RETURNING TO THE SELF
ALL CONDITIONS ARE BROUGHT ABOUT BY THE TOTAL CULTURAL KARMA
If one of you desires to become wealthy, it is not only your inner desire that motivates you to do so, but there are also outside forces influencing you and strengthening that desire within you. This is because when you walk around, you see material prosperity everywhere. Thought forces are floating around you all the time, that you also want to be like that. Now, a different force has taken place. There is a certain force, and sometimes it acts very abruptly. Some countries, for example, have become very permissive, to the point of being permissive with things that you would not find in other places. Like pre-teen porn and what have you, things I have heard and read sets my hair on edge.
So, what have you attracted? You have attracted an extreme fundamentalist government now, have you not? All extremes are bad, but by reaching one extreme, you automatically draw the other extreme, where a total moralist government has come in. You have attracted that by having gone so far in the other direction. And this is necessary. It is a very good thing that has happened.
If the government continues to fulfill its promises, this will help bring the country to a middle ground where it is neither too permissive nor too fundamentalist. The admixture of the two can lead this civilization and culture to greater and greater spiritual heights. Likewise, in every civilization, these things are necessary. Dictatorships develop in the world for several reasons, where the entire culture requires a harsh reality check very quickly. So, all conditions everywhere are brought about by the total cultural karma of that particular country.
IN ACTIVITY BUT NOT IN ACTION
Many times, people have asked me, and they say, “In India, you have all these yogis sitting up there in the Himalayas and meditating, and you have such holy men. Why do you have all these problems in India?” I say, “What holy men are you talking about, and how many are there? You only hear these stories. You are very, very backward. You are talking of two, three, four, five thousand years ago, not today.” Yes, we have a lot of these so-called yogis sitting there in the Himalayas. We have a lot of them, but are they real yogis, or are they escapists who cannot face the problems of the world, so they escape, people who do not want to take action? Yet they are full of activity. Their minds are chattering away all the time inactivity. They are in activity but not in action. Action is a spontaneous act, while activity is something that you are compelled to do.
IN INDIA, THE CRADLE OF CIVILIZATION, CIVILIZATION HAS GONE, ONLY THE CRADLE IS LEFT
People ask me why there are so many problems in India. You have all these floods and famines and riots, people killing each other by the hundreds because of so-called religion, Hindu, Moslem. Why, if it is such a spiritual country, can it not generate a karmic atmosphere of peace? So, I tell them that India is not what you imagine it to be. You would find a few holy people because, in some past ages, people were oriented towards a spiritual way of life, so there is some essence left, but most of it is covered up by extreme materiality.
When I was in India about fifteen or eighteen months ago, I found that, from the rickshaw driver to the cabinet level, everyone was corrupt. The rickshaw boy will try to get a rupee or two extra out of you, and so would a cabinet minister try to get a few million out of you if they can. Corruption, corruption, corruption!
There is no honesty left. No sincerity left. India, the cradle of civilization, as I often say, civilization is gone; only the cradle remains. That is why all these calamities are drawn upon you. That is why collective karma brings about all these calamities.
So, you have these holy places of pilgrimage. I have been to Benares, which is supposed to be the sacred city. I do not know what is so holy about it. Benares is renowned for producing the finest saris in all of India. These are called Banarasi Saree. But you go into a sari shop, and “Oh, just let me show you the factory, this, that the other…” And can they catch you, oh boy! Something that you can find in an ordinary shop for fifty rupees will cost you five hundred rupees there. Where is the holiness? You have a little guide taking you around those dirty, narrow lanes. They have never heard of hygiene, and you are swindled from left, right, and center. Where is the holiness?
So, I say India deserves all this that is happening to it. Let more floods come. Let there be more famine; perhaps that is what you need to learn faster. That is why India also required a dictatorship in the form of Indira Gandhi when she was first elected. It was a must, for there comes a time when even the most cultured of societies required to be controlled by an iron hand. These are all the contributing factors of civilizations rising and falling, cultures rising and falling; because when a certain height is reached in a particular field, then a significant amount of ego develops that “We have done this,” things become too easy for people. And how will they pass their time? They are going to pass their time in decadence.
