Does Meditation Have a Dark Side?

Everything has a dark side. But this is because people are not perfect. Whether politics, business, religion or family, our ideals and goals are wonderful but the people striving for them are flawed. As the practice of meditation continues to grow exponentially, this aspect will become increasingly visible.

There's an internet article on aspects of the downsides or shortcomings of meditation. If you are interested (and I didn't find it very illuminating) here it is: http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/28278-the-mcmindfulness-craze-the-shadow-side-of-the-mindfulness-revolution

In fact, it's a bit like whining! None of us who teach meditation should ever hold out meditation as the singular cure for our personal shortcomings and psychological cracks. Nonetheless, meditation CAN change your life and I maintain it is (as my previous blog article asserts) the FUTURE, holding out great promise for humanity. Historically, in fact, so has religion functioned, however flawed, to uplift society and rescue many from utter darkness. So, let's not whine about the reality of the human experience.

But, then, since "you" brought the subject up, let's focus on it.

I've been on a campaign for many years to get meditators to be mindful of the purpose of their meditation practice-----and not mistake the practice for the goal. Meditation is not merely the temporary cessation of ego-active mental and emotional meanderings and self-identities. The fact that becoming still and mindful brings relief to stress and other self-involved emotions doesn't guarantee anything more profound than the effects of sleep: a temporary cessation or suspension of our problems!

Well, perhaps I exaggerate. Yes, the daily practice of mindfulness gives us a tool to become more conscious and aware of our mental processes and unexamined habits. It certainly helps give us greater range of choices in behavior and attitude: all towards the more positive. But, as the practice grows in popularity, you can be sure that most will eagerly accept that diluted promises of "only 15 or 20 minutes" a day benefits! Or, the promise that it's not "religious" (meaning, don't worry, there's no god whose going to tell you what to do or to whom you are accountable!). In other words: no threat to the ego.

Well, Bud, I've got news for you! Meditation is a greater threat to the ego than suicide! Yes, ok, I again exaggerate. (In the metaphysical tradition of reincarnation, the ego never dies until it voluntarily surrenders! No "outside" force or God will "kill" or "destroy" the ego!)

But as meditation grows in popularity, its true intention and tradition will become known. The clinical practice of meditation is largely taken from and influenced by Buddhist traditions. I respect and love these traditions as truth and compassion but the real reason our culture is attracted to them (according to our spin upon them) is that they "appear" not to ask the ego to surrender its control. Ha, ha, ha! Wrong, again!

Long before our beloved Buddha appeared in India, yogis were meditating and seeking Self-realization. The Indian tradition is less appealing to our western ego-affirming culture because in India there is a confusing plethora of deities and ego-surrendering vocabulary and imagery. Buddha simplified all of that in favor of focusing on what our job is, without regard to more subtle realities that we had not yet encountered nor yet are our responsibility. Yet, the Buddha himself, at the last moment of his enlightenment was beset by alluring demons of temptation. His role in spiritual tradition was to emphasize self-effort: chop wood, carry water. Forget the rest. A wonderful, practical and life-saving tradition, to be sure!

For the millions and some day billions who meditate for health and sanity, none of these issues need surface. Meditation will be a part of physical and mental hygiene and that's enough. But because of this far more limited use of meditation, many of our other human shortcomings will only be addressed superficially or even inadequately.

But even clinical mindfulness is not, technically, suppression. Hence its value in achieving greater self-awareness. And hence the invaluable contribution to the evolution of human consciousness on a mass scale.

But so long as the true and highest purpose of meditation is ignored or suppressed or denied, no single human will make notable or permanent progress toward full integration of their humanity into action. 15 to 20 minutes a day is child's play. Yet, transcendence (enlightenment) cannot be cheaply bought by the clock. Too many of those who are sincerely seeking enlightenment imagine the mere act of sitting for a longer time will do it. Not that simple, Bud!

If you want to ignore the time-honored and otherwise undeniable tradition of surrender to divine consciousness, well, fine! Good for you! Keep "coming back" for more, lifetime after lifetime. Your choice! The pathway to enlightenment is too narrow for both ego and soul to walk. Moses, and those born in "captivity," could not enter the Promised Land because (in the allegory of the story), ego consciousness is, by definition, held captive by delusion (of separateness). It must surrender by self-offering. When it does so, it discovers, like the after-death experience itself, that not only has it not died but it has never lived so fully before! The great irony and paradox of enlightenment.

Like Abraham being asked to sacrifice his beloved son, Isaac, his faith and humanity was challenged but when he passed the test, he was rewarded. When life challenges us, we think we are "going to die (fail)" but when we rise to occasion with faith and energy, we find that we can be victorious and strengthened by the experience.

In the great Indian epic, the Mahabharata, the warrior Bhishma represents ego. As such, Bhishma is gifted with the boon that he can never die until he surrenders. On his deathbed, his body riddled with arrows, he gives a great speech on leadership and governance before he surrenders his life.

The real "dark side" of meditation lies not in the seeming failure meditation supposedly has in solving a person's psychological hang ups. The real dark side is that the path to enlightenment requires engaging and strengthening the ego (via will power, self-discipline, non-attachment, etc.). At various points in the process of purification, the ego can rise like a "demon" and tempt one to use one's newly found psychic abilities for ego gratification. Worldly fame, power, beauty, wealth and influence have their natural enemies in the form of time and competition (which we call "karma" and "duality"). But spiritual power has no equal for it is our true Self and is the only real "wealth," because "god-like."

When, therefore, the ego is tempted to keep spiritual power for itself, it can and will inevitably "fall." Hence the long history in drama, mythology and in real life where spiritually advancing person (teacher, etc.) is tested and sometimes falls. (I will add, in place of "sometimes," "always." Enlightenment is not, nor cannot be, a straight line. Space-time is curved!) The inner path of meditation has for its most obvious flaws arrogance, indifference, and aloofness. These the true devotee combats by developing the natural love of heart: through devotion, compassion, and servicefulness.

Thus, until meditation becomes prayer; becomes self-offering; becomes uplifted by devotion, courage and faith into a greater Power (named, unnamed, defined, or undefined according to your own lights), we cannot truly make notable progress in achieving our true humanity, which is, in its essence, divine.

In my last blog post, "Meditation: A Revolution Rising," I commented that ours is an age of Individuality. The dark side of that is, obviously, egotism! The antidote of that isn't only unselfishness or humility, as the ego itself might imagine (though both are fine, so far as they can take us), it is the recognition of a higher Power! To quote Paramhansa Yogananda, "How can there be humility when there's no ego." True "humility" is self (ego) - forgetfulness. So long as there is a sense of personal doership, even in virtue, we are bound by the constraints of our hypnosis of ego-identity and existential separateness. Perhaps in a future article I will discuss the "Confrontation with God."

Any unwillingness to be open to and to, later, acknowledge the natural limitations of ego-born self-effort, is doomed to failure. Thus we find in the 12 Step Recovery tradition the acknowledgement of a Higher Power and the need for us to turn and look up (unto the hills) for divine assistance.

Lastly, just as we scan the universe perceiving hundreds of billions of galaxies, so too, perhaps, we might have the openness to imagine that our personal evolution towards true greatness might take, shall we say, more than one lifetime! We are greater in size, time and space than we can possibly imagine when we limit ourselves only to view one another as human bodies and egos, defined and constrained by gender, age, health, talents, and culture.

I know this "thesis" transcends the appropriate limits of clinical research and vocabulary, and ego-protective consciousness, but this is "the truth that shall make us free." And this is the truth that meditators will, eventually, see (or come to learn about). So, stop whining and keep meditating.

Blessings,

Swami Hrimananda!

Meditation: A Revolution Rising

If you use your Internet browser to search on "benefits of meditation" or just "meditation," I think you'll be very surprised. Between the non-stop publication of scientific studies on meditation's health benefits to the growing use of meditation in business, sports and in the lives of leaders and celebrities, there is only one conclusion you can reach: meditation is hot!

David Gelles, author of "Mindful Work," spoke at the World Post Future of Work Conference in Britain claiming "There's nothing religious about meditation!" (http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2015/03/06/david-gelles-mindful-work-meditation-business-_n_6815118.html?utm_hp_ref=uk?utm_hp_ref=world&ir=World&ncid=newsltushpmg00000003)
So, there you have it: see?

The Transcendental Meditation people have conducted numerous tests to demonstrate that a small percentage of meditators can even reduce the local crime rate. A test case led by quantum physicist John Hagelin in Washington D.C. using 173 meditators (minimum is the square root of 1% of the local population) claimed a 23.3% reduction in violent crime during the test period. http://www.worldpeacegroup.org/washington_crime_prevention_full_article.html

I have frequently compared the spread of "yoga" to the growth of the Internet. (footnote: by "yoga" I mean "meditation." The physical postures of hatha yoga were originally part and parcel of that holistic discipline from ancient times that prepared a student for long periods in meditation.)

What's the connection between the Internet and yoga? Simple: both represent the rapidly spreading consciousness of "I want to know how to do things for myself." Social media, too, represents the power to make changes at the broadest, most inclusive level, devoid of hierarchy. This new self-identity of "I" and the "I can do it, too" transcends cultural, religious, or national boundaries. While not all of it is positive, the power of it remains, whether for good or ill. Both yoga and the internet, then, and not exclusively, but by analogy, represent a worldwide cultural revolution that is taking place before our eyes. Just as a powerful tsunami may travel hundreds of miles before it appears as if suddenly offshore, or, just as the 100th monkey creates a tipping point, so too does yoga represent a powerful force which is inexorably rising steadily into view and effect.

