As it was commonly said during World War II, "There are no atheists in foxholes." Most pray when in need though whom exactly they address is often secondary to their desperation.
You've heard the joke about the Irishman who was late for a job interview in Dublin with Microsoft and couldn't find a parking place? He prayed, "Lord Jesus Christ and Mother Mary, help me find a parking place and I'll go to church on Sunday instead of O'Reilly's Pub." Suddenly an empty space appeared and he said, "Oh, never mind, I've got one, thanks." That reminds me of the kind of prayers I said as a child when I knew I was in trouble. I was no more faithful to my pledges than that Irishman.
A story told in India is of a disciple who was inspired by his guru's complete dependence and surrender to God for protection and sustenance in all matters. The next day this disciple is walking along a forest path and behind him he hears someone shouting, "Watch out, get out of the way, this elephant is running wild!"
Blissful (and ignorant) in the "safety" of God's omnipresent protection in all matters, the disciple ignores the shouts and continues walking. The elephant, bearing down upon him, throws him roughly into the bushes with a flick of his trunk. Bruised and battered the man returns to his guru's ashram confused and hurt. "But, my son," the guru explained, "God DID speak to you through the mahoot (elephant driver): "Get out of my way!"
We are all better at praying for (usually) minor material desires or needs than listening for God's answer or feeling the divine presence as an act of devotion. It is no coincidence that on the path of Self-realization only upon taking discipleship to Yogananda and his line of gurus is one taught the technique of "Aum" whereby, using a special mudra and arm rest, one is able (with practice and with concentration) to hear the Aum sound and other subtle sounds (of the chakras). Most of us are great talkers but poor listeners! Listening is the hallmark characteristic of one who enters onto the spiritual path consciously and with deep sincerity. Offering up our attachment to our own likes and dislikes in favor of the daily practice of asking for guidance and seeking attunement, one gradually becomes a true disciple.
But how, then, should we attune ourselves to God? How can we love someone or something that we do not yet know? In the Bhagavad Gita, Arjuna, the archetypal disciple, asks his guru, Lord Krishna, "What is the best approach to God: with devotion to God in some form, or, striving to realize the Infinite beyond all form?" Mind you, now, this question appears in the text just after Arjuna has this mind-blowing experience of "Krishna" as the Infinite Spirit! At the end of that experience, Arjuna pleads with Krishna to return to his familiar, human form! It was simply too much!
Krishna's response is appropriately personal and comforting--not just to Arjuna--but to you and I. He says that for embodied souls, the way of devotion ("I-Thou" relationship) is far easier. Rare is that soul who, striving assiduously to Self-realization by the formless path of seeking the Absolute, succeeds swiftly. Indeed to such a one, even the practice of meditation is taboo for all efforts in duality are tainted with delusion. Yogananda stated that such rare souls are already highly advanced spiritually.
How does this happen, then? To what form of God should we seek as a doorway to Infinity? Patanjali, in the Yoga Sutras, says that to one who sincerely and with intensity seeks to find God there comes to him that perfect form of God, suited to the soul's special needs, called the Ishta Devata, to lead the soul to freedom. As the adage suggests, "When the disciple is ready the guru appears." Down through the ages saints have prayed to God in every admissible form: Father, Mother, Beloved, Friend, child.......as Light, Peace, Joy, Love.......forms both personal and abstract, but always some form.
Yet, God has no form. As Jesus put it: "God is a spirit and they that worship Him must worship Him in spirit and in truth." Yes, but.......God manifested creation out of Himself and therefore IS the creation even while hidden BY the creation. God is omnipresent. God is both infinite and untouched by creation and immanent within creation. As Ananda Moyi Ma put it (in the form of a koan): "It is, and it isn't." To quote Ram Gopal Muzimdar in "Autobiography of a Yogi, [God is] "all pervading, eh?" Yes but that philosophically correct point is not personally all that useful (witness the devotee and the rogue elephant).
This is one reason we each need our own wayshower; another reason is simply that "tat twam asi": you are THAT! We, each one of us, is also a potential Christ, Krishna, Buddha or Yogananda. God is very personal where we are concerned for God has manifested himself AS us but we have yet to perfect our realization of that profound and ego-shattering fact. Because "heaven is within you" (to quote Jesus Christ) we must perforce begin right where and who we are!
Just as we identify with our physical form and personality, with our race, religion, gender, nationality, age, talents, upbringing, family characteristics and much more, therefore it is more natural for us to gradually refine our self-definition and to seek to transform every lower identification to an increasingly expanded form which, at every present point along the way, is necessarily "Other."
