Armageddon or a New Age? A New View of History

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

Are We Bankrupt Yet?

When a person's debts and payments on his debt overwhelm his ability to repay and to continue the expenditures of his current lifestyle, the curtain of material loss descends. Throughout the western countries in Europe and in the United States, the national governments are on or over the edge of bankruptcy. Add to this state and local governments, and we have a bit of a problem.

So, which is going to win: the Tea Party types, slashing expenditures and taxes, or those who want to keep government expenditures rolling so as to keep the house of cards from collapsing completely?

Seems to me that we are past opinions and that the reality of bankruptcy and insolvency is upon us. If we slash expenditures and keep tax rates equal or lower, we will unleash thousands of government workers and military into the tepid job pool only to drown. Social benefit recipients will find their support slashed or eliminated in the direction of homelessness and lack of food, heat, and medical care. We've seen civil disturbances erupt at what will, in the not too distant future, seem like minor inconveniences. Just wait when the cities are teeming with unemployment and homelessness, and the suburbs become ghost towns of idleness and despair.

The result is no different if we continue to spend. For then the currency will, and perhaps quite suddenly, simply implode with essentially the same exact results. You see, the die has been long cast.

It will be up to creative, energetic, and bold individuals and groups of individuals to act for survival and (hopefully) in cooperation with others of like mind. Homes, boats, ski doos, SUV's will be all but worthless. Gardens, rural land, running water and safe shelter will be in high demand, as will consummables that can be bartered.

The apocalypse that our culture has been visualizing through sterile and violent futuristic movies and video games, or through intense downbeat metal or rap music espousing all manner of violence and anger is, tragically, about to become a reality.

Naturally this sad picture is not the only picture, though I find it hard to imagine that it won't be realized in certain places and at specific times. As the sun rises and sets, warms and cools, so too even tragedy has comedy and comforts. Regions of our nation may be impacted very differently. Cities, too, may experience a wide range or degree of these scenarios. Families, businesses, and organizations, also, will experience the gamut of possibility. Even the Depression era of the 1930's saw many unscathed and oblivious to the suffering of millions. So, too, again, by the play of opposites, the sad scenario that I paint will not be absolute, or black and white, as the expression goes.

That doesn't make any less real, however, and certainly not for those who will feel the heavy heel of its foot.

So, am I such a pessimist? No, in fact. I believe much good can come from something that is simply overdue and the obvious consequence of overspending: not just money but natural resources. It's time to balance our budget of time, wealth, energy, health, education, trade, and care and concern for others. It's time we shrink the government in favor of personal initiative and responsibility. It's time to re-discover basic values of truth and consequences, hard work, saving, sharing, and love for our world and the Creator of our world. We need a new and sustainable lifestyle for the 21st century and we, in America, and in Europe, must take the lead (as we have sown the seeds of the weeds that are now choking the flowers of our lives).

If this were the Fifties and you thought the enemy were about to drop "the bomb," what would you do? Well, this time the bomb is one of our own making and it's about to drop. So, what do you do? Prepare! Cut your expenditures, stock up on provisions (food, water, medicines, camping supplies), things you can trade, move to the country if you can, join with others to gather more strength, get healthy and drop unnecessary luxuries and indulgences, learn to pray and meditate (especially with others), start a garden, store seeds, payoff debt where you can.....this is plenty for most people to do.

One ethical question I hear about is what to do with your "upside down" home? Is it ethical to simply walk away from it even if, for now, you still afford your mortgage payment? I wish I had a clear answer to this. But let me start by saying that the catastrophe of value-loss you are experiencing now, and the prospect of much more to come, goes far beyond anything you personally did.

This is BIG. I personally think it is better to make the kind of preparations described above even if it means abandoning your house. This is because I think you may end up having to do that anyway, and by that point, your ability to cope will have gone down the mortgage payment drain. Seems to me the banks are going down anyway. Sorry to say that but if a tsunami is coming at your town you could run around and try to alert people (even though the sirens are wailing and authorities are already doing that) or you could evacuate. Assuming you don't actually know of anyone too fearful to evacuate or unable to heed the warnings, you search may be in vain and at the expense of your own life. It's a personal decision, I grant you, but making your ideals practical and not being foolish has its place, too.

I think the sinkhole is draining our economy and resources faster than we can get out without serious losses at this point. While I don't espouse "every man for himself," but in fact espouse working with others and helping others, I don't see the ethical value in paying your mortgage for the benefit of a vague "greater good" that your payments cannot possibly or realistically impact.

It's a time for bold, yet thoughtful action. And action that includes good of others. Most of my readers already know that Paramhansa Yogananda made predictions of this decades ago and that Swami Kriyananda, founder of Ananda and direct disciple of Yogananda, has repeated warnings about this global economic tsunami for decades as well. I don't repeat those statements now because we no longer need seers to predict what is upon us already for those with "eyes to see."

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

Am I Breathing Yet?

Isn’t it rather insulting to pay to attend a class that teaches you how to breathe? Haven’t you been doing that rather steadily now for a few years?

But that’s the problem: we fall asleep. Breathing is natural and so integral to our life that we no longer notice it. It’s just like our habits in food and relationships: our problems arise when we “fall asleep” and live on auto-pilot. We get overweight or unhealthy because we are not paying attention. We may find ourselves in divorce proceedings because we didn’t pay attention.

The act of breathing signifies we are still alive! It is the beginning (and its cessation, the end) of life in a human body. Yogis put it this way: breath is that which connects our mind to our body. Yogis view “mind” in a much broader way than western culture and language. Mind is, in yoga, synonymous with consciousness and individuality (at least as far as “we” are concerned).

To be more clear, mind is divided into four parts: buddhi, mon, chitta, and ahamkara. Buddhi is described in various ways to include intellect, perception, and intuition. These three are different but share in common the aspect of consciousness that we call “knowing,” or gnosis. We can see a horse and “know” that it is a horse. We can experience the astral light in meditation in the forehead and “know” that it is not our own imagination. We can “know” that a friend is in trouble before we get the phone call.

Mon is that aspect of consciousness that depends upon and works in tandem with the senses: receiving sense stimuli and “re-constructing” those signals in the “mind” in some orderly way. It is pre-cognitive in the sense of one looking out the window and seeing objects in the field of vision prior to labeling those objects. For example: smelling an odor before identifying it. This is a lower function of mind but one necessary to survival in a physical body. It is also dependent upon the healthy functioning of sense organs.

Chitta is our feeling nature. This can range from our emotions and emotional reactions to either sense stimuli or our own thoughts and perceptions, all the way to a deeper level of feeling that is unconditioned by either but at least as powerful (if not more).

Ahamakara is consciousness identified with oneself: one’s body and personality. This is our sense of individuality and separateness from all other objects in our field of vision and perception. This is commonly labeled our ego.

Yogis teach that there is a deep and abiding connection between our breath and our consciousness. Try noticing that moment when you “fall” asleep. It’s while nigh to impossible, but do-able. When we are busy with rapid fire thoughts or actions, we virtually cannot notice our breath (unless we really practice — enhanced by long and deep meditation).

Your awareness therefore of your breath under all conditions (from sleep, to action, to meditation, during emotions and any intense state of being or activity) will bring to you awareness of your own state of mind. (I like to joke that we begin meditation with being mind-full, but seek to go beyond so that we are mind-less: in a state of non-verbal, intense inner awareness)

If while sitting still with eyes closed you observe the flow of breath within you, especially for an extended period of time (no less than ten minutes) with continuous and unbroken awareness, you will find your powers of observation, concentration, and baseline level of deep and enjoyable feeling greatly enhanced.

Why don’t I leave at that, for now?

Breath in joy, exhale peace!

The Holy Science - The Last Chapter

This is my final blog post on Swami Sri Yukteswar's (only) book, The Holy Science. I've never encountered a book so abstruse (meaning deep but requiring depth to plumb) by one who I accept as Self-realized. Many a book can be found that seems abstruse or deep but only by obfuscation imitating realization. This is not one such book. While Sri Yukteswar's greatest disciple, Paramhansa Yogananda wrote and lectured in ways more transparent and attuned to modern culture and hence I recommend those writings (and those of his direct disciple, Swami Kriyananda), I can still appreciate the timelessness and the culturally transcendent vibration of The Holy Science. One can glean from its reading, therefore, a wisdom that touches the "cells" and the higher Self, bypassing the intellect's obvious inability to rationalize his writings into a "system."

In the last chapter of the book, Chapter 4, THE REVELATION, Sri Yukteswar pulls the veil from the eternal truth ("Sanaatan Dharma). He begins by describing three stages of "adeptship." The publisher's English translation uses this term "adeptship" which is rarely employed these days but which we can assume as "mastery" (self-mastery or becoming a "master").