Let me digress for a paragraph: During the life of Paramhansa Yogananda (1893-1952: one of the first Indian teachers to take up residence in U.S.A.), he noted the obstinacy of the Los Angeles city building department. In a casual conversation with friends, he remarked, in frustration with the bureaucracy, "There ought to be a revolution." He paused, then added: "There will be a revolution." There are many revolutions ahead of us in the next decades and, likely, at least the next century.

Yes, a revolution is underway. America was the first nation to give practical birth, expression and scope to what is now and clearly the Age of Individuality! The American revolution was the first but by no means the last for what has been and continues to be a non-stop series of worldwide revolutions: some successful and inspired, others merely destructive and angry. Like a ring of fire of volcanoes erupting around the world, cultural revolutions seeking freedom from oppression of all kinds haven't stopped since 1776.

And yes: I do think a revolution will come to America, though it will necessarily take its own shape and form. I think the pendulum of power and "I can do it" is shifting from the federal level downward to states, counties, and cities. The formation of intentional communities, Paramhansa Yogananda predicted, would "spread like wildfire." (Whether because of widespread cataclysm or by more natural and organic means, or perhaps both, he didn't specify.)

But, having digressed, let us return to meditation! Paramhansa Yogananda predicted that in the future, faith traditions and those self-described "spiritual but not religious" individuals would use meditation as their primary form of personal spirituality. Dogma, ritual and charitable activities will no doubt play their roles but for those whose spiritual seeking go deeper than cultural observances, and there will be many for whom meditation will become their primary spiritual activity.

How can we not change in our views about spirituality? Right next door to you and me live people of different faiths. We work together; go to school together; intermarry; assume roles of leadership in every arena of human activity. The end result is guaranteed: we will learn to live together and in the process we will influence each other to think more broadly and also more deeply about what is truth, what is meaningful in life, and what does it mean to be spiritual.

Meditation is the active and natural expression of that common ground. I say active because distinct from intellectual recognition. For some the first step is, in fact, an intellectual perception that we are not really so different, one from another. But as we step away from the traditional forms of religion, we also lose something. That something was the vessel that bore the deeper truths and experience of spirituality: sacredness and upliftment of consciousness toward God, or Oneness. Meditation is one of, if not THE one most effective and consistent means to achieve such states of consciousness (no matter how they are described). Nonetheless, as humans speak, paint, dance and sculpt, we have an innate need and tendency to communicate by symbols our most deeply cherished feelings. Sacredness will no doubt evolve new symbols or bring new meaning and depth to traditional ones.

Once we "know" that being spiritual is a state of consciousness the next step is meditation and it is right in front of us. And, it is growing in recognition and usage everyday: meditation! Yes, an explosion and a revolution.

This is plenty but there's more. The great cultural god SCIENCE has declared it to be "good!: meditation is for everyone! What greater endorsement could there possibly be for a society that bows and scrapes before the cathedrals and high priests of science, medicine, and the sacred idol of double-blind evidence?

Scientific studies continue non-stop to pour forth the praises and the practical, secular benefits of meditation. They may scoff at the intervention of a nameless and invisible deity, but guess who'll get the last laugh! Paramhansa Yogananda was no fool, indeed one of the greatest spiritual teachers of our age, when he named his first book and the theme for his life's work: the Science of Religion.

The practice of yoga postures achieved an initial stage of popularity in the coming-of-age of my own generation in the Sixties and Seventies. What we observed, then, we see continuing and growing now: every week we hear someone declare, "Gee, there's more to this yoga-stuff than just exercise!"

We in the yoga field simply have to accept the downside of popularity: the celebrity-status of hip yoga teachers; the fashion trade that panders to students; and use of sexy women in yoga poses to sell not just yoga but just about anything. We accept this because we know yoga "works." Yoga is for real. Yoga can transform not just your health but your life. One out of every X number of dedicated students discovers "there's more to this yoga than just exercise." Students become calmer; more self-aware; more self-honest; happier, kinder, healthier, and on and on and on. What would the world be like if even the square root of 1% of the world's population practiced yoga? No religious affiliation or terminology is needed, even if, owing to our own human proclivities to communicate and express enthusiasm, some such terms are bound to emerge.

Physical yoga, then, can lead easily and naturally to meditation. So, too, then, with meditation itself. One may begin the practice of meditation with a secular, personal growth, health and stress-reduction motivation. But, by degrees, in becoming calmer and more centered, one finds that awareness and sympathy and insights grow daily until, looking back one day, one is a changed person.

Every day people can be heard saying that "If everyone in the world meditated daily, we would solve all of our problems!" If that's not a revolution, I don't know what is. That's my point: it IS a revolution and it IS happening before our eyes.

I am therefore hopeful for the survival of humanity. And, not just "mere survival" but growth in consciousness, happiness and relative prosperity. But, if my eyes are still wide open, I must also admit that plenty of prejudice, ignorance, violence, poverty, exploitation and hatred remains in the consciousness of humans on this planet.

Meditation, then, is like an invisible tsunami of hope rising silently (naturally!), like the sea level of expanding awareness and hope, around the world. In the meantime, however, many lessons, tragedies, wars, and suffering remain to be experienced. And, yet, given the inevitability of suffering from change, I believe that such misfortunes will only serve further incite people to seek peaceful alternatives and a higher consciousness. The best you and I can do, then, is to meditate daily. We can help ourselves in our commitment to meditation and help others, too, if we can find others to meditate with. Going further, we can each find appropriate ways to spread and support the spread of meditation.

Maybe it's at the office water cooler; in casual conversations; or, for some, learning to teach meditation to others. Assuming you do meditate already, begin visioning yourself and identifying yourself AS a meditator. While true that in the highest states of meditation, there's no meditator, no meditating, and no object of meditation left, it is also true that a more expansive self-identity can replace a narrower one (the usual self-identities, being a cause for conflict, being based on age, gender, nationality, skills and interests, etc.).

It is helpful to learn that meditation is not only an act you engage in each day by "sitting." Meditation is a way of life: a kind of "political party of consciousness" if you don't mind my using the "p" word. At a stoplight, between conversations, or between tasks, become aware of your breath. Instantly and silently enter, however briefly, the meditative state at will. For some this is prayerful and devotional; for others, more psychological; and yet others, it is simply physiological. That doesn't matter. Be true to your own meditation practice and intention.

A scientist knows that beneath the infinite variety of forms of matter lies the universal substrata of energy (in all its variety of manifestations from gravity and electromagnetism and light, to atoms, molecules and quantum particles and waves). So, the yogi (meditator) can discover and be reminded throughout the day that underlying the differences of individuals is a substrata of universal consciousness. As Paramhansa Yogananda expressed his essential message over a century ago: we are ALL seeking happiness and seeking to avoid suffering. Some more wisely than others but universally we seek the golden ring of happiness. View, therefore, all life as seeking fulfillment. Most are of course unaware that the fragrance of our goal, like the pouch of musk in the belly of the musk deer, lies within ourselves.

Meditation is a lifestyle and a philosophy that sees unity in diversity; connection in separateness. It is the inner journey to the heart of the golden rule: "Do unto others as you would have done to you."

Anyone who can more or less function in this crazy world, can (and, heck, "should") meditate. We can and will change the world.

I am a member of the Ananda communities movement (9 communities around the world), I see that what we are doing (by combining meditation with cooperative communities of like-minded souls) is to help give birth to the future: here and now. "We ARE the future!" is how I like to say. (By this I don't mean "Ananda" as an organization. I mean Ananda as reflective of the principles of meditation, sustainable living and high ideals which has inspired the work of Ananda.)

This is true even if we are, for the time being, all but invisible to the public eye. We, who have committed our lives to the lifestyle of meditation, are blessed to live, more or less, in a golden age and bubble of consciousness. We don't exclude others or the world by way of rejection or condemnation. Indeed, we openly share and invite anyone sincerely interested to enter this golden age with us or or to do so in their own way.

But, alas, and for now, "Many are called, but few 'have ears to hear.'" I do not mean to imply that this choice requires residency in an intentional community. Anyone can live in an intentional community by virtue of intention and connection with others of like mind whether that community is virtual, energetic, or residential.

Ours is the future, and the future is NOW! In this age of individuality, it's your choice!

Blessings to all,

Swami Hrimananda

What is "Mahasamadhi" and Are Miracles Real?

Today, Saturday March 7, is the 63rd anniversary of the day that Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the now famous life story: "Autobiography of a Yogi") "left his body" (died) at a banquet at the Biltmore Hotel in Los Angeles in the presence of a large gathering to honor the newly appointed ambassador to the United States from India.

The term used (Sanskrit) is "mahasamadhi" - the Great Samadhi. This describes the conscious exit from the body by a saint. Samadhi is a term that refers to the ultimate state of God consciousness, a state of oneness with God (and, by extension, all creation which is a manifestation of God's consciousness).

You may rightly ask: "Many people die consciously, so how does this differ?" Yes, it's true many people die a peaceful and otherwise conscious death and they are not necessarily considered great saints. Since we are talking in terms of consciousness it is not so easy to observe by outer signs. By definition, the act of dying entails no necessary physical movements. So, to a degree the designation of an act of "mahasamadhi" is, at least to a casual observer, a statement of belief.

