Dwapara Yuga - World Crisis, Plain Living and High Thinking

Yoganandaji gave this talk in Encinitas, CA, May 19, 1940. The full text is published by Self Realization Fellowship in the booklet "World Crisis".

"How can you meet the world crisis that is coming? The best way is to adopt plain living and high thinking. Unless you make drastic changes in your living habits immediately, you will be rudely surprised; conditions will change in a way you cannot imagine now. You still have food and clothing, even luxuries, that people in other nations do not. So it is best to accustom yourself now to simple living. Choose a dwelling place that is adequate, but not larger than you really need, and if possible in an area where taxes and other living expenses are reasonable. Make your own clothes; can your own food. Grow your own vegetable garden, and if feasible, keep a few chickens to produce eggs. Work the garden yourself, or you will lose money in paying wages to a gardener. Keep life simple and enjoy what God has provided, without seeking false and expensive pleasures. There is much in God's hidden nature to fascinate the mind of man. Use your free time to read worthwhile books, meditate, and enjoy an uncomplicated life. Isn't this better -- simple living, fewer worries, and the time to seek God -- than to have a huge house, two cars, and time payments and a mortgage you cannot meet? Man has to go back to the land; it will come to pass eventually. If you think this isn't so, you will find you are mistaken. But regardless of where your home and work are, cut out luxuries, buy less expensive clothes, supply yourself with things you really need, grow your own food, and put money aside regularly for greater security. [...]"

"A spiritual law is broken when people hold money and don’t put it to work to create jobs and contribute to the welfare of others. Unfairness, dishonesty, greed – these bring on a financial crash such as the collapse of the monetary system in 1929. When the selfishly rich hold on to their wealth and don’t want to give the laborer his due, disorder follows. This is what happened. "The laborer is worthy of his hire," says the scripture. ( Luke 10:7) Everyone should work – both the rich and the poor – to contribute to the welfare of the nation and all the people in it. Those who grow rich in business should share their wealth, and I see that here in America they are more generous than in most other parts of the world in giving to needy communities. I have always liked the businessmen of India too, because they are usually very sympathetic to the needs of the people."

World Crisis Amazon booklist.

Dwapara Yuga: The local and the global

A local bank in Britain is using Cockney Rhyming Slang as an option on its ATM (Automated Banking) screens in East London.

Cockney began as something of an underworld language used by police and thieves but over the years has become a well-known dialect used extensively around London, England, often for comic effect.

It figures in many independent films set in London and was showcased in one of the "Austin Powers" movies, as a nod to the crossover of British and Canadian actors into the American and hence worldwide markets.

"Sausage and Mash" means "Cash"

"Charlie Sheen" means "Screen"

"Fleet Street" means "Receipt"

With a bit of practice, anyone can work out Sky Rocket, Rattle & Tank, Huckleberry Finn and words such as Moolah are well know. Parts of Britain's colonial past can be found all over in English like Punch the drink which comes from the Hindi word for five, or thug which comes from the sect of Thugi who worshipped the Goddess Kali and had a habit of strangling travelers . An 18 wheeler truck (lorry) in England is known as a Juggernaut, from Lord Jagganath.

Other gems not seen on the screen are "Ruby Murray" for "Curry". The rhyming aspect becomes harder to figure out for non initiates when the context is not known or an abbreviated form is used - "Are you up for a Ruby?"

In a world in which the global and commercial forms of English standardize and commoditize language it is excellent to see the survival of ancient forms which in their own way have the same value as the language of Shakespeare or the King James Bible, both of which borrowed massively from pre-existing works and forms.

At the same time, politics, law, medicine and technical fields tend to jargon at the expense of clear communication, as a barrier to entry for new comers but always presented as necessary for the subject. Under the King, the French language had just such a transformation, with efforts to add complexity and nuance to limit power to its elite classes. It is amusing to see the simplicity and clarity of ancient manorial documents compared to modern French. In modern times, a similar difference can be seen with British and American newspapers, although in fairness, the reading age of mass market American journals is deliberately kept low to not exclude potential readers.

In Dwapara Yuga, knowledge of God in both the impersonal and personal aspects is becoming a better and better known goal and in a mundane way these aspects of language reflect at the same time the impersonal, unity of communication and at the same time the personality of particular places and times much as a Saint in Samadhi is connected to everything yet retaining their individual personality.

Dwapara Yuga - Alan Turing

The real story of WWII is not that of brilliant generals and brave troops, although there were undoubtably some of both. Rather, an obscure British mathematician broke the supposedly impenetrable German Enigma military codes meaning that the Allied Command knew every step and plan ahead of time, making victory near inevitable.

