Letters from Asha

The Pune Community

2012-01-27T17:42:00.000-08:00

Dear Everyone:

I am sitting at the gate in Dubai waiting to board the plane for the 16-hour (yes, 16!) flight to San Francisco. So by the time you get this I will be snug in my own bed in Chela Bhavan. Already India is fading and my “other life” is coming into focus again.

I do want to write to you though while the impressions of Ananda Pune Community, where I have been for the last week, are still vivid in my heart and mind.

This is my third try at this letter. The first two bogged down in too many physical details, because the physicality of the place is also a big part of the story, but I’ve decided not really the central story. Building a community from absolute bare ground, as they are doing, makes every little accomplishment -- a path, a flower, a building -- something huge to celebrate.

And there is much to celebrate: two lovely homes, one for Swamiji, the other built by Dharmadas and Nirmala, six “kutirs,” little studio apartments for one or a cozy twosome, although, this last week, 4-5 girls were sharing the one next to where I stayed with Lila. A guesthouse with six rooms, a converted existing structure that now serves as kitchen, office, and sleeping quarters for one or two, plus a large covered porch where all the meals are served.

A bathhouse, a temple with a thatched roof and screen walls -- sufficient here where it rains heavily but only gets cool, not cold.

And dust -- did I mention dust? The same wonderful fine red dust of my spiritual childhood at Ananda Village. And also, did I mention steep hills? The community is one side of a valley bounded by modest size hills. Our land starts about half up one side and goes to the ridge top. About 30 acres, nearly all of it steep.

There is also a huge in-progress building project to construct some dozens of flats that will belong to various future community residents from all over India and across the world.

The hope was that the flats would be ready in time for Swamiji’s arrival at the end of 2011. What a glorious plan: to have the community start with Swamiji in residence and in January, Uma and Kirtani were coming from Assisi Ananda to lead a month long community “ashram program,” as they call it there, to bring all the new residents into one spirit for their Ananda life.

Things rarely go as planned, however, and the flats are months from completion. Kirtani ended up with a detached retina in one eye that, thankfully, has been treated with 100% success, but going on an airplane was out of the question.

But when God closes one door he opens another. So Uma came over as planned, and then, the late-scheduled surprise was the arrival of all of us just the day before the program was set to begin.

Without completed housing, not as many of the future residents could come and many for only a portion of the month. Still, it has been a great gathering of the tribe, especially this first week, and I have had the enormous joy of being right in the middle of it.

I am greatly impressed by all that has been accomplished in terms of manifesting the community. Having lived through the early years of Ananda Village I know how much tapasya and sheer guts and will power is needed to turn bare land into a liveable community. But what has filled my heart with joy and my spirit with confidence for the future of Ananda Pune Community is the light of Master shining from the eyes of so many who are here.

This gathering turned out to be divinely orchestrated in many ways. Nirmala and Dharmadas have been key leaders in India since the beginning (2003) and now Swamiji has asked them to come with him to Italy to work on recording a new program he has created, called “Ask Me About Truth.” It is a conversational question and answer series and they play their “Tell me, Swamiji....” role just perfectly. They’ll film in Italy (he leaves for Europe in 3 weeks) and then depending on how much they get done may also come with him to America in May. After that they will make their home in America or Europe.... to be decided.

Swamiji asked Jaya and Sadhana Devi to come from Gurgaon back to Pune (they have lived there before in their India sojourn) to fill in the space left by Nirmala and Dharmadas. He also asked Durga and Vidura to lend their wonderful spirit and creativity to the mix. Jyotish and Devi came to help with the transition. Uma came for the program. Anand (Kirtani’s husband) ran into immigration trouble and was temporarily exiled from Italy (where he has lived for 20 years), and took refuge in India (now it is all straightened out and he can go home). I came just for fun.

The result, as you can well imagine, has been a wonderful mish-mash of energies from everywhere, much to the delight of everyone.

The carefully planned month-long program was immediately scrapped in favor of a more informal opening week, at least, of “let’s get to know each other.”

Many names I had heard and faces seen only in photographs are now friends of my heart. And, because of the internet, I found myself also already known by many through the book about Swamiji and other of the resources we have been passing out for so long.

India is the meeting place for devotees from everywhere, so in our little program of some 40 people, permanent, temporary, and future residents of Ananda Pune, there were eight countries represented: India, America, England, Russia, Switzerland, Italy, Uruguay, Brazil. I don’t think Palo Alto qualifies as a country unto itself, but we are well-represented: Victor lives there now, Ashok and Raj came for the month, and Vijay Bault formerly of Palo Alto was also there. Baljinder and Sonya, and baby Himraj, now of India, formerly of northern and southern California, first met Swamiji at a satsang at the Palo Alto church. Ramani arrived for a visit of several weeks the day I left. And, of course, Biraj (and Lahari) have been part of Ananda India for years -- although soon he’ll be heading back to California, where Lahari is already ensconced.

Even more than usual, there was a sense of one heart, one spirit, one mind. National origin just didn’t enter into the discussion, except as an interesting aspect of “many expressions of One Spirit.” We were all there for God and nothing else mattered. Sometimes we needed a little “English to English” translation, however, with the variation of accents and pronunciations. And impossible not to smile when our friend fresh “off the boat” from England spoke of the “Hoosband” that she “loooves.” But that just lends spice to the soup!

In the week that I was there, the morning classes were led by the more recently Nayaswamis. Then in the afternoons for several days we had smaller group informal discussions, really just to give us all a chance to get to know one another.

After all these years I’ve come to be able to recognize a certain look in the eyes of Master’s children. And when you see that, you know that the call from Guru has been heard, and those responding have both the sincerity, and the will power to carry out what Master asks. Success is assured. It is just a matter now of the not-inconsiderable hard work needed to bring the ideal manifestation from the ether into this world.

A few days after we arrived Narayani organized a Sunday morning brunch. Anand made his “special pancakes” (they are yummy!). The dining porch was decorated lovingly, and Swamiji joined us for a festive breakfast.

He didn’t give a speech or satsang, but just sat quietly at his table, gazing lovingly at the devotees there. He looked around carefully at each one, greeting those who came to him or smiling at others from across the room. With a blissful smile he said to those sitting next to him, “They are all wonderful people.”

Dhuti is also visiting here (I forgot to mention that) and she has pulled the choir together so they sang for Swamiji. “They are all angels,” he said after the first song.

They sang some lighter numbers then performed “Blessed.” I don’t think I have been more deeply moved by that song (and it is already one of my favorites). Every word carried such profound meeting there, in this newly-forming community, where we are planting Master’s ray in the country of his birth. “Blessed the life that is given to God.” Yes. Yes. Yes.

A small school is also starting, both with some of the “village” (i.e., local) children and children of the soon-to-be residents. At the breakfast, a group of children also performed with great enthusiasm a few of Swamiji’s songs, much to their delight and the delight of all the adults watching.

After that event, for the rest of the week, Swamiji did not participate in any public way. He prefers to stay mostly in his home, working now on the script for the movie about the life of Yogananda. And also, amazingly, editing yet again the book “Yogananda for the World.” I didn’t think it could be made any better, but he did, and he did...make it better. I don’t know if the new version is yet on the website. He added a chapter called “Character Assassination,” quite interesting. So check www.yoganandafortheworld.com and if you see that chapter listed you know the newest version is there. Even if you have read it already, there are enough changes that it is worth looking over again.

Swamiji said he was still slightly discontented with the book before the latest editing, but now he feels it is done. What he did was make it even more impersonal, saying there are two ways to approach Master’s legacy -- sectarian and nonsectarian. SRF has taken the sectarian approach; Ananda the nonsectarian. Very interesting.

After that he started working on the script for the movie about Yogananda. He is about half done and needs to finish that soon (before he leaves India, I think) so that work can get underway. He is working with the Italian director who did that movie we all enjoyed so much, “Moscati,” about a saintly doctor. So everyone is expecting this to be a beautiful film...

I’ve only heard about the script, haven’t read it yet myself. Let us all keep it in our prayers, that Master lead Swamiji in just the right way, as he always does. Imagine what it will do for Master’s work if a beautiful film could be made that actually carries his teaching and his vibration. Jai Guru.

In the late afternoons, Swamiji often invited a few of us over for tea. Sometimes for a “walk,” which consisted of a paved path leading from his house to a small pavilion on the hillside. Making this walkway -- completely level so Swamiji can negotiate it -- was a loving gift from Nirmala and Dharmadas. His house is near the top of the hillside where the community is located. From the pavilion you can look across the wide valley to hills on the other side -- a lovely, expansive view of mostly undeveloped countryside.

Heavenly, as you can well imagine, to be perched there under the canopy, sitting around a small table on padded wicker chairs, talking with Swamiji about the movie of Yogananda, the beauty of the setting, the dedication of the disciples gathered there to build the community. Moments in eternity.

Swamiji’s home is well built, spacious, light and airy. The main area is living room and dining room combined, large enough to hold satsangs, which Swamiji often does. When he is not in residence, it serves as the community temple. Off the living room there is a kitchen toward the back, then to the side a large bedroom and after that an office -- everything Swamiji needs for him and his staff to carry on the creative business of his life.

One of the challenges (among many) of founding this community is working out the relationships with the surrounding villagers. Watunda, the nearest one, has been there for 1000 years. Life is very simple in these villages, little or no electricity, many of the houses are made of mud, with thatched roofs and dirt floors. Walking through the village yesterday morning, on the way to the village square, we stepped off the path to make way for cows -- lovely white cows with curved horns -- and passed the village women with their water pots at the community water source, chatting together in a lively way as they all filled their containers. Even though there were signs of changing times -- occasional motorcycles parked in the courtyards, even a satellite TV dish -- elements of life, you could see, had been unchanged for generations.

Yesterday was “Republic Day,” the celebration of India’s freedom, and the school children raised the Indian flag, sang the national anthem, then did for us a demonstration of coordinated calisthenics. Very dear, as children always are.

Having Ananda springing up in the middle of their valley has elements of an alien spaceship landing. Even though we say, “We come in peace,” not everyone is so sure. Or, on the other side, self-interest springs up with astounding determination. Seeing our apparent limitless wealth, many are eager to see -- more often to demand -- that we also do for them whatever we are doing for ourselves.

Much of the community has been built by laborers hired from this, and other villages, so there is nothing secret about what we are doing. Swamiji’s vision for this Ananda Pune community also includes uplifting the lives of these villagers, not so much with direct charity, as with solar electricity, education, job training, medical care.

He bought for the temple in Watunda a beautiful statue of Shiva. It was to present this statue that we went over there together yesterday. It is a good start but it is going to take time.

Fortunately, Aditya, one of the Ananda monks is also a doctor and speaks the local language and has just the right way of presenting Ananda and relating to the villagers with dignity, respect, and also a calm centeredness in the goodness of what we are doing. Jaya is also well known and much liked by the local village leaders, so gradually it will all come into focus.

All part of the adventure of building community.

Here is a link to many photos that Durga took. (A few are from our Goa adventure and also from Swamiji’s trip to Goa in December. I think it is easy to see which ones those are.)

I love being in India. While I was there it was the only reality, and a blissful one indeed. But as soon as I turned my direction toward home, all the joy of life with this community came to the fore, and I am so happy to be back among you all.

Blessings and love in Master,
asha

Goa to Pune

2012-01-19T20:22:00.000-08:00

Dear Everyone:

It is impossible, being with Swamiji now, not to think about the passage of time. He will be 86 in May. And none of the rest of us are getting any younger either!

My parents both died in their early 80s and I helped them through the last years of their lives. But I left home at 18 and somehow never identified them with any particular age. We didn’t really grow old together.

By contrast, my life has been defined by Swami Kriyananda since 1969, when I was 22 years old. And now, well, I’m not 22 and neither is he 43, as he was when I met him.

He has used his body vigorously, to carry Master’s work to the far corners of this planet. Until recently, by will power alone he could command the body to fulfill whatever intention he set for it.

Years ago, when he was writing the Oratorio, he was stricken with serious heart problems. His circulation slowed down and those responsible for his physical well- being were justifiably alarmed. Swamiji’s response was simply, “Satan is trying to stop me from completing this work.” And he went forward, regardless of the threat to his health, perhaps his very life, perceived by others. Virtually the day he completed that great musical work, the physical symptoms receded.

Swamiji’s physical body has often been the battleground between the force of his will and Master’s to express what is needed to fulfill the “great work” Master commissioned him to do, and the forces of darkness that want to extinguish, or at least diminish that light.

Over the years we have grown accustomed to these periodic battles. It hasn’t always been easy for Swamiji’s friends to stay strong in these moments, but we have done our best.

Now, of course, a different reality is setting in. In the introduction to his book, A Renunciate Order for a New Age, I describe the experience of a few years ago when it seemed the span of Swamiji’s life had come to an end, until, in a matter of moments, Master healed him and, seemingly, extended his life for some years to come.

Swamiji explains it simply, “I still have work to do.” Mainly now it is the movies and a series of radio and perhaps TV programs. At least that is what he sees before him still. His body still responds to his determined will, and Swamiji continues to write and occasionally to give public programs, like the recent book launch in Mumbai. But Swamiji is the first to point out that 86 is a ripe old age and nothing of this world lasts forever.

When I met Swamiji for the first time in 1969, as I wrote in my book about him, and as many of you have heard me say, I felt an instant connection with him. He walked into the room and I recognized, not so much him, as his consciousness. The words that formed in my mind were, “He has what I want.” Already for some years I had been studying the teachings of Self-realization through Vivekananda and Ramakrishna (as I mentioned in my earlier letter). So I knew about Self-realization and spiritual advancement, but this was the first time I saw it manifest in a living person.

The notable fact, that I have been contemplating lately, is that the relationship with Swamiji was formed without reference to anything but his consciousness. He hadn’t spoken a word. I had no idea of his personality or his intelligence or any aspect of this particular incarnation. What I felt was only consciousness.

Then he spoke, and I was profoundly impressed. I don’t remember anything he said, I only remember my response: “This is the most intelligent man I have ever met.”

Even at the time I thought of that aspect of his nature as a bonus, a gift from God, but not the reason why he inspired me. In all these forty years since, naturally, I, and many others have formed a bond also with that side of his nature. With his personality, his strength and dynamism as a human being.

All of that dynamism is still within him, but the stage of his life and the age of his body have changed the way it is expressed. Most (but not quite all) of his work is done. The course of Master’s work has been set. It isn’t necessary, nor is it possible, for him to be engaged in the world with the same unrelenting will power Swamiji has shown for so many decades. Even in the company of his closest friends, there is more silence around Swamiji now.

Last summer in the filming for one of the movies a small satsang was arranged and Swamiji read a P.G. Wodehouse story. Afterwards he said that would be the last time he did that. “Too much laughter,” was his explanation, “too outward.” He wasn’t telling us to stop enjoying stories in that way. He was saying, simply, that it was no longer his bhav to do so.

Not long ago someone sent me a snippet of video taken at the old Meditation Retreat sometime in the 1970s. Swamiji was then in his 40s, and often dressed in Indian clothes. In this bit of film he was wearing a dhoti -- the skirt-like Indian garment. In the film, he walked out of the temple, bent over and picked up his sandal, and standing on one foot put on his shoe. The dhoti separated a little and you could see his muscular calves.

Now, like many people of his age -- my father, my father’s older brother whom I also assisted in the last years of his life (he passed away last year at age 95) -- he needs assistance even with simple tasks, like putting on his shoes or walking.

Consciousness is the same. Consciousness is unchanging. But the body is ephemeral. Not only his, but ours, too, of course.

The relationships we all have, not just with Swamiji, but with each other, are built slowly, over many years, through shared experiences of many kinds -- meditation, satsang, celebration, service, social. Everything outward passes away, even our personalities. But insofar as we have been united in the consciousness of God, that remains with us, and unites, for eternity. Spiritual family transcends time, space, and all physical limitations.

Some years ago I was sitting in my apartment in the community and there was a large picture of Master on the wall. I don’t remember the context, but I found myself alone, looking at that picture. I am not given to anything resembling visions, but in that moment there was a sense of Master’s presence. It occurred to me, with the force of more than ordinary thought, that I, and all the many friends with whom I have shared this incarnation, came for only one reason: To serve Master’s cause, to be with Swamiji, to help him in this “great work.”

Yes, many other desires have also animated my life. I can’t pretend otherwise. But no matter how much they may have dominated or defined me from time to time, always, underneath, there has been one consistent note: to help Swamiji fulfill Master’s commission.

On Swamiji’s 80th birthday we had a huge celebration at Ananda Village. For the final event hundreds of people were gathered in the garden at Crystal Hermitage. For the third or fourth time we sang “Happy Birthday” to Swamiji and presented him, as I recall, with yet another splendid cake.

Various tributes were offered to Swamiji, then he took the microphone to respond. He repeated to us something we had heard before. After Master’s passing, Rajarshi Janakananda, Master’s spiritual successor, repeated to Swamiji the same words Master had spoken, “You have a great work to do.” And on one occasion (at least) Rajarshi also said, “And he [Master] will give you the strength to do it.”

On his 80th birthday, Swamiji looked out over the huge crowd of devotees, and said, “And you are the strength Master gave me.”

For the last week we have been with Swamiji at a resort in Goa, a place we have visited several times before. Beautiful, relaxing, a joy to be with him and other life-long friends.

Just for fun, I had my palm read by a man who comes to the resort to provide this service to the guests. He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know. In fact, most of what he said seemed self-evident, until I remembered that he knew nothing at all about me except what he “saw” in my palm.

Just to satisfy your curiosity, he said that I am articulate, serviceful, have lots of friends, and, he said, will have a long life.

I mentioned this last before I say, “How quickly an incarnation passes.” And how little the details matter! What looms so large along the way really fades into nothing compared to whatever central meaning one has built one’s life around.

And what joy to live for God, to be part of this great work, to have been a witness to Swamiji’s life lived for Master.

So, enough of the eternal, here’s a little of the mundane.