Since Yogananda ("PY") lived in recent times and until the death of Ananda's founder in 2013, Swami Kriyananda ("SK"), we personally knew someone who was present at PY's death in 1952, we can take his mahasamadhi as our example. At the moment PY slipped to the floor while reciting his poem, "My India," SK had his head down writing down PY's words as he addressed the gathering at the Biltmore Hotel. SK said he knew instantly however that PY had exited his body. In SK's own autobiography, "The New Path," he describes numerous instances in the preceding days, weeks, months and even years that PY dropped hints of the nature of his exit.

Among the hints that he gave was his statement that he would go by a heart attack (stopping his heart, that is; something he demonstrated repeatedly publicly, though temporarily, of course); another was that he would leave his body while reciting his poem, "My India." And on and on like that. But these are but hints. The real essence of the appellation of mahasamadhi comes not only in the striking manner of death but more importantly in the power of his life.

I occasionally come across a student at our Ananda center who, while enjoying the practice of yoga and meditation, is resistant to the idea of miracles. Such folks object to the stories in "Autobiography of a Yogi" wherein saints materialize from nowhere, or bi-locate, cure the sick or raise the dead. And, in some way, who can argue?

SK, at age 22, had similar reservations; so did I, at age 26. For many of us, we simply put such things on a mental shelf to be dealt with later as we continued to enjoy the stories, wisdom, humor and inspiration of what surely must be one of the greatest spiritual classics of the modern era.

Now, mind you: I have no intention of convincing anyone that miracles happen. In fact, I would direct your attention to that chapter in the "Autobiography" ("AY") called "The Law of Miracles." As excellent a discourse on miracles you will not find anywhere! Bar none!

It has been well said by others wiser than me that "Either everything is a miracle, or nothing is a miracle." The one defense I would offer in favor of what we call miracles is simply that: what we call miracles are phenomenon that we simply do not yet have an explanation for! Most of what passes for our daily use in technology would be shockingly miraculous in prior centuries. And, we've only just begun to explore nature and the cosmos! I am long past fussing over how it is possible for Jesus Christ to resurrect his body from the portals of death and any other similar miracle. Whether he did so as a matter of fact, is, for me, secondary, to the possibility that it can be done.

Getting back to "mahasamadhi," did PY choose that moment or was that moment chosen for him? According to the theology of oneness that he and others in the Vedantic lineages have professed, a liberated soul who returns to human form is an "avatar." Avatara is the descent into a human body of a soul that has, as Jesus said of himself, become "one with the Father." "Self-realization" is a term now used for that state of consciousness. As God can be both infinite and infinitesimal, so God-consciousness now permanently resident in the vehicle of a unique and eternal soul can incarnate into human form. Not a puppet or a divinely-created automaton, but a soul, like you and I. In such a one, however, his consciousness is united to God's infinite consciousness. Such a soul comes to play a part on earth, like you and I, but the part he plays is not compelled by ignorance and attachment, but is guided by divine impulse even as filtered through the unique qualities and past tendencies of that soul.

Thus the question of whether PY committed an act of spiritual suicide (as someone once asked me) or whether God "took him out" is a non-question. Such a one would easily have, or be given, glimpses of his final exit and, like many people on earth, might have an inkling for the timing of it. There is no separate "ego" to decide such a thing apart from the divine mind.

As all action creates reaction ("karma"), the action of a Self-realized soul accrues to the benefit of others but nonetheless follows certain patterns appropriate to itself. In PY's life work, it was entirely fitting that he leave this world speaking, as he predicted that he would, of "my India and my America" and, in the presence of the ambassador from India! Like a great story or play, his end was as fitting and appropriate as any inspired ending should have been. In God there are no coincidences, only God "choosing to remain anonymous."

PY was a public figure a part of whose public mission was to highlight and bring together the best of east and west. He taught that soon America and India would lead the world in their respective contributions to the evolution of human consciousness: the one in the discovery of natural laws, efficiency and individual liberties, and the other in the science of mind (yoga) leading to the true freedom and happiness born of direct, personal perception of our true Self.

During his life, PY demonstrated to those close to him that could enter, at will, the state of oneness (samadhi). During the last years of his life, he was in seclusion much more than before and close disciples experienced or perceived that during such times he would be in an elevated state of consciousness and oblivious to his own body and the world around him.

Adding to that his predictions of his exit from this world, it is the custom among yogis to label the death of such a one a conscious act and the final great-samadhi (for that lifetime). With the power to unite his consciousness (confined in the physical form) with the consciousness of Infinity, such a one could enter that state and permanently (rather than temporarily) exit the body. This, at least, is one way of describing what is said to have taken place.

Of course, it can't be proved in an objective sense. It is an article of faith. Faith, however, is not the same as the more tentative hypothesis inherent in mere belief. The faith of his disciples rested in their actual experience of PY as a human being in daily life. To those close to him, PY demonstrated that he knew their every thought. That proof and impact of that accrued only to those individuals. It can be described but not proven to anyone else.

The so-called miracles of saints are only rarely demonstrated on a large public scale. But even when it does happen, those people die off soon enough and nothing is left but their testimony. Whether to one or a handful of close disciples (who witness, say, the raising of a person from death), or whether a group of diners being given full glasses of carrot juice from a small half-filled pitcher, it inevitably comes down to someone's personal experience and testimony.

God, it is said, does not win devotees by performing circus stunts. God has and is everything. We have only our love to give or withhold--for eternity if we choose.

SK suggested that we, at Ananda, use the occasion of PY's mahasamadhi to honor the life, teachings and consciousness of great saints in every tradition, east and west, past and present. Self-realized saints (we use the term "masters" -- having achieved Self-mastery) are, in effect, God incarnate. They demonstrate that we, too, are God incarnate but still mostly asleep. It is the purpose of creation that we awaken. Simply to "die and go to heaven" and to turn our backs on the creation as a sham, is not the divine intention. The creation is beautiful to the extent God who is the creation awakens to become Self-aware.

It is, therefore, in the fitness of things that souls do, in fact, by self-effort and the power of grace, achieve Self-realization while in human form. In this way, then, God speaks and teaches others and gives upliftment and hope to those who "have ears to hear and eyes to see." To honor such living examples is to honor ourselves, our souls and all souls. Too many sects have abandoned the devotion to God through the saints (especially the true masters.....many others are but saints still "in-the-making"). Thus, we take this day to pay such tribute in song, prayer, chanting and inner communion (in meditation).

Blessings to all this sacred special day!

Nayaswami Hriman

Making the Impersonal, personal, and, the Personal, impersonal!

In the great drama of human life we see played out a "tug-a-war" between personal and impersonal. We encounter this in the impact governments and its laws have upon our lives. We encounter this tug in the ways male and female view one another. We stumble on this in religion, in science, in metaphysics and psychology. Let me give some simple examples, making the object of the subject, well, 'er, more personal!

In the so-called rule of law (to which we salute as bringing peace, security and order to the chaos of self-interested human behavior), we might find that our obligation to pay our taxes conflicts with our conscientious objection to how those taxes are used.

In a relationship, one partner may object to his partner's friendship with another person on the grounds of it being too personal, too familiar; the other will presumably affirm her right and valuable need to have other friendships and may insist that such friendships are not of the romantic or committed nature of their own with one another. The one intuits trouble, or is suspicious, jealous or fearful; the other denies it, whether being merely naive, subconsciously dishonest, or in fact completely innocent.

Most religious sects insist theirs is the best and most likely to bestow salvation. Others insist that all religions are based on and offer more or less the same virtues and rewards. A religionist insists on the existence of God while the atheist demands proof. Nondualists say God is without form; devotees ("bhaktis") worship God in the form they hold dear.

Some scientists, like Albert Einstein was, are bent upon finding universal natural laws that apply throughout the universe. Others are content to find what works under prescribed conditions, perhaps solely with the object of discovering new and useful (perhaps profitable) products.

Meta-physicians see in human conduct and motivation the interplay of universal states of consciousness guided by a unifying motivation: our souls seeking eternal happiness. By contrast, a psychologist might seek a specific cause and effect such as how your parents treated you.

I find myself in that category of persons (there being, of course, "two kinds of people in this world") who, when coming upon someone's personal account, am likely to say something that will generalize that person's experience into the context of a universal response. I hope, thereby, to help that person see that his predicament is shared with many. Indeed, is there any human emotion or reaction that isn't shared by millions under similar circumstances?

Yet in doing so, I might be intentionally or inadvertently seeming to dismiss the opportunity to be helpful or at least sympathetic. As if by saying, "Yeah, that happens to everyone." (So, therefore, let it go.)

It is true, however that seeing my own problems in a larger context can help me to step back from the emotional intensity of my reaction. An astrology reading, for example, gives one the benefit of seeing larger forces and tendencies at play in one's life. One person might be tempted to shirk responsibility (blaming the impersonal forces of the stars), another might find the longer rhythm perspective calming and insightful.

That other category of persons (the more personal) will undoubtedly respond to a friend's woes with moral outrage. In so doing, however, she might find herself as upset as her friend and lead them both nowhere but into a pit of emotion. Or, maybe instead, having responded sympathetically, she might come up with practical suggestions on how to resolve or improve the situation.

