Just One More About Plants, I Promise.

by Aranyakananda

As you may know, I recently developed a bit of a passion for filling my cubicle at work with living things, i.e. green plants and more recently flowers. A co-worker cut off branches of a lilac bush and put pots of them in several places in the office, including my cube, because he knows I’d been interested in sprucing up my workspace.

Over the weekend, though I filled its vase with fresh water on Friday evening, by the time I came back this morning for work, the plant was wilted and emitting no flowery scent.

One of the things that I loved about the plant was that as it was not in soil, just sitting in a pot of water, I could actually observe it throughout the day “drinking” the water. I could also see, that now that it was wilted and unscented, that it was also no longer consuming the water.

This called to mind a book I recently attempted to read about the process of death – yes it is indeed a process, not an event – and how after one appeared to be dead, certain physiological functions continued. Much like this plant which was really no more than a branch cut off from it’s tree and therefore its roots in the ground. I specify roots “in the ground” because the funny thing is that we – and all living things including the plants – feel least firmly rooted in our true root, Brahman, when we are alive and experiencing Maya.

Just an observation.

Mainly though, I found this branch’s short vase-life to be enlightening just to see for my self with my own eyes how very much like us even plants are. They consume, they stay alive. When they are dead, they no longer do so. I know, seems obvious, but to see it actually happening and then not happening is something (or not something).

Jai Hari Aum

Letting My Aum Flag Fly For Liberty and Justice

by Aranyakananda

Today was Flag Day. In the U.S. if you don’t know, this is supposed to be a day to honor the stars and stripes of our national flag. I am not much for sentimental patriotism, anyone will tell you. So today I posted a photo on Facebook of a brilliant orange flag flapping in the wind with a clear blue sky behind it. On the flag was a golden Aum symbol. It’s Flag Day, I displayed my flag. I headlined the photo with the phrase “Happy Flag Day.” Officially I got one response, from another Hindu who enthusiastically supported my show of love for the Universal scope of dharma.

Other than that, I get the feeling that this was seen as disrespect toward the red, white and blue, the American flag. But why should this be so? You can not tell me that it’s what the American flag represents that was being done a disservice here. The American flag may represent liberty and justice in your head, but Aum literally IS Liberty. The red, white and blue represents a man-made construct of a country which has man-made borders, whereas Aum is never made and never dies, and there are no borders.

Disrespectful to those who died for our country’s flag? Again, I think not. How can that be, when the man made, often fictional ideals for which we are told they died are a direct result of the “otherness” created when one guy throws up a flag and on the other side of a line in the sand another guy throws up a different flag of a different color, both representing man-made ideals?

In response to this, one might say “what if someone drew a line in the sand next to your Aum flag and put up another flag with a crucifix on it? That would be fine. The Aum flag is not a Hindu flag. Aum is beyond all religions, many aspects of which are man-made ways of connecting to the Eternal and Formless. Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims all say Aum, its just that each of these sects pronounces it differently. Aum. Hum. Amen. Amin. Same thing.

Aum is the best way to truly pay due respect for those we’ve lost, and to most clearly envision the ideals of liberty and justice, and anyway I think we have far too many Nation-worshiping holidays in the states. That, to me, is true idolatry. All they do is perpetuate an unhealthy sense of “otherness.”

Aum.

Jai Hari Om Mani Padme Hum

by Aranyakananda

I haven’t had a lot to say lately. I think it is because everything I feel like blogging about seems completely trite, and I do not wish to intentionally subject you to the trite. What I set out to do on this blog was a bit of a timeline of my spiritual progress as I go forward and to record a timeline of my past to how I got here. And I’ve done a bit of that. But at some point I may have gotten off track and just making random observations which said nothing about either. Just posts for the good ol’ fashioned helluvit.

And I suppose that is fine. But I was inspired recently by reading the many interpretations of the Buddhist mantra “Om Mani Padme Hum”, one of which is “Behold!The jewel in the heart of the lotus!” This itself is enough to make one want to refocus one’s meditations back to the source, the inner Self, to rediscover what is there.

Funnily, last week I went shopping around for some greenery to put in my cubicle at work to keep my workspace fresh, to remind myself of Lord Vishnu and Prithvi Devi. One of the first plants that really caught my eye was a very small one, only coverin about 4 inches by 4 inches in breadth. It was a green plant, no flowers, but its form is just like a lotus flower. They’d just watered the plants at this shop so there was a bead of water, which the inner leaves had captured. With the light hitting it the way it did, it looked exactly like a jewel at the center of the lotus.

Behold!

I bought it.

