Householder YogI

The concept might be alien to many of you. But all of you have heard of Hatha Yoga that many people do regularly to keep them fit and flexible on into old age.

When I was young in my early 20s I read a book called Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. My best friend from church's mother had known him before he passed away around 1950. He was one of the first successful Swami Yogis of that type of lineage to come to the United States and stay here. He came around 1914 I believe and met Luther Burbank and many other interesting Americans at that time. He lived in his Ashram in Encinitas, California(which still exists today) and created Lake Shrine on Sunset Blvd in the Los Angeles area that still exists today. I have been to both over the years.

When I first read this book I was very moved because he had many of the same kinds of intuitive gifts that I was born with. However, he had the good fortune to meet people who could help him develop in amazing ways. Developing in those ways was difficult to impossible for people in America until he and other Yogis first started arriving early in 20th century in the United States on the west coast.

When I was in my late teens and early 20s I used to buy a whole box of these books in paperback and give them to hitchikers I picked up and met that might be suicidal(it was relatively safe to pick up people in the early l970s not like now). The 1970s was a time of the ending of the Viet Nam War and extreme recessions that most remind me of the one we are in now. Unfortunately, this one we are in now might turn out to be the most severe in my 60 years of life on earth.

So, I tried to help people whenever I met them because I was young and idealistic. The hardest thing to learn as a young and helpful person is to get beyond idiot compassion. In other words how can you actually get beyond "give the person a fish and they live for a day" to "teach someone to fish and they live for a lifetime".

This was what I was also dealing with then too. People I would try and help might still off themselves 1,2,or 3 years later, or become criminals or do other harm. So, I began to refine who I could actually help and how it could most efficiently be done in helping people to help themselves so they could then help others to survive better as well.

So, I found methods for doing this compassionately, and efficiently. It is a form of triage. As soon as I meet someone now I instantly know if I can help them or if I have to let them move on without my help. Even those I cannot directly help I still pray for them as I know from years of experience this might work to save their lives as well. In the end each of us must save our own souls. It takes a moment or an infinity to do that depending upon the soul.

In reading this book I learned about Sri Yukteswar and Lahiri Mahasaya. Sri Yukteswar was a traditional yogi but Lahiri Mahasaya worked for the railroad in India and had a family. This was something I had not heard of before, a realized yogi who worked and had a family. This was something I was interested in.

Though I had been raised a Christian Mystic I had also been raised to believe in reincarnation just like all or most early Christians before 300 AD. When governments get involved in religion it makes slaves of everyone. It is much easier to enslave people if you eliminate reincarnation and replace it with hell, fire and brimestone! Thus the masses were psychologically enslaved by the governments to be frightened into working harder for them on penalty of terror and death in the afterlife!

So, because I already believed in reincarnation it was a very easy transition for me to be studying about Yogis in India. I also loved Gandhi's statement, "You Christians are just so unlike your Christ!" This I agree with as well.

I had looked at Christianity in the United States in the form of organized religion and found only hypocrisy. However, I also must say in looking at organized religion around the world all organized religion is full of hypocrisy.

However, what I have also found is that God is where you find him, her, the being. So, despite all the hypocrisy everywhere God and truth can still be found just not always where you might expect. Whenever I find the truth it takes my breath away whether it is in a person, a falling leaf, a child or even in a beautiful sunset. For truth is there always, you just have to be looking for it and open to it. If all you are is cynical then you are a part of the problem not the solution!

And what is needed more than ever on earth right now is truth seekers whether it is in government, religion, jobs, businesses, or wherever.

Without enough truth the People perish!

That is where we are on earth right now. We have been lied to by governments and businesses and now we are perishing without enough truth!

Without enough truth the people perish!

So, since I saw all this happening in the 1960s and 1970s my solution was to become a truth seeker wherever it led, even to the ends of the earth. Yes. initially I was very idealistic just like a lot of young people. But as I got married and had my first child I had to learn pragmatism. Because no one's family survives without that. One single person alone might survive in idealism and be an eternal child but if you have or raise kids pragmatism is what it takes to keep them alive and you as well.

Being a householder yogi ones discipline is based upon both the eternal search for truth but tempered by ones necessary pragmatism of finding a way to support and raise ones children to become good adults too.

So, in my view becoming a householder yogi is the single most important thing that one can do. One can then become an enlightened realized and educated person while passing on all ones enlightenment in all directions to ones children so they and their children's, children's, children will carry on the research into truth until all mankind is enlightened and free in all ways!