WHEN THINGS BECOME TOO EASY, A SOCIETY BECOMES DECADENT
That is how all the permissiveness in America has developed, and, of course, it has spread to other countries, such as England and Germany, and many other places. It has flowed over. Because things are too easy, people must remain active. They do not want action, but they must be active, so they must do something to make these various gadgets and what have you no longer please us. Oh, we are tired of pressing buttons, but we have become lazy, so we do not do anything else to get rid of the button system. Nobody wants to light a fire today, and it is so beautiful and pleasant; no, we just push the button, and the stove is on. We push the button, the washing machine is on. That has made man very robot-like. Everything is a push-button, and subsequently, he has become lazy; yet, being filled with inner activity and motion, he feels compelled to do something. Then he seeks excitement, something to keep the inner activity alive, and that is why all this permissiveness has arisen.
But it is terrific to observe that people are now turning more and more inward to try to find their authentic true selves. For example, women would not waste their energy on scrubbing the floors, lighting the fire, or washing clothes; no, those tasks become a chore. However, the same energy they would expend on attending very expensive gymnasiums, yoga classes, and various other activities is also costly. All this is not necessary. If that woman would just bend down more often to pick up things or do her washing by hand instead of having all these great machines, and I do not know what, do it by hand! For people who eat meat, why can they not buy a chopper and have a block to make their mince instead of putting it through an electric mincer? I am not a meat eater, but I observe; I look around, and I do not close my eyes.
On one side, they use labor-saving press buttons; on the other side, they go to gyms or jog or whatever to find the same exercise they could gain at home. Yet that is not necessary; they can be at home with the children, look after the house, and do all the work, which will give them sufficient exercise. None of these other exercises are necessary.
People have to be in activity. It is their very nature to be in activity. So, they find release in other forms of exercise or activities instead of doing the exercise at home. It is simply turning your body around, bending down, doing this, and getting on your knees at times. All the exercise that you need is there.
That is how a society becomes decadent when things become too easy. It is no coincidence that teachers from outside come to teach these subjects because the American public is very receptive to them. Yet, there is one significant fault: having had things too easy, they become very gullible. That is one thing the American public must be exceptionally watchful of: gullibility. Anyone comes up with a particular idea, and it is accepted. There will always be someone. Like the American saying, “A sucker is born every day.” That is your American saying.
One thing to be cautious of is the proliferation of various devices.
“SEEK YE FIRST THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN WITHIN, AND ALL ELSE SHALL BE ADDED UNTO THEE.”
Our job is to reach Divinity and be the authentic selves that we are, for everything is Divine, and more so, the thinking being that could recognize on a cognitive level that Divinity is inherent within us.
Therefore, numerous systems emerge, and the public is so gullible that they would even subject themselves to various treatments. People’s brains can be brainwashed, and then after brainwashing, they can be made to believe certain things, and they would accept it.
The best approach is to be wholly natural and go through natural processes, such as meditation and our spiritual practices, which are inherently natural. It is gradual, yes, but very natural, where outside forces are not manipulating you, but you are using your inherent forces. You are using your mind to dive deep within itself and thereby develop a far greater and greater awareness until it expands so much that you can hold the entire universe in your arms.
Natural process, which in turn brings about the qualities that we all desire, that of love and all those things connected with it: good fellowship, good love, good relationships that make life smooth. And once one has that quietude of mind, then all other things follow. And I could never stop repeating the Biblical injunction, “Seek ye first the Kingdom of Heaven within, and all else shall be added unto thee.” Which is very, very accurate. Once the mind is brought to a particular state of quietude, or once one transcends the grosser mind and delves into the deeper levels of the mind, then every desire becomes fulfilled, and that is what is meant by “nature supports.” However, you must first reach your true nature before it can start supporting you, and this we achieve through elementary processes.