So, you see, there is a place for both approaches. It IS helpful to view our lives more impersonally. "Thoughts are universally, not individually, rooted," Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the classic, "Autobiography of a Yogi") is frequently quoted as saying. Having lived In Los Angeles during the heyday of Hollywood (1925-1952), Yogananda was apt to compare life to the movies. He encouraged students to step back from the drama of life and look to the "beam of light" being projected from the booth of eternity. In that light we are all one and the drama of life is seen as but moving shadows of light and dark projected on screen of life. We then can see the alternating currents of sadness and happiness, tragedy and comedy, and birth, life, and death. The impersonal point of view is potentially helpful for everyone (BOTH kinds of people, that is) to contemplate.

I've been watching the series, Cosmos. It's quite fun and interesting, though I bristle from time to time with its narrow view of human history: it's unending characterization of ancient man as little more than hairy cave dwellers and with its only slightly hidden message that science will make us not only more intelligent but happier.

The joy, indeed the smirk, that astrophysicists and astronomers seem to perpetually wear is the equivalent to the smugness exhibited by nondualistic philosophers (like me). It reminds me of that expression: "The operation was a success, but the patient died peacefully on the table."

This attitude is all too often sterile: dead on arrival. It can be an excuse for aloofness, lack of feeling, and unwillingness to lift a finger to help another person in his grief or time of need. Sure, God is all there is; God is One & Eternal; God has manifested Himself in the creation.....etc. etc. Wonderful, but how does that help me along with my wife or my co-workers? What about the grief, sorrow and suffering of so many people around me? Yes, indeed, the scientific or metaphysical views of the cosmos and creation may be factually true or intellectually satisfying but too strict a view is apt to shrivel my heart and apt to belittle the significance of anyone's personal life!

Indeed, as a nondualist and Vedantin, I find the impersonal view inspiring but, at the same time, I would do well to be as impersonal towards my own feelings as to those of others!

Any true scripture (try the Book of Genesis, e.g.) will address both the "Why God made this creation" and the "Why that's important to me" questions. (Contrast Chapter 1 of Genesis with Chapter 2, wherein the impersonal descends with breath-taking speed to the very personal.) Both the impersonal and the personal are needed. Our minds want to know "why," our hearts want to know what we can do about it. Truth must blend, or reconcile, the impersonal with the personal. Reason and feeling.

Life treats armchair philosophers rather rudely. "Your religion (life philosophy) is tested in the cold light of day" a wise person once wrote. Take life personally if you are to act responsibly and have any hope of finding true happiness in this roiling, ever-insecure cauldron we call life. Take life TOO personally, and you are apt to augur downward towards anger, resentment, paranoia, or depression.

"Think globally; act locally." This neatly sums up the integration of your philosophy with your emotions. I say emotions because our feelings are the engine that quick-starts us into action. Philosophy is dry; emotions are wet! We need both, lest we die either of thirst or by drowning.

Introspect, therefore, as to you own temperament: do you take the dry, intellectual or impersonal point of view, or do you tend to get down and personal? Learn to refine your responses and to balance them with the other. See the big picture but act to improve the little picture of here and now. The latter is a microcosm of the former. Life is a hologram!

So, when the stars come out at night, go outside with a friend and hold hands while gazing heavenward!

Blessings to all,

Hriman

Love: Fifty Shades of Red

It has been well said that "love makes the world go round." More accurate to say, attraction, and its corollary, repulsion, makes the world go round: and literally, at that. Right now, outside my window, two squirrels are playing on the tree, playmates, I suppose.

Today is the day Americans call Valentine's Day: a celebration of romantic love. Our language, and I think many other languages, also, use this word love but it has many shades of red and ultimately describes the attraction one feels towards something or someone else. The shades of red are virtually limitless in human relations. Some might say "pure" love is but platonic (not physical) and exists, assuming it is mutual, only in the heart and mind of the lovers. That sounds wonderful from a spiritual perspective but I can think of adolescent love being platonic but very, very unreal and but a fantasy. So, even here, at the more extreme edge of this amazing thing called human love, we find shades of red. Love is not love that doesn't draw fire: meaning that doesn't draw two people closer together in meaningful relationship, whether constructive or otherwise.

In the metaphysical terms that are part and parcel of my daily life as a meditator and a nondualist (a Vedantan), love is dual. We can speak of Bliss as the nature of God and the essence of pure consciousness but we cannot speak of love in terms of Oneness: only You-ness!

And yet the power of love, when reciprocated, draws the two in the direction of becoming One! Thus, love seeks fulfillment in the bliss of the union of two into one! Our wedding rings are a circle because the circle suggests infinity and oneness.

It is only in our relationship with the One, that is to say, God, that this impulse finds fulfillment. Lord Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, when asked whether we should relate to God as absolute and nondual or whether we should love God in the I-Thou form, replied that for embodied souls (that's you and me), the I-Thou relationship is more helpful and practical. "Arduous," Krishna warns, is the way to the absolute. Our very separateness from God who is all Love and all that is ("I AM that I AM") means that our starting point necessitates a movement and distance. And yet, it is also true that in God we are One and Eternal and have always been so. As Jesus said of himself, "Before Abraham was, I AM."

On the human level, however, there's an intrinsic limit: an unscalable wall. Drawn as we are to another person, we can never become one with another human because it's our very differences, our separateness, that generates the attraction even as it necessarily and simultaneously prevents our union. Our desire to be united has the darker potential of smothering one another! We humans, you see, are trapped in this thing called love. It is one of life's greatest paradoxes.

Human love, to exist and be maintained and appreciated, must operate in a precarious and fragile magnetic zone. Think of the earth and the sun. Each are held in their respective orbits by the opposite forces of gravity and the centrifugal force of their respective orbits.

As an experiment, try holding two strong magnets apart (the one positive, the other negative) at just the exact distance needed to feel the attraction but prevent their crashing together. Human love will always be one or more steps short of satisfaction because we must keep the beloved at arms length in order to see and appreciate her! Just as the atomic structure of our bodies prevents them from merging, so to the electromagnetic forces of our psyche do the same. Strange, isn't it?

Those, who like Icarus, fly too close to the sun of human love, will crash and burn. When couples seek, through lust or friendship, to come and remain too close, strange distortions occur, like the gravitational force of a black hole that bends light rays into itself, absorbing the light. Dominance, submission, loss of respect, boredom, moodiness, or the familiarity that breeds only contempt: these are the fruit of being too much attached to one another. (The same is true for friends, parents, or children.)

Two people simply cannot literally become one. The very power to become attracted to another has its roots in the power which creates and maintains our separateness. Thus on a level of magnetism, when we attempt to merge, there are sparks: heat and light, and a mixture of both, much like the effect of a "short circuit."

Sometimes it is difficult even to know the difference between pleasure and pain. (Like scratching a mosquito bite.) No two people can be everything needed to another. No two people could live solely in isolation with each other, locked in perpetual love. It simply cannot and does not happen, though this doesn't prevent endless numbers of couples from trying.

It is not only for the protection of children and perpetuation of the human species that societies put boundaries around this thing called love. It is a force which is powerful but which must be subject to restraints, lest it turn destructive. The just released movie, "Fifty Shades of Grey" demonstrates by its popularity that eroticism has a primal power to attract. But like an rogue wave in the wide expanse of the ocean of human consciousness, its power must dissipate. As it does, it drowns those who try to stay on top of it hoping that the excitement and stimulation will not cease. And, when it does, we are not thereby returned to our self so easily. We are stained, lessened by our intense but false effort to lose ourselves in the outward experience. Even the story line, itself, is but a fiction. Such activities can only end in boredom and self-loathing, if not violence or exploitation.

A person desperate for human love tends to magnetically repulse potential worthy suitors because human love, being so constrained by its own terms, can only thrive to the extent each person is strong in himself (herself). One who desires to be worshiped is one who desires to dominate. One who desires to worship another is one destined to be dominated. Both will lose self-respect and will ultimately suffer. The best marriage is between two persons who, while they share an affinity and appreciate and respect one another, are centered in themselves. Better yet: centered in love for God.

Human love, therefore, can help us to become strong if we honor its paradoxical constraints: holding our heart's magnetic attraction close, but not too close, to its desired object. To do so takes creative commitment and mindfulness. A few of the qualities of true human love include mutual respect and mutual service; self-giving; forgiving; caring; wisdom; calmness; and, appreciation.No wonder there are so few truly blessed partnerships!

In the Ananda communities (nine, worldwide), couples have the opportunity to place their human love in relation to divine love and divine service to others. By emphasizing our souls and not just gender differences and personalities, we find our natural love becomes expansive. We can grow beyond the self-limiting boundaries of "us four and no more." We have friends of like-mind who share our ideals and way of life.

This new model reflects the emerging trend of spirituality in this new age. Ego transcendence becomes a tool that re-directs our attention toward the bliss of soul-consciousness. It reduces the competition between the sexes which is born of the emphasis upon our differences. We focus, instead, on cooperation, simplicity and moderation so that our higher nature can emerge and be made manifest. Thus can be found a satisfaction and harmony in relationship that is not commonly found.

Yogananda's param-guru, Lahiri Mahasaya, by living in the world as a householder with children and a career, established the model of an ideal life in the world but not 'of' the world. He demonstrated how we might find freedom in God through meditation (kriya yoga) while fulfilling our natural, human responsibilities without attachment or ego-identification.