The resort, as you can see from these photos, is beautiful, because spacious, well designed, filled with natural beauty. The buildings are well designed, the rooms airy and filled with light, but simple, so you feel more as if you are in your own home than in someone’s palace. Much more enjoyable for people like us.

Because of all the blue clothes, other guests often ask us who we are. I answered a woman’s question by saying, “We are part of an ashram.”

She looked at me rather quizzically, and said, “When I think ashram I think more austerity than...well... .this,” indicating our surroundings. We were sitting in what is really a first-class spa, both waiting to have a massage.

I saw it suddenly from her point of view and said only, “There is lots of austerity in our lives. We come here to relax.” But I don’t think she was convinced!

In fact, I don’t think of this life in terms of austerity at all. Years ago, when I first came to Ananda, I lived in a trailer so small I could almost touch both side walls when I extended my hands. And I couldn’t do any of the energization exercises inside that involved raising my hands above my head.

There were some holes in the floor (ventilation as far as I was concerned) and sometimes grasses started to grow through those openings. Raccoons would occasionally break in. To this day, a certain page of my first edition of The Path has the red-dirt footprints of a raccoon who made his way into my trailer when I was away and walked across the book open on my table.

For a time a family of porcupines lived underneath the trailer and as I lay on my bed at night I could hear them eating away at the supports which anchored the trailer to the hill. (Eventually we trapped the porcupines and took them far away.)

Forget indoor plumbing. Simply not an option. It was amazing luxury when I got cold running water inside.

Once during that time someone spoke of the austerity of life there. “Austerity?” I was genuinely puzzled. It had never occurred to me to think of that trailer as anything but pure bliss! It was a detail, unimportant compared to the central meaning of my life: Master, Swamiji, Ananda.

Of course, time passed and circumstances changed. Many of us would have been content to live at that level of simplicity forever. It was Swamiji who insisted that we needed to create a place also of outward refinement and beauty. “In America especially,” he said, “where money is not that hard to come by, people will think there is something wrong with our teachings if we continue to live in such a poor way.”

If people coming to Ananda see outward beauty it will inspire them to believe that our teachings, too, are beautiful, he explained. We have seen that the Temple and the courtyard surrounding it, the beautiful lawn and trees and gardens in our residential community, have awakened interest in the spirit behind those places. In fact, it is really the spirit that people respond to even in the outward expression of it.

Now, spending a week in this resort in India, it feels neither austere nor luxurious. It is merely a detail. The central meaning is lifelong friends, Swamiji, and the divine opportunity given to us by Master to serve his cause.

We are now in the airport -- airports are the ideal time to write letters! -- on the way from Goa to the Pune Community.

This is the start of a month-long training program for community residents which we will all be part of for the time we are there -- for me, one week.

I’ve never visited this community and I am eager to see and feel it and ... perhaps not until I get to the airport on the way home -- write to all of you about it.

joy,
asha

P.S. Because I have used the word consciousness so many times in this letter, I thought you might be interested in a question I received on that concept and the answer given.

Dear Asha,

I appreciate all of your insights on Master's teachings. I was wondering if I could ask you a very basic question. You mention consciousness over and over in many of your talks, as does Swamiji in his books. Is it possible to define what you are referring to? What is consciousness? What does it mean to meditate on Master's consciousness?

Thank you in advance,
Paul
California

Dear Paul:

I wrote to Swamiji's secretary, Lakshman, and asked if he could refer me to something Swamiji has written on this subject, because I couldn't remember anywhere that he has answered this question.

He responded that he doesn't think Swamiji defines consciousness anywhere in his writings, for a very interesting reason, something he has heard Swamiji say.

Consciousness is the underlying reality of everything. You can't define it because everything in creation is defined by it, not it by anything else.

Having said that, in practical terms, the way I use the word, and Swamiji also does sometimes, it means our understanding of life, our awareness, attitudes, the vibration on which we function.

Although in a recent e-mail to me, Swamiji made a distinction between understanding and approach to life and consciousness itself. So you see, any definition does not really define it.

As for meditating on Master's consciousness, fortunately, that is an experience, not a definition. I think the answer is in the Bible, referring to Jesus, "To all who received him to them gave he the power to become the Sons of God."

The best way I have found to do it is to try to put aside my own reality and enter into his. I don't know how clear that is. Perhaps if you experiment you'll understand what I mean. It isn't about praying to him, or asking him to come. It is lifting oneself into the light that he is, and then accepting and merging into that (to the extent that I can!). There are no ideas at that point about what one is doing. It is communing. Which is of the heart, not the intellect.

Hope this helps!

joy,
asha

India Book Launch and Vivekananda's Rock

2012-01-12T14:13:00.000-08:00

Dear Everyone:

We landed at the Mumbai airport just before the book launch event was scheduled to begin. We thought we might make it in time at least for the end of the program, but nearly 45 minutes later, still waiting for our bags, it was obvious there was no chance.

So we were sitting in the lobby of the Oberoi hotel, just checking into our rooms, when the door of the elevator opened just a few feet away from us, and out came Swamiji, with Jyotish on one side, Narayani on the other, and Lila, Devi, and Miriam following behind.

They were just returning from what turned out to be a hugely successful launch of the new biography of Master, just published in India. The hall was filled to capacity -- 1200 people -- with another 400 watching from the foyer on video screens.

When they entered the hotel lobby we didn’t know any of these facts. All we saw was Swamiji’s blue eyes radiating so much bliss that it was impossible to focus on any other reality. At the event, Swamiji spoke for more than an hour, responding, it seems, to the warmth and receptivity of the audience.

The program is posted online so you can see it there for yourselves.

Soon after we were able to sit at dinner with Swamiji, Jyotish, Devi, Narayani, and Sri Karthikeyan, our long-time friend in India who introduced Swamiji at the program. Many of you know Karthikeyan from his visits to Ananda during Spiritual Renewal Week. He is a national figure in India, the former head of the equivalent of their FBI. Now he devotes himself to working for religious unity and political peace. He is a kind and noble man, an ideal expression of the finest characteristic of the Indian people.

It was a joy to see the sweet and respectful friendship between Swamiji and Mr. Karthikeyan as they discussed Ananda, its work in India, the excellence of the program just completed, and generally the future of India and the world.

When we arrived in Mumbai our plan was to see Swamiji that evening, then leave for Goa the next day at noon. Swamiji, with three others, was going first to a place called Kanyakumari at the southernmost tip of India, then coming to Goa afterwards.

His journey was a pilgrimage to a place just off shore, a granite island, really a huge, steep sided rock about the size of a football field, known as “Vivekananda’s Rock.” On that small island there was an ancient temple to the goddess Parvati and a more recently constructed temple (1970), dedicated to Swami Vivekananda.

Vivekananda, who died in 1904 (or thereabouts) at the age of 39, was the foremost disciple of Sri Ramakrishna Paramhansa, a spiritual master who lived in the Kali Temple near Calcutta in Dakineshwar in the mid-1800s.

There is a close connection between Master and Sri Ramakrishna. Master Mahasaya, described with such reverence by Master in his own Autobiography, was a disciple of Ramakrishna. He is also known as “M,” the author of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, a compilation of the extensive and detailed notes he took of every meeting with his master. The chapter in the Autobiography, called “The Heart of a Stone Image,” is about the statue of Mother Kali at the temple at Dakineshwar where Ramakrishna lived.

Vivekenanda fulfilled for his guru the same role Swamiji has played for Master: the one who carried the teachings of the guru to the world.

Vivekananda was a young man when Ramakrishna died. Soon after, he set out alone to walk the length of India as a wandering sadhu. When he reached the southern tip, Kanyakumari, he saw, just a few meters beyond, the granite rock that now bears his name.

Here three oceans collide: the Arabian Sea, the Bay of Bengal, and the Indian Ocean. The waters are turbulent and apparently no boatman was willing to take Vivekananda across, so he swam to the rock. For three days he meditated there until he received what became the guiding vision of his life, to revitalize India and carry his master’s teachings to the world.

This was at the end of 1892, they believe Christmas Day. The next year, which also happens to be the year of Master’s birth, 1893, Vivekananda came as a delegate to a Congress of All Religions in Chicago, bearing his master’s message of the unity of all religions.

Because Vivekananda’s writings were my introduction to Self-realization teachings, I have long known this story and have wanted to see this rock for myself since the age of 19. But in all our trips to India we never came close to this point.

In April 2010, Swamiji received a reading from the ancient sage Agastya, through the modern day pundits who are the custodians of Agastya’s writings. It is believe that these writings are from Treta Yuga, a higher age when the obstacle of time is dissolved. Agastya readings are similar to the Brighu readings, another sage probably from that time, being about the past, present, and future of many individuals living now, including details that made it unmistakable that the sages were able to accurately see future events.

The Agastya reading for Swamiji was exceedingly positive, promising success of every kind -- spiritual as well as with his work in the world. The reading drew a close parallel between Vivekananda and Swamiji, and the pundits urged Swamiji to make a pilgrimage to Vivekananda’s Rock, saying it would bring great benefit to his life and work.

Gradually Swamiji came to feel that he should heed this advice from Agastya, and thus planned this trip to Kanyakumari, planning to take just Narayani, Miriam, and Dharmadas with him, thinking a smaller group would be more convenient and less distracting to the inward purpose of the journey.

However, on the way to the breakfast table on Monday morning, just an hour or so before he was to leave for his flight, Swamiji suggested that Jyotish, Devi, Nirmala, David and I should come along. So over breakfast, fights were cancelled, new flights booked, hotels reserved, and other reservations changed.

Soon we were all set for a flight leaving just a few hours after Swamiji.

Kanyakumari is too small to have an airport, so we had to fly in and stay the night at a place three hours away and then drive the next day to the hotel where we would stay the night, not far from the ferry that would take us to Vivekananda’s Rock.

All the plans were made so quickly that when the taxi driver taking David and me to the airport said, “What airline?” we had to stop the car and ask others, “What city are we going to?” We didn’t even know. Trivundrem it turned out to be.

The next morning we drove the 80 kilometers -- three hours of driving -- to Kanyakumari, had lunch at our hotel, then immediately drove to the ferry. It was “high season” for pilgrimage to that spot and we had been told the line just for tickets was an hour wait. To our surprise, we were able to go right to the window.

Getting that far, however, was not an easy journey for Swamiji. Compared to the crisis he recently endured, his health is much better. But at the age of nearly 86, travel of any kind, especially in India, is not easy for him.

The weather was hot, the day sunny, with the light reflecting off the waters around us. The breeze was strong, and the way quite crowded with other pilgrims, many talking noisily and quite outward in their enthusiasm. In any crowd, our group would have stood out. Narayani, as a brahmacharini, was dressed in bright yellow, all the rest of us in blue.

Swamiji chose to walk as much as he could, but when the way was too steep, we had brought a wheelchair from the hotel for him. He cannot walk without assistance, so with a friend on either side, and one nearby pushing the empty wheelchair, our whole group, as you can well imagine, was a circling field of energy with him at the center.

All of us being old friends, we intuitively worked together to move ourselves and him safely from the car, down the long hill to the ferry dock, through the crowds onto the boat, then off onto the stone pathways of Vivekananda’s Rock.

Not surprisingly, the Indians were respectful of Swamiji, for many reasons including the fact that, although not strong physically, he was determined to visit this holy place. So no one objected when, as necessary we ignored or removed “Do not enter” signs when we needed to take a shorter, ramp route to our goal.

On the rock there is also a small ancient temple to Parvati where we stopped first, meditating for just a few moments, then circumambulating the inner shrine where a mark in the stone is said to be Parvati’s footprint.

We had been told that on the lower level of the temple to Vivekananda there was a meditation room. So we scouted it out ahead of time then took Swamiji there. For about 10 minutes we meditated together. I think most of us spent our meditation praying for Swamiji, that Master bless him, that whatever promise Agastya saw for him in this pilgrimage be fulfilled.

Swamiji has given so much to us and to so many in his lifetime. It was an honor and a joy to be able to help him in any way, even something so small as doing what we could to ease the physical challenge of visiting this rather rugged and remote spot.

Fortunately, much of the rock and some of the temple was accessible by ramp. But to reach the main room at the top of the rock, the only way was up a long flight of steep stairs. Swamiji was determined to do all that could be done at this place, so, with assistance from others, and several stops to recover his breath and strength, he went up the stairs and into the temple proper.

It was made of rock and marble, no chairs, but if it had been set up it probably would have held about 100 people. There were two smaller shrines in the back of the room -- to Ramakrishna and his wife Sarada Devi -- and a larger than life-sized statue of Vivekananda in the front. Black marble pillars supported a very high ceiling.

The guard gave Swamiji the use of his wooden stool, and for a few minutes he sat leaning against a pillar.

Then we were done. Going down the stairs was difficult, but not nearly so hard as coming up. No one in the long line of pilgrims waiting to join the ferry objected when we took Swamiji to the front of the line and boarded the ferry. Then it was back up the long steep hill to the cars. Swamiji made no attempt to walk this part, but allowed us to move him in the wheelchair, several working together because it was so steep.

We drove a short distance then stopped for tea. There had been little conversation since we started. Our concentration had been on helping Swamiji complete this pilgrimage. It wasn’t only the physical challenges. There had also been a feeling that we needed to focus our energy to cut through a kind of swirling chaos all around us. It would be obvious to say the chaos was generated by the many rajasic people making the same journey we were on but it also seemed to emanate also from a more subtle level.

It was as if we were, for a time, passing through some slightly altered dimension.

Tapasya is often a part of pilgrimage. Tapasya is austerity willingly undertaken to achieve some divine goal, and certainly for Swamiji this was a great effort. Now he and we were all spent and gratefully collapsed around the restaurant table, glad to be in the air-conditioned room out of the wind and hot sun.

Swamiji spoke two words, “Masala chai.” There was some discussion about whether these two words might be the last words spoken by this great soul. Fortunately, the universe responded quickly. Tea and “nimbu pani” (water with lime juice) soon revived Swamiji and us all.

That night and the next morning a sense of blessing grew, which Swamiji also referred to at breakfast the next morning.

It is not often one can go on pilgrimage with Swamiji, so we counted ourselves deeply fortunate to have come with him. And, as it turned out, it would have been exceedingly difficult for the small group original planned to have managed alone.

Swamiji had no interest in repeating the bumpy car ride, so he got a first-class train ticket back to Trivendrum, the only such ticket available we were told . Three others bought tickets in other classes but as it turned, regardless of their tickets, all four traveled in first class seats -- actually full-length bunks -- while others of us went by car.

One night again in Trivendrum , and now we are on the plane for Mumbai to make a connection to Goa. Unfortunately you can’t fly directly from Trivendrum to Goa so this will be ¾ of a day spent in traveling.

David and I had imagined that we would have three quiet days in Goa on our own before Swamiji arrived, but that plan was scrapped for this wonderful adventure.

Blessings to all...

Joy,
Asha

Ask Asha: My Mother Was Bitter When She Died. How Can I Help Her Now?

2012-01-05T14:10:00.000-08:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

I saw Swami Kriyananda’s video "What Happens After Death" and now I am worried about my mother’s “afterlife”. She doesn't believe in God and became a very bitter and difficult person. I can feel her unhappiness but can’t get through to her. I love her and I know that she has a kind heart underneath. I always believed that angels and passed "loved ones" will be there to guide us into the spiritual world. Will my mom experience this also? I can’t stand the thought of her not experiencing love and relief.

Carina
from Europe

Answer

Dear Carina:

God is no tyrant. His law is impersonal and always fair.

God lives within us and is not fooled. If your mother has, as you feel, a kind heart, be certain: God knows and will respond. “God reads the heart,” is how Paramhansa Yogananda explained it.

Justice after death is not subject to human whim. Your mother will perceive the highest reality of which she is capable. The soul longs to reunite with God. It seeks the Light the way a river seeks the sea.

Be assured, angels and other divine beings will help your mother in the astral world. But she can’t rise beyond her actual state of consciousness. I suspect during her lifetime you, and perhaps other friends, tried to coax her out of her bitterness. But if she was determined to hold onto it, probably nothing you said or did could change her.

Dying does not in itself liberate us from self-induced limitations. To the extent that we define ourselves by those limitations, to that extent — even in the astral world — we are still limited.

If her bitterness is more than personality, but extends also to a rejection of divine realities, there is no way that even God Himself can force her to open to a Light she doesn’t want to receive.

We learn through the satisfaction of Bliss to seek more Bliss. We also learn through the absence of Bliss — that is, through suffering — to question ourselves and, eventually, open to realities we may have formerly rejected.

Think about your own years growing up with your mother. Perhaps now you are a mother yourself. Certainly there are times when a child rebels against necessary — but in the perception of the child, unpleasant — requirements. Going to school, for example, or learning to share with his siblings, or doing his homework — or not eating the whole cake in one sitting!

The child may be angry, rebellious, or grief-stricken at what is being imposed upon him, but a good mother will not yield to the whim of her child. She knows the future and the child does not.

It would not be love on her part but mere cowardice to cave into his emotions when the child’s future is at stake.

So it is with our Divine Mother. She knows that all souls must learn what appear to the ego to be hard lessons. She knows the future and we don’t. Only through transcending the ego and embracing the Infinite will we find the satisfaction our heart longs to receive.

You and your mother played the part in this life of parent and child, but that is merely a garment you wore for this one incarnation. Now that she has discarded that “garment” — the body that carried you in its womb — your relationship has gone back to its underlying truth: friendship in God.

If you want to be a true friend to your mother you must now help her in the way Divine Mother would help her. To pray merely that she be happy is like giving the child the whole cake so he will stop crying. You must show the same courage and faith in God that you want your mother to have.

What you must pray for now is that your mother learn whatever it is that Divine Mother is trying to teach her. That she find within herself the courage, devotion, humility, and wisdom to move forward in her divine understanding, not merely in her ego-based feelings.

Your mother has very good karma: she raised a devotee who can now pray for her, not merely for her temporary comfort, but for her eternal well-being.

It is natural to feel sympathy for your mother’s suffering. It is a good thing to have a tender heart. But that heart must also be guided by wisdom. Too much sympathy may not be helpful to her at this time.

