Thursday, September 11, 2014

"Bad Karma" - Another Word for "Sin"? What is "Karma?"

In the Book of Job (in the Old Testament of Jewish and Christian faiths), Satan comes to God and wants to make a bet! (Yes, really!) Satan says, "God, I see your faithful servant Job down there on earth. But I bet you that if you let me take away his wealth, his health, his reputation, and his loved ones, Job will lose faith in You. You wanna bet? Hmm, hmmm, hmmmm?"

So, as you can imagine, God couldn't turn down this one from the old buster, the devil his-self! So He, the Almighty, says, "Satan, you're ON!" So, sure enough, poor old Job, innocent as a lamb, loses his health, his wealth, and his loved ones. Then his so-called friends come to him and say: "Job, old boy, what great sins did YOU commit to deserve this obvious displeasure of Jehovah?"

Poor old Job protests his innocence. Despite all his suffering he holds on to his faith in God's wisdom and goodness. God, in the end, therefore wins the bet with Satan. Whew!

All of Chapter 9 of the gospel of St. John describes a curious incident in which Jesus comes upon a man "blind since birth." Jesus is asked by his usual taunters, "Who sinned, this man, or his parents?" Now, mind you, the poor fellow was blind SINCE BIRTH. So if it was he, he must have sinner in a past life! While Jesus here has a perfect opportunity to endorse reincarnation, Jesus ducks the issue and says, "Neither has sinned!" Jesus explains that this man was born blind for the glory of God! What!!!! You kidding? Lucky guy, eh? Jesus then heals the man of his blindness. The story that follows is very touching and poignant but not needed for this article.

So what do we have here? Let's pause for "station identification."

Old Age'ers (fundamentalists) might tend to think that misfortune heaped upon a good Christian is a sign of God's disfavor. Some Christians, to turn this around, think that material success, health, wealth, position, and a loving family are a sign of one's virtue and one's finding favor in the good Lord's eyes. New Age'ers might tend to view a fellow meta-physician's troubles as a sure sign of some past bad karma. Neither view is necessarily correct.

The law of karma, it is said, is exacting. Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the famous "Autobiography of a Yogi") said the metaphysical law of karma finds expression in Newton's third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. In Vedanta and metaphysics, this is the law of duality as well as part of the law of karma. St. Paul wrote, famously, of the law of karma saying "Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap." (Galatians 6:7).

So look at what we have: by the law of karma one would naturally think that Job and the man born blind since birth must have done something to have earned their suffering. But by Jesus' explanation and by the story of Job, there appears to be a third option: a divine source. I call this the "Third Rail."

Think of karma as a pendulum: good and bad karma. (Never mind, for now, which is which. For the moment just think that "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Or, to quote from Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, "What is day to the yogi is night to the worldly man; what is night to the yogi, is day to the worldly man.") In the centerpoint of the pendulum lies, however momentarily, a rest point: a point from which the pendulum begins, and ends, its motion. This point we call God.

According to the dogma of man's free will, we understand that God has given us the power to choose good or evil. ("To eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.") This is like pushing the pendulum for the first time. It begins with the appearance of material and ego-active desires, likes, and dislikes. In this we abandon the God's eye view of Oneness: seeing God in all and, as a result, seeing "through" the illusion that the senses, matter, and ego have any intrinsic reality and attraction (or repulsion). 

Once the pendulum swings into motion, the interplay of good and bad karma, action and reaction, will keep the pendulum moving essentially forever until, suspicious and wary, worn and torn, we decide not "to play" the "Great Game" of ego.

When the prodigal son of Jesus' story in the new testament decided to return to his father's home, he had a long way to go on his journey. But his decision to return is the starting point. It says (and not just once) in Revelations (3:12), "Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out." This "pillar" is like the shaft and center point of our pendulum.


It is then by our choice that we begin to slow the pendulum and with sustained effort and divine grace that pendulum will come to rest in God, in our own center. God will not step into our lives as He has in Job's or that of the man born blind since birth until we invite Him into our lives.