THE ENTIRE WORLD AND THE ENTIRE UNIVERSE IS FOREVER IN A STATE OF FLUX
So we have theory, and we have practice. These talks aim to bring a new perspective to things, offering a fresh understanding. Many of the things we discuss are hidden there but just waiting to be awakened. All knowledge, all wisdom, is in every person, right from the primitive man to the most intellectual person; all knowledge is there. What is required is for that knowledge to be awakened, and that is what the job of a guru is: to awaken.
When civilizations decline and when they have reached the hilt after you get the peak of the mountain, where do you go from there? You only climb back to ground level again, and that is what we need: to be grounded, grounded in our authentic self. So, all these things that happen to civilizations — their rise and fall —are a necessary consequence, for it is a shifting of energies. One civilization rises and falls. Because of decadence in its very fall, those same energies are shifted to a different area, and it is a gradual process; it does not happen overnight. It moved to a different location, and that area, in turn, developed again. So, the entire world and the entire universe are forever in a state of flux. Like the ocean, the wave rises and falls, then rises and falls again. The wave that grows in one place falls right next to it and re-rises in another place. Similarly, in countries around the world, when energy is shifted from one country to another, the same process occurs. It is forever ongoing. It is not stagnant. And that is the law of nature.
So, when teachers come, they try to awaken, and the American public, for example, is among the most receptive people in the world to these higher ideals of life because they have reached the peak and discovered the futility of it.
JESUS, BUDDHA, AND KRISHNA TAUGHT THE GREAT PRINCIPLES OF LOVE
India had made significant progress, yet the Indians would not admit this; however, the progress India made had an important part played by England. They had brought to India things that India needed. India needed lessons in hygiene; for example, with its millions of population, India needed modern agricultural methods, which England introduced. England introduced an excellent legal system, among other notable developments.
So, everyone contributes something to the other. For example, the United States has contributed significantly to Japan’s progress. During the war, when hundreds of thousands of Americans were over in Japan, some of their knowledge, technology, and the know-how they left behind upon which the Japanese started building. Japan has become a highly industrialized country today and has continued to evolve in this direction over the past thirty to thirty-five years since the end of the last war. So, in everything, every country is borrowing and connected to another country.
In India, for example, you have better discos than you have in America. They would wear better styles of Levi’s and jeans, and what-have-you, than you wear here. They have copied.
One thing I tell the Indians, “By all means, copy! Yeah. But copy the good things. There are many good things in America. Why not that? Why the other things? Why only the sensual things? There is so much good there. Why not that?” However, the things that are not so good are more attractive because they are instant, as seen with this lady in Chicago. She went for some shock treatments because instant results were promised. I am illumined. Oh! How many millions of lives do we have to spend to reach that state of illumination? Jesus Buddha or Krishna did not advise electrical devices to be pressed into your head. They advised you of a very natural process. They taught the great principles of love through which you can develop and open up and make yourself receptive to all those Divine energies that are there.
THE AMERICANS ARE GOING TO BE A HIGHLY ADVANCED PEOPLE WITHOUT LOSING AFFLUENCE
Receptivity is a double-edged sword. You can make yourself receptive to both evil and good influences. So the purpose of the realizations we try to come at, the truth we try to discover, and our meditational practices are to make ourselves respective to the higher forces: to betterment, uplifting forces. The others, who are so permissive and do all things that are not to be done, are also receptive, but their receptivity has been misguided. Seeing that the West has contributed so much to the East, they, too, must now accept what the East can contribute to the West. In knowledge, perhaps in wisdom, there is still a bit left there, but we do not need to learn from the East all these little tricks that they get up to. We do not need that. We do not need that kind of poverty, for example. We would like India to become an affluent society, by all means, without losing spirituality. America and England, too, are placed in such a fine position that within this affluence, they could influence spirituality. An excellent combination can occur, and I believe this is a prophecy: within a hundred years, Americans will not be the Americans we are today. They will be a highly spiritually advanced people without losing the affluence they have. Because the affluent will be influenced, as I said, by higher forces, by higher ideals. Greater love will permeate every heart. This is on the charts. It can be well-read. It can be seen by those who are able to see it.
The subject I have spoken about is not really my area of expertise, but we cover everything, and we always infuse spirituality into it.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang US 1980 – 29
