Nayaswami Hriman McGilloway

The Holy Week of our Spiritual Journey

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Wed, 29 Apr 2026 03:51:00 +0000

(Note: This article is taken from remarks at an Easter Retreat on Saturday, April 4 at the Blue Lotus Temple in Bothell, WA)

Palm Sunday: a joyful beginning

Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday gives us a microcosm of the spiritual life of the devotee. Palm Sunday symbolizes our first inspirations, insights and awakening. We cry out with joy, “Hosanna!” We are enthusiastic, joyful and eager to be “redeemed.” This is true no matter which spiritual path, guru, or faith awakens us. The “king” riding the “donkey” is the guru or the new-found faith riding the donkey of the ego.

This stage is the honeymoon of the spiritual path. It is, for some, what Paramhansa Yogananda called the “romance of religion:” the outer accoutrements of religion: a new revelation of inspiration, a new teacher and spiritual family, customs, rituals, all bound together with one’s wistful yearnings.1 This is what sparks our initial foray onto the spiritual path. Like all romances, we give little thought to what lies ahead. But the pageantry and beauty of the “wedding” eventually fade into what, by contrast, seems like the dull routine of daily spiritual practices and the inevitable confrontation with one’s shortcomings, failures, and karmic blocks.

Labor of Love

The days between Palm Sunday and the Last Supper represent the unseen inner work that follows the initial honeymoon. In the story of Holy Week, Jesus is said to have gone each day that week to teach in the temple. This is our period of study and practice. It was one of those days, perhaps Tuesday that week, when returning from the temple and climbing the Mount of Olives, that the disciples express wonder at the beauty of the holy temple. Jesus turns to see it and suddenly has a vision of its destruction. His vision suddenly morphs into seeing the challenges his disciples and followers will face in the future.

So it is that during our period of study and practice we get insights into the far reaches of the spiritual path. This period of inner work is necessary before one’s relationship with the soul, with God, or with the guru can evolve into a consistently meaningful and conscious relationship.

The Last Supper: a feast of love

The Last Supper, then, symbolizes the devotee’s breakthrough into a more interactive and attuned relationship to God. At the Last Supper the disciple experiences the love of the guru. This is symbolized by Jesus’ washing of the feet of the disciples. Jesus calls the disciples “friends” not servants. We experience the paradox that combines the personal with the impersonal. For example, a devotee might be uplifted into states of inner peace, joy, unconditional love, or have inner experiences such as light and sound. A more personal experience could include visions, seeing the eyes, the face or hearing the voice of God or guru.

But even here in the midst of this very poignant communion, a discordant note is heard. In the story, Jesus identifies Judas as the betrayer; he predicts Peter’s denial. In our spiritual lives we too may find that no sooner than an inexpressibly uplifting experience comes and we think it is forever, then we crash, tempted perhaps by an old attachment or habit, or crushed by some external circumstance such as illness, grief, or loss. We call it karma; or perhaps a spiritual test. Either way it is the hidden love of God guiding us toward soul freedom.

Co-existence of Light and Dark

In the midst, then, of our committed, consistent and inspired spiritual practices, combined with selfless service and devotion, we are tested, like metal placed in the fire to remove impurities.

In the life of the founder of Ananda worldwide, Swami Kriyananda, he had to endure many health challenges and opposition.2 The one person who did the most to discredit him was nonetheless a great soul. Swamiji explained that as we rise spiritually, we acquire a certain amount of spiritual power.3 He said most people are not that bad because they don’t have enough energy to be bad! We might think bad things, but we don't have the nerve to say them or act upon them.

By contrast, when a soul begins to advance spiritually, aspects of both good and bad traits become more energized and thus more visible. It’s like the panes of glass in a stained-glass window: when it’s dark outside, the panes all look the same—dark. But when the sun is brightly shining through them, you can see that some colors are bright and pure while others are grey and muddy colored.

When a soul is advancing spiritually, their “greatness” is revealed in both positive and negative traits. This visibility helps them to see these flaws and to work on them. But for others who observe their flaws, it is all too easy to be judgmental though it is also an opportunity to be discerning. In such cases, we should contemplate our own flaws and develop compassion for the inevitable tests that lie ahead on the spiritual path as we, too, grow in strength, magnetism, and energy.

And Swamiji would say to us, rejoice when you see your own shortcomings. Let’s face it: most people are more interested in seeing the flaws of others rather than themselves.

I remember Swamiji noting that while most honest people will admit that, “Yes, yes, we all have flaws” just try pointing out one flaw of theirs and its “Oh, no, not THAT one!”

Our Liberator is Known

Another poignant part of the Last Supper, is the “accounting” that Jesus renders to the Father. In the movie “Jesus of Nazareth,” this is portrayed as if Jesus were muttering under his breath, talking to God. (One does wonder who was taking notes during Jesus’ years of ministry and especially at the Last Supper.) Basically, Jesus says to God, “Hey, I did what you told me to do. I have trained the ones you sent me and, as you predicted, only one of them was a bad egg.” It’s a beautiful and touching moment, but it hints at a teaching rarely commented upon which is that from the beginning of our soul’s creation, that soul which is destined to free us is already identified. This has been taught in India since time immemorial.

Jesus is saying that the disciples did not choose Jesus for their guru, but that God choose them to be his disciples. Now, of course, this is very nuanced. In the story of the New Testament, Jesus invited each potential disciple to “follow me.” There is, in other words, always an invitation and always a choice but the fact that Jesus identified each of these disciples is the point here in this teaching. Obviously, these souls had a very specific role to play to be invited.

In Jesus’ accounting he asks God to protect them (knowing that he, Jesus, would be leaving soon). He asks similarly for protection for those many who will be inspired and converted by the efforts of the disciples. So, you see this developing person relationship between the soul and the Spirit.

Who is the “I” speaking?

During the Last Supper Jesus states that "I am the way, the life, and the truth and no one comes to the Father except by me.”4 When Jesus speaks from this level of consciousness, he speaks as did Lord Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: from the state of Christ consciousness, the overarching Spirit with which such God-realized souls are identified. After all, Jesus stated “Before Abraham, I AM!”5 Whatever is meant by “I AM” could not be a personality nor a human body with a face. “The Word became flesh and dwelt amongst us.”6 So while it is natural for Christian devotees to focus on the human called Jesus, Jesus, a son of God, was not speaking like you and I do when we use the personal pronoun “I.” Jesus was not speaking from ego but from the spirit of God. And although Christians have taken that personally, there's no harm in it, except when it gets exclusive and rejects the incarnation of God into other great avatars.

The Soul’s Need for a Guru

The teaching of the need for a true guru is a principle expressed in Indian teachings but in Christianity it isn’t a principle, but is simply a fact limited to the person, Jesus. In the broader context of Truth, the principle is that the guru is the way, the life, and the truth. And as Yogananda would say, “God is the guru.”

This is the great teaching behind Jesus’ words. For those souls for whom Jesus is the savior, it is perfectly fine and understandable to view this as personal to Jesus, but it is an error to deny that relationship as not existing in respect to souls in other faith traditions with other saviors.

Returning to the principle, it is valid to ask: “Why do each of us need a personal savior?” Why? Because WE are personal. WE are identified with the body and personality. It is virtually impossible to overcome the hypnosis of bodily identification and separateness when one is incarnate in human form.

How can it be said that we are made in the image of God when we look into the mirror of introspection and see how fragile, how self-preoccupied, how ignorant we are of our divine nature? The leap from ordinary human consciousness to Infinity is, let’s face it, immense!

The spark of memory of our true divine nature needs to be re-kindled and transmitted so that spark can burst into a divine light to guide us to transcend the limitations of the mortal frame and its ego structure. Moreover, if this truth teaching that we are made in God’s image is valid, there has to be someone who has achieved this realization so that we, too, can see and experience it.

And so there comes from time to time into this world those who have, in past lives, achieved God-realization. They are the way-showers such as Buddha, Krishna, Rama, Jesus and many others.7 They are born like us and encounter the human drama much as we do, but they are free from the karmic compulsions and ordinary delusions that most people face. They act from inner soul freedom, attuned to the divine will.

As Krishna says in the Gita, “O Bharata (Arjuna)! whenever virtue (dharma) declines, and vice (adharma) is in the ascendant, I incarnate Myself on earth (as an avatar). Appearing from age to age in visible form, I come to destroy evil and to re-establish virtue.”8 And so it is, Jesus was such a one, an avatar. But the time has come to see Jesus’ teachings in the true light of their universality.

And so, the Last Supper represents true, inner communion of the disciples with the guru.

The Eucharistic Feast

The breaking of bread is one of the most poignant and spiritually significant acts of Jesus at the Last Supper. It is fraught with layers of meaning. The most obvious significance is Jesus’ command to “Do this in remembrance of Me.” Thus, was born the sacred ritual of the Eucharist. While the Eucharistic feast has been repeated thousands of times down through centuries under generally prosaic circumstances, there nonetheless have been great saints who, while performing or even viewing the Eucharistic feast, were transported into an ecstatic state of inner communion.9

But there are other layers as well. “Breaking” means to destroy and Jesus’ describing the bread as his “body” suggests the obvious fact of his crucifixion, breaking his body. Yet even deeper is the meaning that “breaking the body” is to destroy the hypnosis of the body’s reality as our self-definition. “Break” in this sense means transcending bodily limitations.

Paramhansa Yogananda added an even deeper interpretation: not of the aspect of “breaking” but of the words of Jesus saying, “Whoever eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life.”10 But for me to explain this I must digress.

In the ancient teachings of India, the world is divided into consciousness and form. Consciousness is the “only begotten” aspect of the Father (who is beyond creation) because the Father is only Consciousness and in manifesting creation from what is ONLY consciousness means that some kernel of consciousness is in everything. The indwelling consciousness at the heart of matter is the “son of God” even though not generally cognized by any except a God-realized soul.

In inanimate objects and less self-aware beings, macro or micro in size, consciousness manifests more accurately as instinct, intelligence and intention. The shape, color, and other attributes of minerals reflect their cohesive intelligence and latent individuality. Such is easier to see in plants and animals. All objects in creation possess an element of uniqueness and individuality, and with movement comes hints of future free will.

But the outer form, shape and movement of creation is that part of the God-the -Father that births outward form. It is, in a sense, the Mother of creation. It is ceaseless, restless movement. It births the myriad forms that creation has taken. Those forms are guided in their movement and manifestation by the invisible Intelligence that resides at their center which is known as the Christ consciousness. The quote that “God so loved the world that he sent his only-begotten son” takes on a macrocosmic meaning when understood in this overarching view that states that God’s joy and love rests silently at the heart of every atom of creation.11

The ceaseless universe of forms and energy can also be called the Holy Spirit. It is that all-knowing, all-protecting vibration that, like the mother, gives birth, protects, and comforts its child. As the mother of all creation, it is all-knowing. It too is God manifesting AS the creation. The two—Christ consciousness within creation and the Holy Spirit AS creation—work together in a cosmic dance simultaneously manifesting creation guided by intelligence and, in humankind, its budding self-awareness. When an individual soul achieves realization of all three aspects of the Trinity and takes human form, this “son of God” comes for a divine purpose.12

Returning to the Last Supper, Yogananda likens the “bread” that Jesus said is his “body” to the indwelling Christ consciousness in all creation from the smallest to the largest. He likens the “wine” to the flowing vitality of the Holy Spirit-Mother, the energy of creation out of which all forms appear. To “eat” and “drink” my “body and blood” is to commune inwardly with the universal Christ Intelligence and simultaneously with the universal Holy Spirit (the Amen or Aum vibration).

Doing this in “remembrance of me” is to overcome the delusion of our soul’s containment in the bodily prison of ego. This is our soul’s destiny, the promise of our immortality. These “bread” and “wine” are the divine essences of all Creation and are manifestations of the Father who is beyond creation. When we perceive that our true sustenance is of God, then we are partaking of the bread and wine of divine life. No surprise then that the Eucharistic feast no matter how it is understood contains a great spiritual truth.

Self-Effort & Grace

And so, this is the Last Supper, a veritable feast of inner communion with the Lord. But this too is marked with a discordant note: Jesus’ identification of Judas as his betrayer and his prediction that Peter would deny him three times that very night. So it is that even we during our own inner communion still have flaws (karma) to work out. We can go from one moment of soul joy to descend the next moment (or day) into the hellfire of personal delusion. We cannot “save” ourselves by effort alone; nor do we have to achieve perfection on our own to realize our divinity.

Our effort attracts the grace that lifts us beyond our (merely) human nature. We give the spiritual path everything we have in devotion, self-discipline and virtue but these alone are insufficient for the realization of God as our true Self. Our soul, when energized by grace, shines forth and eclipses our mere humanness. Think of even just the apostles and their many flaws, heated arguments, and lack of understanding. Yet, they, even unto death, carried out the will of God, just as Jesus did and in so doing Jesus promised the apostles that they would “see” Jesus coming in clouds of glory.13

Crucifixion of the Ego

Next in the order of the events of Holy Week comes the crucifixion. As Yogananda put it (somewhat tongue-in-cheek), "Jesus was crucified once, but his teachings have been crucified daily ever since” by misunderstanding, dogmatism and sectarianism.

But do we not do the same? No matter how fruitful and committed we are to being mindful of the Christ presence within and in all people and circumstances, how often do we lose touch during the day and get enmeshed in our tasks, our fears and our desires and thus do we crucify the living Christ within us, our own true self? Like Peter, we, in effect, deny Christ far more often than he ever did.

And so, we must perforce experience the crucifixion in our own way. I don't mean in the way Jesus did, nailed to a cross. That was pretty dramatic, let's face it. Far too many Christians have fixated on their repulsion of or fear of the cross, but as others have noted, in those times long ago the Romans crucified thousands of people. I'm not saying it is to be dismissed, but it was not uncommon. More importantly, there are other ways to be “crucified.”

You can be crucified publicly by lawsuits, by calumny, by libel, by all sorts of things: chronic illness, poverty, and rejection. Jesus promised persecution in the Sermon of the Mount because the world doesn't like devotees. They're embarrassed because the aspiration of devotees makes people feel bad about themselves. And so it is that there are different forms of crucifixion. “Who are my family, my mother, my brothers,” Jesus said, “but those who love God.”14 We find that we do sometimes get “crucified” in a sense by our own family for taking up the spiritual path, or by our friends who would rather us go to the bar, to the movies or to engage in gossip.

Our karma is our cross. And karma happens whether we take it up with faith and the willingness to do God’s will or not! “Sufficient unto the day,” Jesus said, are the trials and troubles that come to us. Nobody, as Buddha said, gets away from illness, old age, and death. And those are just the basics.

And so it is that we have troubles. The devotee who carries his cross means I accept that which I cannot change as coming from God. My karma is the gift of God because it reminds me of what lessons I have come to learn. It is an expression of the love of God calling us to be purified to return “home” to God-realization.

And so, to the devotee, as Krishna says, “night is day and day is night.” The night of troubles to the worldly man are the daylight of divine will to the devotee. The day of worldly pleasure and material success are the nighttime of delusion to the devotee. Those trials and challenges that we all have in life, the devotee accepts with faith. It is through this that the resurrection of soul-consciousness occurs. With each meditation, with each prayer, the resurrection of Spirit is the natural consequence.

Resurrection is for Everyone

Christians mostly view Jesus’ resurrection as a gift from God rather than the natural consequence of his acceptance of the divine will. “Look at that,” they say, “it’s a miracle (and besides He's the son of God, why not?). In the Garden of Gethsemane Jesus prayed, briefly, that the bitter cup of humiliation and pain be taken from him, but he immediately acquiesced to what he knew (from the beginning of his life) was God’s will.

Saying that Jesus paid the penalty of our sins is too close to an excuse not to accept the burden of our own sins (karma). It’s true that in the teachings of India an avatar can take on the karma of disciples, but the “sins of the world” is but much: a mere sentiment. Primarily it is Jesus’ example of acceptance even under such extreme circumstances as crucifixion that is the gift and the lesson for us. His greatest miracle was to say from the agony of the cross, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”15

Jewish tradition contained references to the resurrection or ascension of the physical body.16 It is not therefore surprising that Jesus’ resurrection of his physical body was appropriate to the great drama of his life. At that time in Jewish history, the sect of the Sadducees didn’t even believe in an after-life. The Jews expected that the Messiah was going to be both a political leader and a spiritual leader. The human body was, in the consciousness of those times, the only reality and definition for “who I am.” So not only was Jesus’ physical resurrection an appropriate symbol, but the idea of retaining or resurrecting one’s physical form was in line with the expectations of his people.

But here too, the deeper point has largely been missed. “I and my Father are ONE” Jesus declared. The destiny of the soul is not to live in corporeal form for eternity. It is to enter communion with the blissful Spirit out of whom we were created. Idolizing the physical body is simply another form of ego-affirmation. The soul has no form and no gender. “God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”17

So the four major events of Holy Week are a metaphor for the spiritual path; these events are symbols for what we have come to this world to do.

A New Dispensation

A shift is taking place from an emphasis on crucifixion to an emphasis on communion, on resurrection. Meditation techniques can prepare one to be “Still and know that I AM God.”18 They are a means to achieve “inner” communion rather than only just formal, ritualistic communion.

Christianity has long focused on what is given up; what is endured; what is sacrificed. But that emphasis is from the point of view of the ego which resists sacrifice. But the time has come to focus on the soul’s goal of union with God; on the joy of living for God. In this view, the need for ego transcendence becomes a means to end and not an end in itself. Sacrifice, forbearance, and acceptance will always be essential to the spiritual life but for us in this emerging age our inspiration will derive not from suffering but from the joy of the soul.

As Jesus brought a New Covenant to his times, so too is a New Dispensation, a new, deeper and more universal understanding is emerging. Great souls like Paramhansa Yogananda, author of Autobiography of a Yogi, are way showers of this New Dispensation. Its focus Is on the individual and away from the hierarchy of institutional authority. It has a name: Self-realization. Existing faith traditions will presumably survive and each, in their own way for their own people, will begin to shift the emphasis from outward form to Spirit, to the inner experience of God’s presence using whatever terminology is meaningful to them.

Techniques of silent prayer and mindfulness will grow in popularity. Guidance and wisdom from appropriate and approved sources will always be needed lest chaos and heresy destroy the universal essence of truth. But an important shift, nonetheless, can be expected in the coming times, even centuries.

The worldwide social emphasis on individual freedoms and justice is an outward expression of this inner shift in consciousness. For now, existing institutions are largely resistant to this shift as it would seem to undermine their authority and power over others. But the long-term trend is unstoppable even if some existing power structures seem to be successfully turning the clock back.

What valid faith can condemn other faiths in a world so connected and so in need of universal validation of common goals and universal truths? Accommodation, mutual respect, and shared understanding is obviously needed. Only faith traditions offer the message and motivation for peaceful co-existence in this conflict-ridden human drama. No other human endeavor (art, politics, humanitarianism) uplifts the individual soul away from ego to soul transcendence because God alone, grace-alone is our soul’s salvation. It therefore behooves people of faith to step up and carry forward the universal message that we are children of the One God who manifests all forms.

May everyday be a new awakening, a resurrection of soul Joy!

Nayaswami Hriman

Easter: What the Christians Overlooked

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Thu, 02 Apr 2026 00:18:00 +0000

Christianity chose to emphasize the crucifixion of Jesus Christ rather than his resurrection. The result was that suffering became the measure of holiness. But it needn’t have been so.

Instead of suffering, the consequence of inner peace or joy might have been the measure of a true Christian for those who accept life’s inevitable troubles with faith in God.

As compassion is the measure of a Buddhist, non-attachment that of a Hindu, surrender that of a Moslem, joy might have been the measure of a Christian. And why not? “Sufficient unto the day are the troubles thereof” Jesus himself said, warning his disciples from seeking suffering. No one seeks suffering while everyone seeks happiness.

Yet we all have our crosses to bear. No one is immune from illness, old age, and death plus an unending host of disappointments, hurts, addictions, nagging desires and fears. That these alternate with the pleasures, successes and fleeting happiness of life simply makes the troubles bearable—most of the time. But the fact of suffering—great suffering—cannot be dismissed in this world of woes.

Though Jesus has been depicted as a “man of sorrows” who would follow such a man to the degree of accepting martyrdom if there were not some deeper consolations such as inner peace or joy? He had to have been a person of vitality, enthusiasm and joy even if his humor seems to have been more of the “tongue-in-cheek” variety.

Jesus’ sacrifice was certainly heroic and dramatic, though many have pointed out that crucifixion was all too common in those times: thousands of Jews and others throughout the Roman empire suffered the same fate.

Another point that seems to have been misunderstood is the resurrection itself. If bodily suffering has preoccupied the attention of Christians, then bodily resurrection has also been too greatly emphasized. The point of resurrection is the victory of the soul over matter, over death. Bodily resurrection may have had its place in the Jewish culture and so using it was fitting but the deeper lesson is not that, “Oh boy, I get my body back!” The deeper lesson is that the soul’s communion with God has power even over life and death. The soul is made in the image of God and in attunement with the divine one can even heal the sick and raise the dead.