To become bitter is not helpful to the soul. When your mother made that choice she dug for herself an unpleasant pit of wrong understanding. Now she is living in that pit and has to decide whether to stay there or climb out.

Be assured, your mother got herself into this difficulty and she can also extricate herself from it. You need to respect your mother the way a mother needs to respect her child.

Yes, she is having a hard time now, but she has the power within her to overcome. And she will. A good mother doesn’t panic merely because her child is struggling. She stands by with calm faith.

Your prayers can help her. Especially if you pray in the right way: with gratitude for what she gave you, with tender concern for her feelings, but also with courage and faith that she can and will awaken to higher realities.

I answered another similar question on May 27, 2011, called “When a Loved One Digs Themselves into a Pit, Do What Works.” That is posted here, too, and you might find it helpful.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: No Shortcut

2011-12-01T07:17:00.000-08:00

[Note: “Letters from Asha” will be going on holiday for the rest of the month, to resume in the new year. But please continue to send in your questions!]

Question

You talk about getting a perspective on the fleeting nature of human life. From that point of view, everything could be called trivial. When should I say, “This is trivial” or “This is important”? Seems the definitions are subjective. I may be dismissing things too often as “trivial” or at least people are telling me that I am. If I am traveling on a train, should I not look out the window, because the only thing that matters is the destination?

Swamiji has often used the example of how we create pain for ourselves -- lets say, by tying a string tightly around our finger till the finger turns blue -- then we release the self-created conditions that caused the pain -- i.e., untie the string -- and say how relieved and happy we feel. I feel that I have been “tying strings” around my soul for many lives. I don’t want a mere hug from God. I want to LOVE the Infinite. You have said it is not enough to say we love something or aspire to it we also have to work to achieve that goal. I see myself doing foolish things, I know they are foolish, I have done them before, but I am not able to act on what I know. Help.

From K, in India

Answer

Dear K:

I think you are asking for two things here, neither of which the Ananda way to Self-realization can provide.

First: Rules and definitions you can substitute for intuition

Second: To reach the goal without walking the path

As my mother aged her body began to fail. Everyday tasks became more and more of a challenge. “Getting old is not for sissies!” she often said to me.

Same could be said about the spiritual path. It is not for sissies. You have to risk. You have to fail. You have to fall to the ground. You have to get up again. It takes courage. In Swamiji’s course on discipleship that he wrote 60 years ago for the monks in SRF, he said the first essential attitude for the devotee is courage.

Wherever you are now there is always a way to go forward. Doesn’t matter if you have been over the same ground a thousand times. If it is where you find yourself (again), the only thing you can do is move from there.

What is forward for one person, however, is not always forward for someone else. Depends on where you are standing. So no simple rules, no dogmas, no formulas. Not for yourself or for others.

If Mahatma Gandhi, in the middle of the movement to free India, decided to abandon that effort and use his fame instead to open a private law practice, everyone would think that he had fallen. If your lazy uncle finally gets off his cot, and uses his law degree to make a lot of money for the family, everyone would say, “Well done.”

Imagine the rim of a bicycle wheel with spokes leading into the center. We are all spread out at different points around that rim. God is the center. All starting points are the same, and all spokes lead to the center. What direction leads to the center depends on how the rim is oriented from your point of view.

Devotees north of center have to go south; those south of center have to go north. People make a dogma of the direction in which they are moving. Those heading south declare, “South is the way!” Those going north are equally vehement. Both, of course, are wrong.

Progress is directional in relation to the center from wherever you.

Now, instead of thinking of many different people, think of all the different aspects of your own nature as individual points of consciousness around the rim.

For a while you may work on moving one aspect of your self toward the center -- developing a particular talent, for example. Then you may focus on something entirely different, perhaps raising a family.

Intuitively I have always known that we must strive for excellence in everything we do. For a long time, though, I couldn’t exactly work out philosophically why. If everything in this world is ephemeral, why bother? Isn’t that obvious?

In Swamiji’s book, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, I found an explanation. (Look up gunas in the index.)

He speaks of the Guru as “triguna rahitam.” This means one who has transcended the three gunas, the fluctuating energies that make up the material world. Tamo guna is darkening, confining, downward pulling. Rajo guna is activating, restless. Sattwa guna is calm, uplifting, peaceful.

To determine what is forward for you, ask yourself, “What guna, or combination of gunas, am I manifesting?” Too often a clever answer, like “Why bother? Nothing is real,” is just tamo guna allowing fear and laziness to rule you.

Look how much energy Master put out to establish his work in this world. Look at Swamiji’s efforts to build Ananda. Great masters and highly evolved souls have always put out tremendous effort to achieve whatever task God has given them to do.

Swamiji will go over a manuscript dozens of times before he considers it ready for publication. When members of our community were first learning to sing the music he had written, sometimes he would stop them in the middle of a public performance to correct some aspect of what they were doing.

Some people protested that he was embarrassing them before others. (Interestingly, the singers themselves always welcomed his guidance and never complained.) Swamiji’s response was, “They need to put out the energy to do it right.” Singing the notes wrong was a symptom. Tamo guna was the problem they needed to overcome.

Whenever we fail to achieve excellence it is because we have not been able to transcend the confusing influence of the gunas. For the same reason, we don’t see God, even though His presence is all around us. We need to become like the masters, triguna rahitam.

To rail against yourself, Why do I keep making the same mistakes?” is, in itself, an expression of tamo guna. It makes you self-concerned rather self-expansive. Doesn’t matter what the obstacles are. You have to make the effort.

When Jesus was asked, “How to tell a false prophet from a true one?” he answered, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Ask the same question of your question, “Why bother?” The answer is, you can tell by the fruits.

Just sitting in the gym won’t make you strong, even if you go every day. You have to run on the treadmill and lift the weights. This world is a spiritual gymnasium. The “equipment” is the circumstances your karma has brought you. If you don’t engage, you arrive as a weakling, are helpful to no one, and leave worse off than you came, because you have squandered a God-given opportunity to expand your consciousness.

No one can or will force you to behave differently. Sooner or later, however, your own unhappiness will compel you to try.

As for finding a shortcut, there isn’t one.

To my everlasting embarrassment I remember a conversation I had with Swamiji. Well, not exactly a conversation because it was short, and he didn’t say anything.

I was facing a big challenge. To be fair to myself, it was a serious, life-long issue and I was far from the finish line when this happened.

I was explaining to Swamiji that everything in my life was going well, except for this one big problem. If I just didn’t have to deal with it, I told him, I would be so happy and so free. All of this I said mournfully, with tears running down my face.

Only later did I understand that what I said to Swamiji was, “If the spiritual path weren’t so hard it would be easier.”

In his wonderful way, Swamiji knew just how to respond to me. I already felt so sorry for myself I didn’t need more of that from him. Clearly, also, I was way beyond reason.

So he said nothing. Nothing at all. Not even with his face. “Expressionless” perfectly describes the way he looked at me. He just let what I said sit in the room without relating to it at all.

We sat like that in silence for what seemed like a few minutes. Then the phone rang. He answered it without even a glance of apology for the interruption. It was about an appointment with a doctor he was trying to arrange. Once that was settled and he hung up, it was clear the interview was over.

Don’t think for a minute that Swamiji was being rude to me. Even at the time, I could see his response was brilliant. “Enough already!” I got the message.

So I persevered. I cannot say I have conquered the delusion I was facing then, but, by the grace of God and Gurus, I have moved a good distance in the right direction.

I shudder to think what might have happened if, in that critical moment, Swamiji had shown even an ounce of sympathy. Of course he was much too wise to do that. He knew I would have seized upon it like a drowning person seizes a log. Except in this case, it would have taken me to the bottom of the sea, not safely to the shore where I was longing to go.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Mary, Mother of God

2011-11-17T07:50:00.000-08:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

What was the reason that God picked Mary to be the mother of Jesus ?

from JK

Answer

Dear JK:

This is going to be a long answer to a short question. There is so much theological confusion behind what you ask that even in a long answer I can only begin to unravel it. For the “rest of the story,” I urge you to read Swamiji’s book, Revelations of Christ as Proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda.

There is much controversy now about the life and teachings of Jesus. Historians, theologians, intellectuals, sociologists, politicians, even novelists are all offering competing theories. How is the devotee to know what is true and what is mere speculation?

Revelations of Christ gives us the answer: Look to the saints. Only those who share the consciousness of the Masters are qualified to speak with authority.

When Swami Kriyananda was a young disciple, sitting at the feet of his Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, he was present when Master dictated a revised set of lessons to be sent to the devotees. (Alas, never put into wide circulation.) In the first lesson, Master made this astonishing claim: The three Wisemen who came to visit Jesus in the manger were none other than three of the Masters in our line of Gurus: Babaji, Lahiri Mahashaya, and Sri Yukteswar.

Whether this was an astral visitation, a previous incarnation, or Babaji as he is now descending from the Himalayas, Master didn’t explain. There was, however, some enduring quality to their presence, because Master further explained that during the so-called “lost years of Jesus,” he “returned the visit,” traveling to India and Tibet to sit at the feet of these same Gurus. There are many traditions in the East that Jesus visited there.

Jesus lived only 33 years. Yet all four of the Gospels say nothing at all about 18 of those 33. It is preposterous to imagine that in the time Jesus spent with his disciples the subject never came up or that his biographers would fail to include this critical period of his life.

Self-realized Masters incarnate for no karma of their own, but to show those of us struggling to be realized the path to freedom. Spiritual practice -- sadhana -- and the relationship with the Guru are critical elements on this path. Almost every Master demonstrates in his own life how to be both a disciple and a sadhaka. Sometimes there is no apparent Guru, but still there is still a deeply devoted, disciplined, focused way of life.

Otherwise, it would be too convenient for disciples to say, “On your path you have to meditate and do austerities, but on our path, we just sit around and know God.”

Think how much of Autobiography of a Yogi is about Master’s search for his Guru, his years of training with Sri Yukteswar, and his intense effort to meditate and realize God. Yet he was born Self-realized. This wasn’t his own karma he was expressing; it was a freely chosen role to show generations to come how to achieve Self-realization.

The life of Jesus was just the same. Master tells us that when he was 13, Jesus left home and wandered for 18 years in India, learning from the Masters there and doing intense sadhana to set the example, and prepare himself for the mission ahead.

For some centuries after Jesus passed away, this part of his life was included in the Gospels and known by all his disciples. It helped define how they, too, should live if they would fulfill the destiny their Master offered them. “That which I do, ye shall do and greater things,” Jesus said. He promised Self-realization, not merely after death, but while living, as Jesus himself showed.

However, at some point, in Kali Yuga descending (the darkest of the ages on this planet, which reached its nadir at 500 A.D.), the Church began the process of making Jesus more and more “special.” Being steeped in the materialistic thinking of Kali Yuga, Church officials -- by now more bureaucrats than saints -- could no longer understand the true nature of their own Master and set about remaking his image to more closely resemble what they felt it ought to be.

It was at this time that those 18 years were “lost” from the Bible. Church officials reasoned that it would hurt people’s faith to think that Jesus had to undergo a period of training under the guidance of other Masters.

Some argued that it didn’t hurt the faith of the disciples who were with Jesus and heard about it directly from him, but that plea fell on deaf ears. And in the end those 18 years were removed.

As Swamiji points out, one proof that they were taken out, rather than omitted by the original writers, is that there is a complete blank where those years are concerned. The officials had the nerve to remove information, but they could not bring themselves to create new facts. Any biographer would have at least said, “And he grew up and worked in his father’s shop.” Instead, there is nothing.

Also removed around this time -- 553 A.D., at the Second Council of Constantinople -- were all references to reincarnation. The logic was similarly non-logical: “We need people to buckle down right now. We don’t want them to think they have all the time in the world to work things out.” Again, counter arguments fell on deaf ears. Even the Pope at the time, it is believed, opposed the ban. Still it was carried out. Removing reincarnation from the Bible proved a little trickier than the lost years, and some direct references remain. (See p. 311 of The New Path, by Swami Kriyananda.)

Now how does all of this relate to Mary the Mother of Jesus?

You see, what has happened is that by taking out of the “Christian” teachings the concepts of Guru, sadhana, and reincarnation, you have removed the whole idea of Self-realization. The Church accomplished exactly what it wanted. No longer can the devotee work on his own salvation, now it comes only through Jesus Christ, and-- here is the worst part -- through the intercession of “His” Church. Rituals, sacraments, blessings, absolutions, etc. were all gradually substituted for the direct connection between God and the devotee, which is the heart of Self-realization.

Thus “Christianity” becomes “Churchianity.” It is not when religion becomes “organized” that the damage is done. It is when the institution makes itself essential to the devotee’s salvation that true teaching dies.

The other purpose the Church had in doing this, besides strengthening its own position, was to make Jesus ever more unique and special. The teachings of Self-realization say that every soul has the same infinite destiny. That Jesus himself -- and all Self-realized Masters before and after him -- are souls like us who have completed the journey we are now on.

“Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect,” was not a compliment, it was a commandment.

But if Jesus is unique, as the Catholic Church now tells us he is, then the whole process of Self-realization is moot, in fact, impossible. Jesus never went through it, so obviously none of the rest of us will either. We must simply depend on Jesus (and the Church) for our salvation.

And since there is no such thing as reincarnation, and one lifetime is obviously not long enough to become “perfect, even as our Father in Heaven is perfect,” the meaning of that statement must be other than it seems. Many translations of the Bible have been amended accordingly, “Be ye therefore good, as your Father in Heaven is good,” is but one example.

The Catholic saints who do make it to Self-realization (whatever the Church calls it) are an anomaly. There is no tradition within present-day Christianity to explain how it happens. They just appear, usually are fiercely persecuted by the Church, then canonized by that same Church after they die. They are persecuted, because without an understanding of Self-realization, saints cast doubt on the whole system. For example, according to the Church, all priests are ordained equally. How do you explain it then, when one priest is obviously more “ordained” than any of the others?

Because the Church has no answer to this question they usually try to bury the evidence, sometimes literally, by confining the priest to his cell, or transferring him to some far off parish where they hope he’ll never be heard from again. Read the life of Padre Pio for a modern day example.

Paramhansa Yogananda called his work “The Second Coming of Christ.” He came, he said, because of the request of Jesus to Babaji to restore the original teachings of Jesus, and the original teachings of Krishna (which have also been diluted) and show that in essence they are the same.

The Bhagavad-Gita explains divine incarnations in a more expansive and explicit way. “Whenever virtue declines,” the Gita says, “and vice predominates, I the Infinite Lord take visible form to destroy ignorance and restore dharma.”

Now, again, back to the question of Mary.

In his lifetime, Master spoke not only of that incarnation as Paramhansa Yogananda, but of several of his incarnations in the past, including as Arjuna and William the Conqueror.

He also mentioned previous incarnations of other in the line of Gurus: Lahiri Mahasaya had been Kabir and also King Janaka; Babaji had been Krishna; Sri Yukteswar incarnated when Master was William as his closest advisor, Lanfranc.

James J. Lynn, Master’s most advanced male disciple, whom he named Rajarshi Janakananda, had been with Master as one of Arjuna’s younger brothers. When Master was William, Daya Mata was his daughter; Swami Kriyananda feels he was Henry, one of William’s sons. (A fascinating book about William the Conqueror and his son Henry is Two Souls, Four Lives by Catherine Kaivari.)

The list goes on and on. In The New Path, in the chapter “His Last Days,” Swamiji describes in thrillingly poetic terms how families of souls form around a great Master, incarnating together again and again “to work out their salvation -- not only inwardly on themselves, but by interaction with one another. To achieve divine emancipation, it is necessary to spiritualize one’s relations with the objective world and with other human beings, as well as with God.”

“The stronger the family, spiritually speaking,” Swamiji goes on to say, “the greater its attractive pull on new souls that may still be wandering in search of an identity of their own. A family evolves with its individual members; at last it, too, becomes a ‘star’ in the firmament of humanity, and begins to produce great souls of Self-realization.

“As spiritual ‘stars,’ such great families become powerful for the general upliftment of mankind... Yogananda’s is one such spiritual family. His forms part of a greater spiritual ‘nation,’ of which Jesus Christ and Sri Krishna (in this age Babaji) are also leaders.”

I believe what the Bible tells us, that an angel came to Mary and told her of what was to come. She would have had the state of consciousness where she could easily commune with angels. She was not, however, some random, albeit pure-hearted girl who happened to catch the angel’s attention. Mary’s relationship with Jesus must have been formed many, many incarnations before. She was part of his spiritual family, one of those “great souls of Self-realization” that Swamiji speaks of. God chose Mary because Mary chose Him.

As we say every week in the Festival of Light, “Your chosen people have always been those of every race and nation who, with deep love, chose Thee.” The Festival goes on to lead the congregation in this prayer: “O Lord, with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength, I choose Thy love, I choose only Thee.”

There are also ancient traditions gaining new credibility that say Jesus was part of the Essene community, an enlightened group within Judaism that was still in touch with more uplifted teachings than most Jews practiced at that time.

According to this tradition, the Essenes knew that an avatar was coming and the community had been working together for a long time to prepare for him and the mission that would follow. Part of that tradition is that Mary was trained from a young age for her role as his mother. Who can say if this is true? Certainly it is apocryphal. For Mary to play the part she did, she would have to be highly dedicated and evolved before Jesus was born.

Understood this way, Mary is not merely an inspiration and a blessing she is also an example we can all follow of dedicated service to God, Guru, and mankind.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: An Ugly Divorce

2011-11-10T07:37:00.000-08:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

How is it possible to forgive or to let go of fear and anger when the person who hurt you continues, deliberately and unrelentingly, to do so? An ugly divorce, in which I did my utmost to remain civilized, has devolved into guerilla warfare where my ex uses our kids to "stick it to me." Particularly when my children are subjected to this sickness, my heart fills up with fear and a terrible anger. I do my best not to add to the strain on the kids. How do I rise above the hatred and live well?

