(Written from India on retreat in a Himalayan hill station)
My first week I was alone on this mountain top in the Himalayan hills. The retreat house’s staff provided meals and other support but we didn’t speak the same language (literally) so I didn’t even need to wear my hearing aids! There was no one else here on retreat.
But alone time bestowed upon me the gift of an unplanned seclusion. Here I was surrounded by mountain and forest beauty bathed in deep silence in the sacred precincts of the Himalaya!
Because neither my surroundings nor anyone around me was familiar, I had the opportunity to step back even from myself; my habits of thought and opinions, my inner dialogue, and indeed my own life (now that I’m 75 years young).
What I observed about myself was unexpected. It was not flattering at first, but it was deeply instructive, and I am grateful. After a few days of relative ego emptiness, I experienced a flood of gratitude and inspiration.
Each day, I would meditate, chant and read and walked the beautiful gardens on this hilltop retreat. (Meals were provided by the staff: fresh, tasty Indian mountain meals!) My primary reading was a book I brought along with me that chronicles the lives of sixteen monastic direct disciples of Ramakrishna. Their devotion, austerities, and missionary zeal was just what I needed to tune into. Their stories take place close to the time of Yogananda’s own life and being here in India made the stories especially relevant and interesting. The connection and parallels between Ramakrishna and his disciples and Yogananda’s life are very relevant and instructive.
I found myself contrasting the intention of seclusion (to deepen one’s devotion and experienced God contact) with the more mundane or day-to-day aspects of the spiritual life. I asked myself: is the time spent to read spiritual books, practice prayer, meditation, and selfless service enough? We pray to “God” and the “masters,” and perhaps “Divine Mother,” but do we really seek to make contact and experience divine love and joy? Do we yearn for union with God, eternal bliss, samadhi or cosmic consciousness? Are these lofty goals just so beyond our reach that they are empty words? Could such goals even be a threat to our comfortable spiritual life?
Swami Kriyananda, founder of Ananda worldwide, encouraged us to aspire to enlightenment in THIS life. Paramhansa Yogananda urged disciples to memorize his poem, Samadhi. I did so some years ago and I recite it to myself every day. It subtly transmits packets of cosmic consciousness into my brain!
Let us remind ourselves of the simple truth that we have to WANT soul freedom. We have to WANT to know and love God. Yogananda would say “You have to make love to God” to find freedom.
But how and by what name or form? Endless debates occur through ages on which form or name is the best. Some say Jesus Christ is the only “way;” others, Lord Shiva; others, yet Krishna or Buddha and on and on. Ramana Maharshi says we should ask “Who is this I?”
I visited a beautiful ashram in the wooded hills not far from this retreat house. It is called Advaita Ashrama. It was founded by Swami Vivekananda with the support of two of his followers, a couple from England (I assume). Vivekananda dedicated the ashram to the search for the formless God, the Eternal Brahma, beyond all name and form. Years later after Vivekananda’s passing, one of the resident monks began conducting worship ceremonies. Ramakrishna’s wife, the Holy Mother, was consulted and she forbad the monk from conducting services at this ashram owing to the wishes of Swami Vivekananda. But this was not to imply that such worship was forbidden overall because it was customary throughout the Ramakrishna Order by those monks inclined to do so. Ramakrishna himself was a bhakti whose worship of Divine Mother (as goddess Kali) characterized his life even as his message was to say God is beyond all name and form. One would have thought that it was appropriate to give wide latitude to the monks to express their inspiration. In other ashrams some of the monks DID offer worship. But in this case, owing to Vivekananda’s intentions, it was not allowed.
For fun and to create some mischief, I have created my own “story” behind this story of the Advaita Ashrama. I imagine that the couple who purchased the property in service to Vivekananda’s inspiration were, themselves, dedicated advaitins. After all, a big part of Swami Vivekananda’s message in the West was to disseminate the Advaita path. This message, part of Ramakrishna’s legacy, naturally appeals to westerners. Swami Vivekananda’s inspiration to establish an ashram for the practice of Advaita Vedanta was, I imagine, directly linked to having this outlet in India dedicated to Advaita for the benefit of both his western devotees and this aspect of the teachings.
Paramhansa Yogananda, like Ramakrishna, was more devotional by temperament. He barely got through high school and college except for the insistence and grace of his gyanavatar guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar. Yet Yogananda, too, taught the “both-and” philosophy of God transcendental and yet immanent in all creation.
In Yogananda’s collection of prayer-demands, “Whispers from Eternity,” is the prayer, Worshipping the Cosmic Idol which in part reads: “O Infinite Spirit, I shall worship Thee as finite, today. O Cosmic Silence, I shall hear Thine unheard voice through the murmur of brooks, the song of nightingales, the sound of blown conch-shells, the beat of oceans and the hum of vibrations. India-wise I shall worship Thee, my Idol of Finitude.”
Elsewhere in “Whispers” he prays, “O Eternal Fire, Thou art shooting little flames of souls through the pores of each human consciousness drilled in the plate of the great burner of Thine universal consciousness.”
At Ananda our Sunday Service includes an “arati” before the pictures of the masters of the Self-realization lineage. In this ceremony we express our heart-felt gratitude, devotion and recognition of the divinity present in those forms. We recognize the sacrifice such free souls make by returning to human form for the salvation of truth-seeking souls. At the same time, we recognize that, in truth, God is the guru and is the only reality within and beyond all name and form.
As Krishna responded to his disciple Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, approaching God in name and form is easier for embodied souls. The way of the Absolute is arduous for all but very few. How can the Infinite be less than infinite?
Experiencing the greater Self of the self while yet having a human body and experience is the “greatest story ever told.” This is the story of Jesus Christ, Krishna, Buddha and our own Paramhansa Yogananda. It is OUR story as well. Integrating the ever-changing emotions, thoughts and circumstances of the divine play of God AS the creation with the omnipresent, ever-watchful soul-Self, the only begotten son of the transcendent Spirit beyond creation, is the great drama in which we participate.
In Yogananda’s autobiography he weeps for his lost mother; he disobeys his guru’s first directive; he runs away from his guru to seek the mountains for his guru; he cries in pain in illness and disease. Yet, in cosmic consciousness he pierces the veil of illusion which makes the creation seem real; Divine Mother-Kali appears to him to assure him of Her eternal love.
Jesus prays to the Father that his final test be taken from him; he cries in pain from the cross; yet he is resurrected; he forgives his tormentors; he heals the sick and raises the dead; he declares “I and my Father are One!”
We may not be avatars, but we certainly experience the “highs” of inspiration and “lows” of selfishness. We only need, with guru’s grace, to “improve our knowing” of our true divine nature to ascend towards soul freedom.
This story of ours will never end. Yogananda when asked replied that it “ends in endlessness!”
Thus, it is that my seclusion gave me an experience of what it is like to tear the veil of my own self-definitions to reveal anew the ever-joyful Self. For this I am, once and ever again, deeply grateful.
Blessings to you in your journey to Self-realization!