A bold and powerful self-affirmation
Jesus Christ, even among great masters, was exceptional in his mission, and in his need to affirm his own importance to that mission. Sometimes he spoke in terms that, from anyone who had attained a union with God less perfect than his, must surely have seemed almost embarrassingly boastful and arrogant. He said, for example, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” *

Jesus’ self-affirmation did not indicate any lack of humility. He had no ego of which to be either proud or humble. Jesus came, however, with a particular expression of the eternal truths, and it was necessary for him to focus people’s high spiritual aspirations in himself as an instrument of divine grace. Otherwise, the many schools of thought that were rampant in his day would have diluted his message and made it seem merely another “school of philosophy,” from whose teachings people could select as they chose.

Reading his words in the Bible, one is nonetheless surprised at how powerfully he affirmed the importance of his own mission on earth. Repeatedly through the New Testament we find Jesus referring, without the slightest hesitation or reticence, to himself. Sometimes he spoke of himself as the “son of man;” sometimes, as the “Son of God.” It was, however, necessary for him to speak in that way. Very little valid spiritual tradition remained among the Jews of his time. Few would have been accepted his new expressions of eternal truth had he declared them self-effacingly.

A way-shower and conqueror of unknown territories
The age Jesus lived in was a hard one. He had to survive a public mission in a rough, dogmatic, and intolerant society. Never did he hesitate to “thunder” when the occasion called for a divine rumble. To those who like their saints “soft and cuddly,” Jesus would have been—shall we say?—an embarrassment. Indeed, to some people he must have seemed glaringly offensive!

It is, indeed, perfectly understandable that the self-assertiveness with which Jesus so often spoke would have seemed offensive to the unenlightened rabbis of his day. They were, in their own opinion, the supreme authorities in Judaism. If Jesus were to appear and teach in the same way on earth today in any country in Christendom—not as himself, but as someone unknown—I venture to say that almost every priest, pastor, minister of religion, and every other sort of prelate would probably consider his bold self-assertion quite as outrageous as did the Pharisees.

To those at the top of any social ladder, Jesus might well have seemed “pushy” and “a bit over the top.” In fact, he was “pushy.” It wasn’t himself he was pushing, of course, but divine Truth and God. He had come as a way-shower, a road builder, and conqueror of unknown territories. The more restrained and socially approved way of expressing oneself, always with tactful care, was not at all what was needed in his times.

One wonders, even, how the expression — “Gentle Jesus meek and mild” — ever got started. Jesus fitted perfectly the Vedic description of the man of God, as Paramhansa Yogananda quoted it in Autobiography of a Yogi: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”

A “firebrand revolutionary”?
Certain modern writers have claimed that Jesus Christ was a firebrand revolutionary, citing, among other things, his statement, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword.”

Viewed literally, it would be easy to take Jesus’ words as bellicose. Viewed in the broader context of his life mission, we quickly see that he was not issuing an inflammatory call to arms, but speaking thus only to light a fire of divine courage in the hearts of devotees. The conflagration Jesus sought to ignite was a fire of pure love for God, underscored by renunciation of every lesser attraction and attachment.

Jesus’ reference to “sword” was a reference to the “sword” of discrimination, essential for slicing through the chains of outward attachment. He also meant “sword” symbolically, referring to the determination one needs to find God.

As for revolutionary zeal, the only “uprising” he encouraged was to urge people to “revolutionize” their inner, spiritual outlook. Jesus Christ came on earth to inspire people to seek union with God. “My kingdom,” he said, “is not of this world.” Constantly he urged them to seek God-consciousness: “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” Christ’s message was that the spiritual path is not for armchair devotees but for spiritual warriors, for those who would embrace death itself, rather than abandon their divine search.

Fiery power, conviction, and courage
Nor did Jesus comport himself like a rabble-rousing firebrand—a suggestion that a few modern commentators have also made. He spoke with magnetic courage, joy, and unshakable faith, but it is very evident from the Gospels (Yogananda, too, corroborated this statement), that Jesus never spoke with personal anger. He could, however, when the occasion demanded it, speak with fiery power and conviction, reflecting the wrath of God, as when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple!

Jesus, as a human being, was joy-filled, loving, and, to an amazing degree, courageous. On the occasion the Jews accused him of blasphemy and were about to stone him, he replied (I paraphrase), “I’ve done all these good works among you. For which of them do you intend to stone me?”

There could be no other explanation than courageous openness to anything, based on perfect non-attachment, in the way he replied. Only such supreme detachment could have made possible his good humor. Think of it: There he was, threatened with disaster by a hostile mob. Could what he said have been due to self-pity? (“Just look at all the favors I’ve done you. Is this your way—sniff!—of showing gratitude?”) Absurd! He challenged them, almost with a laugh!

Small wonder the orthodox Pharisees rejected him as fiercely as they did. One might almost say that Jesus, by his outspokenness, virtually invited their rage, causing it to erupt, finally, in the Crucifixion!

The Sermon on the Mount: “a revolutionary teaching”
Though Jesus himself was no “firebrand revolutionary,” his Sermon on the Mount has been described as “a revolutionary teaching.” And indeed so it was: its summons to live for God alone was uncompromising. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” he declared, “and His righteousness; and all these things [the requirements, in other words, for human fulfillment] shall be added unto you.”

The sermon is the longest single statement by Jesus in the New Testament. It includes some of his most important teachings, including the Beatitudes. Tradition depicts Jesus as delivering this sermon to the multitudes. It is more likely that he was addressing his disciples. The orthodox rabbis of the day were accustomed to the spiritual compromises demanded by worldly people. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount challenged their lukewarm devotion.

That Jesus was speaking to a more intimate group is implied at the very outset of the Beatitudes: “And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and taught them.” His statement, “Ye are the light of the world,” would hardly have been directed at everybody. Jesus was addressing devotees whose deep desire was to dwell constantly in the consciousness of God.

Personal sincerity is what Jesus demanded. Jesus wanted to inspire all to seek God with the same ardor he showed, the ardor of dedication to the divine search. His mission was to help those refined souls whose egos were still trapped in limitation, but who desired earnestly to get out of their egos and to know God.

Why Jesus scolded his disciples
If Jesus sometimes scolded his disciples, it was to urge them to deepen their spiritual insight. Thus, when Peter asked him why it isn’t what goes into the mouth, but what comes out of it that defiles a person, Jesus answered, “Are you still unable to grasp these things? Don’t you see that whatever goes into a man’s mouth passes into the stomach and then out of the body altogether? But the things that come out of his mouth come from his heart and mind.”

Peter’s request for an explanation on a question that should have been clear to someone as spiritually developed as he showed how powerful prior conditioning can be. His thoughts wavered between the orthodox Jewish teachings on which he’d been raised and the new statements of eternal truth that were being taught by Jesus Christ.

Jesus seldom, if ever, explained his meanings either to the Pharisees or to the spiritual wanderers. The people of his times, and to some extent even his own disciples, were not ready for teachings that were too far ahead of the general knowledge of their day. It was to his disciples that he clarified them, even when their understanding fell short of his expectations of them.

“The truth shall make you free”
Jesus issued a stirring summons to the highest adventure there is: the quest for truth. By his self-affirmation and example, he challenged everyone to deepen his experience of life until he stands face-to-face with Truth itself. Thus, to Nicodemus he said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.”

The challenge Jesus gave us was to make truth our own. “Ye shall know the truth,” he said, “and the truth shall make you free.” By “truth” he meant the intuitive perception of our essential nature, which is one with God.

From Revelations of Christ and The Promise of Immortality, by Swami Kriyananda, available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

*Bible verses in order:
John 14:6
John 18:36
Mathew 10:38
Mathew 10:36
John 18:36
John 10:30-31
Mathew 6:33
Mathew 5:14
Mathew 15:16-20
John 3:11
John 8:32

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MJC: I’ve been a direct disciple of Babaji of the Kriya Yoga lineage for many years. In 1979, I felt the inner guidance, which I believe came from Babaji, to begin studying Ayurveda. I realized a few years later, however, that for karmic reasons I also needed to become a chiropractor, so in 1982 I enrolled in chiropractic college. Being a chiropractor has proved helpful in my practice of Ayurveda – I will sometimes combine an Ayurvedic consultation with a chiropractic adjustment.

After graduating from chiropractic college in 1987, I studied Ayurveda with a number of Indian practitioners in this country, including an outstanding doctor from New Delhi who would visit the United States once a year. When this doctor no longer came, I prayed to Babaji that I needed further study. From then on, I received the teachings from Babaji intuitively. Most of what I know about the deeper aspects of Ayurveda comes from Babaji.

Q: What is Ayurveda?

MJC: Ayurveda is a system of natural medicine from India that is said to be over 5,000 years old. It is based on truths that were cognized by the rishis (sages) in deep meditation. Much of the original Ayurvedic science became lost during the Dark Age of Kali Yuga, but the deeper Ayurvedic truths are again beginning to surface.

Q: Do you see yourself as blazing a trail for a new type of Ayurvedic practice?

MJC: In my practice I try to present the deeper aspects of Ayurveda in a way that helps people see the connection between their attitudes and the “imbalances” that lead to illness, and how their attitudes relate to their karmic lessons in this lifetime. I believe there is a divine purpose to our lives and that illness can motivate us to work on important karmic issues and fulfill our life purpose.

Q: I understand that pulse diagnosis is one of the main diagnostic tools for Ayurveda. How does Ayurvedic pulse analysis differ a nurse’s reading of  a pulse?

MJC: When a nurse feels your pulse she’s tuning into a physical process. Ayurvedic pulse analysis is a means of accessing information stored in a person’s energy body. Everything relating to a person’s physical, mental, and emotional nature is stored in the energy body. By reading someone’s pulse, I can determine if that person has an illness and the imbalances that led to that illness. I can also determine whether that person has  imbalances that might lead to illness.

Q: Can you explain what you mean by “imbalances?”

MJC: Yes. In every person there are three basic health-related influences or what in Ayurveda we call doshas. These are known as vata, pitta, and kapha. Everyone has all three doshas in their body type but in differing proportions. For each person there is an optimal or properly “balanced” combination of these three influences, which varies from person to person. Deviations from the optimal create imbalances.

Q: In your many years of practice, what are the main imbalances you’ve seen?

MJC: By far the most frequent imbalance occurs in the vata dosha and is known as prana vata. I’ve read over 40,000 pulses in my career and rarely did I encounter someone who did not have a prana vata imbalance.

A prana vata imbalance causes a person to have a restless, overly active mind and difficulty in perceiving reality correctly. Often there’s insomnia, and a tendency to worry and replay mental “tapes” of past experiences. There may also be a tendency to be paranoid and to jump to wrong conclusions.

Q: Are there other common imbalances?

MJC: Yes. The two other most common imbalances involve the pitta dosha. Pitta is related to the fire element and people with an excess of pitta have a tendency toward negative attitudes and emotions — frustration, sadness, disappointment, impatience, anger, irritability, self-pity. The failure to process and release negative attitudes and emotions is the main cause of sadhaka pitta, which is the second most common imbalance that I see in my practice. When not processed and released, negative attitudes and emotions are stored in the energy body.

The third most common imbalance is ranjaka pitta. A ranjaka pitta imbalance usually results from feelings of being wronged or abused. Often there have been instances of actual abuse, persecution, or other serious “wrongs” in the person’s life. The imbalance occurs when a person feels justified in hanging on to the feeling of being wronged and is unable to accept responsibility for having attracted that karma.

Q: Can you give an example of how these imbalances lead to illness?

MJC: Let’s look at adult-onset diabetes.  Most cases of adult-onset diabetes involve a pitta imbalance caused by not fully processing emotional experiences. Usually there’s a holding on to disappointments, regrets, and to feelings of being wronged. There might also be the kind of intense, driving energy associated with “type A” personalities.

The accumulation of these unprocessed emotions and attitudes generates heat and inflammation in the body undermining the functioning of the body’s internal organs and cells, a process which can, in time, inhibit the cells’ ability to process glucose.

With adult-onset diabetes, it is said that unprocessed emotions block one’s ability to experience the “sweetness” that life can offer. The life lesson will include understanding that absolutely everything that happens in life is an opportunity to work on our karma. Without this understanding, a person will usually feel “wronged.” It’s the holding on to the feeling of being “wronged” that leads to diabetes, a heat-related disease.

Q: If having a predominance of pitta in one’s body type can predispose a person to certain imbalances and illnesses, it seems that it would be important to know one’s body type?

MJC: It’s very important. Our body type reflects the life lessons we need to learn in our soul journey. Understanding your body type is like having a roadmap to better health. You understand what attitudes you need to work on and what lifestyle changes you need to make.

Q: You stated previously that the most common and also the most serious imbalance is prana vata. Can you explain how a prana vata imbalance affects a person’s health?

MJC: A prana vata imbalance is a factor in all major diseases, including diabetes and cancer. A long-standing prana vata imbalance constricts the flow of life force in the body and weakens the immune system. The more active, and restless a person’s mind, the more constricted the flow of life force and the greater the impact on the immune system and on all bodily systems and cells.

Q: You mentioned that a prana vata imbalance is often a factor in the onset of cancer. Can you explain how that occurs?

MJC: Yes.  Let’s look at colon cancer, which is relatively common today. When people hold a lot of stress in the abdominal area, it affects their digestion and elimination, causing toxins to build up. The build-up of toxins and wastes in the colon aggravates prana vata, which weakens the immune system and constricts the flow of life force.

In my experience, most if not all cancers also involve negativity. Negativity generates heat and inflammation in the body which, as we saw with diabetes, can undermine the functioning of the internal organs and bodily cells. The negativity may not be obvious. It might be that someone is highly critical but doesn’t show it outwardly.

So, to sum up: the combination of toxic build-up in the colon, a reduced flow of life force throughout the body, a weakened immune system, and an increase of heat and inflammation throughout the body can in time result in colon cancer.

Q: Does breast cancer also involve unprocessed attitudes and emotions, and inflammation in the organs and cells?

MJC: Yes. Breast cancer is very much related to the heart and to unprocessed feelings and emotions. In this instance, the resulting heat and inflammation will often increase the rajasic element in the body’s hormonal cells.

Q: How do you help your patients transcend the attitudes that lead to imbalances and illness?

MJC: I think a big lesson for many people with serious illnesses and especially cancer is forgiveness—learning to forgive people for not being perfect and to recognize that all people are working on their life’s lessons. With an attitude of forgiveness we become grateful for life’s lessons. We recognize the truth that there are no “mistakes” and that every single aspect of our life is designed to facilitate our working on our life lessons.

Q: Of all the imbalances, which is the most important one to try to correct?

MJC: I would say prana vata because of its powerful effect on the immune system and the flow of life force in the body. Yet people today tend to do things that aggravate prana vata.

Q: Can you give a few examples?

MJC: Multi-tasking is a big one. Driving and talking on a cell phone. Talking on the phone while watching the computer screen. Reading while eating a meal. When you do more than one thing at a time, it divides the mind and increases prana vata.

The solution is for people to put their attention on one thing at a time. When they’re working on the computer, that’s should be all they are doing. When they’re eating a meal, they should only be doing that. Doing only one thing at a time is a big help in reducing prana vata.

People also need to watch what goes on in the mind. They may think, “Oh, I’m not doing two things at the same time.”  They may not be doing two things, but if their minds are focusing on more than one thing at a time, the mind becomes scattered. The more scattered the mind, the greater the prana vata imbalance.

Having a regular schedule of sleep, waking, and eating is also very important in preventing and reducing prana vata. Caffeine and alcohol aggravate prana vata.

Q: Is it correct that Ayurveda places a great deal of the responsibility for healing on the individual?

MJC: Yes. To benefit from Ayurveda people need to take responsibility for their own healthcare – meditation, diet, exercise, getting enough sleep. What kind of thoughts do they have? Are they multi-tasking?

Q: Why do some people not take responsibility?

MJC: I can think of a number of reasons. Some may have such a big prana vata imbalance that they become scattered and simply forget. They may intend to work on calming the mind but then forget!  Also, the more active and busy a person’s mind, the less able they are to see themselves in reality and to see that they are not taking care of themselves.

Another reason is second-guessing the diagnosis, which can also stem from prana vata and an overly active mind: “Did the doctor do the diagnosis right?  Am I taking the right herbs?” The mind just goes on and on.

A third reason is that a people with a prana vata imbalance often don’t think clearly and can misinterpret what they’ve experienced. When you combine that lack of clarity with the kind of pitta imbalance that makes a person inflexible, you can easily have someone who is resistant to treatment.

A final reason would be a pitta imbalance in the heart, and a sense of sadness and lack of fulfillment. People with this kind of imbalance often believe that no form of treatment will ever help them. Usually they don’t take care of themselves because they think, “I’m not worthy of love,” or “I’m overweight anyway, so who really cares?”

Q: Roughly what percent of your patients listen to you?

MJC: I always have drawn a lot of devotees in my practice but I’m now drawing devotees who are deeper on the spiritual path and highly motivated to work on their imbalances. They understand how getting rid of their imbalances and becoming more grounded, less restless, and more flexible will help them spiritually.

Q: What kind of remedies and practices do you recommend for people?

MJC: Meditation is at the top of the list, but if a person is not yet calm enough to meditate, I might first recommend breathing exercises such as alternate nostril breathing, which is calming and cooling to the nervous system. I also recommend affirmations and visualizations relating to the chakras affected by their imbalances.

Herbs are a very important part of what I recommend. With Babaji’s guidance, I recently developed a number of herb formulas that address the kinds of imbalances I commonly see in my practice. The herbs have a balancing effect on the doshas, chakras, and the energy body. There are also nasya oils based on the same herb formulas that give a quick input into the nervous system through the nostrils.

Q: You describe what you practice as “Shaktiveda Ayurveda.” Can you explain what that means?

Shaktiveda Ayurveda includes pulse diagnosis and the different therapies and practices I recommend for the imbalances that lead to illness. I also recently completed a DVD which combines a number of different therapies.

Q: How do you see the future of your practice?

MJC: Eventually, I may focus more on people who are prepared to delve deeply into the underlying imbalances. My specialty is being able to help people see what blocks them, and as I evolve spiritually, that ability evolves in me. Today I’m better at reading pulses than I was five or ten years ago.

Q: Does Babaji give you more understanding of the pulse as you grow spiritually?

MJC: Yes. I gain a deeper understanding of how everything revealed by the pulse fits together. Having this big picture enables me to see why people have certain symptoms, what the imbalances are, and what life lessons they need to work on. But it’s all from  Babaji, not from me.

Q: When you do Ayurvedic pulse readings, how would you describe Babaji’s relationship to you?

MJC: He opens up a channel that allows me to get the truth. But it’s his blessings. It’s not from me.

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Q: Alex, what is Vaastu?

AF: Vaastu is the science of bringing Spirit into physical manifestation in the form of a building. A building designed and constructed according to Vaastu principles becomes “alive” with prana or life force. Cosmic energy bathes the entire building, and the building functions much like a radio that can only receive and transmit beneficial energies.

Q: How did you first become interested in Vaastu?

AF: I became interested in Vaastu while living in Ashland, Oregon. Although I have a master’s degree in architecture and have done architectural work, I had become frustrated with the building styles of modern architecture. When I first learned about Vaastu I did a little online research but much of what I found tended to be somewhat formulaic: “If you do A, then B happens,” and bore no relationship to what I knew about architecture and science.

But I thought it might be possible to uncover more of the original Vaastu science, so I took a three-day introductory Vaastu course in Ashland offered by Ron Quinn, a Vaastu teacher from Colorado. Later, when Quinn returned to Ashland, I took a two-week course. Studying with Quinn, I began to see that there was much more to Vaastu than I had realized. I have always been interested in the spirit behind the building, and in architectural designs that facilitate the flow of human activities within a building. Vaastu, as a form of architecture, suited me perfectly because it focuses on the intention of the building — what it’s there for.

Q: How did Ron Quinn acquire his expertise in Vaastu?

AF: Ron Quinn, who had been a building contractor, studied Vaastu with V. Ganapati Sthapati, the foremost Vaastu practitioner in India. Dr. Sthapati was a member of the Shtilpi clan, the group that designed and constructed all buildings in India before the advent of the British. Dr. Sthapati traveled all over the world building temples, which are the highest form of Vedic architecture. He passed away recently.

Q: I understand that when you and your wife moved from Ashland to Ananda Village you designed and built a house according to Vaastu principles. Since, as you said, Vaastu focuses on the intention of the building, can you explain how the intention of your house guided your approach to designing and building your home?

AF: With Vaastu the intention of the building is not just important, it’s the key. Different types of buildings — temples, residential, commercial, or industrial – are based on different sets of Vaastu principles and rules because the intention behind each type of building is different.

My wife and I had a very clear spiritual intention for our house. We didn’t want a house that would make us fabulously wealthy, or a house that would support a driven, success-oriented lifestyle. Finding God is our main goal in life and we wanted a house with a feeling tone that would enhance our spiritual progress. In the design and construction of the house, we worked with our spiritual intention in an intensely focused way.

Q: Can you explain how you did that?

AF: As a first step, we surrendered the entire project to God and Guru, saying, “OK, this is your house. Do with it what you want. If it never gets finished, we’re OK with that.” After laying out the site, we asked two Ananda ministers to lead a blessing ceremony at the site. With the ministers and a group of friends, we chanted and prayed as we walked along the circuits in the same directions the energy would move within and outside the house.

As we moved forward with the project, we would pray and seek guidance from our Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, and also from the “devas,” those angelic beings that support human creativity. For each important issue or decision, whether it was design, engaging contractors, or money, we would seek guidance from our Guru and the devas, who we thought of as our team.

Q: How did your team help you?

AF: The most dramatic physical example of assistance from our team occurred when the contractor was grading the building site. After starting the grading process, we discovered a boulder at least six feet deep right in the middle of where the house was to go. We had no choice but to get rid of that rock. I suggested that the contractor knock it into pieces with the bulldozer blade, but he refused saying it would hurt the blade. Instead, he called in a friend to dynamite the rock.

At that point my wife and I went into our small house adjacent to the site and prayed: “Master! Devas! We know you want us to build this house. There’s a rock in the middle and we don’t want to dynamite it, for the injury it might do to the trees, plants, and our nearby well. If you don’t want it dynamited then you need to do something. But whatever happens, we’ll do what’s needed to get the house built.”

After praying we went back out to the site. The contractor was in the process of completing the grading. At that moment, the contractor lost control of the bulldozer. The bulldozer slid over the edge of the excavation around the boulder and a corner of the blade hit the rock and smashed it to pieces.

Q: That sounds like a miracle.

AF: We thought so too.

Q: How strictly did you adhere to your spiritual intention and the Vaastu principles in building of your house?

AF: Very strictly, because building a Vaastu house requires that kind of discipline. There are five main Vaastu principles, and we adhered strictly to all of them. Three, in particular, are especially important.

Q: What are those three principles?

AF: The first is siting, determining where the building will go. For the house to resonate with planetary force fields and energies, the house has to be properly aligned with these energy fields. The lot size and shape are also relevant, whether there’s a slope or perhaps water moving under the site. Some things are positive and others are negative, but they all affect whether the vibration of the house will be nourishing or draining to the occupants.

The second is: who will live in the house? The people living in the house are very important vibrational elements in the overall Vaastu picture. Each of us has what is called a “nakshastra” or a birth moon, which is configured astrologically and is reflective of our karma. Some nakshastras are compatible with other nakshastras but some are in conflict.

When I was first learning Vaastu in Ashland, I had a client who wanted a Vaastu home. He was very wealthy and he hired me to design a huge house for him and his fiancée. However, when working on the design, I could not get their two nakshastras to work together compatibly, no matter how hard I tried. The couple ended up deciding not to get married, which I believe was the right decision, and the man decided not to build the house.

Q: What is the third principle?

The third and most important principle involves determining whether the six elements in a Vaastu home are favorable or unfavorable. We do this mathematically by an exacting process involving what’s known in Vaastu as a “mother wall,  a “mandala” and the “perimeter.”

By this process I was able to determine the basic characteristics of the home that would bring our intentions into manifestation. Using the mandala, for example, I located the main entrance to our house in a north-facing direction, which represented eminence in divine activities and obviously supported our spiritual intention.

The mother wall and mandala together enabled me to calculate the exact measurement of the “perimeter” of the kind of house that would support our spiritual intention. Armed with the perimeter measurement, I was able to determine that if the foundation of the house was more than one and three-eighths inches longer or shorter than the intended perimeter, the house would not have the intended vibration. All of the characteristics of the house would change — and not in a good way.

Q: How did you make certain that didn’t happen?

AF: I worked very closely with the people who did the foundation. Each day I emphasized the importance of doing it very carefully. As the foundation was going up, I measured it over and over again. The builders were very conscientious, and we had to redo several sections before it was right, but they did get it right.

Q: I understand that the center of a Vaastu house is the most important part of the house. Did the Vaastu principles require you to work with the center in a specific way?

AF: Yes. The center of the house is referred to as the “sacred center” and it functions as the “engine” for the flow of energy throughout the entire house. To continue bringing cosmic energy into the house, we can’t place anything in the sacred center, not even bookshelves.  We can gather, sing and chant there, but we can’t sleep there.

Ideally, the sacred center should have light coming in from above and from all four directions but variations are also possible. The sacred center might have only a skylight; it can also be outside in the middle of the house as with a courtyard.

Q: Open courtyards are common in many cultures — South America, the Mediterranean countries, the ashrams in India. Might these courtyards reflect a vestige of this sacred center principle?

AF: It’s possible. Archeologists have uncovered ancient cities in India where every house was constructed according to these principles, and many had an open courtyard.

Q: How is your spiritual intention reflected in the finished house?

AF: Our spiritual intention is reflected in the feeling tone of the house. Sensitive people feel a quiet strength and rejuvenation just from being in the house. When Swami Kriyananda first visited our home, he said, “I like your house….” I was very relieved since Swami Kriyananda can “read” energy quite well.

Before deciding on the housing site, we asked our team, where we should locate the northeast corner. This is the key corner in a Vaastu house because the energy of the cosmos enters from that corner. We placed our meditation room in the northeast corner; to meditate there is very powerful.

We believe our spiritual intention also enabled us to finish the house. There were many challenges, and many potential obstacles to completing the house. Even so, we were able to finish the house and to finish it well.

Q: Did you find the exactness of the Vaastu science challenging?

AF: Yes, I found it very challenging but eventually I thought, “we do Kriya Yoga a certain way because the technique has a rationale.  Similarly, the Vaastu science has a very clear rationale.”

Q: How do you see the future of Vaastu in the West?

AF: I think Vaastu, like all energy-related fields, will unfold during Dwapara Yuga and by the end of Dwapara Yuga, will be widely used. It is believed that Vaastu originated 6000 years ago in Treta Yuga, and some researchers push it back to 13,000 years ago in Satya Yuga. Dr. Sthapati often said that Vaastu had to be brought to the West to be re-discovered as the powerful science it truly is, and then taken back to India. He predicted that once Vaastu gained acceptance in the West, modern-day Indians who have rejected the old traditions will be more willing to embrace it.

Our challenge in the West, however, is to be careful not to adulterate the core essence of Vaastu with our tendency to seek “a quick fix.” We need to be careful not to become impatient with the time and effort demanded by the deeper scientific aspects of Vaastu. The Vaastu energy formulas affect the well-being of everyone living in a structure, and we would be doing ourselves a great disservice if we tried to replicate the science without a deep understanding.

I’ve tried to find out how authentic practitioners like Dr. Sthapati practiced Vaastu and, more importantly, why they did certain things? Sthapati didn’t talk much about the why. I suspect he was highly intuitive and he knew when certain deviations from the principles were right or wrong. My goal is to go more and more deeply into all aspects of Vaastu, including the intuitive.

Alex Forrester lives with his wife, Devadasi, in the home he built adjacent to Ananda Village. He works as a consultant for  projects at Ananda Village and elsewhere.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

In 1859, Charles Darwin came up with another idea. He said man’s existence could be explained within the context of material creation alone, through evolution and natural selection, the survival of the fittest. According to Darwin, man and apes evolved from a common ancestor, an idea distinctly at odds with the Biblical scenario. The debate over human origins has raged ever since.

Recent studies show that adherents to either side of this debate would do well to rethink their positions. A reexamination of old and new research reveals that the creationism versus Darwinism debate may be missing the mark entirely.

Human footprints next to dinosaur tracks
An NBC documentary, The Mysterious Origins of Man, that aired in the late 1990s, discusses a body of evidence gathered by archeologists and other experts* that testifies to the existence of modern man millions of years before his supposed emergence, according to evolutionary theory, from southern Africa 100,000 years ago. Narrated by Charlton Heston and drawing on evidence largely ignored by the scientific establishment, the NBC documentary stepped outside the usual Bible versus Darwin debate. At issue were human footprints discovered in Texas side by side with dinosaur tracks, stone tools dating back 55 million years, sophisticated maps of unknown antiquity, and evidence of advanced civilization in prehistory.

This and other evidence suggests man neither evolved from apes nor rose from the dust of the earth just 4,000 years before the time of Christ. The implications are profound and are causing many to reevaluate the entire issue of human origins.

Based on research assembled as Darwin began to dominate scientific thought at the turn of the century, and upon more recent archaeological discoveries, Mysterious Origins also reveals a common occurrence in the history of science — a bias that favors conventional theory, in this instance Darwinism, and a tendency to ignore or reject contrary evidence. This may explain why fossil evidence indicating man is far more ancient than conventional theory allows, and that he did not evolve from an ape-like ancestor, has gathered dust for over a century.

The 120-year effort to prove Darwin’s theory
This scientific bias explains why certain evidence has been overlooked or possibly ignored, and also why the search for “the missing link” in human evolution, the long-sought-after ancestor of both man and apes, has dominated the scientific community. Even so, the 120-year quest to prove Darwin’s theory has yielded very little, according to one science investigator, other than “speculative leaps” by researchers eager to find confirming evidence.

In the case of so-called Pithecanthropus Ape man (a.k.a. Java Man), anthropologist Eugene Dubois found a human thigh bone and the skull cap of an ape, in Indonesia, separated by a distance of forty feet. The year was 1891. He pieced the two together, creating the famous Java Man. But many experts say the thigh bone and skull cap are unrelated. Shortly before his death, Dubois himself said the skull cap belonged to a large monkey, and the thigh bone to a man. Yet Java Man remains to this day, to many, evidence of man’s descent from a primitive anthropoid.

In the case of Piltdown Man, another presumed missing link found in England in 1910, the find proved to be a sophisticated fraud. And even the crown jewel of alleged human ancestral fossils, the famous Lucy, found in Ethiopia in 1974, is indistinguishable from a monkey or extinct ape, according to many anthropologists.

Unanswered questions in Darwin’s theory
In recent years, an emerging group of scientists have drawn a picture of human evolution radically at odds with the conventional theory. Physical anthropologist Charles Oxnard, for example, has placed the genus Homo, to which man belongs, in a far more ancient time period than standard evolutionary theory allows, bringing into question the underpinnings of Darwin’s theory. Oxnard states, “The conventional notion of human evolution must now be heavily modified or even rejected … new concepts must be explored.”*

What troubles other opponents of standard evolutionary theory is its inability to account for how new species and features originate — the supposition that the innumerable aspects of biological life, down to the pores in human skin, a beetle’s legs, the protective pads on a camel’s knees, and on and on, came about accidentally through natural selection. The notion of intent, or inherent purpose, within creation does not fit into the Darwinian version of reality.

Life, to a Darwinist, can only exist in the context of absolute materialism, a series of accidental events and chemical reactions responsible for everything in the universe. Yet even common sense suggests otherwise. In the case of the human brain, for instance, its advanced capacities (the ability to perform calculus, play the violin, consciousness itself) cannot be explained by the survival of the fittest doctrine alone. And perhaps the most telling example of all is the biological cell itself, the genetic complexities and inherent abilities of which rival the most complex computer software.

What about sudden catastrophes?
The search for evidence for extremely ancient human origins has led some to investigate the possibility of sudden rather than gradual evolutionary change. Once looked upon with raised eyebrows, and still facing dogged opposition, the “catastrophist” point of view has made headway of late in the scientific community. This theory holds that sudden disruptions in the continuity of planetary life have taken place, altering the course of evolution. “Gradualism,” a Darwinist tenet that assumes all life evolved slowly and without interruption, has fallen out of favor in some circles.

Indeed, it has become clear that all sorts of catastrophes have taken place on the globe, and in the universe at large. A well known catastrophist theory proposes that the extinction of the dinosaurs resulted from a huge meteor crashing into the planet with the force of thousands of hydrogen bombs. Other catastrophist theories have to do with drastic changes in climate, seismic upheavals and fluctuations, and even reversals in the Earth’s magnetic field.

“Intelligent design” – creationism without the dogma
The creationist argument derives from orthodox religious doctrine, which rejects allegorical interpretations of the Book of Genesis. It is a belief system many Christians do not accept literally and which the Bible itself may not support. It also lacks scientific support, in that fossil records reveal man has existed on Earth for far longer than 6,000 years. The six days of creation scenario, moreover, taken literally, bears no resemblance to the time it took for the universe to be born.

The more common-sense notion of “intelligent design,” however, (creationism without the dogma) strikes a more palatable note, even among some scientists, who find it hard to deny that an inherent intelligence exists within the universe. The problem with creationism lies, then, not in the idea of intelligent design, but in literal interpretations of the Bible with regard to the debate over human origins.

Why limit the debate to Western models?
The conventional debate over our origins, as we find it characterized in the major media, ignores concepts of human and cosmic origins shared by a large portion of the world’s population, those of the mystic East. Einstein himself entertained such ideas, because they supported his belief in a universal intelligence. More recently, physicist and Nobel Laureate, Brian Josephson, and others, have drawn parallels between Eastern mysticism and modern physics.

The Vedas, in fact, present a scenario similar to that of the expanding and contracting universe of modern physics. Using the allegory of the “Great In breath and Out breath” of creation, the Vedas describe how Brahman, the omnipresent consciousness, projected its consciousness into the material universe, and how that omnipresent consciousness, existing beyond creation, remains intrinsic to all things as creation evolves.

To Einstein, especially in his later years, the idea of consciousness-based reality became naturally apparent — an awareness of a universal, conscious presence inseparable from each of us individually and from creation itself. “As I grow older,” Einstein said, “the identification with the here and now is slowly lost. One feels dissolved, merged into nature.” Others in the field of physics, philosophy, and religion are also embracing this viewpoint.

The greatest minds, then, of our time and of antiquity, reject Darwin’s often unstated premise, his belief in absolute materialism, which says that all life evolved from primitive matter, accidentally, without purpose or design. At the same time, the concept of a consciousness-based creation offers an alternative to strict Biblical interpretations and the concept of an anthropomorphic creator separate from man and nature.

Can science study consciousness?
Establishment science, however, has taken a hands-off approach to consciousness, never daring to explore what by definition cannot be explained by matter-based beliefs about the origin of life. An article by David Chalmers, The Puzzle of Conscious Experience, emphasizes the point.

“For many years,” Chalmers says, “consciousness was shunned by researchers…The prevailing view was that science, which depends on objectivity, could not accommodate something as subjective as consciousness.” Chalmers, however, goes on to say that neuroscientists, psychologists and philosophers have recently begun to reject the idea that consciousness cannot be studied.  He proposes that consciousness “might be explained by a new kind of theory …. [with] startling consequences for our view of the universe and of ourselves.”

The eminent physicist, Steven Weinberg, in his book Dream of a Final Theory, sounds a more skeptical note. He says the goal of physics is to develop a “theory of everything” that will tell us all there is to know about the universe — a law or principle from which the universe derives. But the real problem in developing such a theory, he admits, is consciousness, because consciousness could not have derived from material processes alone.

Darwinism, therefore, which depends upon the assumption that all existence is matter-based, cannot account for the most human characteristic of all, consciousness, which cannot derive from the process of natural selection in a random, mechanistic creation — the capacity of the human mind being far beyond what is necessary for mere survival.

The goal of science and religion: “a theory of everything”
To understand human origins, then, and to develop a “theory of everything,” a true scientist must not only evaluate the tangible evidence gathered by archeologists and other experts,** he must also study consciousness, without which he neglects the most basic capacity of human beings — the ability to think creatively and aspire spiritually.

He would have to experiment in the internal, subjective world, delving into what the scientific establishment considers a forbidden realm. He would have to devote himself, independent of any dogma, to the exploration of the essence of his own conscious existence, as well as to the study of material creation. Like Einstein, he would see this pursuit as the essential goal of both science and religion, the search for knowledge in its purest sense. By so doing, science might arrive at a theory of everything.

The above article was excerpted from a longer article that appeared in Atlantis Rising (Winter 1996), and Forbidden History, edited by J. Douglas Kenyon,  Bear & Company, a division of Inner Traditions International, Rochester, VT (2005)  www.InnerTradions.com  Certain discussions have been edited slightly.

David Lewis, publisher of The Montana Pioneer, lives and writes in Livingston, Montana. His worldview is shaped by his affinity for the indwelling spirit combined with a measure of intellectual study, common sense, and a fascination with the mystery we are all involved with as human beings.

* Richard Thompson and Michael Cremo, Forbidden Archeology, and condensed version, The Hidden History of the Human Race.

** Graham Hancock, Fingerprints of the Gods: The Evidence of Earth’s Lost Civilization, and Forbidden Archeology.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

A: This debate goes back at least to the early 1900s. As science learned more about the complexity of the universe, many scientists embraced the atheistic viewpoint that intelligent life was the end point of a blind process that happened purely by chance. Darwin’s theory of evolution gave a big impetus to this viewpoint.

Q: So at the start of the twentieth century, the “chance theory” was the prevailing viewpoint in science?

A: Yes. Before then, most scientists believed in God, including Isaac Newton, one the greatest scientists of all time. Newton, so the story goes, believed so deeply in the existence of a divine creator that he once built a huge mechanical model of our solar system showing the rotation of the planets around the sun. He invited his friend, an agnostic, over to see it. Upon seeing the model, his friend said, “This is incredible and so complicated. Who made it?”

Newton had made his point: as complicated as the model was, it was nothing compared to the complexity of the universe. How could his friend think the universe didn’t have a designer?

Q: Can you explain why an increasingly greater number of scientists are beginning to see what was obvious to Newton — that the universe does in fact have a “designer?”

A: Scientific knowledge is at the point where we now understand how many physical properties of the universe had to be exactly right for human life to exist. Before science had this knowledge, it was easier to maintain the notion that the universe’s “life-friendly properties” had simply happened by chance.

But now there are so many examples of these unique “life-friendly properties” that science can no longer dismiss all of them as mere chance or coincidence.* As a result, the pendulum is now swinging back to the idea of an intelligent designer of the universe, a viewpoint sometimes described as “anthropic.”

Q: What are some of the properties of the universe that support the idea of intelligent design?

A: Many of the key discoveries of the last 100 years are based on the scientific study of the atom and the subatomic world, a field known as “quantum mechanics.”

Physicists have found that even tiny changes in the structure or forces within the atom would mean that life as we know it could not exist. For example, if the protons in atoms were just .2% larger they would be too unstable to support life — the atoms would disappear and we would not exist.

If we suddenly doubled the size of the electron, the same thing would happen: all life would cease to exist. In fact, any change in the size, properties, and interactions among protons, neutrons, and electrons would cause life as we know it to disappear.