The three stages are aligned with the physical body, the subtle (astral) body, and the causal body of the mind. Natural living can help purify the body. "Penance" (another somewhat out of date term) describes the purification of our feeling sense, or astral / electrical body. Patience is the way to purify the astral body. It is the art of remaining even-minded and cheerful under all circumstances. A yogi might say it is the calming of the chitta (the emotional and reactive processes). Sri Yukteswar uses the term "magnetic body" to describe the causal body and says that purification of the mind comes through the power of mantra. Wow: how are we going to understand these simple but incredibly deep solutions? Mantra is not just repeating a word formula. It is a vibration of consciousness. Mantras as we know them are portals to higher consciousness and should be used intelligently, with will power and devotion. True mantra is not merely recited but actually heard in meditation. A great of reverence and sacred tradition accompanies the giving of mantras from the guur or teacher to the chela, or disciple. Indeed, Sri Yukteswar says simply that one must learn these practices from one's guru.

This purification process is greatly aided by control of the breath and through techniques that would reveal to one the inner sound of Aum. Aum can, he writes, even arrest the decay of body cells. He says that the Aum sounds appears in different forms as we progress spiritually.

Through the development of the heart's natural love one magentically draws the blessing of a true guru. By practice of the do's and don'ts (yama and niyama of Patanjali), the eight meanesses of the human heart. He uses several terms for different stages: "pravartaka" is one who has begun his sadhana (spiritual disciplines) under the guidance of his guru. As the heart opens one becomes a "sadhaka" and becomes fit for ascetic posture and other practices given to him by his guru. As the devotee progresses and hears the Aum sound and grows in advancement he becomes a divine personage, a "siddha."

After this he passes through the seven centers of the spine (the chakras). In time and with depth one achieves supremacy over the seven "swargas" (or heavens) or spheres. By dissolving the four original ideas (see first blog) or the four manus, one achieves self-mastery and achieves oneness with God.

Certain powers may manifest in a master: the power of making the body (or anything else) small, or large, or light, or heavy, or achieving any object sought.

Swami Sri Yukteswar, the cold, calculating sage of wisdom, then concludes love is the ruling principle of spiritual growth and without out it, no progress on the spiritual path can be made.

I invite you to our four-part class series (4 Wednesdays) beginning September 7. We expect to have a streaming option for those at a distance. Please contact us right away if you would like to attend whether in person or virtually.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman

THE HOLY SCIENCE - PART 4 - THE PROCEDURE

We come now to Chapter 3 - The Procedure in our overview of Swami Sri Yukteswar's (only) book, THE HOLY SCIENCE. Swami Sri Yukteswar is best known as the guru of Paramhansa Yogananda who is the author of the world famous spiritual classic, "Autobiography of a Yogi."

Sri Yukteswar's (SY) book was written at the behest of the deathless avatar, Babaji and it shows the underlying universal themes of spirituality especially as between the Christian bible and the teachings of Sanaatan Dharma (the revelations of the rishis of India). Throughout the text he proffers quotations from the Old and New Testaments in juxtaposition to the sutras that he quotes.

In Chapter 3 (this is our fourth blog article), SY gives the necessary attitudes and practices that lead to the goal (see prior blog article). In sutras 1 - 4, SY enumerates the basics: even-mindedness under all circumstances, the study and intuitive contemplation of truth, and inner communion with the Holy Spirit in the form of the AUM vibration.

In sutras 5 and 6, SY states that Aum is heard through the cultivation of the heart's natural love. (There are specific meditation techniques that can hasten and deepen one's experience of Aum.) To commune with Aum takes courage, concentration, and devotion (and self-offering: an aspect of devotion).

It is most curious that a sage of "cold, calculating" wisdom would aver that the heart's natural love is the "principal requisite" to salvation. This divine and unconditional state of consciousness removes the fluctuations of desire and emotions, including giving strength and vitality, and expelling germs and viruses! The heart's natural love allows one to achieve true understanding and, most importantly, it magnetically draws to one the Godlike company of "divine personages."

Without the heart's natural love, one cannot live in harmony with nature or with God, SY counsels. This love gives to us courage to follow the directives and counsel of the "sat" (or true) guru. We can recognize, honor, cherish, and love those who dispel our doubts and avoid those who increase our doubts.

While others seek God in images, stones, in the heavens above, or in nature below, the Yogi seeks God within his own Self. To keep company with a true guru goes beyond physical proximity. More important is to hold the guru's presence in one's heart.

Moral courage is also strengthen by observances of the do's and don'ts of spirituality (taught by Patanjali as the "yamas" and the "niyamas").

SY then launches into a discussion of "What is Natural Living?" In this analysis he examines the teeth of humans and concludes that man is a frugivor, or fruit-eating species. This is confirmed by the relationship of the length of human bowels in relation to the length of the human body (as measured from mouth to anus). Frugivor includes vegetables, nuts, and grains.

He writes then of the calming lifestyle that brings the power of sexual desire into natural balance, and which then engenders, in turn, vitality and health. He speaks of the health value and natural instinct for fresh air in our dwelling places.

SY moves then to Sutras 12-18 in which he describes the eight bondages, or meannesses, of the heart. He lists them as hatred, shame, fear, grief, condemnation, race prejudice, pride of family, and smugness. Their removal leads, he writes, to "magnanimity of heart." This allows one to move to the next stages of the 8-Fold Path (of Patanjali): asana, pranayama, and pratyahara.

Asana is that pleasant and health filled state of the body induced by good posture and that, as a result, we can feel and think clearly.

Pranayama is described in way that far transcends the usual descriptions given in raja yoga: control over death. When we can consciously rest the involuntary nerves we can stop the decay of the material body (heart, lungs etc.).

In Pratyahara, SY describes how sense fulfillment never satisfies us. We are left hungry for more. By contrast, when we withdraw our attention from the senses inward toward the Self, we satisfy the heart's natural inclinations immediately.

SY goes on to address the 3 highest stages of the 8-Fold Path which, together, are described by Patanjali as "Samyama." By this latter term, SY means "restraint" or overcoming the egoistic self and the exchange of individuality for universality. This process includes the intuition of the heart to perceive truth, the steady concentration which results in merging with the object of contemplation and the inner communion with God as the Word (or Aum). He calls the latter "baptism" and "Bhakti yoga."

Next is described the castes, or different states of consciousness, of humankind. The dark heart, or sudra (servant) class, thinks the physical world is the only reality. This state is expressed in the evolution of human consciousness in the Kali Yuga (or dark) cycle of evolution. Interestingly, SY skips now to the Kshatriya (or warrior) class as the stage in which man struggles to know the truth and in which he is caught between the higher and lower states.

Next SY describes the states of consciousness prevalent during each of the four cycles of the yugas (described in his Introduction and in an earlier blog). He says that the consciousness of the second age, Dwapara Yuga, includes an appreciation of the finer, subtler forces of creation. In the Dwapara state the heart becomes steady and devoted to the inner world of these finer forces.

In Treta Yuga, the third age, we can comprehend magnetism and the heart, or Chitta. Man is said then to belong to the Vipra, or nearly perfect, class or Treta. Lastly we reach the "great world," or Maharloka, where the heart is clean and we become "knowers of Brahma" or Brahmans in the age of Satya (truth) Yuga.

SY concludes his third chapter (The Procedure) with a description of the 3 highest spheres of consciousness and the achievement of final release, or Kaivalya.

Thus is described the universal path to freedom in God.

Don't forget: our 4-part class in the Holy Science begins Wednesday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. at the Ananda Meditation Temple Register online for a 10% discount at www.AnandaSeattle.org. We are still working on streaming that class for those at a distance. If you are interested in the latter possibility, please contact us.

Blessings,

Hriman

Does Satan Exist? (Or, more depressing news?)

Last Sunday at the Ananda Meditation Temple, in Bothell, WA our subject was a peek at the dark side and one of humanity’s core ethical and existential issues: Does evil exist? What is the cause of suffering? Is there a cure for suffering? If there is evil, did God create evil? Is God evil therefore? Does Satan exist?

I’ve always had an interest in such musings. My mother used to tell me that as I child I pestered her with “the big questions of life.” But my response to that was that it was she who prodded me day in and day out, constantly urging me by shouting: KNOW KNOW KNOW. (Maybe I misunderstood the NO for KNOW - :)).
As you have perhaps heard it said here, the Indian scriptures proclaim that GOD CANNOT BE PROVED. Ishwar Ashiddha

I suppose therefore it must also be admitted that neither can evil be “proved,” only experienced and judged as such. Paramhansa Yogananda defined evil as that which obscures truth, or prevents us from knowing the divinity behind all forms of creation.
Relative to the bliss state of cosmic consciousness (out of which the creation has been manifested) we could say that any lesser state or any desire for a lesser state of consciousness or object of creation would take us away from our bliss nature.

There cannot be the great drama of creation, the great symphony of life if all life were harmonized with bliss alone. It takes the multifarious forms of creation each seeking their own existence and separate welfare to enact this drama. It is the duty and opportunity of awakened beings to pierce the veil of maya to see through the drama to the dramatist Himself behind it all but, as we are not its creator, it is not our duty, task, or ability to change the nature of creation itself. To exist it must perforce carry on the drama of dark and light.
We are all in a matrix, a spider web of false appearances. The game goes on only if we play it on its relative terms of survival, competition, conquest, pleasure, pain, health, disease, life and death. Once we begin to view it transcendently and to view these opposites as only a ceaseless flux can we begin the journey towards the goal of pure consciousness which is untainted by opposites and where we find our original state, our home in God, in Bliss.