This "third rail" of divine neutrality is God's invisible hand giving to the devotee what seems like troubles and suffering but which, if the soul will "overcome" the test with faith in God, with wisdom and equanimity, it will be the means by which the soul will not have to "go no more out" in repeated reincarnations to continue to work out its karma (whether good or bad). 

The threads of past action (karma) are subtle. The question of karma vs. grace may be somewhat a false dichotomy. Think about Job, or that blind man. Nothing in their respective stories suggests that they are souls already freed from karma ("saints," you might say). That means that they certainly have karma to overcome. Thus the fact that they each encounter troubles can logically, at least, be attributed to such karma. 

Where God's grace (the "Third Rail") enters is the timing and nature of those troubles: testing their faith and equanimity at time and in a proportion they can digest. By passing their tests with the flying colors of faith and equanimity, they have become free of some of their past karma. You see: BOTH-AND. Both-And is the nature of Infinity (while EITHER-OR is the product of the play of duality and the limited view of the intellect using logic and reason). Nonetheless, there is an element of divine intervention. It is the "good" karma of reaching upward to God: we make one step in His direction and He takes two in ours. "Faith is the most practical thing of all." I once heard my teacher, Swami Kriyananda say that when I was still quite new and it puzzled me to no end. I think, now, I understand it much better.

The worldly person will usually attribute blame to God, or to life, or to others for his troubles. He is miserable or angry when trials come and seeks however he can to get away from trouble and find pleasure and happiness. So, for this soul, the pendulum continues on and on and on until it seems like an eternity of hell.

When troubles come to you, as in every life they must, "what comes of itself, let it come" and stand tall "amidst the crash of breaking worlds" with faith, hope, and charity (even-mindedness). When success, pleasure and human happiness arrive on our doorstep, accept them gratefully but also with equanimity, for all "things must pass." This is the way we must face our tests and our successes if we are to neutralize our karma. In this way we convert what might seem to be our "bad" karma into the "good" karma of soul wisdom and eventually freedom in God. 

Krysta Gibson, editor and publisher of the New Spirit Journal, wrote an article (that inspired this one) and I thought you might enjoy reading it too: http://bit.ly/ZieeAa


Meditate on a great pillar, a shaft of light, as the symbol of the inner spine. This is, in part, the meaning of the Hindu "lingam" (a stone pillar....too often, but incorrectly, likened to a phallic symbol). This "pillar" is our own center, our subtle spine, to which if we withdraw mentally and with good posture gives us psychic protection, spiritual fortitude and insights.

Om namoh Shivaya!

Swami Hrimananda

Friday, September 5, 2014

Marriage: Is it Necessary?

Did I get your attention? Truthfully now: cohabitation is as acceptable as blue skies and sun (or, in my case, here in Seattle, grey clouds and rain). So why do couples go through all the fuss and bother and expense (and stress) of a marriage ceremony? Is it a tax savings device? Hardly!

Is it guilt or some social hangover from centuries of sentimentality and hopelessly repetitive traditions? I hope not, or at least I don't think so. Modern, educated and conscious-lifestyle couples step up to the marriage altar for many reasons, of course, but also, I believe, owing to impulses that run deep in the human psyche.

When I say "deep," I am NOT referring to some lizard brained, Darwinian ape-like impulse to, ah, what: survive? I am not aware of any other species who uses a ceremony to establish a committed relationship. Or as I sometimes put it when sometime trots out a survival-related reason for various profound, ennobling or genius-like human activities: "Speak for yourself!."

The impulse to memorialize and consecrate a couple's relationship comes from a higher plane of consciousness. It affirms the sacredness of commitment, of trust, of responsibility to and for one another. On a metaphysical level the two become One, thus re-affirming the highest (or deepest) truth precept humankind has ever, often, and repeatedly averred: as God is one, we are one, and, as children of God, we, too, in our souls, at least, are One with the Father-Mother, Infinite Power. Oneness, in other words, is the supreme teaching of the universe.

