The teachings of Jesus Christ emphasized the importance of serving the needs of the poor and downtrodden. This emphasis continues in Christianity and must be applauded. But in the twenty-first century, there is something else needed, too, for there exists a spiritual illness in society on a global level never seen before in human history. Lacking meaningful, committed, long-term relationships and family and social stability, human consciousness, armed with relative wealth and powers of destruction stands at a crossroads. We all feel it in so many different and individual ways.
Society has the power and wealth to address the material needs of the poor and downtrodden, but we don’t have the will. We don’t have the feeling of our connectedness out of which naturally arises the desire to help others. This same lack of awareness and connection is also seen in how we have treated planet Earth. There is an illness, a deep depression in the human spirit and what is needed is an awakening of our connection with all life. This awakening, to have an impact, doesn’t need to be unanimous among humans. To quote Krishna in the Bhagavad Gita, “Even a little (of this) practice will save you from dire fears and colossal sufferings.”
While Jesus Christ emphasized service to the poor, hungry, imprisoned and homeless, the need today has expanded to serve “the poor in Spirit.” We may be relatively wealthy on a material level, but we lack the Spirit of connection with one another and all life. The poverty that afflicts a greater percentage of humanity is a poverty of the heart.
This form of poverty is what God, through the saints and masters of our age, is guiding us to address in the twenty-first century. For this, yoga and meditation have come to help us get in touch first with ourselves and from this inner connection we can more naturally feel our outer connection with all.
Our age is an age of the “Individual.” Merely telling others that we need to be more connected doesn’t work. It must come from within us according to our own consciousness. It must be real; it must be felt; it must be lived. It cannot be imposed by religion, legislation or cultural norms.
The “Age of the Individual” tends somewhat naturally towards an “Age of Selfishness!” The obvious antidote to the resulting chaos and suffering is the consciousness of connection.
Even from science, from ecology, biology, quantum physics, to astrophysics we hear the message of interdependence. But such messages, too, are impositions from outside our heart’s native feeling. They arise from logic and reason. Reason can tell us the dangers of drugs, alcohol, smoking and self-indulgence but reason is not enough where the candy store of self-indulgence is open to all and appears to be free of charge.
Paramhansa Yogananda, more so than any other great spiritual teacher of the twentieth century, is the herald of the message of connection. He comes in the wake of Ramakrishna Paramhansa and Swami Vivekananda and is joined by many others from both East and West.
But with the large diversity and rivalry among religions, no voice of any existing, single sect or representative will be heard. Since the antidote to our spiritual poverty can only arise within ourselves from a transformation in our own consciousness, an obvious instrument for this change of heart is the practice of meditation. To meditate requires no outward, religious affiliation, belief, or ritual.
Millions of people now meditate, and the most popular form of meditation is called “mindfulness.” Mindfulness is excellent to bring to one’s own awareness the thoughts, biases and prejudices that circulate through us from the subconscious mind including the influence of family, friends, and culture. As my teacher (and founder of Ananda worldwide) would put it: “Awareness precedes control.” Awareness, then, is a good first step.
In my experience and understanding of meditation more is needed than self-awareness. There also must be the desire to change. Change is not easy. In the Civil Rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s some attitudes changed but mostly the changes came through legislation. It was a good first step but the decades since have shown that legislation alone is not enough.
In therapy and addiction rehabilitation, the inadequacy of intention and reason are all too clear. Even wanting to change is all too often not enough. Recognition of the need to draw from a higher power is part and parcel of the recovery movement.
The tradition of meditation as brought to us by Paramhansa Yogananda and as practiced in numerous other faith traditions East and West, posits another force: the superconscious mind. You can call it God if you like; or, the soul, if you prefer. But the main point is that there is a consciousness, a force, greater than the subconscious mind and greater than the conscious mind to which a connection can supply the power (grace) to change. Thus the “next step” in the practice of meditation worldwide is to open to this higher power by whatever name.
In the worldwide work of Ananda, it is sometimes asked “Why do you not conduct humanitarian works?” as a central part of your ministry? The response to this isn’t that we don’t, or don’t want to, or don’t feel it is helpful, but that our work with “the poor” is principally with “the poor in Spirit.”
Addressing the poverty of soul-happiness, the poverty of love born of materialism and the poverty of selfishness born of self-indulgence: this is our ministry. Fostering connection is why communities form a central part of Ananda’s outer work. Community is a natural expression of the consciousness arising from meditation.
Never in human history has the world of humans been so outwardly connected by means of travel, education, and communication. What’s missing is the inner connectivity of deep feeling. Mind you, there is a silent tsunami of souls who seek that connection but thus far there are not enough of us to create a visible and potent influence.
But this is what is needed to avoid the devastating impacts of war with weapons of mass destruction, economic devastation owing to global trade wars fueled by greed, mass migrations fueled by inequalities, and plagues which do not respect the fancy-frozen boundaries of nations.
At the same time, the power of sovereign nations is declining in favor of the power of smaller and more flexible units down to the individual level. National consensus is rapidly being eroded when increasing diversity triggers only suspicion and worse. National governments are increasingly impotent to act owing to extreme polarization.
The natural bonds of the nuclear family are stressed as individualism emphasizes personal choices at the expense of commitment and loyalty. Blended families are increasingly the norm and the bonds of affinity in such groups are loose and free flowing. Family members are now widely dispersed throughout the world with travel, education and global employment. Such trends are not wholly negative, but loyalty and commitment are also enduring virtues which require some form of expression.
New forms of association, family and community are needed to foster stability, loyalty and commitment. Such associations are no longer the natural product of shared race, religion, language or culture. Instead, the new associations arise from consciously embraced values and shared interests and ideals. Such shared interests can be local or global or a blend of each.
Trends affirming personal choices at the expense of meaningful connection too easily generate instability and chaos unless something invisibly potent can inspire and mitigate and even re-direct their consequences. Fortunately, changes in consciousness do not require consensus. A relatively small percentage of people united in a higher cause can change world history.
Jesus Christ and his small band of followers did this. So did Buddha and his disciples. Consider too the founders of America; German composers; Italian sculptors; French playwrights; and the philosophers of Athens, Germany, China, and India. Changes in human history and consciousness can arise from those, however few in number, who are united by superconscious inspiration expressed in various ways.
Fostering a spiritual awakening from within the individual which flowers naturally into “civic virtue” is the essence of the work of Ananda. This work is the grace and inspiration brought to the world by Paramhansa Yogananda and others. Yogananda called it “Self-realization.” It is the perennial philosophy of “Know Thy Self” which appears ever and again throughout human history. And now, in a wired and connected global human race, the need for this perennial Spirit is great. Jesus Christ quoted the Old Testament in summarizing it as “Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, mind, soul and strength; and love thy neighbor as thy Self.”
Blessed are the poor in Spirit who will at last discover the joy within and the joy within all.
Nayaswami Hriman