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let's dive in to today's episode to welcome to the show,
Usha Naswami. How are you doing, Nasha, I'm very happy
to be here. Thank you so much for coming on
the show, my dear. I am just truly looking forward
to this conversation. You as well as I are both
devotees of Paramahansa Yogananda, and my audience, if they've been
listening at all, they know I mentioned Paramahanza all the
time Autobiography of a Yogi, But I really have never
had anyone on who has been as close lineage to
Yogananda as you have and has such a deep understanding,
much deeper than I am sure understanding of his teachings.
And I wanted to kind of talk about your journey
and your understanding of his teachings and how they affect
your teaching. So thank you so much for coming on
the show, my joy. So, how did you regain your
journey into self realization? And for people who don't know
what self realization is can you explain it?
Speaker 2: Self? Realization is a way of understanding, answering the question
who am I. It's a way of answering the question
what really causes suffering? And what really causes happiness? And
it leads us inward to a deeper and deeper Oddly,
the more you go inward, the broader you perspective guts
rather than the opposite, And it gives one. It gives me,
has given me a poll star by which I can
measure everything else. Is it leading me towards or is
it leading me away from expanded awareness greater enlightenment?
Speaker 1: And how did you start your journey towards self realization?
Speaker 2: You know, I was one of those people who always
was intensely interested in things that other people weren't interested in.
From my earliest childhood, I just I had this intense
passion to be happy, which was paradoxical because I was
very happy. I had a very nice family, I grew
up well, but I always wanted to understand the feeling
side of life. I was very school smart, which in
our society of your school smart that just sort of
everybody thinks, therefore you have your life together. But I
was entirely conscious of the fact that nobody was really
talking to me about the actual meaning of life. They
were just telling me how to get through it in
a way that would look like success. So I held
on until I was admitted into Stanford University, which at
that time you didn't have to be a queen or
a king or something like that could get into Stanford.
I want to say this was a long time ago.
It was also in nineteen sixty five when the whole
American society was just coming apart, and I was right
in the middle of it. And as soon as I
got to Stanford, I sort of held out, thinking if
I got to a great university, I would actually discover wisdom.
And in the first two weeks I discovered knowledge, but
I did not discover wisdom. It was very clear to me,
very quickly that my teachers had no more of a
clue than I did about what life was about. So,
as it happened, at that time, the great dead was
just forming, and they formed right here. They formed, you know, Rybere,
Stanford is. So they would have these house parties almost
every Friday, and I would find out where the party
was and I would just go and I would dance
all night, and basically that was my college. I flunked
out at the end. And almost as soon as I
flunked out, I met a group of friends and they
were studying the teachings of Vivid Caananda and Rama Krishna.
Rama Krishna was a great avatar of the late eighteen
hundreds in India. And they handed me a book by Vividcananda.
Very intellectual, very brilliant mind if Cananda was. And I
opened the book and it for the first time in
my life. Because I grew up in a Jewish family,
and I grew up actually in Texas and then moved
to California before I finished high school, I didn't know
anything about India. India was just coming to the West.
This was again, This was by now nineteen. In sixty six,
I opened the book by Vivikenanda. It said it actually
was out of the Bible, but I didn't know it.
Perfect love casts out fear. What you are today is
the result of what you did, Yesterdaday. If you don't
think about yourself, you'll be happy. All three of those
were absolute revelations to me, and it took me about
five minutes to decide this is what I've been looking for.
And then I spent the next three years and I
inwardly developed a very deep relationship with Rama Krishna, which
I still carry. He passed away before nineteen hundred, so
there was no chance of ever meeting you, and so
I studied. I read books after book after book after book,
and then I started reading about saints and yogis and
mystics just everywhere. But I was Jewish, so I couldn't
be a Catholic nun, not that I wanted to be,
I wasn't. I didn't believe in Jesus. I didn't know
Jesus at that point, so Christianity was out altogether. I
didn't know how to go live in a cave. Going
to India wasn't as common as it was, and I
was probably too cowardly to do it anyway. So I
got totally full of the idea that there's another way
to live, and I was completely helpless. I just didn't
know how to make it happen. And I literally thought
if I just got up, went to work, came home
with with my friends, got up the next morning, I
went to work again, I would lose my mind. I mean,
I really thought I would lose my mind, and of course,
right into that, all of a sudden someone tells me
about Swami Criananda, who's an American with an Indian name
who was a direct disciple of Yogananda. When he was
twenty two, he met Yogananda. He lived with Yogananda for
the last three years of Yogananda's life. He was in
San Francisco. I was in Palo Alto, where I still am,
and my friend said, he's a real teacher. You're like him.
And he was speaking just Stanford plays a role in
my life. He was speaking at Stanford. It was actually
a fraternity had a big party tent and they, wow,
this is cool. We'll invite a swallomy. You know, this
is again nineteen. This is sixty nine by now. So
I go to that event and Swami Creanando walked into
the room. It wasn't even a room, it was a tent.
He walked into the tent. Something in me said, he
has what I want. He was the first person I
had ever met. I was now twenty two by this point,
first person I had ever met that. I don't even
know what the words meant to me, but I could
feel his consciousness. I could feel that he had he
personified everything I'd been reading. There was joy, there was power,
there was freedom, there was love, there was kindness, and
he filled the room. My friends. My friends were less
interested than I was, so they insisted we sit in
the last row. So I'm in the last row, and
I felt like he was right in front of me
like this. All of this happened without words. I hadn't
even heard his voice, and I just thought, That's what
I've been looking for. Then he talked. I don't remember
anything he said, except that he talked to us about
Yoga Nanda. I had autobiography of a Yogi, but it
was too full of miracles for me too. I was
too intellectual and I didn't go for all the so
I had read a few pages and put the books down.
But he was a disciple of Yogananda. And after he
finished talking, I thought, this is the most intelligent man
I've ever met, which for me was fun because I
like intelligence. It's kind of my hobby. Honestly, I would
have gone to Antarctica. Whatever he'd been doing, I would
have done it. But that was nice. It was nice
that we spoke the same language. Literally we both spoke English,
and also his nature.