From S

Answer

Dear S:

My heart goes out to you. It is hard to imagine anything worse than what you are experiencing. Every parent naturally wants for his children the best he can imagine. To see your family life fall so far short of what you may have hoped for is difficult karma indeed. Not easy to overcome, as you are finding out.

Still, what choice do you have? You cannot control the behavior of your ex. You cannot live your children’s life for them. It is their karma, too, to be caught in this “guerilla warfare.” Not that you should be indifferent to helping them through it, but for them, too, it is a reality that has to be faced.

One of the greatest obstacles to overcoming karma is that instead of wanting to face it, we want it to go away. Not surprising, or anything to be ashamed of, especially when those we love are being hurt.

In the Festival of Light, which we do at Ananda every week at Sunday Service (I don’t know where you live, but you can see the Festival as a live stream from Ananda Village) there is an allegory about the spiritual evolution of a little bird who represents our soul journey. The second stage of that bird’s adventure is “The Revolt.” He suffers from his own wrong action. He is given the right advice about how to change himself, but he doesn’t want to change. Instead of adapting to reality he prefers to insist on declaring a reality of his own.

The problem is, it doesn’t work. And even though “repeatedly he lost everything he had,” he persists in his wrong action for a long time. An afternoon for the little bird equals “eons of our time,” the Festival says.

Self-evidently you have no wish to continue in the reality you are in now. However, the law of karma is always fair. This is a very difficult truth to accept. Very difficult. No spiritual progress is possible, however, until you take that truth into yourself all the way down to your bone marrow.

Whatever is happening now is the exact result of wrong actions and wrong attitudes of your own in the past, perhaps not in this life but in incarnations you no longer remember.

I’m not trying to blame you or make you feel bad, hopeless, or helpless. Who in their right mind would inflict this kind of suffering on oneself and one’s children? Clearly, whatever dark actions in the past are being worked out in the present, are in the past. This is not who you are now.

You have learned many lessons. The mere fact that you are appealing to a spiritual source for help means that you have learned a great deal. Still, self-evidently, you are not free. The same is true for your children. The only thing to do now is devote yourself to learning whatever lessons remain.

What might those lessons be? It is not easy to penetrate our past lives and find the details of who did what to whom and how those consequences are playing out now. There are people who can do that for you. Not all are reliable or helpful in the way they present things, but if there is someone you know to be compassionate and trustworthy, you might consider a session or two. Sometimes to know the past life influences gives us the courage we need to persevere in the right way.

Even without that kind of understanding, however, the lessons are obvious. Even mindedness, calm acceptance, faith that God is in charge, even in a situation like this which seems so far outside what you would like to think of as the will of God.

The ego wants ease and pleasure. The soul wants freedom. As Swamiji wrote recently,
“Sometimes pain is the shortest route to freedom.” The ego doesn’t like this. Thus “The Revolt.” The soul, however, rejoices, no matter how difficult the road. Our higher self knows that on the other side of this wall of fire is bliss.

I suspect there is very little you can do to solve this problem directly. If you haven’t already explored legal options, I certainly would, but I doubt if there are laws against “wrong attitude,” which is what your ex is expressing in spades, and which you are also falling into.

The only solution to this is on the level of consciousness.

You are going to have to become a world-class athlete of consciousness. You’ll have to train all the time. When one of my friends developed cancer, she said to me, “I don’t have the luxury of having a single negative thought.” She was already one of the sweetest women I had ever met. Within herself, though, she saw room for improvement.

The situation with your ex and your children is your gold-medal event. Every so often you will have a chance to “compete” against your own wrong attitudes in that final round. In between, however, like any athlete, you have to stay focused on that upcoming challenge.

I’ve noticed that almost always the wrong attitudes that pull us to pieces in the major challenges of our lives are also expressed by us, in some form, in all the lesser challenges as well. Usually we don’t even notice that we are responding with anger, for example, or resentment, or hatred, because the intensity is low or nothing is at stake. Raging at a bad driver for example, or a roommate who leaves dishes in the sink, or the weather when it doesn’t cooperate with our plans may not seem relevant to your problem with your ex and your children, but it is.

Every time you respond to anything in your life in an inappropriate way you are cutting a groove of habit in your consciousness that will pull you right into it when the stakes get higher. You are making vrittis (whirlpools of energy) in your chakras that will influence your consciousness in every future situation. And, by contrast, every time you respond with calm, loving, uplifted energy, you are making a habit that will give you the strength you need when you need it.

Another factor comes into play here: the grace of God. Take one step toward Divine Mother and she will take three steps toward you -- or more. I call it the “Divine Matching Fund.” Put a penny of good energy into each of your charkas and Divine Mother will donate a dollar of Her bliss. You’ll see. It is amazing.

The only weapon you have in this guerilla warfare is your own consciousness. The good news is: consciousness is everything. Not only will it change your experience, it is also the primary influence you will have on your children, and the way ultimately to resolve this karma.

Remember: Where there is dharma (right consciousness) there is victory.

Not necessarily today, or even tomorrow, but eventually. Dharma always triumphs. This is the founding principle of Ananda and the secret of our success. Time after time it has proven true. Even when everything has gone against us, in the end, because we have always clung to right consciousness, it all came out in the right way. Please understand, that doesn’t mean we’ve always been perfect moment to moment. Everyone fails sometimes. Our perfection is that we have never given up.

God has taken away from you any margin you may have had to be casual about your thoughts and attitudes. He has also taken away from you the freedom to be lazy about your spiritual practices. You have to practice all the time having right consciousness so when the big challenge comes -- your ex and your children -- you will have the strength to remain centered in yourself.

Here is something hopeful to consider. Often when a person no longer gets the result they want from the action they are taking, they lose interest in repeating it. Your ex seemingly is quite successful in “sticking it to you,” as you put it. You need to find a depth of experience of God within that makes this tactic ineffective.

Your children, seeing your calm acceptance and joy, even in the face of extreme provocation, will also be impressed, and, we pray, inspired to emulate your example. You can’t depend on that in the short run, but “Where there is dharma there is victory.” It will affect them. And your ex -- eventually.

As for specifics, study the writings of Master and Swamiji on karma, affirmations, meditation. Really, you need the whole spiritual path!

Even though it doesn’t feel like grace right now, God is gifting you by challenging you to such an extent that you must turn to Him.

If you haven’t already done so, please submit your name and that of you ex and your children to the Ananda Prayer Council and every other group you may know that will pray for you. I will pray also.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: A Karmic Bump in the Road

2011-11-03T08:07:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Two much-respected Ananda leaders recently hit a karmic bump in the road (literally). Sudarshan has ridden a motor scooter around Ananda Village for 15 years without incident, until a few months ago when he crashed going over a speed bump and seriously fractured his leg. For weeks he was virtually confined to bed, in intense pain and dependent upon Savitri, his wife of 31 years, for nearly “everything in the material world,” as she described it.

My friend S. wrote saying, “I guess I’m surprised they would have to go through something like this. It doesn’t truck with my tidy ideas about karma. I think of karma as being about bad things we did in the past, not about our future good. Maybe they are suffering in order to teach the rest of us to keep on keeping on? This is a tough one for me.”

Answer

Dear S:

About twelve times in twenty years, David and I, with Durga and Vidura, led pilgrimage tours to India to many of the holy places described in Autobiography of a Yogi. We took about thirty people each time, mostly devotees, mostly Americans who had never before been to India or any other “developing nation.”

Because of poverty and overpopulation, you see things in India you don’t see in America. Families living on the sidewalk, beggars, some sick or deformed, surrounding you on street corners, impoverished trinket sellers who follow you for blocks and won’t take “No!” for an answer.

(In defense of India, I have to say that in the twenty years between our first and last pilgrimage, the country has transformed. Prosperity is on the rise.)

Some people choose not travel to countries like India because they feel they couldn’t cope with sights like these. Many of our pilgrims, too, were concerned, but that didn’t keep them from coming.

Their reactions varied. Some moved comfortably through these new environments, others were always ill at ease.

After a while, a certain pattern emerged which I think is relevant to your question.

Whether or not a person could be at peace with the conditions he met in India was usually a reflection of how calmly he could accept in his own life the fact that suffering is often a necessary, in fact, an inevitable stage on the journey to bliss.

In other words, as Master put it, an easy life is not necessarily a victorious one. And what are we looking for: ease or victory?

From the ego’s point of view, the purpose of life is ease and comfort. America is particularly dedicated to this “ideal.”

This is not, however, God’s perspective. What He wants for us is Eternal Bliss. The comfort of the moment means nothing Him compared to Eternity.

Do you understand that? Just to be sure, let me put it another way, in terms of questions you might ask yourself.

Do you rebel against the conditions of your life, or do you see, even in hard times, the hidden hand of God leading you from delusion to bliss? In the midst of difficulties can you find calmness and courage by remembering other hard experiences that in the end taught you important lessons and brought you even greater joy?

In other words, are you reconciled in your own life to the fact that suffering is a part of growth?

Compared to the saints we are all children in the way we operate because our perspective is so limited.

An Ananda mother told me that from the time her daughter was an infant the she and her husband were careful always to say grace before eating, ending the prayer with the words, “AUM, Peace, Amen.”

When her daughter was about three years old, she finally organized her thoughts enough to ask a question that had been bothering her for a long time. “Mommy,” she said, “why do we only bless the Peas and the Almonds?” For all those years, that’s what she understood of “Peace, Amen.”

Here’s another story of the “Gospel According to Children.”

A young child came home from Sunday School and announced happily to her mother, “Don’t worry anymore, Mommy, the quilt is coming.” The mother accepted this bewildering news graciously, not wanting to show her ignorance in front of her child, but after the daughter, went to bed, she called the Sunday School teacher.

Turned out the lesson had been, “Be of Good Cheer, the Lord will send you the Comforter.”

The point of these stories, besides being delightful, is to say: It is all in your point of view.

Karma is neither bad nor good. It simply is. It is energy in motion that has to be resolved. Everything in the end resolves back to zero. Quite an astonishing thought. Every upward moving wave has to be balanced by a trough. No matter how high the waves nor how deep the troughs the overall level of the ocean remains unchanged.

Karma is the waves. Truth is the ocean. We call karma “bad” if it makes us uncomfortable and “good” if it feels pleasurable. This, however, is childish.

The only “good” karma, in the final sense, is having no karma at all. Finishing the game. Coming to rest in the Spirit. Dissolving the ego and becoming jivan-mukta -- freed while living.

Yes, our friends were made very uncomfortable by the motor scooter accident -- he in the physical pain and disability of a broken leg, she by having to give up everything else to take care of him. She called her blog post about the experience, “Never Say: I Need a Break.”

And yet, if through meeting this challenge with “calm acceptance and joy,” as we say every week in the Festival of Light, this apparent “suffering” becomes the means through which the ego is further dissolved, is it “bad” or is it “good” karma?

You see it is all in your perspective.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Alien Invasions in Ancient Times

2011-10-27T08:25:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

[Davy from Belgium asked a long question which we have summarized here.]

The question stems from statements made by Master in Conversations with Yogananda. In #36, Master confirms the truth of UFO sightings, and says someday we’ll travel to other planets as easily as we go now from continent to continent. In #44, Master responds to the desire of some disciples to visit Mt. Shasta in California because they have heard that ancient masters live there. He said there are no masters living on Mt. Shasta, but there have been “colonists.”

Davy asks about research, supported by “Sumerian tablets found in Iraq,” that say Earth has been visited by beings from other planets, who have tried to gain power over earthlings and that perhaps the darkness and seeming satanic influences on Earth now are because of these invaders. He speaks of these dark, reptilian creatures interbreeding with earthlings, feeding on negative energy, etc. In this context he mentions the vast numbers of ways the three gunas can manifest. He also asks about lower astral entities and how to protect ourselves from them.

Answer

Dear Davy:

Many of your questions are answered in the book just published by Crystal Clarity, The Yugas, by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz (Sanskrit names: Purushottama and Byasa). “Yugas” are the different ages — long periods of ascending and descending consciousness — that have happened on Earth over many thousands, in fact, millions of years.

Starting with information given by Sri Yukteswar in The Holy Science, and Master in Autobiography of a Yogi, the authors did extensive research to find supporting facts in history, geology, archeology, religion, and science. They then wove these facts into a fascinating narrative that puts into perspective past, present, and future.

UFOs, interplanetary travel, invasions or colonization from other planets — all of these are included, not in detail but in concept. I think you will find it helps you put into context other research that you have read.

There is also a website, The Yugas.

In the meantime, here are a few thoughts about the questions you have raised.

Your ideas about invasions of other species, interbreeding, creatures feeding on negative energy are all, in a sense, true, but perhaps not exactly in the way you are seeing it.

The drama of creation is the same everywhere. Whether on Earth, Mars, or on planets not yet discovered, the only “plot” in the universe is consciousness trapped in ego-based self-interest gradually becoming free. Everything is a manifestation of the Divine. And everything seeks to return to its Creator.

Ego-based self-interest often expresses itself in cruel and hideous ways, feeding, as you say, on negative energy. It is not that beings caught in this delusion are in themselves evil. They are merely misguided, utterly confused as to the source of their own happiness.

Look at the Chinese takeover of Tibet, Communism under Stalin, the Nazi takeover of Germany. If you want to believe the cause is alien invaders, who have systematically mated with human beings to create an evil race, feel free to do so. I don’t think it is factually true, but it does describe the spirit of what we see in history. At times madness descends, and it is comforting to explain it some way other than merely the degraded potential of human consciousness.

But in fact, it is our own potential. Not you, not me — not anymore. Master says, however, that before the soul attains liberation it experiments with every possible alternative. We try everything to see if it will give us happiness and only when we have drunk each cup to the dregs are we convinced. We don’t learn from being told; we only learn through our own experience.

This isn’t pleasant to contemplate. Among other things, it speaks of a very long time before we become liberated. But why else are we so certain that some behaviors will never bring us happiness? We don’t merely believe; we know.

This is why we have to be so patient, both with ourselves and with others, as we gradually work our way from darkness to light.

In every aspect of creation there are egos striving to be free, expressing themselves in some combination of the gunas — the three levels of consciousness: dark, active, and light.

Some people, some planets, express a preponderance of one or the other. Earth at this time is a mixture. The difference in the overall consciousness of various planets at various times is one of the many fascinating things explained in The Yugas.

In #41 of Conversations with Yogananda, Master is asked if we always reincarnate on Earth. He replied that there are many populated planets in the universe and where we go depends on our level of spiritual development. We choose a planet that is appropriate for what we need in that incarnation.

Technological advancement alone does not ensure purity of consciousness. What we see on Earth right now makes that clear. We have the technology to blow ourselves to bits and no guarantee that we won’t do it. It is the nature of early Dwapara Yuga — which is where we are now. Consciousness is rising but technology is rising faster. Eventually it will work out, but those on the planet now may experience the unpleasant “growing pains” as consciousness catches up to technology. (All of this is explained in The Yugas.)

Once interplanetary travel becomes common, as Master says it will, the idea of interplanetary invasion also rears its ugly head. Yugas run in a cycle 24,000 years long — 12,000 years each of ascending and descending consciousness. There are four yugas in all (we are just entering the second) and war continues into the third Yuga. By that time, space travel will be common so we can only assume that something of Star Trek can easily be reality — planets and planetary species getting all mixed up in peace and war.

The good news in all of this is Master’s comment in Conversations #41. We go to the planet that is spiritually appropriate. He does not say we go where it will be easiest or most pleasant. For all of us, too, are engaged in the great Cosmic Drama of consciousness trapped in ego-awareness seeking its home in the Divine.

All of this is fascinating to contemplate, and thrilling to read about (Did I mention the book The Yugas?!) but in the end, our job is the same. To love, serve, and meditate. For in that way we will gradually liberate ourselves from the only cause of suffering: bondage to ego.

The yugas are a planetary phenomenon, dictated, as The Yugas explains, by external astronomical realities (a planet’s position relative to the center — and therefore the source of energy — of the galaxy in which it orbits).

Self-realization is individual. The planets and the yugas are only the backdrop in front of which the process of realization takes place. Great masters have lived in every yuga, from the highest to the lowest. We go to the planet that provides for us the right context to work out our karma and gradually then to escape from ego into the consciousness of God.

As for astral entities, yes, they do exist. Sometimes souls after their bodies die are too attached to the material plane to leave this world for the astral spheres. They become ghosts, clinging to places and people that vibrate on their wavelength. Not all astral entities are evil; some are merely confused.

A young mother who dies, for example, may be so attached to her baby, and so worried about his well-being, that she will cling to the house or family where her baby lives. Even though her intentions may be good, her actions are not, because they show a lack of faith in God’s plan. Eventually such a person has to learn to trust God, and go on with her own destiny.

More negative attachments, like drinking, drug addiction, over-sexuality, cruelty, or hatred, can also bind a person to this world even after death. Those are the entities that seek to enter into other people’s bodies so that they can experience the material “pleasures” they crave.

Such an invasion, however, can only happen when a person gives up control of his own consciousness — which is what happens when you become drunk, high, or over-stimulated with sexuality. Many crimes are committed when people are in these states. Afterwards the person may not even remember doing it. It is not only the effect of the substances they may have ingested, it may also be because someone else came into their body when they were effectively “out to lunch.”

Not a pleasant prospect, certainly, but one easily avoided! Even when you meditate, don’t just go blank. Lift your consciousness upward to God. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that you can wander into the “dark side” and be strong enough to “handle it.” Maybe you will be, maybe you won’t. Don’t gamble with something so important as your own consciousness.

Ultimately, Light is the only reality. Concentrate on that, focus on the Masters, and you will always be protected.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: New Experiences and Negative Friends

2011-10-20T08:22:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

I meditate daily. Lately I have been experiencing vibration internally — very strongly when I am still but perceptible during activity. It started in my spine, then my heart chakra, now in my throat. I’ve been awakened at night with a whooshing sound, which feels Divine. Everyday I ask Guruji, Babaji, and Divine Mother for guidance. My life is being altered and I am changing. There are moments of insecurity but mostly what I feel is a deep, trusting love. Is this normal?