Our hearts, born of and reflecting the infinite love of God, can never be fully satisfied by the oscillating magnetism of even faithful and true human love. Worse than this is the fact that such friendships are relatively rare. So how much less satisfying therefore are the more fickle, insecure, and co-dependent relationships that pass for human love on the broad expanse of human lives?

This does not mean our relationships have no spiritual value, however. Just as Krishna prescribes the I-Thou relationship to God, so too the divine purpose of human love is to help us refine our love to become steady, true, and harmonious. Those who do not bother or care to love others in a self-giving way, cannot attract the love of God, Paramhansa Yogananda warned. Human love is a stepping stone to perfect, divine love.

The fastest way to purify and clarify our heart's natural love is to follow the two great commandments of the Bible (Old and New Testaments): love God with heart, mind, soul and strength and love others as your very Self. Put in another way, don't think that you have to get it just right in human love before you can even think about loving God. That doesn't work because the attractions of human love are infinite. And, while we have infinity to find God, who would wisely want an infinity of disappointment, disillusionment and suffering? Only a fool!

If we must, therefore, celebrate Valentine's Day, let us celebrate it as a reminder that human love offers to us of the perfect love of God. Let us see in our partner, whether real, merely desired or viewed at a distance, the living presence of God as Divine Mother or the Heavenly Father. God comes to us in the human forms of one another. The human qualities which we find so compellingly attractive, such as strength, wisdom, beauty, and kindness, and which we see or imagine in others, are there to remind us that all goodness comes from God-ness. ("Go-od-ness" is dual; God-ness is One.) As Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita, (to paraphrase), all admirable traits are rays of God's Light reflected in the consciousness of human beings.

So every time a handsome or beautiful face strikes your fancy, or you are tempted to admire another person for their wisdom, talent, or gentleness, train your mind to think of God as the Doer behind all appearances. Mentally bow to God in that form. Never think that any trait of attractiveness is unique to that one person.

Furthermore, any such trait to which you are attracted should be a trait that you begin to develop within yourself. Perhaps you need to be more beauty-oriented in your life: not for vanity's sake, but perhaps you can more consciously combine pleasing colors in your wardrobe, in your home and your surroundings. Beauty derives from harmony. Think, harmony in thought, feelings, actions and surroundings.

Perhaps you need to develop your strength: physical or mental; or, wisdom by study and association with the wise; or, kindness in thought and (random) acts; or, gentleness in your words and empathy. It is in ourselves, which is to say, in our souls, that these traits, though appearing to our view outwardly, are calling us to develop in ourselves.

The purpose of the attraction between men and women, finally, has for its purpose the soul's call to become One within ourselves: to bring wisdom and love, reason and feeling, into harmony, united in self-giving, in devotion, and in seeking God alone.

"May Thy love shine forever, on the sanctuary of my devotion" (a prayer by Paramhansa Yogananda, author of "Autobiography of a Yogi" and the preceptor of the kriya yoga work of Ananda worldwide.)

Blessings,

Swami Hrimananda! ("Joy through devotion")

Practical and Inspired Meditation Suggestions for the Busy Householder Yogi!

I'd like to share with you a blogpost on meditation written by my daughter, Gita. Gita lives at Ananda Village, CA, with her husband and fellow meditation/yoga teacher, Badri, and their Facebook famous daughter (our granddaughter), Tulsi!

Enjoy!

http://gitagoing.blogspot.com/2015/02/12-lessons-from-12-years-of-kriya-yoga.html

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

Congressional Gridlock: Is there no solution?

Imagine a group of people gathered together to deal with an important task but who could not decisively agree on any action. What would they do? Assuming going home is not an option, you might say, "Intelligent people compromise." And you would be right, BUT........that's not the reality in the U.S. Congress (or, for that matter, around the world in numerous conflicts).

In the west when faced with decisions we think: "Either-or." In the east, where ratiocination is more intuitive, they are more likely to think: "Both-AND."

On a political decision, one might say, "We must live within our budget and we must leave people to be free to help themselves." Another might counter, "But we must share what we have and help those in need."

Either-or thinking makes no solution possible. Both-and thinking admits that each has a valid point of view and therefore, how can we find a middle path?

If the middle is compromise, well, never mind because it's obvious our Congress isn't inclined to be either rational or open to different points of view.

Is there an ALTERNATIVE? I think so.

What if the both-and (right brain) members of Congress proposed something like: "Let's each try our approach and see how they actually work." "Huh? How?" you ask.

We have what we call "red" and "blue" states, don't we? We also have a long-held premise that grants to the individual states a degree of autonomy and independence. We see that the federal government administers certain laws or policies such as in areas of health and education by parsing out to the states a degree of latitude of implementation, often on a sharing or matching basis (for funds). Well, let's take that a few steps further and have a win-win!

Let's take one extremely controversial and important issue in our country: health care. It's a complicated issue, too, isn't it? What if Congress passed only broad-reaching goals and policies, leaving the red and blue states to experiment with different forms of health care for an experimental window of time (5 to 10 years?). Wouldn't the results of each's approach(es) speak for themselves? It could even just stay that way, assuming it works to the satisfaction of both sides. Simple, well, no, but what is there about health care in this country, including Obamacare, that is simple?

We need creative solutions to major problems. By breaking it down and giving latitude to simultaneously work out independent and locally sensitive solutions, we could all gain by one another's experience.

Our pluralistic society seems to guarantee there's little meaning to the term "majority." Sure, right now the Republicans "control" Congress. But by how much of a margin of percent? A president can, I believe, even win the election with less than the popular majority vote. In any case the margin of winning is almost numerically insignificant in major races and votes. It is most certainly an insignificant reflection of the "will of the people," for the people are clearly divided on most every important matter! Worse still, this is not likely to change in hundred years. Only in the unfortunate event of a major war or other disaster are we likely to have a sufficiently united sentiment on anything nationally.

We must therefore find new ways to accommodate our plurality. We already have long established, at least in principle, and largely in practice, the ability for people and groups of a wide variety of lifestyles and beliefs to accept one another and leave one another in peace. Let's, therefore, extend our cultural gains further. It requires no changes in law; just a change in attitude as to what's possible and good!

Though with less confidence (and less knowledge of the facts), I can at least imagine that even immigration policies could reflect the legitimate needs of individual states. I know that sounds outrageous, but think it through. Why couldn't INS work cooperatively with various states to implement certain policies in a way that takes into account the needs and attitude of a given state and its residents? I think this could be implemented, even if to a limited degree, for the benefit and harmony of all.

At the risk of digressing, consider this: the giant Soviet empire broke apart into smaller units. This trend of fragmentation of the bigger into the smaller is happening all over the world. People want; nay, demand freedom. And this trend is only just beginning. And we started it all!

We certainly don't want another civil war or to divide our nation but we are the world's authority (imperfect as we are) on co-existence, tolerance, respect and compromise. (Sure we have a long way to go, but, heavens, look around at other nations.)

Our strength has been, in part, the recognition by the Founding Fathers of the need for check and balance, and specifically, for the federal government to be held in check by the states. The states have certainly taken a back seat during the 20th century and that was fine, then. But now, the pendulum is swinging back the other way. With the internet, travel, and general other freedoms, we want to do it "our way." We want to "occupy" our space. Yet, our problems are so large, we can't do it only alone. No one state or nation, e.g., can mitigate globe warming, what to mention national issues such as health care, immigration, infrastructure or education.

But if we cooperate, we can do anything! And by cooperation I don't mean "one size fits all." Rather, we need "co-processing power": working together yet also independently. Both-And is NOT the same as compromise. Compromise leaves no one satisfied, often offering pale, limpid solutions instead of bold and creative ones. Rather, both-and says "Let's each be given some latitude to try out our ideas."

In fact, what's staring us in the face, causing some to drool, is the ability of an authoritarian state (yes, China) to get things done! Is THAT what we want? I don't think so.

To preserve our freedom, I would say we have no real choice. Everyone could be a winner and a player with a vested interest in positive outcomes. Most leaders, yes, even in Congress, are sincere but they are deeply divided and benefit from do-nothingness. Pluralism must therefore extend to governance. It's really that simple.

A tall order? No, not really. I think Americans might even be ready for a shift in consciousness in this direction.

Well, a bit far from the subject of meditation and "living yoga," but there you have it. A soap box.

Nayaswami Hriman

Hear ye, hear ye: what does it take to hear ye?

I wear hearing aids and in the long process of getting to this point I’ve learned a lot about communication, about listening, hearing, and understanding. Each of these is a different aspect of the human interactions!

It’s axiomatic, or, well, at least a commonly heard joke, that women’s voices are more difficult (for men?) to hear! One could say more, but, what’s the point, I’d just lose most of my readers! I concur, however, with this time-honored adage in that at least some women’s voices are more difficult to hear. Most audiologists will mumble that it’s due to their higher pitch, but there’s more to it than that, at least sometimes. But truly, hearing loss is not merely about gender differences! So, don’t write me off too soon, ok?

Hearing differs from listening in that it takes the intention of listening to hear with understanding. In some cases, “not hearing” can mean either no sound was heard, or, more likely, I heard but I didn’t understand the words or the meaning of the words (again, these are two different things.) It may mean that “I don’t like you, or what you are saying, so I choose to ignore what you said!”