Speaker 1: Will be right back after a word from our sponsor
and now back to the show.
Speaker 2: And I made a decision at that point that wherever
he was, I would be and I've never looked back.
He had a community, and he had a community, he
was starting a community, and I just gave up everything,
went there, never looked back.
Speaker 1: Well, that's such a beautiful I've heard those kind of
stories before about about him and other Yogis when they
walk in Yogi Swami. To my understanding, a swami is
more of a priest like aspect of philosophy, while a
Yogi isn't am I wrong on that.
Speaker 2: Well, Aswami has taken and I'm a swami also Aswami
has taken certain vows, it's it's more in the traditional
swami order, a swami is a monk. Samiana himself expanded
the idea of the swami order to include if you,
if you have, if your partnered, and you and you
both wish to follow the spiritual path, you don't have
to separate in order to do that. So it's more
just a declaration. Yogi is someone, as Yoga Nanda describes
as someone who follows a particular discipline in order to
achieve realization. Aswami is someone who says, I furthermore, I renounce,
and traditionally you renounce personal relationship. In the Naiaswami order,
you don't have to. But nonetheless, I live for I
live for God alone. And it's between the traditional order
and the Naiaswamy order. There's been some shifts because the
traditional order was based on a society that doesn't exist anymore, right, right,
So the Naiaswamy order that includes the same level of renunciation,
a formal declaration to oneself and to the divine that says,
there's nothing else in my life that matters to me
except the spiritual life. But in our society generally people
have to live somewhere. It's not easy to get along
without money, you know. So it's it's adjusted, but inwardly
it's just the same.
Speaker 1: No, when you said that when you first read Autobiography
of Yogi was too full of miracles, I would have
to agree with you. I read I was introduced to
me by my spiritual guide that I've had most of
my life, and she says, you got to read this book.
And I started reading it and it was just I
was raised Catholic, so it was way too far out
for me. This. I had just never heard of bio,
you know, biolocation and levitation. And and then I didn't
even get into Baba g like I would have. My
mind would have exploded if I would have gotten to
the chapter with Baba Ge. But just those early chapters
it was just too much for me. It took me
another decade really before I was ready again. And then
when I was ready, it was like this big explosion
just like came through. I was like, oh, oh, I
get it. It was just the book, the book. I
wasn't ready for the book yet. I wasn't ready for
the teachers yet.
Speaker 2: What happened to me is, first of all, because I
had so much intuitive feeling about Swami Kria Nanda. I felt,
if he's dedicated to Yoga Nanda, there must be something here.
I don't know. But oddly, once I met him, I
went back I opened the book, it all made sense
to me. I mean, this was not a decade, this
was a matter of you know, even almost like months.
It's just his vibration communicated to me. And because I
had an intuitive experience of the truth of this. I
didn't approach it with skepticism. I approached it with from
the point of view of how how could this be true?
Not how could this be true?
Speaker 1: Very that's a great distinction, very very nice distinction. No.
I mean, I wish I would have met someone like
Swami at my age, but that wasn't my path. I
needed to go through some stuff to get to where
I am today. But before we continue, we're talking about Yogananda,
because you and I both know who he is his teachings,
can you explain a little bit to people who are
unaware of who Parama Paramahansa Yogananda, what he did for
when he came over to the West. I know there's
a very large question, but just the highlights of what
he did and his teachings.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, this world is not run, thank God,
by the politicians.
Speaker 1: Thank God, they.
Speaker 2: Act as instruments for cosmic karma, for national karma, and
for a divine plan to be played out. In autobiography
Bioki It says Yogananda says that Jesus Christ, as the
spiritual leader of the West and Babaji as the spiritual
leader of the East, are in constant communion and have
planned the spiritual salvation of this age. Now, these are
the kinds of things that when you first read the
book you think, really, but after a while it begins
to make great sense to you, and that these two
great masters are very concerned about racial hatred, religious bigotry,
suicidal war, selfish, excessive materialism, etc. So there's been the
very long I mean very long, you know, this constant
process in which the conditions of the planet are constantly
shifting so that those of us who are incarnate on
it can have the experiences we need for enlightenment. And
these changes go over a long period of time, and
we're coming into a higher age. There's many factors here.
So a little more than one hundred years ago, farm
hunter Yogananda, at the behest of Bapaci, came from India
to the West. Now India and the West are completely integrated.
I live in Silicon Valley. Forty percent of the CEOs
of the companies here are from India. And when I
walk around here, it's very similar to walking around New Delhi.
I mean, it's just it's like that. But when Yoga
Nanda came, he was bringing to a new country, because
the US is a new country, relatively speaking, the ancient
teachings of India, and he was translating them, not just
by language, but he was picking out those aspects of
the ancient teaching that were applicable and relevant to the
age we're living in now. He came to the United
States in nineteen twenty. He landed in Boston, eventually migrated
to Los Angeles where he set up his work. And
he because the United States was a clean slate in
terms of these teachings. We knew nothing about it effectively,
and we're very practical and we look to the future,
we don't look to the past, and we have this
belief that if it can be done, we can do it.
And in fact o Gondandi himself said, when you speak
of these teachings in India, especially at that time, people
would say, oh, yes, self realization, but you know, Mike
Karma's is so hard. Maybe some lifetime he would give
the same teachings in the US and people would say,
God realization, sure we can do that. And the whole
teaching was completely unburdened by the by religion. You know,
people think that self realization is Hinduism, but it is not.
Hinduism is a religion. Self realization is what they call
it sanatan dharma, which translates that which is it's the
nature of humanity. And so in this age, and you
can see it everywhere, we want to liberate ourselves from
oppressive tradition, and we want to go right to the
actual essence, and the essence is what causes suffering and
what brings happiness. Yoga Nanda brought with him a small
book that he wrote. The first book. He actually somebody
else wrote it for him because he didn't know English
that well at that time. He called it the Science
of Religion, but it and its theme was very simple
that there are we are. Humanity is made in a
certain way. Certain ways of being create suffering, other ways
of being created happiness. And everybody, every decision you make
is always because you think it will increase happiness and
reduce suffering. Many of the decisions are misguided and exceedingly stupid,
but nonetheless we do them because we believe that. So
self realization is nothing, but it is only an ever deeper,
more subtle understanding of what causes us to suffer and
what brings us to show it.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor.
