FOLLY

An ant sees its reflection in a puddle of water, a case of the ant looking at itself looking at itself.  The ant extends one leg into the water as if to touch the other ant, except that by doing so it causes a ripple, whereupon the other ant goes away.  Fearing that it has itself gone away, the ant dives into the puddle to get itself back, whereupon it also goes away.

BHAKTI YOGA

In Vedanta, there are four principal yogas or paths to union with God.  They are jnana yoga, the path of knowledge; karma yoga, the path of selfless work; raja yoga, the path of formal meditation; and bhakti yoga, the path of devotion.
 
Bhakti yoga is the most natural path to God-realization.  The bhakta does not suppress his emotions, but rather intensifies them and directs them to God.  The majority of believers in all the great religions are followers of this path.

After cultivating a strong love for his Chosen Ideal, who is God as a personal being, of which there are many, the bhakta will merge with that Chosen Ideal.  A Chosen Ideal is a divine incarnation or avatar such as, for example, Rama, Krishna, Buddha, and Jesus.
     
The attitude a bhakta assumes toward his Chosen Ideal is called bhava, defined as a state of being, feeling, emotion; in its mature form it is experienced as ecstasy. 
 
The five primary bhavas are (1) shanta, the attitude of peace and serenity in which the Chosen Ideal is felt near although no definite relationship has been established between the bhakta and the Chosen Ideal; (2) dasya, the attitude of a servant toward a master, or a child toward a parent/protector; (3) sakhya, the attitude of a friend toward a friend; (4) vatsalya, the attitude of a parent toward a child; and (5) madhura, the attitude of a wife toward her husband, or a lover toward his or her beloved.

There are stages in bhakti yoga:  (1) again bhakti, devotion; (2) again bhava, ecstasy; (3) prema, where the bhakta forgets the world and his own body; (4) mahabhava, which is the highest manifestation of love between a bhakta and his Chosen Ideal.

Only avatars, and ishvarakotis, perfect souls similar to avatars, can transcend the stage of bhava, ecstasy.

THE URGE: A SHORT STORY

He was a professional house painter when he was a young man, and they were the happiest times of his life.  What he liked about it was that it was direct experience so-called, the real world; there was nothing philosophical about painting a house.

Now that he was an old man, though, he could no longer do that kind of work, despite still feeling the urge.  He felt it so much so, in fact, that he would like to make a spiritual practice out of it, not the painting part but the working with his hands part, making something with my hands.  It would be bhakti, devotional yoga, directed toward his Chosen Ideal, Jesus, who was a carpenter.  If what he made was useful to others so that he could donate it to them, so much the better.

A pitfall to it, however, was feeling that he might need to be thanked for what he made and donated.  He didn’t want to be thanked for it, or, for that matter, thanked for anything.  He could only do the work therefore, if he did so anonymously, in the shadows.  Yet, he wasn’t sure whether the absence of encouragement by others would be sufficient to keep him at it.  He was only human, after all.
 
If there was another drawback to it, it was boredom, getting tired of the work over time.  He would have to come up with a variety of projects or products to keep him interested, and honestly there were only so many of those that he could imagine.
 
A third negative was that it would become like employment, like a full-time job, and as a retired person, this was the last thing he needed.  Bhakti yoga was not meant to be a job.

This left him wondering whether the pull of physical work that he was feeling was really, in the end, an attempt to recapture his youth, those happy times.  The more he thought about it, the more it seemed it was, so out the window went the whole idea.  He’d just be retired and watch television all day.

Or would he?  A week later he was teaching other people how to make things with their hands and donate them to those who could use them, still bhakti yoga, and he was happy, happier than he'd been in years, in fact.

RAMAKRISHNA AND CHRISTIANITY

Ramakrishna felt a keen sympathy for any and every religion that sincerely struggled to know God.

There is the story of one of Ramakrishna’s attendants who was a devout student of all religious scriptures, and who was the first to read to Ramakrishna from the Bible and to speak to him of Jesus of Nazareth.  Ramakrishna soon began to dwell on the personality of Jesus.

In a garden house near the temple where Ramakrishna resided were pictures on the wall of holy personalities, including one of the Virgin Mary with the child Jesus on her lap.  This picture Ramakrishna became particularly attracted to.

One day while looking at it, he felt that the figures of the Mother and Child began to shine, and that rays of light burst forth from them.  This caused a major shift in Ramakrishna’s consciousness, to where he felt that his Hindu way of thinking had been pushed into the back of his mind.  Now, he was filled with love for Jesus and for Christianity.

As the story went, one evening while he was taking a walk, he saw a tall, stately man with a fair complexion coming towards him, looking at him steadily as he did so.  Ramakrishna could see that he was a foreigner.  He had large eyes of uncommon brilliance and his face was beautiful. 

At first Ramakrishna wondered who this stranger was, when suddenly a voice within him said, “This is Jesus the Christ, the great yogi, the loving son of God who shed his blood and was tortured for the salvation of mankind!”  When the two met, Jesus embraced Ramakrishna and, according to the story, passed into his body.

Something similar occurred during Ramakrishna’s introduction to other religions, which is why, to this day, all faiths are welcome in Vedanta.

RESURRECTION: A SHORT STORY

What was this feeling?  Despite being christened in the Episcopal Church and baptized in the Baptist Church, he was not a Christian.  He no longer believed in the teachings of Christianity.  What then was this large “pectoral cross” doing on his chest, not literally a cross but mystically one?

He felt branded like a steer.  One of Christ’s own was what he now appeared to be, had always been, since at least his christening and baptism.  As though dormant for years, suddenly his Christianity was back.

An internet photo of a Christian rock/psychedelic band from the 1960’s was what brought all this on.  He used to go see them perform all the time.  In the photo, the lead singer was wearing a purple pullover, like a vestment, with a gold cross embroidered on the front of it.  There was something about this, something in his subconscious or unconscious mind that responded to it, as though he himself had once worn the same thing, only not as the member of a band.

So, he was once a Christian.  Fine.  But he was not now, he insisted.  Yet whether he was a believer or not didn't seem to matter.  There was still this considerable cross on his chest.

NOTICING

We are surrounded by countless other living things, but we don’t acknowledge them as such.  We see them only as objects.   

Other living things appreciate, in their way, being noticed as something living.  Spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle says that they welcome being paid attention to, even if only for a moment.  Tolle cites the example of a flower.  A flower knows, in a flower’s way, when it is being looked at, admired, and it values it.
 
A tree, especially a tree that has lived a long time, is likewise well aware of being looked at.  This writer is eternally grateful to three ancient Coastal Oaks at the Los Angeles County Arboretum.  Their presence he felt so intensely that it changed the whole course of his life.   

What is felt is that all living things are Brahman.  When living things notice each other it is Brahman doing the noticing. 

GETTING WHAT WE WANT

Much of what we want is only what we think we want. 
 
Life is perfectly willing to give us whatever we want, if we are persistent about it, constantly wishing for it over a period of time.  The reason Life is willing to do so is because it knows, in its way, how it will turn out, that before long we will be disappointed.
 
Life’s accommodating us this way is so we will get what we want out of our systems.   Vedanta calls this “purification,” clearing things off the table so we can concentrate on the real purpose of existence which is spiritual awakening, union with God.  This is to say, we cannot awaken spiritually as long as we have unfinished business, "wants" that we believe we need to explore, to experience, to understand.

But the reason we will be dissatisfied once we get what we want is because the thing, the person, the situation we want is ever changing; it doesn’t stay what it was when we first got it.  But then we ourselves are constantly changing, too, which is to say, the one who wants the thing, the person, the situation, is not the same individual who gets it, and the one who gets it is not the same individual who has to live with it.

ALL THE BELLIES

A heron is wading through a pond where he spots a small fish swimming at his feet.  He bends down and gobbles it up.  The fish drops into the belly of the heron where it is dark and getting ever darker.  Suddenly, though, he finds himself in another belly where he is born back into the world of form, not as a fish but as a heron.  Back at the pond, the original heron sits in the belly of an alligator where it is growing ever darker.

ONE THING

So consumed are we by our individual lives that we forget that we are all one thing.  This one thing has been likened to a spider’s web.

As philosopher Alan Watts described it, “Imagine a multidimensional spider’s web in the early morning covered with dew drops.  And every dew drop contains the reflection of all the other dew drops.  And, in each reflected dew drop, the reflections of all the other dew drops in that reflection.  And so ad infinitum.”