Q: Can we conclude, then, that the size and structure of the atom are among the things that are “exactly right” for all life to exist, not only human life?

A: Yes. Paramhansa Yogananda, and also all modern scientists, refer to the atom as the basic “building block” of all matter and hence of all life. This fundamental yet microscopic particle of matter displays a level of precision in its form and function that points much more to intelligent design than to chance. Physicists who study the properties of atoms are finding more and more examples of this kind of “fine-tuning.”

Q: Other than the atom, are there other examples that point to intelligent design?

A: Yes, there are two examples relating to the formation of the Earth as a planet supportive of life. The planet Mars is a good example of how the Earth might have ended up with a change in one or two conditions.

Four billion years ago, when the Earth and Mars were forming, Mars, like the Earth, had surface water, an atmosphere, and a liquid molten iron core that created a magnetic field which protected the planet from harmful solar radiation. Initially, both planets experienced enormously high surface heat.

However, as cooling occurred, Mars, being much smaller than the Earth, cooled much more rapidly. As a result, its liquid molten core eventually hardened and Mars lost its protective magnetic field. Without a magnetic field, Mars was continually subjected to harmful solar radiation and solar winds. In time, this continual bombardment transformed the planet into a barren desert lacking an atmosphere.

Had the Earth been a little smaller, it could have easily ended up as a planet inhospitable to life, just like Mars. But today the earth still has a liquid molten core which gives it a protective magnetic field.

Q: It’s very difficult for the human mind to comprehend the vastness of an intelligence that set in motion planetary processes spanning billions of years. Do you think this vastness may be one of the reasons some people embrace the chance theory?

A: I’m sure that’s true for some scientists, but Einstein’s response to that cosmic vastness was a sense of reverent awe. He eventually embraced the intelligent design viewpoint.

Q:You said there were two examples of intelligent design relating to the formation of the Earth. What is the second?

A: The existence of the moon is another example suggestive of intelligent design. The scientific evidence shows that the moon formed when a small planetoid collided with the Earth billions of years ago. That collision not only formed the moon, it also forced the earth’s axis to tilt in relation to the sun to cause the familiar seasons: summer, fall, winter, spring.

If we didn’t have a moon, our weather would be much more extreme, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for life as we know it to exist. Having a moon that supports rather than threatens our existence of life, is more evidence of intelligent design.

There’s other evidence of intelligent design I could cite but most of it is very technical. To understand it, you need a scientific background. But there are many other examples of the physical universe’s “life-friendly” properties.

Q: In the face of this kind of evidence, what’s the position of scientists who support the chance theory?

A: One of the main theories advanced by proponents of the chance viewpoint is the theory of the “multiverse,” which maintains that there are an infinite number of universes, and that our universe just happens to be the one where conditions are right for intelligent life. However, there’s no scientific proof that these other universes exist.

Q: How has the scientific community responded to the multiverse theory?

A: Skeptically. It makes little sense to talk about other universes if there’s no way to confirm their existence. Some physicists have pointed out that if you can hypothesize an unlimited number of universes, you can explain anything, but a theory that allows anything to be possible, actually explains nothing. *

I’ve always thought that the multiverse theory is really no different from saying, “If there were a million monkeys pounding away on a million typewriters for an unlimited period of time, eventually they’d write the Bible, all of Shakespeare’s plays, the Koran, and every other famous book that’s ever been written — just by chance.”

I like using that example because it’s so preposterous. When you cloak the multiverse theory in the garb of scientific language it appears more reasonable than when you substitute a goofy example.

Q: Have the proponents cited anything in support of the multiverse theory?

A: They’ve been able to show mathematically that the multiverse is a possibility, but, in science, being able to show that something is mathematically possible doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s true.

The other evidence cited is the discovery of “dark energy.” In 1998 scientists discovered that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and not slowing down as previously assumed. An unknown form of energy, dubbed “dark energy,” is causing this expansion.

The proponents of the multiverse theory have seized upon this expansion of the universe through “dark energy” as support for the multiverse theory. However, science at this point doesn’t even know what dark energy is, so obviously it’s neither evidence nor proof that other universes exist.

In fact, many scientists have shown that the discovery of “dark energy” provides additional support for the intelligent design viewpoint.

Q: Can you explain how?

A: “Dark energy” is another example of the kind of fine-tuning that allows life to exist. Scientists have found that the calibration of “dark energy,” which appears to be a repelling force, is just enough to accelerate expansion of the universe but not so much as to cause the universe to rip apart. If the effects of “dark energy” were any greater, they would overwhelm the gravity that holds the universe together.

One prominent physicist describes the calibration of dark energy as an example of fine-tuning well beyond what one might expect if it were a “mere accident.”*

Q: What, then, will be the likely fate of the multiverse theory?

A: There have been plenty of theories in science over the centuries that have been popular yet eventually been proven false. Evidence is ultimately what brings about changes in scientific understanding. If the evidence doesn’t confirm a theory, at some point we have to change or abandon the theory.

Maybe multiverses exist. But as an explanation of why intelligent life exists on Earth, so far there’s no evidence to support the multiverse theory.

Q: Do you believe that the future will increasingly confirm the intelligent design viewpoint?

A: Yes. I believe that as these “life-friendly” coincidences continue to stack up, more and more scientists will embrace intelligent design. As one commentator put it: “The basic properties of the universe are uncannily suited for life. Tweak the laws of physics in just about any way – and life as we know it would cease to exist.”*

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Village, is the founder and CEO of Sierra Family Medical Clinic near Ananda Village. He is also co-author of Yoga Therapy for Insomnia and Yoga Therapy for Headache Relief. These books are available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

* Tim Folger, “Science’s Alternative to an Intelligent Creator: the Multiverse Theory,” Discover Magazine, November 10, 2008.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Why is it that I meditate better here and feel more devotion? To locals I say, when asked how I like it here, “India is a land of extremes.” Perhaps it’s true that spiritual growth is accelerated in such environments simply because life’s challenges force us to resolve them within.

Primed for Mysticism

As a “Kriyacharya,” (someone authorized to give Kriya Yoga initiations) I hear many stories that cause me to simply shake my head in amazement. Kundalini, visions, spiraling currents, out-of-body experiences, and ecstatic states are regular fare. I don’t mean to say that these are universal or even common, but I can almost guarantee that someone in every class will come afterward to ask for help with something like this. At first I suspected overactive imaginations but I was wrong.

One woman was distressed after Kriya initiation because she was experiencing a loss of body awareness while teaching her classroom of children. The bliss she was feeling was interfering with her duties. The top of her head was very warm to touch and actually emanated an inner vibration. There have been many such accounts, all sincere. A woman from South India spoke of a local goddess who regularly appeared while she practiced Kriya. Another man wanted to know how to control the chakra awakening he was experiencing, and described it in great detail. Such stories have made me wonder, “Why don’t Westerners seem to have these experiences so frequently?” I think the answer is culture.

Westerners are trained to be skeptical by nature and to look for material, physical and tangible causes to phenomena, whereas in India the veil between the material and astral planes is thinner. I don’t like to generalize like this but I am coming to agree with others who have said that the Indian psyche is primed for mysticism whereas the Western mind is primed for practical efficiency, due to the influence of culture and training. But interestingly, if you take an Indian and put him in America or in a westernized subculture within India, he becomes highly practical and efficient within a short order, often rising to the top of his field. I’m hoping the same can be said, in reverse, for us practical Westerners who now find ourselves in mystical India.

Jugaad: India’s Secret Weapon

Jugaad is a word that characterizes an approach to life in India. Roughly translated, it means “improvisation” or “an ability to make do” in the midst of challenging circumstances. It can be thought of as the spirit that says “No problem” when the lights go out, the water tap is dry, and the roads are flooded. It’s the village entrepreneur hooking up a lawnmower engine to his bicycle rickshaw. It’s getting home alive in your space capsule using odds, ends, and duct tape as they did in the Apollo 13 movie.

With a little bit of creativity, enterprise and hustle, the average Indian gets by and prospers. I think this is why you see Indian immigrants around the world rising to the top of their fields in all countries. The hassle of life has trained them to find solutions and novel approaches because they can’t rely on things to work the way they do in the West. Some even see jugaad as India’s secret weapon for economic success in the world of international competition. As the old saying goes, “Necessity is the mother of invention,” and in a country where “doing the needful” is a daily requirement, jugaad comes in mighty handy.

When I was working at the Ananda community outside Pune in southern India, I’d regularly encounter mechanical problems that baffled me. Something would break or we wouldn’t have the proper tools (by my Western standards) or some complication would arise. “No problem,” Hari, our labor foreman, would say. First he’d try one thing, then another and another until finally we’d find a solution and get the job done. If not, we’d sometimes take our problem to the local village and go from shop to shop seeking a solution. Locals would always offer help, taking what we brought as a personal challenge. Passers-by would join in with opinions of their own and sooner or later, an answer would come.

If you visit India and ever find yourself lost, you’ll experience the same thing. Just ask for help from anyone on the street and a crowd will gather to give you half a dozen opinions on how to get where you want to go.

Nayaswami Jaya is a founding member of Ananda and a Kriyacharya. Together with his wife, Nayaswami Sadhana Devi, he currently lives and serves the Ananda work in Gurgaon, India.

To learn more about Ananda’s work in India click here

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**********

German site predates Stonehenge: Archaeologists have found what could be Europe’s oldest astronomical observatory near the town of Goseck in the eastern German state of Saxony-Anhalt. The site, which is estimated to be around 7,000 years old and measures 75 meters in diameter, is thought to be one of the oldest and largest of the 140 similar sites now discovered throughout Western Europe.

Hardly a week goes by without an announcement that some ancient structure or astronomical artifact has been found, or that some civilization is discovered to be older or more advanced than previously thought.

In recent years we have found that the Sumerians had a great knowledge of mathematics and astronomy, and that the ancient Egyptians not only built massive structures but also used orthodontics and prosthetic devices. We have learned that the ancient South Americans built massive stone structures of such fine tolerances that they did not require mortar, and that an unknown race etched out patterns on the ground that make sense only when viewed from the sky. We have discovered that the ancient Europeans built megalithic structures and astronomical observatories in England, France, Germany, and Ireland. Most of these ancient cultures also seemed to have had a profound knowledge of star movements as well as lunar and solar cycles.

The fact that there were numerous advanced ancient civilizations prior to the Dark Ages is slowly gaining attention. Consequently, a greater effort is underway to find out exactly how much the ancients knew, how widespread their cultures really were, and how far back their knowledge might date. Offshore searches, better technology and the ability to communicate and access obscure data quickly over the Internet are aiding in this spontaneous collaborative process.

The number one myth of the ancient world
As the evidence mounts, other major questions are being asked: What is the source of the ancient knowledge? Does it stem from a long lost civilization, possibly an Atlantis-type culture that predates even the early Egyptian and megalithic eras? Or as a History Channel program recently argued, was man really a hunter-gatherer on a slow path of evolution who suddenly benefited by contact with a highly advanced alien race? Or could it be that primitive man was not so primitive after all?

The groundbreaking book, Hamlet’s Mill,* points to an answer. It tells us that the myth and folklore of over 30 ancient cultures around the world speak of a vast cycle of time with alternating higher and lower ages caused by something known as the “precession of the equinox.”

What is so important about the precession of the equinox that it became the number one myth of the ancient world? Only the flood story is as widely repeated in the myth and folklore of these old world cultures.

What is the “precession of the equinox?”
The equinox is that day in the spring and fall when day and night are of equal length. The precession of the equinox occurs when the sun, observed on the day of the equinox, rises in different constellations of the zodiac. There are many constellations in the heavens, but those that form the zodiac, in front of which our sun and solar system move, are only twelve in number.

Here’s an example of how the precession works. If at the time of Christ we looked up in the eastern sky before sunrise on the day of the spring equinox, we would have seen the constellation Pisces at the point in the sky where the sun was about to rise. Today, if we look at the eastern sky at the same point on the day of the spring equinox, we would see that Pisces is receding and that the constellation Aquarius is coming into view at that point in the sky where the sun is about to rise.

In other words, the spring equinox, which has been moving through Pisces for about the last 2000 years, is about to rise in Aquarius. This is the meaning of the “dawning of the age of Aquarius.”

It takes about 2000 years for the equinox to move through each constellation. Over a period of about 24,000 years the equinox precesses, or moves backward, through all twelve constellations of the zodiac, returning to its starting point. This is one cycle of the precession of the equinox.

Precession: one of three celestial motions
Studying the myths and being cognizant of the cycles of nature, we can begin to understand why precession may have been so important to cultures of the ancient world.

We all know of two celestial motions that have a profound effect on life and consciousness. The first, the diurnal motion or earth rotating on its axis, causes mankind to move from a waking state to a subconscious sleep state and back again every 24 hours. Our bodies have adapted to the earth’s rotation so well that it produces these regular changes in consciousness without us even thinking the process remarkable.

The second celestial motion as defined by Copernicus – the earth’s revolution around the sun – has an equally significant effect, prompting trillions of life forms to spring out of the ground, bloom, fruit, and then decay while billions of other species hibernate, spawn, or migrate en masse. Our visible world literally springs to life, completely changes its color and stride, and then reverses with every waxing and waning of this second celestial motion.

The third celestial motion, the precession of the equinox, is less understood than the first two, but if we are to believe ancient cultures from around the world, it is equally transformative in its effect. In fact, the ancients suggest that the precession was the driving force behind the rise and fall of civilization itself.

What disguises the impact of this precessional motion is its vast timescale. From any fixed point on earth we notice that the stars shift position by about 4 minutes per day due to the earth’s annual orbit around the sun. Precession, however, proceeds so slowly, about one degree per 72 years, that it takes very patient observation to notice this subtle shift in the position of the sun relative to the background stars. It would have taken generations, and careful record-keeping, to notice a large enough shift in movement to be certain that the equinox was indeed precessing through the constellations.

A megalithic structure such as Stonehenge, however, with its large fixed stones, would be an ideal vantage point for observing this slow movement of the stars from year to year. The ancient cultures certainly had many of these structures.

The “Great Year,” “Yugas,” and “Ages of Man”
As previously noted, the myth and folklore of virtually every ancient culture mention some type of grand cosmic cycle. Plato and the Greeks called this cycle the “Great Year” as did the early Chinese. The people of the Indus Valley called it the “Yugas.” These ancient cultures believed that as the heavens moved, the earth went through a metamorphosis from a dark age, to an age of enlightenment, then back again.

Just as the day and year have their phases of increasing and decreasing light, the ancients broke the Great Year into two parts: 12,000 years ascending and 12,000 years descending (when things are getting better and when things are getting worse). They also broke each of these two parts into four sections, which the Greeks called the Iron, Bronze, Silver and Golden ages. Each age was said to have a particular characteristic and to profoundly affect man’s consciousness and events on earth.

Hesiod, the Greek poet and scholar (750 B.C.), writing about the “Ages of Man,” described the attributes of each age in great detail. As did so many other cultures throughout the world, Hesiod spoke of a distant Golden Age, a time of the gods and a near perfect world:

[Men of the Golden Age] lived like gods with a carefree heart, remote from toil and misery. Wretched old age did not affect them either, but with hands and feet ever unchanged they enjoyed themselves … and they died as if overcome by sleep. All good things were theirs, and the grain-giving soil bore its fruits of its own accord in unstinted plenty, while they at leisure harvested their fields in contentment and abundance.

The Vedic culture probably expounded on the precessional cycle better than any other. In great detail they described the vast powers of man in the higher ages and the misery and chaos of the darkest age, which they called the Kali Yuga. Unfortunately, during the last Kali Yuga or Dark Age, the correct method of calculating the yugas became obscured. The time period of one ascending or descending age, correctly noted as 12,000 years in the Mahabharata, was multiplied by 360, resulting in an immense period of time that lost all correlation to the precessional cycle or the archaeological record. Such is the way of the dark ages!

The authors of Hamlet’s Mill tell us that ancient mythology is the scientific language of antiquity. Our ancestors knew the sky intimately. Not only did they share an understanding of celestial mechanics, they meticulously charted celestial causes and effects over thousands of years of observations. Entire cultures fully embraced the idea of the “Great Year” and a “Golden Age.” By studying their myths and folklore, we too might gain insight into the true meaning and mechanics of the precession.

An unsuccessful attempt to explain the procession
During the dark ages, mankind lost the knowledge that the earth was spinning on its axis and that the earth went around the sun. So also did it lose the knowledge of the grand precessional cycle. The “Great Year” went from being the number one topic of discussion in the ancient world to near total oblivion.

As the Dark Age receded, Copernicus, relying on the ancient Greek heliocentric writings, correctly explained the first two motions of the earth: the daily rotation of the earth on its axis and its annual rotation around the sun. Copernicus did not, however, have access to ancient knowledge on the third motion. Nonetheless, since precession was a known though little understood phenomenon in astrological circles, he attempted to explain it by suggesting that the earth must “wobble.”

Copernicus’ theory of precession, developed without knowledge that the solar system could move, inevitably proved inadequate. Newton later tried, unsuccessfully, to clarify Copernicus’ theory.

Swami Sri Yukteswar’s explanation of the precession
In 1894, a great Indian sage, Swami Sri Yukteswar, offered a different explanation for the precessional motion of the stars and the rise and fall of the ages. He stated that it is the motion of the sun, revolving around a companion star or “dual,” which causes the precession of the equinox:

We know from Oriental Astronomy that moons revolve around their planets, and planets revolving on their axis with their moons revolve around the sun, and the sun takes some star for its dual and revolves around it in a period of about 24,000 years causing the backward movement of the equinox.

Interestingly, Sri Yukteswar’s statement was made at a time when there was very little knowledge of companion star systems. According to the latest NASA figures, however, up to 80% of all stars may be part of a binary or multiple star system. When we consider also that a huge number of stars (such as Brown Dwarfs) are difficult to see, it begins to seem possible that the sun might be part of a binary or multiple star system yet to be discovered.

Most astronomers would say that if our sun were part of a binary system we would know it by now. However, if the companion star’s orbit period were long enough, or if the star itself were faint enough, it is quite possible we would not presently know whether our sun has a companion star.

Recent scientific research suggests that if the binary orbit were slightly elliptical, as all orbits are, then precession would average about 24,000 years, as proposed by Sri Yukteswar. This figure agrees well with the ancient Indian interpretation of the Yugas and strongly suggests that a binary system may be the most plausible explanation of the phenomenon of precession, even though astronomers have yet to discover a companion star to the sun.

Scientific corroboration of ancient myths
If the binary model is correct, it would go a long way to shedding light on the great myths and folklore from around the world. No doubt there are great catastrophes such as comets, asteroids, large earth movements, or possibly even pole shifts that befall the earth from time to time and interrupt the history of man.

But none of these explain why there was a progressive decline of civilization for thousands of years before the Dark Ages, or why man’s intelligence and technological capabilities generally seem to be advancing so rapidly since then. A binary system of our sun traveling through space, taking the earth on a long elliptical journey and exposing it to different electromagnetic sources, could very well explain the myths that come to us from every world culture.

The dawning of the age of Aquarius
According to Time Magazine, over 17 million people are now meditating in the United States alone. Slowly but surely consciousness seems to be expanding, boosting our ability to better understand the mysteries of the universe, and the mechanisms of the precessional cycle. If the cycle is real, perhaps we are close to rediscovering how to once again live in harmony with the earth and to achieve our full human potential.

Consider what a Golden Age might have been like, when people revered the heavens and aligned their structures in harmony with the motions of the earth and stars. Were wizards, saints, sages, and enlightened people the made-up stories of a fantasized higher age? Or were they beings much  like you and me who discovered a higher consciousness?

The time now is akin to the last days of winter, things are thawing out and a sense of promise is in the air. While all the flowers do not necessarily bloom on the first day of spring, an understanding of the grand precessional cycle suggests we are moving into a brighter, more beautiful time.

___________

Walter Cruttenden is the Director of the Binary Research Institute, an archaeoastronomy think tank in California. He is the author of the book Lost Star of Myth and Time and the award-winning documentary, The Great Year, narrated by James Earl Jones. Cruttenden’s work focuses on the cause and consequences of solar system motion and the astronomy of ancient cultures.

The foregoing article is taken from his book, Lost Star of Myth and Time, and articles on the precession of the equinox appearing on his website: Binary Research Institute

For more information on this topic readers are invited to attend the 7th annual “Conference on Precession and Ancient Knowledge” to be held this fall in Sedona, Arizona. To learn more click here

*Hamlet’s Mill was written by Giorgio Santillana, Professor of the History of Science at MIT, and Hertha von Dechend, an anthropologist from Frankfurt University.

Related reading: The Yugas – Keys to Understanding Our Hidden Past, Emerging Energy Age, and Enlightened Future by Joseph Selbie & David Steinmetz. To order click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Two American boys, Donny and Bobby, while exploring the Transylvania forest, came upon the ruins of some kind of science laboratory. Inside they found various items used in chemistry experiments and a few file cabinets.

In the back of the laboratory was a room with a large hole in the wall big enough for people to walk into. The boys started to enter the hole, but finding themselves enveloped in darkness, turned back. Back outside, they discovered a huge dinosaur skeleton with bits of flesh still on the bones. Remembering that one of the files in the laboratory had said something about time travel, they decided to return the next day to find out if the hole in the back room led to a time tunnel.

The boys enter the tunnel and begin shrinking

The next morning the boys again entered the hole, which in fact was a tunnel leading gently downward. The first thing they noticed as they got deeper inside was a low humming sound, coming in rhythmic pulses from below them but also from all around them.

“It reminds me of the engine of a huge ocean liner,” cried Bobby. They had already been across the Atlantic more than once.

“You’re right!” Donny answered. “On a ship, that sound is everywhere!”

“Do you notice something else? The further we walk into this tunnel, the more it keeps shrinking!”

Bobby cried out fearfully, “And we’re shrinking with it! Oh! Let’s get out of here!”

They tried to turn back. “I can’t!” Donny cried.

“Neither can I!” whispered Bobby. The pulsing sound seemed to be forcing them forward. What could they do? Terror-stricken, they joined hands for mutual protection.

They keep on shrinking

A speck of dust floated by them: it looked like a huge boulder! And they themselves went on shrinking! What had been a mere hint of moisture on the floor became all at once a puddle, then a pond, then a lake. And they were in that lake! Soon, huge monsters were floating in the water all around them.

“They look like paramecia!” Donny cried. “I saw some through a microscope in a pre-science class.”

Bobby shouted, “Look at those whirling lights around us! They look like pictures of atoms I saw last week in a book!”

Donny cried, “And even they keep growing bigger!”

“My gosh!” Bobby cried excitedly. “They look like suns and planets and moons!”

“And still we’re shrinking!”

A large zero and a sphere of light

“Is this good, or is it horrible? We keep shrinking, but still we continue to be ourselves!”

“We no longer seem to have bodies,” cried Donny, “but we’re still conscious!”

“More conscious!” Bobby cried. “I not only see everything more clearly, but I seem to be more aware of everything around me!”

“Oh my God!” cried Donny, “my body seems to have shrunk to nothingness! What is this! A large zero is forming around us!”

All of a sudden they emerged from the tunnel. That large zero had become a sphere of light, surrounding them both like a luminescent bubble. Outside the bubble they saw a countryside of trees, flowers, and great natural beauty.

A border zone between past and future

“Where are we?” cried Bobby.

“Remember what we read in that file?” Donny answered. “The summary, as I still remember it, went something like this:

Time, basically, is an illusion. Whatever was in the past not only was, but is now, and will be, forever. Whatever happens doesn’t really happen at all, except as a mental concept. If one could divorce himself from passing time and reduce his sense of selfhood to absolute zero, he would find it possible to appear again at any specific time, whether in time past or time future.

“My gosh!” Bobby exclaimed. “Then this light around us is that zero!”

“Is this scene around us some sort of border zone,” Donny cried, “between past and future? We must be out of time, as we know it, altogether!”

“Look!” Bobby cried. “Over there! Somebody’s lying on the ground!”

They thought themselves in that direction, and — to their astonishment — the sphere moved with their thought!

“It’s a man!” cried Donny. The man seemed asleep.

“Hey there,” Bobby shouted. “Wake up!” The man slept on. They stared at him a moment in silence. “Are you dead — like that dinosaur out there?”

The man stirred. “Dinosaur?” he muttered as if vaguely remembering the word.

“Yes, dinosaur!” shouted Donny.

“You mean, you actually saw the dinosaur?” asked the man, rising now in panic to a sitting position.

The man’s head seemed to be clearing. “I’m beginning to remember!”

Hansel explains the time-light spheres

The man’s head seemed to clear completely. “Yes! It’s understandable to me now. My name is Hansel, but first, I’ve got to get you out of that time-light sphere. As long as you’re in it, you’ll be visible only to me, because I too came out of that tunnel.”

Donny asked, “So how do we get out of this sphere?”

“It’s easy enough. Its light is a vibration of energy. The time-light sphere formed around you when you reduced yourselves to zero. But now what you need to do is stand up straight in that sphere.”

The boys followed his directions, and to their amazement, they saw the light around them disappear in a downward-rolling scroll. When their arms touched their sides again, the sphere was gone! After also explaining how they could create separate spheres around each of them, Hansel said: “These time-light spheres are very important for you. They will keep you invisible to others, and also inaudible by them. And the spheres will protect you from anything going on around you.”

Egypt and the construction of the Great Pyramid

The next day Donny and Bobby emerged once more from the tunnel in their bubbles of light — calmly this time, however. Hansel, their new friend was waiting for them. After dissolving their light bubbles, they greeted him. The boys were ready for an adventure.

“What if we went back to the time of the pyramids, and saw what the people were like then!” cried Donny.  His mother had already told them about those ancient wonders.

“We could see how they built those great buildings!” added Bobby.

“The people who created the pyramids lived in a much higher age than ours,” said Hansel. “They knew how to manipulate sounds, and had innumerable instruments — big drums for the low hum of solid earth; flutes for liquid matter; harps for fiery matter; deep gongs for gaseous matter; and a rushing sound produced by another instrument, which is no longer known today.

“In addition, many priests and priestesses loudly chanted certain sacred sounds. All of these sounds together lifted the huge rocks into place, and inserted them between the other stones in a way that researchers have long marveled over. For in fact those stones could not have been placed as precisely as they were except from above.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Donny. ” Why don’t we go there and see for ourselves?”

They scrolled up their time-light spheres, and found themselves suddenly on a wide, sandy plateau. They remained in their spheres, invisible to and inaudible by anyone else, but finding it easy to communicate with one another.

The three of them watched the pyramid’s construction rising quickly (they swept forward over the many years it took for the pyramid to be finished). Suddenly they saw before them — not a great pyramid of rocks, but a smooth, gleaming white sandstone structure, shining for many miles, reflecting light over the flat desert.

“Centuries later,” Hansel told them, “when modern Cairo was built, people took the surface stone from the pyramid to construct their homes. Long ago, it wasn’t the massive pile of blocks seen today. Instead, the pyramid stood gleaming in the desert.

“One interesting fact about Egypt,” Hansel concluded, “is that, as a civilization, it started at its height. There is no indication of an earlier rise from obscurity.”

“Do you mean,” Donny asked, “that all of Egypt’s known history has been downhill?”

“That’s what the evidence shows.” Hansel answered.

******

“Shall we try going to the future — maybe tomorrow?” Hansel asked.

Bobby said. “Oh, I’d like first to go to Atlantis!”

“Atlantis!” cried Donny. “I know nothing about it. But they were highly advanced then. Do let’s go there first!”

“Very well, then,” Hansel concluded. “Tomorrow: Atlantis!”

Atlantis and the conquering of nature

“What was Atlantis like?” inquired Bobby, eager with anticipation. “I once asked Daddy about it,” said Donny, “and he answered, ‘It can’t have existed.’”

“Well, here’s something to think about,” said Hansel: “Atlantis was situated (this seems obvious) in the Atlantic Ocean. The nearest land mass west of it could easily have been Mexico. Consider, then, the names of many cities in Mexico: Acatlán; Mazatlán; Zacatlán; and names without the first or the last ‘a,’ but with that strange ‘tlan’ sound, like Ixtlán; Ocotlán; Tepoztlán; Tezuitlán.

Often you can find clues to the past from the sounds of language itself. I don’t believe that ‘tlán’ sound is found anywhere else on earth. Certainly it must be very uncommon. And, as part of that puzzle, what about the name of the ocean itself: “Atlantic”? I know of no connection between that name and any ancient language. Where did it come from?”

“Gee,” said Donny thoughtfully, “that is a good argument!”

“And anyway, I’ve been there!” said Hansel, clinching the matter. “Atlantis existed all right! Atlantis was a very high civilization. On it there stood, at its center, a huge crystal. That crystal gave energy to the whole island.

“Were the Atlanteans a scientific people?” Donny asked.

“Too much so!” said Hansel. “Everything was man-made and artificial. They believed in conquering Nature, not in working with her.”

******

Hansel and the boys enclosed themselves in their time-light spheres, and Hansel (who alone knew where they were going) willed themselves back to ancient Atlantis thousands of years ago.

On arriving, they found themselves in a gleamingly white city — super clean, super neat in its construction, super efficient, super — well, super everything! High buildings towered around them. People rode about in neat, small metal “sheaths,” easily avoiding contact with one another. If one car happened to touch another, the surfaces of both cars adjusted instantly, bending softly inward to avoid any damaging clash.

After scrolling down their time-light spheres, the three travelers found there were no sidewalks. They stepped onto a flat square and found themselves almost instantly transported up two storeys to a translucent sidewalk. Beside them they saw a beautiful shop window in which were displayed styles of clothing they’d never before seen, nor even ever imagined. Fascinated, they entered through an open door.

Just then, a lady passing by them, also going in, cried out, “Great Crystal! What are you three doing dressed like that?”

******

Later, after Bobby, Donny and Hansel were again outside the tunnel, they reminisced about their recent visit to Atlantis.

“Well,” said Hansel, “bleak is what we found it to be underneath that outward glamour.”

“Yes, bleak. That’s the word!” cried Bobby earnestly.

*****

Forward to a glorious future

“At last, it’s time to soar off to the future!” Hansel said to them. ” Let’s go forward very slowly. That way, you’ll catch a glimpse of other time zones on the way.” They enclosed themselves in their time-light spheres, and moved slowly through time….

******

After they had seen enough, Hansel spoke: “I thought we might go further still — thousands of years into the future. Would you like to speed up? The boys agreed and all of a sudden, passing time became a blur of quickly changing scenes; then a simple blur of colors; then, white space.

Suddenly they landed on a flowery meadow. Scrolling down their time-light spheres, they stepped out of them (so to speak) onto the meadow and looked about. The weather was balmy. A soft breeze played over long meadow grass as if on harp strings. As the breeze did so, it created delightful, slightly energizing sounds, within which subtle melodies seemed to be playing.

They noticed that their own bodies seemed lighter, almost airy. Everything around them was graceful. Even the trees grew gracefully. And the hills seemed somehow to have been molded into harmonious shapes.

A beautiful horse ran about freely in the meadow. After making a few turns about the periphery, it trotted over to Donny, butted him playfully, ran off, then came back and nudged him — all this with obvious affection.

“Look!” cried Donny. “It wants to make friends!”

With their bag of three sandwiches, which they had brought with them, they sat on the grass under a graceful tree and ate them. Their brief repast finished, they stood up. Just at that moment, a visitor appeared. He was tall, dignified, apparently middle-aged, draped in a long blue robe, the material of which seemed soft and completely comfortable.

“Welcome, Friends!” said the man with a kindly smile. “I thought I would wait until you’d finished your meal. My name is Satyan.”

*Crystal Clarity Publishers. The book will be available summer 2011.

An amazing degree of change
Since 1900 A.D., we’ve been in the ascending age of Dwapara Yuga and we find, amazingly, just in one century, how much people have advanced. Everything we know of modern times—airplanes, cars, electronics, radios, television, computers— started after 1900. And we’re just at the beginning. The discoveries that lie ahead of us are enormous, but all of them will be based on an awareness of energy as the underlying reality of matter.

A very different kind of world and universe will open up as we advance into this age. Before the end of Dwapara Yuga in 4100 A.D., mankind will conquer the delusion of space, and people will realize that the most distant galaxy is just as close as our present surroundings. (See sidebar below for explanation of the yuga cycles, and diagram at right.)

The start of interplanetary travel
According to science, it’s not possible for people to go from one solar system to another because of the distance and time involved. In 1949, however, there was a worldwide “stir” of sightings of “flying saucers” or UFOs (unidentified flying objects). The newspapers generally made light of the reports, but Paramhansa Yogananda’s brief comment was: “What people have seen is true. Those phenomena are not imaginary.”

There’s a movie about what happened in Roswell, New Mexico, where a flying saucer crashed in 1949. Local residents and military personnel saw the beings on the ship—some of whom survived briefly, and examined the bodies. The beings looked similar to us, only smaller, and they didn’t have the same cardiovascular system that we have. Theirs was more like that of plants. We have a carbon-based system, but there’s no reason why other physiological and biological systems couldn’t work just as well.

Modern science declares it would be impossible for the inhabitants of planets situated many light years away from Earth to make such a journey. Yogananda’s answer was that science is still in its infancy. He said: “Modern man thinks that everything must be accomplished by physical force. There are many subtler forces in Nature. These will come to light as the general sensitivity of man becomes more refined. Someday it will be a simple matter to travel from Earth to Mars, or to other planets.”

In the different yugas, mankind transcends certain aspects of maya or delusion. By the end of Dwapara Yuga, mankind will know how to bypass the laws of physics that say you can’t go faster than the speed of light. People will be able to go, not only to other planets, but to distant galaxies.

Treta Yuga: the power to manipulate events
As planetary consciousness continues to evolve, people will become more aware of the power of consciousness. They will understand that consciousness precedes energy and that with their own minds they can direct energy to accomplish things. This  understanding will be the hallmark of the next age, Treta Yuga, or “The Age of Mental Power,” which will start in 4100 A.D.

We know this principle to some extent even now. This is what Yogananda’s Energization Exercises teach us—that by will power we can send energy to the body. When we do the Energization Exercises, we’re directing energy through the power of consciousness, and that energy acts upon the muscles by tensing them. As we go deeper into that thought, we realize we can ultimately send energy to manipulate the events around us.

A woman in India told me about her guru, who lived very simply in the forest. Once, when a number of his disciples were with him there was a heavy downpour of rain, but it remained completely dry around them. It was as if he had created an astral umbrella. When you have that kind of inner power, it’s a very small thing to ward off the rain. You can prevent rain or cause rain, or even change the seasons. In Treta Yuga most people are aware enough to be able to manipulate energy with will power.

If you could put all your will into making something happen, and not have any conflicting doubt, you would find that your will is enormous. Will power isn’t just generating the energy—it’s also removing the obstacles that prevent that energy from being effective. Masters are able to perform miracles because they know that when they will something, they must send out all their energy, and there’s no conflicting energy blocking it.

I saw an ad in a magazine once for somebody who was supposed to be channeling an entity. I had to laugh when I looked at his picture because his face was all screwed up with the effort. When Yogananda did miraculous things it was effortless, because there were no conflicting thoughts. He just sent out a thought, and even though he had tremendous will, there was never any sense of struggle. It’s not as if God had to get all worked up to project the universe—it just happened very naturally.

Yogananda described Treta Yuga as an “age marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators.” Mental telepathy will occur naturally as mankind’s mental control, intuition, and knowledge of the universe evolve.

By the end of Treta Yuga, most people will understand that time, like space, is a delusion, and that the most ancient civilizations exist, not in the distant past, but right now, in the eternal present. Certain writings penned back in Treta Yuga, five thousand years ago or so, discuss the lives of individuals living today. In one such writing, The Book of Bhrigu, I found a page discussing my own life, and accurately describing events that had not yet occurred.

Nonetheless, there is still warfare well into Treta Yuga because people don’t yet have the degree of mental control that enables them to act in attunement with God’s will. By Satya Yuga, the highest age, people will have learned that.

A portal of entry into subtler realms
With the arrival of the golden age of Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth, in 7700 A.D., mankind will live more perfectly in the realization that all is Spirit. In Satya Yuga there will be a much greater degree of Self-realization, and the majority of people will understand that the universe is simply a projection of the Divine Consciousness.

This doesn’t mean there won’t be people whose consciousness is negative or dark. Even in the depths of Kali Yuga there are still a few masters around, and in the heights of Satya Yuga there are still a few evil people. It’s rather that in Satya Yuga relatively more people have an enlightened awareness, so that warfare is no longer a problem.

During Satya Yuga, most people are no longer interested in using energy as a means of manipulating and controlling matter. For them, matter is merely a “portal of entry” into higher, subtler realms. They live in effortless communion with angelic beings, and with the pure nature spirits that bring life, order, and beauty to this physical world.

These enlightened souls are interested not so much in creating beautiful forms as in achieving beautiful states of awareness. Whatever they create materially, however, is effortlessly beautiful, graceful, and beneficial to themselves and to others. They have little need to construct grand edifices, or even sturdy homes. They prefer the “shelter of trees”—as the great master Babaji, one of Yogananda’s teachers, once put it—for Nature herself becomes temperate when mankind projects thoughts of love and harmony. Even today there are saints who don’t need houses.

Descending Dwapara Yuga: incantations and black magic
We have now entered the upward swing of Dwapara Yuga. It’s interesting to think what was happening at the point when Dwapara Yuga was descending into Kali Yuga, the darkest age. What would be the natural tendency of a civilization that was coming down from higher levels of spiritual awareness and losing its ability to use mental power? It would be to turn toward magic. People would still have the memory of past civilizations when one could influence everything with the power of the mind, but they wouldn’t understand how to do it. Eventually they would try to recapture this lost power by doing everything with incantations and magic.

I went on a pilgrimage to Egypt in the early 1980s. I felt very strongly while there that the entire civilization at the time of descending Dwapara Yuga had fallen into black magic. There was a darkness over the land. But I was able also to feel the consciousness of Egypt further back in time during a higher age, and I felt something much more uplifted. When I visited the Aswan Dam area, I had the very strong feeling that I’d lived there long before in a higher age. I could imagine lush greenery everywhere and that it had been a very simple, harmonious time.

Eternal rounds of maya
What are the lessons we can personally draw from understanding the yuga concept? Paramhansa Yogananda described these cycles as the “eternal rounds of maya.” With the progression of the yugas, mankind gradually escapes from duality, and awakens to realize its unity with God.

To devotees, in a sense, it doesn’t matter what yuga we find ourselves in. We need to tune in to the higher octave of the time in which we live, and to use it for our spiritual development. Dwapara Yuga is the Age of Energy, and Paramhansa Yogananda came at this time to give us techniques of energy to help us achieve Self-realization. Let’s use these techniques well, and transform our inner world into a higher age of divine truth.

Sidebar: The Cycle of the Yugas

Swami Sri Yukteswar is the first person, to my knowledge, to give an explanation for the cycle of the yugas, a teaching that was known back in ancient times but lost during the dark age of Kali Yuga. The cycle of the yugas represents the progression from the time our sun and solar system are the farthest from the center of the galaxy, to the time when they are the closest.

The explanation that Sri Yukteswar and the ancient seers give for the progression of the yugas is that our sun has a dual, and that the two revolve around each other. Along with this revolution, our sun and solar system move in a great elliptical orbit toward, then away from, the center of our galaxy, a tremendous vortex of energy. Rays of spiritual energy pour out from this galactic center, and as our sun and solar system come closer to it, more energy floods our planet. Because of this increased energy, human consciousness becomes more aware.