And now back to the show and the people to
get an understanding is that at that time when yoga
on the came, most Americans have never seen an Indian
exactly exactly, let alone a yogi yes, you know, with
a turban walking around his complexion and then spounding these ideas.
It was like it was like an alien had landed, essentially.
Speaker 2: But it's very interesting. He was.
Speaker 1: He was.
Speaker 2: He was one of, if not the most popular public
speakers of his time. He went on spiritual campaigns back
and forth across the United States. He filled about literally thousands,
you know, the largest halls in the largest cities, because well,
it's what I felt when Swami Creanandi came in. He
wasn't talking, he he was what he was talking about.
And he was a marvelous I wanted to use the
word showman, but I don't mean that in a bad sense.
But he was very He he just radiated enormous power,
and he did miracles on the stage, and he did
miraculous healings, and so people just flocked he became, and
he was so charming and so funny and so warm
hearted and so practical. He made what he was speaking
about extremely practical, because that's the American temperament. And he
knew if it could take hold, I mean they knew,
Bobba jee knew that if it could take hold in
the West, it could spread, which is exactly what we've
seen what happened. He taught people how to be happy
in their marriage, how to be successful in their work,
how to make money, how to cure themselves of diseases,
I mean, everything that people really wanted to know, he didn't.
He also talked in high elevated ways, but he took
the highest teachings and brought them right down to where
people were standing.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Isn't it interesting? Though? And that's a really key
point of his teachings, and for that matter, of Jesus
Christ's teachings that at the level when Jesus was walking
the earth, the consciousness of humanity was only at a
certain level and could only grasp what he was saying
to a certain level. And obviously the end of that
story was not well. Didn't end it well for Jesus.
So what Yogananda did as well, because these Yogis there
are at such a high level of understanding and consciousness.
What was so wonderful about Yogananda. He was able to
bring it down to a level where it was very
digestible for people to understand, and especially the consciousness in
the nineteen with twenties or so. Can you imagine in
the roaring twenties talking about self realization when it was
all material material, material, money, money, money, money, money. It's
so amazing and and for people, tell us understand that
Yoga Nanda is and please correct me if I'm wrong.
He introduced the concepts of yoga and also meditation to
the West. Am I correct with that? Well?
Speaker 2: I would say autobiography of Yogi has been the catalyst,
and has autobiography of the Yogi started the revolution. It's
the it's the handbook of the revolution. And and you know, again,
things work on a subtle level. Yoga Nanda by incarnating,
he planted this, this, this, uh, you know, this waves
of vibration, just like Jesus. If you looked at Jesus's life,
you would have think this man is going to be forgotten.
Nobody is going to pay any attention to this crucified outsider.
But over time those vibrations keep building. You know, I
want to I want to clarify a single point here.
One of the things that Autobiography of Yogi talks about,
but only very briefly, is this is this cyclical nature
of consciousness on a planet, and it's called the and
it's a tradition in many cultures, and it's also an
Indian one. And we are emerging from an age of matter,
it's called Kali, the dark age. We're coming into the
age of energy. We're in the age of energy, and
we're in an ascending cycle. Okay, we are in a
transition which is very turbulent and is going to remain turbulent.
And so what we have both is we have a
very powerful force that's trying to hold us to the past,
fixed religions, fixed races, fixed cultures. And simultaneously we have
the age of energy, where people are realizing that it's
all the same. So there is the revolution that Yogananda
helped launch. He's by no means the only one, but
he's certainly a major figure of souls who are beginning
to come into a completely new way of understanding. Simultan paneously,
you have this powerful force pulling in the other direction.
So the world is getting lighter and the world is
getting darker. In a weird simultaneous way, and the light
in this case is going to triumph because there's a
cosmic force that's pushing us into a higher age, but
now without a bit of a struggle. But what happens
is that the masters, the avatars, the fully realized masters.
I know the word avatars assumed another meaning, which is
highly unfortunate. But the fully God realized masters, they always
have the same consciousness and their capacity is always to
go from the infinite to the infinitesimal. They move and
are at home in all it all aspects of existence.
But when they are sent choose to come, they incarnated
in a particular place. They are limited by the culture
and by the level of consciousness of the planet. However,
their disciples are also there, and so they also come
to serve those disciples, and full realization can exist at
any stage of the planet. The planet has a certain level,
but realization is independent of circumstances. But the response of
those disciples is different. Like after Jesus's life, they all
just left. They went out to the deserts, they went
out to the caves, they went out into monasteries. Society
was dark and getting darker, and so there was no
point in trying to build or do anything because we
were just going to get worse. So they isolated themselves,
which was kind of nice. You just got to say,
I'm here for god realization, I'm out of here in
the age, in the age that Yogananda came into to
build a new society. So those of us who are
wakening to this are building a new way of living,
and so we can't run away. We have to walk
into it. And that's why people are becoming less religious
and more spiritual.
Speaker 1: It is kind of remarkable that that is, at least
in I mean since the sixties. I mean the sixties
was it was kind of like a bomb going off,
you know, and it's and it's rippled ever since, and
it's now growing in ways that even in my lifetime
I was born in the seventies and from when I
was born to where we are right now, I mean,
yoga was something that is kind of thrown in the background.
And meditation you were kind of kookie if you meditated,
And now CEOs are meditating. There's apps, doctors are saying no, no,
you should meditate. It calms you down, you know, all
this kind of stuff, and even a show like mine.
And I've said this on the show so many times,
is a show like mine probably wouldn't have worked twenty
years ago. People weren't people weren't ready to hear conversations
like this, conversations of near death experiences of other masters,
of these kind of teachings. They just wouldn't have been ready.