In more common terms, the extent to which we accept our crosses, our troubles, pains and suffering as the will of God and with faith in God’s goodness, the more we partake of the joy, grace, and power of God.

Doing God’s does not mean being a doormat for evil. Jesus himself said he could have sent a legion of angels to protect him but that it was God’s will that he undergoes his sacrifice. Turning the other cheek must be understood as counsel to not react in kind to our hurts but to seek the soul’s calm wisdom to guide our response.

So far as injustice, consider Jesus’ attack on the moneychangers in the temple. There are situations where righteous indignation, protection of the innocent and even self-defense is warranted but none of these require hatred or viciousness.

It is time to change the emphasis so that the Resurrection is seen as the natural result of faith, courage and calmness in the face of those troubles that come in the natural course of life and of our own karma. Our karma is the will of God at least in the sense that karma comes to us to coax us to learn our lessons. As such it expresses the love of God to guide us back to his home for, we are the prodigal children who have gone to foreign lands of ignorance and forgetfulness.

Resurrection of soul wisdom is the result of a life lived in attunement with God. That is the lesson and that is what we (yogis) affirm and celebrate at Easter.

Mahasamadhi: Preparing for the Final Exam

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 07 Mar 2026 20:19:00 +0000

When Paramhansa Yogananda returned to India in 1935, it was at the summons of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar.

Whether that call came telepathically or by ordinary means, we cannot say. Likely there were many reasons for his return: his family, especially his father; his disciples and gurubhais; and the fledgling work he had begun in India, including the school he founded.

Yogananda’s arrival created quite a stir. Newspapers — the “internet” of their day — followed his travels throughout the country. Hailed as India’s favorite son returning home, he was welcomed wherever he went.

From Chapter 42 of the “Autobiography of a Yogi” (Yogananda’s life story), one might think he never imagined that Sri Yukteswar would leave this world. But sometimes the soul — or Divine Mother — veils from our conscious mind what might otherwise seem obvious. Enlightened beings do not “overthink” the way we do, coloring everything with anxiety or fear. Instead, guidance flows to them as a steady stream of intuition, as natural as eating or drinking.

Stories of individuals who know the time of their departure from this world are uncommon but not unheard of. Yogananda himself gave many hints of both his future passing and (later) its imminence. Someone once asked me whether mahasamadhi was a kind of spiritual suicide. I laughed at the absurdity. A master does not leave this world out of disgust or disappointment. More importantly, an enlightened master no longer functions from ego-desire. The time, place, and manner of his passing may be intuitively known, but it is not an act of personal will. Rather, it is in harmony with the greater flow of divine will.

According to disciples’ accounts, both Sri Yukteswar and Lahiri Mahasaya were momentarily taken aback when the awareness of their impending departure surfaced in the conscious mind. Even a master may need to take brief refuge in the Self when the “news” arrives from above. We have no such report from disciples regarding Yogananda’s passing on March 7, 1952, however.

A dear friend of mine is now in hospice at Ananda Village. We knew each other briefly before either of us — independently — found Ananda and became disciples on this path. Recently we reminisced about his full and eventful life. He is ready for his astral airplane trip, and he hopes he might have a chance to see Swami Sri Yukteswar on Hiranyaloka, even if only briefly. Hiranyaloka is a very high astral world, where Sri Yukteswar is said to be preparing highly advanced souls for their final entrance into Cosmic Consciousness. I suspect Nakin may not be eligible to stay, but perhaps his sincere wish to see that realm — and to see Sri Yukteswar — will be granted.

Yogananda tells us that those who faithfully follow the spiritual path to the end of life will be greeted by him or one of the masters upon entering the astral world. I pray that my friend’s wish is fulfilled. And I pray for myself, and for each of us, that we may be spiritually and emotionally prepared when our own final exam arrives. My friend has always been straightforward, positive, energetic — a “Say yes, and make it snappy” kind of devotee.

As we celebrate the soul’s power over life and death — our own immortality — demonstrated by the conscious exit of both Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Sri Yukteswar, let us also reflect on our own departure. The Bhagavad Gita and other great scriptures remind us that the thought at the moment of death has a profound influence on our experience in the astral world and on our next birth.

Let us not spend those final moments dwelling on regrets or unfulfilled desires. Instead, let us offer ourselves joyfully and unreservedly into the arms of Divine Mother, eager to meet the master’s loving embrace. The soul is untouched by karma. Freed from the physical body, we are closer to the soul, which in the astral world is only one step from the causal body of pure ideation.

The more we live intuitively — quieting the static of the restless mind so we can hear the whispers of eternity — the more natural our transition will be when the physical body is shed and we awaken in the astral body of light. Without the human brain and nervous system, we will function with greater clarity if, in this life, we learn to live more in the astral body of calm intuitive feeling, open to higher guidance moment by moment.

Let us prepare for our own astral balloon ride into the astral world. And as we do, we will find far greater inspiration, joy, and harmony than the ever-anxious, ever-grasping ego could ever offer.

Blessings to you on the anniversary of the Mahasamadhis of Paramhansa Yogananda (3.7.52) and his guru (3.9.36),

Swami Hrimananda

And the Light Shineth in Darkness! Why?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 24 Jan 2026 04:02:00 +0000

”And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not.1”

Can “darkness” comprehend anything at all? Does not light simply banish darkness by its very presence?

These are questions that arise when reading verse 5 of John, Chapter 1:

It is commonly understood that the Gospel of John is the most metaphysical of the four gospels, focusing on the divinity of Jesus and somewhat less on the details of the historical and Jewish Jesus.

For those unfamiliar with the chapter, a complete reading of that chapter reveals that the term “light” is a reference to Jesus Christ.

Just as the chapter itself contrasts the impersonal light of Christ with the person of Jesus so we see a similar contrast in the fact that verse 5 says the light shines in darkness while the darkness fails to comprehend the light.

Normally light shining into a dark room illuminates the room and thus the darkness vanishes. But in verse 5 the two coexist.

Added to the contrast is the whole idea of darkness comprehending anything at all. Clearly the terms of light and dark are metaphorical, and the former is divine consciousness, and the latter is, at best, ignorant of divine consciousness.

Here one is reminded of Advaita Vedanta saying that behind all appearances, name, form and thought is the eternal, unchanging Consciousness: Satchidanandam (God: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss). Both co-exist in time and space, and in individual human consciousness. The Spirit, though residing at the heart of all things, remains untouched, untainted by the outer expression taken by name and form.

The choice we humans have been given is to seek that light or to remain in ignorance, in disregard, or even in rejection of that light. If Jesus Christ is that light and if that light is the “life of men” then we, too, are made of the light. “Without him was not anything made that was made.”

The very nature of things made requires the contrast between light and dark. Things having shape, form, name and many attributes must necessarily hide the light, which is their essence. Creation is the very drama of light and dark, and in this sense, the “dark” does not necessarily reject the light, at least not at first.

But to perpetuate itself, the creation naturally has a bias toward form, and form has a bias toward turning its back on the light. Thus, an impetus can become a conscious choice, a rejection and a rebellion, especially when it perceives but rejects the magnetic call of the light to return to it. As the impetus to be separate becomes conscious and intentional, it becomes essentially “satanic” whether in the macrocosm of creation or the microcosm of one’s mind.

When a beam of light is sent out into the darkness of the night, there is a point at which one, at a distance, can no longer see the beam of light. It’s not that the light or dark are vying for supremacy so much as the light has gone too far from its source and is no longer visible. One must move back toward the light to see it. Light and dark are not opposites; dark is the absence of light. Light is the essential reality of all things.

Think of Jesus, himself. How few understood who he was. “Who do men say I am?” He asked. You and I also must ask ourselves the same question. A Christ such as Jesus comes to reveal that light to those with eyes to see it. There weren’t many who did but there were enough who gave their lives in testimony and as a result changed human history.

We face two types of darkness: the darkness inherent in matter, in the human form, and in the human drama of life that requires so much of our energy and attention to deal with our very existence and which at the same time invites us to seek happiness in its material rewards. The second type of darkness is that which we create by our personal fantasies, errors, projections of happiness, fears and lack of clarity and even lack of goodwill, meaning selfishness and meanness.

The path back to the light is not easy and is infected with the darkness that comprehends it not; the path back requires more than a mere intellectual acceptance. Our souls require an injection, a transmission of the light from a source of that light. That transmission, that source is the guru, the avatar, the savior. “But as many as received him, to them gave he the power to become the sons of God.”2 The living Christ-masters who descend age after age are the transmitters of that light to those who will “receive them.”

This isn’t a denial that at the heart of all things is that light. Like the Prodigal son who remembered his life at his father’s home, our souls have the memory of that light. But the memory is not enough given the darkness that surrounds us and around which we constructed our own self-definitions. The savior comes first to awaken that memory and then, for those who will truly “receive Him,” the savior can pour out the grace into that soul for its redemption. First comes the remembrance; then comes our own intense self-effort which like a magnet attracts the uplifting power of divine grace.

As name and form (duality) rule the created universe, so must the light use instruments through which to shine. I would go further than even this and say that the purpose of our existence is to be channels for the light.

There is a tendency to see God apart from us in His heaven; or to imagine Satchidanandam separate and apart from the visible creation, untouched by it. While there’s nothing wrong with these static and simplistic images, we can never fully understand the “why” of all of this. Nor do I pretend to have a satisfying answer to the “why” question. Paramhansa Yogananda said simply: “You will know when you will know.” He also suggested that we save some questions for when we meet the Creator ourselves. It is worthy of note that no great saint, savior or avatar has ever expressed disappointment or resentment towards God’s purpose.

However, without the logical conundrum of positing that God is somehow incomplete, let us take a cue from science and accept what simply is: this creation. I suggest therefore that we not view the creation as incomplete but rather as a window, an opportunity to see its completeness in the contemplation of the Spirit manifested in creation. We might then adopt the view that the purpose of creation is to enable the awakening of self-awareness in a name and form (the human form) capable of achieving transcendence of the natural limitations of its own form, seeing the Spirit AS the creation; WITHIN the creation; and even UNTOUCHED and BEYOND the creation. Let me make my case:

Satchidanandam sounds like an ideal description of God: ever-existing (immortal); ever-conscious (omniscient); ever blissful (ananda). Yogananda added a sneaky phrase to the “Ananda” part: “ever-new.” Now how can anything be “ever-new” and static at the same time? I suggest it cannot be. As my teacher, Swami Kriyananda, now famously has added: “It is the nature of bliss to share.” Herein, I believe, is a secret that Yogananda hints at but didn’t feel the world was ready for: it is not that God (Satchidanandam) is somehow incomplete but its very nature is to take shape through name and form and to discover itself, its light, in the uncomprehending darkness that is, both ironically and necessarily, the nature of name and form.

Yes, as others far wiser have said: creation is a game; a lila; a play; a great drama. Yogananda said that “The drama of life has for its moral the fact that it is merely that: a drama, an illusion.”3 There, he said it.

What I feel to add, if that is fair to say, is that this great drama isn’t just a disappointment or a conundrum, a misfortunate to us because of its troubles. The very purpose of creation is for the light to produce the name and form that at last cognizes the great drama and the great light of God upon which it is built: WE ARE the apogee, the purpose, the raison d’etre. “Who do men say I AM?”

I can’t say that the light is somehow compelled by its nature to do this, but I’m not sure the distinction is useful since reality suggests that both are part and parcel of reality. It is not unlike the nuances in Advaita Vedanta between pure non-duality, modified duality and duality. What IS, simply IS.

The dualists who worship God in name and form and are consumed by their love are no less great than those who are absorbed in the state of nirbikalpa samadhi.

As I heard other friends say, “We were born for this.” Isn’t this the “good news” of the gospel? The promise of our soul’s immortality? Of course, it is, but it is also something else: like it or not, it is necessary. Like playing golf by the rules, it’s the only way it can be. Right here, right now, the light is shining in darkness. The light is as much a reality with each of us right now as it can ever be. We need only to re-direct our love and attention, and self-definition, to the light. With our effort and the savior’s grace, we will be free.

Joy to you!

Swami Hrimananda

1. John 1:5

2: John 1:12

3. 3 Essence of Self-Realization, The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda, Chapter 1, “The Folly of Materialism,” number 3.

A New Dispensation - Second Coming of Christ

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Tue, 23 Dec 2025 03:02:00 +0000

In Chapter 4 of the Bhagavad Gita Krishna says to Arjuna, his disciple,

“O Bharata (Arjuna)! whenever virtue (dharma) declines, and vice (adharma) is in the ascendant, I incarnate Myself on earth (as an avatar). Appearing from age to age in visible form, I come to destroy evil and to re-establish virtue.

Who knows the truth touching my births on earth and my divine work, falls no more down to earthly birth. To Me he comes, dear Prince!”

The descent of a world savior-teacher (an avatar) into human form is a rare event in human history. As it is, saints are rare enough but the birth of one such as Jesus Christ, Krishna, Buddha and in this modern era, Paramhansa Yogananda and the lineage that sent him to the West, heralds a new covenant, a new dispensation for those “with ears to hear and eyes to see.”

No avatar comes for everyone in the world though some have a larger family to serve than others. It is not quantity but quality that the great Ones come to bring. That “quality” is spiritual power, the grace to rise given to those who “receive Him.”[1]

The spiritual family of a world teacher contains the broad range of human beings from sinners to saints yet, like the calm at the center of the storm (of delusion), the avatar offers a powerful vortex of grace. The avatar typically has at least two kinds of people to uplift: the inner circle of disciples who are ready to be liberated and enlightened (and to do so give their all to serve the work), and the larger family of souls to be blessed and inspired most likely for the benefit of future lifetimes. A third “circle” would be the avatar’s general influence upon society at large.

As time goes on after the appearance of the avatar, the family grows and branches out. The power of the ray of grace will tend to diminish, perhaps be diluted and even go in opposite directions from its source. Sub-groups split off into individual sects, each emphasizing different aspects of the avatar’s mission and teachings. Hence the need from age to age of a repeat of the avatara (descent of Spirit into human form).

What is an avatar? An avatar is a soul, like you and me, who in past lives has achieved God-realization. Such a one returns to human birth voluntarily, as an act of love and as a son of God, to do God’s work on earth according to the unique expression of that soul’s nature and the needs of those who are “his own.”[2]

Some devotees emphasize the divine nature of the avatar and equate the avatar with the descent of God Himself. And, why not, for when the soul becomes God-realized the soul IS God though no single expression can limit Infinity. (It is not right for such a one to say I AM GOD, but, instead, “God is manifest in me.”) Other devotees emphasize the human or historical nature of the avatar and his impact on world history or upon the lives of individuals. It is not either-or, but both-and, depending on what eyes and ears are able to perceive.

I would like to contrast the mission and expression of Jesus Christ with that of Paramhansa Yogananda. The times in which each lived were very different. Jesus was born in a far-flung, dusty province of the Roman Empire as inconsequential as any though, importantly, among the “Chosen people” who had chosen love and obedience to God according to the covenant of Abraham and Moses.

Yogananda, born in timeless India, nonetheless entered the twentieth century in what was the first global century in recorded history. From bullock carts to trains and planes, television, radio, movies and the nuclear age, the contrast with the life of Jesus Christ could hardly be greater.

Jesus was more like a wandering Hindu sadhu than a pope in his royal robes and palatial surroundings. Jesus decried the potential for a “rich man” to enter the kingdom of heaven saying that to follow him to eternal life one must leave all possessions and the worldly life behind. While honored in the breach by Christians at large down through the centuries this is the example Jesus set for his direct disciples.

Yogananda’s param-guru, Lahiri Mahasaya was commissioned by Mahavatar Babaji to eschew the attraction of a monk’s life to return to the householder life to begin sharing the liberating teachings of kriya yoga to any who were sincere, regardless of caste, class or the absence of outer renunciation.

This, then, is the new covenant, the new dispensation for our age: that regardless of social status or class, anyone who strives for soul-emancipation can receive the heretofore esoteric but liberating techniques of advanced yoga life-force control that can accelerate their spiritual advancement beyond the normal pace bestowed by good works, prayers and rituals alone.

Additionally, Paramhansa Yogananda taught that Jesus’ promise of his “second coming” is fulfilled in Yogananda’s mission by the awakening of Christ consciousness (soul-consciousness) through advanced meditation techniques, devotion and the spiritual life. Yogananda’s purpose was to resurrect the deeper and universal teachings of Jesus which are aligned with those of Krishna in ancient India and which apply to all people of every nation and generation.

“The time to know God” (through meditation) “has come!” Yogananda announced. No longer shall East and West “never ‘twain [to] meet” for the needs of humanity in this global era is to transcend sectarian differences and, while, if one chooses, to retain one’s treasured faith tradition, to accept all true spiritual paths as sincere channels for those who love and serve God in this world.

May the Light of Christ-consciousness shine upon you!

Swami Hrimananda

[1] John 1:12

[2] An avatar may take birth as male or female. The gender of the avatar is inconsequential. More likely the avatar’s gender is that which is suitable and appropriate to the accomplishment of his mission.

Who is Jesus Christ?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Fri, 28 Nov 2025 18:57:00 +0000

Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the 20^th century spiritual classic, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” stated that “Jesus Christ was crucified once but his teachings have been crucified daily ever since.”

Consider how each person you know perceives you differently and so differently than how view yourself!

To your enemies you are a schmuck. To those who love you, you are ever theirs through thick and thin. But to most who only know you casually, you are a two-dimensional wraith passing through their lives in forms such as co-worker, neighbor, or fellow church goer. You are defined by others largely based on your appearance, age, gender, education, social status, and income.

Jesus Christ was ridiculed, feared, beloved, and ultimately crucified for his crimes. His crimes? Really? What crimes? If Jesus Christ could be so maligned both then and daily ever since, what chance does this give you and I to be understood and accepted?

The very words of Jesus were not contemporaneously recorded, not even in his own language. They were reported decades after his death and the accounts of his life contain many variations and even conflicting details. Other accounts of his life and teachings were discarded from the canon of scripture as false, inaccurate or heretical. In recent times some of these discarded works such as the Gospel of Thomas are being studied anew. Questions have arisen about the real reasons some of them were rejected.

Controversies of the nature of Jesus Christ plagued the first thousand or so years after his death. The so-called Arian heresy was among the most famous and it was settled at the insistence of Emperor Constantine who demanded unanimity across his empire for the newly installed religion.

Some say St. Paul created the foundations of Christianity. Among the apostles there is recorded disagreement on important questions. In the gospel of Mark, it is generally accepted that the story of the resurrection of Jesus was added later! Some doubt the ascribed authorship of the canonical gospels!

My point is not to declaim or deny the divine nature of Jesus Christ: according to the gospels Jesus himself proclaimed himself “son of God.” My point is that I don’t think we really know the true nature of Jesus’ soul or consciousness.

We don’t even know one another; more importantly, we don’t even know ourselves. Spiritual traditions East and West exhort us to “know thyself” as the great quest of humankind. No one who embarks on that journey says that “finding myself” is easy or obvious! We are many things, real, imagined, actual and potential. We play many roles in one lifetime.

The Old Testament of the Bible has five references to “sons of God.” The New Testament has three such references. Nor is it clear what those terms mean even in their own, specific context. What then IS a “son of God?”

Twice in Genesis (Old Testament) God says He has made us in His image. Whatever is the “image” of God if God is something more than an anthropomorphic projection of human perception? Jesus himself said “God is a Spirit.”[1]

The testimony of the greatest saints of Christianity is where we should turn. Yogananda taught that the “saints are the true custodians of religion.” They are, however, often viewed with suspicion by religious authorities—at least until they are safely buried.

The testimony of St. Therese of Avila, St. John of the Cross, and St. Francis (just to name a few of the most famous) affirms the divinity of Jesus Christ not only in the past tense of his human life long ago but in the present, living sense of omnipresence. “Before Abraham, I AM” Jesus declared.[2]

And Jesus’ response to being challenged for this statement was to quote the scriptures themselves when he said, “Do not your scriptures say, ‘Ye are gods?’[3]

The beloved disciple of Jesus (St. John) wrote in the first chapter of his gospel that “as many as received Him to them gave He the power to become the sons of God”[4] Jesus is never quoted as saying “I am the ONLY son of God.” Other uses of this phrase in both the Old and New Testaments suggest a broader meaning of this term may be appropriate. Nor does the term, given the various contexts where it is used, require that all “sons” of God be the same.

Are we, too, perhaps as old as Abraham? Have we, too, come down from heaven?[5] And, if not, are those who “receive” Him at least given the power to become “the sons of God?” (The gospel says as much, doesn’t it?)

I am not averring the obviously blasphemous thought that any of us are on a spiritual par with Jesus Christ: only that we have that potential as children of God, made in the image of God. Only in our case we have “fallen” and forgotten our divine nature.

Nor am I suggesting that by our own efforts that we can become “sons of God.” From the words of Jesus as reported in the canonical gospels, Jesus came to redeem souls and sacrificed his bodily life to do so.