Marriage affirms a corollary precept: that love is the essence of truth and of reality. Love is the elemental divine impulse that put into motion the creation of the universe and it is to love that consciousness aspires in its long journey through time and space and endless seeming incarnations from lower life forms to the human form.

Love is the answer, the solution. Love it is that procreates: whether human children, acts of kindness, of enthusiastic creativity in arts, science, and all worthwhile human endeavors.

Some couples are, of course, of a lower consciousness and the most they can make of this impulse is to hold a bacchanalian orgy of loud music, guffaws, hard drinking, and all the innuendo around what follows. This false and fantasized lower form of bliss is inevitably paid for with the coin of the realm of our health, vitality, and happiness and returns to them in time with boredom, bitterness, disillusionment and, all too often, divorce.

Other couples, perhaps more sober and mature, see sacredness in their lives as limited to ceremonies of marriage, funerals and perhaps baptisms, but otherwise live their lives unaware or unaffected by their few minutes of religious traditional rites. Their marital affirmation is a pale affirmation and a fleeting vision of spiritual beauty just like a wedding dress which, though ethereal and shimmering with beauty and promise, is worn but once and then put into the closet for decades.

At Ananda, we have a beautiful wedding ceremony that is truly sacred and affirms the highest ideals of soul union with God and divine friendship with each other. Visitors and guests consistently remark on the universality, the poetic and visual beauty of the vows, rituals and music, and the sacredness they feel during the ceremony. We use the symbols of nature (earth, water, fire and air) to affirm our connection with all life and with the qualities these elements invite us to express: loyalty, adaptability, non-attachment and wisdom. The couple consecrates their partnership by affirming their love for God and that the love they feel for each other should be corollary expression of God's love, retaining the unselfish purity of God's unconditional love.

Just because we are as yet imperfect in realization of our spiritual ideals doesn't mean we can't or shouldn't affirm them, indeed, declare them with friends, family and congregation as witnesses and in those who wish to add their sincere blessings as a free gift. A spiritual marriage (I have earlier written on this subject: August 2014: Human Love: Delusion or Doorway to Heaven?) is one that strives to see the highest in one another and to serve and share in divine friendship. True friendship is practical and serviceful, one to the other; it is self-giving and self-sacrificing, even while remaining centered within and free from expectations of reciprocity. (A high bar of attainment, I grant you.) A spiritual marriage is founded in respect and a love born of the unconditional love which is innate to our soul's nature.

Tomorrow Padma and I are officiants at a wedding of dear friends who strive to live by these ideals and who seek the blessing of friends and family and the blessings of God through Christ and the Masters of Self-realization.

Marriage will survive for a long time to come! It will do so for reasons not generally clearly understood but deeply felt because true.

Blessings and joy to our friends and to all,

Nayaswami Hriman


Monday, September 1, 2014

Am I "Spiritual?"

We hear frequently the term "spiritual but not religious." Some say we are spiritual beings having a human experience and, accordingly, "Of course I am spiritual!" Paramhansa Yogananda once addressed a person's concern about leaving the spiritual path by reassuring this person that "we are all on the spiritual path." I think he was being "nice" while at the same time affirming a metaphysical truth.

Coming back to earth, however, I read a quote from Mark Twain who supposedly quipped that "If Jesus Christ were alive today, there is definitely one thing he would not be: a Christian!" Cute, and, understandable! Jesus' consciousness ("I and my Father are One") could not abide by narrow sectarianism in any form (such as we see all too often among some self-defined "Christians").

What makes a person "spiritual?" In the New Testament (Matthew 25:40), Jesus says that if you help others in need you have done it for God and will have earned the kingdom of heaven. By this yardstick, some will say that an atheist can be a Christian, well, or at least "spiritual." I'm not about to argue with this deeply compassionate and inspired teaching from the New Testament. From the standpoint of Vedanta we would say that it is more "sattwic" (uplifting) to help others in need than to be selfish. According to such good actions (karma), one can advance spiritually. Any good and kind and virtuous person, therefore, can gain merit and is, spiritually speaking, above someone who lives selfishly. "Above" here means that such a one has a consciousness that is expanded beyond the little ego-self and includes the needs of others.