I have a friend, however, who is not accepting these changes in me. She says I am fooling myself. When I respond that I am feeling and hearing the Divine Mother, this friend gets very negative. As a result, I have distanced myself from her. I feel her negative energy of anger and resentment. She says I am making bad karma for myself. Am I? Is there a better way to handle this?

Maia, from USA

Answer

Dear Maia:

When you begin to meditate and ask God to guide you it naturally awakens energy in the spine and increases the upward flow. This can manifest in many ways, including those you describe. As you are finding, these experiences are wonderful and bring with them a sense of being touched by the Divine.

Your spiritual effort is awakening “the natural love of the heart,” as it is often called. This is a great blessing and very positive for your life. “Everything in future will improve,” Sri Yukteswar said, “if you are making a spiritual effort now.”

Because these experiences are new for you, at least in this incarnation, to feel unsure is also a natural response. If you moved to another country, you would find many familiar elements — people eat, drink, sleep, talk, laugh, love everywhere. At the same time, there would be aspects that would be confusing. So on side you would feel completely happy and at home making new friends in a new country, and on the other hand you would feel insecure.

After a little while, though, when you become familiar with the customs of your new country, the insecurity will vanish.

Entering the spiritual path, getting deeper into the life Divine, is entering a new way of life — delightful, adventurous, promising, but also unfamiliar.

So, the answer to your question, “Is this normal?” is “Yes.”

The response of your friend is, alas, also “normal” in the sense of quite common. She may, in fact, be genuinely concerned that you are getting yourself into something that won’t in the end prove beneficial. She is not showing much respect for your judgment, but at least we can imagine that she has your best interests are heart.

Even if she does, however, she is not behaving in a way that would make you want to spend any time with her right now. You may love her at a distance, but if she is going to insult your judgment and negate these precious experiences, why would you want to be with her?

Your choice to distance yourself is quite appropriate both from a spiritual and a merely social point of view. Even if she means well she is not behaving well. Why expose yourself to that?

Also, when the tree of spiritual development is just a sapling, you have to build a protective fence around it. Even a mighty oak when still a twig can be broken by a mouse. If protected at the beginning, however, it can become a mighty oak, able to shelter and support many souls.

You simply can’t afford to expose yourself to this kind of energy.

Yes, she is still able to direct it toward you through the ether. But that is really her problem, not yours.

Because this world is just a reflection of what we have inside ourselves, people often accuse others of what is actually happening to them. In this case, your friend says you are getting bad karma, presumably for distancing yourself from her.

Friendship is an important value. But a lower duty (dharma) ceases to be a duty when it is replaced by a higher one. In this case, your devotion to the spiritual path is a higher duty than maintaining this friendship. She has forced you to choose. There is no question: God first.

It is not good to say to or even about anyone that they are getting “bad karma.” That is the yogic equivalent of the old fundamentalist accusation, “You are going to hell!” Fortunately, the fate of others is not in our hands. God is in charge.

Still, without accusing her as she is accusing you, it is unfortunate that she has decided to respond this way. Some people feel threatened by the spirituality of others. Perhaps deep inside she knows you have taken the higher path and feels shamed or jealous by the contrast between what she is doing and what you are doing.

Maybe she is just jealous because you have someone else in your life — Divine Mother — who means more to you now than she does.

All of this is unfortunate. But no, you are not getting bad karma from trying to get closer to God, even if, as a side effect, it creates distance between you and your friend.

Still, watch your heart. Even if she provokes you, inwardly keep a kindly attitude toward her. It is not wrong, however, to respond sharply to her if necessary. When people insult something that is dear to you, you don’t have to take it silently. You can speak frankly. Even if your words are strong, however, keep a kindly attitude toward her inside. When a mother scolds her child, she doesn’t cease to love the child. In fact, sometimes she loves the child even more.

This doesn’t mean you have to think about her much or at all. And if thinking about her puts you on the wavelength of her anger and therefore disturbs your peace, do not think about her at all. Don’t even pray for her. You are still a sapling and have to protect yourself.

Tell Divine Mother that you are not able at this time to be her friend, so She will have to take over for you. Then turn your attention away from your former friend and don’t think about her again. If your friend changes, of course, you can welcome her back into your circle. But if she remains angry at you for being a spiritual seeker, you must keep your distance.

These things happen. In life we have to make choices if we hope ever to accomplish anything. Focus. Concentration. Discipline. These are the means to worthwhile goals. Sometimes sad things happen along the way — like the loss of friends who don’t understand. Give it all to Divine Mother.

Where there is dharma, which is to say, right action that leads to God consciousness, there is always victory. The best way to be a friend to this woman right now is to do the right thing spiritually, which is not to let her bad energy pull you down. In the end, she too will be blessed. For when we make spiritual progress, even if the egos of those around us who don’t understand disapprove, their souls rejoice. Your spiritual progress also uplifts them, even if they don’t know it.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: If He Isn't My "Soulmate," Should I Marry Him?

2011-10-13T08:32:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Hello, Due to circumstances I have to marry someone without my full consent. My parents think that this is the perfect situation and this marriage will bring me a lot of happiness.The man that I am marrying is a good person. But, I am not attracted to him.I don’t get the feeling that he is my soulmate. I have lost a lot of faith in God-the only thing I asked god all of my life is for me to be with my soulmate. Do soulmates exist? I am bitter towards God &parents. How can I marry someone I dont love?

KT
from USA

Answer

Dear KT:

I am very concerned about you and even more concerned for your husband-to-be. To enter a marriage unwillingly is a recipe for disaster.

With every little disappointment or conflict you will throw into your husband’s face the fact that you never wanted to marry him anyway. Not a pleasant prospect for him.

You say he is a good person. Then out of consideration for him — quite apart from your own happiness — you should stop this marriage now.

You say you “have to marry” but if you are old enough to marry, I presume you are old enough to walk in and out of a room under your own power. I presume you can get a job, a passport, or anything else you might need in order to have your own life.

What you are saying is that to avoid this marriage you will have stand up to people you are not accustomed to defying. You will create disharmony and be perceived as willful and ungrateful. Perhaps the pleasant home you now share with your parents will become far less pleasant.

In other words, it will be inconvenient for you not to marry him. That is not the same as saying you “have to marry him.”

Do take this seriously. If you are going to be rebellious and unwilling in this marriage, don’t enter into it. It isn’t fair to the poor man who will be stuck with you for the rest of his life.

Now, that is one side of the question. The other side is, “Is this a suitable marriage?”

You say he is a “good person.” Are you compatible in other ways? Do you have similar interests? Education? Goals in life? Cultural and spiritual values? How well do you know him? Does he come from a good family? I am not talking about social status, but rather is his family harmonious, loving, kind? Is he a man of good character? Of noble habits?

What about you? Are you a good person? Do you have high values? Do you have noble habits? Are you generous and loving by nature? Are you willful and self-centered?

There is a spiritual reality called “soulmates,” but it exists on a level far beyond romance and marriage. Paramhansa Yogananda referred to soulmates only a few times in all his years of teaching and in all his writing. That’s because he knew everyone would immediately lower the concept from the spiritual level on which he was speaking to the question of men and women falling in love.

Soulmates, as Yogananda described it, is a union of spirit that comes as part of final liberation — moksha. At that point you have transcended the physical completely.

For the most part, when people speak of “soulmates” they are not talking about what Yogananda was referring to. In fact, usually they mean just the opposite — a gender based attraction that is both romantic and sexual.

Is there a reality to a having a “special connection,” whatever we call it, on this level? Of course there is. Our relationships are determined by past life associations. Whenever we meet friends from past lives the present is always colored by whatever happened before.

Is there only one destined romantic partner for us in each incarnation? Not likely.

Over the course of incarnations we have innumerable wives and husbands. Each relationship helps us learn certain lessons and develop needed qualities within ourselves. Relationships naturally repeat over the course of incarnations.

It isn’t possible to learn all our lessons in the relatively short span of one lifetime. But we have so many lessons to learn, we have to experience life with many different people in order to face and overcome all the various karmas.

I live in America where we are accustomed to choosing our own marriage partners, usually without help from anyone. I wish I could tell you that the perception, “We are soulmates” at the time of the wedding ensures a happy marriage. As far as I can see, it does not. I don’t want to go so far as to say it guarantees failure, but I will say that too much emphasis on how unique and special the attraction is between the couple often leads to an ego-based connection that does not stand up well against the test of time and changing circumstance.

Yes, I know this is hard to understand. Frankly, I did not understand it myself when I was 20 years old. Experience has been my teacher. Over the last several decades I have performed many marriages and done a great deal of marriage counseling, often helping people through the painful process of divorce. And I have been married 30 years myself.

Yes, of course, finding your marriage partner attractive is a great help to your relationship! But the kind of instant attractiveness, especially sexual attractiveness, that is so highly valued these days is not the most important factor in success together. Romantic and sexual feelings can be generated for a wide variety of reasons, not all of them spiritually inspired or helpful over the long haul.

I don’t mean to make light of your intuition. We recognize our friends from past lives. That’s a fact. And love at first sight that lasts for a lifetime does happen.

What I have learned is this: It is not hard to love someone. If you are sweet, tender-hearted, generous, understanding by nature — loving comes easy.

What is very challenging is to make a life together. To make a home, to raise children, to be loyal through the hard times, to understand and support one another, to earn a living, to be faithful — that is the difficult part.

This is what parents think about. Having lived long enough to raise you into adulthood, they know first-hand what really counts in a marriage. In a culture where parents are involved in the choice, they will definitely look for lasting values, and will be, as you find them, not particularly interested in your ideas of “attraction.”

Yes, attraction is important, but attraction that grows out of respect and appreciation for a depth of character that may take time to reveal itself — that is the kind of attraction that makes for a happy marriage.

And yes, it may be possible to have it all, but attraction alone is not the deciding factor. Character is.

You say you have lost faith in God because all you ever wanted was to be with your soulmate and you feel this man is not the one.

Here is a question, “How well do you know him?” Are there objective reasons for your “feeling” that he isn’t the one for you? Sometimes we don’t know our own minds.

Another question, “How much do you trust your parents?” Do you feel that they know you well? Have they shown themselves to be insightful where you are concerned? Are they generous by nature? Are they bullying you into this or is this an act of genuine, thoughtful, loving concern for you?

I guess I have asked you lots of questions, as much as answering the ones you have asked, but this is such a personal situation, it seems you need to look deeply within and try to weigh the factors objectively.

You may still come to the same conclusion: That this is not your husband. Your parents are likely to take you more seriously, however, if you approach this matter in a serious way.

An obvious solution is to postpone the wedding — but not necessarily cancel the whole idea. Maybe if you have more time to get to know this man, to meet his family, to spend time with him, to experience whatever it is about him that your parents find so suitable, that the whole idea will be more attractive to you. Or, it will be so obvious that it isn’t a good match that it will be less difficult to extricate yourself from it.

If you do take that solution — to postpone and get to know him — I urge you to enter into it with good faith. Don’t be a sulky, reluctant person. Open your heart; be interested and sincere as you explore the friendship.

And if, for some reason, postponement is not possible, and, despite your doubts, you do marry him, I plead with you: Give your heart to the marriage. Be a friend to your husband. Be kind, supportive, loving. Above all, accept responsibility for having married him. Don’t blame him, your parents, or anyone else. Getting married is the act of an adult person, so behave accordingly.

And who knows? You may be surprised to find that God has brought your soulmate to you. He may turn out to be everything you hope for in a life partner.

That result is far more likely if you offer to him the kind of love and friendship you have dreamed of having with your soulmate.

Rather than giving up on God, pray that He guide you and help you, either to step away from the marriage if you can’t enter into it with sincere good will, or to make a success of it.

I will pray for you.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Feeling Ashamed for Believing in God

2011-10-06T08:31:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

In the world today it seems that it is almost wrong to believe in God. It is almost as if it is shamefull to believe. How do you stop feeling shame in believing ?

I know i should not feel ashamed of it but sometimes people make me feel ashamed that I believe in God.

L.
from Europe

Answer

Dear L:

If you are associating with people who make you feel ashamed to believe in God, I suggest you find new friends. If they are people you can’t escape from — co-workers or relatives — I suggest you walk away when people speak disrespectfully of the divine. Don’t engage in arguments you can’t win that only leave you feeling badly.

If you can’t separate yourself physically, withdraw inwardly. In the very moment pray deeply to God to give you the strength to resist their false ideas.

At this point on your spiritual journey your faith is fragile and needs to protected from the harsh doubts of others, the way a sapling is surrounded by a fence until its roots are deep and its trunk has thickened. Once you are established nothing will shake your faith. But for now be careful.

Master says, “Whether one’s energy goes outward to the world or upward toward God depends to a large extent on the company you keep.”

If possible, find groups or individuals that support you in your faith and spend your free time with them. If you can’t find anyone in person, then make Ananda Online your community. There are so many resources these days. Even when you are physically alone you can always be in the company of uplifted people through books, recordings, and music.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Escaping the Mental Prison of Doubt

2011-09-29T08:25:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

As a deep, full-fledged doubter, fully aware of the fact that the doubter is often the most miserable of mortals (knowing that doesn’t change the doubt), I have decided to take up Swami Yukteswar's challenge to examine your thoughts for 24 hours to find proof of god. The problem is that he doesn’t really go into much more detail. How should I go about it so that I will get a true result. If nothing happens, I don’t want to be accused (by myself) of not having done it right.

James
from US

Answer

Dear James:

I admire your determination to follow Sri Yukteswar’s suggestion. I don’t think I can help you, however, because I draw a different meaning from that passage. For the sake of our readers, I’ll quote it in full. It is on page 130 of the original edition of Autobiography of a Yogi, in the chapter “Years in My Master’s Hermitage.”

My guru [Sri Yukteswar] ordinarily was gentle and affable to guests; his welcome was given with charming cordiality. Yet inveterate egotists sometimes suffered an invigorating shock. They confronted in Master either a frigid indifference or a formidable opposition: ice or iron!

A noted chemist once crossed swords with Sri Yukteswar. The visitor would not admit the existence of God, inasmuch as science has devised no means of detecting Him.

“So you have inexplicably failed to isolate the Supreme Power in your test tubes!” Master’s gaze was stern. “I recommend an unheard-of experiment. Examine your thoughts unremittingly for twenty-four hours. Then wonder no longer at God’s absence.”

A celebrated pundit received a similar jolt. With ostentatious zeal, the scholar shook the ashram rafters with scriptural lore. Resounding passages poured from the Mahabharata, the Upanishads, the bhasyas of Shankara.

“I am waiting to hear you,” Sri Yukteswar’s tone was inquiring, as though utter silence had reigned.....

The passage goes on, but I am not going to quote it all. I only include the second incident to give support to my interpretation of the passage you are interested in.

It seems to me that what Sri Yukteswar is saying is that if the chemist watches his own thoughts for a day he will see that he himself never elevates his thinking to the realm where God exists, but spends all his mental energy on the mundane material plane. So, of course he believes God doesn’t exist.

In the next incident, too, Sri Yukteswar mocks someone so committed to his ego that there is no room for divine realization.

Because we are opposite in our interpretations, I read this section aloud to a group of long-time devotees gathered in our home. Most understood it the way I present it here, but some did agree with your interpretation, i.e., examine your thoughts and you will discover God.

In either case, there are no detailed instructions and I can’t think of anything more to recommend.

Perhaps if you simply do as he suggests and pay attention to your own mind for twenty-four hours, you will, as Sri Yukteswar says, see how you are creating your own doubts. Maybe that will be helpful. But I don’t think he is promising that at the end of the day you will be a believer. No such luck. There is no short-cut.

When an atheist once challenged Swamiji to give him some useful advice that didn’t include God, Swamiji suggested he define God simply as the highest potential he could imagine for himself, and then work to achieve that.

The problem you face is that your perception of reality is clouded by your doubts. Doubts not only cloud perception, they keep a person from taking constructive action. And if you never take constructive action, your consciousness will not change, and perception will remain clouded. It is a self-perpetuating cycle of misery.

I would suggest that you make no effort to resolve the bigger questions, but think only in terms of what can I do today, in this hour to expand my consciousness, to soften my heart, to help others. Don’t think about where this is leading but only the happiness right action can bring you in a moment-to-moment way.

If you do anything that helps you spiritually, that will help to clear your consciousness and clarify your perception, which, eventually, will help you overcome your doubts.

In Swamiji’s book, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, his commentary 4:40 deals with how the doubter can escape from his mental prison. I encourage you to read that section and do your best to follow his advice.

I will pray for you.

Blessings,

Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Reacting to Others' Nervous Habits

2011-09-22T08:31:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Dear Asha,

I feel very stressed whenever a person exhibits a nervous habit: foot tapping, gum chewing, hair twisting, nail biting, etc. Soon I will be visiting my son and daughter-in-law. I like my daughter-in-law but have difficulty being with her because she bites and chews on her nails most of the time, including while driving, walking, at restaurants, riding in the car, at home, etc. My strong reaction really interferes with being with her. I want to have a relationship with them both, but I dread going there because of my problem.

Do you have a suggestion for dealing with this? I don't seem to be able to handle it.

S.P.

Answer

Dear S.P.:

Whenever I find myself in the company of people who upset my inner peace, for whatever reason, I find if I can turn my attention away from own feelings, toward God and praying for them, I can change my attitude.

At the same time, because I am inwardly disturbed, connecting to God and getting my mind off myself is not always easy.

The solution came to me when surrounded by a group of beggars in India. For many reasons, it was not appropriate to empty my wallet into their outstretched hands. Among other reasons, I didn’t have enough rupees to satisfy all of them, and to give to some and not others would have made the situation even more chaotic.

Besides, I have to say frankly, even if they were needy, I didn’t like their consciousness and didn’t feel inspired to give them the money they were asking for.

Still, they were clearly unhappy, and I wanted to do something for them. Looking calmly into the eyes of those nearest to me, inwardly I prayed intently, “Divine Mother, bless us all.” The beggars had their reason to be agitated and I had mine. We all needed Divine Mother’s help. After just a few repetitions of this prayer, I could feel a divine peace descending on me and radiating through me to the beggars around me.