But it's been, so I love to hear your point,
your point of viewing this. In the last ten years,
it seems like it's been It's like a rocket launching
more so than the last thirty years. Prior there has
been growth, without question, but these last ten years, it
just seems to be accelerating and accelerating and accelerating and
accelerating so so fast. Well, what's your thoughts on that?
Speaker 2: Well, I've I was born in the forties, so I've
been full time in this since nineteen sixty nine and
full time living. You know, I've lived in a spiritual
community all my life, more than fifty years now, and
one hundred percent. I always prefer people talk about the
cutting edge. I prefer the lunatic fringe. That's sort of work.
I've always tried to live with a lunatic fringe, and
so I've been in the lunatic fringe for a really really,
really really long time just being a vegetarian when I
saw it.
Speaker 1: Don't even get me started. I'm not vegetarian as well.
Speaker 2: My family required that I submit my entire diet to
a doctor who pronounced it the healthiest diet he'd ever
seen and said I would outlive them all, fortunately, thank God.
But even vegetarianism was weird and all of that. But
the way things change historically is that a small group
of people who are completely committed. Most people in the
world just.
Speaker 1: Drift with the tide, will be right back after a
word from our sponsor and now back to the show.
Speaker 2: And a small group of people who are deeply committed,
often always relating to each other. If you look at
history this way, the Renaissance in Italy, you know, just
where the Transcendentalists in the Eastern United States, the Russian Revolution,
the Disciples of Christ, it's always a very small group
of people. The disciples of Buddha, you know, they gather together,
they create a vortex a little to the side of society,
and if it's cosmically destined, then society moves and runs
through their vortex and then if they're if they're wide awake,
then they move over and society moves over to it.
So when I first moved to Silicon Valley, which was
now thirty six years ago, we were the only game
in town if you want a meditation or yoga, the
only game in town. You know. And now my comment
about California is not everybody meditates, but those who don't
feel guilty because they don't that is, and that is
mainstream and meditating, yogi's clearing their chakras is universal humor.
You can have jokes about this, which is a very
sophisticated level of understanding that you not only know what
it is, but you know it enough to make a
joke about it. However, we have a long waist to go.
Speaker 1: Yes, I was watching the show the other day and
they're like, they were making fun of I'm clearing my chakras,
and I'm like, wow, but that it's there.
Speaker 2: It's there, it's their Simultaneously, the word avatar, for example,
which is a great and beautiful word, has been completely
destroyed in certain ways. People don't know what karma is.
My favorite with karma, my absolute favorite was a Harlequin
romance book which I don't think they even have anymore.
But and there's a picture on the cover, and there's
this woman whose clothes are sort of half off her
and she looks very involved. And there's two pictures of
the illustration. There's two pictures of two men up there,
and the words are was it Elizabeth? Was it Elizabeth's
karma to be with Henry? Or would her karma take
her to Robert instead? We've arrived in New Ages here, yeah, yeah,
and simultaneously, oh my gosh.
Speaker 1: A little off the mark, a little off the mark,
but at least they're talking about it.
Speaker 2: At least they're talking about it. And and I've traveled
all over the world. That's what I do now. I
travel a lot. There's so much light. I used to
be very pessimistic. I'm not at all. There is so
much light, yes, coming in from so many sources, and
so many people are basically catching the wave. The wave
is there, and in yoga, Nanda's consciousness has planted a
great deal of it, and Kreyananda and the other who
not Again, I don't want to be sectarian, but these
are powerful forces, and these these are my life. So
these are the ones I know. But just so many
people in so many ways are getting the idea. The power,
the worldly power is still in the hands of the
people who are desperately trying to make the past the future.
But they're not going to be able to.
Speaker 1: Right and I agree with you, and they're gonna they're
kind of doing the death rattle, if you will, of all.
And it's not just religion, but it's also every aspect
of life, every aspect different different levels of government, the
financial systems, the food systems, the medicine, the medical all
systems that have been around that are not of service
and truly serving humanity. In this new stage of where
we're all going, they're going to fight, but they're going
to lose, and.
Speaker 2: The divine the divine plan is to let them do
a lot and have a lot of destruction. Yoga Nanda
predicted very hard times and we're just getting at the
edge of it. We still have these mad men, these rulers.
Some think that your country belongs to me. It's like why,
But we chose to incarnate at this point, so it
seemed like a good idea at the time.
Speaker 1: There we are, well, this is from my understanding of
talking to other spiritual masters, they said, this is if
you are incarnated in this time period, you chose it
because it's probably one of the most exciting times in
humanity's history to see this transformation. It's never happened before.
That's from what I understand. This where we're going has
never happened in our species evolution is from what I understand.
Speaker 2: Well that that's not quite in keeping with the tradition
of India, but it's close enough, and it's and it's
always new because it's always us. It's always a new
it's always a new batch of souls, you know. And
so we're all we're unique and we're living out our
unique karma. So this has a unique The Indian tradition
is a twenty four thousand year cycle.
Speaker 1: Sure, sure, but everything so that the times and I've
had I've had a couple of experts in the Yugas
come on and I've talked to them about it, and
when they told us, like, yeah, the Dark Ages was
pretty much the bottom those it was because there was
nothing going on for hundreds of years. It was just
just no movement in humanity's consciousness during the Dark Ages.
And then we've now started to go upward. We're going
up again. And then my question to them and my
question to you is, when we reach the opposite side
of the dark ages, if we go back into another
cycle of going down again, is that just cyclical nature
of souls and incarnation? But aren't we? Are we moving
step by step? So let's say Atlantis. I'll just use
this as an example. Let's say Atlantis or a society
like Atlantis, was the pinnacle of the top of an
awareness of consciousness of spirituality. We built the pyramids. I'm
throwing this out there. Please don't take it to the
grain with a grain of salt. But then we start
to do it downward, downward, we start going back down
the other cycle. Every time we get to that cycle.
Are we kind of leveling up on the cycle a
little bit and getting closer to an enlightenment as a species?
Speaker 2: No, because the premise, there's several premises that I believe.