Again, this is the "long view" born of the teaching that we are souls (eternal and perfect) made in the image of God. I won't debate that teaching but it still doesn't answer my question satisfactorily. This view, admittedly, is essential and I do not reject it.

Still I am probing to go beyond what could be called "liberal theology" or an egalitarian theology that says blithely "I'm ok, you're ok (as you are)." My daughter's blog (http://gitagoing.blogspot.com/) has an article "Going for Good or Going for God" that addresses my question squarely. Is virtue enough? Is virtue the same as spirituality?

I've heard the quote that "The road to hell is paved with good intentions." This medieval cliche can mean, to me, that good karma may balance or mitigate bad karma but once it's used up you start all over again. Unless we consciously seek God (which is to say, "transcendence of duality, ego, and mortality"), we are locked onto the wheel of samsara (repeated rounds of birth) for what might as well be termed an eternity.

In "Autobiography of a Yogi," Paramhansa Yogananda writes something to the effect that only when the soul awakens to the "anguishing monotony" of repeated rounds of rebirth does it cry out for freedom. Once when I was discouraged, I wondered if that was enough to grant me spiritual freedom. Of course it is not. You have to want God: eternal bliss. Rejection is not enough, else, suicide would be our ticket to salvation.

Infinity embraces and IS everything. Nothing in God is foreign or evil. But when we are caught in duality, good and evil are very real. God IS and HAS everything, but one thing: our attention; our love; our sincere yearning to reunite with our Father-Mother, Beloved in Oneness.

There are good and virtuous people whose lives are a great inspiration and blessing to this world but who have no desire for God. There are devotees who are selfish, irritable and sometimes even proud but who deeply love God and seek to know God as their very Self. Such is the endless and complex play of karma and delusion. But only those who seek freedom, find freedom. How long that takes or how arduous depends in part upon the intensity of their effort.

Where each soul is on the journey home to God cannot be seen except by a true saint. The virtuous man might have an epiphany and rise to freedom: perhaps he would be blessed to meet a saint and instantly have the vision of God or superconsciousness, thus igniting his fervor for transcendence. The devotee might encounter a karmic bomb that would blast from her all her devotion and send her plummeting into the living hades of depression, anger, or fear. Or.............the opposite...........the virtuous is hit with the karmic bomb and the devotee is uplifted into an ecstatic divine vision. In all cases, it is we who must make the choice in response to life's tests and opportunities.

Karma is exacting and not whimsical, however. The fact we cannot see it doesn't mean it doesn't function, just as the law of gravity works just fine without our consent.

For, returning to our metaphysical truths, we are not our karma; we are not our ego or body or personality. Our soul here and now is already free. Time and space are a product of God's consciousness. We could be free right now, Yogananda claimed, if in declaring it so we realized it without reservation and in every cell of our being. Try it: it's not so easy. Hunger and desires and fears rise up instantly, clinging to us like ghouls from the underworld trying to pull us into their haunts.

But this much we can say: no one achieves God consciousness by accident or without choosing it. When someone called Jesus "good," his reply was curt: "Why do you call me good. No one is good but God." The Bhagavad Gita proclaims that all human virtue and excellence comes from God. Only those who acknowledge this and seek God alone can rise to God consciousness.

Yogananda stated that "The drama of life has for its lesson that it is simply that: a drama." If we can laugh and cry watching a movie and, when it is finished, call it good, why cannot we do this for our life? God plays all the parts but we cheer the hero and hiss the villains. Play your part as a hero and when the play of your life is ended, walk off the stage free and into the Director's loving embrace.

Yes, you, too, ARE spiritual.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman