image in their own image.
Jesus Christ was crucified once but his image, teachings, and persona have been crucified daily for centuries such that for many Christians and non-Christians he’s been reduced to a wooden crucifix or a spiritual victrola in a sad monotone of “Thou shalt!” Gone is the joyful camaraderie he had with his disciples, the adventure of living and learning from him, the joy and inspiration they felt in his presence. Who would be attracted to a sad and somber saint?
Life is dual; life is messy, and when divinity incarnates, He (She) plays by the rules She has created. Just as Oneness is a state of consciousness that transcends duality, so too the only way to pierce the veil of divinity incarnate is to aspire and to approach the deity via an upward effort and flow towards transcendence. Thus it was that the apostle Peter was the only one who answered Jesus’ question (Who do men say I am?) correctly when he responded from intuition, saying: Thou art the Christ, the son of the living God. That Jesus was One with the Father was more than his critics could handle. For his revelation, he was crucified. His own response to his accusers who saw only blasphemy in his claim, he said “Do not your scriptures say, ‘Ye are gods?’”.
Thus it is that our attempts to identify divinity or perfection in a living spiritual teacher, or in one now gone from sight, in another person, or in ourselves are fraught with peril. To pierce the veil of duality, we, ourselves, must achieve some degree of intuition born of our soul’s state of knowing-ness. Armed now with this tool of in-sight, let’s now turn directly to our subject of the avatara: the descent of divinity into human form.
If an avatar is "one with God" does the avatar feel pain? Grief? Does he make mistakes? Does he get angry like you or I? Is an avatar above delusion, material desires, hurt feelings, or judging other people? It is taught in India and is taught by Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the popular and renowned spiritual classic, "Autobiography of a Yogi") that an avatar is free from karma and acts in freedom (without personal desire). Is this always and under all circumstances? Is personal desire different than the influences of or appropriate responses to circumstances?
To what degree does such a one feel human joys and sorrows? A further question is this: to what degree does an avatar have access to omniscience? Let's explore this multi-faceted diamond of consciousness where infinity is crystallized into human form. Swami Kriyananda once used the example of an inverted triangle wherein the tip (pointing downward) touches earth in human form and the base (above) stretches to infinity.
Here are some examples (mostly from "Autobiography of a Yogi") for us to consider:
- Jesus was crucified and cried out in his agony, "Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani" (Loosely translated: "Lord, why have you abandoned me?").
- Paramhansa Yogananda grieved inconsolably (by his own account) at the loss of his mother when he was still a boy.
- Babaji told Lahiri Mahasaya that the reason he (Babaji) materialized a golden palace for Lahiri at the time of their meeting and Lahiri's initiation was that Lahiri had had a past life desire for a golden palace.
- According to the story of Lahiri's life, one gets the impression that until age 33, when he met Babaji and Babaji reawakened Lahiri's memory of his past life, he was somehow unaware of his own mission and consciousness as an avatar.
- Paramhansa Yogananda recounts in his famous story ("Autobiography of a Yogi") that the day after his own guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar had manifested pyschic and telephathic powers in the charming story of the "Cauliflower Robbery," Sri Yukteswar was unable to state the location of a misplaced lantern, disclaiming his own power to do so.
- When Sri Yukteswar and Lahiri Mahasaya were each informed of their impending death, they were temporarily taken aback and had to recollect themselves.
- In the garden of Gethesmane, Jesus prayed that "this cup be taken from me."
- Paramhansa Yogananda claimed that he was, in past lives, William the Conqueror, a famous Spanish king and general, and Arjuna, the Pandava warrior whose archery skills in warfare (and discipleship to Krishna) were legendary.
- Swami Sri Yukteswar tells the story how, as a boy, he wanted to have an ugly dog and his mother was powerless to entice him by more attractive canine substitutes.
What do the rishis and scriptures tell us about the avatar? An avatar is considered to be an incarnation of divinity. In the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda this definition is clarified to state that such an soul is like you and I, but has achieved Oneness with God and cosmic consciousness. This achievement occurs over many lifetimes and its victory is the combination of self-effort and divine grace. An avatar is freed from all past karma and has the power to help an unlimited number of souls and to dispense any and all levels of God-realization according to the will of "the Father who" sends him.