I wasn’t giving the beggars what they asked for, but I was giving them something they needed. They, too, calmed down and seemed to some extent satisfied.

Since then I have found this to be an ideal prayer in many circumstances. I use it when confronted by angry, homeless, or mentally deranged people, or anyone who makes demands of me that I am not able to satisfy.

Of course the power of the prayer depends on how sincerely and deeply I repeat it. I hope it is as effective for you as it has been for me.

Now, let us consider this from another angle. Why do you feel this way and is there anything you can do about it?

What if it were your son who had this nervous habit, not his wife? Would your love for him overcome your aversion to his mannerism? In other words, can you imagine loving someone so much that the habit wouldn’t bother you?

What if it was involuntary, a twitching that resulted from a stroke, for example? What if you developed such a disorder? How would you want your husband, your son, and your daughter-in-law to respond? And how would you feel if, instead of acceptance, they turned away from you?

Is your aversion to the habit itself, so that even if it were involuntary it would elicit from you the same strong reaction? Or is it judgmental, annoyance at what you consider to be weakness? Is your thought, “Why can’t she control herself?”

If it is the latter, isn’t it interesting that you can’t control yourself, but you are upset because she can’t control herself?

No one is saying that these are nice habits. They are unpleasant to be around and even worse for the person acting them out.

But there is a world of difference between observing impartially -- “Poor soul, so nervous all the time” -- and the kind of response you are describing.

What we judge in others is always a reflection of what we find distressing in ourselves. Our anger at our own weaknesses causes us to react intensely when we see the same weaknesses in others. Even though it makes no sense, we imagine that if we can expunge this quality in someone else it will also disappear from inside ourselves. Alas, it doesn’t work.

Perhaps you don’t have the specific manifestations that you speak of, but what do these habits represent to you?

A great deal is at stake here. Your poor daughter-in-law is not only driven by her inner compulsion to chew constantly on her fingernails, but she also has a mother-in-law who judges her for doing so. You dread visiting her. I suspect the feeling is mutual.

And how do you think that makes your son feel? And if his wife becomes so upset by your attitude toward her that he is forced to choose between his mother and his wife, who will he choose?

You say you can’t get rid of your reaction. I ask you, how much are you willing to risk in order to hold onto it? Perhaps you can use your helplessness in the face of this to create compassion and understanding for others who are also out of control.

Yes, it is difficult to overcome these deep-seated aversions. But God sent this woman and her annoying habit to you as a gift to help you grow spiritually. Your relationship with your son could also be at stake. If that doesn’t motivate you, what will? Sooner or later you will have to expand your heart and develop the compassion to accept others as they are. This seems like a good place to start.

Divine Mother, bless us all.

Joy,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Request for Stories: Miracles and Answered Prayers

2011-09-14T16:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Friends:

Swamiji has asked me to do something that I can’t do unless you help me.

Last spring, he started writing a book called, “Miracles and Answered Prayers.” Many of you responded to his request for stories.

Just as he was leaving for Europe, he said he didn’t feel to write the book himself and asked me to write it instead.

All the stories you sent to Swamiji I have, but there aren’t enough to make a book. I know the stories are there. Every one of us has experienced exactly what this book is about: God showing us His love and concern, sometimes in spectacular ways, sometimes with the quiet sweetness of His unmistakeable Presence.

We love the spectacular stories: that is the “Miracles” part. The “Answered Prayers,” though, are in some ways even more important. We expect God to intervene, as Swamiji has said, when one’s life is at stake. What is so touching is when He steps in simply to make life sweeter.

You may feel you want to keep those moments locked in your heart, but Swamiji seems to feel, in deciding to write this book, that it is time for us to share them.

I like to put names on stories, but if you prefer, your story can be anonymous. Only I will know and I promise not to tell.

The purpose of the hard times Master said are coming is to draw people back to God. A book of stories like the one we have to offer, could touch the hearts of many souls, and awaken many to God.

Stories about our path and Gurus are fine. But all traditions and every context are welcome. If you have friends or family with good stories, please have them call me, or gather their stories and pass them on.

To give you an idea of what we are looking for, I’ve included a handful of stories.

Most people find it easier to talk than to write. So send me your phone number and I’ll contact you. If you do write, please include lots of details, but it isn’t necessary to polish the writing. The book has a unified style and I have to edit every story to that flow.

In about a month I am going to take a “writing retreat” and to make that work, I have to have lots of stories. So I need to hear from you NOW.

Will you help? I would be so grateful.

You can write to me at praver@anandapaloalto.org or call 650.941.1481.

In divine friendship,

Nayaswami Asha

MIRACLES & ANSWERED PRAYERS

#1 from Tyagini Maitreyi

My husband Michael and I are shifting house and home some 4700 miles from the Isle of Man to Pune, India, to be part of the Ananda Kriya Yoga community there. Naturally, this is an expensive move. When we arrive we will be working as volunteers, for at this point in the community's development there are no paid positions for us. The only way to fund the travel, the shipping of belongings, the building of a residence, and perhaps years of living expenses, is to sell the house we live in now.

From the time we made the decision to move, I turned the whole thing over to Divine Mother. It was all too much to handle on my own. If we had intuited Her will correctly, I knew She would take care of everything. My fleeting thought was to sell the house privately (nothing lost in commissions), receive the asking price (no haggling with potential buyers), and being able to stay on some months after the sale (rent free would be ideal!).

I trusted absolutely and did not feel we even needed to advertise. Michael was less certain, and insisted we engage an agent. The advertisement had not even been finalized, let alone reached the gaze of the public, when a work colleague who knew we were leaving offered to buy the house privately -- no agent's fees -- for exactly what we were asking.

Even more amazing, except for a few photographs taken with our camera, he had not even seen the property. And as for our staying on for a few months after the sale? "No problem", the buyer, said. And what about rent? "No need for it!"

Divine Mother engineers perfectly, and in ways that defy all reason!

I am humbled and a little ashamed that even unwittingly I might have begged favor of Her. Not that I feel unworthy of God's attention or Her gifts, but I know there are so many worse off than I.

Still, why would I think that God's abundance is limited, that if Divine Mother meets my needs that She cannot also meet the needs of others? How foolish! She is Infinite. Truly, this human mind cannot fathom the greatness of Her love.

The sweetest gift of all is that through Her generosity I now know without a doubt that all paths are open and India will be our home.

#2 from Manisha

The decision to walk home late that night did not, at first, seem like a foolish one. It was only a mile to the lodge where I was staying, down a quiet rural road on a ridge top outside of Assisi, Italy. There was no traffic at this hour, and no bad characters to fear. I had come to Assisi to "walk in the footsteps of St. Francis" and while I didn't know for sure that he had followed the path I was on, it was certain he had gone on foot, as I was now doing.

For a while, the reflected glow from the Temple I had just left was enough to light my way. But the farther I walked, the darker it became. There were only a few houses in the area, and everyone seemed to have gone to bed. The sky was heavily overcast with no hint of moon or stars. Soon I could just barely make out the line where the pavement met the gravel shoulder.

I began to feel nervous. To still my beating heart, I sang quietly to myself, "Sri Yogananda, guide to inner freedom, steal into my heart of hearts. Banish my delusion."

Surrounded by that song, I felt less anxious, until it occurred to me that in this blackness, I wouldn't be able to see the narrow driveway that led to the lodge. I could walk right past it and never know.

Just then, off to the right, I saw a firefly. I stopped to watch. I had never seen fireflies before arriving in Assisi a few days earlier. St. Francis had special reverence for God in Nature, so it seemed appropriate that I should meet these magical creatures for the first time here.

The firefly passed in front of me and then hovered on my left. In the faint glow of his luminous body, I saw the entrance to the driveway.

He stayed with me all the way to the door of the lodge, then flitted away. Just as I stepped inside and closed the double doors behind me, a torrential rain began to fall.

#3 from Parvati

Looking back over sixty-some years of life, it is obvious that the reason I incarnated had only a little to do with my birth family. I don't have any siblings. It was just my mother and father, a few close relatives, and me.

In my mid-twenties I found my spiritual family and moved into the Ananda community. "Honor thy father and thy mother" is good advice, and I did my best to follow it, keeping in touch and visiting them a few times a year.

Fortunately, my parents seemed to accept the distance between us and never asked me to choose between them and my spiritual path. I'm glad they didn't, because in this life, I could not have chosen them.

After my father died, my mother naturally needed more support from me. Within a few years, her health had declined to the point where I had to move her closer to me. Visiting her nearly every day, taking her shopping and to see her doctors was not a hardship.

In fact, more of a friendship grew between us than we'd ever had before. She even expressed interest in learning how to meditate! That in itself was a miracle. Not that we ever got far with it, but it was amazing that she even asked.

Then her health really went downhill. She was so set against moving into a care facility of any kind that for the first time it occurred to me, "I might have to leave the ashram and take care of her."

"Is this what You want?" I asked Divine Mother.

I had to go deep inside before I could say sincerely and with joy, "If so, I will do it."

Four days later, easily and peacefully, my mother left her body.

#4 from Soma

My fear of pools of water has been so intense and so irrational that when I was a child, even the sight of the toilet bowl would cause my heart to race. I refused to go swimming, and did my best to avoid even the sight of an ocean, lake, or pond.

When my meditation teacher once encouraged me to, "Visualize an infinite sea," my visualization turned into a nightmare. Huge waves in the shape of monsters crashed over me, dragging me down into a black, roiling sea.

"This is obviously a tragic memory from a previous incarnation," the teacher said when I told her what happened. "Forget the ocean!" she advised. "Visualize instead an infinite expanse of clear blue sky."

Sky worked great and I continued to progress in my meditation practice and my life as a disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda. When the chance came to go on pilgrimage to America to visit the places where he had lived, I signed up right away, even though I was concerned about a few stops on the itinerary, "Lake Shrine," for example, and the "Seaside Hermitage," in Encinitas, California.

The trip was everything I hoped it would be. To meditate by the crypt where my Guru's body is buried, to see his shoes reverently placed by the edge of the bed where he slept was pure bliss.

When the Encinitas day arrived, my devotional ardor carried me, without conscious thought, right to the high cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean where he often meditated. Closing my eyes, I was transported into a deep experience of his living presence. A long time later (or so it seemed), I opened my eyes and gazed calmly out at the sea in front of me.

My lifelong fear was gone.

#5 from Richard

My head and arms were hanging out the car window, the way a dog likes to ride with his snout into the wind. I was about five years old in the era before children were strapped into car seats.

It was a curvy road and every time we went around a bend, I was tossed back and forth, squealing with delight. My father's best friend, "Uncle Mac," was driving. Dad was sitting next to him.

Even though my head was outside the car and the wind was blowing in my face, I distinctly heard a voice say, "Go see what your father and Uncle Mac are doing." It wasn't a thought; it was a voice. Although I couldn't remember when I had heard it before, the voice was familiar to me, and it didn't seem odd that it was speaking now.

"Okay," I said, pulling my head in and flopping my arms over the center back of the front seat.

In that instant, the door I had been leaning against swung open. Uncle Mac immediately pulled over. In stunned silence we contemplated how close we had come to tragedy.

#6 from Maghi

We were speeding down the freeway in the far left lane, heading back to Los Angeles after a week at Ananda Village. My husband Vasanta was driving; two friends were in the back seat.

Suddenly, without forethought, I said, "Let's stop for coffee!" Vasanta is a coffee gourmet and had made converts of us, so the immediate "Yes!" from all present was no surprise.

Still, I had barely finished my sentence before Vasanta crossed three lanes of traffic and started down the exit ramp. The moment we were safely off the freeway, the transmission seized up, stalling the engine and cutting off power to the brakes and steering. Fortunately, there was no traffic and the car coasted safely to a stop --right in front of Starbucks!

If Vasanta had hesitated even a few seconds, we would have still been on the freeway when he lost control of the car.

I don't think any church uses coffee during the communion service but for us it will always be holy beverage!

#7 from Richard

We entered the freeway at the same time as our friends, but rush hour traffic soon separated us. In an attempt to keep Eugene's car in sight, I moved over to the fourth lane on the far left. Soon I spotted him about a quarter of a mile ahead, one lane to the right.

There were three car lengths of open space behind him so I sped up to 85mph to move into the gap. As I came abreast of the car trailing his, I let up on the accelerator knowing that momentum alone would place me safely just where I wanted to be.

Before turning the wheel I checked the distances again. There was plenty of space behind Eugene, and in the rear view mirror I could see the trailing car already fading out of my peripheral vision. All clear.

I turned the wheel about two degrees to the right and felt the beginning of a smooth fade into the next lane. At the same moment I glanced into the right side view mirror. A pair of eyes, like a hunted animal cornered in a hollow log, stared back at me.

A fast-moving motorcyclist was heading for the same spot I was about to occupy. I was in the process of turning; we were milliseconds from impact. No time even to alert my wife in the passenger seat next to me. Death was at our side.

In that instant, the steering wheel came to a hard stop, as if at the end of its turning radius. My eyes were fixed on the eyes of the motorcyclist reflected in the mirror, but now I could also see his silhouette outside the passenger window as the air around us began to fracture, like ripples on water, wrapping itself around the front of the car and pushing it back into the left lane.

The motorcyclist turned his body slightly as he pulled into the lane in front of me, our eyes still locked together. Silently we acknowledged that we had been miraculously spared. Then he turned his head away, sped off down the freeway, and I never saw him again.

Ask Asha: My Boyfriend Is Skeptical

2011-09-08T08:24:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Dear Asha,

I feel drawn to Yogananda’s teachings and I want to thank you for sharing them so lucidly in your sermons. My question involves some tension that my interest in and involvement with Ananda has introduced between my long-term boyfriend and I. He was raised Catholic, and although no longer observant, he still views other beliefs with a strong dose of skepticism and maybe even sinfulness. Because these teachings are new to me, I have trouble articulating them as well as I would like so it is hard to explain to him why I am so excited about it. Although he does not outright object to my interest in Ananda and wants me to be happy, I can’t help but feel that he thinks of it as silliness that I will (hopefully) grow out of. I want to deepen my spiritual life and my involvement with Ananda, but I love him and intend to spend my life with him. How can I strengthen both relationships without compromising either of them?

Thank you for any advice you could offer.

H.

Answer

Dear H:

Your question is “How can I strengthen both relationships...?” but the first question is “Can you strengthen both...?”

You speak of him as your “long-term boyfriend”? How many life changes have you been through together? What is the basis of your compatibility? Do you share core values? Apparently spirituality is not one you share.

Has your interest in Ananda revealed to you for the first time his narrow mindedness about spiritual matters, or have you always known it but it didn’t matter until now?

Whether it will matter in the long haul, depends on how spiritually intent you are, and how persistent he is in his skepticism. Right now, spirituality happens only away from home. He knows about it, but it isn’t right in his face. What will happen if you want to start meditating? If every morning and night, you want to sit before an altar and commune with God? How will your boyfriend feel about that? And if he doesn’t like it, will you do it anyway?

So much is unknown. None of us can predict the future.

So what I suggest is that you adhere to a principle that is followed at Ananda and has served us well, both individually, and as a community. “Where there is dharma there is victory.” Dharma means “right action,” or more exactly, “that action which leads to greater awareness,” especially awareness of the divine within. “Victory” means the triumph of light over darkness, of happiness over sorrow.

In other words, fulfillment comes when you adhere to high principles. Yes, loving your boyfriend is also a high principle, but if it comes to a choice, loving God is higher. If in the name of loving your boyfriend you give up loving God, you are not likely to find the fulfillment you seek in either relationship. Jesus put it simply, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be added unto you.”

But I get ahead of myself. But then, so are you, because you can see the road ahead. And if your interest in a spiritual life doesn’t prove to be mere “silliness” as your boyfriend hopes, and something you will “grow out” of, what then? You have a right to be concerned.

Oops, we are doing it again, getting ahead of ourselves.

If you love your boyfriend and he is a good man, give him a chance to expand his consciousness, too, and, even if he doesn’t embrace Ananda himself, he may be so pleased by how happy it makes you, that he will accept your interest in it. In the meantime, “Where there is dharma there is victory.” The only way to bring about a positive future is do your dharma now.

As for explaining Ananda to him, I would suggest you not try too hard. Self-realization is quite subtle, and at the beginning is as much about feeling as concepts. In the face of his skepticism I suspect the clarity of feeling evaporates and the words don’t reflect much of what you mean to say. Even people who have been on the path for years have trouble explaining it to an unreceptive person.

Be light-hearted about your inability to explain. Be the first to say, “Wow, that doesn’t sound very sensible, does it? I guess I don’t have that concept clear yet.” And if he makes objections or points out obvious contradictions in what you are saying, don’t be defensive. Say, “That’s a good point. I’ll keep it in mind.” Don’t declare a commitment to Ananda beyond what is sincere. Say, “It is really interesting and helping me now. I’ll take it a step at a time and see where it leads.”

I have one more thing to say, that I am a little hesitant to bring up, but I feel the need to warn you. You may already have heard me refer to the fact that for more than a decade starting in 1990 Ananda was involved in a huge and complicated lawsuit, two actually, but they were really the same event. We were sued; we didn’t take action against anyone else. In the end, as you can see, we emerged unscathed. In fact, happy, strong, flourishing.

But in the course of those lawsuits Ananda and Swami Kriyananda and various others of us were vilified, often “under penalty of perjury.” Many of those accusations still float around on the internet. If your boyfriend becomes really concerned about what you are doing, he is likely to find them and present them to you as “proof” that Ananda is not a good idea.

Just because something is on the internet, of course, does not mean it is true! We have posted a full refutation, but if this comes up between you and your boyfriend, you may find it helpful to talk to some of the people at Ananda who lived through all of that and can help you sort it out.

Sorry to have to bring that up. But if he becomes concerned about you, it is so likely that this will happen that I thought I should warn you.

In the meantime, let us pray that all of these concerns are baseless, and that you will in fact be able to “strengthen both relationships without compromising either of them.”