Now this, I'm not making this up. This is what
from Swami Creannando, with whom I had a very active,
interactive close association for forty five years. Everything I learned
I learned from him. Everything he learned he learned from
Yoga Nanda. So nothing is mine, but I've integrated or
I've come from my own experience to accept it. So
what I'm talking about is how Yoga Nanda himself explained
the cycle of the Yugas. And it's very first, the
premise of we is a is a hard premise in
that because humanity is not an entity, the the eternal
entity is The word in Sanskrit is jiva ji v a,
which is more or less the equivalent word of soul
in the English, except soul is a little use that
you're using it for your titles. Soul is a little
bit less exact. Jiva is the unique spark of individuality,
you might call it the bubble in the ocean of infinity.
And that individuality is eternal. Interestingly, that who I am
I will always be and always have been, and that
jieva is that spark of divinity that comes in and
out of many bodies, over many incarnations, but makes it
always the same. And it's the jieva who radually becomes enlightened.
And once the jieva becomes enlightened, it's over. But humanity
never becomes enlightened per se. And there are many physical
material planets in creation. Yoganan descent, he said, countless inhabited planets.
Creanana asked him, do we always come back on Earth?
Yoganan to laugh. No, No, of course not, he said.
There are countless choices. When you're in the non physical world,
you look over the many choices, and you find the place,
the culture, the people, the family that matches your karmic pattern,
that gives you the opportunity to learn what you have
to learn now in physical creation, the Yuga cycle, apparently,
and I'm repeating what I understand to be true, is
actually an astronomical phenomenon, not a spiritual one, not an astrological,
but astronomical. Our solar system moves closer and then farther
away from the galactic center. And the closer we are
to the center of the galaxy, the more energy comes
to this planet, and therefore the more enlightened people are.
And then the planet follows this elliptical orbit. A solar
system follows the elliptical orbit and gets farther and farther
away from that energy, and at the nayder it's being
activated with the least amount of energy, and then it
makes a turn on its orbit and it starts back
up again. This is what sre Teshwar created. So we
go forward and there's four ages, and so we have
an ascending cycle of the ages than a descending So
we reached the nay deer and start up again. The
nayder of this cycle was five hundred AD, so Jesus
was born at the lowest point and it got worse
that it began to transition into the higher age we're
moving into now. In seventeen hundred, Yoga Nanda said, and
entered fully in nineteen hundred. If you look at everything
that happened in the last century, from nineteen hundred to
two thousand, everything was transformed.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 2: And we call these things inventions, but they're actually discoveries.
Oil was always there. This system we're using to talk
to each other was always there. It's just that nobody
noticed it, and so people became aware of it. And
so we keep evolving technologically and in our awareness of
unity up to an apex, which is twenty twelve thousand,
five hundred, twelve thousand years. We reach the apex, and
then we start losing awareness, and then we go to
the naty again and then we do it again. But
it's the planet actually that's doing it. And so the
souls on the planet come from an astral world where
they have a choice, and we just choose because the
drama of the planet is the backdrop for the real drama,
which is individual awakening. And an individual can be in
the darkest age on the planet like Jesus and he
and his disciples they were fully awake, they weren't. Their
awakening is not dependent on the relative awareness of the planet.
Their response to the incarnation they have is controlled by
what's going on. Jesus was crucified. It was not special
for Jesus. Everybody they didn't like was crucified. But now now, well,
we still have the death penalty, but people are horrified
by it, and they do it way over here in
the corner. They don't crucify people right on the sidewalk
like they did with Jasus. In countless other ways. You
see that we're that the culture is refining, but there's
still barbarians here.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean there was public burnings, you know
burning which is at the stake. There was public hangings,
public hangings, and they were in the nineteenth century.
Speaker 2: Yes, they were and people.
Speaker 1: You know, I think there's still one state that allows
public hangings, you know, even it's still it's still a thing,
but a firing squad, these kind of things that now
you're just like, no, it's not that's not the way
to do it. No, it is. It's evolving. And when
we look, I mean look at the Colisseum. I mean,
I mean, look what was going on there and and
where we're at now. It's it's fascinating. One other thing
that was really interesting about Yogananda's approach with the West
is that he put up Jesus right next to Baba
Je right next to Yuktashwah and the Heir Mahashi in
the row of saints and Masters. And for the West,
that was the first time anyone had ever paid homage
outside of a Christian faith to Jesus as a great Master.
And from what I understand, Jesus is renowned in India
as a great avatar, as a great quote unquote Yogi
for the teachings that he that he was doing, and
they treat Jesus very differently than the West does. Is
that is that fair statement?
Speaker 2: Oh, it's a fair statement, you know, the Yoga Nanda
writes a great length about the quote the so called
lost years of Jesus, which of the eighteen years, you know,
Jesus was twelve years old teaching in the temple, and
then he was thirty years old, and he just shows
up again, and nobody apparently thought to ask him where
he was for those eighteen years, which there's there's. This
is now becoming this is not even esoteric. Now this
is becoming common knowledge. That Jesus went to India, which
is where it was. So more of Jesus's life was
in India than it was in the West. And he
went to the foot of the masters to according to Yogananda,
which I believe is true in the tradition. There he
went to the Himalius, he studied with Babaje, and then
he preached. He preached all over India. He preached in Varanasi,
he preached in Pori at the Jaganaut temple. There he
established an entire lineage, and he was completely in the
context of Indian teaching, which according to the Bagavad Gito,
whenever virtue declines and vice predominates, I the infinite spirit
take visible for in order to restore dharma, and so
they knew exactly who Jesus was. Oh, this is Jesus
is a self realized master, come to help us again.
And Jesus left instructions for his disciple Thomas. As soon
as after Jesus died, the disciples all got together to
decide what they should do. But Thomas already had his
instructions from Jesus, and his instruction was to go to India.
And so as soon as Jesus died, Thomas went right
to India. He went to South India and he continued
what Jesus had been doing. Because Jesus had only been
gone for three and a half years, he just I
am the disciple of the master you were following. They
called him Esha, and Thomas established a huge following and
it was completely integrated into Indian culture. It was not separate.
