Lesson Four I WILL HOP FROM ETERNITY TO ETERNITY WHISPERS FROM ETERNITY PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA

Transcription

1 Lesson Four I WILL HOP FROM ETERNITY TO ETERNITY WHISPERS FROM ETERNITY BY PARAMHANSA YOGANANDA My gold-gossamer astral body, shining with the spark of immortality, hopped, cricket-like, from one blade of existence to another. Thou hast clothed the barren soil of eternity with grass-blades of many cycles of time. I will hop to them one by one, from one blade of pleasure to another until I can leap to the safety of Thy reassuring hands. With living threads of Thy joy I was formed. I am happy to have danced my part in this cosmic show. But I have done, now, with restless hopping. I would find rest, at last, in cosmic changelessness. Human lives, again, like slowly moving camels, plod ponderously over broad, sandy deserts toward the oasis of self-awareness. As developed beings, their astral bodies pass also from planet to planet. Only in Thee, at last, do they find what they were seeking always. Lord, give me again the perfection of fulfillment in Thy Love of Infinity. 27

2 The Cycles of Time I have made several references in these lessons to the ancient teachings of India. According to modern dogma, their antiquity would seem rather to belittle than to exalt them. India, they would declare, couldn t possibly have known more five thousand years ago than all of us know now. Don t be ridiculous! they would say. According to modern reckoning, people in those days were at best (how often this term is trotted out!) hunters and gatherers, and couldn t possibly have known anything about energy, or been concerned with higher states of consciousness, or with such highly sophisticated ways of living as to talk about being even-minded and non-attached. I mean [I can hear them scoffing], how much could they have possessed to be attached to? And I can hear the laughter if anyone proposes that those ancients philosophized about life on other planets, and reincarnation, and how the very process of life began, and how it evolved. The arrogance of the modern mind is almost painful to contemplate. A friend of mine in Mexico was of English descent, though his family lived in the Americas. He told me of a time when he was on a farm (perhaps his own), when a laborer fell off the tongue of a wagon, and was run over. The wheel went over the man s head, breaking it open. The very brains were visible. A doctor, having been urgently summoned, declared there to be absolutely no hope for the laborer. Friends of the man asked if they might take him to their own village, some distance over mountains. The doctor said, Take him. Whether you bury him here or there makes no difference. He cannot possibly live! The men took him. Some six months later that same laborer reported back for work, completely healed. Indeed, there was not even a scar to show he d had an accident. We should not think, just because today we have skyscrapers, jet airplanes, and color television, that we know more than civilizations that hadn t these things. As a matter of fact, though, can we be sure they didn t have them? If present civilization were to be completely destroyed, virtually all trace of it would vanish in an extraordinarily brief time. I have read books stating just how brief a time. The buildings and roads would soon vanish. I could go on, but there seems little point here, since the details are subsidiary to what I am writing, and I don t want to detract from my main point. There is evidence of high civilizations in the past. Vitrified sands in Mongolia and elsewhere suggest a level of heat that might well have been generated by atomic blasts. Have other civilizations been as advanced as ours? The evidence is strong. This brings us to a teaching of ancient India, one that survived as a belief into historic times in many other parts of the world, that civilization is cyclic. We think of our planet as being a system complete unto itself. Even the evident arrival of space ships from other parts of the universe has not shaken 28

3 the belief that we, ourselves, are a system alone, untouched, and uninfluenced from outside. The practice of astrology is popular, but most scientists, at least, doubt that any other planet could exert even the slightest influence on us. Whatever the statistics, to many people, at least, astrology seems a mere superstition. Yet there are many indications that the moon, anyway, does influence people. Women, for example, often relate their menstrual periods to the phases of the moon. A friend of mine has also had experience with planting by the moon, and insists that when one plants makes a big difference. The fact is, since everything is a manifestation of consciousness, it would simply be impossible for our own consciousness not to be influenced from without. Other people s thoughts have an influence on us. (Witness the fads that spring up from time to time and sweep across the country and to other countries.) When wartime fever sweeps across a nation, virtually everyone gets caught up in it, seeing the enemy as a foe indeed. It was an ancient belief, held (as I said) by many ancient civilizations, that our world passes through four distinct ages. In Egypt, there was the age of gods, demigods, heroes, and men. In Persia, there was belief in ages of gold, silver, copper, and iron. Greece held a similar conviction. Even in the Americas, where there was no known cultural contact with Europe and the Near East, there were similar beliefs among the so-called Indians, all of them related to four ages. And another curious fact all those cultures believed that man in historic times lived in the darkest of the four ages. Modern science, and skeptics of all brands, of course scoff at all this, dubbing it pure mythology. The interesting thing is that the wise men of India (the only ancient culture to survive intact from ancient times) believe in that system, and (with modifications) have preserved it intact. Swami Sri Yukteswar, of Srirampur (Serampore), Bengal, India, was not only an enlightened sage but also a skillful astrologer. He explained in a book of his, The Holy Science, that our solar system, during its revolution around our galaxy, has a subrevolution around a solar dual. We know today that many stars have duals. In this subrevolution we repeatedly approach, then withdraw from, a large central sun from which emanate great radiations of energy. It is clear to us, nowadays, that energy is all-important in our lives. Intelligent people obviously have more mental energy than those who are stupid. Saints emanate a very clear mental and spiritual energy. I myself, who have engaged in spiritual practices for the past sixty-four years, can state unequivocally that my mind is far, far clearer now, at 86, than it was at 22 when I began these practices. Several of my most important books have been completed in recent years in only two or three weeks, or in the case of my most important book, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, a book of some 600 pages in fewer than two months. When I was young, I would hardly have been able to stumble through a few pages. Energy is the key to enlightenment. And there are many different kinds of energy. Some of it is bustling, business energy. Some of it is calm, clear, and wise energy. Whatever kind of energy the central sun emanates, it suffices to 29