I sometimes hear the words perfectly well enough, but have no idea what they mean. Apart from brain dysfunction (always a possibility), I am referring to the fact (at first, it was shocking to me to come to grips with this) that without some context, or more complete explanation, or at least a preamble, it is sometimes impossible to know what a person is talking about even when the words are perfectly clear and understandable.

A common issue I’ve noticed is the use of too many pronouns: “Did you hear what she said?” “Who?” “No, what did she say?” Or, changing the subject without warning or introduction.

An even more common issue, and this relates in part to hearing loss, is to have another person begin a sentence with the key word or a person’s name. “Alice is decided to withdraw her name.” “Who?” “What did you say?” When this happens to me, I’m stuck back at the first word trying to figure out the “who” and entirely miss the rest of the sentence. A simple solution, for a conscious speaker in the presence of a person with hearing loss, is to always begin a sentence with some throwaway introductory words. “You know what I just heard? Alice…(pause)….has decided to withdraw her name from the auction drawing.”

I want to emphasize the importance of key words such as names, proper nouns, decisive adjectives and so on. Pronouncing key words consciously is critical to effective communication, both intimate and public.

Not enough can be said about the value of a preamble: “Do you have a minute? I wanted to mention to you something about Alice.” Speaking of preambles: “What’s my name?” Repeat: “What my name?” If you want to talk to me, use my name before launching into your dialogue. Of course, if I’m already nose to nose with you, that’s not necessary, but, otherwise, how about a simple, “Hriman, oh hi! You gotta minute?”

It may be hearing loss, age, or simply staying focused in my own boundaries, but I purposely DO NOT listen to conversations of other people. If you suddenly begin talking to me, even as I pass you, I may just keep walking. Not because I’m a jerk (which I suppose I can be, sometimes, too), but because I don’t wish to get caught up in idle conversations. So, if someone like me is not facing you, eye to eye, toe to toe, please start your sentence with my name, pause, and then say something “throw away” like “Oh, Hriman,……, there’s something I wanted to mention to you.” Then, as my ship comes about face, we can talk of more important matters!

Then there are the miscreants who deign to talk to me from another room. When I can, I simply ignore such people. Or, how about the ones who turn their back on you as they talk and even walk away in the opposite direction as they are speaking to you! Egads!!!! For some, it’s simply an impolite habit, but I suspect it might also represent a lack of commitment to the conversation; or, a lack of clarity or confidence in what he or she has to say. Or, and we all probably do this: not caring whether we are heard and liking the idea that we’ve said our piece aloud!

Sometimes there can be a good reason for getting it off our chest, regardless of whether the other person hears us fully! In any case, these half-way speakers are frustrating to be around and they can come across as rude, arrogant or at best thoughtless. I cannot help but feel that if you have self-respect for what you have to say and you wish to communicate it, and respect for your listener, it would do well to take the time to do so as to be heard.  

I’ve met quite a few ventriloquists in my day. It’s really quite amazing to hear (or not) how many can speak without moving their lips; or, without any air passing through them! Why do some do this? Shyness, habit, lack of confidence or sometimes simply a soft-spoken, internalized voice?

I’ve always admired my friend and teacher, Swami Kriyananda, for, inter alia, his skill at projecting his voice. Those of us with hearing loss should, in early stages, as yet not acknowledged, pay attention to how often we say “What?” But those with too soft of voices should also pay attention to how often they are asked to repeat themselves. If the latter, learn to open your mouth, move your lips, and use your lungs and chest to project your voice into the face or into the space occupied by your listener(s)!

I look back over many years of being with Swami Kriyananda. His hearing loss grew steadily worse until it became acute by the end of his life. I look back and wonder how much of his tendency to avoid conversation at meals was due to the difficulty of hearing while eating and in the challenge presented by surround-sound conversations, oft interrupted by others, confounded by the ambient noise of dishes, music, etc.

Indeed, I, too find, unfortunately, that I can’t chew food and listen at the same time. As I share many meals with friends and in public, it becomes a choice of eating or listening, but not at the same time. 

Standing in a crowded room holding a small plate of snacks with conversations around me 360⁰  makes it impossible to have an understandable conversation.

Ever see those big trucks that have a sign on them that says “If you can’t see my mirror(s), I can’t see you?” Ditto for my eyes! If I can’t see your eyes and vice versa in a conversation, the odds are very good I’m not going to “hear” you (meaning, either the words or the meaning or both).

I couldn’t possibly count the number of times someone spoke to me and I didn’t understand a word. It happens too frequently. Sometimes I even get slightly nauseous, like I’m drowning, when I can’t hear or understand the words.

Another shocking revelation (for me, at least) has been the degree to which my expectation of what a person is saying determines what I think I just heard! You’ve read, often perhaps, about the illusion of seeing a snake on the path ahead of you (perhaps in dim light, like dusk), reacting with fear, and then discovering that the snake is only a rope left on the ground? Yup, that’s what I am talking about!

I have learned that the same happens with sight, as well: especially under stress, as in when I am frantically looking for something, say, in various drawers. Many a time I discovered that based on the intensity of my focus and expectation I would momentarily think I saw what I was looking for only to discover (usually in a flash) that the object is something else.

This is what happens, I believe, to all of us when we are listening to others. I’ve seen or heard of some movie or maybe a quote from Churchhill (no, it was FDR, I think), who went around a room of partygoers saying something like, “I killed my mother.” He discovered that no one reacted because no one “heard” what he said because the words did not fit what his hearer expected to hear nor the context (of the party)!

Many a time I have been embarrassed for the fact that what I thought I heard was the opposite of what was said: like FDR’s experiment, I would end up smiling my congratulations when instead I should have been expressing sympathy! Sigh!

Now, let’s move up to left vs right brain conversation. When I was younger I could engage in that “witty repartee” that is characteristic of young, high metabolizing brains. I can still do this, but my métier as a man of wisdom and considerable life experience (I’m partly joking, here) leaves me somewhat uninterested in “witty repartee!”

My wife likes to tell friends how at a complete loss I am during our weekly staff meetings, when, surrounded only by women, I don’t have clue what they are talking about. An abundant use of pronouns, incomplete sentences, and rapid-fire changes in subject matter, can leave my head spinning: “clueless,” as it were, “in Seattle.”

The issue is, sometimes, a gender difference, but by NO means always. It’s really, or so I believe, a question of patterns of thought and speech: in short, left vs right brain. Men have right brains too, just as women have considerable prowess with their left brains! Still, brains do rule the day and no one in our society seems to have thrown out the “women are more intuitive” cliché quite yet. My own experience does confirm this, at least some of the time.

So, we are past the gender thing and have emerged into the human brain.  I’m not authority on brains but I think it’s not as simple as left vs right. There are some people whose speech patterns are discombobulated: they don’t adhere to the time honored concept that a sentence begins with a subject that gets some traction by using a verb that takes aims in the direction of an object. This idea just isn’t there for some brains. I don’t know much about “Attention-deficit disorder” or Obsessive-compulsive disorder” and to make reference to it here may be hugely inaccurate, but I throw it into the brain soup, just in case it might complete someone’s alphabet.  In any case and in a simple way, some people’s minds work at a different pace then their mouth.

Blurt-ers simply speak whatever channels through their mind. The result is disconcerting, often dismaying, and sometimes poorly said and all too often negative. Many, however, simply skip saying what they started in favor of the latest thought that brightens their bulb. This leaves the rest of us hanging on the edge of a steep cliff of cognition.

Then there are the infamous Mumblers. Some haven’t moved their lips since birth. Others are perhaps too are shy or hesitant to put their speech out into clear view. Perhaps they fear being wrong or being critiqued. Fear of critique, I have found, is balanced by a critical mind that expects from others what they, themselves, are inclined to do.

Suffice to say, I have to walk a line between saying “What” so frequently that I might be mistaken for a parrot; or, simply staying out of many conversations and miss a valuable sharing. There are numerous conversations I refrain from entering or I just simply smile and nod or offer some offhand monosyllabic utterance to indicate that I haven’t had a stroke.

If I judge that I need to pay attention and say “What?” I will but I am cautious. People frown upon those whose conversation is limited to repeating “What.” No doubt there are times when I misjudge and lose important information. After all, my work is very with and for people, so missteps do happen.

By the end, which is coming hopefully soon, it gets down to the fact that it is simply amazing that humans understand each other. It seems that communication is like a game of chance, or to quote Forest, Forest Gump: a box of chocolates (“You never know what you’re gonna’ get.”).

Ultimately, truth is, I’m just letting off steam: can you hear it hiss? Nothing I write here will actually change the conditions one faces due to hearing loss! Hearing aids are no substitute for good hearing. 

And I suppose you should remind me to “Be the change I seek.” Eh?

My favorite chant these days is “Listen, listen, listen” by Paramhansa Yogananda.

Thanks for hearing me out.

Hrimananda

Is Negativity a Habit?

In my many years living in intentional community I have seen that people who are otherwise idealistic can yet be negative owing, largely, to habit. I have noticed, for example, that one customary way to express friendship, intimacy, trust, and bonding is to "let your hair down" and "tell all."

In spiritual groups, nonprofit organizations, and other idealistic settings, it is the norm to affirm an upbeat, positive, and cheerful attitude. But this is simply not always possible because each of us has our ups and downs. But here I am not talking about mere ups and down. Here I am talking about what can become an entrenched habit.