And it was that way for like three or four
hundred years. And then what happened was the Portuguese came
this is in the South and they were just stunned
to discover that there was this whole other branch of
Jesus's teachings and it did not match what the church
had established by that point, so this is also history.
They basically burned all the manuscripts. They burned all the
manuscripts and eliminated a lot of the people and then
took advantage of the devotion to Christ but just turned
it into Catholicism at that point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they yeah, I always joke I'm a recovering Catholic
and I still feel guilty about it. I mean, let's
not even get started with the Vatican. Let's not get
it started with the Council of Nicea. Like, there's so
much I've dedicated full hours to just the Council of
Nicea alone to break for people to really understand where
the Bible truly comes from.
Speaker 2: But it came to just say, look, it's just one
avatar after another, and your most beloved avatar, Jesus is
blessing what I'm doing. And that's why the picture was there.
It wasn't like a sop to the West. It was
let me tell you, Jesus yoga. Nanda's state admission was
to was to restore the original teachings of Jesus and
the original teachings of Krishna because both Hinduism and Christianity
have wandered way off and to show that it's the
same principles. Oh revolution, I.
Speaker 1: Have to explain. I have to tell you something. I
have a very unique perspective on this topic because I
speak to so many different spiritual masters from all walks
of life, spoken to over a hundred year death experiences.
Speaker 2: From all walks of life, wonderful.
Speaker 1: I've spoken to you know people and you know, from
mediums to channelers to everybody, and I keep finding the
same principles that keep coming up. It's not like one
person's telling me apples and the other one's telling me oranges.
I rarely, in all almost four hundred episodes I've done
at this show, I rarely, if ever, have had someone
say something so off track that like, oh Karma, yeah,
it's not right, it doesn't exist. No one has said
something like that. They've said a version of it, they
might have a little different flavor to it, but the
core ideas of all of it seem to always ring true.
And that's what I find so fascinating, because if you
study Yoga, Nanda, you study Jesus, you study Buddha, you
study Krishna, the core ideas are all there. A truth
is a truth is a truth would you agree.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, you know. Yoga Nanda said self realization has
to come to unite all religions. And he did not
mean he called his organization self realization, but that's not
what he meant. He meant the principles of self realization
are going to allow people to understand and perceive the unity.
Swami Creananda took it another step, which is a very
interesting Kreananda's job was to take the seminal ideas that
Yogananda had. Swami wrote one hundred and forty books and
he took the seminal ideas that Yogananda had and stretched
them out and brought them down into a clearer understanding.
So this one self realization is here to unite. Swami
writes about that every every you start with revelation, you
have an an avatar comes with a direct revelation. Over
time it becomes religion.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show.
Speaker 2: And religion is then is then the religion ists are sincere,
often very sincere, but they don't have the direct revelation,
so they just make the best that they can do,
and gradually everything deteriorates because that's the way it works.
So what you end up with is this religion has
Jesus Christ as our Lord and savior. This one worships
Mother Collie. You know this one has no images at all.
They think the Buddha was an atheist, which is not true.
But you know it because this is what's called. Swami
called it the way of belief. And on the on
the level of belief, you cannot reconcile it. You can
be courteous, you can be respectful, you can say, well,
isn't that sweet? You have it. You have your belief
and I have mine, but you never come together. But
the way of belief is balanced by the way of awakening.
And when when your consciousness actually begins to awaken, then
everybody sees the same thing. They see love, they see kindness,
they see where happiness comes from, they see what causes suffering.
And you may still be devoted to my Lord Jesus
Christ or my dear Chrishna, but that's not what defines you.
What defines you is the way your consciousness has changed
because of your devotion and your practice. And that's where
the principles of self realization come in. Our consciousness will
change because of my principles in practice is my ish
today of my chosen focus for my devotion may still
be Christiana or Jesus, and I won't shift from one
to the other, but my experience will be just like yours,
and we'll recognize each other. We'll look into each other's
eyes and we'll recognize each other.
Speaker 1: It's in a certain way you're right, because not in
a certain way you're completely right. But when someone like
Jesus or Chrishna or Buddha or and on the show
up they are they have such a deep understanding of
the teachings, They have a revelation. They have a revelation
inside of themselves. So that is the key ingredient that
they can't give to someone else. They can guide to
see if they can find it within themselves. But they
they that understanding is very difficult. So then the good good,
the the group after the master dies starts the religion
and they say, okay, well, yogan Nanda said that night,
Jesus said this. Okay, he said this, this and this,
And then someone will come along and go, well did
he say this? And what did he really mean? I mean,
you know, it thinks it thinks along that side. It's
the equivalent. And this is a crude example. But I'm
a master chef, and in my recipe book, I lay
out all the greatest recipes, and everything I cooked when
I was alive was the most delicious things you've ever
had in your life. But when I wrote a pinch
of salt or a dash of this, I know what
that means. Now you have to interpretate what my pinch
and what my dash was, and did I put something
else in it that I might have not put in
the recipe, something that I brought to a crude example,
But it's where it starts to get deluded. And that's
only one step away from the master. Can you imagine hundreds,
if not thousands of years from the original teachers. One
of my favorite quotes of Yogananda is that Jesus Christ
was crucified on one day, but his teachings were crucified
for the last two thousand years. And it's just so so.
And to that example, almost all, if not every single
avatar or master who walked the earth, their teachings have
been diluted, misunderstood, changed over time, not for malice, sometimes
for malice, sometimes for powering and other things. Generally not
for malice, but just for lack of understanding, lack of capacity.
Speaker 2: Would you agree, Oh yes, but you see, the marvel
of India is take that into account. You see that's
in the Bagvadita. Whenever it declines, the nu Avatar comes
not to not to displace what came before, but to
clarify what has been lost. And that is one hundred
percent what Yogananda said. I'm here to show you the
original teachings of Christian and the original teachings of Jesus,
and through that to show you that self realization is
what everybody's talking about. And now that we're see in
the age that we've just come out of, form was fixed.