When our solar system moves away from that center of energy, human consciousness becomes duller, not able to understand things as well. Our solar system reached its farthest point from the galactic center in roughly 500 AD, during the heart of the dark age of Kali Yuga.

Our solar system is now moving again toward the galactic center, and human consciousness, since it’s receiving more energy, is able to understand things better. People have begun to recognize, for example, that matter is not essentially solid, but that it’s really energy. In fact, it’s only because we’ve moved into the more enlightened age of Dwapara Yuga that mankind is even able to understand the concept of the yuga cycle.

When our solar system is closest to the galactic center, mankind becomes increasingly enlightened. The two highest ages are Treta Yuga, “The Age of Mental Power,” and Satya Yuga, “The Age of Truth.”

From: Light of Superconsciousness; The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita; Conversations with Yogananda; and The Promise of Immortality, Crystal Clarity Publishers, and recent talks.

Transformation: The obstructions and problems that arise when dealing with inert matter are transformed into opportunities for success, once a person becomes conscious that he is dealing with the living reality behind that appearance of inertness. Religion in the New Age by Swami Kriyananda.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

According to Sri Yukteswar’s explanation of the cycle of the yugas, mankind’s consciousness would have been at the peak of enlightenment in 11,500 B.C., even though most people consider this era to be primitive, its people ignorant, superstitious, and nearly savage. There is, however, a significant amount of accepted evidence which indicates man’s development in 11,500 B.C. was very different than is popularly believed. But several well-established misconceptions, including the notion of the “stone-age caveman,” perpetuate the old vision of the ancient past.

The commonly held view is that nomadic bands roamed the world in 10,000 B.C., grunting to communicate, using crude stone tools, wearing furs, while eking out a miserable existence. This image is almost indelible. We see it in natural history museum dioramas, in textbooks, in movies, in literature, in advertising, in comics and cartoons, even in the idioms we use. To say that the notion of the caveman is thoroughly accepted is an understatement. It just doesn’t happen to be true.

What gave birth to the myth?
There were two powerful ideas that gave birth to the idea of the caveman living as recently as ten thousand years ago. The first and most influential was the theory of evolution. Darwin’s book, On the Origin of Species, published in 1859, established the concept that all species – including man – evolve, thus suggesting that an earlier and more primitive version of man must have existed in the past. The second idea, the importance of which is less appreciated today, had to do with the common opinion, at the time of Darwin, of the age of the earth.

Although today most natural scientists believe the world to be 4.5 billion years old, at the time when Darwin’s theory of evolution was taking hold of Western science in the 1860s and 70s, only a handful of scientists thought the earth was even 50 million years old. In the late 1800s, the average person, even the average scientist, thought the earth was far younger than 50 million years.

Combined with Darwin’s theory of evolution, the assumption of a very young earth is significant, because it led the scientists of the day to the conclusion that if man had in fact evolved from the apes, he must have evolved very recently. Many scientists in the late 1800s speculated that a “missing link” must have existed — a new species that branched off from the apes as recently as 20 to 50 thousand years ago, and which evolved from ape-like man to modern man in the short span of a few thousand years.

If the natural scientists in the late 1800s had had the perspective of a 4.5 billion year old earth, they might have theorized a much longer timeline of human evolution, and assumed a caveman period millions of years ago, rather than thousands of years ago. But because of the state of scientific understanding at the time, the idea of cavemen running around as recently as 10,000 B.C. formed and, unfortunately, still persists in the popular mind today.

The search for “missing links”
In response to Darwin’s theory, a new branch of science began to form in the late 1800s—what is now known as paleontology. Hundreds of mostly amateur scientists went out into the field to find evidence of cavemen and missing links. Not surprisingly — given human nature — they found what they were looking for. The world was spellbound by the discoveries of Neanderthal Man, Cro-Magnon Man, Piltdown Man, Java Man, and many others, all of which seemed to corroborate the theory that modern man evolved from the apes within the last 100,000 years.

However, most of these discoveries have since been discredited or significantly reassessed. The Piltdown Man was proved, famously, to be a deliberate hoax, made up from a modern human skull and the jaw of an orangutan. Java Man was shown to be “put together” from bones found up to 10 meters apart, one of which, many authorities believe, was from an ape, and some of which are now known to be thousands of years apart in age. Neanderthal Man as a species is now believed, based on genetic analysis, to be at least a million years old, and there is growing opinion that he is, in fact, the same species as modern man, rather than an earlier and more primitive one.

Perhaps even more intriguing, from the point of view the yugas provide us, is the reassessment of Cro-Magnon Man. Initially Cro-Magnon Man was considered to be a separate species from modern man and was dated as having existed for only 30,000 years: from 40,000 B.C. to 10,000 B.C. Current opinion among most paleontologists is that Cro-Magnon man is in fact “early modern human” and the same species as modern man.

Evidence of advanced Stone Age cultures
Nor is it just the examination of ancient bones that makes the idea of primitive stone-age cavemen living in 10,000 B.C. highly unlikely. Over the last 10 to 20 years especially, and in part because of increasingly accurate dating methods and other means of scientific analysis (often called the New Archeology), a great many recent finds demonstrate that intelligent man’s history on earth is much longer than previously assumed.

For example, archeologists have found ancient stores of cultivated grains in Israel, at a site called Ohalo II, a discovery which indicates mankind has been growing and milling grains for at least 23,000 years. Similarly, an archeological dig in Afghanistan shows that horses have been domesticated for at least 15,000 years. Sophisticated settlements such as Göbekli Tepe and Çatal Höyük in Turkey, and Jericho on the West Bank existed as far back in time as 9,500 B.C. Fired pottery has been found in Japan and is attributed to the Jomon culture, which dates back to 12,000 B.C.

In her meticulously researched work, Plato Prehistorian, author Mary Settegast surveys the latest archeological research and findings regarding the time from 10,000 B.C to 5,000 B.C. She concludes that the members of at least some of the old Stone Age cultures were much more advanced than the gatherer-hunter societies of recent times, and were far from the conventional image of “savage creatures.” She notes also that modern-day archeologists are more and more aware of the inadequacy of the common model and are seeking a wholly new vision of man’s past.

Satya Yuga: enlightenment and simple living
What we can conclude from the finds of the New Archeology is that the “footprint” left behind by the so-called stone-age hunter gatherers, now considered to be much more advanced than previously thought, could be the same as the “footprint” left behind by people living in descending Satya Yuga, as we can envision their lifestyle from the description given us by Sri Yukteswar. A small population of spiritually enlightened people, living simply and lightly on the earth, would leave behind the same evidence of their presence in the past — small settlements and simple artifacts — as we associate with early man.

Even if Satya Yuga man did have more advanced capabilities than the new archeologists ascribe to this era, such as metallurgy and the manufacture of textiles, no evidence of it would likely have survived. Items made of fabric, wood, metal, plastic, even concrete, will only last a few thousand years, leaving behind almost no trace of their existence. Even the artifacts of our “mighty” civilization, let alone the simple structures and artifacts of 10,000 B.C., will not withstand the natural forces of disintegration arrayed against them. About the only material that lasts through thousands of years is stone.

The absence of fabric or looms does not conclusively prove that early man wore ragged furs. It is possible that woven cloth and wooden looms did exist and have simply disintegrated with time. The fact that the earliest art works we know of are cave paintings, does not preclude other paintings having been done on materials that have long since turned to dust. The absence of jewelry, or metal tools, does not necessarily mean early man did not know how to work metal; it simply means that none has survived corrosion, oxidation and disintegration, or that they were simply handed down, reused, or re-formed for millennia, as things of value tend to be.

A disinterest in physical possessions
Even if it were the case that the only tools, artifacts, and structures made by Satya Yuga man were made of stone, we need not therefore assume that the people of that time were ignorant and primitive cavemen. During Satya Yuga, the capability to control the environment and to manipulate matter to satisfy simple needs, might have naturally led people to a disinterest in physical possessions and personal comfort; they might have been content to use the simplest of tools when and as they needed them.

It is difficult for us to imagine intelligent people choosing to live in Stone Age conditions – but ours is a time when technology = good and physical comfort = obviously good, and more technology and more comfort = even better. However, in Satya Yuga, peace of mind = good, relaxation = good, simple living = good. Why one would trade a transcendent joy-filled consciousness for stress and toil, so that one could have a big house with the latest conveniences, would be as difficult for the Satya Yuga man to imagine, as it is for Dwapara Yuga man to imagine he could find happiness without them.

Given our current fixation with material prosperity, it is ironic that when people in our day want to take a vacation, they often want to go somewhere well away from the hustle and bustle of our “modern” life, away from telephones and computers—somewhere they can swim, hike, lie in the sun, be in nature, and try to relax and revive their flagging energies and, they hope, find some peace of mind. To a greater or lesser degree, most people know, without always fully understanding why, that true happiness is a state of being, not a state of having.

At the very least, recent finds, and other accumulating evidence from the past, seriously call into question the commonly held view of primitive, stone-age cavemen roaming the world 10,000 years ago. Indeed, more and more evidence points to a far longer history of civilized man than is currently assumed, and to a picture of man in 10,000 B.C. far different from the caveman of popular conception.

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From the forthcoming book, The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Man’s Hidden Past, Emerging Present, and Future Enlightenment, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To learn more about the yugas click here

Author and lecturer, Joseph Selbie, studied ancient Western cultures at the University of Colorado and ancient Eastern cultures at UC Berkeley. He has had a keen interest in ancient history since grade school. He has taught and lectured on the principles of Eastern philosophy for over thirty years.

He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California. Joseph, also known as Puru, is a founding member of Ananda Sangha and has served in many leadership and teaching roles. Joseph is also the founder and CEO of Tristream, a web development, marketing and application design firm.

Co-author, David Steinmetz. David’s background includes forty years of scientific work, including astronomy at the University of Arizona and optics at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he teaches about the yugas, ancient world cultures, astronomy, and physics at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. He has been writing and lecturing on the topic of the yugas for more than a decade. David is a teacher at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom and was instrumental in developing a curiculum based on key aspects of the yuga cycle. He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

The following article places the construction of the Great Pyramid in the descending half of the cycle of the yugas, in the early centuries of the descending Dwapara Yuga, which began in 3100 B.C.  (See right sidebar for chart.)

The Great Pyramid has fascinated people for thousands of years, but the more it is studied, the more questions arise. The standard theory, that it was built as a tomb for Pharaoh Khufu around 2360 B.C., using only copper tools, wood, rope and sweat, is still around, but it is less and less able to answer the questions new evidence gives rise to.

The new evidence has given rise to numerous new theories of how the Great Pyramid was built, but one theme informs almost all them—that it could not have been built by primitive people just out of the Stone Age. It is simply too precisely built to have been constructed with copper and stone chisels, and its design is simply too sophisticated to have been conceived from the knowledge ascribed to the people of that era.

A uniquely exquisite structure
Clearly, the Great Pyramid is no ordinary structure. It is composed of more than 2.3 million limestone and granite blocks, some weighing as much as 100,000 pounds and transported to the site from as far away as 500 miles. Its base covers an area of over 13 acres. It is 455 feet tall, over half the height of the Empire State Building, and remains, 5000 years later, the heaviest structure on earth.

After carefully studying the Great Pyramid with the eyes of a professional machinist, Christopher Dunn, author of The Giza Power Plant, concludes that “the Great Pyramid—by any standard old or new—is the largest and most accurately constructed building in the world.” Using modern tools of a machinist’s trade, Dunn found surfaces that were flat to within 2/10,000ths of an inch.

Mathematically, materially and aesthetically, nothing like it has been built in the five millennia since its construction. Perhaps our ascending Dwapara Yuga culture will eventually build something matching its pure and exquisite form – but it hasn’t happened yet.

New questions on how it was built
Any discussion of the Great Pyramid eventually comes around to the subject of how it was built. The standard theory—that 100,000 men labored for three months a year for twenty years, using wooden rollers and levers, plaited flax rope, hardened copper chisels, and stone tools—has many flaws.

One is simply scale. In his book, The Hall of Records: Hidden Secrets of the Pyramid and Sphinx, David Joachmans questions whether there would have been enough wood in Egypt and the Levant to provide the millions of wooden rollers and levers needed. The crushing weight of the limestone blocks would have splintered the rollers rather quickly. If, on average, ten rollers were destroyed in the process of transporting one 20,000-pound stone block, 23 million rollers would have been needed. That’s a lot of trees.

Even if the problems of scale and lack of raw materials could be explained by foreign trade, no one has provided a convincing argument for how hardened copper tools could have created the precision surfaces found all over the Great Pyramid. Even using the best tools available today, achieving a surface flatness measured in 10,000ths of an inch is difficult. Using hand tools, it is simply impossible.

There is also the problem of the mathematical precision of the Great Pyramid, whose dimensions allow one to accurately calculate pi and phi to four decimal places. Such exactness suggests that the ancient Egyptians, far from the conventional Stone Age image, had mathematical knowledge believed discovered more than a thousand years later.

And finally, there is the issue of organization: how could a supposedly primitive society be capable of the organization, planning, and building skills required to sustain such an effort for decades?

New evidence on when it was built
The date of completion of the Great Pyramid, according to the standard theory, is approximately 2560 B.C. But based on carbon dating by scientists in the 1980s of mortar between unexposed stone blocks, the completion date is now estimated as 2900 B.C.—roughly at the beginning of descending Dwapara Yuga. There is also new evidence suggesting that the site was in use for other purposes for many millennia prior to 2900 B.C.

It has long puzzled Egyptologists that the Great Pyramid is built over a mound approximately one hundred feet above the level of the Giza Plateau. Robert Bauval, author of The Orion Mystery and The Egypt Code—noting the slightly different building style used for the pyramid’s lower level—concludes that the mound may have served as an observatory before the Great Pyramid was built.

Bauval’s conclusions are supported by evidence gathered by Dr. Robert Schoch, Professor of Geology at Boston University, suggesting that the Giza Plateau was used for astronomical and sacred purposes as long as 4000 years before the Great Pyramid was built—back in descending Treta Yuga.

It was probably never a tomb
Ask most people and they will tell you that the Great Pyramid was a tomb for a pharaoh. While tombs have been found from this same period, the Great Pyramid was probably never actually used in that way.

Caliph Al-Ma’mum, who led the first exploration of the Great Pyramid in the 9th Century A.D., had to tunnel and blast his way into the upper chambers. He and his workers found no soot on the ceilings as one would expect had torches been used before. He reported that he and his men thoroughly searched all the chambers and found absolutely nothing other than the stone coffer in the King’s Chamber—no mummies or riches.

The Great Pyramid also has numerous features that would be unnecessary if it were only a tomb. Perhaps most telling is the presence of airshafts to bring fresh air into the King’s Chamber. Not only would the deceased Pharaoh not need any air, the fresh air would speed decomposition, a rather counter-productive effect if the goal of the chamber was to preserve the Pharaoh for eternity.

Furthermore, the King’s Chamber is very plain while the Grand Gallery, which provides access to the King’s Chamber, is very large with a complicated ceiling and wall design. If the goal were merely to create a passage to the King’s Chamber, the Grand Gallery could have been made much more simply. Hidden above the King’s Chamber is an extremely complex “roof,” involving six levels of ceiling made from the heaviest blocks of stone in the pyramid. Conventional wisdom is that these extra ceilings relieve the immense weight of the stone above the King’s Chamber. However, the Queen’s Chamber, which bears even more weight, has only a simple peaked ceiling.

Other theories of why it was built
Such features as the Grand Gallery and the ceiling of the King’s Chamber, as well as the mathematical precision of the Great Pyramid, have led people to search for other theories of why it was built.

Robert Bauval, in his ground-breaking book The Orion Mystery, makes the case that the Great Pyramid is part observatory and also part of a star map laid out on the ground in grand scale. The Great Pyramid and the two other pyramids on the Giza Plateau, when seen from above, mirror the alignment of the three stars that make up Orion’s belt. Currently, the alignment is very close, but their alignment may have been even closer in 11,500 B.C., when, Sri Yukteswar tells us, mankind’s development was at its peak.

A recent theory, described in Christopher Dunn’s Giza Power Plant, makes a well-reasoned and well-researched case that the Great Pyramid is the correct size to vibrate in harmony with the earth’s pulse, just as a shorter piano string vibrates in harmony with a longer string even if the longer string is octaves lower. The millions of tiny shifts in the earth’s crust, mantle, and core are believed by some scientists to result in a constant pulse, with a measurable wavelength. Dunn meticulously argues that the Grand Gallery and the King’s Chamber could have been equipped to “step up” the low frequencies of the earth’s pulse into higher and more energetic frequencies.

The Great Pyramid’s placement within the cycle of yugas suggests that the ancient Egyptians of this time understood the laws of energy. Thus, they might well have harnessed the earth’s seismic power in the profoundly simple and ecologically harmonious manner explained by Christopher Dunn.

Achieving higher states of consciousness
Many personal accounts strongly suggest that the Great Pyramid affects people’s conscious experience while they are inside its various chambers. Perhaps the best known is that of Paul Brunton, mystic and author of several books, including A Search in Secret Egypt. In the 1930s, Brunton arranged to spend a night in the King’s Chamber, during which he had a profound and life-changing out-of-body experience. He recounts that his guide told him profound truths and showed him many undiscovered chambers.

Napoleon Bonaparte also visited the Great Pyramid and requested that he be left alone in the King’s Chamber. His aides reported that he emerged some time later white and shaken. When asked what had happened, he answered evasively, implying that no one would believe him.

Elizabeth Haich, in her book Initiation, recounts a former life as an initiate in ancient Egypt. She maintains that the Great Pyramid was methodically used to help people break through into higher consciousness—people who were very close to achieving that state, but not able to achieve it on their own.

Haich recounts that the initiates prepared carefully for the experience, and that they needed to have refined their bodies, especially their nervous systems, to handle the much higher frequencies of subtle energy. They especially needed to prepare their minds, through mental disciplines of concentration and meditation, so that they would not to be overwhelmed by the experience.

Haich describes the entire Giza Plateau as a home both for those in training to receive initiation and for those who had received it. The picture Haich presents is that the initiates were Egypt’s most precious achievement, insuring that only those who were truly wise guided their government and culture.

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We will perhaps never know which, if any, of the various theories about the Great Pyramid are correct. As one can imagine, mainstream archeologists roll their eyes when they hear many of these theories. As rational empiricists, they can only accept what can be measured and therefore, in their eyes, proven. We are confident, however, that as Dwapara Yuga progresses, the growing knowledge of the Great Pyramid will play a significant role in revolutionizing archeological thought.

From the forthcoming book, The Yugas: Keys to Understanding Man’s Hidden Past, Emerging Present, and Future Enlightenment, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To learn more about the yugas click here

Author and lecturer, Joseph Selbie, studied ancient Western cultures at the University of Colorado and ancient Eastern cultures at UC Berkeley. He has had a keen interest in ancient history since grade school. He has taught and lectured on the principles of Eastern philosophy for over thirty years.

He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California. Joseph, also known as Puru, is a founding member of Ananda Sangha and has served in many leadership and teaching roles. Joseph is also the founder and CEO of Tristream, a web development, marketing and application design firm.

Co-author David Steinmetz. David’s background includes forty years of scientific work, including astronomy at the University of Arizona and optics at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he teaches about the yugas, ancient world cultures, astronomy, and physics at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. He has been writing and lecturing on the topic of the yugas for more than a decade. David is a teacher at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom and was instrumental in developing a curiculum based on key aspects of the yuga cycle. He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

All avatars have realized the eternal, unchanging truth, and they have never opposed one another’s teachings. Their disciples and followers, however, due to their limited understanding, have repeatedly introduced incorrect interpretations into their guru’s teachings. Thus the avatars come again and again, to correct people’s misunderstandings of the eternal, unchanging truth.

Why Buddha didn’t talk about God
Buddha came at a time when people were abusing the Vedic teachings to gain worldly ends. So Buddha, a Hindu, was not sanctioning sectarianism when he urged people not to depend on Vedic gods and rituals. He was seeking only to correct their misunderstanding of the scriptures. By emphasizing self-effort, he sought to encourage people to take spiritual responsibility for their lives, and not to depend passively on God, or on minor “gods,” for boons of temporary fulfillment.

Because Buddha was working against a strong trend, when he talked about the importance of self-effort, he couldn’t afford to say, “But on the other hand, grace is also important,” without leaving people totally confused, even though the truth includes both teachings. Buddha came during the dark age of Kali Yuga when mankind had fallen into a lower state of consciousness, and couldn’t easily bring these two teachings together.

So when people asked about God, he consistently refused to speak of God and affirmed the need for the individual self-effort. Because of that emphasis, his disciples thought he didn’t believe in God. As a result, Buddhism evolved as an atheistic religion. But the fact that Buddha never said not to pray—indeed, Buddhists themselves pray to the Buddha—shows that he didn’t exclude God or divine grace: He simply emphasized the importance of personal effort in addition to faith in God.

Ultimately, the problem with Buddhism, as the Buddhists presented it, was that it offered  nothing toward which people could direct their love and devotion. Without love, spiritual progress is ineffectual, like a man on crutches in a race against Olympic athletes.

Swami Shankaracharya: Seek union with the Absolute
Swami Shankaracharya or Shankara (as he was also known), centuries later, corrected misconceptions on the part of Buddha’s followers, and brought many people back to Hinduism. But it wasn’t Buddha’s teachings he contested, only people’s misunderstandings of them.

Rejecting the atheism of Buddha’s followers, Shankara explained that God is pure Spirit beyond all duality and the only reality in existence. He taught that the goal of life is union with that Absolute, which he described as Satchidananda—ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss. One attains union, according to Shankara, by meditation on the inner Self and discrimination.

Shankara also corrected the mistaken understandings of the doctrine of nirvana on the part of Buddha’s followers, who defined nirvana as a state of nothingness or annihilation. Shankara explained that nirvana exists, but that beyond nirvana there is another state of consciousness, which we all are longing for: Satchidanandam.

Paramhansa Yogananda later elaborated, saying that in the final merging into God there is, in the beginning, nirvana—a cessation of all waves and desires, a state of nothingness. But then, in that darkness, suddenly comes the great bliss of Satchidanandam.

Misconceptions among Shankara’s successors
Shankara’s followers later took his teaching not only as his reply to the mistaken understandings of Buddha’s followers, but as a new definition of Hinduism. Nothing, they proclaimed, exists except that Absolute; all else is delusion, a dream. And since, by their understanding, manifested creation is only a dream, it doesn’t even exist.

Here was another of the misconceptions that surface repeatedly in religion. For dreams do, of course, exist—as dreams! If a person hits his head in a dream, his dream head will hurt. Creation, in other words, does exist in its own context. It simply isn’t what it appears to be.

Shankara’s followers became known as Advaitins, believers in advaita or a non-dualistic view of reality. The problem with advaita, as Shankara’s successors presented it, was comparable to the problem with Buddhism as interpreted by Buddha’s successors: there was no place for love or devotion. Love implies the duality of subject and object, of lover and beloved. But if only the Absolute exists, then the duality of lover and beloved cannot exist. Who can be devoted to whom?  Overlooked by Shankara’s followers was that Shankara himself had composed a book of devotional hymns to God as the Divine Mother.

Ramanuja and Chaitanya: a relationship of love with God
Ramanuja tried centuries later to correct this flaw in advaitic reasoning by teaching a devotional form of advaita known as Vishishta-Advaita. He declared that the soul is not a delusion but exists eternally; when we merge into God, we never lose the soul. Therefore we can, and must, develop a relationship of love with the Creator.

Chaitanya, centuries after Ramanuja, also emphasized the importance of devotion.  Already famous as a brilliant scholar when a dramatic vision of Krishna changed his life forever, he began urging people to abandon philosophical speculation as dry and useless and to immerse themselves in the love of God.

Man, he said, needs nothing except God’s love. He taught people to worship the Lord by chanting to Him devotedly in the form of Krishna. “The Lord’s name, the Lord’s name, the Lord’s name is man’s only path to salvation!” This was his famous declaration.

Misconceptions among Chaitanya’s successors
Many of Chaitanya’s followers (Vaishnavas, they are called) took his teaching literally and insisted that Krishna himself is the Lord. The truth, of course, is quite the opposite. Krishna, the man, could not possibly be God. God, rather, is all His manifestations, including Krishna. The wave is not the ocean. On the contrary: the ocean has become all of its waves. It is a fallacy to claim that any one wave can be the whole ocean! Christians have made this same mistake regarding Jesus Christ.

Images of Krishna symbolize a number of deep truths. Vaishnavas, however, have accepted those symbols as the truth itself. Because tradition depicted Krishna as blue-skinned, for example, Vaishnavas say his skin was therefore actually blue. His traditional coloring is, in fact, symbolic of the sky, which in turn is a symbol for infinity. God, in other words, is infinite. Indeed, He is also formless.

Moses: a teaching similar to Buddha’s
In Palestine, another great master, Moses, taught people to worship one God instead of many gods. In this respect his teachings were like Buddha’s. Both masters insisted on self-effort and right action. And both spoke against the worship of lesser deities—angels as they are called in Christian tradition—in the hope of receiving wealth, pleasure, success, and worldly power in recompense. Moses again, like Buddha, urged people to develop their own inner strength, and to shun all lesser goals as ultimately disillusioning. He taught people to love the Supreme Lord, and to obey His commandments faithfully.

In the centuries following Moses, the Jews, with considerable ingenuity, developed endless ramifications of the Law of Moses. They forgot his supreme commandment, to love God with one’s whole heart, and to love everyone in God’s name. Instead, they fell away gradually from devotion to God, and became engrossed in religious technicalities. Such always is the danger, when the priesthood of a religion gains too firm a hold on guiding it: Minor details—important to professionals in every field—take precedence over the spontaneous expression of love.

Again and again, the prophets sought to guide the Jewish people back to a closer relationship with the Lord. Alas, again and again the Jews returned to their legalisms. They even went so far as to persecute their prophets, whose only desire was to help them.

Jesus Christ: the supreme importance of loving God
What Jesus Christ taught was not a contradiction of the Mosaic Law but, as he himself stated, its fulfillment. He stressed the supreme importance of loving God. Western emphasis on group consciousness, however, soon changed what was an essentially Eastern approach to truth, bringing his teachings under the control of a central organization. In exercising this control, the church diluted Christ’s message, developing an essentially outward focus. Herein lay its own special misunderstanding of the truth.

Christianity, too, needs to balance its understanding of truth: to bring organizational control into harmony with individual conscience.

Is there any hope for religion?
Is there any hope for religion in this tumult of contradictions? Indeed there is! The hope for religion lies in religious history itself—not in its lamentable squabbles, but in the repeated efforts of great masters to return mankind to the underlying, eternal purpose of religion.

The great Moslem woman saint, Rabbi’a, once said, “He is no true lover of God who does not forget his suffering in the contemplation of the Divine Beloved.” The message of every great master is the same: “Forget your sorrow-producing conflicts: Love God!”

From: God Is for Everyone; Awaken to Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity Publishers; and Kriya Yoga and the Evolution of World Religions, a May 1996 talk at Ananda Village. To order these inspiring books & CDs click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

What is needed today is a spiritual army of souls demonstrating—not militantly or aggressively, but with sincerity declared—their commitment to higher values, to God, and to a firm rejection of worldly values.

Just consider a modern street in the pulsing heart of any city, with crowds rushing here and there bent on the business of profit, acquisition, and involvement with desires. In any such crowd there may be a few people whose thoughts are focused on higher goals. But who, on beholding that crowd, would gain any inkling of the fact?

It is time, certainly, for those few who know from within that there is a higher way of life, to demonstrate clearly, in some outward manner, that they have a more valid goal than mere absorption in materialism and ego-consciousness.

A renunciate order in which people demonstrate their commitment not by shouting their beliefs, waving flags and banners, or in other ways campaigning outwardly, but simply by the garb they wear—this, surely, would be a minimal way to “stand up and be counted.”

Why a new renunciate order?
In my new book, A Renunciate Order for the New Age, I propose a new model of renunciation for this new age of energy. I also propose to open the path of renunciation to all those, whether married or single, who deeply yearn to know God. Both women and men may become swamis and couples may work together toward that goal.

The monastic order of swamis in India was reorganized many centuries ago by the first, or adi, Swami Shankara. The age in which he lived, Kali Yuga, was far more materialistic than the age in which we live today. People weren’t nearly so mobile and their mental horizons were narrowly circumscribed.

To find God, or to realize the Divine Presence in one’s life, was almost impossible for those who were not specifically devoted to spiritual progress. Those who lived in the world, who engaged in profit, and particularly who were married and had families, simply could not expand their horizons to include the divine search.

The old way was right for those days, when mankind’s awareness was much narrower. In modern times, matter is known to consist only of vibrations of energy. People’s thinking is more fluid, more intuitive, more centered in principle than in outer forms.

Renunciation, as practiced in the past, no longer appeals to people in this age of greater freedom of thought and consciousness. It is more uplifting nowadays to concentrate on the positive aspects of renunciation. Burn up all attachments—to home, for instance—but concentrate positively on the complete absence of ego itself. Be humble, but not self-abasing; instead, see God as the true Doer of everything.

The old method of renunciation was world-negating; the new one is samadhi-affirming. One’s concentration, in other words, is on the joy of soul-freedom in God.

It is now possible, in this age of increasing enlightenment, to emphasize such positive aspects of renunciation as soul expansion; the inner freedom of simple living; greater mental and spiritual clarity through sexual moderation or, best of all, through complete sexual abstinence; and the sheer delight of discovering joy within oneself.

Freedom from ego consciousness
During Kali Yuga, most people could not comprehend that the ego really has no existence except in its fleeting dream-reality. Today, however, people are able to understand, at least intellectually, that our separate reality is but an illusion and that we are all, in truth, but a single reality. It is thus easier for people today to focus on ego-transcendence directly instead of approaching it indirectly through non-attachment and strict non-involvement with the material world.

The real delusion to overcome is the bondage of ego-identity. The true goal of renunciation is to help one to rid himself of that self-limiting identity. Freedom from ego-consciousness, therefore, is the primary direction I envision for true renunciation.

More important than working on specific desires, attachments, and outwardly directed delusions is the work we do to eliminate our sense of separatness from the great Ocean of Life. All who would become worthy of the kingdom of God must expand their ego-consciousness to the vast Self of which the ego is but a little part—a mere grain of sand on a vast beach surrounding the ocean of cosmic consciousness. All must seek infinite self-expansion. As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in his great poem, Samadhi:  “Myself in everything enters the Great Myself.”

The stages of renunciation
To become inwardly sure that you are ready for full sannyas, or complete renunciation, you should first go through the stage of preliminary renunciation— brahmacharya, if you are single, or tyaga, if you are married. Men who practice tyaga are known as tyagis; women, as tyaginis. Single men are called brahmacharis; women, similarly, are called brahmacharinis.

Married people may often do better to wait until they are past the child-rearing years before embracing the stage of tyaga. How long should a couple wait before they commit themselves to a life of tyaga? It should not depend only on age. Young persons, too, may be ready. But all must prove themselves—to others as well as to themselves—before taking this step.

The vows of brahmacharya and tyaga are vows truly, and not mere resolutions. You must have sufficient conviction to be able to say, “I am sure, now, that this is the direction I want to go, and I will build my life around it.”

When you feel ready to proclaim outwardly your complete commitment to the spiritual path, you may embrace formal sannyas and become a swami. At this stage, renunciates ought to no longer see themselves as men or women. Thus, renunciates of both sexes should be given the same title:  swami.

Because this is a new renunciate order, I recommend that all swamis receive, in addition to the title, the designation naya—that is to say, “new.” Thus, my own name would be Nayaswami Kriyananda.

Only God is qualified to judge
What this new renunciate order will emphasize is direction, not fixed attainments. Fixed rules belong to Kali Yuga. The true path to God is directional. It does not consist of fixed and absolute regulations.

Regardless of any future slip in one’s dedication to one’s ideals, so long as the direction of his aspiration is upward, there should be no outward punishment or “demotion” from whatever status he has attained. One is fit to be a renunciate at every level, including that of swami, as long as he shows that his heart is firmly dedicated to achieving final perfection.

Because many of the virtues mentioned here are questions of attitude, one’s worthiness to continue to keep the title tyagi or nayaswami must be left up to the individual’s conscience. There comes a point where only God is qualified to judge.

The important thing is that one’s true direction be toward God, not away from Him. A slip is not a fall, and does not in any way deserve to be condemned. I once said to my guru, “I would rather die than succumb to temptation.” He remonstrated, “why be so absolute? If you keep trying, God will never let you down.”

Why stand up and be counted?
A new order of renunciation would lose much of its spiritual merit were it kept a secret. It is desperately important today for people who long for a higher way of life to be reassured that they are not alone. If there is safety in numbers, there is also the need for reassurance from a sufficiency of numbers.

I don’t say, “Join Ananda.” Rather I say, wherever you are, and whatever your path or stage of life, join this order; embrace its ideals; commit yourself to them in action.

If you are married, discuss this way of life with your spouse. I haven’t asked you to roam the highways like the sannyasis of old but simply to change your attitude toward life. Married couples would admittedly find it difficult—in the streets, or even about the home—to wear the garb of tyaga, but on special spiritual occasions, surely, they can do so.

Brahmacharis, brahmacharinis, and swamis (whether married or unmarried) should be less reticent. To show the courage of their convictions seems to me right, and even necessary. The face they show to the world should normally include not only their eyes, mouths, and noses, but also their life commitment.

A signal to those who share your ideals
Such a social change must be introduced gradually. Paramhansa Yogananda, when in America, dressed in a normal business suit. He demonstrated the differentness of his calling, however, by wearing a scarf—not orange, in fact, but white—covering his chest. In India, he wore the traditional orange garb of an Indian swami.

Although he wanted our daily garb to be normal, he did say that he wanted us someday to wear monastic garb. Has that day arrived yet? Perhaps not in the West. In India? More probably.

Married couples would find it very awkward to wear a special garb except at public spiritual functions. They can, however—indeed, all monastics can—wear something suggestive of their spiritual vocation: turquoise for tyagis; golden yellow for brahmacharis; royal blue for nayaswamis.

They could wear shirts or blouses of the appropriate color. When men wear suits, they could wear an appropriately colored handkerchief folded visibly in the breast pocket; women could do the same with scarves, sashes, or something else that is suitable.

The point in any case is not to stand up and be counted by others, but as a signal to those who share your ideals: “You are not alone.” Gradually the signal would become more and more widely known and accepted. The time when it becomes widely respected will be, I suggest, when a monastic might feel free to go anywhere, fully dressed in the suitable garb.

A non-institutional renunciate order
I have tried to make it clear, and want to emphasize again, that this new renunciate order  is not my movement. It is not confined to one organization nor is it limited to the members of Ananda. It is intended to stand alone.

Since Paramhansa Yogananda was sent, however, to help bring fundamental change to an entire civilization, I have proposed that all swamis of this new renunciate order accept him as their adi (first, or supreme) guru.

But I don’t want to approach the order to the slightest degree as something sectarian. It should become sufficiently widespread to effect a broad change in society. For I deeply feel that this movement can help to uplift the world.

I state urgently that mankind very desperately needs our new renunciate order. Many thousands of people need, now, to “stand up and be counted.”

Excerpted from A Renunciate Order for the New Age, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk, “The True Purpose of Life”,“click here:

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

The order is based on renouncing the ego rather than renouncing the world, and is intended for people everywhere, including married couples, who are committed to finding God. It is not tied to Ananda, nor will it be centralized or even administered by Ananda. Kriyananda describes it as a “non-institutional” approach to renunciation.

In the book, Kriyananda invites all those who are already living by these principles, whatever their religious affiliation, to become part of the order. He gives vows for single renunciates (brahmacharis), married renunciates (tyagis), and for final renunciation or sannyas (swamis), to which he adds the term “naya,” or new. Thus, a number of us have already become nayaswamis.

With Kriyananda redefining renunciation in ways appropriate for this new age, Dwapara Yuga, one can easily see monks from Christian and Buddhist traditions deciding they would like to live according to these liberating principles. He ends the book with an invitation to swamis everywhere, who feel in tune with these new concepts, to join the order. 

God and Guru are directing the show
Central to this order is the concept that all true renunciation involves dissolving the ego. In past ages one approached dissolving the ego indirectly by controlling outer behavior. While it is important to renounce attachment to possessions, sexual indulgence, and self-will (the traditional vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience), it is even more beneficial to renounce the ego, where all desires and behaviors originate.

Renunciation also means developing the faith to live entirely in tune with the will of God. For “control freaks,” this may be a scary thought, because you must renounce not only self-interest, but also the thought that you are in control of your own life.

Even sincere seekers find old karmic patterns of desire and attachment blocking their attunement efforts. So we need to keep reminding ourselves to make attunement with God and Guru uppermost. We always need to remember that God and Guru are directing the show.

Why take an outward formal step?
Some may think, “I’ve already committed myself to the spiritual quest as deeply as I can. Is it necessary to take an outward formal step to make that statement of commitment?”

No, of course not. Our relationship with God is sacred and private. And yet, those of us who have taken formal vows, or are even considering taking them, have found the process to be an enormous aid to our inner life.

Furthermore, the world needs clear examples of renunciation. In one sense, we’re taking this step to show that offering one’s life to God leads to the very happiness that so many are seeking through materialism.

The world seems to promise fulfillment — through fame, wealth, sexuality, power— but every one of these turns out to be a dead end. People find that even if they achieve every goal, happiness still eludes them.

Those who are deeply committed to the search for God have a responsibility to demonstrate that living for God-realization does lead to both spiritual and worldly fulfillment. In the words of Christ: “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”

A road map to Self-realization
Swami Kriyananda lists fourteen qualities of a “true renunciate” which apply to the three forms of renunciation he presents in the book. (See list at end of article)

One might say that these qualities, as presented in the book, describe a person who has achieved Self-realization, or is close to achieving it. Obviously these states are not easily attainable and are probably beyond most who will be joining the new order. But, those of us who take this step of formal renunciation should assume that these fourteen qualities describe our code of behavior and consciousness. In fact, these are wonderful directional pointers for anyone seeking freedom from ego.

Someone remarked, “Even though Swamiji has been urging us to become jivan muktas (freed while living), it always seemed beyond my capacity. Seeing these fourteen points makes me think, ‘I can do that!’”

Samadhi affirming vs. world renouncing
Kriyananda describes this order as “samadhi-affirming,” rather than “world-renouncing.” In the past, during Kali Yuga, people attempted to spiritualize life by suppressing worldly attractions. Releasing these attachments is still a very important part of the spiritual life. We can’t simply ignore the fact that maya (delusion) exerts a tremendous pull on the consciousness.

But more effective than pushing away or denying desires is to affirm the freedom that comes with getting rid of ego. True renunciation is overcoming the ego from which all worldly pulls arise. To push away desires doesn’t overcome ego. At best it overcomes some of the impediments to getting out of ego-consciousness.

What gets us out of ego is an expansion of soul consciousness beyond the egoic “I” — the soul identified with the body and the personality. By expanding our consciousness, we begin to break that identification. The ultimate expansion of consciousness is the state of samadhi, or complete oneness with God.