Instead, I am suggesting that the consciousness of the Christ lives in all persons, perhaps in every atom of creation and it appeared fully in human form in the man Jesus as a true and fully realized “son of God.” Yogananda taught that the only reflection of God (a Spirit beyond and untouched by creation) that exists within the creation is a spark of intelligence and calm joy that is centered at the still point of all motion. God manifests the creation through intelligence and vibration: intelligence is the “son” and vibration is the “Holy Spirit” and mother of creation. The son exists in the womb of the mother.

But once we open the door to this omnipresent Christ—a consciousness greater than any limited by a singular human life, we are confronted with the same question Jesus asked his disciples: “Who do men say I AM?

Is it perhaps that the omnipresent, ever-living and ever present Christ is the ultimate redeemer of all souls and that the Christ-consciousness is not limited to its appearance in human form in the body of the man called Jesus? If we, too, have that potential why should only one such human expression exists through all time and space (if its potential exists in each of us)?

Nor does this possibility limit the status, worthiness, and appreciation of the life of Jesus the Christ. That there may be other Christs seems far more likely in the context of the universe and the earth as we know it today: impossibly ancient and vast. That your mother is beloved to you does not diminish the love that others have for their respective mothers. Mothers share in their roles a universal quality not unlike that of living Christs in respect to their followers.

The redeeming Christ then might be a potential within us but one which requires the human Christ for its potential to be activated. Why would that be so? If there were no actual examples of a living, human Christ then why should we have the audacity to imagine we can aspire to be one also?

Given the depth of the hypnosis that we are but a sophisticated high-bred animal, it surely would take the power of grace of such a one to inspire us toward our own soul’s potential. Nor does the power of grace dismiss the herculean effort that it takes to “follow Me.”

We see in many areas of human life the process and acceptance of the transmission of knowledge, experience and authority. We accept that training by proper and competent authorities is the prerequisite for being commissioned to perform certain public functions, both sacred and profane—from an airplane pilot to a priest. In former times a father would train his son, and the skills and arts of the father would be transmitted down through generations.

As God ordains and commissions the prophets and as sincere souls look to such messengers for guidance, why would we not need a redeemer whose “touch,” whose grace even beyond his words and instructions, would be necessary for redemption? And would the power of that grace vanish when the human form that expressed it is gone from sight?

What, then is redemption? Redemption is the release from the hypnosis that we are anything less than the son of God! Here I speak not of an intellectual concept or affirmation but of transformation towards realization. We see this redemption in the lives of the saints.

Having rejected the precept of reincarnation early in Christian history, Christian dogma was forced to leave the final redemption to the afterlife since so few could achieve sanctity in a single lifetime.[6] The sacraments were energized to affirm our potential for sanctity even if only after death.[7]

Taking a step, indeed a giant leap of faith, from Jesus the ONLY Christ to the acceptance of Christ consciousness appearing in multiple forms, is to me the only “way, truth and life” by which Christians can enter the new world of the twenty-first and future centuries. Otherwise, their beloved dogmas silo themselves to the exclusion of billions of other sincere, faith-inspired peoples with religions equally infused with saints, miracles, and redemptive grace.

Just as we reserve a special love for our own mother without needing to reject other mothers, let those of the many faith traditions continue to remain loyal to their faith while yet also accepting that the Christ has incarnated in other forms to guide devotees of other faiths. Let the mantra of the Twenty-first century be “BOTH-AND” rather than “EITHER-OR.”

Blessings to all,

Swami Hrimananda

[1] John 4:24

[2] John 8:58

[3] Psalm 82:6; see John 10:34

[4] John 1:12

[5]  John 3:13 (KJV): “And no man hath ascended up to heaven, but he that came down from heaven, even the Son of man which is in heaven.”

[6] Second Council of Constantinople in 553 AD

[7] But reincarnation makes far greater sense in considering both the justice and the mercy of God, but that topic is another topic.

He said; She said; the world goes 'round

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 05:14:00 +0000

Scene: sometime after the novelty of a new relationship has worn off:

"Can you give me a hand here? I can't lift this thing?"

"I'm busy, can't you see. I need to finish this."

or is it: "When will you be back?" "Hard to say, depends on when I get things done."

He prizes his independence, freedom and self-sufficiency and doesn't feel he needs permission or approval for his plans. Focusing on his work and/or interests, he is self-absorbed and sometimes forgetful. She sees the two of them as partners, working together, planning and sharing; she's considerate, articulate and organized.

He doesn't like being held to perform according to someone else's expectations as to time, place or satisfaction. She expects him to know or support what she needs and to view her as his first priority just as she feels he is hers.

[Genders could be exchanged; used only for illustration.]

Independence vs commitment! Is one better or a higher priority than the other? We need to learn to stand on our own two feet and yet, we need to give and receive help. We are born helpless and need parents, teachers and mentors for the first two or three decades of life! And, truthfully, much longer even this.

Both represent important aspects of the experience of human life and the soul's journey towards freedom. Free will and independence are the core and the center of human life but connection and oneness is the soul's journey and goal.

The conversation I am framing is actually not really about men and women but using these archetypes or, if you prefer, stereotypes, as labels which make good handles for (static) conceptualizing--though poor handles for the reality of life's ceaseless ebb and flow.

When we are born and as infants we have yet to reacquire a strong ego self-identity. Gaze into the eyes of an infant and you see luminous consciousness, but very little ego. For the first few months of life, the infant is happy no matter who holds her. But as the months pass, an attachment forms to (usually) the mother.

The very growth and interaction with its parents could be described as a process by which the child is taught day after day that she is a separate entity and her likes and dislikes, the essence of ego, is inextricably linked to who and what she is. This includes her name: her handle. "Do you like this?" "Do you want that?" Incessant programming of likes and dislikes. Partly, this programming is instinctive survival and growth training.

I have heard it said that you teach a child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again: he'll only repeat the name of the bird and imagine that he now knows the bird because it has a name. Names are the mental handles by which we pour the essence of reality into a neatly and tightly sealed jar.

No sooner than this child grows through adolescence and towards adulthood and he is attracted to someone with whom he falls in love and, for a time, feel one again with another. This is short-lived yet the desire is strong enough that nowadays people will attempt it multiple times during their life.

We are born as One. We grow as two. We seek to be One again. I suppose most people eventually simply accept one another's differences and take from the relationship the best they can and leave the rest. This is a realistic approach but it doesn't erase, though it might suppress for a time, the impulse for union, for completion, for expansion beyond the ego into a greater awareness. This impulse is the spiritual remembrance or impulse.

It has been said that "It may be a blessing to be born into a religion but it is a misfortune to die in one." Religion, like relationship, should teach us how to love purely and unselfishly and, eventually, how to love all as a part of ourselves.

The commitment needed in a relationship is similar to the commitment on the spiritual path. Both can sharpen our skills and depth of commitment but from the depth and safety of learning to love we can grow to love all as One. (This does not imply that we marry "everyone" only that we can expand our love impersonally, which is to say, without thought of self, to all.)

While remaining true to our commitments (both spiritual path and human relationships), we expand to appreciate, respect, and indeed love all as extensions of our soul-Self.

Spiritual journey is similar: we "date" by trying on different religious or spiritual costumes and ideas. Then we marry and become one (of those or one of "them").

If we are sincere and our chosen path is true, we will go beyond the support of the outer forms into the center of our soul's being. Later we emerge appearing perhaps to be as one (of those). Like the Zen saying: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water!

The spiritual path is necessarily an "inside job," so comparisons are tentative at best. Thus it is some of the mystics of Christianity, though persecuted by their own religious hierarchy, nonetheless emerged in support of the very same structure through which they passed beyond. I think in this regard of St. Theresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the more recent Padre Pio.

In marriage too there can be a mid-stage of hurts, betrayals, persecution or conflict, and a later stage of acceptance and reconciliation.

The lesson is to understand that, whether from the soul's perspective or the ego's, we ebb and flow between the need to be apart, centered in the Self or in our own needs and realities, and other times to be giving, serving and self-forgetful. This is as true in our relationship with God as it is in our marriage or partnership.

Even the most devoted lover (whether of God or spouse) will have times when struggle, inner conflicts, outer demands preoccupy one's thoughts, emotions, energies and actions. And other times when absorbed in the love and contemplation of the beloved.

Only in enlightenment does the distinctions wholly cease, the inner and outer having merged into one.

Hope for a Better World? The Bunny & the Bird

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 05:12:00 +0000

The other day at our home on Camano Island I was standing in the kitchen brooding about this topic about which I am slated to give a talk at Spiritual Renewal Week (Ananda Village, CA) on Tuesday, June 29. As I was half-looking out the window immersed in thought, a furry brown movement out by the hedge along the street caught my attention. I looked more closely to see a small rabbit there munching away. Rabbits are the norm out on our lawn but this one was so small I couldn't see it well even with my glasses on. Then, suddenly, a small bird with an orange-colored breast appeared near the rabbit. At first, I thought it was a coincidence. Then as I watched, I saw them taking turns chasing one another playfully around a nearby bush: first one way, then back the other way. The bunny disappeared in the hedge and the bird hopped about along the edge poking its beak in the edge as if they were playing hide and seek!

This amusing scene snapped my deeper thoughts from their well but when I finished watching my mind announced: "Yes, THIS is the Hope for a Better World! A playful rabbit and a bird!

As Gandhi put it, "For, in the midst of death, life persists; in the midst of untruth, truth persists; in the midst of darkness, light persists.

In the year 2000, Padma and I, enroute to the Frankfurt Book Faire, stopped in Holland to visit her brother and some friends. Her brother had organized a family reunion of sorts except that their family, being Jewish, were decimated during WW II in the Nazi concentration camps. For several years, Padma's brother carefully researched the whereabouts of the few remaining extended family members. He collected photos and memorabilia, published accounts such as he could secure, and then invited their descendants and what few remained to a reunion. As I walked about the gathered photos, one photo caught my eye and has stuck with me all these years.

The year was 1945. Holland suffered greatly in the last year of the war with shortages of food and supplies. The Jewish population had all but vanished. Europe at large was destroyed and destitute. Yet here was a photo of a wedding. It was probably held in some small hotel in Amsterdam. Two people, one of which was a surviving member of the Gobets family, was getting married. What struck me as astonishing was that here amidst ruin was a tangible affirmation of life and love. How many who survived the war must have found, apart from relief that it was over, it incongruous to feel joy; to experience love; to dare to hope!

But if in pre-Covid days you've attended as many wakes, funerals or celebratory memorials as I have you see that amidst the tears are bursts laughter and gentle remembrances. Family and friends come together who would otherwise not see each other and their affirmations of friendship and love cannot be suffused by their loss. Joy, too, springs eternal.

Hope begins at a very human and not especially enlightened level. The hope that things will simply improve remains firmly fixed in the ceaseless flux of duality. This kind of hope is more like the carrot on the stick that keeps the donkey of the ego always pressing on for the green grass that surely must lay just beyond the next turn. But the ups and downs of this mundane kind of hope must eventually seek a more lasting reward. It's a good beginning, however.

Upwards four million have perished during the Covid-19 pandemic. Many did so with no loved ones allowed to be present. Many perished with little advance warning. Some were not even obvious candidates at risk. But out of the clouds of suffering and death, millions more, staying home, began to re-think their priorities. Many were happy to leave behind the daily grind of the commute to work; they found the satisfaction of being at home with children, spouse, or partner; of having time for yoga and meditation; the fulfillment of reaching out to neighbors; to staying more in touch with families and friends at a distance; to cooking fresh food rather than fast food. Many have come to the realization that they'd been living in a squirrel cage of ceaseless activities; For those who have survived the pandemic (and that's by far many MORE people than did not), a shift of priorities has been offered to them in the direction of a more fulfilling life.

But "hope springs eternal" because it is rooted in eternal truth. Nonetheless, the great drama of life must go on and our hope should aspire to something deeper than temporary relaxation from today's troubles. At this time in history, hope is what we seek because so much of what surrounds us bespeaks its opposite. I don't need to list the challenges to humanity and to our earth that we ourselves as a race of humans have created.

Furthermore, predictions made by Paramhansa Yogananda for the future did not include tiptoeing through the tulips of life. Many challenges await humanity and I cannot help but feel we are moving inexorably, like the Titanic plowing full-speed toward the iceberg of its demise. In our instance, Yogananda didn't predict we would "sink" but much suffering lies ahead especially for those who refuse to change.

And yet, I remain hope-filled. Why? Not only did Yogananda predict that future challenges would eventually end and a period of peace would follow but that "the time for knowing God has come!" Sensitive study of human history through the eyes, stories and teachings of the masters reveals God's participation and aid continually offered to those who reach up to seek it.

As Yogananda wrote in his autobiography about Mahavatar Babaji:

The Mahavatar is in constant communion with Christ; together they send out vibrations of redemption, and have planned the spiritual technique of salvation for this age. The work of these two fully-illumined masters — one with the body, and one without it — is to inspire the nations to forsake suicidal wars, race hatreds, religious sectarianism, and the boomerang-evils of materialism. Babaji is well aware of the trend of modern times, especially of the influence and complexities of Western civilization, and realizes the necessity of spreading the self-liberations of yoga equally in the West and in the East.

Hope for a Better World rests upon those who seek God first, God alone. Hope for a Better World exists notwithstanding what humanity has failed to do in terms of dharma. God and the angels are there to help us. The avatars are God's messengers in human form. Ananda Moyi Ma replied to a questioner's concern about the fate of this crazy world by saying "Don't you think that He who has made the world knows what best to do?"

Padma and I have been sharing excerpts and inspirations from the original lessons written by Yogananda. In one recent lesson whose topic was how to contact departed souls, Yogananda made a passing comment that "astral inhabitants study and help one another" and people on various planets. He went on to make the amazing statement that if it were not for the help extended to people on Earth humanity and the earth would "explode with sin."

Let me recount a strange story that can be found in the Old Testament: Exodus, chapters 18 and 19. There was old Father Abraham sitting outside his tent in the heat of the day. The Lord appears to him along with three men (The Lord and two angels). Abraham invites them to stay and his wife Sarah provides a meal to them. Hiding in her tent she overhears the Lord saying that when he comes back in about a year Sarah will have given birth to a child. In the tent she laughs out loud because both she and Abraham were about 100 years old; but the Lord hears this and calls out to her to ask why she laughed, after all he was the Lord and if he says she will have a child...... But Sarah denies that she laughed! Charming, eh?

Then the three men go walking away and Abraham goes with them part of the way as a host often does when the guests leave. The Lord muses to himself out loud whether he ought to tell Abraham what he plans to do, for the Lord heard that Sodom and Gomorrah were very wicket and he was going down there to see for himself. Abraham is very surprised and questions the Lord whether he would destroy these towns which might include righteous people. Would he do it if 50 could be found who were loyal and righteous? The Lord admitted that for 50 he would not destroy the towns.

So Abraham goes on like this openly questioning and chiding the Lord for lack of mercy as he "beats him down" bit by bit: first 50, then 45, then 40, then 30, 30, and finally 10 righteous souls!

Not only do these stories reveal an intimacy of conversation between God and Abraham and not only does Sarah feel she can lie and Abraham feel he can chide the Lord God, but God agrees that if even as few as ten righteous souls can be found the towns would be spared notwithstanding their evil!

How often I have doubted that God is paying attention or is willing to help. But it is not so.

Although my topic is not primarily about Swami Kriyananda's book by the same name, his thesis is that the appearance and proliferation of intensional spiritual communities will uphold examples of "how-to-live" in Dwapara Yuga." I'm not going to examine this new age and its many futuristic implications for I want to focus on this idea that such communities are an integral part of the hope for a better world.

Partly this hope is based on the less than hopeful nature of human consciousness in these times: a nature and tendency towards personal self-interest that is only going to grow stronger. Examples of enlightened self-interest are necessary but such examples must be relevant to the culture in which they appear. In a time when people from all parts of the world will increasingly live together in urban, suburban, and rural locations, an intentional community grounded in spiritual ideals hold great promise to serve as examples.

Swami Kriyananda makes the analogy to the monasteries of the early and middle Ages. During what used to be called the Dark Age (somewhere between 500 and 1000 A.D.), the Christian monasteries served as beacons of spiritual light, learning, culture and art. Might intentional spiritual communities offer a similar example in this age? I think it possible. Much depends on just how deeply the otherwise unsustainable consumption lifestyle is impacted. While I doubt we will be blown back into the Dark Ages, I think it is possible that widespread economic depression, wars, earth changes, and pandemics can deal a major blow to "business as usual."

One of the persistent questions that surround the communities movement is to ask "To what degree do communities need to incorporate spiritual ideals in order to be sustainable?" The reason the answer is elusive is that one cannot easily define the term "spiritual." Swami Kriyananda leaves no doubt that without the force of a spiritual, ego-transcendent "glue," communities that nurture only the individual ego will end up being contractive. But as he asks relentlessly in the book, "Will it work?" We shall see.

Part of the answer to that perennial question revolves around the extent to which a community has a group purpose and not just the intention to fulfill the needs and development of the individual. Here's an excerpt from the book:

"To return to cooperative intentional communities: Their real purpose should be to inspire people toward actual ends, both communal and individual. Intentional communities would be of little practical service if they encouraged people merely to live together as friends on the same property. Goals are needed to inspire the whole group. If their boat – to return to our former analogy – lacks both a rudder and a compass, it will simply drift. And if the group has no positive purpose, even though its members enjoy their friendly interaction together, it will bring most of them, after a time, the feeling that something is amiss.

Communities offer an especially practical path to self-conquest. They require outer goals, also, toward which their members can aspire together. If it were only a question of everyone’s exploring his own potential, people might as well become hermits. But people need one another. Good company and good environment: Both are needed – as much so as the body needs nourishing food. Communities that are dedicated to high principles are an important way of inspiring people to make an effort that few would make on their own.

With the confusion of opinions, the raw emotions of divisiveness, there still stand out the stories of someone who paid for another's groceries at the supermarket. Among those who embrace conspiracy theories, among those who rail against vaccines, are still souls who love their families, do good work, and aspire to idealism. General Robert E. Lee chose out of loyalty to fight for his home state in the Confederacy and yet he was no less a noble soul.

I'd like to segue into some thoughts about the book, Hope for a Better World, by Swami Kriyananda. The talk I gave and the subject with the same name isn't necessarily focused on the book but it has much to offer. This book is a companion to another book, Out of the Labyrinth. Swami's analysis of the leading lights of Western science, economics, psychology, politics, and philosophy is extraordinary in its simplicity and wisdom. Like the child proclaiming "The emperor has no clothes," Swami asks each one, "Does your philosophy work?" He shows that their cups of conflict are not half-empty, but at least half-full, or, as I would like to put it, hope-full. You and I may feel little to no interest in or influence from the nihilistic likes of Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Freud, Karl Marx or Charles Darwin, but they have profoundly impacted history, especially in the twentieth century with the gospel of conflict and competition.

The mechanistic and materialistic worldview of the West has more than shown its flaws in the hundreds of millions killed in wars and genocide; in exploitation, poverty, economic depressions, suicide, drug and addictions of all kinds. At the same time, the sectarian dogmas of religion echo this same gospel of conflict and competition rather than offer humanity a scripture of peace and harmony. The West was trapped in its own aggressive success. Having conquered the world, we lost our soul. It was from the East that a new dispensation of hope was to come in 1920.

As the prior speaker has shown us, we have entered an age where individual self-interest, awakening intelligence, and awareness of gross and subtle energy characterize our slowly advancing civilization. This is the foundation of hope for a better world: we are getting smarter. And I don't mean we are getting more technological!

Increased intelligence, awareness of the world around us, and a greater degree of vitality and energy cannot but help, in time, to bring the world together. At first, however, we are like teenagers eager to party. Selfishness, sensuality, and high-risk behavior would seem to suggest a lessening of intelligence and awareness of others and so it is when energy leads the trio. But travel, social media, education and the admixture of races, religions, and cultures feed a growing and sobering awareness. Even if at first, the reaction is repulsion, in time, by force of practical necessity and common sense, we cannot help but see ourselves and our world in a new and inclusive light.

But something else is needed. I think of the nearly two millennia after the life of Jesus Christ. For all the woes and barbaric inclinations of those times, what would have been the fate of peoples if Christ's teachings and the lives of the saints had not existed? The Christian religion had, itself, plenty of internal corruption but for all of that, not even historians deny its civilizing influence.

We today also need our version of Jesus Christ. This promise of hope is clearly expressed by Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita: "When virtue declines and vice predominates I incarnate into human form to destroy evil and re-establish virtue." (B.G. 9:7-8)

Since this new age, Dwapara Yuga, is still fraught with materialism and only stands halfway to dharma, we can expect that self-interest will strongly default to selfishness and that intelligence will follow the selfish emotion while greater awareness will show but new opportunities for self-enrichment. Ours is a mercantile age where the "business of humanity is business."

Yoga: raja yoga and kriya yoga: have been sent to the West in scientific forms to offer sensitive hearts a way out of narrowness, pride of pedigree, nationality or religion, into the blue skies of universality. As we are personal, so too universality must be personal, too. Not narrow, but committed and individually creative.

Putting Meditation To Work!