4 intensify not only man s intelligence, but also his refinement, sensitivity, and the quality of his feelings. Imagine the pleasure people found at the Roman circus games as they drank in the sight of gladiators slaying one another in artful ways; and the thrill people experienced as they watched Christians being fed to the lions. Is there any country today where the masses could gloat over such spectacles? Even Saint Augustine, in his Confessions, told of how, as a young man, he had been actually addicted to those pleasures. Today, such pleasures are almost inconceivable. Augustine lived during the darkest period of the darkest age. In India, those universally recognized four ages are called yugas. Our solar system takes twenty-four thousand years to make one complete circle around its dual. Beginning at the lowest part, we pass moving upward through 1,200 years of Kali Yuga, the dark age (Kali means black). During this upward-moving age, mankind in general becomes increasingly aware, and therefore increasingly sensitive. The end of this upward age came in the year 1600, after which there followed a hundred-year sandhya, or time bridge, to get out of Kali Yuga altogether. In 1492, as we all know, Columbus sailed the ocean blue and discovered America. At about that time came the Renaissance. Many scientific discoveries were made in the hundred years after Shakespeare: by Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and other important figures. The year 1700 saw the beginning of a two-hundred-year sandhya into Dwapara Yuga (Dwapara means second), an age during which time mankind discovers matter to be composed of energy, and conquers the delusion of space. The year 1700 saw the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Aristocracy began to die out as wealth depended less and less on ownership of land. Democracy came to be seen as (for the present) the best method of government, and modern science came into its own. Science too, however, is not without its superstitions and dogmas, which it enforces almost as rigidly as any priesthood. Max Planck observed that a new scientific theory does not gain ascendance by being reasonable: it gains it because the old generation of scientists dies off, and a new generation grows up that is ready to accept the theory. Man s intellect is not his best tool for getting at the truth of anything. It depends on what, given the facts at hand, seems reasonable, but as those facts yield to new discoveries the reasoning changes. In fact, the fundamental dogmas in science change on an average of once every ten years. Even Darwinism, which once was considered a cornerstone of scientific truth, is being challenged nowadays, as ever new facts emerge. I used, once, to want to be an astronomer. But in time I asked myself, What does it really matter how many stars there are in our galaxy? or how many galaxies there are in the universe? What do these facts really mean to me, as a human being? 30