What I have observed is that confiding in another person too often goes in the downward direction of digging in the dirt of one's fears, anxieties, regrets, and resentments -- things that you don't normally admit you are holding onto. Worse than that is that this digging can develop into a habit: merely something to talk about (again and again and again).

Thus, when good people get together one-on-one or in smaller, bonded groups, the whispered confidences become less than upbeat. It is too bad that sharing negativity (including fear) signals that "you are my friend and I trust you." Sometimes we all have to "let off some steam."

But it can become a habit. I've come to see that the negativity some people express is in no small way because they don't know what else to talk about! I have several friends -- good people and otherwise intelligent -- who repeat the same old junk every time he or she has a one-on-one conversation. In part their social skills may be inadequate; in part, in fact, they aren't that "bright" or at least mindful (even if in areas of skill and expertise they are rather accomplished).

A case in point surrounding a useful habit for the ego is a friend who frequently expressed her "exhaustion" in spite of being consistently day-in and day-out the most energetic person around! This habit was useful because she could use it as a tool to keep a person at bay whom she didn't like; or on the basis of a subject she didn't wish to discuss; or an attitude she thought inappropriate. Over time her co-workers and friends felt her cold and inaccessible and often turned that towards themselves assuming they must have done something wrong or were not liked.

Certainly we all have such moments when fatigue renders us brain-dead. So it is understandable to a point, but not past the point of an ingrained habit that snubs others and their sincere needs. A counselor once told her, with some intensity, that for one year she should not say to anyone how tired she was. (Maybe it helped. I don't know.)

A habit like that is, further, is a tool for the ego to extract sympathy from others. Sympathy is a very deep and usually true form of sharing, friendship and intimacy. Too much, however, of the wrong kind simply pulls the sympathizer into the swamp of the other's self pity. Couples have to watch this tendency. My motive for supporting my spouse's frustration at a co-worker might be more for the reason I get "points" in the sympathy and negativity bank for when I need them. It would be better to be silent or to say something positive or helpful (maybe later, though). Paramhansa Yogananda warned couples (as did Swami Kriyananda) not to reinforce each other's negativity.

But others I see, and very commonly, simply don't know what else to talk about and feel that in order to have a conversation and express their genuineness and friendship necessitates revealing some negative attitude or opinion, as if in a whispered hush. And that's where the habit can start to form.

I've come to understand why, in part, my spiritual teacher (Swami Kriyananda) and his guru (Paramhansa Yogananda) did not engage in small talk with those close to them. There is such a tendency to "confess," to "reveal," and to say things like, "Frankly....."

I said "Frankly" once when I was in the car, alone, with Swami Kriyananda. He had invited me to drive with him to the nearby town (Grass Valley, CA) and I knew he had some things to say to me. At one point, I began a sentence with "Frankly....." and he cut me short. He knew that I was about to dump some negative opinion on him. Though he never "always" did one thing or another, nor ever "never," I witnessed occasions where once he got the gist of what someone was expressing, he'd cut them off so that they wouldn't augur further down the rabbit hole of negativity.

In counseling, too, and based on his example, I will do something similar, especially if it's about someone who isn't present in the room!

Some of the techniques that Swami Kriyananda taught us (and received from Yogananda) included responding to another's person's negativity with positive, counter-comments or illustrations. He said be on your guard because even in spiritual settings, negativity (which is in each of us) rears its cobra-head, ready to strike. Newer people to a group are often sought out by the negative and merely talkative, self-important types, eager for an audience and new victims. Such people, having been unmasked, are more or less ignored by the more positive and creatively engaged doers.

Such people begin with positive praise of the goings-on, and then, conspiratorially lowering their voices, thrust the dagger of negativity by telling the real story of so-and-so or such-and-such. Avoid such human cobras, Yogananda counseled, like the plague. Stay positive. In this world which is a mixture of good and bad, anyone can find fault with anything or anybody. What's the point, unless some grave injustice or personal duty is at stake and some positive action can be taken to make amends.

Another is: if you have a concern or even a complaint, talk to those responsible, at least potentially, for correcting the situation. Don't talk idly to anyone who will listen to you but will be powerless to make the situation better. (That reminds me of people who argue or shout about all the bad things going on in the world about which they themselves have no intention of lifting a finger to change. I sometimes joke, "Why don't they call me? I have the solution to ALL the world's problems!)

I find that, over the years, I prefer to be friendly but to avoid rambling small talk if I can and still be polite. I don't impose spiritual conversations on others if I either have nothing to offer in that direction or sense a lack of interest.

Lastly, learn how to NOT respond to a person. Just listen and look at them. When you don't react, they will, at first not know what to do or say. In the end, they'll "shut up" or likely change the subject or simply walk away. You should also learn how to have the courage to do that, too: "Ah, excuse me, I've got to go....I've forgotten something".....or just plain, "Excuse me" and walk away.

Aging can produce negativity, too. I don't know what the brain chemistry is on this. Some get sweeter and others get irritable or worse. Patience and silence and short visits, where possible. Outside and third party help might be a good idea.

BTW: Logic is not a solution to negativity: of any kind. Positive feeling, sympathy short of supporting negativity, and a smile ready to act or suggest solutions is usually better.

When a friend gets into a slump but you know he or she is not normally negative, then you can jolly 'em along with a poke in the ribs, a smile of understanding and then positive words of encouragement and so on. A person steeped in negativity will soon tire of your positive responses and will eventually leave you alone.

The essence of what I want to share in these words is the observation I have made that humans sometimes use negativity as a form of bonding. Watch for this in yourself and your friends. Work with yourself patiently to transcend this all-too-normal tendency. Teach yourself when you are with a close friend or loved one, to express admiration, respect, devotion and inspiration for things or people in your life; for the beauty of nature; and gratitude for each and every thing, big or small. Keep your conversation positive and you will be a true friend. In time your friendship will be sweeter, more comfortable, and deeper!

May we always be a Friend in God,

Nayaswami Hriman

Happy Birthday Gurudeva, Paramhansa Yogananda!

Today, Monday, is January 5, the day, in 1893, Mukunda Lal Ghosh (later Swami Yogananda and in 1936 given the title "Paramhansa" by his guru) was born in India. His birth is celebrated throughout the world by his followers and by many others for whom he has been an inspiration. Having left this earth in 1952, Yogananda is now best known for his life story, "Autobiography of a Yogi." It remains, even today, a strong selling book title throughout the world and has become a literary and spiritual classic. In fact, many, myself included, revere that book as a scripture for a new age! It is well worth the read, by anyone.

There have been and are still many true and wise spiritual teachers in the world. It is folly to try to compare them for the purposes of deciding who's the best, or, the most enlightened! Popularity is hardly a safe measure: the crowd in Jerusalem called out for Jesus to be crucified, remember? Most true saints have some following but always, during their lifetimes, it is only a relatively small number. Rock stars and football heroes have far more fans, these days! While in many ways regrettable, one can understand why the Catholic Church thinks it best to make sure their saints are safely buried before making any pronouncements about their sanctity!!! (LOL)

Well, Yogananda is indeed safely buried! Yes, there are stories of many miracles, small and large: even raising the dead.....twice! But, miracles can't really be proven, only averred or testified to. Our souls find their way to God-realized saints in a way at least similar to why and how two people fall in love. By this I mean: "Gee, who knows?" No one can answer such questions, no more than anyone can prove to the satisfaction of reason and the senses that God exists.

Is it, then, a matter of taste? Preference? For those who come and go, it would seem so. I say that because I've seen many "devotees come, and devotees go" (words taken from a chant by Yogananda: "I Will Be Thine Always"). (Ditto for human love, yes?) But there are those true relationships, even in human love, that endure the tests of time and trials. And those are soul relationships.

Some saints serve only a few souls. Others, world teachers, perhaps, have many: even millions. Jesus Christ's mere 33 years on this planet in an obscure and confounding tiny, dusty 'burb of the Roman Empire, changed the course of history. Ditto: Buddha.

I am a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda by the operation of karma, first and foremost. Once my past karma kicked me from behind to remember, I embraced my discipleship. Since then a Divine Helmsman has taken over. At each step if I say "Yes," a gentle but discernible force shows me the "next step."

I am inspired by the universality of Yogananda's spiritual teachings; by the breadth of his wisdom; the intimacy of his love for people; by the power of kriya yoga and the raja yoga techniques that he clarified, taught and brought out of the dustbin of India's ancient yogic traditions. Yogananda set into motion a clarion call for the establishment and development of small, intentional communities. It's as if he foresaw the depersonalizing impact of globalization, Wall Street, terrorism, and "politics-as-usual."

He evidently saw the need for a new and sustainable lifestyle that fostered individual initiative and creativity; and, cooperation with others. To that end he founded small businesses and small farms, and a school for children. He emphasized natural living, including living in nature, away from cities, and vegetarianism for those who could adapt to it.

These things don't necessarily distinguish him from other spiritual leaders but they are aspects of his outer persona. They are things you can point to and emulate and learn and grow from doing them.

His devotional nature can be seen in his poems, songs, chants, writings and talks. He expresses a traditional, indeed orthodox (though nonsectarian) view of God. Some modern, forward-thinking and educated people are not ready for the "God" part, nor yet for a devotional "bhav." In this he didn't compromise but yet only showed his devotional side under circumstances and with those that were open to it.