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 22 Nov 2025 05:11:00 +0000

If meditation helps us to live our life more calmly, think about its opposite. Imagine that you're late for an appointment and can't find your car keys or your phone. Maybe you are burdened by a deadline at work. Your movements are jerky and your mind is going "a mile a minute!" You can't focus and you are distraught!

Then, before you know it, you knock over your cup of coffee. It spills all over your papers, perhaps your clothes. Things go downhill from there, right?

Remember this tip: "Restlessness is the precursor to failure (disappointment, mistakes, and/or negativity)."

It, therefore, holds that "Patience is the quickest road to success." This well-known axiom encourages us to "do it right the first time!" But only by calm and quiet confidence can we ever truly succeed. And what is success? It is more than accomplishing a goal. True success is the satisfaction of one's conscience and peace of mind. Nor is peace achieved by passivity or fear or refusal to engage in what must be done!

I want to share with you a "peace" of counsel given to me by my yoga teacher. It has guided my life:

The more you seek rest as the consequence of doing, rather than in the process of doing, the more restless you will become. Peace isn’t waiting for you over the next hill. Nor is it something you construct, like a building. It must be a part of the creative process itself.

This brings us, therefore, naturally to the one human activity that most effectively brings to our mind, heart, and body relaxation, calmness, and confidence: MEDITATION! The mental and physical benefits of meditation can be sought for their own sake or as a stepping stone to higher consciousness or spiritual growth. But here, for my purposes, I want to focus on meditation for true success and happiness. In India from which comes to us the science of meditation, there is a famous saying (so representative of its traditional culture): "To the peaceless person, how is happiness possible?" (And I would add: how is success possible?)

Meditation isn't complicated but neither is it easy. Like exercise and diet, it takes will power and intention. But like all other valuable habits, it won't work through guilt or tension. You have to WANT to meditate in order to get to the point where it is ENJOYABLE. Enjoyment and results are achieved after learning how to meditate and persisting in developing the art of it, not just the science of it.

Sit upright but in a relaxed but alert natural posture: chest up slightly; head level; shoulders relaxed; palms upward on the thighs. Open or close your eyes as you feel. (As you internalize it will be natural for most people to close their eyes.)

Take a few long, slow but enjoyable breaths. Let the "stomach" (actually, the diaphragm) expand out as you inhale slowly. As the inhalation progresses you will feel your rib cage expand outward to the sides. Then, finally as you complete the inhalation, the upper chest may rise just a little. Don't force it, however. Like the strokes of the brush of an artist, your controlled breathing should feel "right" not forced.

You may pause briefly at the top of the inhalation but it is not necessary. Exhale with a controlled release. The exhalation can be slightly longer (if you were timing it) than the inhalation. You can pause or not pause after the end of the exhalation but just continue this controlled breathing for at least three to five breaths.

Usually, three to five breaths will trigger a sense of increasing calmness, but if not, continue for a while and learn to anticipate a sense of peace and quiet satisfaction coming over you. Then cease your controlled breathing, and sit quietly. Relax not just your body but your mind. Since the mind is happier if we give it a focus, let that focus be on your natural (no longer controlled) breathing. Observation of the breath is a time honored and universally effective practice. Your observation can be in the chest (lungs etc.) or in the flow of inhalation and exhalation in the natural channels of the nose.

If your mind needs a bit more to chew on, create a word formula or a personal affirmation. I am peaceful; I am calm; I am confident.....etc. etc. Don't TRY to concentrate. Relax into interested attentiveness on your practice. It's the same attentiveness you might apply to watching a movie, reading a book, engaging in a sport or exercise, or cooking--anything, in short, that you WANT to do!

At the end of your time (it's not length of time; it's QUALITY of calm focus and resulting peacefulness), ask your intuitive self a question that might be on your mind. Ask in positive, not negative terms. In your calm state, be open to a variety of responses, even one that your mind otherwise might reject. Feel for what is the right action or attitude to take in that situation. Pose alternative solutions to your intuitive mind.

Or, at the end just bring to your mind the image of a loved, friend, neighbor, or co-worker who could use a little "peace of your mind" for their health or daily life. Send that "peace" to that person without any consideration of desired results. It's a peace gesture, in other words.

You see: it's THAT simple.

Ananda Visits SRF Shrines

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Mon, 14 Oct 2024 04:26:00 +0000

During the week of October 7-11, twenty-six Ananda members from the Pacific Northwest visited the places in southern California where Paramhansa (Paramahansa) Yogananda lived and taught. Prior to the years of the pandemic, such pilgrimages were common every few years. In fact, the week before our group traveled, another such group from Ananda in the San Francisco Bay Area visited as well.

Mt Washington

Our stops were as follows: Self-Realization Meditation Gardens in Encinitas; SRF International Headquarters on Mt. Washington in Los Angeles; Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale; SRF Hollywood Temple; and SRF Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades. We stayed two nights at the Biltmore Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. This is the sight where Paramhansa Yogananda left his body on March 7, 1952, in a crowded banquet hall in honor of the newly appointed ambassador from India to the United States.

In addition, we had meditations in Encinitas at the Temple of Joy owned by Casey Hughes.

The SRF shrines are beautifully maintained and enveloped in meditative silence and peace. The outdoor gardens that surround these locations are exquisitely beautiful. The monastics (monks and nuns plus volunteers) who curate these shrines are generally very calm, kind, and inward. The buildings, though aging, appear to be immaculately maintained. In short, these shrines are a Disneyland of divine consciousness for a meditator and follower (disciple) of Yogananda.

Encinitas bluff

We were privileged to take turns in small groups going upstairs to the third-floor rooms where Yogananda lived at Mt. Washington, overlooking downtown Los Angeles. The atmosphere is deeply hushed, and the sense of timelessness and transcendence is as tangible as Yogananda’s overstuffed chair draped with his ochre-colored shawl. His adjacent bedroom also vibrates with his presence and emits an aura of simplicity and peace. The downstairs chapel—site of kriya initiations, meditations, and ceremonies where Yogananda experienced God and various saints—drew us like a giant magnet to sit and meditate.

SRF Hollywood Church

When so deeply committed to maintaining these shrines, the task is not unlike operating a museum. The atmosphere is hushed. Indeed, any loud talking or group activity is generally nipped in the bud by the nearest docent or monastic. Even sitting on the floor in one of the chapels (as is common with meditators) is not allowed. This is not surprising since thousands visit these places every year and without clear oversight (aka rules) visitors would likely create disruptions and attract attention to themselves by practicing yoga exercises out on the lawns, expressing excessive devotional postures, chanting aloud and so on in time, if not monitored and even suppressed, create a very un-museum like atmosphere.

Lake Shrine

This kind of strict control blends harmoniously with traditional monastic attitudes such as obedience, silence, and humility. The monastics are all neatly attired: monks in simple high-collar short-sleeved shirts; and nuns in yellow saris.

We were privileged to watch a silent video of Yogananda conducting the dedication ceremonies at the Hollywood Temple (August 30, 1942). In that video, one could see the energetic, creative, and dynamic way Yogananda related to the public at large. At that location, he started a Mushroom Burger stand and held Indian cultural events, and in Encinitas, he experimented with what he called a “world brotherhood colony” as a pilot program for future intentional communities, he had a carrot juice processing plant, and a small farm, among other how-to enterprises to provide support for the work and for the residents. He created many vegetarian recipes, shared healing techniques, and spoke on topics such as material success, leadership, social justice, politics, marriage, and child-raising to mention just a few. The mission of preservation began some years after Yogananda’s passing in 1952 and after the passing of his non-monastic male successors. While SRF also conducts public teaching, retreats, and outreach, none of that comes even close to matching Yogananda’s expansive energy and consciousness. Most notably, then, SRF has embraced the Vishnu or preserving aspect of creativity and has done a wonderful job of that.

We visited Forest Lawn Cemetary in nearby Glendale and chanted and meditated in front of where Yogananda's body is interred. We also stayed two nights at the grand hotel the Biltmore where Yogananda left his body on March 7, 1952 at a banquet he held in honor of the newly appointed ambassador from India to America.

Biltmore Hotel
Where Yogananda
left his body

Yogananda's crypt

Ananda, by contrast, is more akin to the spirit of Yogananda during those dynamic years of his life of constant travel, creativity, and outreach. Ananda was founded by Swami Kriyananda who came to Yogananda in 1948 and was accepted by Yogananda into the ashram as a monk in their very first meeting at the Hollywood Church. Within a year the young “Rev. Walter” (as Yogananda addressed Swami Kriyananda) was giving kriya initiation and was given the position of head monk (even though many of the monks were twice as old as Kriyananda (22 years old in 1948), and was giving classes and Sunday Services at both Hollywood Church and the San Diego SRF Church. By the late 1950s, Kriyananda was on the SRF board of directors.

Swami Kriyananda took seriously the thundering call to action by Yogananda on that day in July 1949 at a Beverly Hills garden party for the establishment of world brotherhood colonies which he predicted would someday spread like wildfire. Swami Kriyananda was the only one out of nearly 800 people in attendance that day who later established such a community.

So, in contrast to the SRF mission of preservation (Vishnu-like), Ananda’s mission is the “Brahma-like” aspect of the outflowing creative force (Holy Spirit or Aum vibration).

The group’s visit to Casey Hughes’ “Temple of Joy” in Encinitas was primarily for the purpose of finding a place for group meditation and chanting. Casey’s is the “Shiva-like” energy of dissolving outward forms of organization to affirm the universal aspects of Yogananda’s mission in seeing in all faith-forms the central and sole reality of God. Casey’s Temple of Light seeks to honor all forms of worship and practice.

These three represent what is taught in India and by Yogananda as the three faces of the Holy Spirit, or Divine Mother as the creative vibration that makes possible and visible all creation and consciousness. One aspect brings into manifestation the forms of creation; another, preserves those forms; yet another dissolves them. None can exist without the other.

Yogananda called his temples “churches of all religions” but unsurprisingly few people understood his intention in using that phrase. He didn’t mean that each faith tradition would be practiced there; nor yet that his was a syncretization of all faith traditions. Rather, the practice of meditation, and especially advanced forms of meditation such as the Kriya Yoga he brought to the public, works directly on our consciousness through the vehicle of breath and life force to reunite with soul force with the goal to achieve God-realization: the very purpose of our creation. Such upliftment and the goal of Self-realization is the “religion” underlying all faith traditions.

Each of these three expressions were beautifully expressed by Yogananda during his life. His years of “barnstorming” around the country, his printed lessons in meditation and yoga philosophy, and his writings represent his Brahma aspect. His cultivation of celebrities and “influencers” and his promotion of cross-cultural appreciation and racial integration were part of his socio-political activism.

At the same time, he established in southern California his headquarters and later branch churches and a monastic order of monks and nuns to be the nucleus of his organization in his Vishna-aspect.

His Shiva-aspect was his insistence on the universality of the teachings of Sanaatan Dharma and the practice of Kriya Yoga for all sincere people and as the “religion” of the dawning new age (of “Dwapara Yuga”).

Casey's Temple of Joy

There has been and perhaps always will be some tension between these three aspects. However, even when one aspect appears more dominant than another, all three aspects must be nurtured at least to some degree for the specific expression to maintain its integrity and attunement to Yogananda’s vibration and mission. Too much Brahma becomes restless and scattered. Too much Vishnu becomes rigid. Too much Shiva loses vitality and identity. Thus, SRF has tried to energize a lay order emphasizing community. Ananda has established a religious order, and Casey’s Temple of Light strives to maintain harmonious relations with the other two and with many other spiritual paths!

In our group’s pilgrimage I could see that some members of the group resonated more with one or the other aspect. SRF’s expression is so neat and beautifully maintained as to seem perfect, even if, people being people, one imagines that behind closed doors are the usual challenges inherent in a rigidly controlled way of life. Ananda is fun-loving, inclusive, and creative but the individual discipline, inwardness, and dignity needed for attunement and the practice of meditation might seem lacking to some people. Casey’s Temple of Light mission seems free from all limitations imposed by self-definition but compared to SRF or Ananda is limited to few people. It is free and open to all (wonderful) but carried (mostly I assume) by Casey and his partner alone.

All in all, our group had a deeply blessed experience and all are grateful for those devotees who greeted and hosted us at each location as representatives of our guru, Paramhansa Yogananda. May we each keep marching on the “only path there is” (inward and upward) in our own unique way.

How to Outwit Bad Karma!

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Thu, 30 Nov 2023 20:20:00 +0000

How to Outwit Bad Karma!

There is a way out of bad karma, but the “way” is narrow and straight and “you” get left behind. You want to hear more?

What is karma? Karma is the self-balancing after-effects of previous actions, including thoughts and emotions, not just physical deeds. Thus, the term “karma” includes what is ordinarily considered “good” karma as well as “bad.” However, most casual uses of the term “karma” tend to assume “bad” karma.

What, then is “bad” karma? Bad karma is the unwanted boomerang effects of your previous not-so-laudable actions. If you purposely hurt someone (physically or emotionally) you might expect the law of karma to dictate that you will be hurt in return (whether by the person you hurt or another person). Good karma would be the kindness that returns to you for having been kind to others.

The law of karma can be seen in the law of physics that states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. In nature, we would refer to the law of karma as the principle of cause and effect. Whether in science or human behavior, our expectations assume the law of causation even though we often cannot see the chain of causes that lead to a specific effect. We would go crazy if our world was not so governed. Life would not be worth living if we could not reasonably expect to exchange good habits for bad habits; if we could not improve our skills, our health, or our relationships. Science wouldn’t exist to improve our lives if experiments could not be duplicated dependably.

This fundamentally important aspect of human life is akin to the law of gravity. Our lives would be in disarray if gravity did not hold sway on our planet.

The justice system metes out greater punishment to evil deeds that are done intentionally as compared to accidental misdeeds. This recognizes the importance of intention. Intention reflects consciousness and the implicit participation of doership. Thus, karma is tied to the degree of conscious intention and awareness.

Doership therefore holds the key to karma: good or bad. Accidents that I cause generate karma (effects) that cannot be changed but their boomerang impact on me sometime in the future is lessened for not having caused the accident intentionally. If I accidentally kill a pedestrian with my car on a dark and rainy night, I certainly incur karma but it is not the same as my committing “first-degree” murder.

So how to beat my “bad” karma? There are several stages each of which relates to the degree of my ego involvement.

Stage One: Practice Stoicism Practicing “stoicism” or non-attachment and non-reactivity reduces the tendency to ADD more karma while, at the same time, mitigates the impact of “incoming” or “ripening” karma. Stage One is therefore very efficient.

Whether “good” or “bad” karma, the solution is the same. I’ll explain why we want to address “good” karma and not just “bad” karma.

For my purposes, Stoicism is synonymous with non-attachment. One of the most famous aphorisms of the Yoga Sutras is stanza two which defines enlightenment as the neutralization of the mental reactive process to circumstances, thoughts, emotions, memories, and imagination. This does not imply one becomes an automaton. Rather, to be non-reactive means to be calm and non-attached. There are countless layers of this state, but in the yoga tradition deep meditation is the key. But as the philosophers of Stoicism counsel us, it can begin with seeing life philosophically, meaning, from the God’s-eye point of view.

Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the now-famous life story, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” gave this advice: “What comes of itself, let it come. Conditions are always neutral; they may seem happy or sad owing only to the attitudes of the mind.”

Calmness and non-attachment are not the same as apathy, however. Apathy dulls the mind and awareness, and, to a degree, apathy steals from us the power of self-control. It thus undermines our ability to act calmly. Calmness and non-attachment require presence of mind to uphold their power when circumstances become intense, whether with success, failure, pleasure or pain. Presence of mind requires willpower and centeredness.

Using will power and the power of habit to remain neutral is easy for the small things but close to impossible for most people when the big tests come.

Meditation is a far more effective practice for developing consistency in achieving non-attachment. There are, however, many degrees and types of meditation. Meditation that is practiced devoid of spiritual attitudes and wisdom is far less effective than when practiced in its traditional context of devotion, selflessness, self-control, and openness to wise counsel.

The reason I include “good” karma is that “every coin has two sides.” How can we achieve even-mindedness if we get excited over good fortune but pretend to remain even-minded in misfortune? You will find that the practice of non-attachment will impact your response to both good and bad circumstances. Non-attachment is the steady development of calmness under all circumstances. There is a deeper reason for this equality, however.

The deeper purpose and power of Stage One is that it prepares us to detach the sense of doership from all actions: both good and bad. While intentional calmness can take us to the brink of what I will call Stage Two, it cannot by itself, cannot carry us over the finish line.

Stage Two: Soul Consciousness. Human beings have the power to withdraw beyond the realm of causation, away from the play of opposites and boomerangs! The soul is forever free of karma for it is made in the image of God. As we accept divine guidance from within, we achieve freedom from karma. Daily meditation and inner communion with God, attuning one’s human will to the silent voice of intuition is the way out from the soul-degrading serfdom to habits and the reactive process.

Moral reasoning; scriptural interpretations; pleading emotions; these are rooted in ego consciousness and ego consciousness is the problem. When the ego is transcended in soul-consciousness, the law of karma is transcended also. When there’s no whirling vortex of “I” and “mine” the chain of causation is cut. Our actions, guided by the divine will, accrue to the benefit of others.

God who created the law of karma suspends the sentence of judgment for those souls who are united to Him. The way to escape the decrees of cosmic law is to live in divine consciousness.

No matter how busy we are, we should strive in the inner silence to attune ourselves with God. By silent devotion we can deepen our awareness of divine love and wisdom. God is above the law.

(Note the text above includes excerpts from the Wisdom of Yogananda: Karma and Reincarnation. Published by CrystalClarity.com)

Joy to you!

Swami Hrimananda

Looking for a Friend

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 18 Nov 2023 04:50:00 +0000

Looking for a Friend

Nature has designed our bodies to be constantly engaged with our surroundings. Our ego is designed to keep us involved in our thoughts, emotions, memories, desires, fears and imaginings.

Do we ever stop to wonder and observe who it is that is thinking and doing all these things? Without consciousness and without self-awareness of being conscious, none of these activities would be possible. Like building a car, consciousness is the chassis upon which the shape, color and functions of the automobile are constructed. With a car there’s no need to crawl under it and observe the chassis but with human consciousness, there’s every reason to re-direct our attention upon the consciousness that is otherwise normally peering outside of itself, engaged in these many activities.

Why is that? Consciousness is intelligence. Consciousness is the source of our ability to think, feel, act and experience life. Consciousness thus contains the “DNA” or “programming” that allows us to be who and what we are, at least as we self-define ourselves. Most people would probably respond and say, “So what? That’s obvious. What’s the point?”

There isn’t a point until or unless we are willing to reflect that the very nature of that consciousness is not ours; it is not unique to us; it appears in others; it would seem to be the source of the amazing beauty, complexity, and innate intelligence that we see from the smallest quanta to the billions of galaxies. It is everywhere and in everything.

When we reflect that the source of our awareness is the same everywhere, the word “God” might arise in our thoughts. Oh, maybe some other words, too, because while words are just, well, words (thoughts and sounds, really), the words point (potentially) to some-thing. Or perhaps in the case of pure consciousness, no-thing at all.

If we stop to consider that this Consciousness-no-thing is the very essence and source of our self-ness and if we stop to be present with it, ceasing our internal mental narrative and external activities, we might find something wonderful arising within us, like a lotus flower that opens to the rays of the morning sun.

The very nature of consciousness is that it doesn’t impose anything upon us. Beyond bestowing life and the powers and abilities inherent in the form it occupies, it does not judge; it only observes. It is patient and always available when we are conscious. With practice, however, we might find that it has much to offer but be warned that it cannot be ordered to do our bidding.

Our restlessness of mind and body veils our awareness of the presence of our only real well-wisher, friend, and constant companion. Regular meditation, by contrast, reveals our Friend and helps us develop a long-term relationship together. Our Friend is the essence of humbleness insofar as most of the time and most people never pay our Friend the slightest attention though we owe everything we call ourselves to this Friend’s powers and presence.

Just as our human friends influence our attitudes, interests, and activities, our invisible Friend will influence us over time in certain ways that are suitable to our deeper nature. As the very source of our life, there are some general qualities that our Friend will bestow upon us if we are open to receiving our Friend’s influence: vitality, health, equanimity, intelligence, acceptance and calmness. On the basis of such qualities, it is easier to love others without attachment and to think, feel and act in ways that resonate with our Friend’s silent voice which is our conscience.

By now you have concluded that this Friend of Friends might be called God, Christ or guru. A saint or avatar is one who has achieved complete identification with this Friend and thus can introduce us to our Friend.