In Zen this is called ji ji muge, the mutual interpenetration of all things and events.  In Vedanta, it is called Brahman.

A TEACHING BY SWAMI PRABHAVANANDA

“What is the true nature of man?  Sat-chit-ananda-Brahman.  Pure consciousness.  Life eternal.  Abiding love.  And infinite joy.  That is your true nature, your Atman, which is one with Brahman.

“Now in this connection, let me point out that there are two kinds of truth.  One kind of truth is that which we realize by the five senses, perceive by the five senses, my sense of hearing, my sense of touch, my sense of vision, and so forth; I see this universe of name and form.  Then again from what I sense and perceive, I get certain data out of them and from such data I can come to an inference, a conclusion, which also would be the truth, if my logic is correct.  Now, this is known as scientific or empirical knowledge.

“There’s another kind of truth which is known as transcendental vision, and which is called also yogic knowledge, yogic realization, yogic experience.  And he who attains this knowledge--and what does that mean?--when he can abide in his true nature, when he realizes his true nature is sat-chit-ananda-brahman, then it is that he has attained the purpose, the fulfilment of human birth and human life.

“Now again, the Atman/Brahman that is within each one of us is never affected by anything, by our actions, by our thoughts, by our deeds.  In other words, you are always, forever, your Brahman, nothing else. 
 
“As my master (Swami Brahmananda) said, he sees Brahman in so many masks, the mask of a thief, the mask of a lustful man, the mask of a saint, but it is all Brahman, one reality.  And that is why a great seer who has attained that knowledge never hates anybody.  He has love for everybody, because he loves the reality of God within himself, and he sees that same God everywhere.”--From “Eight Limbs of Yoga” by Swami Prabhavananda, recorded in 1971.

GOD JOB: A SHORT STORY

When he was in Sixth Grade he wanted to be a minister, just like his favorite pastor at the local church.  He wanted a God job like Rev. Nielsen had.  By the time he was an adult, though, it was clear to him that while his heart was in the right place, his head was not.  There were forces pulling him in other directions than the ministry, not an uncommon story.

The biggest force drawing him in other directions was what turned out to be his nature.  He found that he was introverted, introspective, interior, shy even, not what ministers needed to be.  Ministers had a congregation to serve and they could not do so if they were in a shell like him.

He decided that an Eastern religion was better suited to him, one that emphasized meditation.  The place to begin, it seemed to him, was yoga, hatha or physical yoga, and raja or mental yoga.  Especially raja yoga appealed to him as it was mystical.
 
Thus, he practiced yoga for a year, after which he took a World Religions class, studying Taoism, Jainism, Vedantism, Shintoism, and Buddhism, thinking that this would intensify what by now he was feeling.  Alas, though, it did not.  It was all interesting, intellectually, but it was not what he was after, really.  Again he turned his attention inward.

What he was feeling, he concluded, was the rise of the Atman in him, to borrow the Vedanta model.  The Atman in him was being drawn to its source the Brahman, on a quest that would only end with the Atman’s awakening.  Enabling this awakening, not resisting it in other words, was what he now needed to do.  This would be his God job from here on.

LINE OF LIVES

Which life are you this time?

TIME OUTLIVES US

The clock by our death beds keeps ticking after we are gone.  We don’t take time with us.

THE WRONG WORD

I am rereading The Cloud of Unknowing and The Book of Privy Counseling by an anonymous Christian writer of the 14^th Century.  The books are a spiritual guide on contemplative prayer.   

Their underlying message is that the only way to truly “know” God is to give up all preconceived notions or “knowledge” about God, surrendering, instead, to what the author calls “unknowingness.”  A glimpse of the true nature of God will then arise.  A similar idea is in Vedanta.

When I first read these books five years ago, I was inspired greatly, and am feeling so again today.  But one aspect of them bothers me.  They use the word “love” a lot, regarding both God’s relationship to us and our relationship to him.

Love is a loaded term, with much baggage, and it means different things to different people.  Thus, when it is used to describe our relationship with the divine, it is confusing, misleading, because it feels like the wrong word.  We think of it as ordinary, everyday love.

But love on this level defies definition, in the same way that God himself cannot be defined.  In place of “love,” it seems to me better to say that it is something like love?  God’s love for us and our love for God resembles love, but it is not love.