So, the new approach to renunciation is to concentrate not so much on what we want to overcome, but rather on what we want to become.

What expands our consciousness?
What are the things that expand our consciousness? Take a concept like non-attachment to possessions. The old method was not to have possessions because of the danger of becoming ensnared in delusion. This approach was negative: “I can’t have this. I can’t have that. All possessions are perilous.”

The new approach is to emphasize the self-expansion and freedom that non-attachment brings. Thus Paramhansa Yogananda suggested that we embrace simplicity rather than poverty. Simplicity is the voluntary release of “unnecessary necessities.” It leads to inner freedom and the realization that we own nothing and belong to no one. This approach is positive, expansive, and samadhi-affirming.

If someone insults you – laugh!
Now, in Dwapara Yuga, we know that energy is the basic substance of the universe and we can understand subtler approaches to renunciation. We understand that it is not outward form, but inner self-offering, that helps us transcend the ego. Swami Kriyananda says that often in his book: “Ego transcendence is renunciation!”

In the chapter in the book called “Ego Transcendence,” Kriyananda gives 27 techniques for transcending the ego. People have a tendency to think that renunciation means never to smile or laugh or enjoy anything. All these old Kali Yuga images come to mind.

But renunciation in Dwapara Yuga is not joyless. Kriyananda’s suggestions are absolutely charming. He says, for instance, “If someone tells a good joke, don’t think you have to tell a better one; let them have the final word. If someone insults you—laugh.

Here are a few other examples from the book:

If someone makes an incorrect statement, don’t bother to correct him—unless you consider it important to do so. Then, instead of flatly contradicting him, make it clear first that you know he is interested only, as are you, in the truth.

Don’t be self-effacing. Simply show calm respect to everyone. Show respect even to foolish people—and more so, if anything, to children, because of the common tendency to speak to them condescendingly.

In conversation, don’t wait impatiently for your “chance to speak your piece.” Listen respectfully, and, if possible, listen with interest.

In group conversations, be neither a groundhog (diving into your hole in fear of your own shadow) nor a lion (beating everyone into submission with the loudness of your roar), but think rather in terms simply of sharing with others.

Be sincere. Don’t “back bashfully into the limelight”—as someone once described Albert Einstein doing. Let your modesty express your true feeling, and not be a show you put on to impress others.

If someone challenges your point of view, never let the discussion sink to a level of personal animosity.

Little points like these are the building blocks to ego transcendence, and make the process so real and doable. And as we read that chapter we realize that renunciation isn’t about what God takes away from us—it’s about finding the freedom of no longer having all those pesky thoughts of “I,” me” and “mine” revolving around ourself.

New ego-transcending colors
Kriyananda selected a “royal blue” color for the nayaswami robes because it supports ego-transcendence better than the traditional orange. In explaining he says:

Orange goes with declamation, blue with sharing and with an invitation to share with others. Orange goes with imposition, blue with sympathetic self-offering. Orange when outwardly directed can induce egotism, blue can inspire self-expansion to infinity.

The old orange color was an image of authority, but if we take that image too far it becomes just another bundle of self-definitions: “I am a swami. I am a renunciate. I’m better than others.” Soon we find ourselves encased in yet another veil of ego.

In A Renunciate Order for the New Age, Swami Kriyananda is creating a new way of life that addresses the needs of spiritual seekers today. It is a crowning achievement of a life of making Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings accessible to people everywhere. Its impact on society will be far-reaching, perhaps beyond anything that we can now envision.

The Marks of a True Renunciate
by Swami Kriyananda

What are the marks of those whom I’d consider worthy of being accepted true renunciates? They would be those who have achieved noteworthy progress toward the attainment of the following virtues:

1. They have no, or very few, attachments or desires.

2. They are without anger. (Anger appears in the heart when one’s desires are thwarted.)

3. They accept without prejudice whatever life gives them, and live by the principle,  “What comes of itself, let it come.”

4. They never seek to justify or defend themselves, but accept all judgment by others dispassionately, as experiences given them by God for their higher good.

5. They keep in their hearts primarily the company of God.

6. They are indifferent to others’ opinions of them.

7. They work without personal motive, to please God alone.

8. They are impersonal in the sense of wanting nothing for themselves, but never in the sense of being indifferent to the needs of others.

9. They see all beings as striving toward the attainment of Satchidananda: ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new Bliss, no matter how presently misguided the efforts of some people may be. Thus, they feel kinship with everyone, and with all life.

10. They accept nothing as their own, but only as being “on loan” to them, for the benefit of others.

11. They view pleasure and pain equally, as opposite (or dual) expressions of eternal, divine bliss.

12. They have meditated daily for years.

13. Because they are always happy in themselves, they are impervious to insults, outer suffering, failure, defeat, or disaster. They strive to live the ideal that Paramhansa Yogananda voiced when he said, “You should be able to stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds!”

14. They strive to love God unceasingly, and ever more deeply, in a spirit of utter openness to be guided by His will.

Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are Acharyas (spiritual directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide. Jyotish is also Acharya for the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi are listed under “Jyotish and Devi Novak.”

I was sympathetic because I knew he  believed deeply in the teachings of his church, but I realized that people are no longer content to hear, “Heaven will come after you die.” People want to do something right now that will make them better people.

And science is confirming that you can do things that will make you a better human being. In the process, science is also corroborating some of the most fundamental teachings of yoga.

Meditation: are they just sleeping?
It was my good fortune to participate in one of the very first scientific studies on meditation in the late 1970s at University of California at Irvine. I participated as both a researcher and guinea pig—that’s where I first learned to meditate.

The controversy in science at the time was whether people were doing something unique when they meditated or just sleeping. Well-known physiologists were saying, “When people meditate, they’re just napping and, of course, anyone would feel better with a little extra sleep.”

But the studies showed that meditation is a unique state, distinct from both normal waking consciousness and sleep, and that it has profound effects on a person’s body, brain, and nervous system. Since then, other studies have shown that meditation promotes calmness, uplifted feelings, will power, and a sense of humor, and is especially helpful in overcoming anxiety, depression, and addiction.

A tool for self-change
Paramhansa Yogananda, citing the ancient yoga teachings, was saying these very same things in the 1920s when he first came to the United States. He said, “I bet I can take a group of boys with the worst character and the most restless temperament. I’ll teach them to meditate two hours a day for four years in the way I tell them—and I’ll make saints of them.”

Yogananda was far ahead of science in understanding that these and other benefits of meditation reflect actual changes in the brain. He explained that during meditation, a person’s life force accumulates in the brain and permeates the brain cells, changing their composition. This process replaces harmful negative tendencies with positive, constructive tendencies.

At that time, most neuroscientists would have said, “Impossible. By the time you’re 25, your brain has finished changing.”

However, in the last twenty years, science has discovered that the brain is not only the most changeable part of our body, but that it is extremely fluid in how it responds to our behavior—any new activity, not just meditation, results in changes. When we learn a new language, ride a bicycle, or start a new job, we begin growing new brain cells. Within two weeks, there are significant brain changes.

Similarly, if a person gets into the habit of being very angry, the brain starts laying down new nerve pathways to allow that person to express anger more fully. As that happens, the nerve pathways that allow him to feel peaceful and happy start to wither and become less effective.

A new approach to psychotherapy
These new findings are being applied in very positive ways. Already there are changes in the practice of psychotherapy. In the behavioral health program at the clinic where I work, we use “cognitive behavioral therapy,” which builds on what science has shown about meditation and the changeability of the brain.

We teach everyone in the program to meditate, although we may call it by a different name, such as “relaxation technique.” We also give them behavioral assignments — new behaviors to learn, including affirmations. Our behavioral therapist might say to someone, “Okay, you’re mad at your mother. What positive steps are you going to take in the next week so that you will feel differently a week from now?”

For the vast majority of people, the cognitive behavioral model works far better than traditional psychotherapy’s practice of focusing on old issues and patterns. We’ve seen that people with habits of anxiety, panic, fear, or anger can learn new ways of responding to life. People with a long-standing history of depression can eventually go off medication. Those addicted to alcohol or drugs can overcome their addiction.

Increasingly, there are medical insurance plans that are only approving this type of therapy because studies have shown that it works.

Why is the brain so changeable?
Why is the brain so changeable? Because, as Sri Yukteswar said 120 years ago in The Holy Science, “Matter is only a vibration of energy.” Our bodies, including the brain, are not really solid. They are only holding patterns of energy—an inherently changeable medium.  As Yogananda explained in his early lessons:

All so-called solids that we see are not solid. They are nothing but flying atoms held together by a magnetic force. Even the atoms are an illusion, for behind them lies an ocean of energy manifesting itself through the atoms as rocks, trees, water, and human and animal bodies.

In 1905 Albert Einstein scientifically confirmed this fundamental teaching of yoga—that matter in its essence is energy. However, only in the last 30 years has there been overall agreement in the scientific community. The breakthrough came with the findings of  “quantum physics,” which studies the atomic and subatomic world.

“Vibrating strings of energy”
Quantum physics has shown that at the subatomic level, the universe no longer seems solid, and that we’re dealing with units best described as “smears of energy.”

Subsequent investigation suggests that these “smears of energy” are really tiny “strings” that vibrate like the strings on a cello. “String theory,” as it’s called, sounds very much like what Sri Yukteswar said over 100 years ago: to think of matter not as something solid but as vibrating energy.

More recently, the physicists who work in string theory have been saying, “As we look more closely as these vibrating strings of energy, they don’t even seem like energy; they’re more like thoughts.”

String theory is exactly how yogis from ancient times have described the nature of the universe. God, in creating the universe, first vibrated his consciousness into thoughts. He then vibrated those thoughts more grossly into energy, and finally, He vibrated that energy more grossly into physical forms.

Our environment can change us
If we want to become better people, we need to pay attention not only to our own thoughts and actions but also to our environment. When we move through the world, we’re constantly interacting with it on very subtle levels of energy. To think that we can be in a bar, a crowd, or an airplane and not be affected is a bit like being in a restaurant with a smoking and a non-smoking section, and thinking that all the smoke will stay in the smoking section.

The teachings of yoga have long discussed this influence of environment in terms of energy and magnetism. Yogananda himself often cautioned students to avoid negative, unwholesome environments. In his early writings, he made this sobering pronouncement:

The thoughts we think, the feelings and desires we harbor, are vibrations that affect, and are affected by, those of countless other people. Vibrations of thought are so powerful that if you live in the same building with persons who have wrong thoughts, they will affect you if you are not powerful enough to protect yourself.

The thoughts and the behavior of the scientist
Subatomic researchers are still in the early stages of understanding the exact mechanism by which environmental vibrations affect us, but what we already know is startling—that even minimal interactions between the observer and a subatomic process can change the subatomic energy patterns.

For example, a subatomic process will behave one way while being observed and a different way when being ignored. If the scientist observing a process leaves the room and returns, the process will have changed, suggesting that the process reacted to the researcher’s departure. We also know that the researcher’s expectations about a subatomic experiment can affect the outcome of the experiment.

These early findings suggest that science is well on its way to confirming Yogananda’s cautionary statement. At a minimum, they suggest that night clubs, bars, and loud rap music should be avoided.

A revolution in the spiritual sciences
The last five years have seen the development of a new field in science—neurotheology, scientific research into how spiritual practices affect the brain and nervous system.

Using new medical technology, including brain scans and other imaging techniques, scientists in the field of neurotheology can observe changes in the brain directly. Already they’ve compared what occurs in the brain of a Catholic nun when she does her rosary with what a Tibetan monk’s brain looks like when he’s doing his prayers.

We don’t yet have scientific studies on Kriya Yoga, which works directly on the brain and central nervous system, but I don’t think we’re far from the time when we’ll begin to see such studies. We’ll be able to look at a brain scan and understand why Yogananda described Kriya Yoga as “the airplane route to God”—a means of greatly accelerating spiritual progress.

As that happens, the number of people practicing of Kriya Yoga throughout the world is likely to increase significantly. People in this new age of energy are not only eager to become better people, they are looking for the fastest, most effective means to that end.

Excerpted from talks and interviews.

Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Village, is the founder and CEO of Sierra Family Medical Clinic near Ananda Village.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

He predicted that there would be worldwide economic instability, hardships, and other upheavals—things that sound very negative if they didn’t presage extraordinary spiritual opportunities for us individually, and also for society as a whole. These difficulties, he said, will bring about a widespread change in values, away from materialism toward simplicity and a greater dependence on God. He prophesied three hundred years of peace, with prosperity becoming relatively equal throughout the world.

For devotees, such a time presents an extraordinary opportunity for service and spiritual growth, greater than any in recorded history. Especially because of the difficulties, and because there is so much to be learned, there is an opportunity to accrue great good karma, even to be freed from all delusion, if we think in terms of being instruments for the Light.

I read a book by a woman who regressed people to the time before they were born and asked them, “Why did you choose this particular time of upheaval and suffering that we are likely to experience?” She found that not one spoke of suffering. Every single one spoke of opportunity. This is one of the most wonderful times in the history of mankind to be alive.

A new wave of consciousness
Understandably, no one wants to hear predictions of doom and disaster. I don’t insist that you accept this view of the future. I do consider it my duty, however, to share with you what I consider to be more than likely developments. The events Yogananda predicted are already unfolding. The change from one yuga to the next is often the normal time for such things to happen.

With the start of Dwapara Yuga in 1900, a new wave of consciousness entered the world—one that emphasizes energy and flow; that sees religion not as fixed and dogmatic but as based on individual experience; that sees the world as one community, not just separate little countries all fighting for their own rights.

Opposing this new Dwapara Yuga consciousness are old Kali Yuga institutions and ways of thinking. This opposition has been building up for over a century and it’s coming to a head. We need to be prepared for upheavals and hardships, and one of the best ways to prepare is to band together with like-minded friends and start communities.

Paramhansa Yogananda’s urgent message
Paramhansa Yogananda had a vast mission. It included not just the enlightenment of a few disciples but the upliftment of an entire civilization. An important step toward the accomplishment of that mission was the creation of cooperative spiritual communities—“world brotherhood colonies,” as he put it. In his last years, Yogananda repeatedly urged his listeners to start such communities.

“Band together,” he would cry, “those of you who can do so, in small spiritual communities where you can grow your own food, produce your own vegetables and eggs, and, if possible, have your own fresh milk!  Live simply, close to God, and with other people who love God.” Such communities, he said, would serve as models for the new age, when countless similar self-sustaining communities will popularize voluntary cooperation over competition as the true key to lasting prosperity and inner fulfillment.

Yogananda’s message went beyond simply presenting people with an attractive idea. There was urgency in his plea because he foresaw the challenges and hardships that awaited mankind. A community is the best insurance possible when there’s hardship, because a group of people can support one another in ways that individuals living separately cannot. I offer this as a fact, but not as an inducement to join Ananda; I want people to join Ananda because they love God, and want to find God.

I believe these communities are the wave of the future. Many of them will form for the selfish reasons I’ve given because they’re valid reasons. Today anyone who is truly aware of human directions believes we’re in for very hard times. Friends have been sending me articles which advise people to think seriously of living close to the land, where they can grow their own food and live simply. We no longer need to rely on prophecy alone to instill a sense of urgency.

Why a spiritual focus?
In the 1960s, hundreds of communities were started in a great “back-to-the-land” movement. Why did most of them fail? They failed because the people involved didn’t put spiritual principles first in their lives, but concentrated on outward material goals: solar energy, new economic systems, revolutionary architectural concepts. Their idea of heaven on earth was of some system where everything material would function perfectly. Given this materialistic approach to the ideal of finding a new way of life, they were bound to fail.

One of the most persistent human delusions is the belief that good systems will produce good people. It’s people, not systems, that need perfecting. Good systems will function well if the people running them have the good will to make them work. If people have good will, even bad systems can be made to limp along somewhat successfully.

It’s people who make communities and, more than that, it’s people in tune with a divine state of consciousness. For a community to succeed, you have to love God. You have to dedicate yourself to a principle that transcends the potential pettiness of human nature.

Love of God is the first and most important ingredient in a community’s success. One thing that love of God accomplishes is that it opens the heart to wisdom and joy. Without love and joy, judgment and intolerance will surely enter the scene, sooner or later. Judgment, whether of others or oneself, is discouraging and keeps one from rising in inner freedom.

When you live with people who have God as their ideal, you find that it’s much easier to raise your own consciousness. One very important thing you learn is self-giving and sharing. If you want to find God, a self-giving life is essential.

Choose one spiritual teaching
If you start a community, it certainly doesn’t have to be an Ananda community. I hope that long into the future Ananda will be inspiring the start of other communities, but not supervising communities. Try, if possible, however, to spend some time in one of our Ananda communities—live among us for at least a few weeks. Successful community living is a matter in which understanding must come largely by osmosis. It cannot come only through the written or spoken word.

Without the strength and inspiration that come from affiliating with an already-functioning network of communities like Ananda, the wisest thing may well be to “think small.” Paramhansa Yogananda himself recommended to most people that they pool their resources with a few friends.

It’s important that a community agree on certain basic spiritual principles and dedicate itself to one spiritual teaching.  During Ananda’s first years, when people in the kitchen at the Ananda Meditation Retreat were cooking with onions, someone would come in and say, “Oh, Krishna doesn’t like onions.” After this went on for a while I said, “Listen, this is not Krishna’s kitchen. It’s Yogananda’s kitchen and Yogananda liked onions.”

You don’t want to have to tiptoe in your own “living room.” If there were lots of people living at Ananda Village who didn’t believe in reincarnation, out of consideration and respect, in their presence we wouldn’t be able to talk about something central to our beliefs.

The social pattern of the future
Paramhansa Yogananda said that the idea of communities would spread worldwide and become the social pattern of the future. During hard times, the Ananda communities will offer an answer on how to live simply and put God first. In more than 40 years of existence, the Ananda communities have demonstrated that people can live by high ideals, love all, and have communal harmony.

It’s by having communities where people can see spiritual truths being practiced by a number of people that this way of life becomes convincing to people. Ananda offers an example that can be useful to people wherever they live. From all over the world people write and say that their lives are more meaningful because of what Ananda is doing. This is a model that can change the world in a positive way.

When you can’t live in a community
What if you can’t live in a community or start one? Place your faith in God above all, but God expects you to use common sense also. Since it’s evident that there is a likelihood of  hard times ahead, it would be wise to make a few preparations, at least, for the possibility of upheavals.

But don’t concern yourself too fearfully with creating a situation, or finding a place, of perfect safety. Your very fear might attract danger like a magnet. Do what seems reasonable to you, then leave the results in God’s hands. Be sensible, however, and don’t expect to be protected by faith alone—unless, indeed, your faith is so strong, and focused so one-pointedly, that all your energy flows toward God.

Wherever you live, try always to be a channel for the Light. How do you serve the Light? By giving joy, not sorrow; peace, not nervousness; love, not hatred. It’s people who love God and think of God who are keeping this country and world afloat. If it weren’t for such people, this world would plunge into even greater darkness.

So don’t be afraid. When you love God and act sensibly, He takes care of you whatever happens, wherever you live. Even if you’re going in the wrong direction, He’ll correct you. This is something Paramhansa Yogananda promised. I know it’s true because I’ve seen that protection again and again in my life, and in the lives of other devotees.

From a July 4, 2009 talk at Ananda Village; books and publications; and the following recording, “Preparing for Challenging Times.”  To order a CD or MP3 of these talks, click here or call Treasures Along the Path (530) 478 7656

To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk, “How To Overcome Worry,“click here:

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

The tumultuous “peace” movement
Back in the late 1960s, I was very involved in the anti-war or “peace” movement, as it was called. With the distance of time, it’s very easy to romanticize what was going on then.

In reality it was a very tumultuous time. There was tremendous friction and very little harmony. Even our peace rallies often erupted into riots. I attended a peace rally in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco where one of the speakers was a Buddhist monk from Vietnam. He chided the crowd saying, “You say you want peace but look at yourselves! You will not bring peace with shouting and screaming and name-calling.”

I had been inspired toward social activism by the dignity, love, and commitment to non-violence that Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and others had brought to their expressions of protest. Repulsed by the violence and discord of the peace movement, I gradually separated myself from social activism and began reading Indian philosophy. After coming onto the spiritual path, I understood that there can be no peace and harmony without meditation and tuning into the Self within.

Meditation brings rays of harmony to the world
When we don’t have harmony on this planet we have war, disease, and famine. Paramhansa Yogananda lived in this world during World War I, World War II, the Korean War, the rise of Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin, and many unspeakable horrors. While all of that was happening, Yogananda and his most highly advanced disciple, Rajarshi Janakananda, a successful businessman, sat on the beach in Encinitas, California and meditated.

By taking time out to meditate were they advancing Yogananda’s mission of unity and harmony? Yes, because by tuning in to the consciousness of God, whether on a beach, under the trees, or in cities and towns, we become channels for harmony. Great souls like Yogananda and Rajarshi serve as spiritual lighthouses, shining divine rays of love and harmony into the world.

Inner peace is contagious
In June I went to the river near Ananda Village with a group of 24 young people between the ages of 18 and 30. All had come to Ananda Village for a two-week “Living with Spirit” program of yoga, meditation, community, and sustainable agriculture. It was a hot day and we went to swim, tune into the natural setting, and practice yoga and meditation.

The river was the usual mix of moms with their kids, a few people swimming, some people relaxing with beer and cigarettes, and a little loud music. At five o’clock, one of the youth leaders said, “Let’s energize.” So we began with a prayer and, facing the river, started doing Yogananda’s Energization Exercises.

As we energized, the people around us and on the opposite bank looked inquisitive but respectful. Gradually the river became quieter and more peaceful. After energization, we sat in meditation and the vibrations became even more peaceful. People who were laughing and joking as they floated down the river on rafts became quieter when they passed us. A calm, harmonious magnetism radiated outward from our group. By the time we ended the meditation, there was no one on the opposite bank.

Swami Kriyananda writes that inner peace is “contagious and has an uplifting effect on those capable of receiving its influence.” I felt that the people who had left, and those who had floated past on rafts, had taken with them a little peace and harmony, and a little more happiness. 

“What is trying to happen?”
What else can we do to bring harmony and peace to the world? Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda, as his disciple, have understood that harmony comes from meditating and listening to the “melody.” The “melody” is God’s will.

When asked if Ananda is developing and growing in the way he envisioned, I’ve heard Swami Kriyananda say, “I didn’t envision it.” His approach has been to meditate and harmonize his efforts with the Guru’s vision, and then to let the chips fall where they may. His total surrender to the will of God and Guru means that we can only do our best by listening to Divine Mother’s plan and watching Her drama unfold.

When Ananda Village needed to start a business to provide jobs for people, Swami Kriyananda suggested that we open a restaurant in Nevada City. At that time, Nevada City had the most vegetarian restaurants per capita of any area in Northern California. We wondered: “Should we go forward?”

Kriyananda encouraged us to look at the situation superconsciously. He pointed out that Paramhansa Yogananda had opened a restaurant in Hollywood as a way to share high vibrations—people when eating are taking in vibrations and are sensitive to the consciousness of the cooks, servers, and staff. He said that if the devotees working in an Ananda restaurant thought first and foremost of serving others, and of sharing vibrations of love and joy, we would succeed. So we opened the restaurant—“Earth Song” —and it succeeded marvelously.

The question that Swami Kriyananda has condensed from the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda is one we always ask: “What is trying to happen?” In everything we do, we try to listen to the “melody” and then go forward in the unity and harmony of Spirit.

In June 1976 a forest fire destroyed 450 acres and 21 of the 22 homes at Ananda Village, all uninsured. The county was at fault and Ananda could have sued and recovered its losses. Instead, Swami Kriyananda wrote the county supervisors to say that Ananda would not be suing. He said: “We don’t want to take our bad luck out on our fellow citizens by increasing the county’s insurance rates.”

I still remember the thrill I felt reading Kriyananda’s letter posted on the wall in the Ananda Village mailroom. I was so happy we could live our philosophy even if it meant foregoing a lot of money.

Awaken to the unity
It’s difficult to watch the world run headlong into war, famine, disease and greed—to watch it besmirch this planet with chemicals and, in the name of religion, wipe out beautiful statues of the Buddha in Afghanistan. It’s very hard to watch all of this foolishness and say, “I surrender everything into the hands of the Divine Mother,” but we must.

The essence of Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings is to awaken to the unity that connects us to every being and every aspect of creation. Whatever our role, we must see ourselves as a part of the great divine whole and have compassion for our brothers and sisters who are acting in ignorance. And we must discover those actions that move us towards harmony, peace, love, joy, and reverence for all life.

This is often the missing element in the ecology and environmental movements. In trying to help the planet, many have fallen into violent or hateful tactics. The need to respect the divine ecology that keeps life healthy and abundant is sometimes lost in anger over corporate greed. Anger is not beneficial to plants or animals. Harmony with nature requires harmony with the Spirit that animates nature and dwells in all of us, even if obscured by the ignorance of greed.

Allow God to channel harmony through you
To understand what each of us can do to assuage suffering and increase the light, we need to meditate, contact God, and pray for guidance. But there are a few simple and profoundly effective things we can all do that will allow God to channel harmony through us:

• At the end of your morning meditation, visualize the light of God radiating out from your body and consciousness, harmonizing each situation of the day. See your co-workers, clients, children, friends, and the people you see on the way to work bathed in a light of harmony and filled with a joyful, harmonious vibration. Pray to be a channel for harmony in everything you do.

• Close your meditation chanting AUM, blessing every situation and person you will come across during the day.

• As you go through the day, try to send a vibration of harmony by silently asking God to bless every person and situation. Feel God harmonizing each person and situation through you.

• If you are interested in ecology, try meditating on the phrase, “You are a part of all there is,” and try to feel the Divine flowing through all ecosystems—rivers, lakes, mountains, soil, plants, animals, and your own body. Let love, gratitude, and peace drive your ecological work and it will be a thousand times more fulfilling and effective.

• Whatever you do, see your work as a service to your fellow human beings. If we concentrate on how our work benefits others, it becomes karma yoga—selfless service. Feel that God is playing your part and the parts of those being served.

And thus, as Swami Kriyananda writes, “the ripples of positive, joyful influence spread outward into the world.”

Based on a July 3, 2009 talk at Ananda Village.

Ananta and his wife, Maria, are Lightbearers and reside at Ananda Village. They currently serve as coordinators of the Youth Ashram, the Ananda Farm, and the Sustainability Program at Ananda Village.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Master revealed to us that he himself had been Krishna’s closest friend and disciple, Arjuna. (“Prince of devotees,” the Bhagavad Gita calls him.) We found it easy to believe that he had been that mighty warrior, for Master’s incredible will power, his innate gift for leadership, and his enormous physical strength (when he chose to exert it), all pointed to someone with the tendencies of a mighty, conquering hero.

Divine power is rooted in love
People who knew only of Paramhansa Yogananda’s extraordinary love and compassion, his sweetness, and his childlike simplicity were sometimes taken aback when they encountered his power. Few realize that power and divine love are opposite sides of the same coin.

Indeed, divine love is no gentle sentiment, but the greatest force in the universe. Such love could not exist without power. Great saints would never use their power to suppress or coerce others, but power is, nevertheless, inextricably a part of what it means to be a saint. It took extraordinary power, for example, for Jesus Christ, alone in a crowd, to drive the money-changers from their tradition-sanctioned places in the temple.

Worldly people fear this power in the saints, and, fearing it, persecute them. They don’t realize that a saint’s power is rooted in love, or that it threatens nothing but people’s delusions and ignorance-induced suffering.

Yogananda’s power was not only a product of his divine awareness; his human personality, too, reflected past incarnations as a warrior and conquering hero. In Calcutta, in his youth, he was approached more than once by people who wanted him to lead a revolution against the British. There was something in his very bearing that bespoke the intrepid warrior.

William: noble, generous, forgiving
He told us more than once that in a former life he had been William the Conqueror. Educated as I had been during my early years in the English educational system, I had always thought of William as one of history’s great villains. On learning that that supposed “villain” was my own Guru, I made it a point, needless to say, to study several biographies of William in order to get a broader picture of what he’d really been like.

I found that William the Conqueror was indeed, in every way, a great man. Morally, in an age of widespread profligacy, he was chaste and self-controlled. Spiritually he was deeply religious, and never (so I read) missed a day of mass in his life. He was noble, generous, and forgiving.

A divine commission
He lived, however, in an age when conquest could be accomplished only by a very strong will. He told us he had been given a divine commission, which I have since come to understand was to bring England out of the Scandinavian sphere and under the influence of Roman Christianity.

During his lifetime, William promoted the recovery of old monasteries and generally gave great support to the church, endorsing also the concept of chastity for the clergy. William and Archbishop Lanfranc, together, unified the church, and reorganized it from the ground up.

Quite as important in the context of those times, they connected the church administratively and liturgically with Rome. His closest friends were spiritual men like Archbishop Lanfranc (who in this life, Yogananda stated, was Swami Sri Yukteswar) and Saint Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury.

“The will of a single man”
William’s occasionally harsh behavior was forced on him by necessity, and never sprang from personal anger (though, consistent with my observation of Master himself on occasion, William’s demeanor sometimes appeared very fierce). I asked Master once (I was thinking of his lifetime as William): “Sir, is an avatar [a divine incarnation] always aware of his oneness with God’s omnipresence?” “He never loses his consciousness of inner freedom,” Master replied.

William’s life, when studied in this light, gains new luster and meaning. The British historian, E.A. Freeman, wrote in his biography, William the Conqueror: “[What we English are today] has largely come of the fact that there was a moment our national destiny might be said to hang on the will of a single man, and that was William [the Conqueror].”

Earlier, Freeman stated: “The Norman conquest has no exact parallel in history largely owing to the character and position of the man who wrought it. The history of England for the last eight hundred years has largely come of the personal character of [that] single man.”

William’s legacy: a united kingdom
England itself was by no means so Anglo-Saxon as relatively recent writers, including Sir Walter Scott, imagined. The north, according to recent DNA testing of old bones, was heavily Scandinavian, and the east came under what was called Danelaw, and must have been more Danish than Anglo-Saxon.

It was William who united the constantly warring earldoms into one kingdom. His legacy, moreover, which bound every native to primary loyalty to his king, saved England the fate of medieval Europe, which saw constant baronial conflicts.

England’s government dates back to the conquest by William, who brought England to a level of security, stability, and legal organization that made it possible for it to survive the death of medieval society and continue on into the modern age. England is the oldest continuous government in the world, the second being the United States.

Swami Kriyananda: William’s youngest son
Some months after Master’s passing, an inspiration came to me: I suddenly realized that I had been his youngest son, Henry, who later was crowned as Henry I. I had always known with an inner certainty that I had been a king in the past—not that it mattered to me in the present. Leadership had always come to me naturally, however, and in no way caused me to feel important because of it.

I now went to the Los Angeles public library and read up on facts about Henry that were too detailed to appear in a book intended for the general public. It surprised me to see how many parallels there were, even in little matters, between Henry’s life and my own.

Henry had been born late enough in William’s life to be in a position, after a relatively brief hiatus, to carry on William’s mission. The last thirty-three years of Henry’s life were years of exceptional peace and prosperity in England.

The most powerful king in Western Europe
Though Henry I is considered the “least-known” of all English kings, the reason for his obscurity is that he simply worked quietly to establish his father’s mission. Albeit known in his lifetime as the most powerful king in Western Europe, he never expressed an interest in enlarging his dominions.

All he ever did was conquer back territory that had been lost by his older brothers’ ineptitude. His Coronation Charter became the basis of the future Magna Carta.

An embarrassment to his memory
William’s first two sons were an embarrassment to his memory. He bequeathed Robert, his oldest, the dukedom of Normandy, knowing that he could not give him the crown of England because of his traitorous nature. (Even as William was lying on his deathbed, Robert, with the aid of the king of France, was staging a rebellion against him.)

William Rufus, the second son, was loyal to their father in his fashion, but gave no evidence of understanding William’s mission, and dedicated himself wholly to his own power, position, and glory. Perhaps a hiatus in William’s mission was necessary for his true spiritual heir, Henry, to develop a deep understanding of it.

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A different kind of conquest
Yogananda, like William the Conqueror at Hastings, came to America to establish a beachhead—not, in this case, of worldly conquest, but of divine communion.

Like William the Conqueror, Yogananda was divinely ordained to play a very difficult role. He came to a whole new continent where he was completely unknown and opposed by many. He needed an indomitable spirit of conquest to be able to bring God’s message to the world for this new age of energy, the age of Dwapara Yuga.

Yogananda’s mission was to change world consciousness. The model he established on all levels of life has been so all- encompassing that I believe he will one day be called, “The Avatar of Dwapara Yuga.”

Yogananda’s spiritual family
Many have been born and are being born in the West to assist Yogananda in his mission. Many others are being attracted to it for the first time by the radiant magnetic influence, the spiritual “gravitational field,” it has created.

Yogananda’s spiritual family forms part of a greater spiritual “nation” of which Jesus Christ and Sri Krishna (in this age, Babaji) are also leaders. Such families are like mighty nations. To them is given the real task of guiding the human race—not in the way governments do, by official ordinances, but by subtler, spiritual influence.

*Excerpted from The New Path — Chapters: “Reincarnation,” “The Guru’s Reminiscences,” and “A New Way of Life.”  (Supplemental excerpts from: The Light of Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity Publishers; and a March 2007 talk in India.)

For a related article, see below: William the Conqueror: Laying the Foundation for an Age of Energy, by Catherine Van Houten.

Resources:
To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk in India discussing Paramhansa Yogananda and William the Conqueror, click here Discussion of this subject starts at 13:27 minutes.

For information on The New Path by Swami Kriyananda, click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

In late summer 1087, William the Conqueror, king of England and duke of Normandy, lay dying. Tension hung in the air.

The fate of the Anglo-Norman kingdom was now to be decided. Fatally injured by his stumbling horse, and in great pain from an internal hemorrhage, William was nevertheless completely clear in his mind. He  brought all his formidable will power to bear on the question of who would succeed him.

Which son would succeed William?
Twenty-one years had passed since the conquest of England. Even in his extremis, William was surrounded by some of his inner circle: barons and bishops. Each knew that his own future depended on William’s decision in the matter of succession.

Much of the tension in the room was due to the fact that Robert, nicknamed “Curthose,” the Conqueror’s oldest son and previously designated heir, now 33 years old, was in active rebellion against his father. Even now, Curthose and his sycophantic followers were conducting raids on Normandy’s borders, urged on by William’s nemesis, Philip I, King of France.

A very strong Norman tradition, however, held that the lands a ruler inherited from his father should pass intact to his oldest son. On the other hand, anything that a man had gained on his own, through conquest in his lifetime, could be disposed of as he wished.

Robert’s crippling limitations
It took no great insight, however, to know absolutely that Robert Curthose lacked the character to lead others and govern wisely. It must have been a grave disappointment to William, for clearly it had been his intention, at first, to confer on this son both England and Normandy, and he had taken pains to train him in government and in diplomacy.

Repeatedly, however, he had seen Robert’s crippling limitations. He had forgiven the young man’s first open rebellion. Most damning of all was the fact that Robert now, through his alliance with Philip I of France, had been stupid and selfish enough to risk the sovereignty of the Anglo-Norman kingdom itself.

William the Conqueror, as death approached, determined that Robert Curthose should have no part in ruling either Normandy or England. He perceived these two lands not as separate entities, but as one kingdom, united under a single ruler.

Counter-arguments from inner circle
Now, however, William’s inner circle and close companions bore down on their dying lord with counter-arguments regarding the succession. There was Norman tradition to be considered: Robert was the oldest son and so should at least, by right, have Normandy.

Many argued also that they had taken oaths of fealty to Curthose as his father’s successor, at King William’s behest. If Robert were not given some part of the kingdom, then he would be in a strong and easily justified position to attempt to take it by force. Many would feel the righteousness of his claim, certainly to Normandy.

It was surely difficult for any of these men fully to comprehend the Conqueror’s deepest reason for refusing to name Curthose his successor: that this son did not understand or share his father’s vision for the future of the kingdom he had created.

Curthose was ruled by sentiment and self-interest. His father, however, acted to manifest a vast vision for the crucial role that England, in particular, would play in the ongoing future, even up to our own times.

A wise and ever-practical leader
The king also knew the hearts of those who were now urging him to reconsider his decision to disinherit Robert Curthose. It was clear to the dying William that these powerful men were determined to support his oldest son; quite probably they would do so regardless of whom he named now as his successor.

Such was the reality of the situation, and this wise, ever-practical leader made the best decision possible under the circumstances. In great pain, and (as one contemporary chronicler expressed it) “worn out by their importunities,” William the Conqueror reluctantly agreed to name Robert Curthose as his successor to the duchy of Normandy.

The oldest son, however, was to have only Normandy. The crown of England was, William decreed, to go to his second oldest son, William “Rufus” (the “red”), who was now present in the room.

Those present greeted in silence King William’s decision to name William Rufus as his heir to the throne of England. Though they had urged the reinstatement of Curthose as William’s heir, they must have been shocked to realize that William was actually willing to split the Anglo-Norman kingdom, rather than put all of it under Robert’s control.

With war between the two sons inevitable, did the Conqueror have some more long-range plan for resolving this issue?

William’s promise to Henry
As if in answer to this extreme dilemma, King William summoned to his bedside the youngest of his three living sons, Henry, who was then eighteen years old, and whom William had only recently knighted. Like Rufus, Henry had been at his father’s side at the siege of Mantes where William had been fatally injured.

The young man now knelt by his father’s bed. “To you, Henry, I bequeath the great treasure of 5,000 silver coins,” the Conqueror said, smiling warmly on his youngest son, whose qualities and intelligence he had “lost no opportunity to encourage,” as chronicler William of Malmesbury put it.

No one spoke; all were waiting for Henry to say something. “Father, what shall I do with this money, if I have no land on which to spend it?” Henry’s voice was steady as he presented this reasonable question.

In feudal Europe, even a significant fortune was no guarantee of ever having true wealth and power, for these came with land. Land alone, in those days, was true wealth.

The silence continued. Everyone strained to hear the king’s reply. Only a few, however, could hear William’s words:

“Be patient, my son. For in time you shall have all that your brothers now have, and shall be greater than they.” The father placed his hand in final benediction on Henry’s bowed head. His words proved no empty prophecy, for years later they were fulfilled to the letter.

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Why Reincarnate as a Warrior King?

Our exploration of all the ramifications of Paramhansa Yogananda’s statement that, in a previous lifetime, he had been William the Conqueror, has brought us to the final and all-absorbing question: “Why?”

Why would a soul, who has won freedom from any need to reincarnate at all, elect to return to earth as a warrior king?

What was at stake in 12th century Europe, and in England in particular, that caused a Self-realized master to don once again the heavy cloak of a physical body — this time, as William the Conqueror?

Setting a new course for the Western world
Nearly every historian would agree that, on that autumn day at Hastings in 1066, a completely new course was set for England. To gain a truer perspective, we need to compare England on the eve of the Battle of Hastings to what England had become by 1135, the year of King Henry’s death.

Within that relatively short span of nearly seventy years, William the Conqueror and King Henry I not only changed England, but set a new course for the whole Western world.

Rome: a more truly Christian influence
On the general impact of the Conquest there is nearly universal agreement: the cultural and political reorientation of England, deflecting it from a more-or-less pagan Scandinavian influence toward the more truly Christian culture of southwestern Europe. This reorientation toward a wholly new stream of Christian influence is profoundly significant.