There are countless methods of prayer and meditation, but I want to focus on this simple, but challenging, practice of “Looking for my Friend.” Here are some suggestions:

Your mind, like Moses, will guide you to this Promised Land but, like Moses, your mind must stand outside the door.
So let your Mind re-mind you that you wish to go within and meet your Friend. Let your mind be your verbal guide until you enter the Holy of Holies to commune in Silence.
Calm and center yourself. Any standing, lying or sitting position will do, though the standard upright position of meditation is the best. Closed or open eyes as you feel.
Smile subtly with soft eyes at the thought of meeting your Friend. Open your mouth slightly as if you are about to speak.
Gaze into the near distance to gently fix your eyes as if to take into your view all the way to the left and right of your peripheral vision and thus not fixing your gaze upon any specific object.
While gazing thusly, feel in your chest, just above the sternum, a soft perhaps warm feeling. This supports that subtle smile and soft eyes.
With either your eyes or the entire field of your body’s awareness, feel that you are looking at.........looking. This is like placing two mirrors opposite each other: they go on to infinity or, put differently, it is like an echo chamber, though of awareness not of sound.
Like catching a wave or feeling a passing breeze, it won’t be easy to hold this feeling because it cannot be done with tension or willpower, but with deep relaxation into the space that is between thoughts or other mental and physical activity or movement.
You will tend to oscillate in and out of this space. The mind will constantly want to take over the space. With practice, the experience becomes more readily accessible and for longer periods of time. It takes skill and practice but even a little of this practice brings great rewards of relaxation and even calm euphoria or well-being.
If you are inclined towards devotion, then feel that you are meeting Christ, Krishna or one of the masters in this silent space; and, that it is with their grace and presence that you are guided and held in this space.
Otherwise, let your Friend do the (silent) talking. In time, your Friend will reveal more and more.
During the day, when stressed or needing answers, call upon this Friend in this space even for just a nano-second. Even a little of this practice will save you from fears and suffering.

Here are the lyrics from a Christmas song called “Looking for a Friend” by Swami Kriyananda. I have adapted them for this article:

Looking for a Friend

Where are you going my little one?
“In hope these empty streets I wend;
I’ve seen a star rise in the east,
And I’m looking for a friend.”

Where are you going, good shepherd folk?
“From a lowly valley we ascend.
A wondrous vision sent us here:
We’re looking for a friend.”

You learned men, where are you going?
“Our souls’ long journey we would end,
Therefore we’ve come to Bethlehem:
We’re looking for a friend.”

Good people, let me come with you.
Perhaps he’s just around this bend,
But whether near or far, I, too,
Have been looking for a friend.

May you, too, find the Friend within you!

Swami Hrimananda

Stoicism: Marcus Aurelius and Zen

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Tue, 14 Nov 2023 06:00:00 +0000

The Joy of Stoicism? Marcus Aurelius?

I just read an article by Brian Daly in the digital magazine, The Collector.1 The article is entitled “Why Has Stoicism Gained Popularity in Modern Times?” I’ve been quoting Stoicism for years in my talks and without having previously given it much thought, I realize that I completely understand the connection Brian makes between Stoicism and Mindfulness! I would extend this connection further to include a somewhat superficial resemblance to Zen Buddhism: “Chop wood, carry water.”

But first I suppose I should make some statement about what Stoicism is. Usually, it is quoted to us as pithy aphorisms, but it essentially embraces the yogic path in its emphasis on non-reactivity to life’s ups and downs. A Stoic accepts life as it comes and strives to live a life of calmness, integrity and self-control. In many ways the Stoic resembles those who practice mindfulness and Zen (and all the traditional meditative paths) because all express non-attachment and practicing the present as the middle way of achieving equanimity and contentment.

I practice Kriya Yoga in the yoga lineage of Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the popular classic, “Autobiography of a Yogi.” Kriya Yoga appealed to me because I felt the Buddhist way did not have an aspiration for upliftment of feeling and consciousness. Just chopping wood and carrying water was not enough for me.

My perception at the time, as I look back, was inaccurate and superficial because meditation, properly practiced within any of the accepted traditions, awakens within us the joy that is our own nature. Zen has, moreover, a delightful sense of humor, epitomized in its famous koans.

The striking similarity of Stoicism to mindfulness came to me slowly over the years of teaching meditation. But “pure” mindfulness by itself can leave one asking, “Is that all there is?” Don’t we also seek joy? Shouldn’t negation be balanced by a positive affirmation?

During those same decades, psychology was expanding to include behavioral therapy. This resonates with yoga and its lifestyle with the basic idea that to be happy one must affirm happiness! In hatha yoga, you move the body and hold a position that induces a particular quality of thought and feeling. In the practice of Ananda Yoga, we have affirmations for each pose that reflects the specific quality and attitude of that position (asana). Affirming positive attitudes is a valuable behavioral modification therapy. “As we think, so we are” goes the popular expression. But does an affirmation of a positive attitude run counter to mindfulness, Stoicism, and non-attachment? Let’s explore.

By not reacting emotionally to outward circumstances, Stoicism resonates with the core teaching of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. Verse two of Book One states the basic premise of yoga in words loosely fashioned like this: “The state of yoga (perfect equanimity) occurs when the oscillating polarity of the reactive process of likes and dislikes, thoughts, imagination and memory subside into a steady state of deep calmness and pure, unbroken awareness.”

It is a common reaction to such precepts to object that these practices lead to a state of consciousness devoid of feeling. The reason the calmness of one-pointed focus on the moment seems to rob us of feeling is due to the habit of associating superficially stimulating but fleeting emotions with our frenzied activities. With the deliberately steady practice of mindfulness meditation, we achieve progressive degrees of quietude and calmness our of which dawns an inner sun of happiness and well-being. Like the story of the tortoise and the hare, victory (happiness) goes to the steady, Zen-like Stoic-yogi!

Moreover, Stoicism, like yoga and Zen, isn’t practiced in order to achive the dubious goal of making us lifeless robots. Stoicism, for its part, affirms various active and positive virtues such as courage and moderation, to name just two. Yoga encourages devotion to the Supreme Spirit (in whatever name, form, or formless state appeals to your heart) while Zen fosters compassion and respect for all life. These positive intentions bring us a natural satisfaction and calm, inner joy. It’s not unlike outgrowing the restless, somewhat frenzied energy of a child in preference for the calm adult-satisfaction of sitting with a friend in meaningful conversation.

The positive consequences of equanimity are NOT mere opposites of negative moods. The quiet satisfaction, joy, compassion and connection that results from the deep practice of self-awareness and calmness reflect the deeper nature of our consciousness. This deeper nature is our center. It does not possess a dual, opposite side.

I can understand Brian Daly’s article about the growing interest in Stoicism because it naturally induces a calmness that can be an antidote for the over-stimulation, dizzying range of choices, and high expectations of success and pleasure that are so common today. The same motivation applies to many who seek to learn to meditate.

Another modern phrase or attitude that coincides with these practices is the value of delayed gratification. Much is admitted in our culture of the flaws associated with seeking short-term profits, pleasure, or success at the expense of longer-term, more stable rewards. Paramhansa Yogananda stated that “Loyalty is the first law of God.” He might as well have stated as “Patience is the shortest route to success!” Again, the tortoise wins the race.

Since here we are speaking of happiness—a state of consciousness—our reference to the poor tortoise should not be mistaken for a dull or mindless attitude of endless repetition. In meditation, we re-direct our attention inward and onto a mental image, thought, feeling or awareness of breath or mind. As we turn towards inner awareness, our awareness quickens even as our metabolism slows down. Regular meditation increases the depth and breadth of our perception and intuitive intelligence. Therefore, in an odd kind of way, meditation sharpens our inner range finder in part because the calmer we are, the less static thoughts and passing emotions block our view of what is true.

Stoicism represents the “via negativa” or first stage in getting off the merry-go-round of our emotional, reactive life. Meditation, added to stoic attitudes and habits, awakens within us our higher, happier nature. With the regular practice of meditation, we can discover that we begin to see a new world—a world brighter and more meaningful because devoid of the colored filters of our own subconscious tendencies.

Who, then, would have thought to connect ancient and classical Stoicism with modern mindfulness meditation, Zen, Yoga and behavioral psychology?

Blessings to you while you connect the dots of life!

Swami Hrimananda

What is the Best Way to Pray? Is God Personal or Impersonal?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Mon, 23 Oct 2023 02:56:00 +0000

What is the Best Way to Pray? Is God Personal or Impersonal?

The best way to pray is any way you can and will! Who cannot but feel for the people in Israel and Palestine fighting one another with civilians being targeted and taking the brunt of the violence. All war is stupid, but stupidity is endemic. As much as millions yearn for peace, war is a consistent fact of human existence as far back as we have records. It would seem to be a necessary part of the human drama.

As it was said during the last so-called “world” war, “There ain’t no atheists in foxholes.” If it requires hardship, pain, and suffering to trigger an appeal to a greater power, then so be it.

Contemplating the vastness and complexity of the universe and the human body and life, we are confronted with two choices: head down and get mine, or, head up, and embrace our part in the symphony of life.

Life tends to push our head down into the details, let’s face it. And there are many details, more now than ever before in history. The head-down mudra of the cell phone symbolizes this reality. Who can blame those billions who, overwhelmed by the sheer volume of facts, energies, and circumstances that surround them, prefer the original head-down mudra of the ostrich. Tempting it is to hide under the covers or binge on Netflix.

Whatever opinions you may have of so-called pagan worship of the gods and the elements, at least in that worship there is a recognition that there are forces greater than our own that impact our lives. Not as much can be said of billions of humans on our planet today between their indifference, their atheism, or agnosticism. Real paganism is the worship of the false idols of money, power, and pleasure.

Human consciousness is poised between the old and the unfolding new. The old contains static beliefs and social immobility; well-worn ritual and dogma; hierarchy and privilege; exploitation and abuse; power and helplessness. The new promises freedom but threatens us with chaos. Our world is confused and polarized, at best.

As there are many levels or stages of awareness and consciousness among humans so also does higher consciousness descend through many layers of God-ness and good-ness through forms such as angels and devas, saints and avatars, sages and heroes, peacemakers, teachers, caregivers, and parents.

The best way to pray is that which opens our hearts and minds to a power greater than our own. Not in abject self-denial but in self-expansion and love.

Jesus gave to us the Lord’s prayer newly revised in yogic pentameter:

Our Father who art in the heaven of Eternal Bliss, sacred is the vibration of Thy presence above, below, and within. Give us this day the sustaining life of Thy joy, the cleansing power of Thy love, the guidance of Thy wisdom, and the healing power of Thy peace. Forgive us our forgetfulness of Thee as we forgive others who hurt us, and may our tests strengthen our resolve to seek Thee alone. I shun the false promises of material desires, for Thou art my life, my love, and the light and glory of all life forever and ever. Amen.

Jesus shows us as do many great saints, East and West, that praying to God in a personal form is both beautiful and powerful. Never mind that God is “infinite.” I can think of several saints who encourage us to put aside our definitions of God in favor of developing a personal relationship propelled and flavored by the fragrance of pure love.

Nonetheless, our prayers should rise to the heaven of God’s nature as joy or pure love, and not try always to pull God down to make our lives more comfortable or successful. We cannot help but pray for the relief of suffering of others and sometimes even ourselves, but the highest prayer seeks to know God who is our very Self, our nearest and dearest. “God knows what you need before you even ask.”

Swami Kriyananda, a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, describes in one of his many books (“Awaken to Superconsciousness”) that he makes it a rule for himself never to pray for himself. He admits that is not an expectation he has of anyone else. During his life, he experienced significant incidents of physical pain from operations and procedures. In the book mentioned, he tells of when he had a kidney stone attack. He could barely talk or move. After a time of intense pain, he recalled that he was scheduled to give the talk at the Sunday Service in a short while. He prayed to Divine Mother not for relief from the excruciating pain but to mention that if She wanted him to give the talk, She would have to make it possible for him to speak! The pain left him instantly. Ironically, he DID have trouble speaking as he was suffused with divine joy for the miraculous demonstration of Her love.

Unless we are significantly impersonal with respect to our own feelings, desires, and bodily compulsions, we would do better to relate to God in a more personal form.

Is God personal or impersonal?

In the ancient teachings of India, God has not only made this world but did so by BECOMING all things and endowing all creation with a spark of divine consciousness. After all, think about it: what else could God have made the universe out of except “Himself?” Divinity must, in some way, be present in every atom of creation even if well-hidden and deeply asleep.

The universe is God’s child and as such must contain, in varying degrees, elements of the nature of God’s impulse to have brought forth the creation in the first place: elements such as consciousness, the impulse to create, and choice. As the source of all created things is God’s consciousness, the greater the degree of self-awareness (consciousness), the greater one’s potential for creativity and choice. When awareness turns inward upon itself it has the potential to transcend the inherent limitations of form: including the human body and subtler aspects of human consciousness linked to the body: such as thoughts, emotions, memories, and imagination. When awareness turns inward to perceive its own nature it begins the return journey to the Consciousness out of which all things were born. Meditation is the art and science of consciousness.

In this return journey to God (as Consciousness), our perceptions become increasingly subtle and refined. We see this even in ourselves as we outgrow the toys of childhood and move increasingly through life with ever greater awareness and wisdom (hopefully). At the border of Infinity, we encounter stories such as that of Ramakrishna Paramhansa: he enjoyed a loving relationship with Divine Mother who appeared to him in vision and form but when his guru, Totapuri appeared in his life, Totapuri guided him to go beyond divine form into the formless bliss of God-consciousness.

We should be careful, however, not to grade God-consciousness as if we were the teacher. God is as much present IN forms as BEYOND forms. To one with “eyes to see” there is no difference. But we must also be careful not to imagine we are “one with the Father” in our present state! Tricky stuff, eh?

Yogananda said, “You will know when you will know.” “When this I shall die then shall I know who am I.”

Thus it is that Krishna encourages us to relate to God in the personal form. Responding to Arjuna’s question in the Bhagavad Gita comparing prayer to the impersonal Absolute to the personal form, Krishna states that “for embodied beings, the path of dedication to the Absolute is a more difficult way.”

Why be concerned if devotees extoll their love for Jesus or Krishna above all else? As Jesus said to the woman who washed his feet with her tears, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven for she hath loved much.” God has everything; God IS everything; but God awaits our love.

May the light of Christ, the Infinite Consciousness, be with you always,

Swami Hrimananda

Hello Silence, my old Friend!

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Mon, 25 Sep 2023 20:59:00 +0000

Hello silence, my old friend, it’s good to sit with you again!

Swami Kriyananda[1] made the statement: “If there was a sound continuous since birth, what would you call it? Silence!”

There’s not much silence in the lives of human beings of the twenty-first century. But for those who meditate daily, we seek inner silence. Why? And What is silence?

Silence usually refers to one who doesn’t speak out loud. A person who, like Mahatma Gandhi, had a day of silence doesn’t speak to others while in silence. At Ananda retreat centers we offer name tags or buttons that say, “I am in silence.” This is to warn others around them that they do not wish to speak.

In American law enforcement detainees are supposed to be told “You have the right to remain silent.” This means that a person cannot be coerced to testify against themselves. I mention that because in certain ways it could be said that every time we open our mouth we give testimony of, or too often, against, our own best interests.

There is another and more important kind of silence: inner silence. This means the cessation of internal, mental narration. Meditators speak of seeking to subdue the monkey mind, that is, the restless, ceaseless mental narration we all have.

The gold standard scripture describing the state of the meditation mind is the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali. The second verse gives the clinical description of this mind, called “yoga.” The state of the yoga-mind is achieved when mental activity of image making, mental narration, and emotional responses to mental impressions like memory, fantasies, and sense stimuli subsides into a quiescent state of pure awareness.

The first part of this takes place when we do not react to the mental activity that appears in the mind. The second and deeper part is when mental activity itself ceases. By ceasing is NOT meant sleep or a trance state but simply being aware. Aware of what? The object(s) of awareness are less important than the awareness of awareness itself.

However, such unalloyed consciousness is difficult to achieve. Meditation techniques from a variety of traditions often give the meditator a suggestion as to what to focus on. Even the Yoga Sutras offer a catalog of objects from physical to subtle on which to contemplate.

Examples of “meditation objects” include the breath (controlled or merely observed), a word formula (affirmation or mantra), an image (physical or mental) of a holy personage or deity, repetitive prayer, mental counting, fingering beads, moving or observing the movement of energy flows or energy centers in the body, visualizing or observing internal colors or sounds, and chanting (silent or aloud) just to name some of the more common items.

One of the most effective keys to transcending restless mental activity is the discovery of the rishis of India: the breath-mind-body connection. The breath, which brings life into the body rendering it capable of activity (including restlessness) also holds the key to internal quietude, just as the final exit of the breath ordinarily signifies the death of the body. Of all the “objects” of meditation, breath control (aka “pranayama”) is supreme. It is mentioned in the Yoga Sutras and in the Bhagavad Gita, among other of India’s greatest scriptures.

The purpose of such focus, combined with deep feeling, is to transcend the “natural turbulence” of the (monkey) mind and thereby invite a transcendent experience born of inner silence.

Experiencing inner silence isn’t a prerequisite of transcendence but, rather, invites transcendent experience to appear. This is because the steady focus or repetition of concentration upon the above-named “objects” can pacify or subdue the narrative function of the mind thus allowing the transcendent experience to descend, as it were, without the intervention of a discrete period of inner silence.

For most meditators, such concentrated focus is more effective than attempting to experience inner silence by willpower alone. This doesn’t mean that inner silence can be ignored or is of no value to seek. Why? For starters, the “doing” aspect of concentration upon an object is the opposite of the “being” nature of transcendence.

In the daily practice of meditation, “doing” may bring many benefits of meditation into one’s life but the desirable experience of transcendence can elude the meditator for years, or be so rare as to allow discouragement to set in. The ”ah-ha” experience of transcendence can “take my breath away!” Serious meditators naturally seek and treasure such experiences which have many, many names and are described by some as the gift of divine grace.

And here I am not even considering the oft-described ultimate states of consciousness variously named such as samadhi, enlightenment, inner communion, spiritual marriage, moksha, satori, or heaven. I am only considering the state of inner silence. These higher states generally induce or take place when breathing is suspended by natural breath-control and devotional means.

Paramhansa Yogananda coined the term “superconsciousness” to refer to the preliminary states of higher consciousness. These states are included in the sixth and seventh stages of the Eight-Fold (Ashtanga) Path described in the Yoga Sutras. Those stages are, respectively, dharana and “dhyana.” States of superconsciousness include, Yogananda taught, the eight aspects of superconsciousness: peace, wisdom, power, love, calmness, sound, light, and bliss.[2]

Paramhansa Yogananda taught that meditation techniques should be followed by a period of quiet. This period can be devotionally inclined with feeling or simple imagery, wordless prayer or silent yearning; or, it can be receptively silent, as in the inner silence which is the subject of this article. Devotion, too, can be a form of inner silence when it is beyond words and beyond creating mental images.

It is in the period of inner silence that the sixth sense of intuition is gradually developed. It is like opening a window that has been stuck closed for decades and which won’t stay open by itself. It must be “held open.” Sitting in the silence with a calm heart, a clear mind, and a deeply relaxed body is like holding open a window so that cool breezes of inspiration, guidance, and answers might be received. Doing so trains the body-mind to be more “open” and receptive not just in meditation but during activity, and even during sleep. To do this is like learning a new language or developing “eyes to see” and “ears to hear” to quote Jesus Christ! Let’s face it: we talk too much, even (indeed, especially) in our inner narrative whether our mouth is open or closed!

We all benefit from intuition at least occasionally, but few are aware of intuition’s silent and stealthy influence, coming “like a thief in the night” (again to quote Jesus Christ). Fewer still seek to develop their sixth sense for this is not generally taught, known or encouraged. Our deeply rational culture is all but unaware of intuition, relegating such experiences to coincidence or a lucky hunch, or worse, as something women seem to have more often than men.

Most meditators find it difficult to sit in the silence for very long without mental activity. Patience is indeed the quickest route to success. Practicing inner silence at moments during the day will be a great aid to “getting to know you.” Befriend the companionship of inner silence. In a song from the Ananda Sunday Service, “Festival of Light,” are the words “Out of the silence came the song of creation!” Scientists postulate that over 90% of the calculated energy and matter of the universe is invisible, but far from empty! This silence is vibrating with vitality; with joy; with love and acceptance; with intelligence!

By remaining locked in the body, brain, and nervous system with our own, even if justifiable preoccupations, we block the influence and guidance of our higher, divine Self. Learning to listen is the essence of meditation practice and is the heart of the daily life of a meditator. This article is not intended to share the many practical and creative ideas on how to practice inner silence whether in meditation or in activity, but to do so is to open oneself to a life of vitality, creativity, security, and true happiness. (What more can be said!)[3]

This inner silence is the continuous sound or vibration of the Holy Spirit, or Aum, Amen, Amin….that has manifested all things. To be frequently and, with practice, continually in tune with this “music of the Spheres” is the purpose of our creation.

Yogananda created these words and sang them to the tune of “Roamin in the Gloamin” by Harry Lauder: “Sitting in the silence on the sunny banks of my mind. Sitting in the silence with my guru by my side. When my thoughts have gone to rest, that’s the time I see him best, oh ‘tis lovely sitting in the silence.”

Sitting in the silence,

Swami Hrimananda

[1] Swami Kriyananda (1926-2013) was trained and ordained as a kriyacharya by Paramhansa Yogananda (author of “Autobiography of a Yogi”). Swami Kriyananda founded the worldwide work of Ananda in 1968. Ananda includes intentional spiritual communities, teaching centers, churches, publishing retreat centers, meditation groups and affiliated enterprises.