[The other direction of our efforts can be to annihilate the ego but this contractive approach, while equally valid, is contrary and contraindicated for most of us owing to the expansive direction of consciousness innate to the age in which we live. This was the hallmark characteristic of spirituality in the former, "Kali," age wherein sincere spiritual aspirants left the world for caves, forests and monasteries in order to achieve any measure of God realization in their lives.]
There's another angle, moreover, to the need to focus our devotion on that which is "Other." And that is the need for concentration in meditation. Concentration in meditation is both a prerequisite and a result. To pray deeply, therefore, we need to have some form to concentrate on? Otherwise, the mind becomes vague if it has no notion of what it seeks to know or unite with.
Yes, it is true that we are not our self-definitions nor is God limited by the form that appeals and inspires us, but, to use an expression from India, "Use a thorn to remove a thorn." On the spiritual path, then, God as "Thou" becomes the oarsman in the boat that takes us across the river of delusion to the shore of Infinite bliss. Achieving Self-realization, we transcend all forms when "Knower, knowing, known" become One.
Our Ishta Devata is like the gravitational pull of a planet that a spaceship that uses to propel it further along in its journey deeper into space.
As God IS the creation so any form will, strictly speaking, suffice for our spiritual journey. However (and there's always a "but" in duality), praying to a sacred alligator is far less likely to uplift us into superconsciousness than praying to a true guru, saint, or avatar! As Paramhansa Yogananda once put it (wryly), "Stupid people will never [sic] find God." (Well, so long as they ARE stupid!)
A more practical point relates to our love of nature and desire for harmony in and with the natural world. Nature, in her mineral, vegetable and animal forms, contains qualities which we admire: calmness, sensitivity, beauty, grace, strength, intelligence and many more qualities. Yet nature is SUB-conscious and, while inspiring to us, not yet self-aware. A saint is awakened in God and a savior is one with God! So while nature's admirable qualities can inspire us with gratitude we cannot "find" God through a form which is not yet self-aware, what to mention God-conscious! Let our love of nature be God-quality-reminding!
In "Art and Science of Raja Yoga," by Ananda's founder, Swami Kriyananda, "It's not what we love but how purely we love." The natural emphasis upon our special form of devotion (Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, etc.) is what can create fanaticism or dogmatism. Better to focus on refining and expanding the love of God in our chosen form to include all beings, all life than to place exclusive emphasis on the uniqueness of that form. In God all are equal, whether or not the roles they play seem greater or lesser on the stage of human history.
It is helpful, therefore, to recall the story from the life of Krishna where his adopted mother, Yasoda, tries to tie up the naughty boy Krishna but finds that every piece of rope she uses is always just TOO short! We cannot define or contain in form that which is beyond form. Nor can we, in duality, "see" God (or limit God to) any one of the divine forms of the great God-realized saviors, or avatars, on earth.
Someone once asked Paramhansa Yogananda, "Where does all spiritual striving end? "It ends in endlessness," the great guru replied!
We grow in stages: we begin to admire, love, and emulate goodness and virtue. We hear God spoken of in scripture, books, and, in time, from the lips of God-fired messengers. We seek to know God for ourselves and He responds by sending to us one who knows and shows the way. We go within to "find" Him and discover "tat twam asi:" We are THAT!
Joy to you,
Swami Hrimananda
This blog's address: https://www.Hrimananda.org! I'd like to share thoughts on meditation and its application to daily life. On Facebook I can be found as Hriman Terry McGilloway. Your comments are welcome. Use the key word search feature to find articles you might be interested in. To subscribe write to me at jivanmukta@duck.com Blessings, Nayaswami Hriman
Monday, October 26, 2015
Monday, October 19, 2015
Ananda & SRF: Part 5 - What the Future May Hold
Since these posts appear in reverse order, scroll down the blog page and at the very bottom is a link that says "Older posts".....click on that to find the first two articles. Sorry for the inconvenience. Next time I'll post last first.
Part 5 - Conclusion: What the Future May Hold
Part 5 - Conclusion: What the Future May Hold
I cannot separate my Ananda life experience from my thoughts here,
but I do feel that my visit to the SRF shrines gave me some deeper insight and
appreciation for our fellow SRF gurubhais and for the differences between SRF
and Ananda.
The SRF shrines need to be stewarded, preserved and protected.
Ananda members need, in our communities, to support ourselves as we share the
teachings and serve our guru’s nonsectarian work. To do this, we must build
meditation and yoga centers, residential communities, retreat centers, publish
books, create schools for children, and much more. All of this must, by the
necessity of our material circumstances and by the necessity of our own ideals,
must come from the efforts and support of our own members. We have never had,
nor would it have been good or right for us to have had, an endowment.
