Dwapara Yuga: Living comfortably within one's means

Pew Research published a new report this week showing that the public is re-drawing the lines of what are considered necessities and what are considered luxuries compared to past reports on the same theme.

As the economy grew, more and more previously considered 'luxury' items came to be considered 'necessities', from A/C, to dish washers, to microwaves. In this latest report, the trend has been reversed, in line with the global downturn.

There is some evidence in the latest report of two trends in communications products:

- Growing importance relative to more industrial age appliances

- With digitalization, a move away from classic land lines and televisions to cellphones and computers

Sri Yukteswar and Yogananda emphasized the importance of living simply within one's means, well illustrated by a passage in Swami Kriyananda's "The Path":

Even for worldly people, simple living is an important key to happiness. Across the road from Master's retreat at Twenty-Nine Palms there lived a man in a small one-room cabin, alone. He had no garden, and, indoors, few modern conveniences. Yet his happiness was transparent. He was burdened with no debts. There were no unnecessary chores to pilfer away his precious hours of freedom. Again and again he proudly played a recording of a popular song, expressive of his perfect contentment with life: "I've Got My Home in Twenty-Nine Palms."

Master, gazing over toward this man's place one day, remarked, "He is like a king in his palace! Such is the joy of simple living."

In his later years, it was to the dessert quiet and simplicity of Twenty Nine Palms that Yogananda retreated from SRF's sumptuous public buildings of Encinitas, Mount Washington and the various temples of all religions in the LA area. In earlier years, Yogananda had escaped to the then calm of a simple private cottage in Manhattan Beach.