Prior to 1066, England had become overwhelmingly Scandinavian. This Nordic influence represented a major departure from the purer stream of Roman Christianity. Nordic Christianity was heavily mixed with paganism, and paid little attention to the clearest fountain of Christianity in existence at those times: the Roman.

Had the Norman Conquest not brought England into a new relationship with the church in Rome, and thereby reconfigured alliances throughout Europe, the Roman papacy would have been isolated. The purest stream then extant for the religion of Jesus Christ, and for the recovery of classical knowledge, would have shrunk to a trickle.

A harmoniously integrated new culture
Much — in fact, very much — hinged upon England’s orientation. Though she was tucked off in a corner where one might not have thought her influence crucial to the development of Europe, she had the advantage of being a separate island, close enough to Europe to have strong ties with it, yet removed enough to enable the development of a new spirit.

The world at that time was emerging from the depths of a dark age. Literacy was on the rise. It was safer to travel. People were seeking a better way of living, as may be seen in the numerous monasteries that began to appear. The development of a harmoniously integrated new culture could be accomplished, perhaps, only in this island setting.

One can infer from the Gospels that Jesus Christ, in launching a new expression of devotion to God, had urged people to form little Christian communities. England may be said to have presented a similar opportunity: a separate body of land, open to new development in social, intellectual, and spiritual ways.

Paramhansa Yogananda also, in sermon after sermon, urged his listeners to create separate, self-sustaining communities where a new consciousness, and a new way of life, could be developed. Though he was not able to bring this idea to fruition during his lifetime, his disciple Swami Kriyananda has succeeded in doing so.

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William the Conqueror and the Church

David Douglas, in his great biography of the Conqueror, stated: “No aspect of the career of William the Conqueror is of more interest — or of more importance — than the part he played in the history of the western Church between 1066 and 1087.”

Opposed centralization of church power
Some of the most forceful personalities ever to occupy the throne of Saint Peter, beginning with Pope Gregory the Great, served as popes during the reigns of William and Henry. William supported Gregorian church reform in ways that strengthened the church spiritually and also the spiritual life of individuals.

However, he steadfastly resisted those aspects of the reform which called for the increased power of the church in secular matters. William was also adamant that all matters pertaining to the church within the Anglo-Norman kingdom would be decided internally by those churchmen closest to the situation.

“God is center everywhere”
Paramhansa Yogananda did the same with the worldwide organization he founded: Self-Realization Fellowship. As much as possible, Yogananda tried to manifest on the material plane the ancient dictum: “God is center everywhere; circumference, nowhere.”

He named his organization itself after that principle: Self-realization. This term would in time, he said, become accepted as embodying the underlying truth of all religions.

Time has brought a greater unfoldment of awareness, but already in the 11th century William not only wanted to bring England under the wholesome influence of Roman Christianity, which more truly reflected the spirit of Christ, he also wanted England to develop its own integrity so that the religious spirit would flower from within the individual.

King Henry’s intentions were precisely the same in every detail as those of his father.

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England’s future role

In this book it is our thesis that the Conqueror’s vision anticipated the role that England, specifically, would play in bridging East and West, uniting the strengths of each to bring mankind to the present time when the general level of consciousness on our planet is rising toward greater unity and also greater subtlety and refinement: an age of energy which promises greatness for the future.

*Excerpted from the forthcoming book by Catherine Van Houten: Two Souls: Four Lives — The Lives and Former Lives of Paramhansa Yogananda and His Disciple, Swami Kriyananda.

For a related article, see above: Paramhansa Yogananda as William the Conqueror, by Swami Kriyananda.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Economically and in other ways, the world is headed toward that 100-year flood. Companies that have prospered for 100 years are on the brink of bankruptcy. There is a great trembling in the foundations of the things people have looked to for their fundamental security. Paramhansa Yogananda long predicted this would occur because of imbalances in man’s consciousness.

The eternal wanderers
In The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Paramhansa Yogananda describes the streams of consciousness that flow through the world as the “eternal wanderers.” We don’t create these streams of consciousness; we tune into them. And there’s always a balance between light and dark, between the upward pulling energies and the downward pulling energies.

The dark streams of consciousness flowing through the world at this time are basically of three types: a consciousness of conflict, of greed, and of fear. And they are causing enormous problems.

The presence of conflict is obvious. It’s reflected in terrorists who blow up hotels and kill hundreds of people; in conflicts between people of different economic levels; and in the minds and hearts of people throughout the world.

How do we overcome conflict? Not by creating bigger conflicts or by building bigger, smarter bombs to kill more and more terrorists. It simply doesn’t work that way. We don’t overcome conflict by adding more darkness, but by adding light and specifically, by increasing its opposite, harmony.

God, the source of all harmony
Those of us who are part of Ananda are dedicated to living in exactly the way the world needs right now, which is living in harmony, not just with each other but, more importantly, with God, the source of all harmony. Not only can we model that for the world but, by living more consciously that way, we can also bring more of the vibration of harmony into the world.

There is also the stream of greed. Yogananda said that the depression of the 1930s was the result of greed.  If anything, that greed has grown stronger over the many decades since the 1930s. How do you overcome greed? Not by taking but by giving; not by thinking of yourself, but of others.

The problem with conflict, greed, and ultimately fear is that they cause you to turn your energies in upon yourself, and pit you against others: rivals, other countries, and anyone who thinks differently. In the end, such divisive thinking shatters the world into separate fragments.

In fact, it’s the satanic force trying to draw people’s consciousness downward into separation.  And those downward pulling energies whisper to us so-called “solutions.”

Choose the positive solutions
For conflict they whisper: “If only you build bigger armies and smarter bombs, you can eliminate the bad people and end conflict.” With greed they whisper: “If only you can rebuild your stock portfolio, and find a way to make a fortune, you will be secure and happy.”

You’ll read articles that say, “There’s real opportunity out there in this down market. If you get in at the right time with the right stocks, you can become a gazillionaire.” And it’s put in such a way that those who are susceptible begin to think that getting more and more money really is the solution to all their problems. Carefully avoided is the thought that your gain may be someone else’s loss.

So, the solution to greed is not more greed, just as the solution to conflict is not more conflict. Greed contracts the heart. The solution to greed is the awakening and expanding of heart qualities such as kindness, compassion, and caring for other people.

And likewise with fear: The solution to fear is not hunkering down and becoming self-protective. It’s opening our hearts with courage to help others. The heart can’t simultaneously contract in fear and expand in love. So choose love not fear.

Attune to God’s consciousness
Most of all, we have to attune our consciousness to the positive flow of God’s consciousness—to the eternal source of all positive energy. Tuning in to the ray that Yogananda brought into this world, and becoming channels for that energy, will help counteract the dark consciousness afflicting the planet.

In fact, we have a wonderful opportunity at this time, because as the downward force gets stronger, the upward potential also becomes stronger. Yogananda said that during the next great depression, people would be half as wealthy but much more spiritual.

So this year, especially, we need to reach out with positive energy—with love of God and each other, with caring about people who are going through difficult times, and with the desire to spread harmony in the world. And as we put our energy and consciousness on the line, we must understand that we aren’t acting alone. We’re acting as manifestations of a great spiritual potential that is waiting, like lightning, to be released.

Seize this opportunity
How does lightning happen? Tremendous amounts of energy gather in the clouds, ready to be released. First a thin thread of energy goes up from the earth into a cloud; then the lightning bolt follows that thread down to the earth. We’re the little thread of energy reaching up into the positive energy of God’s consciousness, which is waiting to be released as a bolt of light to uplift world consciousness.

If we want to be in tune with God, we must seize this opportunity and be a channel for light. There’s an old Chinese proverb that says, “May you be born in interesting times.” We’re in a very interesting period right now and, on some level, we’ve all chosen to be here at this time to help the world.

So let’s all of us be channels for light, for love, and for the consciousness that Yogananda has so wonderfully and beautifully given us. That, especially, is the challenge and the blessing that awaits us this year.

From a December 14, 2008 talk at Ananda Village. Jyotish and Devi Novak are Acharyas (spiritual directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide. Jyotish is also Acharya for the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

In The Holy Science Sri Yukteswar describes a recurring cycle of human development called the cycle of the yugas (or ages). He tells us that we are in the ascending half of the cycle, in the second age or Dwapara Yuga. [See chart]

Sri Yukteswar explains that the cycle of the yugas is caused by influences from outside our solar system that affect the consciousness of all mankind. As the yugas advance, mankind increasingly manifests its higher potentials and expresses dharma (divine virtue) more and more completely.

According to Sri Yukteswar, with the start of ascending Dwapara Yuga in 1900, mankind as a whole is developing toward greater dharma. To fully express dharma is to express our highest divine potential.

Today, when many are turning a blind eye to exploitation, inequity, and injustice, it may not seem that the world is actually getting better! However, through the cycle of the yugas and the evolution of dharma, Sri Yukteswar offers a profoundly reassuring vision of where mankind is heading.

Ignorance, passivity, and fatalism
In 500 A.D. at the start of ascending Kali Yuga, mankind as a whole was in a low state and dharma was only one-quarter developed. The intellect of mankind was dull and the average man could only comprehend gross matter, which led to an experience of life lived through and for the senses.

The motivation of the average person was passive acceptance, which expressed itself as a fatalistic acceptance of circumstances, without the will to change, or even the belief that circumstances could be changed. Most people made only simple, basic choices to minimize pain or maximize pleasure.

Human rights as we understand them today did not exist. More often than not people were considered property, either as outright slaves, or virtual slaves, such as serfs, who were tied to the land and subject to the lord of the land. Women were subject to their husbands and fathers. Owners had the power of life and death over their slaves.

Most of the world religions existed during Kali Yuga – Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, Christianity. Though exalted in their origins, the common man’s practice of them was very ritualistic. Religions demanded exclusive adherence. Priests insured obedience and rival religions were abhorred.

Higher spiritual knowledge existed, but it was hidden away and protected in convents and monasteries, temples and ashrams. Only a few were able to understand and use inner-directed spiritual practices.

Though Kali Yuga did produce its high-minded poets, philosophers, noble statesmen, and erected beautiful churches, temples and monuments, the experience of the average man was that of passive and ignorant acceptance of simple, hard and basic lives. The oppressive and materialistic mores of the age meant that each person sought primarily to physically survive and maximize the pleasures of the senses.

The transition to Dwapara Yuga
At the twilight of Kali Yuga and the beginning of Dwapara Yuga, people began to awaken to their higher potential. As Sri Yukteswar puts it, people began to have respect for themselves once more. The brutal ways in which man had treated his fellows, gave way to an appreciation of the dignity of man, humanism, and enlightenment.

We see evidence for this in the timing of the Enlightenment (1600A.D-1800A.D.), involving a switch from a reliance on commandments and authority, religious authority especially, to a reliance on reason and science. The intellect of man had awakened and reason had come to the fore. By the start of Dwapara Yuga in 1900, dharma was one-half developed.

The discovery of personal energy
While mankind’s awareness was limited to matter in Kali Yuga, the advent of Dwapara Yuga brought with it the knowledge that energy is the underlying reality of matter. Just as science has now separated the concepts of energy and matter, so also have many people discovered a subtle energy within the physical body, their life force, and with the discovery comes a greater ability to transform themselves.

With this new awareness comes the conviction that a person can, using one’s own energy, affect one’s circumstances and achieve one’s goals. Thus, with the start of Dwapara Yuga, the motivation of man has been to break free of the passive acceptance of the past, to develop self-will, and to try to shape the world to his liking.

The pursuit of happiness
Today, the average citizen in one of the world’s prosperous nations has more wealth, education, and thus more freedom to follow his or her interests, than nearly anyone who lived during Kali Yuga. With their basic needs assured, many are able to make life choices purely for the sake of their individual happiness.

This may well be the single most powerful drive shaping the actions of billions of people around the world today. And people are taking advantage of their freedom to pursue their happiness with dedicated zeal!

Today’s predominant pursuits are: accumulating wealth, property and other objects; experiencing endless variations of sensory and mental experiences; gaining and using personal power; and striving for personal achievement. And people are pursuing personal happiness without much regard to others.

Not a pretty picture
Like watching a child grow up, we may lament some of the “phases” the child must go through on its way to maturity. So, too, the results in this “phase” of ascending Dwapara Yuga are lamentable: self involvement, personal excess, self-destructive behavior, extreme accumulation of wealth at the expense of others, and greed and self-interest untempered by ethical considerations.

Much of Dwapara Yuga, so far, does not paint a pretty picture, and one can sympathize with those who think the world is going to the dogs.

In our society today, however, there are those who seek a more lasting happiness and fulfillment in selfless pursuits, such as serving others or seeking inner joy, born of meditation and inner experience. Currently, such people tend to stand out significantly from mainstream society, precisely because most people tend to follow their self-interests.

Yet, according to Sri Yukteswar, man is developing toward greater dharma. It is as if mankind as a whole is conducting an ongoing experiment in how to find happiness. Like Thomas Edison, who experimented with thousands of different types of filaments for the light bulb before finding the right one, mankind is also experimenting, and through trial and error will eventually learn to seek happiness in ways that give more lasting results.

Two over-arching lessons
Through mankind’s search for outward happiness, and before Dwapara Yuga reaches its end in 4100 A.D., mankind will learn two over-arching lessons:

One – the experience of happiness, the feeling of being happy, is the result of movements of our life force in our bodies.

There is a hypnosis, a mass conviction, that if we can just accumulate enough things— enough money, enough pleasures—we will break through into feeling truly happy. But if things outside ourselves actually possessed the power to make us happy we would stay happy as long as we had those things.

Seeking happiness outside ourselves, more often than not, makes us unhappy. Most things outside ourselves are beyond our control, and the perfect consummation of most of our definitions of happiness never occurs.

The truth is, it’s our inner reaction to things that makes us feel good, because our reaction releases a flow of our own life force in the body. The great news is that mankind’s newly emerging awareness of energy, of life force, is the seed that will grow and eventually bestow the understanding that happiness and well-being are the result of our life force flowing positively and abundantly through our bodies.

Learn to properly direct your life force and you will be able to experience positive feelings at will. Increase the flow of energy and you will experience them even more generously — which brings us to the second overarching lesson of Dwapara Yuga:

The experience of happiness is enhanced through the expansion of one’s awareness and sympathies.

Once people become more aware of their life force, they will discover that to focus only on one’s own happiness contracts the flow of life force. A generosity of spirit, an open-hearted way of dealing with others, an awareness and concern for the welfare of others, a willingness to sacrifice for the benefit of others—these expand the flow of life force.

Even now we recognize this. People honor Mother Teresa not just because of her accomplishments, but because they recognize the wisdom of her life, and they recognize that wisdom through having seen her shining eyes and joyful face. As the lessons of the years are learned, people will eventually take it for granted that the wellbeing of others is as important to their happiness as their own circumstances.

Dharma’s steady advance
Many people alive today already know this simple truth, but for mankind as a whole, alas, it will take centuries to learn. But the ascending yuga’s effect is inexorable.

According to Sri Yukteswar, the minutely changing awareness of mankind, brought about by dharma’s steady advance, can have no other outcome.

Author and lecturer, Joseph Selbie, studied ancient Western cultures at the University of Colorado and ancient Eastern cultures at UC Berkeley. He has had a keen interest in ancient history since grade school. He has taught and lectured on the principles of Eastern philosophy for over thirty years.

He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California. Joseph, also known as Puru, is a founding member of Ananda Sangha and has served in many leadership and teaching roles. Joseph is also the founder and CEO of Tristream, a web development, marketing and application design firm.

Co-author David Steinmetz. David’s background includes forty years of scientific work, including astronomy at the University of Arizona and optics at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center. Currently, he teaches about the yugas, ancient world cultures, astronomy, and physics at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom. He has been writing and lecturing on the topic of the yugas for more than a decade. David is a teacher at the Ananda College of Living Wisdom and was instrumental in developing a curiculum based on key aspects of the yuga cycle. He lives with his wife at Ananda Village, a spiritual community in Northern California.

Resources: Religion in the New Age

Nowadays if a person wants to spend all of their time in spiritual pursuits, there is the question of how they will survive. In India, a person who wants to give his life completely to God is supported. People there believe in this way of life and feel that they will get good karma by helping others pursue it.

The way of a sadhu
The classic way of a sadhu is to sit in one place and meditate. People bring him food if they wish to and if not, he’ll go without food that day. A sadhu will sometimes go from house to house, but he never asks for anything; he just stands there. If people wish to give to him they can; if not, he goes on.

He depends completely upon God but within the framework of a society whose teachings support this way of life. This is the ideal, and there are those who, because of this system, are able to dedicate all their energies to seeking God.

That time will come
My dream is for something similar here at Ananda, but it won’t come about quickly. In the West there have been monastic communities in the past that were supported by a church and a large congregation of believers. Today, however, the monasteries are practically empty because people aren’t able to understand the relevance of that way of life.

When we can bring society as a whole up to a level where people commonly include God in their lives, then it will it be time for the next stage, where a group of people can meditate and chant twenty hours a day. That time will come. For now, however, our duty is to seek God but also to help the world.

A hunger for spiritual values
The first step is to create communities like Ananda to bring back spiritual values. Today spiritual values have been eclipsed by the dry, rationalistic approach of modern science. There is such an emphasis on facts and reason, and such a fear of the “corrupting” influence of feeling, that people believe you must exclude all feeling in order to see things clearly.

Feeling, however, is one of the most important aspects of finding truth, even in the scientific world. Einstein said that great scientific discoveries aren’t possible without a sense of mystic awe before the universe. It’s that sense of awe, of feeling, that uplifts the consciousness to where it can receive the intuitions that permit great discoveries.

Society has lost touch with that level of intuition, and one finds, in many parts of the world, a growing hunger for spiritual values and a new consciousness emerging. But it’s unfocused; people don’t know how to express it. They don’t understand that to live spiritually means to live in the consciousness of God, and to bring Him into every aspect of life: work, marriage, child-raising, money, recreation—into everything.

Small communities like Ananda, where people can create new models of living based on spiritual values, will bring this new consciousness into enough focus that it will have the clarity and magnetism to inspire others.

A new kind of marriage
Marriage is one area of life very much in need of redefining. I had a very interesting discussion about this with friends who wanted to join Ananda and weren’t married. I said, “Why, if you have this love for each other, don’t you get married?”

Their response was surprising. They said that a number of their friends had lived together happily for years without being married. After they married, within six months they were divorced.

The couple explained: Without marriage these friends were able to define their own relationship. As soon as they took the formal step of marriage, suddenly there was this weight of social conditioning that says, “Now that you’re my spouse, you’re supposed to treat me a certain way.” With all these new expectations, the relationship became a burden they weren’t able to handle.

A broadening of ideals
Marriage, to be successful, must be based on a free sharing, not on a mutual sense of obligation. Obligation can be another form of bondage. When married people look at each other with the thought, “What’s in it for me?” love flies out the window.

We need to stop thinking of marriage as a closed corporation. Marriage should be a means of dedicating oneself to a broadening of ideals, of vision. It should be a means by which two people give each other the strength to reach out and embrace the world, not to create a little castle with a mote that excludes the world.

Unfortunately, people are not raised to think expansively. There is, rather, a growing tendency in society these days to think in terms of what the world owes us, and of getting ours, rather than of what each of us, personally, can do for others, and for the world, to make it a better place to live in.

Attitudes such as these are threatening the very structure of society. We are living in an atomic age, and if we are to have the maturity to deal with the challenges posed by weapons that can kill millions at a time, we must learn to think in new ways.

Attunement with nature
Our relationship with nature is another area of life in need of redefining. We must realize that we have a responsibility not only to unborn generations but also to this planet that has lovingly given us birth.

To think that we can plunder the planet and take all of its resources for this generation’s needs is totally irresponsible. The saints in India say that the planet has become so erratic in recent years because people are no longer in tune with the harmony of nature. That’s why we have floods, droughts, excessively cold weather, and similar extremes.

Reawakening the divine forces
The divine forces are leaving this planet because we give them no attention. The spring box near my home at Ananda Village is an example. When I bought the land I was told that the spring had never gone dry. Yet, when we moved there, it was giving us only one or two gallons a minute.

I kept insisting that there was more water, and eventually the others started clearing out the spring box, cleaning the spring. More and more water began to come until very soon we were getting ten to fifteen gallons a minute.

Just as a spring goes dry if it isn’t regularly flushed out and used, so also does the flow of the Divine in nature close down if we ignore it. It’s like a person to whom you don’t give appreciation; gradually he stops giving. In our relationship with nature, as with people, there has to be reciprocity.

We recently started the “nature channels” at Ananda to try to reawaken the divine forces. As each person makes it his or her particular mission to see God in the trees, rivers, stars, or some other aspect of nature, it will help to re-open those channels for the Divine.

A shared vision
Ananda can bring these and other areas of life to a focus through expansive new models. By living according to high ideals and setting that example, we will make a tremendous impact for good on society.

Recently a friend said, “I think that Ananda is the most important thing happening on this planet.” I didn’t say what you might expect, “I’m glad you think so.” I spoke rather from a sense of certainty and said, “Yes, I know it is.”

It’s not that Ananda specifically is the important place. It’s rather a spearhead, one of several, of something happening today that’s showing people a way to the future.

Throughout history, the real steps forward have often come when a few people are fired by a new vision and support each other. A good example is the Renaissance in Florence, Italy where many of the artists knew each other and fed each other’s inspiration.

This pattern occurs over and over throughout history. For the current age, it’s communities like Ananda that are laying the groundwork for the future. We are creating a way of life so dynamic and beautiful that it’s destined to become a force to be reckoned with because it’s a solution to so many of society’s problems.

Excerpted from an August 26, 1985 talk at Ananda Village, The Light of Superconsciousness, and Expansive Marriage, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To buy a recording of the talk (CD or MP3), call Treasures Along the Path, 530 478-7656 or email treasures@ananda.org.

The advent of new understandings
There are new understandings welling up in society based on the scientific discovery that matter is not solid but is actually a vibration of energy. Theoretically, it’s possible to take a loaf of bread, dissolve it back into energy, and then re-manifest that energy as a bar of steel. It’s possible because the atoms that make up the bread and the bar of steel are manifestations of the same cosmic energy.

We see a similar process in our bodies. The energy from the food we eat takes on different forms as it goes to the nails, hair, eyes, tissues, and organs. Each of these parts is different, yet they’re sustained by the same energy. All of this is conducted by a higher intelligence which revivifies the body, replacing dying cells and adding new ones.

Disunity is becoming stronger
This is such a revolutionary way of looking at things that we’ve come to a great crossroads in our thinking. A tension exists between old perspectives, which saw matter only as solid form, and new views, which see the world more as waves of energy. One expression of the old view is the thought that we are all separate from each other.

Jean-Paul Sartre, the nihilistic French philosopher, said, “To be conscious of someone else is to be conscious of what one is not.” This is the perspective of the materialistic mind, which sees everything as matter and all things as separate—people, races, nations, religions.

In our age, disunity is becoming stronger and stronger. People all over the world are thinking in terms of divisions—countries are seceding from other countries or attacking them; races are affirming their differences from each other; there is opposition among religions, with many saying “mine is the only way.”

There’s less thought of what we can do for our neighbor, and more thought of what we can get for ourselves. Increasingly, we see people so much in confrontation with each other that competition has become more a way of life than in the days of the robber barons.

A new world view
Yet there’s a new world view coming to the fore, which Yogananda came to bring—a view of the underlying unity of all people, and all things, based on the inner realization that we are all one with God.

Yogananda’s vision of the unity of all things doesn’t come from putting two disparate things together. It comes from recognizing that underneath each wave, which seems different in size, shape, and movement, there is the one ocean.

From that inner realization, Yogananda brought a new understanding of the underlying unity between the different seeming religions; between science and religion; and between cultures that seemed so diverse as to be forever incompatible with one another. He was a master of identifying and elucidating those things that would help people understand and build a sense of oneness and unity.

“Our community is the world”
In that spirit, he urged people to build what he called “world brotherhood colonies.” He envisioned these as places where people would come together to help each other, and to work in cooperation—not competition. By God’s will and grace, I’ve been able to do that particular work, and Ananda is the beginning of the fulfillment of his dream.

The spirit that exists at Ananda is one of selflessness and concern for others first. I’ve often told our members: “Our community is not just the people living here. It’s our neighbors, our township—it’s the whole world.” Whether or not you are able to live in one of the Ananda communities, try always to develop that consciousness which sees the veriest stranger as a brother or sister.

See God in others
Once many years ago, when I was part of SRF, I had an interesting experience in this respect. I was going to Europe to visit the SRF centers, and was taking all sorts of things, including a harmonium for the classes I’d be teaching. All these things made my baggage quite overweight.

The man in front of me at the airline counter also had overweight baggage, but much less than I, and he was being charged for the extra pounds. He was very angry about it but the ticket agent was firm. At one point the manager came out, but he too was firm: the man had to pay for the excess weight.

I was next in line and wondered, “What do I do now?” I prayed to Yogananda and Divine Mother. Then I thought, “God is in the ticket agent,” and I stepped forward seeing God in this man. The ticket agent smiled, looked at my baggage, and said, “Well, what have we got here?” Then he said, “Oh, okay” —and allowed all of my baggage to go through without charge!

Over and over I have seen that if you reach out to others, not as strangers but as divine friends, they’ll work with you. Many times you will have made a friend and sometimes a friend for life.

A spirit of universal friendship
This spirit of universal friendship is something that Yogananda manifested throughout his life. He would show tenderness toward a complete stranger because he lived in the consciousness of seeing God in all beings. On at least two occasions, hold-up men accosted him. By looking at these men with love, and seeing them as his own, he completely changed their lives.

There was also the time when a ferocious tiger confronted him in the jungles of India. Yogananda saw God in that tiger and looked at it with divine love. Rather than springing on him, the tiger rolled on the ground and Yogananda scratched its belly as though it were a pussycat.

God: the hub of the wheel
In our limited view, we look at things from the outside, which is like looking at the spokes of a wheel from the rim. All the spokes appear to be separate, but when you look at them from the center, you can see that they all radiate outward from the hub and are integral parts of it. That hub is God, and the spokes are everyone and everything in His vast creation.

I’ve spent many years exploring how to approach life from this underlying central reality of Spirit. For example, in the books I’ve written, I try to show how various fields that seem very separate—leadership, business, music, the arts, education—are all guided by the same central principles. I’ve tried to show how, by bringing God into whatever one is doing, life at every level could be given deeper meaning, and one could succeed at anything he attempted.

The owner of a mall near the Ananda ashram in Gurgaon, India said to me, “Business is on one side and God is on the other; they have nothing to do with each other.” That is wrong! God is in everything and if we live in Him, if we bring Him into what we are doing, we can do everything better because in that attunement, God can flow through us and guide us.

A period of world upheaval
In our lives we need to learn this lesson more than anything else. It seems that the world is building up to a real period of destruction and suffering, and it’s all because we’ve looked at things from the outside.

I remember once in the Hollywood Church, Yogananda talking about the future and saying with a very strong voice, “You don’t know what a terrible cataclysm is coming!” It made us quake in our seats.

What mankind will gain after this period of cleansing is the understanding that we’re truly all one. We’re one human race, and we’re one in God. Yogananda said that after a period of world upheaval, there would be an era of harmony and brotherhood such has never existed in known history.

But the cleansing is upon us, and it’s coming because of these two disparate ways of looking at reality—one that sees all things as separate, and the cosmic view that sees all things as one.

The more we can learn to see life as a flow of unity, the more we’ll be able to find what we’re all looking for: happiness, love, and inner peace. Yogananda came to bring this vision of unity to everyone—a vision that he manifested in his words, in his teachings, and in the example that he set for all of us.

Excerpted from: The Light of Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity, and a September 30, 2007 talk in Mumbai, India.

Most people, including world leaders, respond to conflict by striking back—two eyes for an eye, a bomb for a bullet. Killing “enemies” produces no lasting peace; it only sows seeds for further conflict. Paramhansa Yogananda said that world peace can be achieved only by raising the consciousness of mankind.

Negative patterns in the consciousness of mankind not only cause warfare but also disease, natural disasters, global warming and similar problems. During a devastating influenza epidemic in the 1920s, Yogananda said it was a result of the conflict and suffering of World War I.  Mankind’s distress attracted the low vibration of germs, which killed twenty million people—twice as many as the war itself.

The quality of our consciousness
What determines the overall consciousness of the world? The Bhagavad Gita tells us that our consciousness is shaped by three different vibrations or gunas—tamo, rajo, and sattwa.

Tamoguna, the darkening, downward-pulling quality, reduces awareness to a dull and contracted state. That part of your nature that wants to push challenges away, to not put out energy, or sees other people as the problem, is the effect of tamoguna.

Rajoguna, the activating quality, puts things into motion and creates desire. It can be influenced in either a downward or an upward direction. Rajasic energy influenced by the downward pull of tamoguna is “ego-active”—energetic but in a self-focused, greedy, insular way.

When rajoguna is influenced upwardly toward sattwa guna, it produces what Swami Kriyananda calls the “truth-seeking vibration.” People are focused more on helping others or improving the world. The work of Mother Theresa in India is a perfect example of this kind of consciousness.

Gradually this truth-seeking tendency becomes more refined and brings us into alignment with sattwa guna, the elevating quality.

With the pure sattwa, you have no personal desires. All you want is unity with God and to be a channel for Him. This is the consciousness of a jivan mukta or free soul. Anyone with predominantly sattwic energy will be a light to the world.

The downward pull of tamoguna
The Yugas— Kali, Dwapara, Treta, and Satya are also expressions of the three gunas. Our planetary system goes through a 24,000 year cycle during which the earth moves closer to the center of the galaxy, from which uplifting (sattwa guna) vibrations emanate, and then farther away into more tamoguna energy.

The latest low point was reached in Kali Yuga around 500 AD, a time when barbarians burnt libraries and tore down civilizations. We are now advancing into Dwapara Yuga and there is less of the heavy tamoguna energy. But we haven’t gone as far as we would like to think.

The predominant energy in the world today is rajoguna being drawn downward by the pull of tamoguna. As a result, the majority of people in the world still have an ego-active nature, which is the source of conflict.

Three approaches to stopping conflict
So with this background, we come to the question: how, in today’s world, can we end warfare? There are three major approaches to stopping conflict, be it personal or global.

The first strategy is to do nothing and hope things improve on their own. This often seems to work because the world is always in flux.

Imagine having an argument and, instead of trying to resolve the underlying feelings, you wait for your, or the other person’s, mood to change. Then you think: “Well, that seemed to work,” and so we get conditioned to waiting for time to change things.

A second, much better, strategy is to neutralize the negative energy by radiating the opposing positive quality—peace neutralizes conflict, love counters hatred. The third, and most effective strategy is to expand your consciousness and invite God to be your partner.

Will time change things?
Trying to “wait it out” is not an effective way to end war in our lifetime because world-time moves so slowly.

The masters say that warfare will not end during Dwapara Yuga because ego-active people will continue to choose violence as a means of resolving differences. Even positive initiatives for global improvements (the U.N. or reducing global warming) are largely nullified by ego-active infighting.

According to the masters, warfare will not permanently end until well into Treta Yuga, which doesn’t start for another 2,000 years or so. During that truth-seeking age the most highly evolved people are able to read minds while even the least evolved have empathy and compassion for other people.

Moving upward very slowly
Warfare is absent in Satya Yuga, the highest age, when people perceive Spirit as uniting everything. There’s a story about the avatar-king, Rama, reputed to live during Satya Yuga, which highlights the vast differences between that age and our own.

Rama sent out a counselor to assess the state of the kingdom. Reporting back, the counselor said: “Everything is wonderful–very harmonious! But in one far flung village, I heard a fishmonger and her husband arguing.”

Rama replied sadly: “That’s the beginning of the end of this age.” Obviously, the world has come a long way down from the highest age and is going back up very, very slowly.

Neutralize the energy you don’t like
The second strategy, neutralizing negative energy by radiating the opposite, produces more lasting changes. But in our relatively unenlightened age, it is hard for a minority of people to put out enough positive energy to change the inertia of world consciousness.

Buckminster Fuller, the designer of the geodesic dome and an icon of the hippy era, made this point at an anti-war peace rally during the Vietnam era. He said:

If you think that you’re going to stop warfare by little gatherings like this and running around chanting slogans, you’re sadly mistaken. There is a military industrial complex that employs millions of people and spends billions of dollars every year. And if you want to stop that, you have to match that kind of energy.

Determination and spiritual power
Each of us, one person out of 350 million people in this nation, finds it hard change such a large system. But we can, and must, create localized vortexes of peace and harmony.

How much that affects the world depends on the amount of energy, determination, and spiritual power flowing through us. A saint or master, realizing his unity with the omnipresent Christ Consciousness, has enormous power to influence minds. Yogananda’s teachings have uplifted millions of people.

As you raise your consciousness, you become less ego-bound and are able to influence those around you in ever-widening circles. Changing world consciousness thus begins in your own heart with your own spiritual search.

The practice of peace
There are certain practices Yogananda recommended that can improve conditions now. First of all, you need to establish a state of peace in yourself. That requires calming your mind and developing a certain amount of detachment.

Daily meditation is essential for this. When you finish meditating, try to hold on to a state of inner peace for as long as possible.

Build a bridge of calmness between your meditation time and your daily activities. Then practice peace through your interactions with other people, always relating as if you’re seeing God in that person. That’s the reality of it because nothing else exists.

A power that changes things
Another very important practice is prayer. While uplifted in meditation, pray for the world. Visualize the people around you, the nation, the globe, and all leaders being bathed in blue light and cooling peace.

Prayer and visualization brings into play a divine power that can radically change things.  Our healing prayer ministry at Ananda has received hundreds of letters of gratitude and testimonials about the effectiveness of prayer.

World peace will spread one person at a time. It begins with your own spiritual search and uplifted consciousness. Act as an agent of uplifted consciousness and infect others with sattwa guna. Let God’s light flow through you into the dark corners of the world.

From an August 13, 2007 talk at Ananda Village.

Jyotish and Devi Novak are acharyas (spiritual directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide. Jyotish is also acharya for the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

When Yogananda spoke this way about his body and personality, he was not speaking of himself in his expanded consciousness. So often when we talk about a great master, we emphasize the personality and forget the underlying reality that animates him. It’s important to hold the thought that Yogananda wasn’t that personality. He’s as much here today as he is in the astral world, or anywhere in space, because he’s one with the Infinite.

Get rid of self-definitions
We have all been through many incarnations. I tremble to think of how many. Even after we achieve human birth we still have many more incarnations to go through before we realize our true nature.

Our job as devotees is to get rid of the countless little self-definitions that limit us. As we reduce these, we finally discover that we too are one with the Infinite. This is the state of cosmic consciousness. When Sister Gyanamata, Yogananda’s most advanced woman disciple, reached that state at the moment of death, her last words were, “Ah, too much joy!” You, too, will ultimately find such joy, which you’ve been seeking for many lifetimes.

The upliftment of the whole world
It’s helpful for us to discuss why Paramhansa Yogananda came to the world at this time. He came to help all of us, surely, but he also came for the upliftment of the whole world. In the Bhagavad Gita, it says, “Whenever darkness increases and virtue declines, I incarnate myself on earth as an avatar to re-establish dharma.”

I don’t know how many lifetimes Yogananda has come back as an avatar, but as he said, “It’s been a long time.” He’s had many missions, and his special task always seems to be to overcome the opposition to a new movement in history. He told us that in a past lifetime he was the divine warrior, Arjuna, and in another, William the Conqueror.

In this lifetime, Yogananda was divinely ordained to play a very difficult role. Like William the Conqueror, he came to a whole new continent where he was completely unknown and opposed by many. He came as a Hindu to a basically Christian America, but he had so much power and joy that he took the country by storm.

Yogananda’s mission was to change world consciousness. He needed an indomitable spirit of conquest to be able to bring God’s message to the world for this new age of energy—the age of Dwapara Yuga. The model he set on all levels of life has been so all encompassing that I think in the future he will be called, “The Avatar of Dwapara Yuga.”

An emphasis on energy
All of Yogananda’s teachings are centered in the concept of energy: the Energization Exercises, the many techniques for drawing energy through breathing and from the food we eat. In India during higher ages, prana was understood as energy, and pranayama meant not just control of the breath, but “control of subtle energy.”

Yogananda taught that the breath accompanies the flow of energy in the astral spine—the upward moving energy in the ida causes the inhalation, and the downward flow in the pingala causes the exhalation. This control of prana as energy is the essence of Kriya Yoga. Fundamental to all Yogananda’s teachings is this emphasis on energy.

How to live with joy
So much of religion in the Dark Age, or Kali Yuga, was based on the consciousness of sin. Yogananda came to change this consciousness by showing us how to live with joy.

He brought the awareness that you are not a sinner—you are a perfect being! Your destiny is not to go to hell, as so many people believe, but to become one with God. Your most important job in life is to think of God and understand that He is your own highest reality.

Yogananda emphasized that it’s not a consciousness of sinfulness that will make us grow—it’s joy. We should never beat ourselves up over the mistakes we’ve made. It’s much better simply to say, “All right, I made a mistake. Now I’m going to dust off my hands, and try again.”

Spiritual communities
Another new expression of energy brought by Yogananda was the ideal of spiritual communities or, “world brotherhood colonies,” as he called them. At every single Sunday service that I heard, he spoke about building communities and tried to get others enthusiastic about the idea.

Yogananda told me I had a great work to do, and part of that has been building communities. When people visit our communities, and see the joy in the eyes of our people, they say, “I want to join this, or do something like it.” That’s the way you can change people—not by telling them what to do, but by doing something so attractive that they will do it on their own.

The war between the angels and asuras
There’s a war going on now in heaven between the angels and the asuras, or demonic forces. We can see that asura energy in the increase in violence, terrorism, and adharmic activities in this world.

The whole world seems to be saying, “God is separate from our daily lives.” He’s not! He created this world, and He has come anew to the world today through Paramhansa Yogananda. In time, Yogananda’s teachings will bring a change in people’s consciousness that will bring peace, happiness, and beauty to the world.

Many people think you just can’t be happy, you can’t be kind—that it won’t work to live that way. But in the nearly forty years since we started Ananda, we have had enough experience to declare emphatically: it does work.

At Ananda we have spiritual communities that are like families. I don’t like to stress this aspect of it, because it sounds as if I were trying to win people for mercenary reasons, but the truth is that it’s the best possible insurance you can have—to live with people who love and support you. Our highest concern is, and has always been, the individual. One of the guidelines I’ve used in building Ananda is, “People are more important than things.”

I invite all of you in India and everywhere to think seriously about this concept. Together we can create communities that are supportive of everybody and help people to live more in God.

An energy-based system of education
The system of education that we’ve developed in our communities is also based on Yogananda’s principles of energy and consciousness. We provide a school environment where children are happy. By teaching them how to direct their energy in positive, harmonious ways, they stand out as examples of calmness, understanding, and wisdom.

On top of that, they excel academically. They score in the top five percentile in national scholastic tests given throughout the country.

The former superintendent of schools in Sacramento, California toured our “Living Wisdom” school at Ananda Village and said, “If these principles were used in all our schools, it would change the world.” Yogananda very strongly wanted to create such schools that had a balanced approach to the children’s physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual needs.