Others speak of an avatar as a direct manifestation of God or some aspect or diety (Brahma, Vishnu, Shiva), but Yogananda did not use the term in that way. This is more or less how Christian theology defines the nature of Jesus Christ. But Yogananda pointed out that Jesus and his direct disciples made it clear numerous times that what Jesus attained all souls have the potential to become ("sons of God"). The avatars, Yogananda taught, do not come to show off, but to show to us our own highest potential.
Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita describes how he (and others) have come repeatedly down through history and may play a visible role on the stage of human history or be behind the scenes (like Babaji). Therefore it is clear that an avatar comes and takes on many different roles and personalities. Discerning the chain of incarnation is beyond the scope of any except the most spiritually advanced and probably is only truly made known by the avatar himself.
Swami Kriyananda, contemplating the paradox of Yogananda having once been William the Conqueror, once asked Paramhansa Yogananda what it means to be an avatar under such circumstances. Yogananda's terse reply was that "one never loses his sense of inner freedom." The clear iimplication is that, as William, he did not necessarily access (openly at least) his omniscience and prescience. So far as we know, he made no disclosure of knowledge of his longer-term purpose or his spiritual stature. Perhaps such knowledge was simply unnecessary to the fulfillment and conduct of his role as William.
[As an historical aside, historians show that William set into motion a chain of events whose significance grew over time. The government that he established and that was brought to greater completion by his youngest son Henry I created a new political form that, in time, produced the Magna Carta and subjected even kings to the rule of law and due process, and, established the concept of inalienable human rights and liberties. The political stability and power of Britain was to eventually give birth to the founding of America, to the beginnings of globalization and exchange of knowledge between east and west (through its empire), and to the spread of the English language as the linga franca of the world.]
In the book, "Conversations with Yogananda," Swami Kriyananda reports that Yogananda also clarified that an avatar does not necessarily act or have at his disposal in every moment cosmic and omniscient knowledge. Functioning as he must in a physical body, he, like ourselves, must deal with the material realities and human egos which surround him. In fact, while enjoying, let's say, a meal, he may be calmly present and enjoying that experience, chatting away merrily, without regard for or need to elevate himself to a transcendent level. If you ask him "What year did Columbus sail the ocean blue?", he may pause, try to remember, and even get the date wrong! For in that setting, there's no compelling spiritual need to prove anything or help anyone, so his ordinary human memory suffices for the task at hand.
But that's a far cry from what many people do: avidly wolfing down a sandwich, completely forgetful of the Self! For when the need arises, the avatar has a "divine security clearance" and higher access to cosmic knowledge! They demonstrate this time and again, certainly at least to those "with eyes to see."
But when and how does he access that higher knowledge? Can he just "dial up" God the Father and ask him about so-and-so? What is difficult for us to understand is the "I-ness" of an avatar. Yogananda said that even an avatar has to have an ego to deal responsibly with his body and in this world. Thus our inquiry today is the attempt to discern that spectrum of motivation and awareness possessed by one who is free in God.
We see in the life of Jesus, of Yogananda, and many others that they prayed frequently to God (as Father, Mother or in other forms dear to them) for guidance. They attribute their miraculous powers to God, not to themselves. So whether in reality or for our benefit, there seems to be a veil in place between omniscience and their level of consciousness in human form. But many avatars have raised the dead, healed the sick, spoke prophetically, or disclosed the thoughts or past lives of others. Sometimes these incidents were spontaneous; other times, the avatar prayed beforehand or otherwise showed himself going within for divine sanction or power.
Yogananda said of himself (and Jesus and Krishna similarly), "I killed Yogananda long ago. No one dwells in this form but He." There seems therefore to be a flow of energy between the avatar in his human form and the avatar in his cosmic consciousness. There seems to be an I-Thou interchange which, while different in degree, is not different in kind from our own efforts to attune ourselves to God's presence in our lives.
