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Cosmic vision of unity

Paramhansa Yogananda’s Cosmic Vision Of Unity

Swami Kriyananda The Times of India Mar 04 2015

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 . This is such a revolutionary way of looking at things that we've come to a critical juncture in our thinking. A tension exists between old perspectives, which saw matter only as solid form and new views, which see the world as waves of energy .

One expression of the old view is the thought that we are all separate from each other. In our age, disunity is becoming stronger and stronger.People all over the world are thinking in terms of divisions ­ countries are breaking off from other countries or attacking them; races are affirming their differences; there is opposition among religions, with many saying “mine is the only way“.

There's less thought of what we can do for our neighbour and more thought of what we can get for ourselves. Increasingly , we see people in confrontation.

Yet there's a new worldview coming to the fore, which Paramhansa Yogananda came to help bring ­ a view of the underlying unity of all people, and all things, based on the inner realisation that we are all one with God.

Yogananda's vision of the unity of all things didn't come from putting two unlike things together. It came from recognising that underneath each wave which seems so different, there is the one great ocean of consciousness.

From that inner realisation, 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.

In that spirit, he urged people to build `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, building seven such communities.

This spirit of universal friendship is something that Yogananda manifested throughout his life. He would show tenderness towards 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 with guns. By looking at these men with God's love, and seeing them as his own, he completely changed their lives.

There was also a time when a hungry tiger confronted him in the jungles. Yogananda saw God in the 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.

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 centre, you 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.

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.

Teachings

Nayaswami Devarshi, Revisiting Spiritual Envoy Yogananda's Teachings, Jan 5, 2017: The Times of India

Swami Vivekananda addressed the World Parliament of Religions in Chicago on September 11, thereby inspiring interest worldwide in Indic spirituality . His opening words, “Sisters and brothers of America!“ received a two-minute standing ovation from seven thousand people. The same year on January 5, Paramhansa Yogananda was born as Mukunda Lal Ghosh.

Because of the groundwork laid by Vivekananda, Yogananda found a receptive audience when he moved to America in 1920. His lecture tours drew large crowds in every major city of America. Thousands learnt his Kriya Yoga meditation technique. The global popularity of meditation and yoga today is perhaps largely due to the groundbreaking efforts of those two great Indian yogi ambassadors.

Yogananda took the inner teachings of yoga out of ashrams and Himalayan caves, and into the homes of people. His close disciples included householders and parents, musicians and actors, scientists and businessmen ­ including his foremost disciple, who was a self-made millionaire.

Many of his disciples had the deepest experiences of God-realisation in meditation, traditionally available only to a small handful who were able to leave behind all outward responsibilities. In this, Yogananda was following the urging of Mahavatar Babaji, who he said is “well aware of the trend of modern times, especially of the influence and complexities of Western civilisation, and realises the necessity of spreading the self-liberations of yoga equally in the West and in the East.“ With life becoming more complicated and confusing, thousands are coming forward to learn his Kriya Yoga teachings, not in the Himalayan jungles but in the modern concrete “jungles“ of Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, Pune, and more.

Yogananda taught that the principles and practices of meditation are for everyone, and can be integrated into busy modern lifestyles. Meditation brings success and creativity into everything that the yogi does.

Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Computer, said that he read Yogananda's `Autobiography of a Yogi' every year, and Jobs had requested that hundreds of copies of the book be given out at his funeral. Other modern successes who have been inspired by Yogananda include George Harrison of The Beatles, the creator of Star Trek TV and movie series and the inventor of the Swype texting app that is on millions of phones, besides many others.

More important than success in one's outward role in life, Kriya meditation practices make true God-communion and saintliness a realistic goal. Swami Kriyananda, direct disciple of Yogananda and founder of Ananda Sangha, was told by Yogananda that, “I can take a few young men of the most restless sort, and let them practice Kriya for two hours every day in the way I tell them, and, without question, in four or five years I can make saints out of them.“

Practised properly , Kriya increases one's concentration, energy and control over life force, and the heart-opening receptivity of grace ­ in the form of divine light and love, inner joy , expanding calmness, the vibration of Aum, and more. Other benefits include better health, development of intuition, ever-growing compassion, selflessness and inner freedom.