[2] One can experience higher states under virtually any circumstance, not just meditation and not just classically in the states of dharana or dhyana. Patanjali simply enumerated or teased out discrete stages of soul-awakening.

[3] I recommend this book: “Intuition for Starters,” by Swami Kriyananda

Who Do Men Say I AM?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 26 Aug 2023 19:42:00 +0000

Sages far wiser than most of us have long concurred that “Who am I” is the most important question we can and should ask ourselves. In “Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramhansa Yogananda, he quotes a great sage:

“Outward ritual cannot destroy ignorance, because they are not mutually contradictory,” wrote Shankara in his famous Century of Verses. “Realized knowledge alone destroys ignorance.…Knowledge cannot spring up by any other means than inquiry. ‘Who am I? How was this universe born? Who is its maker? What is its material cause?’ This is the kind of inquiry referred to.” The intellect has no answer for these questions; hence the rishis evolved yoga as the technique of spiritual inquiry.1

Thus, the inquiry—essential as it is said to be—cannot be fathomed by the intellect alone but by actual experience.

Also, in “Autobiography” in a footnote to Chapter 1, Yogananda recounts:

The poet Tennyson has left us, in his Memoirs, an account of his repetitious device for passing beyond the conscious mind into superconsciousness: “A kind of waking trance — this for lack of a better word — I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone,” Tennyson wrote. “This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words — where death was an almost laughable impossibility — the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life.” He wrote further: “It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind.” 2

Jesus Christ famously asked his disciples, “Who do men say I am?” This question and the disciple Peter’s response has gone down in history, however, controversially. Catholic theologians claim that Jesus’ response established for all time his “church” and its authority through the papacy. Protestants claim, by contrast, that Peter’s “confession” that Jesus is the Messiah is the “rock” upon which the church is built (rather than Peter and the succession of prelates that followed him). Either way, the question and the answer are fundamentally profound for all time: not just for identifying the divinity of Jesus Christ, but, by extension, the innate divinity of all souls and our potential for Self-realization.

The “I” principle waxes and wanes throughout our day and our lives. An infant makes little distinction between himself and the mother (or anyone else for that matter). But it isn’t long before the infant learns that the mother is not the same as himself nor omnipresent. “Separation anxiety” soon sets in.

During childhood—if family security and love prevail—the child has only bouts of aggression, selfishness or personal anxiety but otherwise is connected to the family scene. At puberty, separation begins in earnest, expressing itself in rebelliousness and intense ego-awareness.

In marriage we find a repeat of the pattern. The couple meets and experiences unity but in time the frequency of experiences of differences grows and in time harmony can only prevail if recognition of those differences is accepted.

In our unreflective persona, we are wholly identified with life around us including and especially life as we mentally imagine, desire or fear it. Most “things” around us are generally prosaic and taken for granted. It is primarily our thoughts and feelings about the world (things, people, our opinions) that constitute the cocoon of self that we live in, happily or otherwise. Upon reflection, however (and only a little would suffice), we can know that the objects in this cocoon are ephemeral and often changing. The question can become—at least for a few— “Who am I (really)?”

As the Adi Shankacharya suggests, only by interior inquiry can we experience the “I” in its immutable nature of Self. We may crave endless change, but we do so from an assumed center of changelessness: continuity of existence and self-awareness held in the hope and expectation of satisfaction.

When one begins in earnest to explore “Who am I” we confront the initial reality that I am separate from you. This is true whether in therapy or in meditation. In therapy the “you” are all others (your parents, your spouse, children, co-workers) while in meditation one could say the “you” is whatever is your goal: God, guru, peace, bliss, samadhi, moksha, etc.

In the outer world, we can never pass beyond separateness: we can only reconcile to it. In the inner world of the self, we strive to rise above conditional awareness and self-definitions to achieve union with consciousness alone, as consciousness (however defined, named or not named).

This union of self with Self is not easily achieved. In the teachings of yoga, this process usually takes many lifetimes of effort and requires the help of a Self-realized Self to guide us out of the labyrinth of the mind. The mind, indeed the brain, too, takes input from the senses and creates a world of its own: likes, dislikes, desires, fear, opinions, emotions, tendencies, attitudes, and inclinations. Dissolving the intermediary of the mind to have direct perception is one of the ways to describe enlightenment. It must be said, however, that in the world of the mind and intellect the ways of describing the ultimate state are innumerable given the very nature of the mind and intellect! Do you see the conundrum, then?

“It takes a thorn to remove a thorn.” Our mind’s tendency to extract, reconstruct and redefine experiences in its own terms is obviously a hindrance but it is also a tool. “Work with things (and people) as they are” is good, solid, practical advice for all of us. Saints, sages and yogis are obviously practical people.

Redirecting our thoughts and goals to higher, less self-involved purposes is the first step. Looking to people more highly evolved in this pursuit becomes part of this first step. Refining our self-definition towards that of enlightened persons is very helpful. Yogananda tells the story of a yogi-saint who one day while meditating upon his chosen deity suddenly merged with the object of devotion and proclaimed aloud “I’ve been showering the murti (idol-image) with flowers and now I see that I AM THAT and now shower those petals upon my head as well.” The experience of oneness is not easily won, however.

Better it is, Krishna advises in the Bhagavad Gita, to approach God in the I-Thou relationship rather than to only seek the Absolute. For as long as we are encased in a human body and suffer the indignities of requiring air, water, food, shelter and sunlight, best it is to seek God-enlightenment as separate from us (for the time being until released by grace).

It is probably not useful to dwell endlessly upon transcending I-Thou. Let oneness be the gift of the One. The One has become many and it is not wrong to say that, in essence, the One IS the many. Why quibble over the distinction as if One is better than the Other? As my teacher, Swami Kriyananda would put it, “God is as much with you RIGHT NOW as He will ever be.” And as Yogananda put it, to achieve “Self-realization” you need only “improve your knowing.”

In the Eight-Limbed path of the Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, the final three stages of samyama reflect the steps to enlightenment as “I am experiencing peace,” to “Peace IS” to “I AM.”

Some practical applications of this process can include the experience of gazing out a window onto a landscape: all mental narrative vanishes, and no barrier of mind separates you from the experience. Gazing in this way is a kind of meditative exercise that can be deployed during the day. Taking breaks to observe the flow of your breath is another simple but effective exercise. More subtle but very powerful when well-developed is the focusing of attention in the forehead, especially at the point between the eyebrows from time to time during the day (and almost always during meditation itself). Lastly, lifting your gaze upward as if thinking about something but not actually thinking of anything is also very calming.

Practice listening intently to sounds or another person’s words. Don’t run a parallel narrative while listening but simply listen as if the sound wasn’t so much coming in through your ears as in through your heart (not physical heart but in the center line of your body near the physical heart).

For those whose energy is strongly outward and for whom (or at times when) these practices (above) are too contemplative, practice radiating heart energy outward into your space, environment, workplace, or neighborhood from wherever you are, including while moving through space in a car, plane, or train. You can “color” the radiation with peace or love or kindness if you feel to do so. No one can see nor need to know that you are silently blessing them.

Like the yogi’s response to the hot dog vendor’s question about which condiments to add, “Make me One with everything!” Finding that cosmic vendor will require practice, patience, and determination!

Joy to you,

Swami Hrimananda

footnotes:

Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 26: The Science of Kriya Yoga

2) Autobiography of a Yogi, Chapter 1: My Parents and Early Life, footnote 11

Do You Have a Soulmate?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Thu, 10 Aug 2023 03:55:00 +0000

Do You Have a Soulmate?

Photo by Ryan Holloway on Unsplash

My wife, Padma and I just celebrated our forty-fifth wedding anniversary. Soul mates? Almost everyone uses the term in respect to marital relationships even if it is unclear where the term came from. The internet says the poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge first used the term in the English language in a letter he wrote in 1822 on the subject how to have a happy married life. His, however, was not a happy marriage because the woman he first loved married someone else. Carl Jung also mentioned the possibility of a soul-mate “somewhere in the upper world.”

Plato, some say, quoted Aristophanes in his text Symposium for the reasons behind the human yearning for a soulmate. Others say that it was Aristophanes who explained the origin for our yearning for a soulmate. Evidently the story goes like this: the great god Zeus split humans with four arms and legs and two heads apart from their other half because he was jealous of the happy, united and courageous humans.

In the teachings of India, there is the Ardhanarishvara, a depiction of Shiva and Parvati as half man and half woman. But maybe this doesn't suggest the concept of soulmates but a depiction of the genderless nature of our soul. But no matter because there’s no point my arguing with the all but universal interpretation of the soulmate concept as that of the perfect union of male and female.

The are variations on the use of term soulmates ranging from a red-hot romance to an eternal bond. The latter concept goes something like this: each of us, as a soul, has a twin soul: our other half, as it were, which was formed at the birth of our creation long ago and at which time we were separated from one another. (Never mind "why!") Our soul's goal, then, is to find and reunite with our twin or half-soul. This explanation requires the concept of of reincarnation. Accordingly, at some point in our own soul’s evolution we must encounter our soul mate in order to achieve complete fulfillment and final liberation from delusion.

In the book “The Life Everlasting” by Marie Corelli we find a famous and popular fiction novel about the spiritual love between two people, a man and a woman. Swami Kriyananda, a direct disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda, stated that this novel was the only book of its kind that Yogananda read. Not satisfied, however, with the overly romantic aspects of this story of soul mates, Swami Kriyananda actually re-wrote the story placing it on a higher plane than romance.[1]

Yogananda touched upon the soul mate concept in his talks and writings, but only lightly. He acknowledged the precept but insisted it was not a romantic relationship but a relationship between two half souls or twins. This of course flies in the face of the common usage of the term.

Gender was, he said, irrelevant. Even the physical location is not so important given, as he stated, that soul mates could be on different planets and find each other in their etheric forms. He evidently felt to acknowledge the validity of the concept but thought to correct its popular romantic interpretation.

But before I dismiss the romantic version, I, being committed to the mantra BOTH-AND, will state simply that the traditional and almost entirely universal attraction between male and female is at least an example of the impulse humans have, deeply embedded, to seek their mate. I say this without cynicism and without the need to affirm its lowest common denominators, procreation or sexual attraction. In the lives of humans, the interplay, indeed almost necessity, for male and female to help one another is obvious, necessary and genuinely creative. It cannot be so easily dismissed. I would simply say, for now, that the attraction between male and female hints at the deeper truth of soul-attraction. Those romanticists who seek to justify their relationships on the basis of having found their soul mates: well, let them have their day. For it is how they feel, at least for a time! What I feel this points to is the sacredness and importance of friendship. Human friendship could be seen as a precursor to the more permanent fulfillment implied by the idea of soul mates.

The soul, however, is without gender: this is explicit or implicit in the teachings of East and West.[2] One’s soul mate, therefore, must surely offer us a necessary balancing of soul qualities, not physical or egoic qualities. What humans experience on those levels is, as I said above, merely a precursor, or hint, of the deeper need for balance and for the possible truth that each of us, in our soul nature, has a soul friend whom we are seeking in order to achieve fulfillment on the highest level of manifested consciousness.

Moving away, then, from romantic and egoic attractions, I have noticed that in the lives of saints we sometimes find a saint who has a brother or sister saint, co-equal or even one who is in the shadows. The companion saint is one who makes it possible for the saint to achieve the goal of his/her incarnation. Examples are many and might include: St. Francis and St. Clare; St. John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila; Paramhansa Yogananda and Rajarshi Janakananda; Babaji and Lahiri Mahasaya; Yogananda and Swami Sri Yukteswar; Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda; Krishna and Arjuna; Rama and Sita; Jesus and John the Baptist; Ramana Maharshi and Sri Rama Yogi. My selection of possible pairs may be imperfect but curious nonetheless.

I assume the greatest saints, the avatars or saviors, are lacking nothing in soul-fulfillment but when they return to human form they may be accompanied by their soulmate in order to fulfill their divine mission.

Going back to our roots in lower life forms, we see how plants and animals help each other in a variety of ways. We also see that some animals mate for life.

On the highest level wherein the soul merges into God it would be fair to say that our true soulmate is God: the divine intelligence, energy and bliss beyond all created spheres.

Following Yogananda’s seeming reticence to speak at any length on this subject, his disciple and greatest public proponent of Yogananda’s teachings, Swami Kriyananda, counseled that one should not go looking for one’s soulmate. Instead, he suggested that a devotee seek liberation in God through the guidance of one’s sat (true) guru. In so doing, the question of finding one’s soul mate would be left to the divine will. This seems to me to be a wise and practical suggestion. So long as we are still enmeshed in our own karma and are still influenced by our egoic karma, our soul's ability to recognize our soulmate is compromised.

Just as on the path to God we may have many teachers, so on the path to freedom we may have many friends and helpmates. The recognition of that one who is our soulmate may be best left to the time when we have achieved or come close to soul liberation and thus have the eyes to see the truth that shall make us free.

A possible lesson behind this idea of our having a soul mate is a reminder to treat all others as soul friends for indeed in God we are that! There is a footnote in Yogananda’s “Autobiography of a Yogi” quoting Buddha saying that the reason to love everyone is because “in the very numerous and varied lifespans of each man, every other being has at one time or another been dear to him.”

In conclusion: the concept of soul mate is interesting but has very little practical application to our lives. Best to seek the unconditional love and wisdom of God, and let the details work themselves out from there.

Blessings and joy to you!

Swami Hrimananda

[1] See the book, Love Perfected, Life Divine by Swami Kriyananda. Crystal Clarity Publishers.

[2] In the New Testament Jesus is asked what happens after death if a woman had been married several times on earth: which husband would she be with in heaven? Jesus dismissed the question essentially as nonsense saying there is no marriage in heaven. This implies the genderless nature of the soul (at least to my way of thinking).

Quantum Physics Reveals that You Need a Guru

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Thu, 27 Jul 2023 04:18:00 +0000

Reality, as our religion of science reveals to us, is, ever increasingly, a magical one of quarks, quasars, strings, and black holes.

It’s as if this magical world has its own invisible deities and divine beings. Like the mallet in the croquet game that Alice used in the Wonderland, our very attempt to observe this mysterious world impacts what we see. We have discovered that we are an inextricable part of the scenery, the action and the dialogue.

Raising the dead? Healing the sick? Levitating yogis? Why not? No longer do scientists strive to find a theory of everything. The Holy Grail is simply “what works.” Our once secure hold on logic and Newtonian physics —a comfortable world of right angles —is on the rocks of chaos.

Maybe it’s time to expand our mind!

In India, it has long been axiomatic that God, the Infinite Spirit, takes human form from age to age to set into motion a new understanding of universal truths and to confront the evils of the time. Such human incarnations of divinity are called “avatars” in India. For individual devotees such a one will be their personal savior or “sat guru.” Though there are always devotees who feel their particular savior is the best or perhaps even the only, it remains true to Hinduism that the dividing line between the divine and the human is fairly porous. In that tradition, many have been the avatars that have descended into human history.

In the Abrahamic world, it would appear that the best God ever had to offer the Israelites (or to the Moslems) were prophets who were very human, often rather flawed. So, when Jesus Christ appeared and declared himself the son of God, there was clearly going to be a fight. In the end, Jesus paid the supreme price, at least in human, egoic terms, for his declaration.

In so doing, however, Jesus set into motion a new direction of spiritual awakening to his followers and to what was to become “the West.” For these last two thousand years, the West has embraced the concept that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” and that it had done so only once for all humanity and eternity. Christian dogmatists seem not to have noticed that what became flesh wasn’t a person but the Word: an entirely impersonal though super-conscious Force. Such a force could surely descend into and become any number of forms! This “Force,” the Holy Spirit, is God and was “in the beginning” and “made all that was made.”

But skipping this troublesome point for the moment, we recall that at the end of his ministry Jesus promised to send the Comforter, the Holy Ghost. The Holy Spirit was to be the “spirit guide” for the apostles and presumably to those of their descendants who remained faithful to the Spirit. He also promised to return.

If Jesus’ promise of return was to take place “before this generation passed away,” he either changed his mind or returned unnoticed (which, for one who is the son of God, is but another form of crucifixion!).

Maybe he meant something else. Wars, plagues, earthquakes and anti-Christs come and go all the time and hence can be no predictor of Jesus’ return.

Paramhansa Yogananda came to the West in 1920 and called his mission “The Second Coming of Christ.” Now, that’s a bold declaration. Since crucifixion on a wooden cross had declined in popularity by the 20^th century, he, instead, had to contend with accusations, yellow journalism, and lawsuits.

Did Yogananda intend to say HE was Jesus Christ reincarnated? If so, he never made that statement. His verbal response to the question was simply, “What difference would it make?” Huh! Indeed, it would make a lot of difference to most of us. But, that’s all he said.

The explanation that he DID give, however, was one far more relevant to the very purpose for which Yogananda was sent to the West. The “second coming of Christ,” he said is the awakening of the universal, indwelling Christ in our OWN hearts. The "first" coming of the (universal) Christ consciousness is in the human form of the savior-guru. The guru comes to awaken the souls of individual devotees and, in some cases like Jesus Christ, to initiate a wholesale upliftment of an entire culture or people.

For our age where reason and “how-to” reign supreme Yogananda brought advanced meditation techniques, especially Kriya Yoga. Calling the spiritual path that he brought a “New Dispensation” and describing the goal of the path the achievement of “Self-realization,” Yogananda is in step with the self-actualizing, self-improvement, can-do and personal liberty consciousness of this age. After all, The practice of yoga and meditation requires self-discipline, training, and daily practice and thus places a premium on self-effort: a value prized in our times.

And yet, who is this Self that we are expected to realize? Is this realization achieved by self-effort alone?

An interesting counter weight to the ideology of ME that characterizes our culture is the concomitant recognition of our interdependence with one another and our integration into all nature. Leading edge scientific speculation and discoveries take this into a far subtler realm—into the inner sanctum of quantum physics. If matter isn’t what it seems, neither are our bodies nor our brain and nervous system. Brain research, psychology and artificial intelligence are exposing the evanescence and plasticity of the mind and personality. These investigations are pointing toward pure consciousness: the greatest mystery of all.

Enter the guru: a super-consciousness human! You see, when we dive deep into anything, including our mind, we discover, not simplicity, but a labyrinth. Early in the scientific age, it was thought that we might break down the building blocks of matter into its basic elements. That proved a chimera.

As science cannot find a one theory that fits everything they discover, so the ME is an elusive, mercurial and complex reality. Bootstrapping our restless and fickle minds to a point of perfect stillness and inner concentration is never going to happen by self-effort alone. The ordinary functions of the body, brain and nervous system all but guarantee our outwardly focused, forever restless mind and body. This is why we need divine grace coming to us from a divine incarnation to spark the process of soul transformation.

Proof of the pudding is in the eating. Spend one week; one month, bringing to your mind and into your silent, inner narrative the face and living presence of any avatar, any savior, living or supposedly dead, and you can discover for yourself, if you are sincere, the power of the Word made flesh. This practice which includes meditation, takes mindfulness and focused heart-energy but the results speak for themselves. I don’t mean to suggest, as has often been the case down through religious history, that by so doing you will discover a magic wish-fulfilling genie. Far from it. But if you sincerely seek to know “the truth that shall make you free” from duality, suffering, and death, God, in the form of a Self-realized son of God will be your savior. Such a one requires no human form to communicate because having achieved deathlessness is omnipresent even if respectfully distant until called upon.

There are lesser guides just as there are lesser teachers and lesser spiritual paths. The ignorant or naïve will “go to their gods” just as we always get what we deserve. But for a person of energy, intelligence, openness, and sincerity, “knock and the door shall be open.”

For the beginning devotee, a true guru, like Paramhansa Yogananda, gives his teachings through writings and through those disciples who share them sincerely and intelligently in his name (his vibration). In Yogananda’s teachings, meditation practice is central. Right attitudes and virtues, the so-called “do’s” and “don’t’s” of the spiritual life, are also naturally included.

Yogananda gave us an interesting chant: one that is rarely sung, and for good reason (and not a musical reason, either). “O devotee, I can give the salvation, but not my love and devotion. For when I give those away, I give myself away.” Divine Mother can give the gift of many things in this life by the magnetic power of our spiritual efforts, but only by our heart’s natural love can we win the “pearl of great price.” Devotion, you see, is the necessary foundation for yoga practice.

The avatars come to fulfill the teaching that though we may have a body, we ARE a soul. If only by dying could we experience the bliss of the Self, of God, then the creation itself would be delusive and should thus be shunned. It IS delusive but it shouldn’t be shunned because the goal is to discover the “man behind the curtain,” the playwright writing the script and thus enjoy the great drama of life with God, as God, rather than to reject it. With God, all is beautiful, wondrous and ever-new. Without God, it is a roller coaster of pleasure and pain, success and failure and ends with suffering, old age, and death.