Absence of personal motive would be another approach to trying to discern the consciousness of the avatar. Thus we see illustrated in the life of William the Conqueror a steady flow of actions based on moral, ethical, political, and religious rules, precepts, and standards of behavior. Although some of his actions, looked at through the lens of 21st century mores may seem ruthless, living as he did in the Dark Ages ruthlessness (as we would define it) was not only accepted in his time but expected, for few royal subjects would respond to anything less. Reluctance to take on battle would only have been interpreted as weakness; likewise, as would anything less than the commitment to win and to be victorious or the willingness to punish enemies in accordance with standards of the time. (In fact, however, both William and his youngest son, Henry I, showed remarkable forebearance and magnanimity over their self-styled enemies.)
An analysis of history shows us that William was no mere interloper taking advantage of political instability to expand his dominion but the rightful heir and protector of the British crown. He was supported by all the princes of Europe and by the papacy in his claim. Similarly Henry I (who may very well have been Swami Kriyananda in that past life) conducted his royal affairs in a manner that showed that he was fulfilling "the will of his father" in establishing the British kingdom and Normandy on principled grounds. [See the fascinating account of their lives in Catherine Kairavi's newly published account, "Two Souls, Four Lives."]
An avatar willing accepts the limitations inherent in human form when he incarnates. This includes going through the human stages of infancy, childhood, adolescence, adulthood and old age. The avatar experiences the joys and sorrows of human existence. But the avatar's incarnation is not propelled by karmic complusions or ego-oriented desires, and, instead, is inspired by a desire to help others and fulfill the divine law.
If you willingly went to jail, though innocent of any crime, in an effort to spare another person who might have been wrongly accused or who would suffer unnecessarily from the experience of incarceration, you would still be innocent of the crime. But there you would be in jail and you'd have to accept the limitations, rules, and daily humiliations of prison life. Were you to protest your innocence, you would be ignored by fellow inmates and jailers alike, for we all know that in prison, "everyone's innocent!"
A grandparent might thoroughly enjoy playing catch with his grandson or a father wrestling with his son without ever losing the sense of his role. Even in the spirit of rivalry or competition, the grandparent or parent probably experiences the "game" with a greater sense of detachment than the child who perhaps plays in earnest or with abandon.
An actor, practiced and well honed in his skills, might with confidence play his role upon the stage with immersion into the role while acting. While doing so it is unncessary for him to remind himself that he's not, say, Hamlet, for on an existential level there is no confusion. Moreover, arriving home after work, he greets his wife and children as himself, and no taint of his stage persona or role lurks or stains his own consciousness.
Yogananda taught that Jesus did not suffer on the cross for himself but felt grief for the ignorance and the consequent (if future) suffering of his tormentors. Jesus' greatest victory was not even his resurrection but the forgiveness he expressed even while hanging on the cross. Yogananda went further to state that Jesus could have, at any time, transcended the physical pain of his agony. As Christians teach that "Jesus died for our sins," so Yogananda taught that a true guru (an avatar) can take on karma of his disciples. He himself endured physical illness and explained that it was for the purpose of taking on karma of his disciples. Such is the great gift of love and divine friendship the guru offers.
If your friend loses a loved one to illness or a sudden, fatal accident, will you tell her that "The soul is eternal and does not suffer? Or, that death has no true reality and therefore she shouldn't grieve?" Well, I hope not! Yogananda as a boy felt the grief natural to a child when he lost his mother. Later Divine Mother appeared to him to reveal that it was She, herself, who was his mother in that life. This consolation would have dissipated any vestige of sadness that may have been retained. But his grief need not have been merely the grief of human delusion but the grief appropriate to his condition and his circumstances. I believe that such a one, like the actor, can genuinely experience grief while remaining untouched within. This is demonstrated by the lack of residual or recollected pain in the future. The ordinary human being takes many years to recover from grief and very often re-experiences again and again, perhaps, over time, less often, or less intensely but all too often for the remainder of his or her lifetime! The avatar, by contrast, like writing on water, undergoes the human experience and then moves on, untouched.
Remaining in his human "self" and eschewing the power to withdraw to his omniscient Self, I believe that Yogananda experienced and expressed his loss as a child, even as the quiet, inner, watchful Self remained intact and withdrawn from the drama.