If you look at the way the society has changed,
what's happened is that forms are disintegrating. You know, in gender,
which I would never have thought of as fluid gender
has become fluid. Marriage is you know, kind of iffy.
A lot of times people still should and want to
be married, but so many other forms of relationship exists,
blah blah blah. And people want to be spiritual but
not religious, which is what they're actually saying, is that
I want to to be inside of me, not outside
of me, and so yeah, and so it's it's a
very interesting time that we live in.
Speaker 1: And no, it is extremely it's extremely interesting time. To
say the least. I have to ask you. The world
is going through so much upheaval right now as we've
been talking, these forces of the old systems want to
continue to hold onto power while the new world that's
coming up, it's going to happen, but there's they're going
to put up a fight and it's going to get
it is it's already violent. Yeah, you know what's happening
over in the Middle East, what's happening over in Ukraine,
where it's happening over all over the world, these old ideas,
battles for land, arguments about this it's it's it's it's insane.
What's happening right now? What in Yoga Nanda's teachings can
you tell the audience that could help us move towards
these next five, ten, fifteen to twenty years that are
coming up ahead of us, which to my understanding again
speaking to so many different spiritual masters, that it's going
to get bumpy, but it is going to get better.
But it's it's going to be a bumpy ride. Not
that it's going to be horrible all the way through,
but there is going to be some turbulence in this
airplane ride towards consciousness.
Speaker 2: Well, jogan Nanda said, it's going to be really terrible.
I have to just say that out loud. Okay, he said,
it's going to be really terrible. He spoke of world wars,
he spoke of massive depression. He implied earth changes, cataclysmic
earth changes. He warned, He thundered his warning. So I
mean Kreananda carried out that morning to the point where
we all got you know, we kind of got tired
of hearing it. Every year. Swami would say, is this
the year? Because he'd heard Yogananda declare it. Now, this
is what we have to understand the purpose of all
this tumult is because as as a global culture, we
are way off track and we have loss contact with
inner realities and we need to be shaken up and
come back. And the answer was very simple. Develop an
inner life, Develop a relationship with your own higher consciousness,
Develop a relationship with God. Develop the ability to draw
your energy from your inner resources, not merely be dependent
on your outer circumstances. Because outer circumstances, according to many prophecies,
including Yogananda's, are going to change. And so if we are,
if we are are capable of living from inside in
relationship to higher consciousness, then if the outside gets radically shifted,
it won't affect what I think of as myself. The
degree to which my self respect, my comfort, my security,
my self definition depends on everything staying just the way
it is. We're going to be very insecure. So I'm
a Kreananda. He said, you know, now is the time
to anchor yourself in an inner reality and then the
world can do whatever it wants and it won't define you.
And simultaneously, if we have inner strength, we'll be able
to help others and.
Speaker 1: To touch upon the inner strength aspect of it. And
for people listening, who are whose heads have exploded from
this conversation, you and I have been. I mean, you
and I completely understand what we're talking about, but somebody
listening right now's head has exploded. It's essentially how you
and I were when we first read autobiography or Yogurt,
or when Swami walked into the room that day. That's
hopefully what is what this conversation is doing to somebody,
if not two or three people out there right now.
The idea of religion versus self realization, and I want
to make this a very clear idea, and I'd love
to hear your thoughts of it. We'll be right back
after a word from our sponsor, and now back to
the show. The second that we give our power away
to a middle man to talk to God, that is religion.
Religion generally speaking, is especially from the Catholic perspective, you
give the power to the institution because the institution is like,
you cannot connect to God or God's power, or God's
knowledge or wisdom or love without going through us first
for forgiveness. Again, I'm using the Catholic lens. Without us,
you will not be forgiven, You will not be able
to get into the quote unquote Kingdom of Heaven all
of this stuff. Where As opposed to the concept of
self realization is that the power is within you. All
the answers you seek are within you. And as you
said at the very beginning of this conversation, the deeper
you go within, the wider your perspective goes. I just
want people to understand what is going on there, because
if we are empowered ourselves. It's very difficult to control
somebody who's empowered themselves because they are a free entity.
They are a free soul, they're a free being. And
if the power that they have is within themselves, you
can't take that away from them exactly. But if you
give your power away to an institution like a religion,
then that is where control happens. And again through the
Catholic lens. Yeah, I mean it's called the Roman by
the way. I don't know if I know this is
gonna be sound really funny to you. I was in
Italy and I went to the Vatican, and for the
very first time in my entire life on this planet,
I realized that it was called the Roman Catholic Church,
and I'm like, oh my god, the Romans created this.
I had no idea. I just never connected the dots
that it was Roman Catholic Church. I've said it a
billion times. Oh yeah, I'm Roman Catholic Roman, but never
really understood that, Oh Rome, Rome made this. The Romans
made this. So the Roman Empire really didn't fall. It
just turned into a church. Is that correct?
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's very very good. I completely know what
you mean. And the sight of the Vatican would prompt
that in your mind, yes, by go ahead, no, no, no,
you raise You raised so many different interesting questions I
want to I want to correct, okay, please. The difficulty
becomes when when we use personal pronouns. You know, when
I speak of myself, but I say me or I
or inside of me or my power. We have many,
many levels within us, and when we use that pronoun,
it's not accurate as to what we're It's not clear
what we're referring to. Jesus actually called himself the son
of man sometimes in the Son of God, when he
was talking about the Son of God, he was talking
about his infinite consciousness which was inhabiting the body but
was not defined by the body. But he called himself
the son of man. He was talking about that infinite
consciousness animating the body of Jesus and living through this
birth and death of Jesus. So he made a distinction
which is often lost. And the reason people have so
much trouble with the Bible is because of the pronoun
I and people, I think it means the individual the consciousness, yes,
but that manifested only through the body Jesus. So when
we talk about developing our own inner power, we also
have to realize that who am I am I Everything
that makes us separate starts when we identify with the
limited expression of my consciousness. At that point, I have
one body. Therefore, I have one set of parents, I
have certain siblings, I have a culture, I have a language,
I have a religion I was raised in. All of
that separates me, and all of that is true on
the level of this incarnation? Am I only one incarnation?