I am gaining more inspiration from Buddhism than ever before, through friends, and through books, and through experience. None of which is in any way confusing me as to what my true path is. It only adds color and flavor if you will, to my experience.

Though I have recently tinkered with the idea that I am more of a Smarta Hindu who happens to choose Vishnu as his Ishtadevata, as we all are free to do according to Smartism. I make this distinction in opposion to the label of “Vaisnav” because I am finding that definition way too limiting. Limiting to the idea of the preeminence of Krishna (as opposed to Vishnu, and certainly as opposed to any other deity), to the preeminence of bhakti, and many other reasons. I have found value in bhakti, but could never see it as the only way to transcendance. Yoga is a verb to me, and that means action. As such, I cannot see my path toward moksha as a personal, individual exercise.

I keep coming back to the phrase “We’re in this together.” What that means is working out one’s karma can not be fully worked out by personal devotional practice in solitude. Not fully. Several of the epithets for Vishnu begin with the prefix “bhu-” which refers to the world, or the Earth. As opposed to, I am told, Ganesha being Aum personified, and Shiva being the consciousness personified. So though we work in the world and are not “of” the world whether we are Ganpataye, Shaivite, or Vaisnav, you’d think that Vaisnavs would have a particular interest in connecting to the world at large.

And so, what we have is a revisiting of the jewel in the heart of the Self, the ground of all Being, Brahman, but a reminder that it must be an outward (1) experience, (2) expression.

Jai Hari Om Mani Padme Hum!

Crossing My Eyes

by Aranyakananda

Whenever someone asks me to cross my fingers, I have to be honest. If you’ve read this blog enough, you’ll know I am not “superstitious” in the conventional sense. Many consider religion, faith, prayer, etc., to be superstition and therefore my Hinduism probably fits under that category with that crowd. But I maintain I am not superstitious. So, as I said, I have to be honest. Whenever someone tells me to cross my fingers, I tell them “I won’t cross my fingers, but I will cross my eyes for you.”

Sri Paramhansa Yogananda was the guru who first introduced me to some of the concepts that are essential to Hinduism: Namely that, as Yogananda put it, our bodies are an inverted tree with the roots at the top of the head (the 1,000-petaled lotus), and the branches are our limbs (literally) and the senses and worldly desires (figuratively). Further, Yogananda said those roots at the top of the head are that which anchor us to the Divine, to the Self as spoken of in the Hindu scriptures. The Universal Self. The Infinite. Brahman. Yogananda said that when one sits in meditation and focuses one’s attention on the point between the eyebrows, one is fully in tune with that Self.

And so, when I tell you I am crossing my eyes for you, I am telling you that I am giving all of my focus during meditation toward you and whatever perils of the cycle of birth, aging, decay and death that you happen to be encountering right now. I am telling you that you are worth more than tossing a little luck your way. Many Hindus will tell you “prayer” is not a part of their devotional activity. But I have always felt that if we are all non-different from each other, that prayer can be an effective devotional activity for the benefit of others if undertaken for the right reasons and properly directed.

Jai Hari Aum

A “What Would Krishna Do?” Moment

by Aranyakananda

On Sunday, not one hour before I was to head over to my local Temple for Bhagavad-Gita study, I clicked on my Facebook account. There was a message from a guy I went to high school with, but have seen once since, and have only within the last month reconnected with, via the aforementioned social medium. The message read:

“Dude give me a call ASAP if you can.(###-###-####). Thanks”

I showed it to my wife and wondered what it could mean. Nothing negative really entered my mind. I mulled it over for a minute, then came to feel that I simply must call him. So I did. After making some small talk, he told me that he was in one helluva pickle and needed a certain amount of money ASAP for which he’d pay me back by the end of this week. I won’t go into what the “pickle” was, though I will say that it was something that touched my heart and made me feel I must act. The whole time I was thinking of the Bhagavad-Gita and detached action.

However, I tend to be the hasty type. I told him I’d talk it over with my wife and get back to him. We have quite a bit on our plate ourselves. After talking it over it came down to two things:

1) Was I willing to shell out that kind of money without expecting it back, should something fall through for any number of reasons? I said I was.

2) Did this scenario that this person described to me make sense. After really talking it over, in many ways it did not. For instance it did not make sense that it had come down to me, who he had not talked to in years, as his only hope at the moment. Family? Close friends? Nobody could come together to help him in the dire circumstances he described?

3) I worried about the outcome of this situation for the people involved, were he tellin the truth.

4) I worried about my own karma should I be mistaken in my wariness of this situation.