5 And so with countless scientific discoveries. Do they inspire? Not really. Do they heal? Well, perhaps some of them do. In fact, were it not due to modern medication I would have died years ago. Still, I think that a hundred years from now modern medicine will be looked upon as we ourselves view primitive medicine men. And then I ask myself, Might not those medicine men have had a certain validity? What about that laborer in Mexico? The main thing I have against modern science in general is its arrogance. It sneers at too much that might, in its own context, be valid. Still, Dwapara Yuga proper began in the year Five years later, Einstein proved the Law of Relativity. Matter was found to be only energy in a low state of vibration. The atom bomb was exploded. I myself was born in the year Almost everything we know as the modern world has been invented since then. At that time, there was already the radio. Our own radio was a huge box that squealed almost as much as it transferred messages. I remember a friend of my parents visiting us in Bucharest, Romania, and explaining to me how television would work. To me, it seemed impossible. In those days, when an airplane flew overhead it was always small and low flying; we would go out of doors and wave at it. Telephones worked, but not very well. To come home to America, as we did every three years, we had to come by ship. Computers, as far as I know, were not even a gleam in their inventors eyes. In 1950 or thereabouts, some expert predicted that someday computers would weigh as little as one ton. In 1979 (again, or thereabouts), the president of IBM stated that computers would never be small enough to introduce into the homes. Well, I could go on and on. The world today would have been quite beyond the imagination of most people the year I was born. And we are only at the beginning of Dwapara Yuga! Kali Yuga covers 2,400 years in all: 1,200 descending, and 1,200 ascending. Dwapara Yuga will last a total of 2,400 years ascending, and another 2,400 descending, each time with 200-year sandhyas at the beginning and at the end. After this ascending Dwapara Yuga there will follow Treta Yuga (Treta, again, means third; not very imaginative!). Treta Yuga has a 300-year sandhya at the beginning and again at the end. During Treta Yuga, man s intelligence, awareness, refinement, and sensitivity will increase unimaginably in terms of modern understanding. People will converse as much by telepathy as by speech. Mankind will pierce the delusional veil of time. In India today there are manuscripts that date back to those times in the last descending Treta Yuga. They predict the lives of people living on earth today. I myself have had fascinating readings from two of those ancient scripts, one of which was written by the ancient sage Bhrigu, of whom it is stated in the Bhagavad Gita, Among saints, I am Bhrigu. Written some 5,000 years ago, but transcribed again only a few centuries ago, those manuscripts (of which I have consulted several) told me I was born in Romania but grew up in America. I have brothers, but no sister is possible, though one will die in his mother s womb. When I returned to America, I asked my mother if she had 31

6 ever had a miscarriage. I had one, she replied. The reading correctly predicted several tests I would undergo, and spoke reassuringly about my future. At one point it said, There is a danger of sudden, unexpected death. It didn t say that I would die, but only that there was a danger of it. One time I was in spiritual seclusion at Twentynine Palms, California. I was out for a walk one afternoon when, approaching the house where I was staying, a flock of crows suddenly flew right around my head. I remember thinking, This can t be a good omen! I had been sleeping out of doors. Two days later, I unmade my bed in preparation for my return to Los Angeles where I lived. Between the sheets I found a squashed black widow spider. Evidently I had rolled over in my sleep and inadvertently killed it. The second narrow escape occurred in Puri, India. Daya Mata, the SRF president, was scheduled to give a lecture, and I was setting up the microphone for the event. As I grasped the microphone boom, an electric short-circuit went through me suddenly. God! I cried as the current lifted me off the ground. In that instant, the fuse blew; my life was saved. (Curiously, it was Daya Mata herself who tried more than once, years later, to destroy me. That is not, however, a story for these pages.) The third time, I had bought a Lambretta motor scooter in Italy for use in India. When the crate arrived, I opened it in a courtyard surrounded by brick walls. Knowing nothing about the machine, I sat on the seat and turned the ignition key. The scooter was already in gear! The moment I turned the key, the scooter took off at high speed toward one of the walls. There were hardly two seconds for me to figure out how to use the brake and put the scooter into neutral. I stopped barely one foot from the wall! There were other things said in Bhrigu s prediction, true things, but unnecessary to mention here. Even in Treta Yuga I doubt very much that they have need for radio, television, newspapers, skyscrapers, or even airplanes as we know them. The fourth and final yuga is Satya Yuga. (Satya means truth.) This one, fortunately for our earth, lasts the longest of all: 4,800 years double that, with the two ascending and descending yugas coming together. In Satya Yuga mankind can control the weather. He doesn t need the houses that are so essential in our age for comfort and wellbeing. There is another manuscript I know of in the south of India. It was supposedly written by the sage Agastya, mentioned in Autobiography of a Yogi as reputably a still-living avatar like Babaji. I have visited a place which holds a portion of this manuscript. It, too, was amazing. In fact, the whole episode surrounding the reading was almost past belief. This one told me that owing to a past karma of doubting I had encountered many obstacles in my life, but that from now on everything would flourish. It said that I would be involved in producing movies for me, an entirely new activity. It said many other things, but the rest I prefer to keep in my heart. I said earlier that mankind in general becomes increasingly aware. In every age, of course, there are people who are either below or above the normal. Kali Yuga saw the birth of masters like Buddha, Adi Shankaracharya, Jesus 32