What is it that caused me to animate here? When
I die? Do I disappear? Or do I continue? And
all these it's all interwoven. These near death experiences are
telling us that you step out of this body and
you suddenly realize I was wearing that body, just like
I was wearing a suit of clothes, and I'm no
more of the dress I'm wearing. Then I'm the body
I'm wearing. But I've been in it so long I've forgotten.
And so when we and as long as we're identified
with the body, then we're vulnerable because this body can die,
this body can be hurt, this body can be betrayed.
If I identify with the infinite, who is just wearing
this body, then yeah, if it gets ripped off or
burned up, or dies or something or gets its feelings hurt,
yeah that's a bummer. But that doesn't it's not me,
it's just the part I'm playing. At this point, however,
we do not acquire that higher knowledge just by becoming
more and more intense about what you would call the
ego self. The ego is the self identified with limitation.
And this is where a discipleship and gurus really come
into the picture. And there is a capacity on the
part of the enlightenedment to pass the power of that
enlightenment on And this is where this is the not
yet understood aspect of this. People meditate, people are interested
in self awareness, but they're still I'm going to do
it myself. And we feel that devotion weakens us. But
it's not devotion that weakens us. It's devotion to the
wrong side of the equation that weakens us. Because if
there's somebody who knows how to do what you're trying
to do, why would you not want to learn from them?
And if you're trying to learn something that is so
subtle that you can't even grasp it with your mind,
but they understand it. Why would you not try to
tune into that energy? And so it gets very misunderstood.
And this is why I deeply, so deeply lament the
change of the meaning of the word avatar, because it's
an extremely important word. That there are individuals whose consciousness
who can magnetize us. Not that they do it for us,
but when you're if you're trying to learn to sing,
and you sing with someone who sings really well, something
happens to your voice and it's your voice, but it's
magnetized because they know how to do it. And how
much more deeply is our awareness magnetized? When so Christianity
is absolutely true. Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior, is
going to liberate me from all my delusions. It's actually true.
It's got really confused, but that the power of that
love and the power of that relationship is a fundamental
key to transformation. That's why Autobiography with Yogi is all
about gurus and disciples, Guru and disciple, Guru and disciple.
Very first sentence, very first sentence is about the disciple
guru relationship.
Speaker 1: And the thing is that like your example of a singer,
we need examples we need examples. So if if I
use the four minute mile, no one thought the four
minute mile was possible until someone did the four minute mile,
and then magically, nine other people, nine other guys broke
the four minute mile within a year after that. But
before then, no one in the history of man up
until that point had ever done it. So that that
power of example, it is so transformative, and which just
I use that as an example, and you could use
it in singing and in athletics and intellectual in science
and spirituality. To see someone else at a higher level
raises your understanding of what's possible.
Speaker 2: It is true, but you have to also put in magnetism,
and magnetism is not is not a physical entity. So
magnetism is not limited by either time or space, or
death or materiality or the lack of it. And that's why,
you know, because we're in a Western country, and I mean,
I was raised Jewish, but I have a deep relationship
with Jesus now as I understand him in a different way.
But he's alive to me. Yogananda is alive to me.
Creananda left the body ten years ago. But they're magnetism.
It's like they're they're consciously helping us, and they're they're
vibrating in a way that if you attune yourself to it.
In the Bible, it says about Jesus to all those
who received him, so very esoteric statement, to all those
who aligned themselves with his vibration. Just like the singer,
all of a sudden, my voice is in tune because
I can hear what the note is supposed to sound like.
So it's not only once there's the example, but then
there's the attunement with the example.
Speaker 1: Beautifully said, beautifully said.
Speaker 2: Very important.
Speaker 1: Now I'm going to ask you a few questions. I
ask all of my guests. Okay, what is your definition
of living a fulfilled life?
Speaker 2: Understanding the definite of what success is, which is to
live at a higher and higher level of awareness, to
recognize that that joy is our true nature, and to
measure everything by the capacity for joy, which is not
the same as pleasure and happiness, but an actual awareness
of the presence of bliss, and to be able to
share that with others, to be able to look back
and say, I did good work.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after a word from our sponsor,
and now back to the show. If you had a
chance to go back in time to speak to the
little Asha, what advice would you give her?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't be so worried so much. Just relax
on it. It'll be fine.
Speaker 1: How do you define God?
Speaker 2: Satcha Rnanda. It's not original, It's a Sanskrit where it's
sot ever existing, ever conscious, ever knew bliss?
Speaker 1: What is love?
Speaker 2: Bliss? I think love is bliss in action. When you
feel joy, you automatically feel love.
Speaker 1: And what is the ultimate purpose of life?
Speaker 2: Infinite awareness? To become one with the infinite?
Speaker 1: And where can people find out more about you and
the amazing work you're doing in the.
Speaker 2: World, Asha and Nayaswami. Google will just open the door.
I have a website ashajoy dot com. Really, my name
is enough. I have several books. I have thousands of
hours of class on YouTube on every subject related to
self realization. So just type whatever you're interested in the
question box. And I also I have a notable Instagram account.
Speaker 1: You're so hip, Pasha, You're so hip.
Speaker 2: I say that so casually honestly. The Instagram actually all
of it is done by other people. I create the content,
they make it available.
Speaker 1: Do you have any parting messages for our audience, don't worry,
be happy. Great song. Great song from the eighties.
Speaker 2: Not original.
Speaker 1: Asha, Thank you so much for coming on the show.
It has been such a pleasure and honor speaking to you,
and I hope this conversation does help raise the awareness
and the consciousness of humanity. So I appreciate you, my dear.
Speaker 2: And I greatly admire and I'm grateful for your work.
Keep up the good work, my friend.
Speaker 1: Yeah, thank you for spending this sacred time with us
us today. If you feel called to explore this conversation further,
you'll find the show notes for this episode at Next
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