Does this mean however that evil, being opposite of good, is, well, just as good? Well, of course not! On the scale of “distance” from bliss, evil (selfishness, e.g.) blinds us far more completely to the divine within than good. But good alone is not enough though it is better. Good remains only an opposite destined to reverse itself until we see it and use it as a stepping stone off the wheel of samsara, rebirth, and the opposites of life and death.
Though we exhibit self-awareness we cannot claim to have created it, no more than we can claim to have given birth to ourselves, or to the world around us. We come from and are part of something much greater. This, then, is as true for good and evil as it is for consciousness and life.

“Thoughts are universally, not individually, rooted” Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in his famous autobiography. What this means to us is two-fold: the power which darkens our life towards error, ignorance and suffering is greater than us, but the power which brings light is also greater than we. In each case, as we are not the origin of dark or light, we can consciously call upon the power of Light to uplift us from the darkness. Not passively, of course, for the Light vibrates on a higher level of energy, intelligence and bliss than we do on a merely conscious egoic level. We must attune ourselves to its level by thought, word, and deed.

The vast nature of that Light is such that we, confined as it were to the prison of ego and body, cannot comprehend that Light without a medium. It is its own language and we need an interpreter, a teacher, to instruct us in its syntax (that's a pun, actually). Just as a radio or cell phone is needed to capture the spoken words of one far away but attempting to speak to us, so too it is the guru who acts as a light-house that refracts, aims, and concentrates the universal but subtle and difficult-to-perceive beam of cosmic Light into human form that we can see, feel, and be transformed by it back into it!

Is God responsible for ignorance, suffering and evil? He created this world, didn’t He? God becomes this world as the playwright writes a play but in so writing becomes not villainous for making the villain evil. Without the villain the play would not play and no one would pay to see it.

Therefore His actors, who are manifestations of His intelligence and desire to create that His joy might be experienced in the play, are similarly endowed but by necessity separated by their forms. Our created separateness is a necessity for the drama but imposes upon us the urge to survive, to compete, to win, and to seek the natural objects of sensory fulfillments and ego affirmation. By degrees, therefore the actors of the play begin changing the script. We begin to be typecast as second rate actors who have forgetten that it's just a play. We have forgotten our lines in the script.

We come now to our red, horned, cloven-hoofed friend, Satan. As we are beings clothed in human form, endowed with intelligence and intention, and the power to act, so too does the divine creating Light manifest higher (astral and causal) beings with roles to act in the grand drama of creation. As we fall into ignorance by the hypnosis of the creation's seeming reality, so too some of these Beings fall into ignorance drunk with their own power and embolden by their duties to create and oversee.

As this world is itself a manifestation of consciousness, so too the forces that emerge to create and diversify and to sustain the creation are conscious. Whether seen as Beings or as Forces it matters not. There is a satanic force that impels and invites us into ego affirmation, into the delusion of sense satisfaction, security through material weath, and pride, just as there is an angelic force that invites us into the inner silence to commune with Her as Peace, Joy, and who invites us, as prodigal sons, to return to our Father's kingdom as Sons of God.

An example of such forces of darkness and suffering can be seen in a drama that is unfolding right now on our planet. Today our western world is on the brink of the greatest depression and economic collapse in recorded history. Will it happen? How can it not happen except by pretending it isn’t happening? Paramhansa Yogananda certainly is among the many who have predicted it. In his case, he did so over sixty years ago. But of course so have other seers of various persuasions seen through the fragile success of capitalism. Whether spiritually seeing the delusion of materialism fanned by capitalism or socially seeing the potential for the enrichment of a few at the expense of the many, or economically seeing the endless expansion of capital and wealth and consumption as the false foundation for its success, the end result is the same: collapse.

Not that the basic tenets of capitalism are somehow evil, at least not so far as giving individuals the freedom to earn a living. Rather the pursuit of wealth for its own sake and money (a non-productive, imaginary object) as the measure of that wealth: these are the false gods before us who are soon to betray our trust in them.

Life must be productive, harmonious and sustainable of life, health, and harmony. The western form of consumption and lifestyle is simply based on the untruth of himsa, injury to life. It cannot therefore last. Here we see evil pretending to be good: the good life (for some at the expense of others, and other life forms). Generation after generation this good life has lulled us, its beneficiaries, into increasing dis-ease with ourselves, one another, and the planet on which we live.

I doubt anyone can even explain or understand what this item called a “dollar” actually is, or represents, or is based on. It’s a fiction, a lie agreed upon. We must consume faster than we save in order to increase our wealth and pleasure. The interest on the debt we incur to do this rises exponentially like a tsunami which races across the trackless ocean and then suddenly rises to crash to shore leaving death and destruction in its wake.

The solution is to reject fear and despair and inaction and to embrace the Light of God's love within and with our fellow men and planet. We are invited to change our lifestyle to one of harmony and sustainability with our own souls, our bodies, and with the divine life which is this creation.

Blessings,

Hriman

Imminent Collapse of the U.S. Dollar?

As I am preparing for a talk tomorrow at the Ananda Sunday Service (in Bothell, WA, USA) on the subject of the existence of evil, my friend and teacher, and founder of Ananda, Swami Kriyananda (direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda) forwarded a YouTube video on the subject of the dollar's imminent collapse. It's about 10 minutes long and if you're interested here's the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b3-vwYJiD8g

To students and members of Ananda worldwide this is hardly news. You know already that Swami Kriyananda has repeated this prediction which Paramhansa Yogananda gave repeatedly in the last years before his death in 1952. But we hardly need a yoga-master to tell us that the worldwide economy (dollar denominated) is in trouble and that the possibility of the collapse of the dollar isn't at least a threat!

But what the heck can you or I do about this? How can we be prepared for the possibility, whether extreme (as portrayed in the YouTube video), whether partial, short-term or permanent? From years of living with this prediction and with the steps some members of the various Ananda Communities worldwide have done, here are some thoughts (taken to a wide range of extremes or just a few steps):

1. Purchase a supply of food, but more than just 2 to 3 days of a power outage. Perhaps 6 months supply of canned or freeze dried food. I'm no expert but there's lots of information on the internet and places where this can be purchased. Don't forget water, too!
2. Supplies like prescriptions, flashlights, batteries, toilet paper and all the bare necessities.
3. Camping supplies and outdoor clothing: tent, blankets, sleeping bags, etc.
4. Bicycle?
5. Start a garden for food or at least have seeds and don't forget sprouting!
6. If you can, buy land outside a city where food can be grown and shelter can be taken.
7. Convert savings, at least partially, to exchangeable commodities. Obvious ones are gold and silver but there are many other bartable goods as well.
8. Get out of debt: this is trickier because it's possible you can later pay off dollar-denominated debt with worthless inflated dollars later, but this is hard to predict. If you have excess cash that you cannot otherwise put into commodities including decent land then maybe this is good especially if it's your home.
9. Get to know your neighbors or, if family, start planning with others who share your concerns.
10. Get out of the inner or large cities if you can. Riots and looting will start almost immediately in the worst case scenarios and food will disappear immediately. Water supplies may be shut off if and assuming most government services shut down due to lack of funds and payroll. (Virtually every government entity in America is technically already insolvent or will easily be.)
11. Buy land in the country with like minded people. Start a community with friends and family.
12. Learn to meditate. Pray daily. Join in with others of prayerful inclination to reinforce each other's faith. Read spiritually minded books.
13. Accumulate supplies not just for yourself but to help others, as you are able.
14. Curtail your exposure to entertainment and news that is filled with gratuitious violence or is fear-inducing. It's easy to stay abreast of important news through other means that are less impactful on your subconscious.
15. Don't panic and don't frighten others. Be calm and sensible. You'll sleep better at night helping yourself, your family, and being prepared to help others as well.

Well I'm sure I could go on but you get the general idea.

Oh, yes, evil DOES exist. Combat it with nobility of thoughts and actions and with the grace of God.

Hriman

The Holy Science - Part 3 - THE GOAL

Swami Sri Yukteswar now moves on to the second chapter.

Spiritual awakening is a process of remembrance (smriti is the term Patanjali uses in the Yoga Sutras). The guru awakens both a remembrance and the desire for liberation.  Hence: the goal! All desires must be fulfilled by the law of prana (energy) and creative visualization.

A deep habit can only be overcome with finality when we “know” from intuition it is no longer a desire or part of our true Self. Similarly when the soul awakens to the true nature of creation (see Part 1) and the power of maya (delusion), liberation becomes its prime goal.