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Meditation Reveals States of Consciousness

2011-09-01T08:13:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Hi, I am new to meditation and when ever i sit for it and concentrate of my breath after some time i feel like my breathe is getting shorter for one sec and it gets my immediate attention, and i will lose my concentration. If i continue to meditate for more than 10 min i feel very sleepy. I am so sad. Even when i sit stright my back also pains.. All these disturbing my concentration. Please help me in right direction.

Thanks,
B
From Malaysia

Answer

Dear B,

Meditation does not create states of consciousness — it reveals them, both positive and negative. In other words, meditation increases our awareness of what is already there.

Bliss is already there as our own deepest reality. But so also are many other habitual states of consciousness that we may or may not have noticed before.

I have found over the years that what comes up to distract me in meditation may also be the positive fruit of my meditation. Not the distraction itself, but the fact that I become aware of attitudes, conditions, and mental habits within me that I was unaware of before I started meditating.

Once when I was teaching a beginning meditation class, every one of the dozen or so people there reported some major obstacle to being able to meditate. They included sleepiness, physical pain, fear, sadness, anxiety that they weren’t doing it right, and so on.

In all cases, these turned out to be areas in each person’s life that needed attention. Meditation had made them aware. Which is, when you think about, the point of meditation: to increase our awareness.

When you climb to the top of a mountain, your progress is usually not straight up. You reach the highest peak by first traveling across smaller peaks and the valleys between them.

From even a small peak, you can look down into a valley on the other side, one you didn’t even know was there — until you climbed to the top of the hill in front of you.

What I am saying, in other words, is that nothing is going wrong.

You are just learning how to meditate.

As for your breath, having it slow down or shorten is not uncommon. Breath is related to your state of consciousness.

Your efforts to meditate are taking you into unexplored realms. The extreme shortness of breath can be a subconscious tensing in response to the unfamiliar.

The solution is simple: if your short breath, or any other distraction breaks your concentration, as soon as you can, calmly bring your concentration back to whatever technique you are using. Don’t waste energy feeling sad or distressed. That just increases the distraction.

(I presume you are using Hong-Sau or other of the Ananda teachniques. If you have not yet learned them, I suggest that you do so.)

As for pain in your back, most people find the effort to sit still reveals how tense we are most of the time. The Energization Exercises can help, also yoga postures.

You can also begin your meditation practice with some of the tense and relax exercises taught in beginning meditation courses. Again, if you haven’t yet started a systematic study, I suggest that you do. These exercises can be repeated in the middle of meditation as needed.

You also may need to experiment with various ways of sitting. You make no mention of how you are sitting so I can’t respond specifically.

There are so many choices of cushions, kneeling benches, chairs with and without footstools, wedge pillows, back rests, etc. The most important thing is to find something that works. Keep experimenting until you do.

As for being sleepy, this, too, is a common response to the unfamiliar effort of concentrating inwardly. If it sets in right at the 10-minute mark, then plan in advance to convert to healing prayers, affirmations, chanting — either inwardly or out loud — for a few minutes until you feel energetic again.

Be creative. Meditation is both a science and an art. It is far better to change the program slightly than to have to give up after only 10 minutes each time.

Consider it an interesting challenge rather than a defeat.

Like finding a comfortable way to sit, experiment until you can consistently get yourself over the 10-minute hump.

You’ll be surprised that if you respond with determination your subconscious will soon admit defeat and cooperate with your meditation instead of trying as it does now to coax you away from it with sleep.

Pray to God and Gurus to help you.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Giving Up a Child for Adoption

2011-08-25T08:02:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

I would like to ask a question regarding Karma.

I was wondering, when a mother gives up her child for adoption, does that count as negative karma? What if the child was a result of a violence? would that still count as bad Karma. What should a person do in such a situation?

Any advice.
Thank you.

S
From Ireland

Answer

Dear S:

Conception is a joint venture, not only between the man and the woman, but also with the incoming soul responding to the flash of light in the astral world, which signals the potential for a physical body.

Compared to how often people have sex, conception is an infrequent occurrence. In other words, the karma of the incarnating soul is also part of the equation.

Giving up a child for adoption is not in itself bad karma. It depends on why the parents are acting in that way. (Fathers also have responsibility.) Most biologically mature men and women can conceive a child, but that doesn’t mean that they are also in a position to raise one.

Certainly a child conceived in violence would not be a welcome responsibility. In such a case, adoption would be an obvious choice. Although terminating a pregnancy is also a difficult decision, rape is certainly a situation in which it could be considered.

Children conceived by people who are quite young are often better off being raised by more mature adults. Often it is good karma for teenagers to think first of the child’s welfare and not be swept away by the emotions of the moment.

The incoming soul knows the conditions into which it is being born. Obviously, the biological parents have karma with that soul. But it is not unreasonable to say that the karma could end at birth. The child’s lifelong karma is with the adoptive family.

Later, perhaps, one or both of the biological parents may come back into the picture, but there is no reason to think they have to.

Think how many times the soul incarnates in its long journey to Self-realization. And each time there is a mother and a father, plus, perhaps, adoptive parents, step-parents, or surrogate parents. We live through every imaginable permutation. We have to, because each situation has lessons to teach us.

The “child” is not a child at all, but a soul like any other. The body has age but the soul is ageless. A new incarnation does not mean a clean slate. The conditions of each birth are a perfect reflection of exactly what the soul needs to progress spiritually in that lifetime, based on the accumulated karma of all the lives that came before.

It is the same for the mother and the father. Conceiving a child that they can’t raise is, for them, exactly the karma they need to learn whatever lesson is next for them. Maybe they will learn it; maybe repeated experiences are needed before understanding dawns.

The lesson and the learning are entirely personal. For one person it may be to think first of the welfare of the child. For another, it could be learning to be responsible for the consequences of one’s own actions.

Maybe the lesson is to be less promiscuous. Perhaps it is to be less self-centered, to be willing, in other words, to make the sacrifices necessary to raise a child.

It is important to remember, however, that God is no tyrant. Often we do things without any awareness of the repercussions. We are blinded by many factors and it can be years before we become aware of what we have done.

God reads the heart, not some manual of “Right and Wrong Behavior.” We do the best we can. God knows that.

If, later, you realize you made a grievous mistake, don’t torture yourself with that realization. Look at it objectively, but calmly. Accept responsibility, but rather than feeling guilty, resolve never to make that mistake again.

That is all God asks of us, not to give up, but to keep trying and never to lose faith in His all-merciful love.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Does God Punish Us?

2011-08-11T08:48:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

In AY, Yogananda speaks of "astral slums." I understand that our own actions determine our karma, however, it seems like people are being punished in this perspective of the afterworld. In other books, Y speaks of evil tramp souls and possession, and this seems frightening and odd to me, and almost verging on puritanical ideals. Could you please elaborate on this aspect of his teachings to clear up some confusion for me?

dwaparayogi
From USA

Answer

Dear D:

If you are responsible for raising a child, you must help the child understand that actions have consequences. From the child’s perspective, of course, this is not always obvious. Merely telling the child is not usually enough. Experience is the best teacher.

It is a delicate balance between protecting the child from harm and allowing him to have the experiences he needs to grow. Sometimes a mother has to let the child put his hand on the hot stove.

Our Divine Mother has the responsibility of raising us from ego-delusion into perfect Bliss. A human parent guides a child for one incarnation. Divine Mother guides us for eternity. Whether in the physical or in the astral worlds, She watches over us.

The consequences of our actions do not evaporate merely because our body dies. Our consciousness continues at whatever level of realization we have achieved. In each incarnation we go back and forth from the astral to the physical as one continuous process.

In this discussion, the best word to identify that continuing individual consciousness is jiva, defined by Swamiji in his Gita commentaries as “the infinite limited to, and identified with, a body.” The jiva identifies with the physical and the astral body, so the consciousness is consistent in both worlds. The context is different, but the karma registered in our chakras stays with us.

Here is another point to consider. Yogananda says that in the course of our long journey back to Bliss, we experience every possible form of delusion. If you are no longer drawn to being a murderer, for example, Yogananda says that is because in previous lifetimes you have tried murder and found out for yourself that it does not give you Bliss. Your own experience has taught you not to follow that path.

Just same way that the little child after putting his hand on the hot stove, does not have to be told, “Don’t do that!” He knows.

If a vicious murderer is incarcerated in prison for life, indeed, that is a tough sentence. Is it inappropriate, however, given what he has done and the threat he poses to society? How else will he learn that actions have consequences and murder is not going to bring him the happiness he seeks?

If a jiva behaves in a selfish, hurtful way, without compassion or concern for others, then finds himself after death residing in an “astral slum”, it may seem harsh, but is it inappropriate? If a child does something profoundly hurtful to others, should his mother just say, “Bad boy,” and mete out no other punishment? How will the child ever learn?

But if because of the suffering the jiva endures in the “astral slum” he sees the error of his ways and resolves to live on a higher vibration, is living there a “punishment” or is it Divine Mother’s love?

An evil tramp soul is a jiva so identified with his physical body and the power and pleasure he imagines it gives him, that he fights against the most fundamental fact of physical life itself: that it ends in death. Rather than moving on to the astral world, he clings to the physical life that has been taken away from him.

Without a body, however, he can’t have the same experiences, so he hovers between the worlds, looking for ways to get control of bodies that don’t belong to him. Those who have the ability to see beyond the physical, say that places where people drink, take drugs, or in other ways overindulge in sensual experiences that diminish one’s control over one’s own mind and body, are literally haunted by these dark, disincarnate beings. Evil tramp souls know that in such places they can gain possession of a physical body because the jiva who inhabits it has lost control.

Often violent crimes are committed when a person is drunk or high on drugs. Afterwards the person may have no idea why he did it. He may not even remember committing the crime. Sometimes that is because he didn’t do it. Another jiva — an evil tramp spirit — had possession of his body during that time. Only after the drugs or the alcohol wore off did the rightful jiva gain control again.

To take possession of another’s body is profoundly confusing and detrimental to both jivas. It is spiritually wrong, especially if you take the body for the purpose of committing evil deeds.

Yes, this is odd and confusing. But it does happen. And it doesn’t serve us to shy away from truth merely because it is unpleasant or scary to contemplate.

The good news is you don’t have to fear that evil or participate in it. God’s power is greater than that of any “tramp soul.” Still, don’t allow yourself to become passive in your own life, blank-minded, or intoxicated. In other words, don’t invite trouble!

In The New Path, Chapter 30, “A Divine Test,” Swamiji describes an encounter he had with a disincarnate entity trying to take over his consciousness. When Swamiji felt that encroaching presence, he called out, “Master!” and instantly the dark force disappeared.

Bliss is our true nature. All we have to do is realize that Bliss. We don’t have to create it. We don’t have to earn it. We just have to stop ignoring it.

Divine Mother loves us too much to leave us wandering in delusion forever. Even tramp souls, no matter how badly they behave, are still Her children. She will do whatever is necessary to awaken them — and us — to our Bliss nature, including letting us experience the consequences of our own wrong actions.

If that looks like punishment to you it is only because your perspective — like a child’s — is too small. And if it seems puritanical, well, sometimes a loving mother has to be stern. But a true mother is not cruel or arbitrary. Her wisdom transcends at times our understanding, but through Her wisdom, our own will grow in time to equal Hers.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Christ Consciousness as a Universal Concept

2011-08-04T08:37:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Can you describe in more detailed manner the CHRIST CONSCIOUSNESS that PY talks about.

Is there an analogy in Hinduism to Christ Consciousness?

DP
from USA

Answer

Dear DP:

It is interesting that you would ask the question in just this way. Perhaps the reason the question arises is because “Christianity,” by its very name, and “Christ” as the focus of that religion, seems to have claimed “Christ Consciousness” as its unique property. Jesus didn’t do that, but the church that followed has.

In fact, the concept of Christ Consciousness — perhaps more accurately, the fact of Christ Consciousness — transcends Hinduism, Christianity, and every other religion known to man. Christ Consciousness comes first, expressed through a fully Self-realized incarnated person. Religions come later, as an attempt by those of lesser consciousness to bring to a focus divine revelations impossible for them to grasp directly.

Christianity, like most religions, had a specific founder, “Jesus the Christ” — “Christ” being a title, not a name.

Hinduism has no founder, but is periodically renewed by incarnating Masters — each one a “Christ,” i.e., a fully Self-realized person. The Master who is known as “Krishna” was, Paramhansa Yogananda explains, “Jadava the Krishna,” the word “Krishna” being the equivalent in that language of the word “Christ.” The names and titles together, as you can see, are similar.

To make this point more clearly, Paramhansa Yogananda sometimes wrote the name “Krishna” as “Christna.”

The Sanskrit equivalent of “Christ Consciousness” is “Kutastha Chaitanya.”

These concepts, then, are as much a part of Hinduism as they are of Christianity. But they are not widely understood in either religion as it is practiced now.

In India, however, there is a deeper understanding of these truths than in the West. All true religions, Indian culture teaches, are expressions of “Sanaatan Dharma,” which means “Eternal Truth,” or, even more simply, “That Which Is.”

In other words, creation itself is a divine expression. All true religions in the world — which is to say God-inspired rather than man-made — include the same understandings. Christ Consciousness is one of them, not merely as an abstraction, but as the goal of all spiritual seeking and, in fact, as the inevitable destiny for all of us.

To understand more about Christ Consciousness as Paramhansa Yogananda explained it, I would suggest looking up that phrase in the index of any and all of his books and books by Swami Kriyananda. The Essence of Self-Realization, as an example, has some wonderful explanations; so does The Essence of the Bhagavad-Gita.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Taking the Karma of Others

2011-07-28T08:14:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Can Kriyabans take on the Karma of other Kriyabans?

From A.

Answer

Dear A:

The issue would not be who is or is not a Kriyaban. It would be a matter of spiritual advancement.

In Autobiography of a Yogi in the chapter, “We Visit Kashmir,” Master explains the high fever Sri Yukteswar experienced there as him taking on the karma of his disciples.

Master writes, “The metaphysical method of physical transfer of disease is known to highly advanced yogis.... A spiritual superman is able to minimize his disciples’ physical or mental burdens by sharing the karma of their past actions.”

In a footnote he says, “Many Christian saints, including Therese Neumann, are familiar with the metaphysical transfer of disease.”

It is worth noting that in this discussion of taking the karma of others, Master speaks of Sri Yukteswar, spiritual supermen, advanced yogis, Christian saints, and Therese Neumann. He is not exhorting us everyday devotees to go out and do likewise. Many times he does exhort us to do things we feel are way beyond our present abilities, but not in this case.

In the course of writing the book Swami Kriyananda As We Have Known Him, I asked Swamiji whether he takes on the karma of others. His medical condition is so unusual that seemed a likely explanation.

Even though he is usually quite forthcoming when I ask him questions, especially when I am writing about him, in this case he was not. He talked all around the issue and when I pressed him (inappropriately, I realized later) he said only, “I have prayed to Master to be able to help others in any way I can.” Then later added, “It is up to God. It is not for me to say.”

I remembered the story Swamiji tells about Master being asked in a casual way by a guest at a luncheon, “Dr. Lewis was your first disciple in this country, wasn’t he?”

Master’s response, Swamiji said, was “unexpectedly reserved.” Quietly Master replied, “That’s what they say.” Swamiji explained that “discipleship was too sacred a subject to be treated lightly even in casual conversation.”

A guru taking on the karma of his disciples seems a gift of such enormous magnitude that we cannot begin to fathom it. Among many other qualities of spiritual enlightenment, the guru must have the wisdom to know when the removal of an obstacle will advance a disciple rather than confuse him by taking away needed karmic lessons.

In our well-meaning, but too often blind compassion, if we had the power to remove karma, we could make terrible blunders. Many healers tell how, in the course of their practice, they have had to learn hard lessons about when to make a person well and when to leave the symptoms in place as a necessary learning for the one afflicted.

Perhaps, however, you are asking this question on a much different level. In my book about Swamiji there is a story where he, recovering in the hospital after major surgery, asked the devotee nurse caring for him to please do his Kriya’s for him, since he was too weak to do them himself.

And on his birthday, when a devotee gave him the gift of doing Kriyas on his behalf, Swamiji was deeply touched. And once when a devotee was hospitalized and couldn’t do Kriya herself, Swamiji said he would do them for her.

Obviously, it is possible to help one another spiritually, specifically through the practice of Kriya. This is a more subtle expression of the way we help each other all the time: lending money, lifting heavy boxes for weaker brothers and sisters, being present when challenging circumstances have to be faced. In this way we mitigate the effects of karma by adding our energy to the energy of our friends to help them deal with what comes to them.

However, taking on the karma of others -- more specifically, using one’s body to work out that karma -- seems beyond the reach of all but the most advanced of us. Still, it is a natural desire and just farther along on the same spectrum of what we do already.

Think how often a mother prays at the bedside of her sick or dying child, “Lord, take this suffering from my child and give it to me.” Then think how rarely, if ever, this prayer is answered.

Karma is too complex to be shifted about. Even when love inspires us to want to do so, God’s wisdom closes that door. Only the greatest among us are allowed to pass through it and help in this particular way.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: How Do Others React to the Renunciate Colors?

2011-07-21T08:14:00.001-07:00

[This is in response to a previous letter: Do Nayaswami Robes Draw Attention to the Ego? You can ask your own question here.]

Question

Dear Asha,

I was happy to see someone ask about the blue. Last time I was at Ananda (over Easter) I was surprised by my reaction: I really did not like all that blue. Too much blue! It felt unbalancing somehow. It is not an "easy color" in huge amounts, and there were huge amounts of it. It also gave the place a much more cultish feeling, reminding me of Rajneesh followers who always wore red. I've thought about my reaction a lot since returning. I have read "Renunciate Order for the New Age" and am in agreement with the ideas behind it but . . . too much blue! I find myself ever so slightly reluctant to refer people to Ananda -- how are they going to react to all that blue?! I would prefer it to be subtler somehow. Don't know if others feel this way. . .

in love of guru,
LL

Answer

Dear LL:

Swamiji decided to found this new renunciate order on the afternoon of June 6, 2009. I know the exact date because he was so weak and ill we thought he was dying and on that afternoon he was miraculously healed. I've written about this in the introduction to the book, A Renunciate Order for the New Age.