7 Christ, and a number of other masters. Thus, some of the marvels normally attributed to a higher age are commonplace for certain persons even in our own relatively dark age. A lady I knew in Lohaghat, in the Himalayas, told me that she had been with her guru and a number of his disciples, out of doors. They were seated on the ground (as is common in India). Suddenly there was a cloudburst; rain poured down all around them. Where they sat, however, and in a wide circle around them, no rain fell. Wars will continue somewhat into Treta Yuga. After that, mankind will live at peace until a corresponding time period in descending Treta Yuga, when some people will feel again that they can get what they want only by exerting force. Some people may ask: What about the past ice age? But during the ice ages, most of our planet had a temperate climate. Where deserts exist today there were grasslands, with rivers and lakes. I don t really know much about these things, but in any case it isn t the whole of our planet that will suffer from ice. In every age, there will be plenty of room for people to live according to the qualities of that age. Others may ask: But what about the population problem? The earth s population keeps on increasing. The worry nowadays is how we are going to keep feeding an exponentially larger number of people. Well, I don t like to answer that one, but I suppose I must. We are going to have massive wars, even in our own times, which will wipe out a large proportion of the population on this planet. The number of people from then on will be much reduced. Will the people living on this planet today get to enjoy the benefits of Satya Yuga? Alas, there too I must disappoint. People are born into environments that are compatible with their own karma. I doubt that Emperor Nero is living on this planet even today. Certainly he won t be returning here for much longer! And where will he go? There are countless populated planets in the universe. For him, there will be no dearth of opportunities! The fact is, whole galaxies have different qualities of magnetism. But we ll go into the subject of magnetism in a future lesson. There is one notable difference between an ascending and a descending cycle. In the ascending yugas, tradition dictates a more rational approach to reality. Even as the age ascends, people will have a penchant to reason everything out. In the descending yugas, people have handed down to them a more mental and spiritual tradition. Thus, in that part of the cycle there is a more intuitive approach to life, which people later on will attribute to blind superstition. Magic, and (later on) black magic, too, will be brought down from former times when people used personal spiritual and mental power to get what they wanted. I firmly believe the pyramids in Egypt were built by mental power during the descending Treta Yuga. Egypt, and all of Africa, fell later on into black magic, which is still in widespread use across the continent. But that karma is now finishing, and the black race will once again assume its former place of dignity. The blacks in America will do (and have done) much to raise 33

8 people of their color (I don t say, of their race, because, as I ll state later, the true races of man are determined, not by the color of men s skin, but by the different castes to which people everywhere naturally belong). We are at this time just barely into Dwapara Yuga. During Kali Yuga in India, the understanding of their own tradition became greatly distorted. Kali Yuga, even today there, is widely believed to last 432,000 years, of which 427,000 are left. But that Swami Sri Yukteswar s correction of that system is accurate has become clearly justified by now. Today, it is obvious that we live in an age of energy, and not of total material addiction. There are two books I can recommend on this subject: One is by Walter Cruttenden called, Lost Star of Myth and Time. The other is by Joseph Selbie and David Steinmetz called, The Yugas. Sri Yukteswar stated that the movement of our solar system is measured by the precession of the equinox. Science claims that this precession is caused by the tilt of our planet Earth. However, as you may have guessed, my vote is with Sri Yukteswar. Walter Cruttenden believes our dual sun to be Sirius. I have no knowledge with which to debate the issue, but I might add a curious fact. From my childhood I always felt an unaccountable connection to that star. History gives many examples from the later centuries of descending Dwapara Yuga, and from the whole of descending Kali Yuga. The Yugas gives fascinating and convincing evidence that that was indeed a time of diminishing awareness. It is time now for the science of yoga, too, to come into its own, for its teachings begin with the need to understand our own bodies. 34

9 Story Buried Alive These are true stories. In Subzi Mundi, across the Jamuna River from Old Delhi, some workmen were digging in the ground, and found resistance to their shovels. They dug more carefully around the object that was resisting them. It turned out to be a man seated in lotus posture. He appeared to be still alive. With great care, they brought him back to outward consciousness. Who are you? they asked. He answered in some language that appeared to be Sanskrit, but there were no scholars nearby who could understand him. After a time, a student of ancient Sanskrit was found. He came, and reported that this exhumed yogi spoke a very ancient form of Sanskrit. What yuga is this? the yogi asked. The scholar replied, in accordance with the prevailing belief of our times, It is Kali Yuga. The yogi stated, In that case, I won t stay. (Once one has been awakened, after many years, from such a deep trance, he can no longer remain in his body.) If you dig over there, he stated, you will find the murti (divine image) I used to worship. Calmly then, he left his body. This next case was known to Yogananda s father. A local maharaja had had workmen drain a small lake. At the bottom of the lake they discovered, several feet beneath the mud, three yogis seated in lotus posture. From the depth at which those men had been found in the mud, it was estimated by engineers that they had been buried there for at least three hundred years. The maharaja used cruel means to bring them back to outward awareness, applying hot pokers to their feet. When the three yogis awoke, they declared, You have brought us back very cruelly. You and your whole family will suffer for this karma. Shortly thereafter, the Maharaja and his entire family died. The men continued, We were very close to liberation. Now we shall have to leave our bodies and return in new ones. Yogananda explained to us, however, God did not want them to find liberation for themselves alone. Everyone, to attain liberation, must also free a few others. Affirmation However many the cycles of time that I wander away from Thee, I will ever seek Thee alone! 35