To achieve final liberation the soul must transcend all influences of duality. In this state all desires are fulfilled and all suffering ceases. So long as we identify with the physical body and has not yet found the Self, suffering continues as all desires are yet to be fulfilled. Rebirth is necessary with its attendant disappointments and troubles.

Ignorance is the source of suffering and ignorance results from mistaking the unreal for the real. The unreal has apparent reality only by the flux of opposites and includes such qualities as egoism, attachment, aversion and (blind) tenacity.

Swami Sri Yukteswar then gives a more detailed analysis of this process. He starts with the statement that ignorance produces a sense of separateness of objects (egoism) and the consequent tenacious power (desire) of holding one's form separate and apart. From this comes the attraction to or repulsion away from other objects.

It is therefore from ignorance, egoism, attachment, aversion and tenacity that we suffer.

Our true Self seeks existence (Sat) (immortality), consciousness (Chit) (Self-awareness), and unending Bliss (Ananda). [Satchidanandam]. These have nothing to do with anything outside our Self, but are the innate properties of Self.

We attain contentment, bliss, through the aid of the true guru who imparts the disciplines and ways by which the devotee achieves ananda. With a content heart it becomes possible to fix one’s attention on anything he chooses and so chit (consciousness) is followed to its source in its primal manifestation: Aum. In time and with deepening practice the sense of separateness is dissolved in the holy word and true baptism occurs as we repent of the sin of separateness.

Then immortality is achieved through power over delusion and realization of one’s indestructible and ever-existing reality. Now, at last, instead of merely reflecting the divine light, one is actively united with Spirit and has achieved Kaivalya, or Oneness.

Thus in his straightforward manner, Swami Sri Yukteswar describes for us the goal of life.

Next blog article is chapter 3, THE PROCEDURE. To enroll in this 4-week class series which begins Wednesday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. at Ananda Meditation Temple, go to the Ananda website: http://www.anandaseattle.org/activities/BothellClasses

Blessings,

Hriman

Holy Science - Part 2 - Chapter 1 - THE GOSPEL

Holy Science – Part 1

Swami Sri Yukteswar (SY) was asked by Mahavatar Babaji to write a book showing the underlying essence of Jesus’ teachings and those of Krishna. By extension, this is to say to show the essential truth underlying all faith traditions.

Truth is called by many names by men but truth is one and eternal. “Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord our God is One.” By so many words, rituals, and symbols perhaps the most universal truth teaching is to say (in numerous ways) that God (by whatever name or no name) exists and is the sole (or essential) reality behind all appearances. Thus begins Chapter 1 (The Gospel) of The Holy Science.

Perception by man of this truth is thwarted by the hypnotic influence and stimuli of the five senses of the human body. We identify reality with their reports. Consequently, the divine presence remains hidden to us until we can stimulate and develop our inner (sixth) sense through the all-seeing “eye” of intuition.

The One, absolute and Self-contained began creation by become two. God so created the world by making himself dual: the power of his Shakti (joyful energy) and his omniscient feeling (consciousness or chit). These form God as nature, God as manifested. In the microcosm of the Self, we have our will power (with enjoyment underlying it) and we have self-awareness as that which enjoys. This dual power could also be described as the outgoing (repelling) force, and the inflowing (attractive or Love) power. This dual power has a sound which is called the Word (or the Aum, or Amen).

The creation through Aum has four elements: vibration (intelligent word), time, space, and particle (atom and individuality, or separateness of objects). (These are the four beasts of the Book of Revelation in the Bible who attend the throne of God.) The Holy Ghost vibration of Aum is God manifested and manifesting creation through the principle of dwaita, duality, and its spinning hypnotic effect, maya. Though made manifest through God’s Light, the divided parts of the creation do not comprehend their reality or source.

First, individuality must become self-aware. This is the human stage with our highly developed cerebrospinal centers (the chakras). Then we find the competition between the pull upwards toward Sat (truth or God) or downward toward avidya (ignorance). Separateness, as an idea which creates separate forms, is energized toward individuality and individual consciousness by the universal intelligence and feeling state of chit. From this develops the illusion of individuality (ahamkara-ego). Here we have the dual pull of Buddhi (Intelligence) toward ultimate reality (Sat), and the pull of Manas (blind sense-Mind) (ignorance-avidya) seeking enjoyment from and within the creation itself. Underlying all creation – whether the outgoing force or the inward force – is the impulse towards bliss (or Love, or Joy).

SY then embarks on a comprehensive (not necessarily readily comprehensible) dissection of the three bodies of man (and all creation): physical, astral, and causal. He describes the essential components of each. Chitta, the calm state of mind with its sense of separateness, has five pranas (aura electricities-Pancha Tattwa) which constitute the causal body. These five in contact with the three gunas (aspects of nature, being enlightening, energizing, or darkening) produce fifteen astral attributes plus four aspects of mind for the astral body. These nineteen are the five senses, the five powers of locomotion (hands, feet, excretion, procreation, and speech), the five natural objects of the senses, and four aspects of mind: intelligence, sense-mind, ego, and feeling.

The physical body then is manifested through five elemental forms of space, gas, fire, liquid and solid. The nineteen astral attributes added to the five of the body constitute the twenty-four elders of creation mentioned in the Book of Revelations. These are the building blocks of individuality that set into motion the drama of creation.

On the macrocosm of creation, SY describes seven spheres (swargas) of creation, with seven centers (chakras or Sapta Patalas) in the human microcosmic universe. Together these fourteen stages of creation are called the Bhuvanas. The Spirit in creation is hidden by five sheaths, or koshas: feeling, intelligence, mind (as focused upon and limited by the senses), life force (prana), and matter.

As the twenty-four elders of creation are in place, the power of Attraction (Divine Love) begins to manifest, first attracting all atoms toward each other to form the five elemental forms of creation (space, gaseous, fire, liquid, and solid) and then evolving each stage of creation beginning with the minerals, then vegetables, animals, human, astral (angelic), and lastly emancipated from all koshas. As each stage emerges, one kosha is shed to reveal more and more intelligence and feeling then at last divinity (Oneness).

Introspection reveals our dream-like and idea-based sense-bound perception of reality and individuality. It is through the power of the sat-guru (savior or preceptor) that the divinity behind all forms is revealed to truth-seeking souls. Baptism, or rebirth in the sacred river of Aum, is symbolized by holy water and rivers whose sound, like many waters, is heard in deep guru-given meditative states. Thus the universal meaning and significance of rivers and of water. In merging into the inner Light, by degrees, do we reclaim our eternal birthright as sons of God.

Thus is a summary of Chapter 1, the Gospel, showing the nature and process of creation and of salvation. Don’t forget about the class series on this subject: it begins Wednesday, September 7, 7:30 p.m. at Ananda Meditation Temple. We are working on a streaming video presentation for those at a distance, but this latter promise is not yet a reality as of this date. Either way, you can register on line at www.AnandaSeattle.org

Blessings, Hriman

O Holy Science of Yoga - Introduction

Beginning Wednesday, September 7 at the Ananda Meditation Temple, we will hold a 4-week series on the book that started it all: "The Holy Science," by Swami Sri Yukteswar Giri. Sri Yukteswar was the first in the line of Self-realization to write and publish a book. It was published at the request of the deathless guru, Mahavatar Babaji. Babaji asked Sri Yukteswar 'Will you not write a short book on the underlying basic unity between the Christian and Hindu scriptures? Show by parallel references that the inspired sons of God have spoken the same truths, now obscured by men's sectarian differences.'

Sri Yuktewar was a man of few words and a soul of not merely wisdom but God-realization.  Our exploration of his brief but deep tome will open up vistas unto eternity. In this series of blogs, I will offer hints of those vistas as teasers to that class.

In the Foreward to the Holy Science, Paramhansa Yogannada reminds us that the great Ones of East and West achieved their wisdom by realizing the Supreme Reality behind all creation. While their words may have taken different forms and employed different symbols ("some open and clear, others hidden or symbolic") - all spoke from the truth of Spirit.

INTRODUCTION.  Swami Sri Yukteswar ("SY") has divided his book into four sections, according to the four stages in the development of knowledge. To attain Self-knowledge one must have knowledge of the world around us. Therefore the first part of the book is a description of the truths and purposes of creation. The second part concerns the goal of life: immortality, consciousness & bliss. The third section is how to realize those goals and the fourth is the revelations of those who have achieved these goals.

It is in his introduction that SY reveals his profound and intuitive understanding of the history of our planet and the mechanism which accounts for the changes in human consciousness over a 24,000 year cycle. I would recommend the just published book, "The Yugas," by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz (Crystal Clarity Publishers, Nevada City) for a more complete description of this seemingly abstruse theory and SY's insightful but complex explanation.

The "yuga theory" provides the objective basis for why humankind is ready and needful of this new and deeper understanding of the universal truths of creation and of all faiths.

So join me next blog post, for Chapter 1.

Return to India - Final Chapter - Calcutta

Gita and I only had two full days in Calcutta and we sought to make the best use of them we could. I am eager to complete this blog series and so will do my best to keep this brief.