As I explained in the introduction, Swamiji was lying motionless on the couch and I thought he might be dead. To my great relief he began to speak, and the subject was the founding of this Order. Within the first fifteen minutes he was talking about what we would wear. You might think this a superficial consideration, but speaking from inside the Order, I will tell you it is not. Declaring to self and others, “This is who I am. This is what I am doing with my life,” is part of renunciation.

Yes, there are some souls for whom the relationship with God is so private, that any outward declaration lowers their dedication. But for most of us, alas, this is not true. The ego resists; the soul does not. It rejoices to embrace its true nature, which in this case is the expansive blue of Christ consciousness.

A few days after that healing a small group of people (all of whom later became Nayaswamis) were talking with Swamiji about wearing blue all the time. In fact, we weren't just talking about the color, we were talking about wearing a specific Nayaswami habit, something long, loose fitting, perhaps even with a cowl!

It would be fine within the rural communities, we said to Swamiji, but what about those of us who live in urban centers? Were we expected to walk around the city of Palo Alto dressed in blue robes?

“We've spent years,” David said, “trying to fit in.”

Swamiji responded very seriously, “Perhaps now is the time for us to stand out.”

He went on to explain, as he does in the book, that Master predicted that very hard times are coming. When that will be, we don't know, but you can just read the economic news, you don't need prophets to make you think something will happen soon.

The reason these hard times are coming, Master said, is that the world is out of tune with God, Nature, and our true selves. Again, just look around. It is obvious.

The purpose of these hard times, Master explained, is to bring people back to God. Not the Catholic, Jewish, or Islamic God. Not the wrathful fundamentalist God, but God within: Self-realization, not as a sect, but as a universal reality.

What is needed is more than just good ideas, or “random acts of kindness.” The world will not be brought into balance by well-meaning, but nonetheless self-affirming egos who imagine they can disregard God and make this world right again by just getting enough other self-affirming egos to... well... cooperate with their plan. They may be sincere, but that method won’t work.

Swamiji felt that the visible example of people who have given their life to God in this new way could help inspire and guide others, especially when times become more challenging. Yes, this is a bold statement, but Swamiji is nothing if not bold!

In fact, at least right now, most of the Nayaswamis, including Swamiji himself, rarely walk the streets of America in a robe. In India, of course, they understand renunciation and delight in seeing the blue robes. Even in Assisi, where so many pilgrims gather, robes of all kinds are a common sight. America, however, is different.

To every specific question from a Nayaswami, “What should I do?” Swamiji has replied, “Do as you feel.” There is no “policy” about this, which is why, among thousands of other reasons, the idea of Ananda being a “cult” is simply ludicrous, even if a lot of people are wearing the same color.

Most Nayaswamis do wear blue most of the time, something robe-like for Ananda events, Western style for everyday. Still, when two or more are out together, it usually elicits comment.

Sometimes the comments are amusing. “What’s with the blue?” is a common question.

In a restaurant when four Nayaswamis were having breakfast together, the waitress assumed from our clothes that we were fans of the Los Angeles Dodgers. She was a fan and was also wearing blue. We saw no reason to correct her so chatted happily about the most recent game.

Once when visiting the Apple Computer store, all the employees were also wearing Nayaswami blue t-shirts (apparently it is a very popular color). The group included Swamiji and about a dozen others, most wearing blue street clothes, although there was a robe-like garment here and there.

(We had long since given up the idea of the cowl, and what passes for a robe does not look exactly monastic, but simple and rather Indian. The design of the robe is still a “work in progress.”)

When we walked out of the store, an employee followed us. Apparently he had felt Swamiji’s unusual aura. Pointing at him he asked, “Who is that man? Is he the Archangel of Apple?”

I wear blue all the time, mostly a slightly oriental tunic and trousers, and people often stop me in the street to tell me how much they love the color. Only when I am with a friend (which often happens) who also wears a blue robe-like garment, do people realize that our clothes have greater significance. When they ask, I usually respond, “We have taken a certain initiation.” If they show interest, I tell them more. Or we say, “We are part of an ashram.”

To children who asked me, “Why do I always wear blue?” I said, “It is a promise I made to God.” We were interrupted before I could say more, so who knows what they took away from that conversation!

Now back to your question about coming to Ananda. Yes, all these years, we have consciously tried to put people at their ease, to look and seem like everyone else. But the fact is, we are not. The commitment to God and Gurus is a radical change from ordinary ego-based living.

David and I came to Palo Alto to lead this colony some 25 years ago. When we first arrived, just the fact of having a guru and practicing meditation was enough to put us on the outskirts of society, either the “lunatic fringe” or the “leading edge,” depending on your point of view. Since then, society itself has moved a great distance toward what we are doing.

Best-selling books have been written now about people and their gurus (positive books). Meditation classes are regular offerings at the local library and the YMCA. Yoga is considered an American sport.

Master came to America to lead a spiritual revolution, not to walk in the middle of a parade. Now that the parade has moved onto our part of the sidewalk, we need to take the next step in the direction everybody is trying to go.

It is not something that I would declare, but I have faith that when Swamiji declares he his responding to Master's guidance. Especially in this instance, considering, among other things, that it came as part of a miracle healing. It is hard to disregard an event like that.

Now people who come to Ananda communities, see us in our Temples, and even on the street, can't help but notice that we have made decisions that set us apart. That was the whole subject of the letter that preceded this one, answering the question, “Won't it increase your ego to distinguish yourselves in this way?”

The answer is “Yes,” if you allow it to, “No,” if you don't. But you can't hold back out of fear of what might go wrong. If you fall, you just get up again.

I do, however, understand your concern. My suggestion is a simple one: tune into the spirit and respond less to the changed appearance of things. It is natural to want things to stay the same as they have always been. However, nothing does. Adjusting gracefully, better still, accepting joyfully inevitable change is the secret of happy living.

And don’t underestimate your friends. Give them the chance, too, to think in a new way. They might surprise you.

It is a growing edge for all of us. But isn't that the whole point?

This is a new spirit of renunciation: expansive, joyful. Gradually, people will get familiar with it and the blue color, instead of seeming like “too much,” will be a reminder to all of God's love and the joy of living for Him.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

P.S. I think it ironic that at this time (July 2011) the picture of me on this letter page is pre-blue! Must get another photo taken!

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Do Nayaswami Robes Draw Attention to the Ego?

2011-07-14T08:10:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

The recent photographs I have seen in the Ananda newsletters show that some of the teachers/swami's wear blue colored clothing. Is this really needed? Why do you need a visual distinction between a Swami and a disciple? Is that not in some way telling others “I am more spiritually advanced than you” and in a way becomes a false ego?

Regds,
S.

Answer

Dear S:

Have you seen Swami Kriyananda’s book, A Renunciate Order for the New Age? If you haven't, you can read it on the internet at www.nayaswami.org. Swamiji wrote the book in the summer of 2009 and launched the order with an initiation in November. The establishment of this Order has indeed changed the “look” of Ananda.

Whereas before you saw people dressed in a wide range of colors, now, especially, on formal occasions, you see a lot of uniformity -- blue (for Nayaswamis), white (for Tyagis), and yellow (for Brahmacharis).

Nayaswamis are those who have taken what is called a “Vow of Complete Renunciation.” (“Naya” means new. The whole order is simply a “new” Swami order.) Tyagis and Tyaginis and Brahmachris and Brahmacharinis are, you might say, “novice” Nayaswamis. There is one more group called “Pilgrim,” which is for those raising families, and for others who want to declare their spiritual intention, but for whom the other vows are not appropriate. There is no specific color for Pilgrims.

One distinguishing feature of this new order is that married couples can take vows without having to separate. The Tyaga vow is for married devotees; the Brahmacharya vow is for single people who are dedicated to remaining single for life.

Now, to the question you have asked, "Does it increase or decrease the ego to dress according to the vows one has taken?"

Ego is always a danger, of course, but the point of making an outward statement is to diminish ego’s hold, not to increase it. The outfit one assumes as a result of spiritual initiation is usually plain, simple, and meant to help one overcome vanity and preoccupation with outward appearance.

It is also God-reminding for the one wearing it. And, it must also be said, a way to protect yourself from the temptation to dilute one's commitment by wrong or careless actions.This will be more true as the Order becomes established and the meaning of the garb is more widely known.

Catholic priests and nuns, dressed in their easily recognized religious habits, are treated differently out of respect for the choice they have made. This bit of distance between them and the world helps them to keep their vows. A life dedicated to God is not always smooth sailing. If it is only done for show, of course it isn't very meaningful. But anything that helps maintain the depth and dignity of one's commitment is a welcome addition.

Yes, to dress in a way that singles you out can also lead to ego if one is inclined that way. But spiritual cowardice is also an obstacle that must be overcome. It takes courage to declare to the world: “I am not living an ordinary life anymore. From now on I live for God Alone.”

When devotees here in Ananda Palo Alto began to take initiation into this Order and assume the dress and sometimes the titles that went along with that, some people expressed to me the same concern you have raised. “Won’t this create divisions and lead to ego?”

My response was to ask questions in return. “Has anyone who has taken these vows acted in a superior way, or treated you with less kindness and respect than before? Has anyone in the Renunciate Order made you, who have not taken vows, feel inferior? Has anyone acted as if there is now an inner circle to which you do not belong?”

The answer I received was exactly what I knew to be true. “No. None of these things have happened. In fact,” my friend responded, “those who have taken vows seem happier, kinder, more inclusive, and even more God-centered than they were before.”

For all these years, Swami Kriyananda was the only sannyasi among us, the only one dressed in a distinctive way. Many of us, however, have longed to make an even deeper commitment. And yes, to separate ourselves even more profoundly from the world and everything it stands for.

Until Swamiji formed this Renunciate Order, there was no way to express that longing. The sannyas stage of life, especially for those of us who are married, and have vibrant spiritual partnerships with our spouses, and therefore no inclination to separate, was beyond our reach.

We are so grateful to Master for inspiring Swamiji to found this Order. To allow us, in many cases, to become Swamis together.

Ananda has always been a place of deep spirituality, but adding these vows has deepened us as individual devotes, and made the community as a whole much deeper in ways we didn’t even know were possible. So even those who have not joined the Order have been uplifted by it.

In the Bible, Jesus is asked how to tell a true prophet from a false one. He said simply, “By their fruits ye shall know them.”

One can look from the outside and imagine all sorts of things, such as: distinctive dress will foster a sense of superiority, rather than humility. But imagination is not the issue here.

The question is, “What is true? What are the fruits?” And the fruits -- speaking both personally and from observing Ananda as a whole -- are not at all bitter, but divinely sweet.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: Difficult People Are Our Companions in Delusion

2011-07-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

There is a person that I have known for a while in business. Somehow the more time I spend with the person, the more I dislike the person. I do my best to find the good qualities in this person but, in the mean time, I feel like my effort is failing. One of the things that I dislike is this person always either blaming other people or situation for his carelessness or wrong doing or even refusing to hear what other people’s suggestions. Any suggestions?

CJ
from USA

Answer

Dear CJ:
Each lifetime has a beginning and an end. The body is born, and, sooner or later, the body dies. Because, for the most part, we don’t remember our previous incarnations, we tend to think that the events of one lifetime are caused by things that happen in that lifetime, but this is not true.

Even though the details may be lost to our conscious awareness, one incarnation is like a chapter in a much longer book. The plot began long before this body was manifested, and will go on (for most of us) long after this body has turned to dust.

Your disinclination for your business associate could be caused by his obvious unpleasant qualities. But your dislike might also be exacerbated by previous lifetimes of unpleasant experiences with this person or someone very much like him.

This person may be as unpleasant as you describe, or, your past life experiences with him may be clouding your perception in the present moment. Try to perceive only what he is actually doing, not what you are projecting from experiences long past.

Sometimes our relationships from life to life are with the same people; some are merely repeats of the same kind of relationships but not necessarily with the same people. Depends not only on our karma with them, but also on their karma with us.

One person, for example, may learn the karmic lesson faster. Then, even if his companion in delusion is still bound by that karma, the one who has transcended can go on, and the one still learning has to work it out with someone else.

The fact that this person’s bad qualities can upset your peace of mind means that you still have something to learn from your association with him. That doesn’t mean you have to quietly endure his bad company. What you have to learn may be simply to walk out on bad company. Or to speak up when he speaks badly. Or, it may be to have sympathy and compassion for his ignorance, rather than irritation with him.

It may be that circumstances compel you to work with him, so it is less about what you would like to do and more about how to make a bad situation tolerable. Having compassion and keeping your peace of mind in the face of challenges to that peace is always a good strategy.

“Karma” means, in a sense, unlearned lessons. Since the goal of all life is to be able, as Yogananda put it so dramatically, to “stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds,” learning how to be even-minded in the company of an unpleasant person is a nice way to begin.

When you are with this person, try to keep your consciousness elevated. Pay attention to your breath. Do Hong-Sau if you know it, Kriya, even, if you can, quietly, without drawing attention to yourself (if circumstances allow it). Think of this person simply as a child of God, behaving in a way that is not worthy of his divine nature. Pray for him. Send him divine light. Ask God to guide him away from his wrong understanding.

Concentrate on keeping your own heart soft and open to the divine flow so that you can be an instrument of God blessing this person.

All of this can certainly make your interactions more interesting and beneficial to you spiritually. And perhaps also beneficial spiritually to him.

Try to discriminate between what merely annoys you and what is actually an obstacle to the smooth flow of work. Yes, this person is unpleasant, but how much of his unpleasantness actually obstructs what you are doing together? In other words, choose your battles. Stand up if required in order to accomplish something important. Otherwise, if this person is not interested in your input, don’t offer it. Work instead on calming your own compelling urge to make him different.
His own karma will teach him. It isn’t up to you.

Swamiji’s book The Art of Supportive Leadership may have some useful ideas for getting along with this person, and others at your work place.

I do hope this is helpful to you.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]

Ask Asha: How to Stop Overeating

2011-06-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

[You can ask your own question here.]

Question

I listened to your talk on Karma, and among so many other wonderful points I 'heard' was a mention of food/overeating as being low on the spectrum of material -spiritual energy or vibration. I would like to hear more about this topic on a spiritual level-this is a trap of mine. Thank you.

D
from US

Answer

Dear D:

Your attachment to food puts you in good company. As a young monk, Swamiji said to Master, “Help me to overcome my attachment to good food.” Master replied, “When ecstasy comes, everything goes.”

In other words, we do have to eat. And to prefer food that is pleasing to the palate does not rank that high on the list of things that bind us to delusion. In fact, Swamiji has said, the body seems to absorb better food that it enjoys eating.

You may have noticed, if you have visited Ananda, that the meals are delicious. We often joke that food is the last “legitimate pleasure” of the yogi! The deliciousness of the food at Ananda, however, is within a healthy spectrum: vegetarian, fresh, carefully and consciously prepared.

We don’t have to be fanatical about what we eat. Both Swamiji and Master have cautioned against a diet that is too extreme. Master recommended what he called “proper eatarianism.” Find a simple diet that works for you, he said, preferably vegetarian or mostly vegetarian, with lots of fresh fruits and vegetables, and then don’t give the matter more thought.

Food is not a path to God-consciousness. Merely purifying the body will not liberate the spirit. A pure heart, not a pure stomach, opens the doorway to divine consciousness.

If your attachment to food, however, moves from a mere preference for good tastes, to a wanton disregard of the rules of health, then it does need to be taken seriously.

Anything that we do that is against our own long-term interests has to be overcome. To consistently eat wrongly — too many sweets, fats, red meats, starches or whatever your particular weakeness is — will jeopardize your health. Self-evident.

It takes time each incarnation in a human body to grow up, to find your path, to begin to practice and make spiritual progress. Once you get all that in place, to give up or incapacitate that body prematurely (compared to what would happen if you follow the rules of health) is unfortunate. You may lose years of this incarnation merely struggling against pain, lethargy, or other disability. It may be impossible to meditate, do Kriya, serve, or in other ways work dynamically for God-realization.

Yes, of course, any experience can be used for spiritual progress. But the body is enough of an obstacle already. Why make it worse?

However, karma cannot be dismissed with a mere wave of the hand. We spend a long time getting into these delusions and it takes comparable effort to get out of them.

The obvious question is why do you act against your own interests?

In his wonderful book, God Is For Everyone, Swamiji explores a fundamental premise of life. Everything we do has two motivations: to experience happiness and to escape pain.

The question you need to answer is what happiness do you expect to gain, or what sorrow you expect to avoid, by acting in the way you do? This is such an obvious starting point, I presume, you have already explored it.

I can only suggest that you try to answer the question at the highest level you can. Understanding that your passion for ice cream, for example, is really a longing for God, can make even your Kriyas an antidote to over eating.

Whatever you decide, however, has to be completely sincere and deeply linked to your actual feelings. It won’t work to just band aid a spiritual platitude over a real life problem. Even if your deepest motivation is superficial compared to the Infinite, it is not superficial to you. Divine Mother understands and She will help you.

There is no set “karmic reason” why a person over eats or does anything against his own interests. You have to ask yourself not merely, “What am I doing?” but “What is the effect on me of this action? What attitude or feelings does this action bring out of me?” The answer is always individual.

Here is another way to overcome this tendency. In meditation, once you have entered a peaceful state, center yourself, without resistance, in the fact of your tendency to eat wrongly.

Then lift your consciousness to the spiritual eye. At that point, feel as deeply as you are able the vibration of Yogananda, the freedom of his spirit. Merge your vibration into his, bringing with you your wrong attitude toward food.

You will find that in his presence your tendency will simply dissolve. You can’t be with him and also hold to that vibration. Do this repeatedly and you will find a great change in your consciousness.

In the middle of his Sunday service on May 22, 2011, Swamiji talked about this way of overcoming difficulties. You may find that helpful.

Blessings,
Nayaswami Asha

[Questions and answers from other Ananda ministers worldwide can be found on the Ask the Experts page of Ananda.org.]