So naturally, and without regard to our past differences, we
express and share PY's teachings with different styles. Yet, when I think of
those monastics who are truly living the life, I see the same twinkle of joy
and vibration of wisdom that we were blessed to have in Swami Kriyananda.
Even in his will and written legacy, Swami Kriyananda enjoins Ananda
members to hold in respect and love SRF: its leaders, members, and monastics.
He wants us to be open to cooperate with SRF, if ever the opportunity is found,
as equals and with mutual love and respect. Each will remain independent and
separate; each must be focused on our respective dharma and special manner of
expression, forged in and by the crucible of our own history and training.
It is not easy for those of the conflict generation to forget,
forgive and reconcile. Like a grease stain on a white shirt, it will never
entirely be the same. Time may heal by the anesthesia of forgetfulness or the ignorance
of future generations, but for those who experienced the years of conflict, it
is difficult to erase the scars of wounds forged and incurred on the
battlefield of the past.
And yet, it will happen. It IS happening. We ARE devotees of a
great master. "Only love will take my place," PY told us. There is no
other way. Ironically, this phase may be the real spiritual test,
greater even than the battles of the past (where black and white were crystal
clear, each according to his point of view)! But it must and will take place.
It takes place, however, person to person. Institutional memories are long and,
well, “institutionalized.” The hard shell of past portrayal will only be
cracked by softened, attuned individual hearts and souls, warmed by the
sunshine of the guru’s grace and wisdom.
This pilgrimage showed me the truth that this forgiveness and
reconciliation will come and is taking place. The pace or form of it is
certainly not mine to know, but of its progress, even if halting or taking two
steps back before progressing again, I have no doubt. This, I feel, is a
blessing I have received from our pilgrimage, and it is a grace at least as
great as the spiritual vibrations of my guru felt at the SRF, sacred shrines,
for, in fact, there is no difference.
Joy to you!
Swami Hrimananda
Ananda & SRF: Part 4 - Swami Kriyananda & Ananda
Part 4 – Swami Kriyananda
& Ananda
Not only was Swamiji very young when he came to Master, but the
guru was in his final and more withdrawn years of life. Swami himself was
inspired by the expansive universality and power of these teachings. But on a
personal level he stood, he often told us, in “awe” of his guru. The thought of
any form of familiarity was unthinkable. (This did not, apparently, stop the
young “Walter” from pestering his guru with many questions.)
Added to this, was the fact that Swamiji’s own dharma and inspiration
was to share these teachings. Yogananda had no need, at least from Swamiji, for
personal service; others held those roles. Yogananda, in turn, focused his training
of the young monk, Walter, who later took the spiritual name, Swami Kriyananda,
on the teachings themselves. Within months, the Master appointed Walter in
charge of the other, older (and longer term) monks; he soon gave a kriya
initiation; began teaching, editing, and writing. He wasn’t even 25 years old!
Thus we find, here also, a difference between SRF and Ananda. The
one inclines to view Yogananda more personally with the teachings standing in
the (now absent) guru’s stead (in the form of those impersonal, bi-weekly
printed lessons); and the other, Ananda, inclined to emphasize the teachings as
universal and as having personal and creative application in each person’s daily
life. The first generation of SRF leaders seem to have established and accepted
the fact that their guru was gone and what remained was for the organization to
take on a caretaker role of sharing the teachings of the Master bereft of his
magnetic and transforming presence.
The latter, Ananda, by contrast, was conceived and born after the
guru was gone and with the mission to experiment and see how to apply those
teachings to daily life. This was to be done through the dynamic and very personal
vehicle of the “world brotherhood colonies” that Yogananda sowed “into the
ether” by his “spoken word” at the garden party in Beverly Hills in 1949. The
difference is understandable and not noticeably different in the beginning, but
over time, like non-parallel lines, becomes widely divergent. SRF’s removal,
after Yogananda’s passing, from the “Aims and Ideals” of SRF of the goal to establish
and support world brotherhood colonies follows this distinction just as much as
Ananda’s dedication to this ideal supports this divergence.
Yogananda’s many efforts to reach out past the monastic life — establishing
a school for children at Mt. Washington, a Yoga University, a world brotherhood
colony in Encinitas, a farm, a cafĂ©, etc. etc. — all were ultimately abandoned.
It would be natural for those monastics to consider that he also abandoned the ideals
that inspired him to try. (Swami Kriyananda taught us that while it wasn’t the
right time in American history for these projects to succeed, Yogananda’s
efforts signaled his guidance for future disciples. In part, Kriyananda’s view
is based on the simple fact that until his guru’s death in 1952 Yogananda spoke
forcefully and frequently about the ideal of communities.)