No spirit of competition
When Yogananda spoke of the benefits of living in communities, he said: “If a thousand people work against each other competitively, each one has nine hundred and ninety-nine enemies. But if they work in a cooperative society, each will have nine hundred and ninety-nine friends.”

At Ananda there is no spirit of competition. In fact, I never appoint someone a leader if I see he wants to be a leader—I appoint those who want to serve.

That spirit of service, again, is something Yogananda brought. He said business should be done as a service to others, thinking in terms of what you can give, not what you can gain. In Ananda’s businesses, we work in this spirit, and by treating our customers as friends, they return to our shops again and again.

Change the world by example
How can we change the world?  By example! By doing it ourselves, and not wasting time telling everybody else how they should be.

If we commit ourselves to living Yogananda’s teachings and creating models for others, we can change the world with the consciousness that he brought. His mission to our age was to bring divine consciousness into every conceivable aspect of society. To me that mission was who he really was.

Each master who comes into the world is one with the same Truth. There is no rivalry in God, and God expresses Himself differently through each one. When Yogananda was asked if he had brought a new religion, he replied, “It is a new expression.” God has blessed the world with a new expression of timeless truths, and all of us must work together to do our part to fulfill the great mission that Paramhansa Yogananda brought.

Excerpted from a talk March 4,2007 talk at the International Mahasamadhi Celebration, Gurgaon, India.

Only recently has science begun to investigate exactly how music affects humans: what it does to our bodies, brains and nervous systems. The emerging findings confirm what spiritually minded people have long known: we must be very careful of our “sound environment.”

Children “bouncing off the walls”
My first introduction to the power of music was in the seventies when I worked as a “care associate” for twenty-eight children at a retardation center in Atlanta, Georgia. On weekends, when the medical and teaching staff was absent, the care associates would change the Muzak piped through the building to our favorite rock music station.

As the morning went on, the children went from active to nearly uncontrollable. By lunchtime they would be “bouncing off the walls.” If we hoped to have any peace during the meal, we learned to turn off the rock music about a half-hour before lunch.

By the time I moved to Ananda Village, I was more aware of the agitating effects of music. But it only after hearing Swami Kriyananda speak about music in 1984 that I began to understand the potential of music to uplift consciousness.

An astounding change
I soon had an opportunity to try out my new understanding at home. My seventeen-year-old stepson was packed and ready to go to the airport. He had spent the summer with us, working part-time for a neighbor and getting acquainted with our Ananda friends. Now it was time to go back to Georgia.

My stepson is an enthusiastic, vivacious person. He had a tendency to be high strung but I had never seen him this keyed up—pacing back and forth, unaware that he was talking nonstop. I wondered if his anxiety was a reflection of his regret in leaving.

I sometimes gave him shoulder massages to help him relax, but this day he was too agitated to sit still even for five minutes. His dad quietly said to me, “I don’t know what will happen when he has to sit in the car for an hour and a half.”

Then I remembered what I had been learning about the effects of music. I found a calming recording, put it in the player, and whispered to my husband, “Let’s see if this has any effect.”

The change in my stepson was astounding. Within five or six minutes, he was sitting on the couch chatting with his dad, not relaxed, but with enough anxiety released that he could sit down and be coherent.

Using music more consciously
After seeing the rapid change in my stepson, I began to use music more consciously in my classroom at the Living Wisdom School at Ananda Village. My first opportunity came one afternoon after lunch recess.

The ten-and eleven-year-olds burst into the classroom agitated. Their faces were red, and they were all talking at once, trying to tell me about a dispute they’d had with a few children from another class.

I said, “We’ll talk about it, but first I want you to get a drink of water, sit down, and keep silent for five minutes while you drink and relax.”

I put on Kriyananda’s album, Secrets of Love. After just a few bars of the music, the atmosphere in the classroom started to change. The students’ agitated movements and expressions relaxed. Tension visibly drained out of them.

Although this was what I had hoped would happen, I was amazed at how quickly they had changed. After five minutes, I turned the music down and asked who would like to talk about the issue.

Only two students, those directly involved, needed to resolve things with me verbally. The calming effect of the music had enabled the others to let go of their negative emotions.

Plants and animals “prefer” classical music
Research on the power of music to affect living organisms has been extensive. Experiments in the 1970s and 1980s showed that plants grew better “listening” to Bach and Indian classical ragas than to rock music, and that cows who heard classical music gave more milk.

Since then, studies have been done on the physiological effects of music on the human body. The concept of entrainment best describes many if not most of these effects.

Entrainment: adopting the same rhythm
Christian Huygens, a Dutch mathematician and physicist, coined the term entrainment in 1666, based on his observations of two pendulum clocks. He noticed that when the pendulum clocks were near each other, they adopted the same rhythm, the faster one slowing down and the slower one speeding up.

Subsequent experiments confimed his observations: Any two vibrating bodies, when near each other, will try to synchronize with each other by adopting the same rhythm.

We entrain to the rhythms around us
In his book, The Power of Sound, sound researcher Joshua Leeds discusses the scientific research on entrainment. He concludes that “we entrain to the rhythms around us, be they ocean waves, music, the periodic sounds of machines, or electromagnetic frequency fields.”

According to Leeds, entrainment explains the militaristic effect of martial music on marching armies, why flocks of migrating birds flap and glide in rhythm, and why a husband and wife may begin to share a synchronized heartbeat.

Reviewing the findings, Leeds identifies two basic features of entrainment which suggest that entrainment is essentially a process of magnetism: 1) For one system to entrain with another, the first must have sufficient power and proximity to overcome the second. 2) This first, more powerful system must be at a constant and regular frequency or rhythm.

Heavy metal music and lung collapse
Entrainment researchers are beginning to confirm the negative effects of certain kinds of music. They are finding, for example, that loud music may cause pneumothorax or lung collapse. Dr. Marc Noppen, a Belgian researcher, investigated two instances of sudden chest pain and lung collapse in people standing near large loudspeakers.

Dr. Noppen and his colleagues theorized that the loud music damaged the lungs by the reverberating bass frequency, felt as a vibration throughout the body. Concluding, they wrote: “The lungs may essentially start to vibrate in the same frequency as the bass, which could cause a lung to rupture.”

Hearing of this research, a 23-year-old man with several episodes of pneumothorax recalled that two of his attacks occurred at heavy metal concerts.

The effects of erratic, overly fast music
Entrainment research has also identified why non-regular rhythms—traffic noise, for example—jangle our nervous systems. According to Leeds, the brain, in trying to categorize rhythms, looks for regularity.

When the brain can’t find that regularity, it acts “like a hard drive that can’t find a file. It just keeps on searching. This prevents the brain from paying full attention to other sequential functions, such as concentration.”

Music with an overly fast erratic rhythm seems to fit this pattern. Studies conducted by the HeartMath Institute, show that certain kinds of overly fast and erratic tempos can make the heartbeat and breath “incoherent,” that is, lacking in order and efficient functioning.

An “incoherent” heartbeat and breath rate is characteristic of orphaned monkeys and children who live in a constant state of stress and fear

Music with a steady 60-beat rhythm
The process of entrainment also explains the calming effects of music on both children and adults. When we are calm and focused, our hearts beat from 45 to 70 beats per minute.

Playing music with a steady rhythm of around 60 beats per minute helps slow the heart rate to this pace, and also slows the breathing. As the breath and heart rate become slow and regular, brain waves slow down, calming the mind.

Slow selections of 60 beats per minute music [for example, Gregorian chanting; baroque (Bach, Vivaldi, Handel); and much of Swami Kriyananda’s music] will produce this effect. Trina Gardner, a preschool teacher at the Portland Living Wisdom School, says that when she plays calming music with an even tempo, “even the children who prefer physical activity will work on a project twice as long.”

The ability of baroque and other slow-beat music to enhance learning is well known. Baroque music, perhaps because of its highly structured nature, also increases mental clarity and memory. Recently, researchers have claimed that listening to Mozart increases math and spatial intelligence.

Experiment with music yourself
Because the bias of our culture is toward mental development, scientific interest in the positive effects of music has focused mainly on intellectual progress. Largely overlooked have been the spiritual effects—calmness, inner peace, and the ability to control one’s impulses.

As devotees, by paying attention to how music affects us, we can become our own “researchers.” Experiment with music yourself. See what music helps you focus when you read, relax when feeling tense, or fall asleep more quickly than usual.

But don’t stop there. Listen especially to the music Kriyananda has written for adults and children. You will soon begin to experience the power of music, not only to help you relax after all sorts of minor and major crises, but also to uplift consciousness, yours and your children’s. For as Kriyananda tells us:

Music [is] a universal language. It isn’t just a matter of taste—there’s music that lifts your consciousness and music that debases it. It’s not necessary for music always to be calm or tranquil, but in the end it needs to uplift and take you to a higher state of consciousness.

Susan (Usha) Dermond, Lightbearer and long-time Ananda member, serves as Director of the Portland Living Wisdom School. The above article was excerpted and adapted from her new book, Calm and Compassionate Children, A Handbook. (Ten Speed Press).

Art should take us toward joy
Many people say that art is simply a matter of taste, as if taste existed in a vacuum and had nothing to do with anything else. But we call this weekend at Ananda Village the “Joyful Arts Festival” for a very good reason. True art should take us in the direction of joy, but why?

Joy is the essence of our being, the central reality of who we are. Anything you do that takes you toward joy, will lift your ego into higher awareness. It will raise the energy up the spine, and expand your consciousness to include the consciousness of others.

Art, therefore, should express joy, expansion, and kindness, not because it’s a matter of taste, but because it should reflect back to us our highest aspirations. All of us have within us a mixture of tendencies, tendencies that want to rise and tendencies that want to sink. Art should help you to rise. If art is to fulfill a divine mission—and everything on earth is a divine mission if understood properly—it should help you to uplift your consciousness through color, form, melody, harmony, or rhythm.

Underlying all human life, there’s a certain sadness, a longing of the soul for its true home in God. The joys of life are only small reflections of that bliss that we’re seeking. There’s only one way out, and art should point us in that direction.

Some art is spiritually harmful
Art that is unkind, brutal, or insensitive can be good art technically, but it is harmful spiritually; it pulls the energy down. Just because a painting is famous doesn’t mean that you should hang it in your home. Ask, rather, what is its effect on you?

Some paintings have a very depressing effect. They may have been painted by a great artist and worth millions of dollars, but I wouldn’t want to go near them! I’d rather have something done by an amateur that made me feel cheerful. I think most art today needs to be called an infectious disease. You open up to it and it takes you away from what you truly want.

Intensifying the ego
I’ve often used the simple analogy of how to increase the water pressure in a hose. You can either turn on the faucet, or you can squeeze the end of the hose. The more tightly you squeeze it, the more powerful the spray will be.

In this analogy, turning on the faucet means drawing more power and inspiration from the divine source. Squeezing the end more tightly means to generate energy by squeezing or constricting one’s heart. This may produce a powerful spray, but it’s achieved by intensifying one’s sense of ego and separation from the divine source.

Many modern artists think they’re giving you something worthwhile by constricting their hearts, but all they’re producing are negative emotions like anger, jealousy, and hate. Such art is devoid of any flow of love or joy.

Everything expresses consciousness
Today one also sees a great deal of art that is mechanical and has no point. Anyone who simply makes a mechanical pattern out of music or color is not creating true art.

Art is that aspect of human activity that engages the chitta or feeling aspect of consciousness. Art, therefore, needs to express feeling. For it to be uplifting, it needs to express joy, reverence, or—as Albert Einstein put it—a sense of “mystical awe.”

God manifested the world from his own consciousness, and everything is an aspect of that consciousness. There is no possibility of anything existing outside of that. For art to be truly good, it has to reflect this truth.

It’s not that the subject matter of art must be beautiful. Leonardo da Vinci, for example, used to enjoy painting ugly people, because he saw beauty in them. He understood that in their ugliness, they were still expressions of God. If you have joy in your heart, you’ll look beyond the outward form to the divine within, and the art will reflect that.

The colors in our auras
Some people say, “Well, I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like.” This is not an invalid criterion, because what they are really saying is, “I know what makes me feel uplifted or downcast.”

The colors you’re naturally drawn to are expressive of who you are. The concept of the aura around your body is an actuality, and the kind of aura you emanate depends entirely on your state of consciousness. You will naturally be drawn to different colors—to red, pink, blue, or green—according to the colors in your aura. Each of these colors has its own particular impact on the consciousness.

Dark and muddy colors, for example, indicate a dark and muddy consciousness, and a great deal of modern art uses these tones. It produces a disturbing and unsettling effect.

The arts reflect duality
For God to produce creation, there had to be movement, and that movement created an appearance of duality. Implicit in every aspect of duality, is its opposite. It’s like a swing on a playground: the swing goes up and as it reaches its apex in one direction, already implicit in that position is its opposite, and then it goes down. Similarly, for every high wave, there has to be a corresponding trough.

So the arts, too, reflect both aspects of duality. In happy music, for example, there’s always implicit a certain sadness, and in sad music, a certain joy. These two are implicit in one another, because they are part of the same central reality.

The need to return to center
Although everything in creation expresses duality, there is also a need to return to center. Everything in the end has to balance itself out. We need to understand this if we want to know the nature of true art.

A few years ago I went to the Joffrey Ballet in New York, and saw a dance in which some bright fellow had the thought that every movement had to be an extension away from the last movement. This meant that there was never a balancing movement that returned you to the center. It was an intensely dissatisfying experience.

All true art has to come back to that center of the self. Just as there is something in the ocean that, though it moves up and down, always returns to the calmness of the surface, so also is there something in human nature that wants to bring you back to your center. Anybody who tries to change this will be doing something that is against his own nature.

In music the center is the first note of the scale. There are times when you don’t want to use that note, but it’s got to be a very conscious choice, something you do to create a certain effect. But the ideal is not to push the wave higher and higher. You find that in a great deal of modern music there is the drive to make it more and more exciting, to push the wave higher and higher. But the only end to that is a crash. These are fundamental realities that never change.

Seek inspiration from the superconscious
In creating art, perhaps more than anything else, there should be a sense of discovery, awe and reverence. For that to happen, it needs to flow from the superconscious. We need to ask for inspiration from that level.

How do you do that? When your feelings are calm, tune in deeply at the spiritual eye, the center of superconsciousness, and ask for creative guidance. You will receive that guidance in the heart center. When the heart’s energy is turned upward, and you ask at the point between the eyebrows, answers to all sorts of problems will come to you.

Does it express my higher self ?
Always ask, at every stage of the creative process: “Does this art express my higher self?” Technique is secondary, but the consciousness behind it is all-important. Try to let your art reflect the Divine Creator behind everything, and it will be a source of meaning, strength, and upliftment for all.

Excerpted from a June 6, 2006 talk at Ananda Village.

A deep desire to help others
One thing I haven’t talked about much, however, is that I had a two-fold desire in going to meet him. First, of course, I wanted to be his disciple, because I knew that no efforts on my part could free my heart and mind from the obstacles that kept me from finding God.

The other reason was that I had always wanted to find joy not just for myself but to share with others. It was only after meeting him that I was able to fulfill this deep desire. I wanted everybody in the world to know him and the deep teachings he presents in Autobiography of a Yogi.

Weeping by the wayside
During my teenage years World War II was raging. At that time I thought, “Mankind doesn’t understand why we’re here on this planet. We’re wandering in darkness and confusion without any idea of the real meaning of life.”

When I found my Guru, I found what that meaning was. It was stated long ago in India by Swami Shankaracharya: The goal of life is satchidananda—ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss.

Everyone in the world is seeking this unalloyed happiness. They think to find it in money, or power, or pleasure, and all the things of this world, but eventually all of this turns to dust. Man becomes disappointed again and again and ends up weeping by the wayside, wondering, “Where can I find happiness?”

“I was liberated many lives ago.”
Over the years, I’ve meditated on my Guru’s words and also on his least gesture, because even there I could find deep teachings. He sometimes said to us, “I was liberated many lives ago.” I am now convinced that he and our line of gurus, all of whom are avatars, have come back to this planet again and again to help lift humanity out of the mud of delusion.

Once I asked him about the roles he said these masters had played in past incarnations. “Can they play such roles and still be in nirbikalpa samadhi?” I asked. “What is their state of consciousness?” His answer was interesting: “ No matter what part a master plays, he never loses the consciousness of inner freedom.”

The masters come again and again
These great souls come into the world again and again and play certain roles as instruments for God. Lahiri Mahasaya took on the role of businessman, householder, and father before he met Babaji. Swami Sri Yukteswar also had family responsibilities before he met his guru—he had been married and had a daughter.

Yogananda, in a sense, was born a monk. Even as a child he was wrapped in God. Nonetheless, he still had to go through the challenges of misunderstanding relatives and all the other struggles that everyone has to face. The masters play these roles to help us understand that we, too, can achieve the divine goal. It’s open to all of us.

In everything yet not in anything
Yogananda was a real “paramhansa,” one who is able to swim in the ocean of delusion, and yet be untouched by it. He was equally at home in divine consciousness and in the world. His perfection was totally natural, without any pretense.

When he was with us, he would sometimes laugh uproariously and with so much delight in life and humorous situations that tears would stream down our cheeks. I remember a poem he quoted with great glee: “Her teeth are like stars. They come out at night.” How he laughed at these things! He was human and enjoyed these little amusements. Yet in his presence, you could feel that it was divine joy alone that filled his consciousness.

I never saw him less than absolutely perfect, anchored in the Infinite. Even when he was laughing, you could look into his eyes and see that he was completely untouched. He could grieve over people’s sorrows, and still be untouched. Like Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, he was in everything and not in anything, in everyone and not in anyone.

Proud of my intellectuality
Whenever I was with him, I felt that I was in the presence of God Himself. Once he was talking with some of the monks about a very mundane task that needed to be done—filling the potholes in the road. I didn’t have that job to do, so I just sat there and tried to tune in to his consciousness. Suddenly I felt overwhelmed by joy.

I lived with him very closely for three and a half years until he left his body. The wonderful thing was that in living with him, I felt myself gradually changing. When I first came to him my problem was that I was much too intellectual, and, I have to admit, proud of my intellectuality—of how much reading and thinking I had done. It was stupid to be proud of this, but then we’re all stupid about something.  Still I didn’t want to be that way—I wanted devotion.

Yogananda kept telling me, “Develop devotion.” It was a mammoth task to transform my whole state of consciousness, but with a lot of chanting and meditating, I began to feel a difference. After a time I heard that he had said of me, “Look how I have changed Walter.”

Then I realized, yes, I had done the work, but it was his power and grace that had changed me. We have to do the work—they’re not going to do it for us. But if we try our best, the divine power of God and the guru is there.

The beginning of a new era
This weekend marks a very important time in the history of this work. The publishing of Yogananda’s explanation of the Bhagavad Gita in terms that people today can relate to and understand, marks the beginning of a new era. Through this little beginning that we have initiated in India, millions of lives will be changed, and I invite all you to be a part of this drama. The most important thing that any of us can do is to serve as instruments of the divine ray that God has sent into this world at this time.

The tendency of man is to say, “Oh, yes, I hope it happens.” But God wants people to say, “I will help make it happen.” From the moment that I read Yogananda’s Autobiography, I had an urgent desire to share anything I gained with everyone, and he treated me accordingly. I don’t think that I had any special spiritual gifts, but with my whole heart I wanted to show people the way out of suffering.

We can bring great light into the world
I urge all of you to be a part of this, because we can change the world. As few and insignificant as we are, we can bring great light into this world if we are willing to be instruments for the light. If we just stand by passively and let the show go on, it does goes on—and we keep coming back again and again.

If you are willing to serve as instruments for this cause, God will use you and He will bless you. In difficult times such as we’re living in today, God will give you very special blessings if you are willing to act as channels for His love. There is a great need for that love in the world today; the world is in great trouble right now because that love is lacking.

The meaning of his life
If we open our hearts to God, He can do much through us. This was the example of that great soul, Paramhansa Yogananda, who went to America from India when he was in his twenties. The year was 1920, and it’s amazing what he accomplished in that lifetime.

Yet there were many things he couldn’t finish, so he had to leave them to us to complete. Only as we’re willing to help make that great vision happen can it enter the world and change it.

I plead with you – become a warrior of the light now. That is what Yogananda wants of us and that ultimately is the meaning of his life.

From a March 12, 2006 talk at the celebration of Paramhansa Yogananda’s Mahasamadhi in New Delhi, India.

Dawn of the atomic age
Einstein was the first scientist to understand the relationship between matter and energy—that matter and energy are interchangeable in much the same way that water and ice are different forms of the same substance.

Considered one of the most important discoveries of the 20th century, this understanding ushered in the “atomic age” and forms the basis for much of modern day technology. Practical applications include space exploration, hospital diagnostic procedures, medical imaging, smoke detectors, telecommunication satellites—to mention only a few.

Commenting on Einstein’s discovery, Swami Kriyananda writes:

This realization that matter, far from being solid, is a vibration of energy is increasingly defining our understanding of reality and, above all, convinces us that we live in a New Age…

A bright and precocious student
Einstein was born March 14, 1879, in Wurttemberg, Germany to an upper middle class German Jewish couple. He grew up in a warm, intellectually stimulating family environment. From early childhood he was tutored at home and studied the violin, which became a life-long passion.

As a student, he generally received good grades, while excelling in mathematics and Latin. Though not a child prodigy, the notion that he was slow, retarded or mentally challenged is unfounded. In fact, he was bright and precocious but his unwillingness to conform to the rigid authoritarianism of the German schools led some of his teachers to mark him for failure.

His real learning came from independent study in mathematics, physics, and philosophy. By age 12 he was familiar with Euclidean geometry and already studying advanced mathematics and calculus.

A moment of deep intuitive insight
After Einstein’s family moved to Italy in 1895, he completed his high school and university education in Zurich, Switzerland. Upon graduating, he failed to obtain a university job even though a doctoral candidate, but finally landed a position as a technical examiner at the Swiss Patent Office in Bern, Switzerland in 1902.

Working in isolation, Einstein now had time to devote to the most controversial scientific ideas of his time. The turning point in his career came in 1905. After weeks of deep thought, Einstein woke up one morning feeling “the greatest excitement.” The solution to a whole series of problems, including the theory of relativity, came to him in a moment of deep intuitive insight.

Four papers that changed the world
Within a six-month period, Einstein wrote four groundbreaking papers that appeared in one of the leading scientific journals of the time. His first paper, proving that light was both a particle and a wave, would win the Nobel Prize in 1921 and lay the groundwork for modern-day quantum theory.

His second paper proved the existence of molecules and atoms—a fact now taken for granted, while his fourth paper (through his now famous equation, E = mc2)  showed the equivalence of matter and energy.

The third of these papers, On the Electrodynamics of Moving Bodies, introduced his special theory of relativity. Ten years later, in 1915, Einstein would complete his work on the General Theory of Relativity, considered by many “perhaps the greatest achievement in the history of human thought.”

In 1919, Sir Arthur Eddington, Professor of Astronomy at Cambridge University and a strong supporter of Einstein, arranged a much-publicized expedition to West Africa to confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity.

By photographing a solar eclipse, Eddington proved that Einstein’s mathematical calculations were correct and that estimates based on Newtonian physics were wrong. The success of this experiment brought Einstein, now living in Germany, sudden worldwide acclaim.

Has life become meaningless?
Newtonian physics with its straight lines and right angles was comprehensible to ordinary people but Einstein’s theory of relativity was altogether different. The most people could understand was that the concepts of absolute time and space had been dethroned.

Philosophers and writers quickly seized upon the theme of relativity and tried to apply it to moral and spiritual values. During the 1920s, the belief began to circulate that there were no longer any absolutes—not only of time and space but of good and evil, right and wrong—and that life itself was meaningless.

Regarding this development Swami Kriyananda writes:

Einsteinian relativity never robbed us of universal values. It only undermined the fallacy of absolute moral values. Only God, who is beyond relativity, may be called absolute. Values themselves cannot be that. They are, however, universal.

Many basic values apply in varying degrees to everyone. To help someone in need is a virtue not because scripture says so, but for the simple reason that nature implants in us an urge toward self-expansion. We satisfy that urge toward expansion in many ways: in sympathy, knowledge, understanding. A self-serving attitude, on the other hand, is contractive, and goes against that natural urge. Even if a whole culture endorses it, the result, for its people, is general unhappiness.

Belief in a cosmic religion
Starting in the 1930s, Einstein gave a number of talks on the relationship between science and religion. He felt strongly that religion and science should complement each other, saying, in one of his famous quotes: “Science without religion is lame; religion without science is blind.”

Because he rejected certain tenets of Western religion, including the soul’s immortality and the idea of a personal God, Einstein was often accused of being an atheist, which he denied. He described his beliefs as a “cosmic religion”:

I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists… My religiosity consists in a humble admiration of the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself [through scientific discovery]…. Veneration for this force beyond anything that we can comprehend is my religion.

For Einstein, this “cosmic religious feeling” was the “strongest and noblest driving force behind scientific research,” and an important link between science and religion. Indeed, in his opinion, “the religious geniuses of all ages have been distinguished by this kind of religious feeling, which knows no dogma and no God conceived in man’s image; so that there can be no church whose central teachings are based on it.”

Commenting on Einstein’s religious views, Swami Kriyananda writes:

[M]any scientists have believed in God. Einstein, one of the greatest of them, described scientific discovery in terms of “mystical awe.” His transcendent outlook, however, had nothing to do with church affiliation of any kind. Indeed, he was suspicious of any attempt by so-called “authority” to limit the freedom of scientific inquiry.

Under constant threat of death
The post WWI years were a challenging time for Einstein. Divorced and remarried, he traveled widely speaking in support of world government and Zionism, and against the militarism, fascism, and anti-Semitism espoused by the emerging Nazi party in Germany.

As an outspoken Nazi critic, Einstein became the target of Nazi propaganda and lived under the constant threat of death. When Hitler came to power in 1933, he left Germany for good and accepted a position at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1940.

As the world edged closer to war, Einstein, though committed in principle to non-violence, recognized that “organized power can only be opposed by organized power.” Fearing that Hitler was already developing an atomic weapon, he wrote Franklin Roosevelt in 1939 and advised the development of an atomic bomb.

Although Einstein was not directly involved in the project, the bomb’s creation marked the first practical use of his equation, E = mc2. The destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 caused Einstein great concern for the future of humanity.

An attempt to show all creation as maya
During the last three decades of his life, he relentlessly pursued a “unified field theory.” Later known as the “theory of everything,” it was Einstein’s attempt to develop a set of mathematical equations that would explain the entire workings of the universe.

Applauding Einstein’s efforts, Paramhansa Yogananda writes in Autobiography of a Yogi that his theory was, in essence, an attempt to explain all creation as maya—a delusion:

In his Unified Field Theory, the great physicist embodies in one mathematical formula the laws of gravitation and of electromagnetism. Reducing the cosmical structure to variations on a single law, Einstein reaches across the ages to the rishis who proclaimed a sole texture of creation—that of a protean maya.

Although Einstein died without achieving his goal, he laid the groundwork for a new generation of physicists who have taken up the challenge. Much of the recent research in field of “string theory” can be traced to Einstein.

Opening vast new fields of discovery
Assessing Einstein’s legacy, Swami Kriyananda states that what makes Einstein’s discoveries so great is that they opened up new fields of discovery well beyond the scientific audiences to whom they were directed:

Einstein’s theories have opened the way to an infinity of investigations. His Theory of Relativity, for example, has had a seminal influence not only on every scientific discipline, but also on the humanities: philosophy, sociology, psychology, religion—the list appears to be never-ending.

Einstein died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm on April 18, 1955 at Princeton, NJ. At his request, there was no funeral, no grave, and no marker. That same day his body was cremated and his ashes scattered at an undisclosed place.

John Lenti, an Ananda minister, lives at Ananda Village and serves on the Ananda Sangha staff.

The book recently completed by Swami Kriyananda The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, Explained by Paramhansa Yogananda, is such a wave. One of the most powerful things we can do to deepen our attunement to Yogananda and this path is to tune in very, very deeply to The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita.

A powerful resonating device
A devotee once told us that because she’d always had trouble relating to Sri Yukteswar’s book, The Holy Science, she’d also had difficulty relating to him. So she decided to read a little of the book every night for a year.

It’s a short book and consequently she read through it several times over those twelve months. Afterwards she said, “I don’t know that I understand the book much better than before, but this practice changed my life. By reading this book I felt myself opening to, and receiving blessings from, Sri Yukteswar.”

Resonating with Yogananda’s “note.”
Swami Kriyananda has often used the illustration of a guitar string to explain what is meant by “resonance” or “attunement.” If you strike a note on a gong that’s tuned to one of the strings of a guitar, that particular guitar string will start to resonate.

The publication of Autobiography of a Yogi was like striking a powerful gong. Those who resonated with it were drawn to read the book and many also to become Yogananda’s disciples.

Toward the end of his life, Yogananda’s primary focus was on finishing his commentaries on the Bhagavad Gita. Just as with the writing of Autobiography of a Yogi, he put out a great soul call through the Gita. If we choose to resonate with the energy and power in this book, it will profoundly change us.

We would like to suggest that everyone read The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita every day for a year, even for ten or fifteen minutes. In this way we will open our hearts to Yogananda and draw his grace. A precious moment has arrived with the release of this book, and each of us can catch this powerful wave of his blessing.

A rock concert at Ananda Village?
Our task as devotees is to do those things that help us resonate with the divine will. It’s not so much what we do that changes us, but rather attunement with grace. When we align our self to God or Guru, negative aspects automatically begin to whither and positive qualities grow.

Over many lifetimes we’ve refined ourselves and eliminated the worst of the dross, but there still lurk negative traits that, given support, can grow and hold us back spiritually. As we all know, support for negative qualities can be found readily in today’s world.

Imbibing worldly vibrations dilutes one’s spiritual attunement. The downward spiral is a gradual process, but we grow more restless and discontent. We then try to recapture our lost happiness by stimulating the senses. This is how it’s possible to end up thinking that it’s all right to hold rock concerts in a completely spiritual setting.

Modeling ourselves after the guru
Reading The Essence of the Gita is a great way to counter negative influences and tune into the positive magnetism of Paramhansa Yogananda.  A second even more powerful practice is to model your life after him.

This doesn’t mean taking on a Bengali accent—it’s an inner process. It comes from asking constantly, “What would Yogananda do in this situation? What would he think?” As Kriyananda explains in his discussion of the rock concert, this is something we all need to do consciously and dynamically.

“Millions will find God through this scripture”
When Yogananda completed his interpretations of the Bhagavad Gita, he said, “Millions will find God through this scripture. Not just thousands. Millions! I know. I have seen it.” Kriyananda’s book, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, is imbued with that kind of power.

Swami Kriyananda has spent his entire life preparing to write this book by tuning into Yogananda more and more deeply. During the writing, he felt Yogananda’s constant guidance. He didn’t originate the thoughts in the book; he tuned into Yogananda’s consciousness and wrote from that attunement. As he came to each stanza, he clearly remembered Yogananda’s explanation.

Kriyananda once said to us, “Sometimes people look at me as if I’m special. You should understand, I’m not special. I’ve just been at it a little bit longer.”

That’s true of Kriyananda in relation to us, but it’s also true of us in relation to the world we live in. Just as Kriyananda has been doing it a bit longer than we have, we’ve been doing it a bit longer than the people we’re trying to serve. Like Kriyananda, we too have a responsibility to become dynamic channels for Yogananda’s love and joy.

We don’t need to serve in a formal way
A third practice we’d like to recommend for the coming year is that we each try to understand how Yogananda can use us as a channel. It doesn’t matter whether we do this through teaching, through healing prayers, through friendship, or through any other way of being a channel.

Nor do we need to serve in any formal way. We can do it in the way we walk, in the way we work, in the way we cook, in the way we smile at a child. The essence of it is being open to Yogananda so he can flow through us.

Tune into Yogananda and ask him how he can flow through you. Then develop those particular interests, talents, and skills. In hundreds and hundreds of these little ways, we will be able to bring his vibrations into the world. As we do that, we will draw more and more of Yogananda’s power and inspiration into our lives.

A constant flow of inspiration
Receiving inspiration is like filling a cup. A cup can receive only as much as it can hold. If we don’t share it, the cup can’t be refilled. But if we share it again and again, more is given to us. Eventually, as we get ourselves out of the way, it’s as if the cup becomes a hose, a channel for divine grace to flow freely to everyone, everywhere.

All of us should daily share our inspiration. As we do that, it will be a great, great blessing to the world, to Ananda, and to each of us.

From recent talks.

Jyotish and Devi Novak are Acharyas (Spiritual Directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide. Jyotish is also Acharya for the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

“What Would Yogananda Do?”
by Swami Kriyananda

The Indian scriptures say that when you have a thorn in your flesh, use another thorn to pull it out. In each age what the masters offer us from a personality point of view, is a “thorn.” Paramhansa Yogananda demonstrated by his example the ideal human being of this time. By meditating on Yogananda’s life, his attitudes, and the way he did things, you will begin to understand the kind of personality that will help you be more in tune with the Divine.

Yogananda set an example, and there are certain attitudes that will help us to be more like him. I’ve often suggested that you meditate on Yogananda as light. But it’s also good to meditate on his personality.

What were the attributes of his personality that we can mediate on? His complete devotion to God; his warmth toward people; his powerful will power; his practicality— having his feet on the ground but always aspiring towards the heights; his enthusiasm; his great sense of humor; his wonderful sense of the absurd.

He had great consideration for other people and their needs, and the willingness to see their point of view. He was dignified. He spoke with proper language. He didn’t swear. He could be very outspoken, even about things people wouldn’t talk about in polite society, but it was always the right thing to do at that time.

We can meditate on all of these attributes and think, “I can be like that, too.” As you do that, naturally you’ll take on certain attitudes. You’re not being a copycat. You’re using his personality like a thorn in order to get rid of the delusion of the ego.

From a 1996 talk.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

As a culture we’re in a period that is rebellious, and we haven’t yet accepted responsibility for the results of how we express our energy. Yet, because we’re in an ascending age, having recently moved from Kali Yuga into Dwapara Yuga, we have to assume that society is getting better and will not exterminate itself.

Nonetheless, if we don’t work more carefully with the arts, and especially the mass media, the growing discordance that we see all around us will only increase.

The example of the Ananda schools
We recently attended the Living Wisdom School’s annual award ceremonies here at Ananda Village—which was an extraordinarily uplifting experience. With great love and sensitivity, the teachers gave each student an award for a particular aspect of positive energy that he or she had been developing over the past year.

Our schools couldn’t thrive in an environment where everyone was trying to be cool and always pointing out the stupidity of being sensitive or supportive. The environment created by the teachers, the parents and the community encourages and gives permission for the students’ good soul qualities to come to the forefront.

People imitate the activities of others
In a recently published book, The Turning Point, the author, Malcolm Gladwell, discusses the subject of giving permission for certain kinds of behavior, including wrong behavior. He writes, for example, that in the 1960s, suicide was almost unheard of in the southern pacific islands of Micronesia.

Then a well-connected, very charismatic young man took his life, leaving a note saying he’d done so because he got into an argument with his father. The example of this one well-respected person gave a sense of permission for others to do the same. This idea spread and within a few years Micronesia had the highest suicide rate of any place in the world.

Of course it’s crazy. Suicide is not a very sane or practical way of communicating your displeasure. Nonetheless, those acts resulted in an epidemic of suicide throughout those islands that lasted many years before it finally began to die down.

Gladwell also discussed suicide by automobile. He noted that whenever a prominent newspaper carried a story of someone committing suicide by automobile, over the next week or so there was an increase in suicides by automobile.

The point is that in society people imitate the activities of others. If we do something negative, other people are going to begin to imitate it and those acts will spread throughout society like a disease.

To a large extent, what the mass media is offering the public is a very negative message. For instance, when crime is repeatedly shown as being acceptable, it begins to give the population as a whole permission to engage in crime. It’s the same with music that essentially suggests happiness increases when you act from your lowest nature.

Implanting positive thought forms
The good news is that this process of imitation also works in the opposite way—we can uplift people by giving them positive role models to emulate. Yogananda and our line of gurus came in to this world, at this critical time, to implant positive attitudes and examples into the stream of human consciousness and help offset a growing negativity.

Swami Kriyananda’s introduction of The Festival of the Joyful Arts at Ananda Village is an important part of this effort. Through the joyful arts, he is trying to make all of us at Ananda more aware of the importance of art in producing positive, uplifting changes in ourselves and also in society as a whole.

Like attracts like
Because like attracts like, art can produce a mental environment in which its opposite cannot exist. If there is a strong vibration of upliftment, beauty, sensitivity and spiritual yearning, the opposite lower vibrations will be driven out.

There was an interesting example of this with a convenience store that was having trouble with kids hanging out in its parking lot. The growing number of restless, idle teens frightened the store’s customers away.

Although the owner tried several times to get the kids to leave, they only laughed at him. Finally, he set up a loud speaker and played classical music. The vibration of classical music drove the toughs away.

The example of Chinese gardens
There are many ways to create uplifting environments through art. Recently, while visiting the Ananda Portland community, we went to a Chinese garden and teahouse that had been built on an empty parking lot in downtown Portland. The entire area had been transformed into an absolutely stunning and uplifting environment.

Chinese gardens have been developed and refined over many generations until they have become a highly refined art form that enables people to experience a sense of unity with nature. The designer of the garden in Portland wanted to help people connect with and love the rain, which is a common occurrence in the Northwest.

For instance, he arranged the roof tiles so that the rain coming off the roof looks like beautiful beaded curtains. He placed a bench in one particular place, so you could sit and hear the lovely sound of rain falling on banana leaves.

The important point for us is that gardens can uplift consciousness; they make us more sensitive to the subtle forces of nature, and drive out lower, negative energies.

At Ananda Village, the gardens at Crystal Hermitage are a wonderful example of this. Most of us can’t have such extensive plantings around our own homes, but we can cultivate beautiful and uplifting smaller areas. Beauty will support our spiritual efforts and attract positive nature spirits.

The joyful arts
Apart from cultivating beautiful gardens, how else can we express the joyful arts in our own lives? Creativity can be either positive or negative, that is it can expand or contract the consciousness of the artist or audience.

If we’re going to create something really meaningful and uplifting for ourselves and others, we have to combine creativity with an upward flow of energy in our consciousness. A spiritual person is naturally motivated to use the creative force in an expansive way—to become more in tune with God.

Find your own art form
We want to urge each of you to try to tune into God’s flow of creativity through you, and to find an art form that enables you to express beauty and harmony.

Art isn’t necessarily about producing paintings or performing concerts or plays. We’ve already mentioned the example of the Ananda schools, which are one of the most important things Ananda is doing. Helping people to live life in the proper way is the highest form of creativity.

Art of this type begins with meditating and tuning into God’s creative force. As you do that, and as you find your particular expression, inherently you will be expressing the joyful arts.

Jyotish and Devi Novak are Acharyas (Spiritual Directors) for Ananda Sangha Worldwide. Jyotish is also Acharya for the Ananda Sevaka Order, worldwide.

Other Clarity articles by Jyotish and Devi Novak are listed under “Nayaswamis Jyotish and Devi.”

Pervading the four-day event was a deep sense of joy that East and West had joined together to honor Yogananda in his homeland. A milestone had been reached in fulfilling his vision of world brotherhood.