Calcutta and the state of Bengal occupy a unique place in the awakening of modern India. I will not say more than that except to say that not only did there occur an extraordinary spiritual revolution but other revolutions from Bengal as well. More can be found from the history books than from me on this fascinating subject.

On our first day, Saturday, July 9, we first visited the home of Yogananda's boyhood companion, Tuli Bose. The home is now occupied by Hassi: the widow of Tulsi's son, Debi Mukherjee. Debi was a young boy or man when Paramhansa Yogananda returned to India in 1935-6 and has written of that visit in his own collection of stories. Hassi was in the womb of her mother at that time and was blessed by Yogananda. She spoke to him years later by phone after Yogananda had returned to his headquarters in Los Angeles.

Hassi is a devotee and very wise soul. She has greeted and hosted innumerable Ananda and other visitors to her home. Ananda members have assisted her in repairing and improving her simple home which no street map, no Google map will ever reveal but which is right around the corner from Yogananda's boyhood home at 4 Gurpar Road in an older section of Calcutta.

I can't vouch entirely for my notes or my memory or the language translation of our meeting but I will do my best to convey what I learned and experienced there. Yogananda, before leaving for America in 1920, and for some period of time (unknown but presumably before leaving Calcutta to start the school for boys that he founded in the state of Bihar), conducted weekly satsangs (spiritual gatherings) in this tiny home. I believe those satsangs were held on Thursday nights.

Among the spiritual stars who visited the home (and sometimes together, though which ones at the same time, I am not clear and their generations don't all exactly coincide) include: Sharda Devi, widow of Sri Ramakrishna, who conducted Durga puja there; Swami Vivekananda, most famous disciple of Ramakrishna (who visited America twice in the 1890's); Lahiri Mahasaya; Swami Sri Yukteswar, Paramhansa Yogananda, Ananda Moyi Ma, and Swami Atmananda (disciple of Yogananda), along with of course, Tuli Bose.

Just to be present there in the midst of such a place was indescribable. The home is as simple and unseen as a certain manger in Palestine. How many avatars can you fit in a 10' by 10' room? Can anyone imagine such an extraordinary "satsang" or a more blessed temple - yet one that will never impress the worldly man for its grand size and beauty?

Among a tiny sampling of the relics gathered there are an iron trident once possessed by Babaji, given to Lahiri, given to Sri Yukteswar, given to Yogananda, who left it there with Tulsi! The deerskin "asan" (meditation seat) of Sri Yukteswar; the tiger skin asan of Yogananda's; and a clay statute of goddess Kali that materialized in Yogananda's palm while meditating at the nearby Dakshineswar Temple (home to Ramakrishna in the prior century). Gita and I meditated there for a little and had the opportunity to visit with Hassi for some time. She's getting up in years and asked for prayers for an upcoming cataract surgery on July 30 and again later in the Fall 2011.

Around the corner we visited with Sarita Ghosh whose husband Sonat, is the living descendant of Yogananda's artist-brother, Sananda. When we arrived, two other pilgrims were visiting. (There's a steady stream of pilgrims coming to Gurpar Road). She toured us showing us the room in which Babaji appeared to Yogananda after a long night of intense prayer asking for tangible blessings upon his journey to America (in 1920). She showed us the room which had once been Yogananda's father's bedroom and where Yogananda as boy, after his mother's passing, had slept also. It was filled with wonderful photos including the original photo, touched up with color (as was the custom then) by Sananda of Rabindranath Tagore. This "painting" is now famous and hangs there in the room as does what might be (I'm not really sure) the original painting by Sananda of Babaji, among other things I failed to catalogue. (Tagore once visited there, perhaps to approve the painting.)

Upstairs we meditated in Yogananda's "attic room" - the scene of many meditations and experiences, including the window from which he dropped his bundle of items on his failed attempt to escape to the Himalayas (as recounted in his autobiography). Sigh, what can one say about such a visit except that I shall treasure it always.

The following day we visited Serampore, where Swami Sri Yukteswar (Yogananda's guru) lived and had his ashram. Ishan, son of Durlov Ghosh (living descendant of Yogananda's eldest brother, Ananta), hosted us. We went first to Rai Ghat where Sri Yukteswar (and Yogananda) would bathe daily in the mornings and where Sri Yukteswar encountered Babaji under the still living banyan tree when Babaji came to bless Yukteswar upon completion of the book Babaji commissioned Yutkeswar to write ("The Holy Science").

It was a very hot and sticky day and the ghat was filled with teenagers but Gita and I sat briefly in meditation, hoping to draw the blessings that should surely remain in the ether with gathering of three avatars (egads!), including the incomparable Babaji.

Wending our way through the narrow lanes of Serampore we then visited Sri Yukteswar's ashram. It is inhabited by two or three families: descendants of Sri Yukteswar (he had a daughter, though no one seems to know anything about her and her offspring). Recently, we were told, it was decided not to allow visitors into the home and into Sri Yukteswar's rooms for visits and meditation. Gita, and many others I know, have done so in past years but it was not to be so for me.

Instead we were allowed into an adjacent YSS shrine and offered meditation seats. Notwithstanding my disappointment, I had a very deep meditation in the shrine. It's built in what had been an extension of the original courtyard and from its steps one could see the courtyard balcony where the door to Sri Yukteswar's room was.

I hope someday YSS, at least, can obtain the ownership and can repair and restore the aging and now decrepit building for a shrine for generations to come. While they tend to be as much gatekeepers as preservers, someone, at least needs to do this. I don't know the relationship between the families and YSS. It's probably somewhat tentative and uneasy, I'm guessing.

We then had lunch with the Ghosh family in the home nearby that Ananda members helped the family acquire when their grandmother, Mira, was in desperate need some years ago. The family is very grateful and very sweet.

On our way back to our hotel we visited Dakshineswar Temple. The grand and beautiful temple (though now aging but relatively new, only 150 or so years old, built by a devotee-disciple of Sri Ramakrishna) was home to the lila (life) of Ramakrishna. Yogananda too had many deep experiences at the temple as he relates in "Autobiography of a Yogi." We got in line to pay our respects and view the famous Kali statue (the lines allow for a brief two-second glance) and then meditated in the adjacent portico where Yogananda had an experience in cosmic consciousness.

Then we meditated in the bedroom (now a museum and shrine) of Ramakrishna after touring the temple grounds. The visit was far more uplifting than I would have thought, given the Sunday-afternoon crowds of families and sightseers. The Temple is along the river (Ganges, though it's called the Hoogley or something like that), and adjacent to one of the bridges that cross the river from which we came from Serampore (which is on the opposite side of the river from downtown Calcutta and upstream).

That's as much as I feel to share on this part. The description I’ve given belies the blessings I feel, however, and leave it to my readers to allow me that inner beatitude as a sacred trust in my heart. As some of my readers are my close friends and fellow disciples, it remains a question "How has this changed your life?" "What personal insights might you have had."

That's as much as I feel to share on this part. The description I’ve given belies the blessings I feel, however, and leave it to my readers to allow me that inner beatitude as a sacred trust in my heart. As some of my readers are my close friends and fellow disciples, it remains a question "How has this changed your life?" "What personal insights might you have had."

I don't feel this blog is the place for such personal reflections except to say “Yes!”

Blessings, and thus ends our journey and pilgrimage,

Hriman

Return to India - Babaji Safari

I am pressing to finish this series so life can go on. So today, while I have some time I can pretend to call me "own," I continue….

On our trip to India I had brought a camping vest that can only be described as a fly-fisherman's special. I don't fish and I'm not sure why Padma purchased this for me some years ago, but I've only worn it perhaps once but something inspired me to bring it to India. However it was many days into our trip that I had the nerve to wear it. Turns out it was perfect for all the many small items I needed to carry with me as we entered temples, hiked, or otherwise travelled about the Himalaya.

Gita, seeing this absurdly out of place item of clothing but admitting it worked perfectly for the needs of the trip, was inspired by it to call our trip the "Babaji Safari."

So I turn now to the spiritual highlight of our Himalayan adventure: the search for Babaji. Virtually anyone who reads this knows that Mahavatar Babaji is the deathless avatar featured so prominently in Paramhansa Yogananda's now famous story, "Autobiography of a Yogi." Said to be Krishna in a former incarnation, no one knows the date of Babaji's birth in the current incarnation and he is said to have promised to retain his physical form for the current cycle of the ages (not sure what this entails). He is in communion with Jesus Christ and together they send vibrations of the Divine Will to other saints working more visibly in the world for the salvation and upliftment of humanity. It was Babaji who resurrected the path of kriya yoga when he initiated Lahiri Mahasay in 1861 on Dronagiri Mountain near the town of Ranikhet. In India the existence of such an avatar has been affirmed and treasured for centuries. Many sadhus are called or call themselves Baba-ji (revered father) so it is far from clear who is who and one cannot help but ask "would the real Babaji please stand up." [[[1] Babaji often appears as a handsome, clean-shaven, fair-skinned youth and is said to have the ability to prevent others from guessing his identity.]]