Returning to my original point, it seems to me that from the very
beginning, the SRF monastic experience contained the seeds of "us and
them." When many years later SRF became financially endowed, they could at
last afford to remain apart from the need to depend upon public acceptance.
PY's autobiography has immortalized him in the public mind. This is the
Master’s legacy. It also has minimize the need for his SRF children to do more
than mostly hold up the “Autobiography” and continue to offer the lessons.
(There’s the annual convocation, and travel by the monastics to various centers
worldwide, as well. Both of these are primarily offered to its own members.)
The world, like Elvis Presley or the Beatles, would simply have to
come to them.
In quite a contrast, Swami Kriyananda founded the first Ananda
community in the hectic heyday and backyard of the San Francisco-based hippy
movement with its "back-to-the-land" and anti-establishment culture.
It was communal in spirit and it was communitarian in form. Though a magnetic
spiritual leader, Swami's ("SK") intention was to manifest PY's ideal
of intentional communities. It was not simply to create another monastery.
This required a more participatory and involved approach rather
than a traditionally hierarchical one. SK never had a financial endowment and
from the beginning needed and welcomed the support, commitment and creative
contributions of others. I won't go further to describe his enlightened,
supportive leadership and wisdom, but suffice to say, by contrast, Ananda's
very communitarian mission required
fostering an openness and inclusivity markedly different than that of SRF.
Next article is Part 5 - Conclusion: What
the Future May Hold
Ananda & SRF: Part 3 - Our Respective Narratives
Part 3 – Our Respective
Narratives
Setting aside any residual feelings between Ananda members and SRF
monastics for the battles we once waged against each other, I can understand how
card-carrying SRF members might be treated differently from the general public.
Members would be disciples; disciples would come on pilgrimage, treating these
places as sacred ground, attuning themselves to the vibrations of the guru. Thus
the impulse to create and validate membership credentials would arise
naturally. And, once a visitor presented his credentials, he might be welcomed
more warmly than the many casual visitors.
Even if there had not been a long, drawn out lawsuit or preceding
years of SRF displeasure, Ananda members would occupy some kind of middle
ground between SRF members and the general public. But given the simple fact of
Ananda not being a part of SRF and the reality that Swamiji and Ananda were
viewed akin to apostates, it is not surprising that for decades Ananda members who
visited these shrines encountered from the hosting monastics mixed and confused
signals ranging from welcome to disdain.
Most younger monastics, having little knowledge of or interest in Ananda,
or any personal animus toward Swami Kriyananda (whom they never knew), were at
least cordial if not welcoming. (If they knew anything at all it would have
been presumably negative.)
So, you see: quite apart from our particular and specific challenges
with each other, we would have been grouped primarily with the general and
unknowing (and “heathen”) general public! Polite, yes…..but….
This idea of Ananda members being “neither fish nor fowl” played
itself out in our recent visit. Our hosts were friendly and warm and, as is
natural and their training as docents, shared stories of the history of the
property we were visiting and stories of Master and his disciples. What they
presumably did not know was that the stories (even some of the historical
anecdotes) were as well known to us (from Swami Kriyananda) as to them. In some
cases they were likely repeating stories told them by others who were much more
distant in time from the occurrence of those stories than Kriyananda was (who
personally knew Master and heard many stories from him, first hand).
The experience was both surreal and disconnecting. We of course
appreciated their sincerity and presumed their innocence but whereas other
visitors would be naturally appreciative of the effort, we couldn’t help feel
distanced for it made our discipleship invisible (or, worse case, considered of
no value).
Another facet of these stories is a distinction we have found commonplace
between SRF monastics and Swamiji over many years, many visits, recordings, and
publications. Swami rarely told a story of Paramhansa Yogananda that didn’t
convey a spiritual lesson applicable not only to himself but to his audience.
By contrast, the stories we heard on our tour, apart from the
merely historical ones, portrayed the guru as sweet, charming or otherwise being
very human or relating in a human way to his close disciples. The lesson of
such stories was at least as much the message that those direct disciples were
greatly blessed as how charming or sweet the Master was. But no lesson — useful
to us — accompanied the story.
This, too, hints at an even deeper distinction (though not an
absolute one) between SRF and Ananda. It has to do with the extent each has
inherited a view of Yogananda as either unique or as timeless; as personal or
as universal.
The narrative goes something like this: Swami Kriyananda came to Paramhansa
Yogananda as a young man, age 22. The other close disciples had, in the case of
SRF’s leaders, been with the Master many more years, meeting him not only when
they, too, were young but when Master himself was much younger and in a
different phase of life. Charming, gracious, a powerful orator, and mixing affably
with the low and the high of society…...