When one reads his autobiography, one sees in his story and also in that of his guru (Swami Sri Yukteswar) and his param-guru (Lahiri Mahasaya) a distinct form of natural, even egalitarian, behavior apropos to our age. Both of these great saints, and therefore Yogananda himself, de-emphasized their own personal roles and spiritual attainment. The trappings of guru-dom are noticeably marginalized in the lives of these three Self-realized souls.

Thus another characteristic, and one also easily seen in the life of Ananda's founder, Swami Kriyananda (a direct disciple of Yogananda), is a naturalness of being that finds ready acceptance in innumerable circumstances and with a wide range of people. Lack of spiritual pretense, in other words, characterizes Yogananda, his teachers, and the work of Ananda. This, too, I find attractive.

In this new age, the universal trajectory of consciousness is upon the individual. Hierarchy, tribe, race, religion, obedience, dogmas, blind worship: these are losing their appeal as forms of primary self-identity. Instead, there is an increasing emphasis on personal choice and freedom, on conscience, cooperation and creativity. For true devotees, however, devotion -- guided by wisdom -- is the natural outcome of a higher consciousness that sees the vastness of God beyond the littleness of time, space and individuality. Thus, the primary emphasis both overall and in spirituality in this age is upon self-effort. (Grace, the corollary of self-effort isn't ignored. Instead, it is seen as that result of self-effort. In the prior age, spiritual consciousness was seen to be primarily the product of grace, not self-effort.)

Lastly, and as extension of de-emphasizing personal virtue or his own spiritual stature (which, for Yogananda, as an avatar, is beyond normal comprehension), one finds that Yogananda's life resembles, at least in some measure, our own. Born to a middle-class family, Yogananda's father was a corporate executive, and his mother was creatively and actively engaged in her community, with her extended family and in the education and training of her children. She was known for her charitable giving.

Yogananda, in his youth, excelled in sports and traveled extensively by train throughout India. He completed his B.A. degree. In America he was a popular and charismatic lecturer and met and befriended famous and talented people wherever he went. He was active in social issues, spoke against racism of all kinds, he was involved with the founding of the United Nations, and instrumental in immigration reform. He lived in Los Angeles, a hotbed of fashion, entertainment, and forward thinking spirituality, where he had many friends and students. He visited and lectured in every major city in America and was a tourist at Yellowstone National Park, Alaska and many other famous sites. Yogananda traveled throughout Europe and Asia. All of these are aspects of modern life even today. (He evidently never flew commercially but certainly would have if he had lived longer!)

Nonetheless, these outward aspects cannot fully explain the real person, nor my own, or anyone's attraction to his teachings, his persona, and to his ever-living presence. A spiritual "giant" emanates a powerful, spiritual vibration that acts as a magnet upon souls seeking divine attunement. Like bees finding flowers, the soul-to-soul call draws us to God-consciousness in human form.

I will only mention in passing his great contributions to religious dogma and theology. An explanation of seven revolutionary teachings of Yogananda was recently written by Nayaswami Jyotish Novak, Ananda's spiritual director (worldwide). It can be found at http://www.jyotishanddevi.org/. Yogananda reconciled non-dual philosophy with dualism; the divine nature of Jesus with our own human nature; Jesus' status as "Son of God" with that of other great world teachers; the seeming disintegration of society with the apparent advances in knowledge; a personal perception of God with God's infinite nature; metaphysical with medical healing; renunciation with life in the world; biological evolution with spiritual evolution, ah, just to name, "like," a few!

Happy birthday, Gurudeva!

Welcome 2015: Adieu to 2014!

Those who follow mainline world news may wonder what is there to welcome but flaming hotspots of war, disease and violence? But as each morning lets us begin a new day, so each year offers us the opportunity for a fresh perspective. Though to turn away in a yawn or a scoff may seem the better part of realism, the human spirit needs refreshment every bit as much as the human body needs nightly rest or daily nutrition.

If I were a psychic or a saint I could make some intriguing predictions about 2015, but predicting is a fool's game to play in print. But it is a good moment to step back and ask "What directions have I been taking? Are these the directions that will bring to me happiness or pain?" And, as we are part of a much larger world, we might also ask ourselves "What events in the world around me seem to hover, ready to strike? What, if anything, should I do in anticipation?" As a yogi and devotee I wonder, "What is God, through my karma and my guru (Paramhansa Yogananda), guiding me to focus on for my own spiritual growth? How can I serve Thee and to do that which will make me free?"

The more years I spend on this planet the more I am convinced that reality, happiness, truth.......are found in "God alone." This sounds a bit much unless one dives a little deeper. "God alone" is a code phrase for being centered; unruffled amidst the "crash of breaking worlds." It is code for having a "God's eye view" of life, and, more importantly, MY LIFE! Not only in "don't sweat the small stuff," but hold steadfast to faith and ultimate goodness in the big stuff, too. Devotion, prayer, meditation, and active service together build a fortress of inner peace.

It also refers to the intuitive realization born of lifetimes of living and seeking that no human dream or goal or experience, whether laudatory or debased, can bring more than a fleeting peek of true happiness. This is one of the gold rings of the true Trilogy. This is the wisdom of what, in India, is called Shankhya philosophy. It is, however, universal to the unfolding of human consciousness even if it is but the first step towards wisdom. (The second gold ring is the awakening, or "smriti," of our divine nature and of Divinity as the only reality. The third is the ever-expanding realization of that nature.)

Few people are born with this insight. In most lives it comes, if it comes at all, with living a God-centered, truth-centered (versus a Me-centered) life. However, even Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita says, "Out of a thousand, one seeks Me......" And, in viewing the drama of human lives, that's probably closer to the real odds given by the "Las Vegas" wheel of human karma.

Honestly, I don't know how people find any sustaining happiness, creativity and contentment in this world without a faith that is rooted in a robust sense of centeredness and divine Presence. How many humans, by the time life comes to a natural end, have succumbed to disillusionment, ennui, and regret. Some, too, augur into self-made hells of hatred and bitterness. Others, simply into pain: physical or emotional; others, too, into the escapist world of the sub-conscious mind. And yes, admittedly, there are good people everywhere who live to a ripe old age: happy, grateful, and content. This latter group is to be commended for having done so seemingly devoid of any faith but I wonder how deeply rooted this state is (for those of us who believe in reincarnation). Who can predict whether the karmic wheel will fall on this coveted space? Is there anyone who can, by force of will power alone, ensure such a happy destiny? I doubt it. Those who have achieved it seem to have been born with it.

Looking back over 2014, can you discern a direction to your thoughts and attitudes? Actions and responses? A pattern to events and relationships? Imagine railroad tracks extending from these patterns forward past the veil which hides the future? Peer into and past that veil. Where do they lead? Was 2014 a victorious year for conscious, sustainable, ideal-focused living, or, well, is it time to renew your "vows?"

Diet? Exercise? Yoga? Meditation? Education? Service to your community? These should be on your review and to-do list. Yes? TV, movies, internet, overspending, sloth etc etc...........say no more?

Economists tell us 2015 is looking up. Being somewhat a contrarian by nature, I figure that when the bulls or the bears are stampeding, that's the best time to reverse course. The Dow at 18,000? Based on, what, exactly? I'd say be very conservative before leaping into the idea that 2015 is going to be a banner year economically. Grow food; nurture conscious-living friends and community, refresh your spirit on retreat; in nature; and, yes, for some, in pilgrimages or other ideal-inspired travel. Share generously but wisely, relative to your means, of course.

Politically: ditto all the way. More of nothing from the U.S. Congress. Poor 'ol Obama: intelligent, wise and well-meaning: stuck in the mud of a divided nation. Our national culture is suspicious of the federal government and for good reason: both on principle and on experience. Obama came on the scene when our nation was broke and bereft of consensus and confidence. Yet, some of the issues we face nationally and internationally require strong leadership and bold, though perhaps unpopular, initiatives. Sigh. Ditto internationally: east vs west (a replay?). Asia vs. the west (unfinished karma)? Hard to see our way forward, isn't it?

The solution is local, not global. The solution is individual, not collective or political. This is the hard lesson that our planet must learn. It is neither easy to do, nor pretty to watch. Ananda describes this solution in terms of intentional communities: people with shared (but universal) ideals, cooperating creatively, and with individual volition and initiative. Affirming and working with the positive.

You see: ours is an age of individualism. Yet, none are an island unto ourselves; nor could we be in this world of globalism that we have created. Individuals, not nations, must acquire conscience; integrity; self-effort; creative-thinking, health-mindedness and high-mindedness. Despite the enormous power of the "haves," the others CAN change the tide of history by being "the change we seek."

Think in longer rhythms, in other words. For the few who can leave the cities and start a new life, perhaps with others, go for it!

Last year we (Padma and I) were given Vedic astrology readings. Having reached the landmark of 60 years (ok, a tad north of that), it seemed a good time for a higher altitude perspective. Sure enough, changes are afoot! This phase of life tends naturally to be a time to begin pulling back from well-honed skills in order to mentor others and/or to serve in a broader way, and thus it was the message of the "stars" to us, as well. We expect to go further afield of the Seattle area to serve the work of Ananda. We shall see!!!!

So, time to reflect and renew and put the shoulder to the wheel of happiness, health, and "heaven."

A blessed and ever-New Year!

Nayaswami Hriman