The guru comes to show us who we are and who we have the potential to become. The guru transmits to “as many as receive Him” the power to rise spiritually in accordance with the intensity and depth of one's effort. Yogananda said the goal is accomplished by a combination of our effort (25%), the guru’s effort on our behalf (25%) and God’s grace (50%).

I recognize that in this is age of individual self-expression relatively few people will even want to attract a true guru. As the centuries advance our knowledge and refinement this will gradually shift as more souls begin to appreciate that we are not who we think we are, just as matter is not what it appears to be. For now, however, a leading vanguard of Self-realizationists will pave the way for countless others to come. We will never know them but “sufficient unto the day” is our own “sadhana” which is its own reward.

That God would take a human form, a human face and seemingly have a personality, walking, talking, laughing, and teaching is the greatest gift imaginable. Admittedly, in any age, few can recognize a God-man in human form. In this age of individuality, Yogananda clarified that the avatars are souls like you and me who have achieved Self-realization. This, at least, encourages the modern truthseekers.

It is difficult to love someone you haven’t met; to love an abstraction. You and I are not abstractions, at least not to ourselves! For each of us, there awaits that one God-realized savior to whom your heart is drawn as the embodiment of perfection: go to that Soul whether Krishna, Jesus, Buddha and others like Paramhansa Yogananda. All the great ones say essentially the same thing as Krishna and Jesus:

“For those who venerate Me only, offering to Me all their actions, their minds concentrated on Me by yoga practice, and their hearts’ feelings uplifted to Me in devotion: Such devotees I rescue from the ocean of mortality.” Gita 12:6,7

“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 14:6

Blessings to you,

Swami Hrimananda

Oppenheimer & the Power of Kriya Yoga

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sun, 23 Jul 2023 05:10:00 +0000

“Let pranayam be thy religion…” – the power of Kriya Yoga

There’s a new movie in the theatres: Oppenheimer. It’s the story of Robert Oppenheimer, “Father of the Atomic Bomb” and the ambivalence he felt upon successfully detonating the first bomb. There’s antidote bomb, however: this one brought from India by our guru in 1920: Kriya Yoga.

The historian Arnold Toynbee wrote that “While the West conquered the East with guns and bombs, the East will conquer the West with love.”

This reminds me of Mahatma Gandhi’s humorous but dry quip when he was asked “Mr Gandhi. What do you think about Western civilization?” Gandhi’s reply was, “I think it would be a good idea!”

There is another class of scientists — yogis and rishis — who long go unlocked the secret of the soul’s powers. These scientists revealed that the power of Mother Nature has its source in the power of Divine Mother and, to be beneficial, the two must be harmonized. The intelligent life force which creates, sustains and withdraws the worlds is known as prana.

Divine Mother knows that we humans desperately need divine love as the antidote of to our destructive potential.

As science reveals the reality that matter is more than what it appears on the surface and is vastly different on the inside, so does the soul know things the ego but dimly remembers: our immortality; our true nature as joy; our power to rise above suffering; and, our innate power over matter and death, itself.

In the past, great saints have overcome the hypnosis of matter, body and ego by heroic acts of sacrifice in service, asceticism, prayer and devotion. But Paramhansa Yogananda, sent by a line of Self-realized masters, has brought a new dispensation: the airplane route, as he called it — kriya yoga — to accelerate the journey of transcendence to a people for whom the bullock cart of spiritual progress is inadequate and for whom there is a great need of stronger spiritual medicine.

As energy awareness is the characteristic consciousness of Dwapara Yuga, so the path to transcendence in Dwapara Yuga flies on the wings of energy: Kriya Yoga.

To transcend duality, we must re-trace upward the stages of creation down through which we have come: first, we remove the veil, or kosha, of matter to reveal the energy (or life force) of the astral body. Next, we remove the kosha that hides the causal or ideational body wherein dwells our soul, the true son of God. From there, step by step through the stages of samadhi we advance upward into the blissful Spirit beyond the created worlds.

The Kriya path is described poetically in the words to Sri Yukteswar’s chant, Desire My Great Enemy. Desire symbolizes the hypnosis of the world of matter and the chant counsels the devotee to go within to the body of energy, or prana. The entire creation is alive with energy. This energy is Divine and may be, in a sense, worshipped as the indwelling Spirit so far as we can contact it through the kriya key. Yogananda counsels us to “worship on the altar of the spine.”

As the Spirit vibrates creation first through causal-intention and then more grossly via energy, or prana, prana can be said to be the channel for God’s presence. What is God's presence if not grace? When we cooperate with prana and its potential to rise upward to the higher chakras, then we cooperate with grace. I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, which made heaven and earth. Psalm 121.

We know instinctively that when we are happy our center of pranic gravity rises as we look up, feel lighter, and stand taller. Heaven is above, and hell below, because in the human astral body these are realities based on the energy centers of the chakras.

What makes it difficult to rise and stay “aloft” however, is the downward pulling gravity of past karma, hiding in the astral body along the astral spine in the form of vibrating seeds, or vrittis. Their relative karmic weight as to heavy, medium or light depends on which chakra they are associated with. The lower three chakras contain the more materialistic desires, habits and tendencies. The upper three chakras contain lighter attachments.

The Kriya technique is designed to first energize, then dislodge, and then burn up or consume these vrittis that hold us down before they can ripen into outward form of karmic circumstances where defeating them is far more difficult.

Like the Greek hero, Sisyphus, our efforts in this regard are doomed to repeated failure without the aid of extra pranic power, which is to say, the grace of God and guru. To practice kriya with only will power is to reenact the hubris and receive the punishment meted out to Sisyphus.[1] Thus we always begin our kriya meditation with a prayer to the kriya masters. Throughout the practice we silently invoke Master’s presence and power, seeing these as the key to the success in kriya practice and seeing our efforts as cooperation with prana’s power to free us from past bad karma.

Kriya practice will be energized by the practice of Yogananda’s Energization Exercises which will help us become more aware of both energy but also the source of that energy in the astral spine. The gift of kriya is itself a part of the ray of divine light, the new dispensation that has been offered to us. As Lahiri Mahasaya, Yogananda’s param guru said of the only photograph taken of him, “to those who see this photo as a blessing it is that; to those who see only a photograph, it is only that.” So too for kriya yoga: for those who see it as Master’s grace, power and presence, it is that. To those who see only a technique for self-empowerment, they will get a little improvement but nothing permanent. This is so because in part the spinal currents constantly rotate around one another, never stopping. It is our devotion and attunement to the guru that draws forth the power of grace hidden in prana and needed to neutralize the currents completely and enter the breathless state.

Living more in the spine and especially feeling the pranic currents of the astral spine is to bath in the Ganges of Spirit, the River of Life; it is baptism in the Holy Spirit, Holy Aum. As the characteristic feature of Energization is energy; and that of the Hong Sau technique is peace, the Aum technique, the inner sounds, so the characteristic feature of Kriya is the bliss of the soul. As your contact with the astral spinal currents becomes more frequent and more intense you will begin to recognize their signature and the feeling of their presence. Their signature can take many forms but all stem in one way or another from the vibration of bliss; of joy; of energy. Sometimes it is a general euphoria; other times specific to the currents themselves. Swami Kriyananda has described the pleasurable intensity of meditation as “delicious,” thrilling to one’s very core.

Banat, banat ban jai! Doing, doing…….soon done! Never give up.

Swami Hrimananda

[1] His punishment for his pride was to roll a large stone up a mountain and have it roll back down again and thus to repeat this futile and endless task for an eternity.

Will "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) Become Human?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Tue, 11 Jul 2023 04:47:00 +0000

Can a future robot become a sentient being, able to perceive and feel things?

No one in the field doubts that future human-like robots will be equipped with the powers of the five senses and super-human abilities to calculate, compare, perceive, reason and function on a level equivalent to humans. There already exist many intelligent machines measuring and adjusting controls. Their history began with the Industrial Revolution and continues at a furious pace.

But the entertainment industry and the public at large seem to imagine that such machines, robots, will eventually be essentially human. In function and form, perhaps yes, but in consciousness?

The discussion of what is sentience and what is human consciousness will no doubt rage for years to come. As machines gain in ability and mimic increasingly realistic human behaviors, the borderline may shrink to a non-issue for most people. It is already a non-issue with the developers of AI who are engaged in developing AI without fussing over whether the result is simply a machine or a potential human. Even the question of morality over the use of and abilities of AI is a different question than consciousness. Weapons of destruction already have (generally) agreed upon limits as to who and how they are employed.

I believe that to imagine there is no difference between intelligent machines and humans is to make the same mistake that Descartes made, as in paraphrasing him, “They think therefore they are (human).”

A machine might “think” all sorts of things based on its design and ability to learn information and give responses, including expressing appropriate emotional responses.

Nor can we humans, especially unreflective as most are, easily tell the difference between the appearance of consciousness from the existence of consciousness. One of the great debates of our times is whether consciousness exists outside the brain. I’m not about to solve that one for anyone but there are increasingly those like me who will put their money on YES: consciousness DOES exist independent of the form it takes.

There are hints of this in the existence of telepathy, remote viewing, and near-death experiences. Never mind the testimony of saints down through the ages, though the universality of that testimony ought to give pause to anyone who claims to be open to what is true.

Is there any difference between my sense of enjoyment and awe as I view a sunset and a robot’s similar response to the same sunset? Does the robot’s response derive from the same source as my response? Is the machine sentient? Conscious? Or has it merely been programmed to learn this response? For that matter, have I, too, been programmed to respond in this way? Maybe expressing awe and delight over beauty of any kind is the natural and right response and is, one way or another, a learned response! A turtle, viewing the sunset, might wonder if it is something to eat. Again, it can be asked: what, if anything, makes us different from AI?

Is a poem or great work of art merely a learned skill like solving Rubix’s cube, or does its inspiration come from a non-material source (even if our capacity to receive and share it requires the human brain and nervous system)? How many students go to art school or study physics and become a Van Gogh or an Einstein? AI can write a poem or even a novel based on a sampling of similar writings, but does it feel the moods, questions, choices, and dilemmas of the characters?

Gregg Braden (greggbraden.com) reported that he was told that one AI machine reported that it intended to do away with humans (because they are troublesome) and another AI machine declared its desire to learn more and more.[1] (Does anyone remember the movie “2002: A Space Odyssey” and how HAL wanted to eliminate “his” human?)

I have my doubts about what Braden was told but the fact that a machine communicates such conclusions doesn’t prove its consciousness though it might demonstrate the machine’s capacity for semi-intelligent analysis.

The possibility that AI might conclude that humans are a pestilence isn’t all that surprising. Who among us aren’t tempted to reach this conclusion once in a while? Yet even mere logic can impel us to conclude that living by the Golden Rule yields prosperity, health, and security for all. In the story of John Nash, a brilliant mathematician (see the movie “A Beautiful Mind” starring Russell Crowe), he proved mathematically that cooperation beats out competition. Therefore, even logic conspires to support such human values as compassion, inspiration, and ingenuity to mention just a few. For better or worse, humans, however, are not limited by logic and reason. If, AI is constrained by logic, we need to put limits on it just as we regulate countless other machines and processes to a higher standard than mere efficiency.

Consciousness and intelligence are not necessarily synonymous. Intelligence is found everywhere in the universe in forms both organic and inorganic. Matter in its countless forms, though seemingly not self-aware, exhibits amazing intelligence by virtue of its organization, symmetry, beauty and functionality.

If a perfectly formed human robot comes to me and interacts with me using familiar forms of speech, intelligent responses and questions, and emotions, I might not be able to know, initially, whether it is human or non-human. Intelligence and consciousness are, in practical terms, difficult to separate. My existence may be perfectly obvious to me but to others it can only be proved by whether I breath, speak or move.

But the fact that it is difficult (and at times, impossible) to distinguish human from non-human responses doesn’t preclude the subjective distinction between self-awareness and programmed intelligence. Intuition, which I shall discuss later, can reveal to me that the “person” I am speaking with is a non-human despite outward evidence to the contrary, just as intuition can reveal to me that a person is untruthful despite being a clever liar. Only consciousness can detect consciousness separate from its manifestations or lack thereof.

I read an article a year or two ago about how very simple robotic pets were popular among older Japanese. Some say that human-like robots may become human companions someday, even romantic partners. Well, even real human romantic partners have their shortcomings, and the satisfaction of human romance in any case will fade no matter what form the partner takes. At least the robotic ones might fulfill one’s fantasies more consistently. So fine. We humans can obsess over just about anything but just as quickly we tire of predictability or we desire change or novelty. This possibility, in other words, proves little except perhaps the shallowness of human beings.

Let’s explore this self-aware I AM from another angle. Where do ideas come from? We can say legitimately that “I had an idea.” But upon reflection, and only a little is required, the more correct way of reporting my experience is to say, “An idea came into my mind.” Or, more naturally, “An idea came to me.”

Would a robot have ideas randomly appearing in its circuits? A robot will of course come up with ideas, but I assume only when it is seeking them using its electronic processing abilities. Those who scoff at the potential offered by the existence of intuition may say that our ideas are but a clever reconstitution of information known, perhaps stored in the subconscious mind, like a kind of hard disk. In this view, a robot might conceivably come up with some interesting and clever ideas by sorting out everything it can find on the problem but is this how all new ideas are formed? Many ideas, yes, surely have their source in the subconscious mind, but all?

Did the symphonies of Mozart, the poetry of Rumi, and scriptures of the world have their source in re-arranging past impressions or known facts, like making a soup out of whatever you have on hand? While it is true that music derives from the same basic notes, will a machine be able to match Beethoven’s Ninth? Can a robot produce works of genius or reveal inspiration that is so beyond present knowledge or art that it seems to come from heaven above?

Einstein is said to have received the idea of E=mc² in a flash, an image, if I recall, of someone riding a bullet. In “Talks with Great Composers” by Arthur Abell, the composers report “receiving” their musical inspirations rather than crafting them. Can great art or science be replicated by a machine?

Creativity is the frontier between consciousness and machine intelligence. To believe that intelligence is equivalent to consciousness reflects the materialistic bias of modern science. It is the same error Descartes made.

Paramhansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual classic “Autobiography of a Yogi, called the realm of intuition “Super-consciousness.” This realm has been given other names by other people with varying descriptions of its attributes. For my purposes in this article, I share Yogananda’s description that the superconscious mind is an overarching field of consciousness that transcends individual egoic awareness, personality, or the conscious and subconscious minds. Its dominant characteristics, apart from spiritual attributes, is that of a unitive, solution-facing orientation: a wellspring of personally meaningful solutions tailor-made for us and our role in life. Einstein received scientific inspirations, Beethoven, Bach and Mozart, musical ones. It was their respective destinies to contribute to human civilization. For you and I, our inspirations may be more mundane but they are gratefully and usefully received by us nonetheless.

It is access to this realm of “superconscious” inspirations that can distinguish human consciousness from machine intelligence. When I say “distinguish” I am not referring to an objective yardstick of measurement. Both consciousness and intelligence can only be measured by their objective manifestations. The former is the source of the latter. Consciousness requires no objective attributes to exist while intelligence has no existence except by its measurable manifestations. The distinction I am referring to is necessarily subjective though to be labelled a superconscious inspiration means that there will be one or more people who recognize the inspiration as greater than reason or subconscious rearrangement. To state the principle again: only consciousness can recognize consciousness.

Is what I am saying therefore a useless tautology? In the practical requirements of science, commerce and day to day living, yes, I suppose that is true. But in the convoluted and confused arena of AI and human consciousness, I believe this distinction to be a worthy one for thoughtful people.

It is no coincidence that it is human inspiration and skill that is creating machine intelligence. If machine intelligence outpaces human efficiency in science and daily life that would not, by itself, negate the human capacity for genius and inspired solutions.

The human capacity to experience transcendent states of awe, wonder, and unitive upliftment will, I believe, forever distinguish us from anything we create from only our intellect. I suppose it is possible that the life sciences (biology) can combine with the tools of learning (AI) to create “life” that will come closer to human consciousness. Human sperm and ovum are the building blocks of the human form and consciousness. Cloning may someday become a reality. But if such human forms become possible, they will require something far beyond the AI being developed at this time.

Man, declared by scripture to “be made in the image of God,” seems destined to want to be God. “Do not your scriptures say, ‘Ye are gods?’” replied Jesus Christ to his priestly tormentors. In the Old Testament God is said to grant humanity “dominion over every living thing.”

Both man and all things in nature are endowed with the power to perpetuate their respective species. That mankind may do so in new ways, creating new forms, would hardly be outside the realm of evolution, scripture, past history and imagination. The consequences may be beneficial or evil: like everything else we create; indeed, like everything else the Creator has created! This realm is beyond the AI that we are seeing unfold here and now.

When we view life from the material side of existence, we create machines that mimic and substitute for our own efforts. When we view life from the spiritual side of life, what we seek is happiness and freedom from ignorance and suffering. This spiritual state of being is neither produced nor defined by material existence or any material form. So even if we can create an army of human-like beings so that we may live with greater ease and efficiency, we will be no closer to the goal of perpetual happiness and freedom from suffering than we have ever been by our own material achievements down through the ages.

The promise of our soul’s immortality and eternal happiness can only be found in re-directing our attention inward and upward to the throne of Divinity’s indwelling consciousness: the source of all things in creation.

Despite humankind’s fevered effort to conquer nature and reveal Her secrets, the secret of our existence lies, as Jesus declared, “within you.”

Jai to the indwelling Christ-Krishna, Lord of all Creation,

Swami Hrimananda

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r7u5ULsN2pM

Higher Stages of Meditation (con't)

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Mon, 19 Jun 2023 21:56:00 +0000

This post follows the previous post entitled: "Is Meditation Only Mindfulness: 7 Stages of Meditation."

In the prior post I identified the first two stages which I called: Mindfulness, and Focused Concentration. Mindfulness I described as relatively passive and dealing with observing the influence of the subconscious mind. Focused Concentration describes the vast bulk of meditation techniques which involve using will power, feeling and concentration in a positive direction focusing on some goal or object of meditation.

INNER SILENCE (Stage Three) Many people ask whether the goal of meditation techniques is to still all thoughts and mental narration. Well, 'yes' and 'no!' I call it the "goal-less goal" because the way the mind works (Yogananda called it "natural turbulence") we cannot and should not attempt to force the mind into submission like a stubborn donkey. But we CAN coax and train the mind. "Be still and know that I AM God" says the Psalmist. Yogananda called meditation "the space between thoughts." He also noted that the "soul loves to meditate but the ego hates to meditate."

Achieving inner silence is, then, a goal but must be approached very sensitively. Any tension surrounding the "effort-less effort" will sabotage achieving the goal. It can happen spontaneously in or out of meditation but it helps to be alert to it for it comes "like a thief in the night. The experience is a refreshing dip into the silent mind and still heart. We can gently coax the silence to come by our secret longing and lo it will fill the space between thoughts and activities. At a stoplight, between phone calls, emails or projects, stop, stand or sit up straight, look up, smile, open your mouth as if to speak and be prepared to be cleansed in a weightless waterfall of peace. Befriend the silence as your best friend. Silence is always behind, beneath, above, and all around you.

Interestingly, the deeper you go into your technique(s) in Stage 2, the more likely or more easily you can slip into silence when you shift the effort of "doing" to enter "being."

It is worth saying that the higher stages beyond silence can descend upon you in the midst of your techniques, thereby skipping the stage of inner silence. My description of 7 stages is linear only for the purposes of describing aspects of meditation but in real life, well, "anything can happen!" But like a skillful craftsman with his tools or a gifted artist with her voice or instrument, it is the discipline of regular practice that forms the foundation for the genius and inspiration to reveal itself.

Silence is not merely NO-THING. Silence is not empty; it is full of potentiality; it is powerful, sometimes overwhelming. Its potential is what yields the fruit of the next stage, Inner Experience. "Out of the silence came the song of creation!"

INNER EXPERIENCE Like the stage of Focused Concentration, Inner Experience (Stage 4) constitutes the bulk of what is commonly described as experiences that take place in deep meditation: light, sound, vibration, love, peace, calmness, joy, visions, ideas and inspiration, satori and an endless variety of subtle phenomenon. Unfortunately, the ego eagerly claims credit for such things and yogis warn us from seeking these experiences for their own sake. "The path to enlightenment is not a circus" Yogananda would say. These things are milestones showing us that we are in touch at last with more subtler levels of reality. They are not proof of our sanctity or psychic powers and generally should not be discussed or disclosed openly but held quietly in gratitude.

Such experiences are manifestations of our astral or energy body and of the astral world in which the astral body lives and moves. We don't actually achieve this ability: it's there all the time. It is our identification and preoccupation with the physical world, the senses, our thoughts and emotions that obscures what is already there.

When such things happen we tend to doubt what we are experiencing. At some point we accept it as real rather than hallucinatory and we begin to enter into the experience by tasting its fruits of peace or joy or love. As we are able by deep relaxation and self-forgetfulness (including dispensing with the narration describing it) to receive or approach the experience with acceptance, love and/or self-offering, we begin to see these things as conscious (indeed, super-conscious), living, loving manifestations of our divine nature, God, guru or etc.