Our Himalayan guide, Mahavir Singh Rawat had a life changing experience when he describes how “our” Babaji came to him over twenty years ago and asked him to be the Himalayan guide to Ananda devotees.

That's another story, of course. So back to my own.

We visited Dronagiri Mountain after completing the Char Dham previously described. The town of Rawahat sits at the base of the mountain. We stayed in a newish hotel there that was very nice and adequate for our needs. After unpacking our things one afternoon, we drove up the mountain. There was something very special about this mountain. Perhaps it was the effect of the monsoon season, but it is unlike any other mountain (and we drove up and down an untold number of mountains on the trip). The mountain was mostly thinly populated with pine trees which were separated by what would looked like carefully manicured or mowed lawn and small, neat and attractive walking paths winding through it. The mid to upper part contained a collection of handsome and brightly painted (think "blue") homes. The few small farms were attractively cultivated. The mountainside combined therefore a domestic simplicity with a mysterious aura of an unseen hand.

Where the road crests the mountain there is, as there is on every other mountain, a tea stall and a house or two. Here we stopped, for there was a well-maintained entrance to the mountain top shrine above. Some society or trust evidently held the property and was sufficiently endowed and energized to keep the property very attractive. An unheard-of covered walkway guided the pilgrim at least 360 steps up the mountain to the grounds of a temple dedicated to Divine Mother.

At this height a silent, drifting, and dripping fog shrouded the trees and grounds in mystery. The silence was deep and profound. Few people were about the place. With our bag of prasad (offerings) in hand, we ascended to the temple for the pujari's blessing. Mahavir had a few words with him and it was indicated that we should descend a few steps to an ancient fern-encrusted tree where a simple outdoor altar to Babaji would be found. Somewhere here on these grounds it was said that Lahiri met Babaji in 1861.

Gita and I sat in meditation upon the concrete platform in front of the tree and the very simple elements at its base that indicated that devotees and other worshippers had been there. It seemed a bit unkempt and ignored but it did not matter to us. We each had a deep meditation. Occasionally fog would drip onto us. At one point Gita offered to me her raincoat because all I had on (from our long day's travel and not knowing we were headed for a meditation at the top of a mountain) was a T-shirt. (It was here that I caught my cold.)

As we meditated we heard the gentle cooing of a dove in the tree above. I think we each felt an inward blessing. I felt an inner smile at the time. I thought immediately that Babaji was blessing us in this way. Of course I had only my imagination and desire to blame for this but I did feel great peace and upliftment. We meditated perhaps 40 minutes or longer.

After some photos, we descended in silence. All along the handrails hung temple bells: it seemed if not thousand or more, at least many hundreds of bells, at least 4 to 5 inches in diameter at the bell opening.

Near the temple entrance at the street below, Mahavir suddenly invited us into the otherwise unnoticed hut (perhaps 6' x 6') of what turned out to be a resident sadhu! Wonder of wonders he was watching television using old-fashion "bunny ears" antenna. It was the news and it looked like the 5 o'clock news anywhere in America or Europe (except in Hindi). All the smartly dressed news anchormen (and women), flashing headlines and so on.

Inside this simple hut was the normal firepit in the center but this one had a range hood, just as you'd see at home. Most huts impose upon their occupants endless smoke-in-the eyes and lungs but this one was very different. Shelves of provisions lined the simple hut as the sadhu sat there in traditional cross-legged style on the floor. (You couldn't possibly stand up straight in this thing). He'd been there for sixteen years, he said (presumably with permission from the temple stewards). What he did there I couldn't say but one never knows what sadhus do with their time, anyway.

He made us a cup of instant coffee with milk and sugar and we talked away (or I should say Mahavir and he spoke). The story of Babaji and Lahiri is well known here and is not considered unusual or extraordinary. I may have asked a few questions through Mahavir but at present I don't actually recall. Our visit was pleasant enough and unusual in its own way. The television remained on the entire time. I asked the sadhu if I could take some ash from the fire (in front of me) as holy or sacred ash (vibhutti) from Dronagiri Mountain. He happily complied wrapping a few tablespoons of ash in newsprint for each of the three of us!

The next morning after chai we checked out and once again drove to the crest of Dronagiri Mountain. There we had breakfast (noodles and paratha, I think, and more chai along with fresh fruit) before embarking on our trek up to Babaji's cave down the flank of the mountain, crossing the Gogash River and then climbing up the other side (don't know if that mountain has a name) to the cave. During breakfast the proprietor (a lively friendly gent) handed us a thick sheaf of internet printouts about the nearby Babaji cave. Gita and I were moved to inner joy when we read that it is said that Babaji sometimes comes to pilgrims in form of a cooing dove!

The morning was bright with sunshine. A young man from the south of India (Hyderabad, he said) arrived (he may have been staying right there at the cafe/lodge as a pilgrim) and explained in good English that he'd been meditating daily for a month at the Babaji cave. I asked him if he practiced kriya yoga but he said he did not. I found that puzzling for some reason but he seemed bright and calmly eager. After we left, we didn't see him again. (Was HE the elusive but young appearing Babaji?)

The light that morning through the forest was tinged with color and a softness born of what a westerner would say was lingering morning moisture in the air. To say that it was “ethereal” would be more accurate however. I flashed upon the memory of a scene from the movie "Jesus of Nazareth" when Mary Magdalene goes to the gravesite of Jesus. In the morning air it is still and the light is cloud or vapor-like. The colors in the forest were intensely green. Ferns and baby-tears (?) grew everywhere. And yet the grounds had that same consciously manicured feeling and appearance. The Gogash River had, Mahavir explained, become more of a stream than a river in recent decades. He didn't explain why. But it was clear and cool, and very inviting to see and cross. There was that same deep stillness in the air.

The hike finally turned from gentle to more steeply uphill until we reached an odd building with no windows and locked up with a grate. The property belongs to Y.S.S. (Yogoda Satsang Society - the Indian branch of Self-Realization Fellowship). The entire property is well maintained but well controlled. A little further on we came to the place called "Babaji's cave." YSS has not only locked it but blocked up all but the first 8 to 10' of the cave with bricks. Who knows what or who remains deep inside the cave. Mahavir explained that it was ill used (by local peasants) previously and that YSS cleaned it up and secured it. Well, be that as it may, we meditated nonetheless and had a very deep meditation there.

Up the hill further, Mahavir explained, is a cave once inhabited (for about a year) by the Pandavas long ago. For some reason further climb did not seem in order and neither Gita nor I expressed a desire to ascend higher. Instead, Mahavir took us to visit a nearby family farm where we were welcomed with (more) chai and cookies.

I was asked by a friend, "Well, did you MEET Babaji?" We felt his divine presence and blessings and treasure that wordless experience which defies description and which remains locked in our hearts.

Fresh from the Babaji Safari,
Hriman

Return to India - Devbhoomi - Abode of the gods

Is there anyone who, when seeing distant snow capped peaks, doesn't pause and quietly gasp with longing and inspiration? Imagine, then, if you can, the timeless power of the world's greatest mountain range, the Himalaya, upon the consciousness of generations of Indians living in the hot, crowded, dusty plains of the Indian subcontinent. Did not Paramhansa Yogananda attempt to escape to the Himalaya several times in his early life? Did he not say that in his next life he would live there for a time?

More than this, this astonishing range of mountains which includes jungles, raging rivers, and forests of pine and rhododendron trees along with the world's highest and most majestic peaks has given shelter and birth to saints, sages, and avatars since time immemorial. Here Spirit and Mother Nature unite in a profound dance of life both mundane and mystical not found anywhere else on earth.

The Garhwal District of the Indian state of Uttaranchal is home to the Char Dham of which I spoke in the previous blog. It is especially blessed with the spiritual vibrations of God consciousness as manifested through divine beings and through the masters. Like a carefully nurtured garden, this sanctity is loving tendered with the devotion of millions of pilgrims.

When a pilgrim speaks of Shiva, the goddess Ganga, Shiva's consort Parvati, the monkey-god Hanuman, or the elephant-god Ganesha, as participating in the creation and in the play of human life there in the Himalayas there is no sense of "long-ago" or mere "allegory." The sense of the presence of divine beings, manifestations of various aspects of God's Infinite consciousness (just as you and I, are unique, if not yet perfected, sparks of divinity) is a present-tense reality to the devout Hindu. As a (western) teacher of raja yoga, Vedanta, and Shankhya (India's three main branches of wisdom), I am accustomed to viewing Indian sacred mythology in allegorical or philosophical terms.

But I was unprepared for the strikingly present-tense and devotional expression given to these stories and places by the pilgrims and the degree to which no burden of philosophical extraction weighs upon the Indian heart and mind. Not that abstractions are foreign to Indian culture for as Yogananda smilingly comments in his famous "Autobiography of a Yogi," the Indian is sometimes accused by westerners of "living on abstractions!" Rather, these divine beings, stories, and manifestations of divinity in various natural formations (of caves, mountains, rocks etc.) are very real and treasured by the devout seeker.