Alan Turing was that mathematician. During the war, his homosexuality was ignored, being typical of the Oxford and Cambridge/Boarding school of the era, away from families and women for long periods. His wartime research lead to the development of the first modern computers. His American counterparts were feted and rewarded, founding today's multi trillion dollar industry. Turing's reward by the British Government was to be hounded to death in obscurity. With wartime concerns behind them, he was treated as a security liability even though there was no evidence against him. It later turned out that many of the establishment figures of the time were both traitors and homosexuals but they had not been pursued despite

mounting evidence since their aristocratic backgrounds it was felt left them beyond reproach.

This week the British Prime Minister formally apologized for the mistreatment of a man that should have been a national hero.

Such double standards then as now fuel the conspiracy theorists of the world with the grain of truth that there is one law and standard of ethics for ordinary people and a much lower one for the religious, political, celebrity, sports figures. This is especially true if it serves the ends of one of the myriad of security agencies (always with short, menacing acronyms, Las Letras in Spanish, NSA, FSB, DINA, IDF, MIB, NWO, GSA - Girl Scouts of America!).

The Turing episode underlines the dangers of the Kali Yuga stereotypical thinking that those with the 'right' races, religions, wealthy backgrounds and lifestyles monopolize loyalty, inventiveness, patriotism and other positive qualities. Similar thinking in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia forced the atom scientists to America. In America itself, it lead to the internment of Japanese Americans in WWII and today leads to Muslim, Arab and Persian Americans being treated as potential terrorists, failing to learn the lessons of history and playing into the kinds of negative conspiracy theorizing that undermine the legitimacy of government institutions.

The spirit of Dwapara Yuga is to look beyond outer differences and ask what qualities does this person have? It is noticeable that in meritocracies like the dot coms or Wall Street trading, many foreigners, minority races and religions are to be found yet in the most stagnant of industries, poorly performing areas of management and security services, fast track applicants are consistently drawn from tiny Blue Blood or Good Ol Boy networks, at best over-representing very limited and constrictive world views, out of line with the realities and future of the world.

Dwapara Yuga: Ananda Yuga book rumored for 2010

It is rumored that Ananda, through its publisher Crystal Clarity, is to publish a book on the Yugas and ancient history some time in 2010.

Byasa Steinmetz is a long-time Ananda minister and scientist. Byasa has done extensive research on the subject of the Yugas, and is collaborating with another Ananda member, Joseph Selbie, on the book.

Hopefully this will find as wide a general audience as the last book on ancient archeology, 2005's Lost Star by Walter Cruttenden, a frequent Self Realization Fellowship speaker. This was further popularized by a DVD release and series of annual conferences.

There are many specialist texts, for example in Yogananda's or Kriyananda's lectures and writings, but these tend to have esoteric and modern themes rather than those of history or archeology, as detailed in the bibliography.

It is marvelous that Sri Yukteswar's 1894 findings are gaining a wider and wider audience.

On a wider note, befitting a blog dealing with our current times of Dwapara Yuga, the goal is to know God and not simply to read and study, as illustrated by Sri Ramakrishna's quote below.

"Can love of God be acquired by reading holy books? In the Hindu almanac it is mentioned that on a particular day there will be twenty Adas (units) of rainwater. But you will not be able to squeeze out of the almanac a single drop! So also many good sayings are found in holy books, but merely reading them will not make one religious. One must practice the virtues taught in such books in order to acquire the love of God."

This blog deliberately does not attempt to provide spiritual instruction, which is properly found in qualified ministers. A list of Kriya Yoga Organizations is provided here.

Dwapara Yuga - Google's Book Project

Controversy is stirring up this week as lawsuits are on the point of being settled around Google's efforts to make digital copies of library collections available on the 'net.

In the spirit of disclosure, the books associated with this author have been available in Google since their publication, as well as with competing structures such as Amazon.

In an era where education, healthcare, food, electricity, gas and water are carefully rationed out, the author believes that it is wonderful that information, the most valuable of worldly resources, locked away in libraries such as those in Oxford or Harvard, is being made available freely to the public. This is a move on par with the advent of printing presses, translations of the Bible, and the formation of public libraries themselves.

It is a Kali Yuga mindset to believe that the rich and privileged (Kings, Political Dynasties, Mobsters, Captains of industry) should always maintain a monopoly on resources, especially knowledge, to better exploit their brothers and sisters.

"For they bind heavy burdens and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders; but they themselves will not move them with one of their fingers."