In the last chapter of the first edition of the Autobiography of a Yogi, Yogananda states: “man should enlarge his allegiance, considering himself in the light of a world citizen.”  At the mahasamadhi celebration, despite differences in languages, nationalities, and cultures, that sense of “enlarged allegiance” was everywhere evident.

The celebration included talks by Swami Kriyananda and other Ananda leaders, workshops by devotees from around the world, and slide and video accounts of Yogananda’s life and mission in the West. All took place at the lovely Bristol Hotel in Gurgaon.

More informally, there were lunches and teas at the Ananda ashram, and satsangs with Swami Kriyananda at his new home (including a tour of the house). The Mahasamadhi Celebration will become an annual event held in India.

The advent of brave, seafaring adventurers
In Religion and the New Age, Swami Kriyananda tells us that this powerful new spirit of inquiry “led to the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492 and the universal shock of realizing that the world is round.”

By the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, a steady stream of brave seafaring adventurers were sailing out across the Atlantic in wooden ships, hoping to discover the vast riches of the Orient—Vasco Da Gama (1497-1498), Amerigo Vespucci 1499-1502) and Ferdinand Magellan (1520-1521).

The astronauts who visited the moon could at least see where they were going, whereas the sailors on these early seafaring voyages were quite literally heading into the unknown, at tremendous risk. When Magellan set out to circumnavigate the earth, only 18 of the 270 sailors would return and Magellan himself was killed in the Philippines.

The rapid development of world trade and conquest that followed these courageous beginnings reflects the expansive energies of Dwapara Yuga. The time had arrived for nations to reach out and exchange goods, ideas, and religious traditions.

“Know thyself”
In Religion and the New Age, Swami Kriyananda writes that one of the main trends in Dwapara Yuga will be “a renewed emphasis on the individual human being and a return to the simple wisdom inscribed at the Delphic oracle— ‘Know thyself.’”

One of the first writers to insist that his search for truth must begin with himself was Michel de Montaigne (1533- 1592), the French essayist. Rejecting the theoretical way of philosophizing that dominated the Middle Ages, Montaigne, in his essays, reflects on his readings, travels, and personal experiences.  In one of his most famous essays, Of Experience, he writes of the need to go within:

We seek outer conditions because we do not understand the use of our own, and go outside of ourselves because we do not know what it is like inside. Yet there is no use our mounting on stilts, for on stilts we must  still walk on our own legs. And on the loftiest throne in the world we are still sitting on our own behind.

Montaigne was the first to use the term “essay” to describe the new literary form, which Francis Bacon in England would later adopt in his own writings.

Flesh and blood human beings
In the English theater, we see this “renewed emphasis on the individual human being” reflected in the plays of William Shakespeare (1533-1592). Plays such as Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, and Richard III, explore in depth the personal qualities and challenges of men and women with whom the audience can readily identify.

This marked a radical departure from the drama of the Middle Ages, which tended to be allegorical in nature and dominated by religious themes. Typical was the well-known morality play, Everyman, in which angels and demons battle for possession of “Everyman’s” soul.

Art becomes three-dimensional
In art, the new importance of the individual was reflected in the introduction of linear perspective, a geometrical system for creating the illusion of three-dimensional space on a flat surface. This discovery is attributed to the Florentine architect and builder, Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), renowned for the soaring, expansive dome over the Cathedral of Florence.

In the Middle Ages, art typically depicted religious scenes with stylized figures of saints as flat objects against a flat surface. Since art served mainly to affirm church dogma, realism was unimportant.

As the individual became important, the artist’s focus shifted from the church and its dogmas to the person looking at the painting. Artists now needed a way to paint pictures that looked the same as real life.

Linear perspective accomplished this objective. It enabled artists to accurately represent on canvas the three-dimensional world around them, and also to influence where the viewer focused his attention.

Leonardo Da Vinci—a genius ahead of his times
No single person embodied the 15th century’s powerful spirit of inquiry more completely that Leonardo da Vinci (1452-1519), whose genius and diversity placed him well ahead of his times. A painter and sculptor, as well as a mathematician, engineer, and scientist, DaVinci approached both art and science with inexhaustible study and experimentation.

His habit of rigorous observation and study is reflected in the notebooks he carried throughout his life. In them he recorded his ideas on hundreds of subjects, often accompanied by diagrams and sketches, including drawings of objects in motion (physics), and detailed anatomical drawings made from the study of actual cadavers.

Though clearly attuned to the energy of Dwapara, Da Vinci never published most of his findings. Indeed, had he done so, his fate might very well have been the same as Galileo’s.  Nonetheless, Da Vinci’s many inventions and discoveries anticipated the revolution in scientific thought that would occur in the next century.

Demolishing old earth-centered theories
In Religion and the New Age, Swami Kriyananda writes: “the major blow to what we may now call the ‘old age’ came from the findings of modern science—the discoveries of Kepler, Copernicus, Galileo, Newton, and others.”

Like Columbus, who disproved that the earth was flat, the Polish astronomer, Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543), was unwilling to accept the prevailing belief that the earth was the center of the universe. His great work, On the Revolution of the Heavenly Bodies, transformed our understanding of the location and motion of the sun and the planets.

Copernicus proposed that the earth is not firmly fixed at the center of the universe but moves around the sun. Little attention was paid to his ideas, however, until a hundred years later when the Italian astronomer, Galileo (1564-1542) built a telescope and discovered evidence to support them.

Galileo’s discoveries practically demolished the old earth-centered theories. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) later added his contribution by discovering, among other things, that the planets move in elliptical orbits, not perfect circles—the official church view.

In the next 500 years, these earliest glimmerings of Dwapara Yuga would burgeon into fuller expression. Adventurous explorations would reach every corner of the earth and expand into outer space. The new emphasis on individual experience and scientific observation would give rise to the advent of spiritual explorers, eager to explore the inner Self.

Byasa Steinmetz, a Lightbearer and long-term Ananda member, lives at Ananda Village where he serves as minister and works on his forthcoming book on the Yugas.

The first trend will be a reaction against complexity and a return to a new simplicity. At present there is still in every field an ever-increasing burden of details. Complexity is the inheritance that Kali Yuga bequeaths to Dwapara Yuga. It is not a necessity of knowledge. It is merely the reflection of a mind more concerned with the minutiae of knowledge than with the “arrow-flight” of wisdom.

The new simplicity will be the simplicity of intuitive wisdom. Increasingly, people will come to realize that, when the flow is right, the details have a way of taking care of themselves. This simple truth has an even simpler reason: energy has its own intelligence.

The second trend will be a renewed emphasis on the individual human being. People will come to realize that human accomplishments, even the greatest of them, will never be greater than man himself, as their source. For great achievements, in their totality, can only hint at the human potential for greatness.

The third trend will be a growing demand for quality over quantity. “Bigger” will cease to be equated with “better.”

The perception of matter as an absolute reality made kings during Kali Yuga imagine that, the more territory they possessed, the greater they themselves became. It made people think of humanity in the mass, rather than as individuals.
It was what led Karl Marx as late as the last century to exalt the sweating laborer over the man of ideas. (What, indeed, is communism but a dying echo of Kali Yuga?)

Increasingly in human affairs, there is a trend away from the bulldozer mentality which sets material power against material inertia in a struggle for conquest by brute force. The trend in future will be to adapt to reality, not to beat it into submission.

From Religion and the New Age

The pilgrimage for me was a homecoming, both inwardly and outwardly. I felt my meditations deepen and my worldview expand enormously, as I learned some important truths about Paramhansa Yogananda’s global mission.

Yogananda’s prediction is now unfolding
Yogananda predicted that America and India would one day unite to lead the world toward balanced living. Before the pilgrimage, these were only beautiful words for me. In India I saw how this prediction is unfolding, right now!

The most wondrous part of my visit to India was that Swami Kriyananda, my spiritual teacher for almost 30 years, was now living and teaching in India. Kriyananda moved to India in late 2003 with one goal: to make India more aware of one of her greatest sons, Paramhansa Yogananda, and of the life-transforming techniques of Kriya Yoga.

Yogananda often spoke of how his mission was to unite East and West, but he spent most of his adult life living and teaching in the United States. So it’s not surprising that he is not well known in his native land. Swami Kriyananda is determined to change that.

“Why begin in Gurgaon?”
Initially, however, I was puzzled as to why Kriyananda located Ananda’s headquarters and newly developing community in Gurgaon, a new and ritzy suburb of New Delhi. Walking the streets of Gurgaon is somewhat similar to walking the streets of Palo Alto—not at all what I had expected in India. But there is a very good reason for Ananda’s work to begin here.

To explain more clearly, I need to skip forward to the next place we visited after New Delhi—Rishikesh, a four-hour train ride to the north. Rishikesh at first seemed like a “spiritual Disneyland.”

The Ganges River is very beautiful here, where it emerges from the Himalayan foothills and enters the plains. There are lush green jungles on the hillsides above the town and a temple or ashram on every block.

“Why,” I wondered, “wouldn’t Kriyananda choose a place like Rishikesh to live and teach? It seems so spiritually oriented and it’s also physically beautiful.”

Romanticizing the outward rituals
Though I certainly enjoyed my stay in Rishikesh, I soon began to see how easy it is to romanticize the outward aspects of the India experience, to become mesmerized by the beauty of the temples and rituals—and to forget that their power comes from what deeply meditating yogis have implanted there.

As Kriyananda often expresses it, the deep spiritual heritage of India abides “in the soil”—meaning that thousands of years of spiritual practice infuse and vitalize both the land and its shrines with powerful vibrations.

Outer rituals and experiences are a great aid to the spiritual seeker—this should not be underestimated. But the essence of Yogananda’s teachings is deep inner communion in meditation, and it is this essence that has been lost to most Indians in modern time.

“Don’t get lost in materialism”
All over India, East is meeting West with a big bang. Burdened with poverty, severe over-population, and a lack of basic technology and hygiene, India desperately needs what the West can offer.

But the meeting of East and West is full of challenges for India. Of all countries in the world, India holds the greatest heritage of saints, masters, and avatars. Its people are magnificently inspiring in their devotion and fearless love for God.

Kriyananda often reminds Indians that India “is the guru of the world,” and can lead the world toward true inner spirituality. But he pleads with them not to get lost in materialism, the scourge of the West, as India goes through a necessary phase of modernization.

The “middle of this hurricane”
In choosing Gurgaon over Rishikesh, I saw that Kriyananda has gone fearlessly into the “middle of this hurricane,” where East and West are coming together in full force.

The Indians being drawn to Ananda are hard working and successful materially. But they long to achieve this success while feeling God’s presence in their lives, and adhering to the laws of dharma.

Kriyananda repeatedly assures his Indian audiences that they can move forward materially, without losing their priceless spiritual treasures. He urges them to meditate, to apply spiritual truths to everyday living, and to form spiritual communities with like-minded people.

He has also written a new set of lessons, Material Success through Yogic Principles, which explain how adhering to spiritual principles actually leads to material success.

During our first day in Gurgaon, our group met with Swami Kriyananda. One of my fellow pilgrims asked him a question: “You are doing so much here! What can we do for you?”

Kriyananda answered simply: “Pray for me, that I have the strength to carry on, and pray that Yogananda’s mission and true teachings can be made known throughout India.”

Face to face with Babaji
We had many inspiring experiences throughout the pilgrimage, but our greatest adventure was an excursion to Badrinath at 10,000 feet in the Himalayas, a place sacred to Babaji, first in the Ananda line of gurus.

Yogananda describes this area in Autobiography of a Yogi: “The northern Himalayan crags near Badrinarayan [Badrinath] are still blessed by the living presence of Babaji, guru of Lahiri Mahasaya. The secluded master has retained his physical form for centuries, perhaps millenniums.”

During my time in Badrinath, I experienced Babaji’s “living presence” in a way I had never thought possible.

The Badrinath temple is the holiest shrine in India. One freezing morning we were privileged to attend a major temple puja (ceremony), where we saw the statue of Lord Badrinath unveiled.

This statue, which is thousands of years old, is said to be a natural rock formation, but it looks very much like the portrait we have of Babaji seated in the lotus posture. For many years the statue was lost, then miraculously rediscovered and restored to the temple around 800AD.

Inwardly changed forever
As I gazed at the statue and meditated before and during the puja, I felt Babaji’s presence and blessings more strongly than ever. I reflected on how grateful I was to Babaji for his crucial role for our planet at this time—the upliftment of human consciousness through meditation techniques, and the unification of East and West—a role being played out so clearly through Ananda’s new work in India.

While the blessings flowed over me, I knew I was being inwardly changed forever. I felt very close to all my gurus, at complete peace with India and her people’s ancient and deep love for God, and deeply grateful for my many years of striving to meditate deeply and attune myself to the masters.

If you ever feel guided go to India, go without hesitation. But don’t go as a tourist. Go as a pilgrim. Then India and the blessings of the masters will give you inner treasures to last a lifetime.

Savitri Simpson, an Ananda Lightbearer, lives at Ananda Village with her husband Sudarshan. She serves on the Ananda Sangha staff and teaches at The Expanding Light guest retreat.

Early one morning he telephoned Jyotish and Devi Novak, who were also in India, and said, “I’ve something very important to discuss with you.” When they arrived at his room, Dharmadas Schuppe, Yogacharya of Ananda Sangha India, and his wife, Nirmala, were already there.

Kriyananda told them: “At two o’clock this morning I woke up with this wonderful idea for describing Ananda’s membership.” He had written a statement of the beliefs and principles held in common by those who are part of Ananda. He called it, The Way of Ananda Sanghis.

“As he read it to us,” Devi recalled, “I just felt this wave of blessing. We could feel that this was something that had been given to him, and through him to all of us.”

At Spiritual Renewal Week at Ananda Village in August 2004, Jyotish discussed some of the deeper implications of Kriyananda’s statement:

The Way of Ananda Sanghis is based on the highest principles of India’s spiritual teachings. Yogananda said that the teachings he brought to the West are the “cream of the cream” of yoga. The Way of Ananda Sanghis gives us the essence of those teachings.

This is the first time in Ananda’s history that we’ve had such a statement. It’s as if we’ve had to live these teachings for a while before they could be stated outwardly. As Yogananda has said, we not only have to churn the ether with our thoughts, we also need to bring those thoughts down to the physical plane. Otherwise, there’s a tendency to let the statement substitute for the action.

Kriyananda has often waited many years so we can live a truth before he states it. But now we have a clear, succinct statement of our overall beliefs.

One of our meditation group leaders recently said, “When people have asked me, ‘What is Ananda, what do you believe?’ I would tell them what I thought. Now I can give them this brochure!”

The Way of Ananda Sanghis is universal and nonsectarian. Kriyananda wants Ananda to be a movement that’s open to everyone, not an organization.

The Way of Ananda Sanghis and information on how to become a member of Ananda Sangha can be found at http://www.ananda.org/sangha/sanghis/index.html

Confirmation of the Gospels
What does the scientific evidence tell us about the Shroud?

We know that the man in the Shroud was a Jew approximately 5’9” in height, and that he was crucified. Judging from the clear abrasions left on his shoulders, we know that he probably carried a beam of nearly one hundred pounds.  We know that he was scourged by two Roman soldiers using flagrums that left over one hundreds wounds on his front and back, and that he fell numerous times, leaving dirt and abrasions on his nose, knees, and feet.

The pollen and flower imprints on the Shroud tell us that he lived in Palestine, and that his crucifixion occurred in April or May. We know that he was beaten about the face and head, and that he sustained some thirty blood staining wounds, similar to what might have been left by a crown of thorns.

We know that a spike was driven through both feet and into the cross, and also through each of the wrists. We know that, like all crucifixion victims, it was impossible for him to exhale unless he repeatedly straightened himself upwards to release the stress on his arms, resulting in the image’s over-enlarged chest area.

We know that the man in the Shroud died, and that rigor mortis set in, while he was still on the cross. Contrary to other crucifixion victims, this man’s legs were not broken to stop his upward movements and hasten his death.  We know that after his death, his side was pierced by something similar to a Roman lancet, and that blood and water flowed from this wound.

We know that this man was prepared hurriedly for burial by Jewish custom and placed in the Shroud in the Jewish manner. We know that he was allowed to be buried alone, (unusual for a Jewish crucifixion victim), rather than in a mass grave. Traces of limestone on the Shroud indicate that the body was probably placed in a limestone cave near Jerusalem.

We know that while the Shroud and body were in the cave the body did not decay, and that the body did not remain in the Shroud for more than 2-3 days.  We know that the body was not manually moved from the Shroud, or the bloodstains would have smeared.

Yet within that time, the body in the Shroud vanished and in the process imprinted a 3-dimensional negative image in a manner never before created in human history.

The “Mandylion”
Until very recently, the Shroud’s history was only partly known.  It is now strongly suspected that an ancient picture of Christ, known as the “Mandylion,” or “Image of Edessa,” was actually the Shroud folded into eighths and placed in a rectangular frame showing only the head.

It is believed that Thaddeus, one of the apostles of Jesus, took the Mandylion to Edessa, (now Urfa, Turkey), and with it cured King Abgar between 13-50AD.

In 944 the Byzantines took it to Constantinople, where it was captured in the Fourth Crusade.

Accusations of fraud
Three different theories have the Shroud finally making its way to Livey, France sometime between 1204 and the 1350s, where for the first time it was displayed, full length, as the burial cloth of Jesus.

By 1578, the Shroud was sequestered in Turin by the Savoys, the first royal family of Italy, where it resides to this day. At the time, most men of science generally accepted that the Shroud was fraudulent, merely a painting.

The first glimmerings of scientific interest in the relic emerged in 1898 when Seconda Pia, a respected photographer of his time, was allowed to photograph the Shroud. Seen with the naked eye, the straw-yellow image on the Shroud lacks clarity and tends to blend into the background linen, especially when viewed close up.

The Shroud is a “negative!”
Upon developing his film, Pia, who had expected to see a negative, was startled to see a detailed positive image, and one so distinct that the crucified man’s features, posture and wounds were clearly visible. Since it is an accepted scientific principle that a negative of a negative always results in a positive, it became apparent that the body image seen with the unaided eye was itself a “negative.”

These developments undermined the idea that the Shroud image was the work of a medieval forger: photo-negativity was unknown before the 19th century.

A perfect contour map
Then, in 1976, a breakthrough occurred. Two scientists decided to process a photo of the Shroud with a VP-8 Image Analyzer, a device used in space probes to acquire accurate 3-dimensional images of celestial objects.

If the VP-8 is used on a normal photograph, or on a drawing by an artist versed in how the VP-8 works, the resulting image lacks true 3-dimensionality. To the scientists’ utter astonishment, the VP-8 image of the Shroud was a perfect, 3-dimensional rendering—a contour map of the body.

Respect for the Shroud deepens
Intrigued, the scientific community took action and in 1978 organized the Shroud of Turin Research Project (STURP). Members of the team—world-renowned scientists, physicists, and pathologists from highly prestigious institutions—were given permission to examine the Shroud scientifically. For the first time in history there was unprecedented access to the relic.

Most scientists thought that, under this scrutiny, the cloth would not live up to its traditional claims.  But as the 1980s progressed, and mountains of findings were published in scientific journals, respect for the Shroud deepened.

The researchers concluded that the Shroud was not a painting, vapograph, block print, or scorch. Nor was it an imprint of body heat or funeral anointing. It was not  produced by the rubbing of dry compounds. Nor was it formed by any known means of draping a cloth over a human body, statue, or bas-relief.

It was found also that the Shroud image was imprinted only on the uppermost surface fibers of the threads in the fabric. Were the image a painting or drawing, the materials would have penetrated more deeply and caused the fibers to mat and bind.

Evidence from bloodstains
The analysis of the blood on the Shroud, its flows and staining characteristics, chemical composition, and anatomical positioning were all as they would have been on the crucified Jesus. The analysis showed that the blood was that of a human, that it flowed “downward” as it would on an upright cross victim, then “back-wards” as it would on someone later lain in a supine position, and that the stains were on the Shroud before the image was created.

STURP member John Heller expressed his own frustration and that of his fellow scientists when he stated, “If you were to give me a budget of $10 million, and told me to make a replica of [the Shroud], I would not know how to do it.”

Still, the image looks back at us.  How did it get there?

The dematerialization of the body
Mark Antonacci, in his book, The Resurrection of the Shroud, puts forth his “Historically Consistent Method,” which comes closest to matching all the evidence gleaned thus far. A key component of this approach is the idea that the Shroud might have undergone something similar to “nuclear disintegration,” a theory first proposed by Dr. Kitty Little, a retired nuclear physicist.

According to her theory, the energy that held the atoms of the Shroud body together was somehow released, causing a dispersal of radiation and atomic particles (electrons, neutrons, protons, etc.) Some of these particles turned the linen fibers a straw yellow and created the image of the crucified man.

Little’s theory may account for another Shroud feature—its durability. The neutrons, electrons, and gamma rays would act as a kind of preservative, making the Shroud more supple and resilient. Researchers have found the Shroud to be in amazingly good condition.

Antonacci’s overall theory also seriously challenges the 1988 carbon-dating tests, which suggested that the Shroud dated to 1260-1380 AD. These findings are now repudiated by most scientists because of fatal errors in the testing process, and the use of a fabric sample contaminated by smoke, wax, and patching.

But objections to Antonacci’s “Historically Consistent Method” continue to be voiced, so the controversy continues.  Perhaps the planet must move more fully into Dwapara Yuga before science will be capable of understanding exactly how the Shroud image came into existence.

Ken Atwell lives at Ananda Village and oversees the Village water system.

What Is a Miracle?
by Swami Kriyananda

What is a miracle? It is simply a phenomenon waiting to be explained. Television would have been a miracle to the people in medieval times. For that matter, the fact that it doesn’t seem miraculous to us now isn’t because most of us understand it. We accept it because it is commonplace.

There is no such thing, really, as a bona fide miracle. There are only different workings of cosmic law.

Science will never be able to trace the genesis of the universe to its ultimate source, for it is obliged by its own disciplines to approach reality from its periphery, not from its center. Creation, on the other hand, is like a living tree: It is a radiation outward from its center in Pure Consciousness.

The mysteries of cosmic creation can be solved only by people who, in deep meditation, succeed in penetrating to the core of their own being—which, they find, is the center of Being everywhere.

From Awaken to Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

Recognized by the great saints
But a surprising number of people think of Yogananda as a fortunate young man who got to meet the great saints of his day. In his last years he told us that when he visited those saints, they actually wanted instruction from him. They recognized him as a great master even though he was still a youth.

There are only a handful of great masters who are fully liberated (as he told us, “I was liberated many lifetimes ago.”), and yet keep coming back to this world to raise the consciousness of humanity. He said, for example, that Babaji was Krishna in a former incarnation and that he himself had been Arjuna.

These great masters come again and again to uplift the world. It’s very important to understand that a great master like Yogananda comes with a mission.

Yogananda—a divine warrior
Yogananda’s mission was similar to Arjuna’s in the Bhagavad Gita in that he had to fight to make righteousness transcendent over evil. His life demonstrated that it’s not enough to say, “I will withdraw into samadhi and forget that evil exists.” There’s a part of the divine play that needs to fight evil, and this was the role that Yogananda took up. To bring these teachings to people he had to be a divine warrior like Arjuna.

Now that he’s physically left this world, we must carry on his mission and serve as his hands and feet. He brought a call to divine battle, inflaming people to change their lives and bring Kriya Yoga into action. It’s a good thing to be centered in your spine, but today it’s even more important to take this centeredness out to others.

The role of communities
At almost every public lecture Yogananda gave, he spoke of the importance of coming together to create communities, or world brotherhood colonies, as he called them. I was present at a talk he gave in Beverly Hills at which he said that thousands of youths must go North, South, East, and West to spread this concept. I vowed I would do it. There were several hundred people at that garden party, but I’m the only one who took him seriously and founded communities.

I would like to plead with all of you to join hands with us to start communities in this country. Right now we have mostly Americans living in the ashram here, but I hope in time that it will be far more Indians, and we’ll be a small minority.

The beautiful thing about living in such communities is that everybody becomes joyful, forgiving, and filled with love. I believe with all my heart that in the future people will look back and say that the most important thing happening in the world at this time was the founding of communities, places where people got together and said, “Let’s live the right way. Let’s not worry about what other people do.”

We must share our joy with others
Today isn’t the time for a few monks to be hidden away in monasteries. It’s the time for people everywhere to live lives dedicated to God. You’ve no idea what an impression these communities have already made. We get letters from people from all over the world saying that their lives are more worthwhile knowing that our communities exist.

Just as Master pleaded with everyone at that garden party to join in this mission, I plead with you now to take these words seriously. This was one of the most important things he came to bring. He knew that if people could live together in harmony, practice Kriya Yoga, and understand that their reality is within themselves, they could change the world.

For India, a return to spiritual values
Today we see that India has been drawing from the West in the wrong ways. Going Western is one thing, but bringing materialistic values to India is quite another. There is something in India that no other country has—a power implanted in the soil for millennia by great rishis seeking God. I have encountered many Indians who say, “How can we bring these values back?”

This is our job. I’ve incarnated in a Western body, but I’m not a Westerner at heart. I’m an Indian. But my job, our job if you will accept it, is to bring these values back to India and to help people to realize that we need both God and material efficiency.

America and India must unite
There is a karmic bond between India and America that goes back thousands of years. It’s the divine will today that these two cultures be united to blend the best of East and West. Yogananda predicted that some day India and America would unite to lead the world in a balanced life of material and spiritual efficiency.

This is Yogananda’s mission, and this is what I’ve come to India to help accomplish. I would love to start communities where this ideal can be brought to a focus, because otherwise these words just disperse into the ether. But if a few people can get together and create such communities, then we can set an example for others to follow.

The need for divine warriors
We are at the very beginning of a new age, and I’ll tell you quite truthfully that this isn’t going to be an easy beginning. My Guru said that a time will come when no corner of this planet will be safe from bombs. He spoke also of great economic depression. We have great suffering and trials ahead, and we will need to be divine warriors.

But at the same time, spiritually, this is a wonderful time to be born, because we don’t grow when everything is smooth and easy. An easy life is not a victorious one. We have an opportunity now to be warriors for God, like Arjuna.

We will see the real fruit of these teachings after these trials are over, but now we are at the beginning of it. In our own small way, if we can help to bring Master’s teachings out, we can help to change the world.

Kriya Yoga must be put into action
I’m grateful to be in India now and do what I set out to do forty years ago: to make Yogananda and his mission known. I don’t do this with the ego of a disciple who wants his Guru to be known, but with the conviction that what Yogananda brought is what India and the world need at this time. You can change the world if you live these truths.

This was the message that the Masters sent to the world through Yogananda. Kriya Yoga needs to be put into action. We need to meditate, to feel the divine joy within, and to bring that divine joy outward to all. The surest way of doing this is if a few people who believe in these values band together, grow their own food, build their own buildings, and educate their own children.

We have done this in our communities for the past thirty-six years. We can do it here. I know that this is what Yogananda wants to do through me and through all of us here.

During Yogananda’s last moments before his mahasamadhi on March 7, 1952, he pleaded with us to bring the best of the East and West together, and to live in a better way in order to know what life is really all about.

Excerpted from Kriyananda’s March 7, 2004 talk in New Delhi, in commemoration of Yogananda’s mahasamadhi.

Repeating cycles of time
Briefly, Sri Yukteswar describes a very long cycle of human evolution—24,000 years—encompassing eight distinct ages or “yugas.” During the four descending ages that constitute half the cycle, human awareness becomes gradually more limited and descends into materialism. At the lowest point, Kali Yuga, matter is seen as the sole reality, fixed and absolute.

During the ascending four ages, humanity’s awareness gradually increases, becoming more refined and spiritual. It reaches its zenith in Satya Yuga, a time when people live in harmony with God and nature, and understand that the universe is merely a projection of divine consciousness.

These cycles continue endlessly through time, alternating between spiritual and material extremes. Nearly all of recorded history deals with the lowest stages of human awareness, when the perceived differences between people in appearance, religion, and nationality led to conflicts and wars.

The challenges of Dwapara
The upward progress of the yugas is toward unity in the broadest sense. What is significant for us today is Sri Yukteswar’s view that we have long since passed through Kali Yuga, the lowest point in the cycles, and have entered the second of the ascending ages, Dwapara Yuga.

In Kali Yuga humanity struggled with the limitations of matter. With the dawn of Dwapara has come the understanding that the many forms of matter have a common underlying energy nature. This unifying idea has been the key to breaking free of many of the limitations imposed by material forms.

Overcoming the limitations of space
In the evolution of human consciousness each age offers distinct challenges and opportunities. The primary task of humanity during Dwapara Yuga is to overcome the limitations imposed by space. Already we are applying our new understanding of the energy nature of matter to solve problems of long distance communication and transportation.

But the concept of space embraces far more than the mere idea of “emptiness” or the vacuum beyond the Earth’s atmosphere. It also implies “separation” or “division,” not only by geographical boundaries, for example, but by any parameter, such as ideology, clan, language, gender, race, religion and so on.

In Dwapara, we are being challenged to see division as an illusion and unity as the true reality. The term holistic, which has come into vogue lately, expresses this way of thinking. A more intuitive approach to life will replace the type of rational, analytic thinking that divides problems into their smallest parts, searching in vain for solutions.

A time of transition
We are now living in a time of transition, when both the old and new ages are influencing human affairs. Not surprisingly, there is a strong resistance to change. People everywhere want desperately to turn back the clock and hold onto the values of Kali Yuga.

The spirit of Dwapara is expansive, while that of Kali is contractive. Actions that are arbitrary and dogmatic, without regard to individual needs or circumstances, reflect the Kali Yuga pattern. As the old and new energies vie for supremacy, we must expect conflict and confusion.

Around the world today, we see an expression of this conflict in the rise of religious fundamentalism, and a growing attitude of religious intolerance. In his book, Religion in the New Age, Swami Kriyananda writes that “there cannot be a new age” for those who believe that their particular religious teachings define the past, present, and future. Any form of change is seen as a threat to their beliefs.

Descending Kali Yuga–the destruction of libraries
The roots of religious intolerance, as we know it today, began with the advent of descending Kali Yuga circa 700 BC, when humanity gradually lost the capacity to understand the subtle relationships between matter, energy and consciousness. Fanaticism and violent conflict arose as people lost sight of the true meaning of the beliefs that distinguished their religion from others.

In many cultures, there was a widespread destruction of temples and libraries, often for the sole purpose of purging “unacceptable” ideas. These attacks coincided with the first years of descending Kali Yuga, a time when the earliest known versions of sacred texts, which had previously been transmitted orally, came into existence.

One of the most notable examples of purging “unacceptable ideas” was the destruction of the great library at Alexandria, Egypt. The Ptolemy Dynasty in Egypt, which began in 332 BC, undertook to collect “all the books of all the peoples in the world” and translate them into Greek.

However, as the world moved more deeply into Kali Yuga, the library came under a series of attacks, first by the Romans in 272 AD, then by the Christians in 391 AD. Finally, in 640 AD the Arabs finished the job, claiming that all knowledge was contained in the Koran, and no other writings were necessary.

This destructive pattern continued throughout the centuries of descending and ascending Kali Yuga. It ended finally in the 16th century AD, near the end of ascending Kali Yuga, after Spain invaded the New World and, in the name of Christianity, tried to destroy the records of the Aztec and Mayan civilizations.

Ascending Dwapara Yuga—the Protestant Reformation
The Protestant Reformation in the dawning years of ascending Dwapara Yuga in the early 16th century reflected a mixture of Kali and Dwapara attitudes—a fresh Dwapara desire to expand beyond the shackles of established religious institutions, carried out with a rigid, black or white Kali Yuga consciousness.

The Reformation was marked by a spirit of individuality that resulted in the creation of hundreds of new sects, each of which held slightly different doctrines according to the views of its founder. Aided by the invention of the printing press, which gave all people a chance to read and interpret the Bible for themselves, the Reformation empowered people to hold beliefs different from those of religious authority.

But it generated 200 years of religious wars and violent intolerance. In Martin Luther’s time, if you deemed the religious convictions of others to be in error, you were justified in killing or torturing them until they recanted. To a limited extent, these attitudes carried over into the New World, even among those who fled Europe to escape religious persecution.

The world today
Religion as a separate compartment of life was unknown during the higher ages. Only in Kali Yuga do we find sectarianism and religious strife. Can we hope that the coming centuries will bring an end to religious intolerance?

Bloody battles along religious lines continue to this day wherever the Kali Yuga absolutism prevails. We see instances throughout the world where political and religious elements, aided by the new technology of warfare, have joined forces to resist the new Dwapara energy.

But there are also those who embrace the Dwapara ideal of a dynamically changing, culturally diverse world in which all true religions are seen as alternate paths to a common goal. Battles remain to be fought, but there is no doubt as to the final outcome.

Looking to the future
The three centuries of transition between Kali and Dwapara Yugas is called the twilight or sandhi period. We have now passed through this period and have entered the full light of Dwapara proper. The remnants of Kali Yuga are being exaggerated into prominence by the Dwapara energy, much like the brilliant flash of a light bulb an instant before it goes dark for good.

Once the transition has passed and the old Kali forms have crumbled, we will see an increasing manifestation of the characteristics of Dwapara Yuga.  Among other things, people will begin to understand the underlying unity of all religions, and recognize that we are all children of the same God.

Byasa Steinmetz, a Lightbearer lives in the Ananda Sacramento community, where he is working on his forthcoming book on the yugas.

From Kali to Satya Yuga
by Swami Sri Yukteswar

Kali Yuga

• The age of gross materialism

• 1,200 years in duration

• No comprehension of anything beyond the material world.

• No peace in any kingdom.

• Lifetime 100 years

Dwapara Yuga

• The electrical or atomic age

• 2,400 years in duration.

• Man understands fine matters, i.e electricity, atomic structures.

• Age of space annihilators such as communications and travel.

• No safety in this age. War on a greater scale.

• Lifetime 200 years

Treta Yuga

• The age of the mind

• 3,600 years duration.

• Man understands divine magnetism, the source of electrical forces.

• Telepathy and other time annihilators.

• Mind power developed, less use of electricity.

• More peace. Less hypocrisy.

• Lifetime 300 years.

Satya Yuga

• The age of truth

• 4,800 years duration.

• Harmony with the divine plan.

• Man comprehends all mysteries of creation.

• No barrier between material and astral worlds. Many find liberation.

• Lifetime 400 years.

Excerpted from The Holy Science by
Swami Sri Yukteswar

Love Is the Master Key to the Universe
by Swami Kriyananda

The conflict between the dying rigidity and dogmatism of Kali Yuga and the newborn openness of Dwapara Yuga seems destined to flare into open conflict before long. We may indeed live to see another world war, even global cataclysm, before human consciousness becomes enough softened to receive, without obstructing them, the rays of Dwapara Yuga.

Devastation, however, even if it occurs, will serve only to clear the ground, so to speak, for the next season’s crops. Disaster, during this ascending age or yuga, will not be total. Ultimately it will prove beneficial.

As we contemplate Dwapara Yuga, love alone can help us fully to absorb its energies. The master key to the laws of the universe is love.

Swami Sri Yukteswar wrote of love’s effect on the human body in his book, The Holy Science: “When love, the heavenly gift of Nature, appears in the heart, it removes all causes of excitation from the system and cools it down to a perfectly normal state; and, invigorating the vital powers, expels all foreign matters—the germs of diseases—by natural ways (perspiration and so forth). It thereby makes man perfectly healthy in body and mind, and enables him to understand properly the guidance of Nature.”

Sri Yukteswar explained further the effects of love on human understanding: “When this love becomes developed in man it makes him able to understand the real position of his own Self as well as of others surrounding him.”

Paramhansa Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar’s chief disciple, taught that the only way to understand others truly is by holding deep compassion for them in one’s heart. Psychoanalysis is of the intellect; by itself, therefore, it can provide only superficial insights into human nature. Deep insights are possible only with love.

That is why, when Paramhansa Yogananda was asked once, “What can take your place after you leave this world?” he replied with a loving smile, “When I am gone, only love can take my place.” Love, he meant, not only for God, but for God in others, in mankind, in all beings.

Excerpted from Religion and the New Age, by Swami Kriyananda.

The secret of India’s vitality
The real life and secret of India’s vitality is her spiritual culture, which has made her the motherland of religions since time immemorial. India has been the grand inspirer of human minds and souls, the spiritual model of all religions.

Her greatest and richest legacy to the world has been the scientific techniques for the spiritual advancement of man, discovered and handed down for centuries by her saints and seers.

A land of never-to-be-forgotten mystery
India is a land of mystery, but a mystery that reveals itself to the sympathetic inquirer and seeker. In India there are the ancient caves of meditation where yogis and swamis saw the faggots of ignorance blaze with the wisdom of God. There is the vast Ganges made sacred by centuries of meditation near its banks by many God-realized saints.

India has the grandest and highest mountains in the world—the Himalayas. Darjeeling, in the north, is the Switzerland of India. In India there is the Taj Mahal at Agra, the finest dream of architecture ever materialized in marble to symbolize the ideal of human love, and in Delhi, the unique ruins of ancient castles and vast palaces of princes. There is the blueness of the skies; the bright sunshine; the innumerable varieties of fruits and vegetables; the many types of people; the dark forests and jungles where tigers roam. All these make India different, fascinating, romantic, never-to-be forgotten.

Contrast, surprise, and adventure
India is a land of great contrasts—untold riches and utmost poverty; the highest mental purity and coarse, plain living; Rolls Royces and bullock-carts.

In the north, we find blue-eyed and blond-haired Hindus, and in the hotter south, the dark, sun-kissed skins of the tropics. From start to finish, India is a land of surprises, of contrasts and extremes. Life becomes prosaic with too much business, too many dull certainties. In India one feels that life is a great adventure, a thing of mystery and surprise.

India may not have skyscrapers and all the comforts of modern life. She has her faults, as do all nations. But India shelters many unassuming, Christ-like spiritual “skyscrapers” who could teach their Western brothers and sisters how to get the fullest spiritual joy out of any condition of life.

From East West Magazine, November-December, 1929.

I had the opportunity to meet and live with a great Master from your country. I’m sure that many of you have read Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramhansa Yogananda. I read it when I was a young man of 22 in New York. I’d been seeking truth in all possible ways except the right one. I looked for it in science, in the arts, in political systems.

Always I tried to avoid thinking of God because I believed, as modern science teaches, that you can’t prove God, so why think about Him? I tried to find fulfillment without Him and, thank God, I failed.

It was in a mood of extreme desperation that I came upon Autobiography of a Yogi. That book so changed my life that I took the next bus from New York to Los Angeles, a journey of four days and nights, to meet him.

“I want to be your disciple.”
I had been a very arrogant young man. I never thought I’d say such words to anybody, but when I met Yogananda my first words to him were, “I want to be your disciple.” He must have seen how desperate I was, because that same day he gave me the vows of discipleship and accepted me in the monastery.

That was in 1948, and for these past fifty-six years I’ve been sharing his life and teachings, as he instructed me to do, through lecturing and writing books.

For everyone the goal is the same
I’ve just finished writing a book called, Conversations with Yogananda, and I’d like to read two passages from it. The first one is:

A professor from Columbia University came to lunch with the Master in his third floor interview room at Mt. Washington. At a certain point in their discussion the professor asked: ‘Do your teachings help people to be at peace with themselves?’ ‘They do indeed,’ the Master answered, ‘but that is the least that they do. We teach people above all how to be at peace with their Creator.’