It is not surprising that the early and close disciples related to
their guru in a more personal manner. Think what they went through together;
how small was their group; how personal and particular was the form of service
they rendered to him (cooking, cleaning, paying bills, etc.) living in close
quarters. None of these were appointed as public teachers as Master was the
guru. (Who could possibly represent him adequately!) With few exceptions, he
appointed men to public roles and with few exceptions these men betrayed him by
taking pride in their roles and even competing with their guru for attention.
Ananda & SRF - Part 2 - Yogananda comes to America
Part 2 – Paramhansa
Yogananda comes to America
So, let's roll back the film of our vision to the early days of
Yogananda's life in America. When I look at old photographs of Yogananda
("PY") taken during the 20's and 30's I observe among the many faces that
surrounded him people who seem clueless as to the true nature and consciousness
of the “Swami” (and avatar) standing beside or in front of them. Not only
clueless but many seem positively worldly, even skeptical.
It must have been difficult for him in America. What a "great
work" PY had to do to overcome prejudice and to dig deep to find fertile,
intuitive souls from the midst of the frenetic and materialistic American
culture. There's an oft repeated story that at one lecture, attended by
thousands (as most of his lectures were during his "barnstorming"
days touring the cities of America), PY was congratulated by a student on the
size of the crowd. PY replied, perhaps wryly, "Yes, but........only a
handful will take up this teaching."
And, sure enough it was true. PY had to struggle against great
odds and crushing indifference and ignorance, to share his message of
Self-realization to Americans. Only a small handful became disciples committed
to serving his work with him. This small band included those who lived with him
at Mt. Washington during those first two decades and a half. During the Depression
of the 30’s, he said they grew tomatoes and other vegetables there simply to have
enough to eat.
But even during Paramhansa Yogananda’s final years and after his
acclaimed autobiography had been published, Swami Kriyananda described Mt.
Washington headquarters as a “hotel,” with students checking in and out, as if
the guru there didn’t meet their standards! Swamiji quotes Master describing
the final days (or years) as including a housecleaning, “many heads will roll,”
he stated. And indeed, as Swamiji recounts in his own autobiography (“The New
Path”), many monks left. In his lectures, Swamiji would sometimes make the
comparison to Jesus’ life when, near the end of his ministry, the Bible says “and
many walked with him no more.”
In the book, “American Veda,” by Phillip Goldberg, he describes
Paramhansa Yogananda’s innovation to send out mail-order lessons in meditation
and philosophy as revolutionary in his generation as was the Sears Roebuck
catalog in a prior generation. It made accessible to people at great distances Paramhansa
Yogananda’s high spiritual teachings, even kriya yoga – people who would never, otherwise, have had
access to them.
But, it also created a gulf of time and distance between the
Master’s close disciples (who printed and sent them out) and the faceless students
they served. The very format of the printed lessons, impersonal by necessity,
only contributed to the gulf between them.
Thus, it seems to me that from the very beginning of Paramhansa
Yogananda’s ministry, there was a chasm between the public and the close
disciples. Jesus, too spoke to large crowds, but few, perhaps only the 12, shared
his life and served his ministry full-time. While this was presumably no surprise
to Paramhansa Yogananda, it could have only engendered confusion, insecurity,
fear and doubt, even, perchance, resentment among the close disciples.
Swami Kriyananda, in both writings and lectures, would sometimes
explain the many hardships, and, yes, even lawsuits, PY had to endure during
his life. Those hardships and betrayals were experienced therefore also by the
close-knit spiritual family of the monastic disciples who surrounded and served
him, and, who would naturally want to protect him, feeling also the hurts of
betrayal and apparently failed ventures.
This gap, then is what I perceived visiting these shrines. The
worldly consciousness of those thousands of visitors (at least suggested by
their perfect tans and figures and their up-to-date, chic fashions) contrasted
with the ego transcendent aspirations of the monastics create a climate not
unlike a zoo where each species observes the other with curiosity or
indifference (but certainly not understanding or warmth). The monastics who live
at these places serve as ushers and docents, greeters and hosts, to the curious
general public who appear, day after day, wanting to take from these shrines
their beauty but who do not stay, who make no commitment, offer no (or little) support
and who may never come back again. The monastics are not unlike museum guards
and might easily inclined to be mute and withdrawn.
And, what I know from visiting temples and shrines elsewhere in
the world, curiosity seekers (and even lesser devotees) will sometimes pinch
items to take home for their collections or private devotions. Relics and
furniture must thus be protected in such places. (There were security guards at
the Encinitas grounds.)
Next article is Part 3 – Our Respective
Narratives
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)