And, as I commented in an earlier, blog: why not? Our western, scientific minds are biased by the worldview that this earth and its natural phenomenon are the "mere" product of natural (geologic, e.g.) forces. And who would argue with that? But just as the instinct for survival is obvious but tells us nothing about why it exists or how it came into being, so too the existence of extraordinary natural formations and phenomenon is no more intelligently or satisfactorily explained by "natural forces" than is our own existence and consciousness. I asked earlier whether it is not perhaps more reasonable to assume that something extraordinary is the product of a conscious creativity rather than a blind force? What computer would randomly produce a play of Shakespeare or the Sermon on the Mount?

Is the majesty we feel when we see a great mountain (like Mt. Rainier as we do here in Seattle) merely a projection of our own subconscious imaginings? Or, did the consciousness of majesty itself produce such an awe-inspiring sight? Does the peace we feel hiking in a forest come only from us or is the forest itself a manifestation of the consciousness of peace?

Whether the personified deities or their elaborate and sometimes all-too-human stories are the precise explanation is no more the point than our ability to precisely know how or why geologic forces shaped Half Dome in Yosemite Valley! But to look beyond the material and natural manifestations revealed by the senses to sense the interplay of higher, conscious and divine forces is to seek the truth behind all seeming.

In a brief email report I sent from the Himalaya I asked my friends to imagine the mountains of America peopled by "sadhus" (spiritual seekers) meditating in caves and forests seeking God-realization? Imagine such sadhus coming down from time to time into towns and cities of America and being welcomed, supported, and honored as living examples of renunciation and as spiritual teachers.

We have mountains but do we have the Devibhoomi? (The "holy" mountains-the abode of divinity incarnate). I believe the time will come for this, too. Shrines and places of pilgrimage are needed everywhere in the world, but especially in America where the knowledge of such places (formerly) has, presumably, been lost in the mists of time.

At the same time, I was not prepared for the incredible variety and natural beauty of the Himalaya. I don't know what defines a "jungle" for although the latitude of the lower Himalaya doesn't qualify for a tropical jungle, the only word that springs to mind seeing some of these areas is a jungle. All the beauty of such an experience, even if technically sub-tropical, is to be found in areas of the lower Himalaya. We saw so many waterfalls everywhere (it was early monsoon season) that in time we stopped trying to photograph them. Some would descend from thousands of feet up and all the way down to the rivers far below.

In an hour, or even less, we would drive from a river level, surrounded by rice terraces and jungle up a mountain into the cool dripping fog and pine forests! One time I saw a home which contained the likes of mango, papaya and banana trees with geraniums, begonias, roses, and bougainvillea. Even pine trees would mingle with the sub-tropical species along the rivers. Though we did not actually see most of the wildlife (we saw two or three foxes, and many monkeys), there are tiger, leopard, elephant, bears, cobras and much more throughout this region. I was relieved and inspired to see endless natural forests still yet preserved. Wildfires occur in the Himalaya just as they do in forests everywhere in the world and we saw evidence of past forest fires (in the dry seasons). In a trek I did in Nepal thirty five years ago (in the month of May), I was blessed to experience an entire forest of rhododendron trees alive with color!

The gigantic rock walls of some of the steep canyons would rise thousands of feet high and in the monsoon season we experienced richly carpeted shades of deep green. I wondered if my "home" country of Ireland would now seem pale and dry by comparison. This rich and green lushness was one of the specific bonuses we were blessed with for having come in the monsoon. (The sacrifice was the awe-inspiring panoramas of the snow-clad peaks of the Himalaya which we could only glimpse at grace-filled moments through the monsoon cloud cover.) The other advantage was relative cool (if sometimes humid). At the tops of mountains it was like being in Seattle: 61 degrees and light drizzle!

It was remarkable how the temperature and humidity would change predictably with altitude. Since we were constantly ascending and descending mountains (going east from one river valley to the next), we could experience warm/sticky to cool/wet in a matter of less than an hour. (Hence I caught a mild head cold.)

Since this is a blog article with words and since I admit our photos could not and did not do these attempts of descriptions justice, I suggest that it would easy enough with today's internet and YouTube to see for yourself the beauty of the Himalaya.

The next blog: "we are unique, like everyone else!"

Blessings, Hriman

Return to India - Part 2

In this Part 2 I will finish with a basic description of the journey itself - it's outer or objective parts before offering more personal thoughts and inspirations.

The trip was divided into two parts: the Himalaya, and Calcutta. The Himalaya segment occupied some 17 days and Calcutta, four days. Neither Gita nor I were familiar with the proposed itinerary which our guide, Mahavir Rawat proposed for the Himalayan segment. At the distance of six months from the trip I confess we didn't pay strict attention to the details.

What he proposed was for us to undertake the "Char Dham" or four-part pilgrimage ("yatra") to shrines near the headwaters of the Yamuna River and the Ganges including two of its tributaries. Traditionally pilgrims go from the western river (Yamuna) to the eastern most river (at Badrinath). The shrine near the headwaters of the Jamuna River is called Yamunotri and is dedicated to the goddess Yamuna. Heading east across the mountains that separate the Yamuna from the next river valley is Gangotri, once the physical source of the main branch of the Ganges (but due to global warming the glacier has receded some twelve miles up). The next shrine is at Kedernath, dedicated to Lord Shiva where the Pandavas (heroes of the epic, the Mahabharata) sought Shiva's blessings and where in later centuries the great reformer of Hinduism, Adi Swami Shankacharya, restored the shrine to its former glory. Badrinath is the final stop of the Char Dham and is dedicated to Lord Vishnu (the Preserver) and, like Kedernath, was restored by Adi Swami Shankacharya.

These are among the most visited and revered shrines in India, but there are countless other places made holy by tradition and by the vibrations of saints and sages over thousands of years. Badrinath includes the mountain village of Mana (the last Indian village before the Tibetan border) where the sage Byasa dictated the Mahabharata. We visited two sadhus: one in a cave outside Gangotri, and another, Tar Baba (wearer of only a burlap sack!), in Badrinath, in a tiny ashram dwelling. We entered three other caves, all unoccupied (more about that later), visited a famous shrine to the Pandavas called Lak Mandal, and a very sacred cave where Adi Swami Shankacharya lived and where a most ancient mulberry tree survives in mute testimony to his divine presence.

There is a deep yet not yet revealed connection between Paramhansa Yogananda and Adi Swami Shankacharya. In Yogananda's autobiography he went into ecstasy upon the mere sight of a temple in Kashmir dedicated to the great reformer. Even more importantly, Yogananda's life teachings take their lead from the one word description given to the world by Shankacharya centuries ago: "Satchidanandam." This is his description of God (and God-consciousness): ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss. The core thesis of Yogananda's teachings can be summarized in saying that what all beings are seeking is unending bliss. This defines our true nature and defines the goal of life!

Yogananda told his disciples that in a previous life he was Arjuna, the third of the Pandava brothers and the great warrior-king and chief disciple of Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita (a chapter of the epic story the Mahabharata). Thus the connection for us with the Pandavas and with Shankacharya.

Despite this grand and traditional pilgrimage I must state that the simple visit to Dronagiri Mountain and the cave of Babaji was perhaps the deepest and most touching of all of the Himalayan journey. Here we meditated near the spot where Lahiri Mahasaya met Mahavatar Babaji in 1861 (the deathless yogi of the Himalaya devoutly revered and spoken of by Hindus and yogis for centuries) and the nearby cave where Lahiri was initiated into Kriya Yoga and began the worldwide work of kriya in the modern age.

Calcutta is a story I will leave for another blog for the power of the simple abodes that I will describe is beyond imagination. Only in India can the contrast between the restless energy of a city such as Calcutta and the spiritual power of the divine manifestations of multiple avatars co-exist. As Jesus was born in a manger, the avatars of Dwapara Yuga congregated in the simple homes on the outskirts of one of the world's greatest and most vibrant cities. Calcutta was the intellectual, spiritual, and energetic heart and soul of the 20th century revolution that began the transformation of India from medieval times to the modern era.

Until we meet in the next blog,

Hriman

Return to India - Part 1

My daughter Gita and I returned from India last Tuesday, July 12. The 3-week trip went well on every level, though it had its challenges on every level too. Tomorrow, Sunday, July 17, I will offer a slide show presentation of the trip but I thought to use this blog for more personal reflections than a slide show would allow.

Nowadays many people visit India and it becomes increasingly accessible and (relatively) comfortable each year as India continues its explosive entry into the 21st century. Even up and into the Himalayas the development is intense: the mountain-clinging dirt roads (still very dangerous) are being paved, bridges replaced or added, electricity goes practically to Mt. Everest along with the ubiquitous cell phone towers, and hotels and guest lodges multiply like spring wildflowers. I don't know how many pilgrims ascend to these mountain shrines during each season (May-October) but it's many, many thousands. We were never alone. (One is never alone in India, at least physically. Even the path up Mt. Everest is said to resemble a parking lot, at least during the limited climbing season.)