Before I left for temple I wrote him and I suggested to him that if it was truly this serious surely he’d be able to get what he needed and work out a payment plan afterward. And if not surely there were programs he could go to for help. Honestly I was just buying time. Like I said I didn’t care if I got the money back, and I knew that if I lent him the money and he did not get it back to me, it was on him and it had nothing to do with me. But I wasn’t sure if I could do it at the moment, nor was I sure at all that I trusted him asking me in the way he did.

Here’s where it gets interesting. At the Gita discussion that day, one of the men in the group just happened to bring up how sometimes someone asking you for money was an opportunity for you to show them self-sufficiency. Never mind whether you trust their motives in asking or not. That doesn’t matter. But regardless of what their true need is, can they truly do it for themselves? A fair point, I thought. Even so, seva is an important concept in Hinduism. An important part of any well-rounded dharma. It is karma yoga at its finest.

But something did not add up. And this discussion at the Temple having come up at such an opportune time moved me again. When I got home I wrote this person and explained my situation and let him know, so as not to leave him hanging, that I could not help him. I have not heard back from him. In the end, when I went to the temple, I prayed for the removal of the obstacles in this man’s life, that he might find a way out of this “pickle.”

What are your opinions of my actions in this situation? In my uncertainty of the situation should I have played it safe and assumed he was telling the absolute truth? Part of me feels I should have.

Aum, Shanti.

Multi-Tasking Media Murtis

by Aranyakananda

You know what really grinds my gears?

Has anyone noticed the sharp increase in advertisements in magazines and online wherein multi-tasking is illustrated by a human form with multiple arms each holding a different object? Does it look familiar in any way? To the practicing Hindus or cultural Indians in my “audience”, are you taken aback by these images when you see them? When I first started seeing it pop up here and there I thought it was semi-cute in some small way, but something felt weird about it. Now I have to fight with myself to not cringe every time I see it.

It just bugs me. Lord Krishna tells me to fight aversion (which itself is a contradiction if you think about it too hard – like saying you hate hate) but I can’t help it. I am displeased by images parodying the Murtis of Sanatana Dharma. I mean it is merely a feeling of distaste. It is not like how an image of the Prophet Muhammad being displayed distastefully can spark angry protests and violence. For that to happen in response to any “parody” is awful. But as a Hindu I would be particularly dismayed if it were to happen in response to a parody of Murtis.

I want to take the time here to recognize that Muhammad was a Prophet, not deity. But I am sure you see the parallels.

Granted, I have never seen an ad which truly was distasteful in its “parody” of a Hindu murti. But it is parody nonetheless. It just bugs me. That is all.

Thank you for your time.

Jai Hari Aum.

A Book Review, Sorta’, of “Dharma Punx” by Noah Levine

by Aranyakananda

I am in the process of reading “Dharma Punx” by Noah Levine upon repeatedly hearing if referenced, mainly by friends of the Buddhist persuasion. From what I understand, Levine seems to be a living guru to many. He grew up deeply engrossed in the California hard core punk scene. It was an outlet for him for the pain he felt due to a broken home, as were drugs and a violent street life. After hitting rock-bottom and feeling he had nothing to lose, he turned to meditation and quickly developed an affinity for the teachings of the Buddha, practices which he maintains to this day. He never lost his love for punk rock music, Levine says in his book, even citing a phase when he listened to “Krishnacore” music.

I am finding it quite inspirational and surprisingly applicable. I say surprisingly because, no, I am not a former crack-addict but I figure if he can quit smoking crack and a variety of other drugs, and remain clean due to meditation and other spiritual practice, then anyone can avoid some of their own destructive habits. Granted, I have never found myself in the clutches of hard drugs, and this is not meant to take away from his struggle and ongoing victory. But habits are habits and we all have them.

Also, because this is a story of a modern man who grew up in a suburban home so similar to many friends of mine (I lived in a more rural area), I find it quite applicable. I have tried to read the stories of the Pastimes of Krishna for the purpose of disconnecting certain pathways in the mind which lead from one thought to another thought to a negative or destructive action, and while finding them full of spiritual value, have yet to find the Pastimes of the child Krishna to be entirely transformational. Surely a good bit of the blame for that lies with me, and I accept that. Just giving you some background.

Also I am saying this because it is a common thing with spiritual aspirants. It is often hard to apply stories of things that happened thousands of years ago, or find things done by people who we are told were Divine, to be of much help in our modern, mundane lives, and in our (many of us are told) flawed hearts. If you find this to be true, I suspect you will get more value out of a book like “Dharma Punx” by Noah Levine.

Aum, Shanti!