Swami Kriyananda has also commented on what might be somewhat particular to Yogananda's "lila" (the way he behaved and related to the world around him). Kriyananda explains that Yogananda willingly experienced various human emotions and circumstances even when he could have just as easily chosen to transcend them. Being free, he was unafraid or had no need to protect himself from the power of maya. He wore his wisdom like a comfortable old coat and had no need to affirm his transcendence. This was demonstrated at times when he was mistreated, misunderstood, humiliated, incurred or accepted physical pain, human grief, or enjoyed the simple pleasures of good food, in his infectious humor, beautiful scenery, sports, and the pleasure of the company of friends.
Sri Yukteswar tells the story of his childhood attachment to an ugly dog and how he could not be dissuaded from wanting that dog by more attractive substitutes! Lahiri may have had a past life desire for a golden palace but perhaps that desire was gone and perhaps Babaji simply resurrected that past desire to honor Lahiri's re-awakening and initiation in the form of that golden, bejeweled palace on Drongiri Mountain?
Still, let's assume that each them actually had, as avatars, these desires. Is that possible? Imagine that you are an avatar and that you are free from the delusion and shackles of desire. But then you willingly incarnate to help others. In so doing, you must cloak your cosmic spirit in maya. Your cosmic consciousness must be "squeezed" into a human body, so to speak. You descend into the womb of maya for the sake of struggling souls. This means you will be surrounded by and even temporarily exposed to and tempted by maya's power. Remember, for example, the temptation of Jesus (Yogananda said Jesus had long ago been liberated). An avatar, being free and retaining that freedom, can "play" in the storm of delusion with a kind of absolute impunity while even yet allowing the law of duality to influence or circumscribe his inner freedom during the "lila" of the experience.
Thus, should the circumstances surrounding the avatar (as a child, a warrior, a husband, etc.) call for grief, desire, warfare, he can enter the fray and may be, for a time, wholly or seemingly immersed in it. But when he "comes out of it" he can instantly detach the vrittis, the energies, from his consciousness, just as a professional football player can pound the heck out of the other team, leave the field satisfied and not be the least bit personally angry with his opponents. In the great epic of India, the Mahabharata, it is said that the good guys and bad guys met in Swarga (heaven) afterwards for a party! An avatar is perhaps like you and I working in the garden. We necessarily get dirty, but we can come inside the house, take a shower and the dirt is gone. It has no ultimate power to affect us.
Have you ever been in an embarrassing situation while yet laughing at yourself or mentally saying to yourself ("This will make a good story!")? Have you ever had a great idea and you knew instantly it was just perfect? Then, as you go about sharing, energizing and manifesting that idea you find that there is little or no sense of ego or pride in the idea: just the joy and satisfaction of its manifestation? In the midst of the flow of inspiration, talent, and skill we can feel "the force" without necessarily involving the ego beyond the necessity to stay present and focused on the task at hand. Isn't it so?
Some people (maybe in their business life, artistic talents, or inventiveness) just seem "to know." There's no great angst involved. There's no agony of reasoned analysis, or impassioned affirmation. "He who knows, knows." It doesn't require hindsight (conscious analysis of how you know) or foresight (conscious awareness of what it all means or what will result). It simply IS. We all have probably had this experience sometime, somewhere! Imagine the level of calm, inner confidence an avatar must possess! What freedom!
With these examples and illustration, perhaps we can intuitively sense even a fragment of the consciousness of an avatar who lives and acts in this world of duality. At the same time, we must be careful not to imagine we can define or in any way limit that consciousness, for it expresses Infinity itself! Their lives offer to us a window onto the uniqueness which is our true Self, and the permission and duty to play our roles with passion, creativity, joy and yet, like a great actor, without ever being touched by its drama.
Yet for us to "see" who is an avatar, to detect divinity in another person, and to finally uncover divinity in ourselves we mustn't be fooled by outer appearances. (Like the picture-perfect sadhu in India who approached Swami Kriyananda to say, "Want a picture? 40 rupees!") It takes sincere and sustained "sadhana" (meditation, introspection, right attitude and right action) to develop the intuition that we may have "eyes to see, and ears to hear."
Imagine it! Act it! Be-come free!
Blessings,
Nayaswami Hriman
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