We went by car belonging to our guide Mahavir Singh Rawat and driven by his driver Sitendra (having a driver for one's car is very common in India). The higher one goes and the deeper into the Himalaya the more likely the road regresses to dirt and rock. This is true also when one leaves the main "highways." We saw young men, two astride a small 125cc motorcycle, blasting up the mountains from the hot Indian plains far below to some of the highest shrines, along dirt, rock and rutted roads oblivious to the simple fact that one badly placed stone could send them hurtling down the precipitous cliffs in a nanosecond! (Imagine young men in their twenties in America heading off on pilgrimage together to visit ancient shrines high in mountains, eyes bright with joy and devotion?)

Ours was not a trekking holiday, nor yet sightseeing in the usual way. My daughter Gita had returned a year and a half ago from an Ananda group pilgrimage to India but she did not have the time to accompany the group into the Himalayas. Mahavir, the guide, mentioned to her that he did guided tours for individuals and small groups, not just the larger official Ananda tours. So upon her return she asked me if I'd be interested in returning with her. As I had been to India three times including (35 years ago) an extensive visit (including to other parts of the Himalaya), she could be sure I would say YES! And, of course I did. But it took some planning for we needed to use up whatever airplane miles we could muster to afford the trip. So Padma, my wife and resident booking agent, handled the flights. Gita had or researched the contacts with the families in and around Calcutta who are related to Yogananda and his life there; and Mahavir outlined the traditional "Char Dham" yatra (pilgrimage) to the four very sacred Himalayan shrines.

I admit that some deity or another veiled from our minds the obvious intensity of that itinerary which in retrospect meant some some 15 or 16 very long days of driving on mostly dirt and rock roads on treacherous mountain passes and cliffs. It meant stopping before nightfall at whatever available pilgrim style lodgings were at hand, and and where showers, hot water, (Western) toilets, towels, soap, toilet paper and mattresses were scarce or nonexistent but flies, cockroaches, large flying beetles, and mosquitoes formed local welcoming committees. I've never had chapati and dal three times a day for several weeks. It can wear on you.

But none of these considerations were uppermost. This was an opportunity for Gita and I to spend quality time together in an energetic commitment to the quest for Self-realization. We meditated together each day; chanted together walking or in the car; were enraptured by the stunning and ever changing beauty of both the lower and higher Himalaya, and entered into the pilgrim's way of devotion through "puja" and "arati" (traditional and ancient Hindu rituals) at sites held sacred for millennia by the presence of great rishis down through the ages and the devotion of millions of pilgrims seeking divine consolation for their world-weary hearts.

Lastly, for me this "Return to India" completes a cycle of spiritual seeking that began in India for me in 1975 but which, at that time, could not be completed because I had not yet found my spiritual path and guru (Paramhansa Yogananda). So, in going back now, at age 60, I went seeking to contact the spiritual roots of both India's timeless tradition and the prior incarnations of Paramhansa Yogananda and the line of gurus who sent him to the West.

Mountains have kindled in human hearts a yearning for the heavenly realms (whether as a place or state of consciousness, or both) since time immemorial. In India, the bounty, beauty and grandeur of nature is not seen merely as the product of impersonal random geologic forces but as the obvious result of the interplay of Divine forces personified in the gods and goddesses in interaction with the rishis and avatars. An unusual rock formation, for example, comes quite naturally with its own story. Do we not teach (in metaphysics) that all matter is created, sustained, and dissolved by its most elemental substance: consciousness? Is it not more reasonable to assume that a "cathedral" like Yosemite Valley was formed by conscious Divine beings than to say it "just happened?"

This trip was a pilgrimage and a true pilgrimage is a journey within. Perhaps in the next blog or two, I can share with you at least some aspects of my inner journey and its evolving realizations.

Blessings, Hriman

Off to India

I am leaving this afternoon for a 3-week trip to India. My daughter and I will have the blessing of Ananda's Himalyan tour guide, Mahavir, for a personal tour of four Himalayan sites sacred to Hindus for thousands of years. In addition, we will end our trip in Calcutta at the boyhood home of Paramhansa Yogananda, and a visit to other blessed sites associated with his life story there in and around Calcutta.

This trip is not for pleasure or for comfort but, with grace, we will be in the Himalaya where Spirit and Nature unit in a supreme union of outer grandeur and inner awakening. There rishis have lived and roamed since time immemorial. We hope to meditate in a cave blessed by Mahavatar Babaji whose deathless presence, to this day, permeates these sacred haunts.

So wish us "luck" that the mountains "come out" and that Babaji and the great ones bless us with their presence. Gita will be the photographer and I will do what I can to journal and bring back at least a "tithe" of the blessings we may enjoy.

This is, for me, a once-in-lifetime journey, though I have visited the Himalaya on a trek some 35 years ago. I think for me and for Gita it represents something beyond what we can know at this time.

See you when I return, July 12, by the grace of God and Gurus.

Joy, Nayaswami Hriman

The Rise of Intentional Communities

Tomorrow, Saturday, June 18, 2011, Ananda Community in Lynnwood, WA hosts its third annual Solstice Celebration and Open House. Tours of the Community, grounds, gardens, and farm begin at 1 p.m. and the Solstice Celebration Service begins at 5 p.m. followed by dinner. Free yoga classes, activities for children, an art exhibit, and musical performances all afternoon are some of the highlights. We expect a full house of members, friends, and neighbors.

Swami Kriyananda, founder of Ananda and direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, was present at a garden party in Beverly Hills in the late 40's when Yogananda (without warning or other context) thundered a prediction and a command that small "colonies" of like-minded people band together throughout the world to demonstrate brotherhood by example rather than only by precept. He declared that by such examples the benefits of high ideals and simplicity (I would add "sustainability") of lifestyle would produce the greatest happiness. His message of "world brotherhood colonies" was given repeatedly both before and after that famous garden party.

Yogananda also predicted economic collapse, wars, and natural calamities lay ahead as forces of enlightened self-interest struggled against established powers of exploitation and greed. Only now in the beginning of the 21st century are the issues of cooperation vs. competition, of freedom vs. exploitation, harmony vs. prejudice so heightened and intense that millions realize that courageous and bold action must be taken to avoid or lessen dire consequences for all.

In a world where a tribe, a culture, an industry, or one's livelihood can be wiped off the map by the stroke of pens, an exchange of stocks, signing of a treaty, or the impact of a satellite-guided missile in boardrooms, banks, and secret meetings, it is natural that people of intelligence and goodwill will respond by seeking an alternative lifestyle that is not dependent upon such impersonal and self-interested forces.

The time for intentional communities has arrived. In most cities we live side-by-side with people of other cultures, races, nations, and religions. It becomes difficult to hold prejudice or to entertain fears when we get to know each other simply as people. The natural races of humankind are not based upon skin color, location, or language but upon consciousness. There are those who live only the present moment, heedless of the future or the consequences of one's present actions. There are those who are self-seeking, living for future personal gain. There are those who consider the needs of others and who serve a greater cause. Finally, there are those whose sights are centered in a higher or divine reality and who live centered in the Self within.

Intentional communities tend to attract, by and large, the latter two categories of people: idealists who seek to make their ideals practical and personal. As the bumper sticker says, "Think globally; act locally." The rising insecurities on our planet will inspire people with energy, creativity, idealism and intelligence to form small communities. Hopefully most of these will not be in rejection of society at large or opposed to others, but will represent a commitment to create a sustainable, harmonious and satisfying life in cooperation with others of like-mind.

Since the end of World War II and the rise of America as a leading global economic and political power, Americas (especially) have had the luxury and opportunity to create individual and family lives that set themselves apart from others. The spread of suburban communities symbolize this "I-mine" thrust of consciousness. But this luxury to stand apart from others and from the rest of the world ended, symbolically at least, on September 11, 2001 when the world's problems and the disparity between America's lifestyle and that of others was presented like a check drawn upon the bank of our excesses.

Since then and at an increasing rate, America (and by extension other similar countries) are having to come face to face with the rest of the world and to try to integrate ourselves, our self-identity, and our behavior with that of other nations and peoples.

Paramhansa Yogananda foresaw that the time would come when humans on this planet would need to learn to live, work, and worship together in harmony. He ushered in a new dispensation of spirituality that has the potential to unite people of goodwill and spiritual-seeking under the banner of experience rather than dogma or creed. Meditation is the personal practice wherein each individual can perceive his own higher Self and from that experience to perceive that same Self in all.

An antidote and necessary balance to the crushing forces of globalism is needed today. Individuals forming intentional communities on the basis of a wide variety of commonly share interests and ideals will provide that necessary outlet for human creativity, personal commitment, and meaningful enterprise.

So, as the sun is high in the sky of the summer Solstice and as the world stands on the precipice of great changes in process and to come, we come together to celebrate and affirm the relevance, role, and necessity of intentional communities of like-minded people of high ideals and practical living.

See you tomorrow!

Blessings,

Nayaswami Hriman