Ultimately we all have to make peace with our Creator. We have to understand who we are, where we’ve come from, and what the purpose of life is.

The goal of life for everyone is to seek God, whether they know it or not. We are all children of God. And the beautiful thing is that this is true of the lowest beggar, the most vicious criminal, the most brutal dictator.

In living with Yogananda I found that he saw in all people the same one God. He had the same love for everybody. He didn’t look at anybody with judgment. You might ask, “In his greatness did he look down on us?”

The difference between the Guru and the disciple
This next passage in Conversations with Yogananda answers this question: He was asked, ‘How do you distinguish between yourself and your followers?’

All are waves on the same one ocean,’ the Master replied, ‘composed, as ocean water is of the same substance: Spirit. Some of the waves are higher than others. Some waves don’t want to distance themselves from the ocean. All waves, no matter how high, are in essence one and the same.
The difference between the Guru and the disciples, then, lies only in their respective closeness to the ocean: in how conscious each one is of his own essential reality…

This is how it was living with him. He was not somebody up there looking down on us. He was our own Selves.

I’ll never forget the time when I had given someone advice. When I next saw Yogananda, he corrected the advice I’d given. I was amazed that he knew what I’d said even at a great distance from him. He said, “I know every thought you think.”

How did he have that ability? Because he was in everybody. It’s not like a wave that is higher than others. Rather there’s no wave at all. A Master has no sense of separation from God.

The religion of the universe
Yogananda was one of the greatest ambassadors of Indian culture that your country has ever sent to the world. The Sanaatan Dharma of Hinduism, which he taught, is the religion of the universe.

You might call your religion Christianity, or Islam, or Buddhism, but all true
religions have the same purpose—to give you the understanding that the goal of life is to ?nd who and what you are—as bliss. Yogananda came to show us that motivating all life from behind is the soul’s desire for bliss.

The “blessings” of Western civilization

Over forty years ago when I lived here, I realized that India would have to experience worldly prosperity. You would inevitably have cars, televisions, and all the so-called “blessings” of Western civilization. I also knew it would be a horrible thing, but I believed India would have the power to come through it. I see that it has.

God is the joy we seek
I see that young people in India today are realizing that we don’t find happiness in these things. India can’t get away from itself. There is a power in this country, a joy that wells up out of the soil. As Yogananda said in his poem, My India, “I am hallowed, my body touched that sod.”

This is why India is the guru of the world. Truth is eternal. What the great rishis and yogis have left in the soil of this country is a power that will ultimately change not only your lives but the lives of everyone.

When you travel the world, you see that people everywhere are seeking happiness, and it comes back to this same truth. God is not dead, as some people proclaim. He is alive. He is the joy, the bliss we all seek.

This is the goal of every one of us. The same God that’s in Yogananda or Jesus Christ or Krishna is in you. Underneath all that you’ve been seeking in life is that One Universal God.

This is what Yogananda came to show us. Because of his great humility many people in this country who have read Autobiography of a Yogi, think of Yogananda as a simple devotee who visited other saints. If I have a mission, it is to get him and his message known in this country.

Yogananda’s message
Yogananda’s message is the path of Kriya Yoga. He was the representative of a line of great gurus who, through Lahiri Mahasaya of Benares, brought this great message down from the heights.

Yogananda showed us how to bring the teaching of Kriya Yoga into daily life, and how to bring the Divine Reality into everything we do. This was, to a large extent, Yogananda’s mission to the world, and to a large extent that’s why I am here. I’ve come to India now to show that the practicality he gave to the Indian teachings is as real here as anywhere.

Spiritual communities
Another aspect of Yogananda’s mission was to develop spiritual communities. Nearly every time he talked in public, he spoke of the importance of such communities to the world today.

Why not live with people who share the same values? Why not be surrounded by friends who love God? Then the people living around you actually help in the realization of your ideals.

This is what we’ve experienced at the Ananda communities in America and Italy. Ananda has been in existence now for 35 years, and the love for God, harmony, and cooperation there are an inspiration to all who come.

I would love to introduce such communities in India. I think they can be established here more easily because you naturally understand these concepts.

This world is only a school
But remember we’re not here to bring perfection to this world, for this world is only a school. The goal is not to make civilization perfect, but to use the teachings of civilization to achieve perfection in ourselves.

The highlight of my life was meeting and being with my Guru. It was like being in the presence of God. Behind everything he said or did was a message—to realize the bliss of our own being. He saw all of us as potential gods filled with divine bliss.

What these great masters are, not only can you achieve, you must achieve. You are eternal, although you’ve lived in this world wandering in delusion. That search can go on forever, but there is something that never leaves you—the longing for the bliss of God. Someday you will awaken and know yourself as a child of the Infinite Lord. I bow to that Lord in all of you.

Ananda’s work in India is  well underway! In less than a month from when Swami Kriyananda first proposed this new direction, Ananda found a large, recently built mansion in Gurgaon, a New Delhi suburb, to serve as a possible ashram. Approving the choice, Kriyananda quoted Sri Yukteswar’s words to Yogananda on the eve of his departure to America: “All doors are open for you. It is now or never.”

The Ananda Sangha staff, assisted by leaders from various Ananda colonies, set about furnishing the new ashram, getting out publicity, printing brochures and arranging for satsangs. Though an enormous undertaking, there was a surprising ease about it.

Jyotish Novak from Ananda Village observed: “We couldn’t have accomplished anything without the grace of Yogananda and the other gurus. I could feel it more palpably than I have ever felt it in the entire history of Ananda.”

The ashram opens
On Friday, November 28, 2003, the new Ananda ashram was officially opened with a Vedic ceremony led by Swami Kriyananda. Other doors have been opening. Indian publisher Aswani Goyal who, ?fteen years ago, was the ?rst to publish Kriyananda’s books in India, offered helpful advice on starting a publishing company in India.

But then Yogananda appeared to him in a dream and said, “You’re not doing enough to help these people.” Two days later, Aswani offered to provide office space, training, secretarial support, and whatever else was needed for Ananda to start its own publishing house. Aswani and his wife, Vini, hope to become the ?rst members of Ananda Sangha in India

An overflow crowd
The weekend of January 9-11, 2004 saw the official launching of Ananda’s work in India to a very positive response. Saturday evening, January 10th, Kriyananda spoke to an over?ow crowd of 700 people in an auditorium in downtown New Delhi. His talk wove together the two themes of everyone’s need to seek God, and his experiences with Yogananda.

Predicting that India’s powerful spiritual heritage would change the world, he said: “India is now copying the West and its values, but this will not last for long. India needs to reclaim its right as guru to the world. This is your destiny.”

The talk received key publicity the previous day when Kriyananda answered callers’ questions during a thirty-minute television interview on “The Sadhna Channel,” which reaches millions in India and South Asia.

Conversations with Yogananda
Conversations with Yogananda, Kriyananda’s newest book, (published in India in record time) was available for this special weekend. These in-depth conversations, recorded by Kriyananda at Yogananda’s request, offer Yogananda’s first hand thoughts on a wide range of subjects. The newly published Indian edition of God Is for Everyone was also available for the event.

The following morning there was a Sunday Service attended by 100 people at a smaller hall in downtown New Delhi, led by Kriyananda. Since January, Kriyananda has been giving Saturday satsangs at the ashram, and leading Sunday Service in New Delhi, alternating at times with other Ananda ministers.

Televised talks and a regular column
Starting in January, Kriyananda recorded numerous programs, entitled, “The Way of Awakening,” for The Sadhana Channel. These twenty-minute talks, which began airing on January 28, were shown every weekday night for two months through the end of March, followed by one show each week until the end of 2004. Kriyananda is also writing a regular column on meditation and yoga for the Hindustan Times, India’s largest newspaper.

A staff of thirteen
The Ananda staff, though still in ?ux, presently numbers thirteen people, mainly devotees from Ananda Village and other colonies, and includes one Canadian-born Indian of Bengali parentage. Peter (Dharmadas) Schuppe, most recently from Ananda Village, has been appointed Yogacharya (spiritual director) of Ananda Sangha India. He has also been made a Kriya minister.

Since January, Ananda staff members have been offering an ongoing four-week meditation class series in central New Delhi. Others on staff have been looking for land to start a community. There are also plans to start a traditional, Indian-style monastic order for men and women.

Dear _____________________

I hope you have a wonderful trip. You will find the poverty, dirt, and inefficiency hard to take. It will drive you up the wall to spend a half an hour to an hour in a bank just to cash a traveler’s check, to wait hours for a phone call to go through, to find people saying things just to please you, rather than to be accurate.

India has become very politically minded and has lost much of her spirituality—though temporarily, I am convinced. But if you can get down underneath all these distractions, and overlook the noise (bedlam is more like it), the crowds, and the confusion, you will find the age-old blessings still there.

India—the real India—is an ancient culture that has survived the disintegrating influences of time, but that has endured many scars in the process. The real India is a land of forest ashrams, simple folk living close to nature, the sound of bhajans sweetening the night.

That India has been disrupted by the turmoil and anguish of foreign conquest and domination, by the religious fanaticism of the Moslems, and by the even more corroding influence of cynicism in the English.

That India is almost hopelessly overcrowded, and unable, with its village attitude, to cope with the crowds. It is aware of its poverty and will have to go through a phase of materialism and of modernization, including urbanization, practical efficiency, and factories.

I think that the real spirit of India will burn more brightly in America, where many Hindu souls are being born—drawn to a country that has passed through the worst of its materialism without losing its innate love of nature and higher values. In an ashram like Ananda, the spirit of India flourishes.

And in time, I am sure that India will recover her balance, and return to the kind of simple living for which our age is geared. India will always be the guru of this planet, but her teaching is better received abroad these days than at home.

In divine friendship

Swami Kriyananda

Most important of all, there will be a greater understanding of our relation to God. People will realize that they are not subservient creatures bound to obey or suffer for eternity, but beings who are part of God. They will know that it is their duty to discover their unity with God, and to learn how to work with Him rather than merely for Him.

This new age will also bring a more liberating attitude to our relations with one another, as we interact more from a level of soul to soul. It will be a time when people will more naturally rise to their own true potential, instead of having it squelched by societal expectations. I believe that there will be more true sharing in the world and a much greater sense of brotherhood.

The role of yoga
It is the role of yoga to help mankind fulfill this inward direction. The science of matter has developed to the point where it’s almost beyond our power of comprehension—and these developments are threatening our very existence. If we can’t find some kind of inner science to help us balance the outer one, we’re almost certainly going to succumb as a civilization.

That may seem impossible, just as it seems quite impossible that the sun could ever do anything but rise in the east. But this planet we’re living on is just a small mud ball. It wouldn’t take a very great cosmic event to cause it to turn in a different direction. If it did, the sun would cease rising in the east.

The possibility of a cataclysm
We have to understand that a cataclysm is entirely possible. Mankind has been brought close to destruction many times because he chose to go against natural law.

A few years ago I heard a lecturer in England say that Mother Earth is slow to react because her body is very big compared to ours. But when she does react, there’s absolutely no countermanding her decisions. When she finally gets fed up with the way people are treating her, the cataclysm that she inflicts upon man make him seem less than inconsequential—almost non-existent.

There is an absolute need now for us to get back into harmony with ourselves and with nature. From that point of view, the science of yoga is essential.

Only a few committed people are needed
I’ve spent many years trying to put Yogananda’s teachings in such a way that people will emphatically say, “Yes, this logic is something I can’t refute. It’s absolutely clear and airtight.” I’ve succeeded in some ways in doing this, but do you know what the reaction I’ve generally found is? “Well, it may be true, but I’m just not interested.”

You can fight wrong logic, but you can’t fight lack of interest, and that’s what you find almost universally. But, if we can reach a few committed people here and there, they’re the ones who are going to make a difference in the world anyway.

I remember when Yogananda gave that incredibly powerful talk about world brotherhood colonies at a Beverly Hills garden party. His voice thundered as he said, “I sow this thought in the ether. And my words shall move the West!” What happened? Did crowds come up afterwards and say, “Yes, yes, we want to start communities!” No. Did anybody else that I’ve heard of do it? No. But I did.

If I hadn’t, somebody else would have, because his own words were, “I’m putting this thought in the ether.” Those people who tune in to that power, and know how to use it, can become instruments for his will, whether or not they are disciples of Yogananda.

Tune into Yogananda
When you tune in to a saint, you are tuning in to a particular ray of divine help. You don’t have to be a disciple of that ray to get its benefits. Yogananda was giving a blessing to the whole world when he sent that thought out into the ether. People who inwardly tune in to that thought will suddenly find that a power is coming into their lives.

Our practice of meditation and yoga has less power than that of a great master like Yogananda, yet it very definitely has power. If, when we meditate, we send out thoughts of harmony and peace, it will have a lot more power than if we just talk about peace.

When you meditate, don’t just do it for yourself, but expand the sense of peace or love you feel and consciously send it to others. You’ll find that the power of your thoughts will be much greater than you can imagine.

Thoughts have power
Yoga gives power to our consciousness, and a powerful consciousness has more impact than anything else in the world. They used to say that the pen is mightier than the sword, but thought is mightier than the pen, because that’s what gives the pen its power.

If you have a very strong thought, it will have to come into outward manifestation. A group of people with strongly concentrated minds have a power that can’t be offset by many times their number. A handful of people in the time of Christ were able to change the whole course of civilization, through the influence they exerted on those they touched. Gradually that influence grew, until today there virtually isn’t a corner of the world untouched by the teachings of Christ.

Even now, at the beginning of this new age, we find the man in the street saying things that are totally compatible with yoga, things that would have been unheard of twenty years ago. Most people don’t attribute this to yoga or spirituality, but the fact is, these thoughts have begun to filter down.

People tune into new thought forms
When a new thing is done, it puts a particular new thought form in the ether and this gives a new potential to those people who are able to tune into it. As a few people change, suddenly many people begin to tune into that change. Consider what happens in sports. Once a particular record—like the 4-minute mile—has been broken, many people start to do it. Or, we can look at it from the standpoint of scientific discovery—many times two or more people have made the same discovery simultaneously.

The power that comes from the practice of yoga and meditation is much greater that the power generated by the 4-minute mile. The most important thing going on today is not peace conferences or détentes—it’s people changing their own awareness. In the process they’re sending out rays of divine consciousness that others can tune into.

This is the secret of bringing peace to this age. I’m convinced of it. Yoga and meditation have a role to play in this next step in human evolution. In the future, history will recognize that they were central to the expansion of consciousness that is the hallmark of this age.

From a 1983 talk at Ananda Village.

These teachings were applicable to the East two thousand years ago, where climatic and social factors made it possible to live much more simply than is generally possible today. Then, a little labor would suffice to gain the necessities of life. Warm climate simplified the problem of clothing and housing.

Westerners need not go to the jungle
Jesus was thus not advocating a mode of living far removed from the customary life of his day. Nor would he today advocate a radical change in our customary routine of life. Westerners need not tear down their factories, give up their banks and businesses, and go to the jungle in order to be spiritual.

God’s plan requires that the world evolve through ever-new and varied conditions, and we are now living in a different age. The teacher who is sincerely willing to sow the seeds of spirituality in the hearts of the multitude must accept the conditions of life in the country and age in which he finds himself.

Today Jesus would point out that the forms of life are secondary, and that the only worthwhile change, the only permanent advance, is the inner evolution of man toward spiritual perfection. He would emphasize that the outer conditions of life will never be perfect until the inner is perfect—that the effect cannot precede the cause.

Even if Westerners today desired to carry out the instructions given by Jesus to his Eastern listeners, they would not be able to do so with a good conscience. Family responsibilities in most cases would prevent them from selling all their goods and giving the money to the poor. If they took “no heed for the morrow, what ye shall eat, what ye shall put on,” they would not be acting rightly by those dependent on them, who have a right to expect their support and protection.

Ambition and wealth can be spiritualized
But that does not prevent Westerners from being in every respect true Christians, following faithfully the inner teachings and true essence of Christianity. They can embrace the scientific methods of inner realization from the East, and learn to know God through specific methods of concentration and meditation. They can pursue their worldly activities for the good of others, instead of for selfish ends. Ambition and wealth are spiritualized when used selflessly for the good of others.

Today: central heating needed!
Jesus was able to preach to the multitudes on mountaintops and other outdoor places; news of his meetings spread by word of mouth. But such delightful freedom from hall-rents and advertising expenditures is not possible today in the West where audiences want large, conveniently located, centrally-heated meeting-places with comfortable seats.

If Jesus were preaching today in America, he would employ all the methods of the successful businessman, and use newspapers as a means of attracting today’s multitudes. He would have to erect churches to house the religious multitudes, which would bring with it a need to concentrate on finances and raise money.

From East-West, Sept-Oct 1926.

Science—slowly catching up with yoga
The yogic view of the world, however, is that everything starts with consciousness. Consciousness gives rise to energy, and energy gives rise to matter. (See the article, What Is Consciousness? by Swami Kriyananda) But because we’re coming out of a dark age in the evolution of the planet, our culture as a whole tends to see it in the opposite way: matter gives rise to energy, and energy gives rise to thought.

As late as the start of the 20th century, physics still mainly followed the Newtonian model, which held that atoms, electrons, protons and neutrons, the tiny particles that make up matter, behaved like tiny solid objects.

But then physicists began to realize that the smallest of these particles, the electron, exhibited energy-like behavior. And later they discovered even smaller particles called quarks—the building blocks for protons, neutrons and electrons—which also exhibited energy-like behavior. So by the early 1970s physics was finally saying, “Well, matter really isn’t matter. Matter is energy.”

So as a culture now, we’re going through an evolution. We’re beginning to understand that matter just isn’t matter; matter is energy. The next step is that energy is really thought—consciousness.

The materialistic view of religious experience
But the materialistic perspective is still very much with us. Scientists who subscribe to this view maintain that our thought patterns, our inspirations – even our love for one another – are simply electrical discharges in the brain and the releasing of neurotransmitters. So, not only are we meat that thinks, we’re meat that has spiritual experiences!

A recent well-known study compared the brain activity of Tibetan monks, who were meditating, with Franciscan nuns, who were praying. The study found that the changes that occurred in the brains of the monks and the nuns were surprisingly similar, even though they were doing very different spiritual practices.

Researchers with a materialistic bias interpreted this information as proof that only matter exists. They were pretty much saying, “Oh, well clearly, this is the death of religion. Finally this superstitious folly is going to be put to rest once and for all, because we can now see that spiritual experience is really just brain activity.”

Another researcher found that by outfitting a helmet with special magnets and putting it on a person’s head, he could put that person in a state that felt somewhat like a spiritual experience. He used this experiment to argue that spiritual experiences are merely electrical changes in the brain, and that nothing else is happening.

These scientists believe that there is no spiritual side to consciousness, that it’s just a matter of neurotransmitters and brain chemistry. But there is a growing body of scientific evidence of the existence of aspects of the mind that are totally unrelated to any brain activity.

Scientific evidence that we are more than our bodies
For instance, a recent study on near death experiences, compiled by a surgeon, included cases of people who were clinically dead but who went on to recover.  These people were clinically dead not only in having no heart rate and respiration, but also in having no electrical brain activity on EEG. From a materialistic viewpoint, you would expect that during the period of zero brain activity, they would have had no mental activity.

Yet it turned out that many of these people had extremely vivid memories of what was happening around them at that time. Some were aware of having been outside their bodies, and in various rooms, where they saw things going on that they remembered clearly and accurately. In other words, though their brains were clinically dead, they were mentally active.

There’s also well documented evidence for past life recall, particularly in children who have remembered a previous lifetime. They’re able to speak a language that they’ve never heard in this lifetime, or they bring forward a talent, such as playing a musical instrument, that they’ve never been exposed to previously.

And there are studies showing the effects of prayer. It’s been demonstrated that with prayer we can dramatically affect others, irrespective of distance and time. Such effects would be impossible if prayers were only electrical discharges in the brain of the person praying.

What is superconsciousness?
We thus have evidence of mental experiences that we can’t account for by looking at the physical structure of the brain, and its chemical and electrical activity. This evidence suggests the possibility of some greater non-physical reality that’s completely independent of the brain. Yogis refer to that reality as superconsciousness.

When we talk about the levels of mind, there’s a subconscious and a conscious aspect that most people are pretty well aware of. Most people know that when they are sleeping, they’re in subconsciousness, and that when they are awake and doing things, they’re in a normal, conscious state. But very few people know about this much more refined state of superconsciousness that yogis encourage us to aspire to.

Yogananda said it very clearly. He said, “Superconsciousness is where God dwells.” And to know God, we have to open ourselves to superconsciousness.

The Brain: a window onto superconsciousness
Yogananda described the brain and central nervous system as a window onto the superconscious mind. When we meditate deeply, when our minds are very still, we open this window, this pathway, to superconsciousness.

Our brain and nervous system are the “medium” through which we have our experience of inner communion, but inner communion itself occurs at a subtler level than the physical brain.

Tuning an old-style radio
We access superconsciousness by attuning ourselves to it. I’ve always felt that what Swami Kriyananda once said about the process of doing that was an ideal way of describing it. He said, “It’s a little bit like tuning an old-style radio where you had a little knob, and you were trying to find a particular station. And sometimes, you’d have to turn it just right to get the static to go away and to actually hear the radio program.”

We’re doing much the same thing when we meditate. We’re trying to tune out all of the mental static that keeps us tied down to the conscious plane. And when we do that, suddenly this window to superconsciousness opens up, and we’re experiencing great joy and great love.

Kriya Yoga will take you to superconsciousness
We have been engineered to experience these superconscious states. It’s just a question of applying our will power and perseverance, and also remembering that God and Guru are working with us, trying to pull us through this window. We have powerful allies on the other side.

When Yogananda came to the West in 1920, he brought with him not only the inspiration of one who had achieved God-realization, but also Kriya Yoga, a practical, step by step technique by which all of us can achieve that exalted state. Yogananda said Kriya Yoga works like mathematics— “Kriya Yoga plus devotion cannot fail to give you God realization.” That’s a wonderful promise.

Dr. Peter Van Houten, a Lightbearer and Ananda Village resident, is the founder and medical director of the Sierra Family Medical Clinic near Ananda Village. He has written and lectured widely on the human brain and nervous system.

Radical answers to today’s problems in education
Six years ago I became director of Ananda’s Living Wisdom School in Palo Alto, which is based on Education for Life principles, and I found myself right in the middle of a revolution. Education for Life has given us radical answers to the problems in education today, not just for devotees but for everyone.

Not long ago a woman came to check out our school for her child. She said, “Every school in this area promises to deal with body, mind and spirit. They all promise to create moral, ethical individuals, and to work with students’ emotional and social challenges. But you are the only ones that seem to be doing it.” This was an exaggeration, perhaps, but she was tuning into something.

Another time a professional, who specialized in assessing children with possible learning challenges, said to me, “I go to all the schools in the area. I test the kids and talk to the teachers. And your school is the optimal learning environment.” But she couldn’t say why; she couldn’t put a name to it.

They’re exuding joy!
And then one day, when I was giving a tour to prospective parents, there was a young woman who asked questions that allowed me to address all the important issues. After everybody left, she stayed.

“I have a confession to make,” she said. “I’m not a parent. I’m really a spy.” It turned out that she was working on her PhD dissertation in education and child psychology and was visiting all the schools in the area.

She continued, “I knew this place was different when I stepped on the grounds. But I didn’t know why until I saw the kids.  Your kids smile a lot.  They’re laughing. They’re exuding joy. You don’t find that in other schools.”

What these people had tuned into was the consciousness with which our teachers and children come together to learn—the consciousness of joy in everything. The premise underlying Education for Life is that the sole purpose of life is to learn who you truly are. And who you truly are—beyond the body, mind, and personality—is the soul, and the soul’s nature is joy.

Our job is not to “fix” them
I say to parents of prospective students: “What we’re doing here may look on the surface pretty normal, but this is a radical approach to education, and it will challenge all of your traditional notions. It’s radical because, first and foremost, we’re addressing the original goodness in our children. And when you do that, the whole educational scenario becomes positive, affirmative.”

The children who come to our school are accepted as souls, sparks of the Divine who carry within soul perfection. Our job is not to “fix” them or prepare them for the new global economy, even though all that will conceivably happen.

Our job is to give them the tools that will enable them to express their unique gifts. In order to do that, one has to define education in terms of life’s true goal, which is Self-realization. And then, one has to shine on the children the light of total affirmation of their souls, and of all their gifts.

A false equation: money equals happiness
One typical case is a student who came to us from a very high-powered private school. The focus of that school is to get the students into a premier college, so that they can get a premier profession, make a lot of money, and be happy. But experience tells us that this equation doesn’t work. We all know too many highly educated, successful professionals who are desperately unhappy in their lives.

The only point of anybody’s life is to find true happiness. And when you’re really clear about that, you don’t impose on children this other very false equation. Instead, you see who they are at the deepest level and support them. That doesn’t mean you turn away from any areas of weakness. It simply means you don’t define the child in terms of them.

And so when this student first came he had some difficulties. But we soon realized that he was truly gifted, though not in ordinary ways. However, at the first parent conference, his parents wanted to focus on his deficiencies.

I finally interrupted and asked, “What do you see as his strengths?” And they began to delineate them. But they were all within the paradigm of what’s going to work for him when he goes to college. Yet this child’s talents lie a bit outside convention. His artistic sensibility is comic. He makes people laugh! And so, we support him and give him a stage—within reason. He is now coming into his own, even in the academic areas that have typically challenged him.

“When I help these people I’m happy”
We have one student, a girl, who went with us on a service project to a place in San Francisco that offers weekly suppers for the homeless. The idea behind this program is to remind the guests of our shared humanity. So each week the same people are honored at a sit down dinner with multiple courses, and volunteers serve them.

This girl, who tends toward the “glass-half-empty” approach to life, said to her teacher one night, “You know, my parents are trying to talk me into therapy. And I tell them that all I really need to do is to just come here. Because when I’m helping these people, I don’t even think about myself, and then I’m happy.”

I thought to myself, there’s no way in the world we could have taught her that. She had to experience it. And that’s in large part what Education for Life is—the opportunity to experience these truths for ourselves.

Teaching meditation
Because our children are in an environment where meditation is a key idea and practice, and they see the teachers modeling it, most want to experience it for themselves. We start with the breath.

When our children get too excited or upset, we teach them to breathe, and we draw the connection between controlling the breath and calming the mind and emotions. We let them practice calming the breath before a big test or baseball game and they find out for themselves that it works.

An academic track record
Inevitably there are the parents who say, “I know this is a magical school, but the magic stops at 5th grade. Then we get serious. Right? We have to prepare the children for the real world.” Sometimes they have a crisis of faith, even parents who’ve been with us for years. That’s when I am grateful that we now have a track record.

After 11 years, graduates of the Palo Alto Living Wisdom School are beginning to make their way into life’s larger arenas. And the evidence shows that when a child is affirmed at the soul level, everything else follows, including academic excellence and personal development.

Our students who take the national private high school entrance exams tend to score above the 90th percentile across the board. Students who have great capabilities are testing out in the top 1 or 2 percentile nationally. Some students, who, because of learning challenges, don’t perform as well on standardized tests, leave us with their self-worth intact, affirmed as fine artists, poets, computer whizzes, athletes. Admissions officers at premier private schools in the area characterize our graduates as independent thinkers, self-possessed, friendly, and creative.

We’re academically rigorous, but it is not as obvious as it might be at other schools. One parent said, “I got upset because I thought the kids weren’t getting enough homework. Then I looked around, and I realized—gosh, my son was doing three hours of homework a night, but he was so happy about it, I didn’t realize it.”

Now that’s an extreme case. But when the priorities are right and you have the power of your conviction behind them, the revolution is possible.

A Lightbearer and long-term member of Ananda, Helen resides in the Palo Alto Ananda community. She is the principal of the Palo Alto Living Wisdom School.

Let every man gather from five to ten thousand dollars and, in groups of thirty, let them build self-sustaining, self-governing colonies, starting with California. Do not spend the principal of the money, except what is necessary to buy land and start the colony. Put the money in a trust fund. Pay taxes with the interest… Produce only the necessities of life. Time should not be wasted in producing luxuries.

The need for colonies
In the first edition of Autobiography of Yogi, (1946) Paramhansa Yogananda spoke of colonies as a cure to the world’s ills.
Far into the night my dear friend—the first Kriya Yogi in America—discussed with me the need for world colonies on a spiritual basis. The ills attributed to an anthropomorphic abstraction called “society” may be laid more realistically at the door of Everyman. Utopia must spring in the private bosom before it can flower in civic virtue. Man is a soul, not an institution; his inner reforms alone can lend permanence to outer ones. By stress on spiritual values, self-realization, a colony exemplifying world brotherhood is empowered to send inspiring vibrations far beyond its scale.

Hermitages for families
During the fall of 1951, four months before his mahasamadhi, Paramhansa Yogananda spoke with Kamala Silva, a disciple since 1925, about the importance of spiritual communities.
On one of the drives along the coast, Master spoke to me of the value of world brotherhood colonies. He referred to the forming of groups within a city or rural area in a manner of hermitage life, among members who do not desire to become renunciates, or cannot do so because of certain obligations.

Such a life would enable each one to be in daily association with those who share the same spiritual goal. He described such colonies as made up of married couples and their families, as well as single people, who have the will to serve, and to live in harmony with one another. Master envisioned the idea as one in which all may work together in a self-supporting group wherein each one is dedicated to God.

Excerpted from The Flawless Mirror by Kamala Silva (1964), distributed by Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

A counter-balance to federalism
In The Road Ahead, Swami Kriyananda recorded Yogananda’s predictions on the future importance of communities.
Cooperative communities of the future, the Master said, will exist everywhere. They will be places, as Ananda is now, where people will gather for commonly held, high-minded purposes, and not only for economic security. They will serve as an important balance to governmental centralization, and will to a great extent relieve the governments of the world of the burden of caring for the sick and the aged; for such communities would naturally look after their own.

Such villages would not be isolated from the rest of the world, as they used to be in times of slow transportation and communication; they would form a vital part of the world at large, and would reach out to that world in a spirit of broader cooperation, learned on the field of actual, personal experience at home. For world brotherhood can hardly be developed except through this doorway of direct experience in brotherhood on a small scale first. It can hardly even be understood without at least a few small, model examples.

Excerpted from The Road Ahead, by Swami Kriyananda, 1967.

Byasa. Yes I have. Today there are two conflicting ideas about where all the tumultuous change in our present-day world is leading. One is that we are descending into a moral abyss that will lead to self-destruction or, possibly, the end-of-the-world.

The other is that we are steadily advancing toward greater technological power and control. One perspective offers global darkness and decay, while the other envisions a world characterized by a sterile, super-advanced material technology.

The concept of the yuga cycles offers something much more hopeful than either of these two views—a world of expanded consciousness in which people are becoming more in tune with God and nature.

Q. What is the source of our knowledge of the yuga cycles?

Byasa. Sri Yukteswar wrote about the yugas in The Holy Science in order to give us an alternative framework for understanding the present-day world. He explained that mankind’s ability to grasp spiritual knowledge varies according to which yuga we are in.

There are eight yugas, four descending yugas and four ascending yugas, which make up a full 24,000-year cycle. The world goes through these 24,000-year cycles repeatedly, much as we repeatedly go through the seasons of the year.

During a descending cycle of 12,000 years, the consciousness of humanity becomes increasingly limited and materialistic, whereas during an ascending 12,000 year cycle, humanity gradually increases in awareness and understanding.

According to Sri Yukteswar, the first yuga, Satya Yuga—the age of truth, lasts 4800 years. This is the golden age of consciousness in which man, because of his spiritual development, lives in tune with the Divine. Following Satya Yuga is Treta Yuga; the age of mind, which lasts 3600 years; then Dwapara Yuga, a 2400-year age of energy, followed by Kali Yuga or “dark age” of 1200 years, in which the human intellect can only comprehend the gross material creation.

After the world descended to the lowest point of Kali Yuga in 500 AD, the sequence began to repeat itself in reverse order, starting with a 1200-year period of ascending Kali Yuga. In 1700 AD we began a 200-year transition into Dwapara Yuga. Dwapara Yuga began in 1900 AD.

Q. Dwapara Yuga is known as the  “age of energy.” What does this mean?

Byasa. In the age of Dwapara, energy will be seen as the reality behind all appearances, not matter or form. According to the yuga timetable, we entered fully into the age of Dwapara in 1900 AD. Six years later, Einstein published his papers showing the equivalence of matter and energy, which revolutionized our concept of the physical universe and laid the foundations for modern science.

Q. Yet, materialism and attachment to form are still very strong. How do you explain this?

Byasa. There are energies everywhere that want desperately to turn back the clock and hold onto the values of Kali Yuga. The forces moving us forward into Dwapara Yuga are doing battle with these energies. We see an expression of this conflict in religious fundamentalism, terrorism, political corruption, greed—those elements in society that want to keep us attached to materialism and outward form.

Of course, some of these things are part of the transition—the destruction of the old to make way for the new. One of the consequences, however, is that many people are confused about what our new values should be.

Q. Is this type of societal tumult characteristic of the transition between the yugas?

Byasa. Indeed it is! The collapse of civilizations seems to be one of the hallmarks of this changeover. For instance, the Egyptian dynastic civilization, which was founded at the beginning of descending Dwapara Yuga in 3100 BC, lasted only during that yuga. It collapsed with the opening centuries of descending Kali Yuga, in 750 BC.

The Roman Empire, which was founded in 753 BC, lasted only during that period of descending Kali Yuga. It was destroyed at the lowest point of Kali Yuga, 500 AD, which also saw the destruction of civilizations in India and China. These changes cleared the way for the beginnings of an ascending Kali Yuga.

The transition into ascending Dwapara Yuga, which began in 1700 AD, saw the birth of the European Industrial Revolution, which was the first major manifestation of Dwapara Yuga consciousness. The period 1700-1900 AD witnessed the French and American political revolutions—radical movements away from oppressive systems of government. In our own century we have seen the dissolution of great empires like those of Britain and the USSR, and the ending of colonialism throughout the world. These changes have helped clear the way for ascending Dwapara Yuga.

Q. What further changes do you see in the near future?

Byasa. Already we have seen great advances in the fields of electronics, air travel, medicine, and communications. Along with that we will see the continued breakdown of established institutions, national boundaries and cultural groupings. In science and religion there will be shattered dogmas and disillusionment. People will be confused, angry, searching. Kali Yuga will not go away peacefully. However, after a period of chaos, people attuned to the Dwapara energies will pick up the pieces and build a society appropriate to this new age.

Q. What is the greatest challenge of Dwapara Yuga?

Byasa. The major challenge of Dwapara Yuga is to learn how to use energy wisely. An age of energy gives people of Kali Yuga consciousness the power to realize their most evil dreams.

The first major application of our new understanding of energy was the development of the atomic bomb during World War II. This was a momentous step in warfare and certainly the fulfillment of the dreams of military leaders for thousands of years. However, once we had developed such a bomb, we then had to face the ethical question of whether or not to use it.

Q. Does the yuga concept challenge basic assumptions in Western science?

Byasa. Very much so. Western science is loath to admit that there may have been civilizations in the past more advanced than we are today. Among the so-called primitive cultures of 10,000 years ago, war was unknown and they lived in harmony with their environment.

Can we really say that they were less “advanced” than we are today? We are wedded to the idea that humanity has made steady progress from ape to astronaut, a notion that has blinded us to evidence that people in ancient times understood the world in a different and deeper way than we do today.

Q. In what ways can knowledge of the yugas help us to grow spiritually?

Byasa. Right now the changeover to Dwapara Yuga is a period of turmoil and change, bringing tests directly into our daily life. If we can approach this new age with a joyful, positive attitude and really understand the deeper meaning behind it, then the seeming chaos will be easier to accept and will, in fact, help us to move forward spiritually.

Sri Yukteswar explains that it is possible for devotees in any yuga to experience the same levels of consciousness enjoyed by people in the higher yugas. In other words, liberation may be easier to attain in Satya Yuga, but we don’t have to wait ten thousand years for that opportunity.

Byasa Steinmetz, a Lightbearer and resident of Ananda Sacramento, is currently working on a book about the yugas. His scientific career has included optical engineering and astronomy.

What are the religious differences between Kali Yuga and Dwapara Yuga? Kali Yuga is the age of solid matter and consequently religion and its institutions appear fixed and solid. When you visit the great cathedrals you see big, heavy buildings. During a materialistic age worshipers follow prescribed prayers and rituals designed to please the Lord so He, much like a king or judge, will grant their wishes.

In this age of Dwapara Yuga, the heaviness of materialism and institutionalism has given way to energy. True religion is seeking inner communion with God.

We don’t need stained glass, high spires, and a standard book of prayer. All we need is a quiet place to meditate, to go within and, in the stillness of deep inner communion, to realize that we are but an extension of God’s consciousness and energy.

From a talk.

History’s great theories don’t work
Walters states, unequivocally, that change begins with the individual, not with grandiose theories that don’t take into account flesh and blood human beings. Much of the book is devoted to analyzing the theories of great thinkers such as Plato, Copernicus, Machiavelli, Adam Smith, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, and Sigmund Freud. Walters shows not only how their influence has proved adverse, but also offers deeply considered alternatives.

Yet, as Milton Staackman says in the introduction, “This book…doesn’t reject the wisdom of the past. It is even-handed, intelligent, and respectful of the genius every culture possesses. At the same time, it repeatedly asks a very simple question: ‘Does it work?’” This key question shows why the great theories of history have failed to create the perfect world.

Communism, for instance, while promising a utopia, has inflicted only misery on large segments of humanity. Machiavelli’s book, The Prince, which advised rulers to behave ruthlessly, became a virtual bible for men like Napoleon and Hitler and ultimately led to their downfall. Sigmund Freud offered learned theories, but concentration on one’s problems, as distinguished from positive life goals, is clearly not the best way to reach a solution.

A need for practical solutions
In a recent interview Walters said of these authors, “I realized that most of them had simply asked the wrong questions. It wasn’t so much that they were wrong given their own contexts.  Rather, it was that the contexts were too narrow. And the conclusions they came to were discouraging, not hopeful. I saw in every case that their vision was limited.”

Walters goes on to say that first and foremost what cooperative communities have to offer is practical solutions, not mere theories. What is needed, according to Walters, is a change in consciousness, something that small groups in particular can demonstrate. As people see changes in action, they will be convinced. The beauty of conducting small experiments is that they can be adjusted as necessary by those interested in doing so, instead of trying to force the experiments on people who aren’t interested.

Cooperation: a key to success
The “great thinkers” of the past based their theories upon the idea of competition between individuals, but Walters shows that cooperation is the key to success in any field of endeavor. Drawing upon his personal experience in developing communities, he describes how, by fostering a spirit of cooperation, communities can inspire people to fulfill their own higher potentials and to deepen their relationships with others.

Walters argues persuasively that just as the Wright Brothers persuaded people that a heavier than air object could fly, even though all the experts said it was impossible, so also will people be convinced of the value of small communities when they see for themselves the kinds of changes communities make possible.

Hope for a Better World! offers compelling solutions to many of the challenges that face humanity today. In so doing, it succeeds in offering real hope for a better world.

Hope For a Better World can be ordered by calling 800-424-1055.

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Kali Yuga, which represented a