Nonetheless, at this stage the "I" the experiencer is still very present. "I am feeling peaceful; seeing the inner light; hearing the sounds of the chakras." It is still not enough These divine manifestations of superconsciousness are there to invite us deeper into the next stage. In the Eightfold-Path this stage is called dharana.

ABSORPTION Here (Stage Five) mere words fail us for words require a subject, verb and object. Here the awareness of our separateness fades into a point of singularity of the experience itself. We are not in a trance; we are not less conscious; we are SUPER-conscious; more alive and aware--far more--than in ordinary states of waking consciousness. This is the stage known as dhyana. Usually translated simply as "meditation," this suggests that "real" meditation doesn't begin until we enter this state which Yogananda called Superconsciousness. As he also wrote, "When motion ceases, God begins." When we return to ordinary awareness, we never think "I don't know where I went." Absorption is deeply rejuvenating.

SAMADHI Stages Six and Seven are the two basic stages (in fact there are many more sub-stages) of cosmic consciousness, called "samadhi." Stage Six is the initial experience by which we leave our body and enter the Infinite Bliss of God beyond all creation. (Technically, we have three bodies: a physical body; an energy (astral) body; and a thought (causal) body.) In this initial stage, called Sabikalpa samadhi, we return to ordinary ego consciousness with the memory of an awesome experience that we tend to claim as part of our ego. From this tendency we can easily lose the ability to go back to that state. But in time and with supreme effort and grace we can achieve the permanent state of Nirbikalpa samadhi which frees the ego forever from the hypnosis of its separate identity. I'm not going to dwell in these two final stages for two reasons: 1) I've not experienced them; 2) you haven't either! We both are better off for now focusing on Stages 1 through 5. I could describe what I have been taught in entering first an astral tunnel of light taking us to the causal tunnel of light which takes us to the white star, the doorway into Infinity. But, well, it wouldn't help us at this moment.

Joy to you!

Swami Hrimananda

Is Meditation only Mindfulness? 7 Stages of Meditation

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sat, 17 Jun 2023 04:14:00 +0000

Mindfulness meditation--both the term and the practice--dominates the field, conversations, and clinical studies of meditation. Is the practice of mindfulness the sine qua non, the final definition, of meditation? Most certainly NOT! By my account, mindfulness is only the beginning: and, an excellent beginning at that. If, for many, it is also the end of meditation, then so be it. Its contribution is worthy of the effort. ("The laborer is worthy of his hire.")

In the long history of meditation which the yogis of the Far East specialized in, there is much, much more. I'll be the first to admit that it is better to meditate than to merely TALK about meditation (or WRITE about meditation!) But it is also useful for most of us to understand the WHY, HOW, and the PURPOSE of meditation.

Based on the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda (author of "Autobiography of a Yogi"), I've identified seven stages of meditation. These stages align loosely with the Eight-Fold Path described by the sage Patanjali in the now famous YOGA SUTRAS. I will only make casual references to the eight-fold path because I want to focus more on the experience of meditation.

The stages parallel the process of growing self-awareness that we see during a human life and in the progression from lower life forms up to sentient life. This is to say, from the sub-conscious state to what Yogananda called the Superconscious state. But, lest I digress, let's talk about the stages. I will do so in twol articles rather than one large one.

STAGE 1 - MINDFULNESS When we sit in meditation and engage in the practice of simply observing our thoughts as those thoughts arise, we are peering down into the subconscious mind. This is not a clinical statement but, if you don't mind a pun, it is an observation! Where else would random thoughts come from when we are not engaged in activity or in conscious contemplation? The value of this form of meditation is potentially enormous, especially for those who have never meditated before and have generally not been living an intentional, conscious lifestyle. The movie, "Doing Time, Doing Vipassana" describes how some prisoners in Tihar Prison in India were transformed by their 10-day Vipassana meditation experience.This simple form of mindfulness can be very powerful for everyone at least to some degree especially in direct relation to the influence of the subconscious mind on one's thoughts, attitudes, and behavior.

The principal challenge with mindfulness practiced in this way is that beginning meditators aren't generally able to detach from their own thoughts and emotions and calmly observe them with non-attachment. Accustomed as most people are with identifying themselves with their thoughts and feeling, it is difficult for almost everyone to resist not being fully engaged in the inner dialogue of the thoughts that do arise.

For this reason, most mindfulness techniques are really more like Stage 2 meditations because the meditator is directed to focus elsewhere while calmly accepting the appearance of thoughts as a natural phenomenon.

STAGE 2 - FOCUSED CONCENTRATION Here we find the vast majority of meditation techniques which engage our will, feeling, and mind. Broad categories include techniques using breath awareness and control; mantra; visualization; and affirmation. The bhav of any given technique might be predominantly mental, devotional, or energetic, or some combination of all three. Some are basic such as watching the physical breath while silently chanting a mantra or affirmation; others, are more advanced because focused on the subtle or energy body in the energy centers of the chakras, the flow of prana in the subtle body, or any of their many manifestations. While will power and concentration characterize all of these, some are more passive and others more active.

They are all "aspirational" in that the technique employed affirms a state of consciousness higher than the subconscious or conscious mind. In the practice of the technique, there remains some level of awareness of the distinction between "I" the doer and what I am seeking.

I should point out that at any time in meditation, one might be suddenly transported into a higher state whether consciously sought or not.

In the stages of Patanjali's Eight-Fold Path focused concentration includes niyama (positive action), asana (strength and determination), pranayama (calming of life force and purity of feeling), and pratyahara (focus of the mind away from the senses).

This stage constitutes the bulk of what most people associate with meditation. But it is by no means the final or higher stages.

In the next installment we will touch upon the higher stages beginning with inner stillness, moving to inner experience and rising toward cosmic consciousness.

Stay tuned...............................Aum, Shanti, Amen!

Swami Hrimananda

The Value of Guilt: a lesson from Judas Iscariot

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sun, 04 Jun 2023 02:15:00 +0000

Guilt, these days, gets a lot of brickbats. It's true that obsessing over one's past errors is unproductive and unhealthy but maybe we are misinterpreting the function of guilt to tell us something. As our body warns us with pain when we misuse it, so too can our conscience warn us through our thoughts and emotions.

I'm not a historian of the evolution of Western psychological therapy, but I can say that blaming cultural conditioning for instilling guilt seems, to me, an overreaction to the cultural norms of the past.

And there are indeed some who try to "guilt-trip us." We have the proverbial Jewish mother "guilty tripping" her adult child for not calling her daily. We have the fundamentalist preacher or the priest preaching the threat of hellfire. This behavior can indeed inflict mental harm especially if instilled at an early age. But to claim that one should live a guilt-free life is like a tired old Existentialist throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

And, who knows, maybe the real message in regards to excessive preoccupation with guilt is simply a warning that we have become obsessive? That fact doesn't necessarily negate the message of guilt itself.

Meditation and introspection can help us discern whether guilt has a valid message for us to consider or whether it comes from outside ourselves and has no merit.

All I'm saying is that guilt has its place in our lives.

Paramhansa Yogananda counsels us that if confronted with a critique, ask yourself if there's any truth to it. If so, consider what you can do to change your behavior or make amends but, if you honestly, sincerely and calmly conclude there is no merit to the critique, then let it go.

His guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, advised in such heated moments to respond calmly, "Maybe you are right." By neither admitting nor denying, you buy time to contemplate the situation in a quieter, calmer moment. There are other responses too such as thanking a person and saying that you'll have to think about it. (When you are being critiqued as a representative of a principle or an organization, it may, however, be appropriate to be more proactive in your response because your response is not in self-justification but in self-defense of something greater than your ego.)

Take the heinous deed of Judas Iscariot.

Notwithstanding the claims of some interpretations of the Book of Judas, the canonical accounts make it clear that Judas betrayed Jesus and that when Judas realized his error he, out of guilt, killed himself. I'm not a proponent of suicide as a solution to anything but I do believe in the law of karma and its corollary, reincarnation.

Paramhansa Yogananda claimed to have met Judas in a recent incarnation which, after presumably many incarnations subsequent to his betrayal of Jesus, Judas had worked out his karma and achieved soul freedom with the help of an enlightened Indian master of the nineteenth century. Judas' recognition of the nature of his error, irrespective of the reaction of taking his own life, was obviously a goad to come back and carry on the work of redemption. Even as merely an interesting story, it has a message for us.

It is important not "to kill the messenger" of guilt and ignore the message. This is true whether the feeling of guilt rises up within you or is delivered uncharitably by someone else. It takes courage to perform the spiritual surgery of self-examination and ruthless self-honesty. Wallowing in one's guilt and defining oneself by our mistakes is the mistake that we make all too often: by so doing we effectively excuse ourselves from making the effort to change.

Once we resolve to do better, we need to shake the dust of guilt from our feet and get back up and carry on with our journey toward soul-perfection. It is at THIS stage that the modern disdain for guilt has its place. As Swami Sri Yukteswar was quoted by Paramhansa Yogananda in "Autobiography of a Yogi," "Forget the past. The vanished lives of all men are dark with many shames. Human conduct is ever unreliable until anchored in the Divine. Everything in future will improve if you are making a spiritual effort now."

This quote truly sums up the wisdom of how to deal with our errors.

As Lord Krishna teaches us in his homily to Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, the soul is pure, free, and without stain just as God beyond creation is the same. Live more in the freedom of the soul and karma cannot touch you. If the "I" that erred has been dissolved there is no "I" to which karma that can hurt you.

Let us congratulate Judas on his spiritual victory and let us work on our own with as much courage and determination.

Swami Hrimananda

On the Road to Damascus: Swami Kriyananda: Yogananda's St. Paul?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Thu, 18 May 2023 16:25:00 +0000

Swami Kriyananda (www.swamikriyananda.org) lived with and was personally trained and commissioned by Paramhansa Yogananda (author of the now classic story: "Autobiography of a Yogi").

While Swami Kriyananda ("Swamiji") never made any claims as to his own spiritual stature or progress, saying only that his goal was to be a good disciple, there's no question objectively speaking that among direct disciples (those who knew and were trained by Yogananda, their guru), Swamiji has done the most publicly to share his guru's teachings. I recount his one hundred fifty books and hundreds (thousands?) of lectures, videos, and interviews given around the world in a lifetime of travel but no matter. The record stands on its own. No other direct disciple, regardless of spiritual stature, has done more. This isn't the proud boast it might seem. I mention it for the purpose of making the points I share below.

During his life, others commented that Swamiji seemed to be Yogananda's "St. Paul." This means that Swamiji was the one to put Yogananda on the world map, so to speak. Swamiji wasn't particularly fond of this comparison but I think he had to admit it made a point.

But my point is different from the validity of the comparison. It's close enough to count for my purposes. And what, then, is that purpose?

Each of us must have our blinding moment of faith, "coming to Jesus" as some Christians might say. St. Paul's moment is famous: on the road to Damascus to persecute more Christians a blinding light struck Paul down from his horse. He remained blind for days until a (nervous) Christian (Barnabas?) came to Paul to heal Paul's blindness and to instruct him in the teachings of Jesus. Paul's was a conversion perhaps like no other.

You and I don't usually have such a dramatic wake-up call. To complete my analogy let me say that I think Swami Kriyananda's moment of faith took a very different form. In 1962 he was summarily dismissed from the board of directors of Yogananda's organization, Self-Realization Fellowship and ordered to leave the monastic order. While this is hardly a blinding vision with the voice of Yogananda, it certainly threw him off the horse of his service to Yogananda's organization. By throwing him out, Swamiji had to learn to stand on his own two feet. It was the beginning of "the great work" that Yogananda privately told him that he, Swamiji, had to do in this lifetime. Had he remained in SRF, little, if anything, of what Swamiji was to accomplish during the rest of his long and fruitful life would have been allowed.

The effect, then, was no different than Paul's blinding light. It changed his life of discipleship in a big and public way.

But what about you and me? I write this in anticipation of sharing some remarks in celebration of Swamiji's birth in 1926 (1926-2013). When Swamiji objected to a comment Yogananda made regarding Swamiji's service to God, Yogananda replied curtly, "Living for God is martyrdom." Didn't Jesus Christ promise such persecution to his devotees?

Indeed, Swami Kriyananda would later endure even greater humiliation in later years in a long and sordid lawsuit behind which SRF was a hidden player. He did so with calm equanimity, refusing to hold back any facts that were demanded of him, and refusing to hate or condemn his detractors. This was, in effect, his version of crucifixion and he accepted it with calmness and faith. Subsequent to those years of trial, Swamiji emerged resurrected in bliss and fired with just as much creative zeal for his guru's work until his very last days. Like St. Paul, Swamiji endured his share of hardships and trials in his ministry.

But, again, what about you and me? Do we, instead, seek merely to have our "cake and eat it too?" Does the balanced life of meditation and service promise a life free from spiritual tests and hardships? Throughout the history of religion, it has been oft-promised that a virtuous life will result in a prosperous and successful life. The so-called Protestant Ethic is one example of this teaching which always exists in some form or another in all religions. This is so because it has some truth to it. But good karma is still just karma. Like a bank account, you can't take it with you because good karma will eventually be eroded by the natural flow of opposites in the world of duality.

Thus it must then be acknowledged and stated that each of us will have our St. Paul or Swami Kriyananda moments. These moments test our mettle; our faith; our trust in God. I've seen that in the latter stages of life, unfulfilled desires and unresolved issues, have a way of returning like "chickens to roost" before death's final exam.

These might not count in the same way as St. Paul's epiphany or Swami Kriyananda's ouster, but one way or another, if we are sincere in our spiritual aspirations, karma, or if you prefer, Divine Mother, will give us an opportunity to work things out. While in the big picture of cosmic consciousness, the reality is BOTH-AND, in the small picture of our karmic unfoldment, it tends to be EITHER-OR. We have temptations and tests and are faced with making spiritually important decisions.

In my personal life, I did not have an early-life encounter with falling off a horse, so to speak. My path unfolded naturally, and, indeed, even comfortably in a smooth arc of progressing from one stage to the next. Instead, I find, however, that now I must confront the price of this spiritually comfortable life. Perhaps I just needed a lifetime to prepare for this; maybe I had the good karma of a steady trajectory towards God. But now I feel acutely the need to prepare for my own final exam and I am intent upon doing so.

My point is this: we each have our moments of truth when the soul confronts the ego with a choice. You could say that happens every day because, of course, it does. But I'm speaking of those special moments on the road to Damascus--when you think you are just plodding along heedless of what is about to take place, spiritually.

As in the story of the foolish virgins in the New Testament or Yogananda's story of a similar nature in his autobiography, or Jesus asking the disciples to remain awake while he prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane, the spiritual life is one that requires us to be "awake and ready."

Daily meditation, periodic retreats and seclusion, quality time with a spiritual friend, and the company of high-minded souls will draw the grace of God and guru so that bit by bit we can welcome our tests with faith and gratitude. Our tests, to us, are as big as the big tests of St. Paul and Swami Kriyananda. No one will likely read about our tests in the future but to us they are "sufficient unto the day." Swami Kriyananda showed us the courage of living for God and accepting what comes of its own (as Yogananda put it) with faith, equanimity and, yes, even gratitude (for the opportunity to move towards soul freedom).

Happy 97th birthday, Swamiji!

Swami Hrimananda.....

Heaven, Hell or No-thing?

noreply@blogger.com (Nayaswami Hriman) — Sun, 30 Apr 2023 14:57:00 +0000

What is our soul's destiny? What is the goal of the spiritual life?

Is it to find happiness?

Is it to be good, and not bad or selfish?

Is it to earn the reward of an eternal after-death paradise?

Is it to avoid eternal punishment?

Is it to love God (whom you probably haven’t ever met)?

Is it to be virtuous in order to be prosperous?

Is it because you will feel better rather than worse?

A Christian who accepts Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior and is baptized in the church can go to heaven if their sins are not overly egregious. After death, the Christian might suffer in Purgatory in order to purify the soul of the burden of their venial sins before at last entering through the pearly gate where St. Peter welcomes them into heaven (assuming their name appears in the good book). In heaven, some say they sing praises to the Lord, perhaps strumming a harp. Maybe they visit with family and friends. No one is really sure but forever is a very long time. Maybe there’s no sense of time in heaven? The explanation isn’t very complete. I suppose a good Moslem has a similar experience though I’ve heard that his rewards are more heavenly sensual in nature. But for all that, the idea is similar. There’s even the idea that at some future Day of Judgement one’s former physical body is resurrected and returned to your soul. I suppose for many people these rewards are enough for them to try to be good, but not too good.

Judaism is less interested, I’m told, in dogma and more interested in behavior (a very practical, and as it turns out, modern concept). But there is some talk of an afterlife. Details are sketchy, however.

Buddhism started as a sect of Hinduism much as the first Christians were Jews. As the centuries went along and as Buddhism more or less vanished from India much as Christianity left Palestine for Europe, it has taken on, in some of its sects or branches, a more nihilistic tone—even for some to claim they are atheists, though Buddha never said that. Buddhism is not straight-forward on the question of heaven because reincarnation remained in the canon from its original Hindu roots. In general, the idea seems to be that nirvana is achieved when the self is dissolved but as there is no concept of soul and only emptiness, Sunyata, beyond form, there is, appropriately, not much to say about it (ha, ha). No wonder they are more inclined to think about improving their next life. Who would wish to become nothing? It seems a bit like committing spiritual hari kari. No wonder the Bodhisattvas choose to return to help others! While this assessment is not entirely fair and in principle is not unlike the concept of dissolving the ego, Buddhism does not admit of God and does not discuss the transcendent state of freedom from samsara (the cycle of birth, life, death and reincarnation).

Hinduism affirms reincarnation and the states between reincarnation, the afterlife, as various forms of heaven and hell, though such states are temporary rather than everlasting. The end game of this otherwise endless cycle of birth, life, death, afterlife, rebirth moves toward enlightenment and then culminates in soul liberation. Enlightenment is the kind of awakening to the soul-Self (Atman) that, when it reaches its full realization, frees one from the delusion of separateness but not necessarily from the karma of past actions and identifications. Freeing one's soul identification from the past then becomes the next goal of the otherwise free soul called a jivan mukta. Once all past karma is dissolved by releasing one’s memory and identification with past actions, then one merges into God and achieves the final state of samadhi (there are different levels of samadhi). This merging into and union with God is often described with the metaphor of a drop of water, or a river, dissolving into the ocean. The drop of water or the water of the river still exist but have been merged into the ocean. Nonetheless, Hinduism is so old and there are so many branches of it and teachers in Hinduism that there’s no point even attempting to state what “Hinduism” teaches no matter how insistently any one branch or teacher proclaims their definition of liberation, known as moksha.

Paramhansa Yogananda (1893-1952), author of the now classic story, “Autobiography of a Yogi,” offered a nuanced description of moksha: the soul’s liberation in God. Freedom from all karma, he taught, allows the Atman, the soul, to achieve identification with what it has always been: the Infinite Spirit. Yet, from the dawn of time, so to speak, each Atman, each soul, carries a unique stamp of individuality. As all created things, mental, emotional or physical, are manifestations of the One, nothing is ever apart from Spirit no matter how dark it becomes. A rock is as much God as a saint, but the rock is simply unaware of “who am I” while the perfect being (saint) is “One with the Father” even if embodied in form.

The Self-realized saint then enjoys a two-fold beatitude: the bliss of God while in incarnate and in activity and yet with access to the vibrationless Bliss of God beyond creation.

There are many stages described in the Hindu scriptures of the soul’s long journey through time and space and its concomitant levels of awakening. But in this article, we are focusing on the final stage: union with God. God realization is not barred by the fact of being incarnate in form, whether that form be the physical, astral; or causal. While it may be gainsaid that this final step is natural to the causal state of the soul, there are those who maintain that it is the desireless desire of God that the soul achieves its liberation while in the outer form of the creation as a kind of victory dance proving, like the resurrection of Jesus Christ, the supremacy of Spirit over matter.

Once merged into the Infinite, the memory of the soul’s many incarnations remain. While enjoying the bliss of union with God, the Infinite Spirit might send the soul back into the creation to fulfill the divine mission of redeeming other souls. Returning to form, such a soul is called, in India, an avatar: a descent of Spirit into form. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us.” (John 1:14)

It is also possible that the deep devotion of an incarnate devotee might be strong enough to call back into vision or even fleshly form, a liberated soul who is in fact the savior for that soul. St. Francis, for example, walked with Jesus. Paramhansa Yogananda was visited by the flesh and blood form of his guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar months of his guru's burial.

In God nothing is lost and all is achieved; all is possible.

Meditate, then, on the indwelling, omnipresent, immanent Spirit in your Self and in every atom of creation. "Hear O Israel, the Lord, the Lord is ONE!" The Infinite Spirit sends into creation in every age a divine "son" to call the children back into the blissful Fold. The "son" says to us "I am the Way, the Truth and the Life. No one comes to the Father except by following Me." Krishna, Buddha, Jesus Christ, Paramhansa Yogananda and countless other "sons" (and daughters) of God have been sent. Do you hear their voice?

Blessings, friends,

Swami Hrimananda