Britannia Radio

UN Plan: World Religion and Poverty For Americans

December

(Swami Satchidananda, left)

by Rollin Stearns

(For Henrymakow.com)

In the 1970s my wife and I lived in a Yoga community, or ashram, on thirty acres in rural Connecticut. It was quiet and peaceful, in many ways idyllic. We grew most of our own food. We had some cottage industries and published a magazine and some books. And we lived very simply.

There were about 40 of us, mostly young, from widely varied backgrounds. Some of us were married, but most were single, the men and women living on separate floors of the old mansion where we lived. We were a little, self-sufficient world, or so it seemed.

The Guru

But one way we were not self-sufficient (and this seemed good to us) is spiritually. We had a guru, a Hindu swami named Satchidananda. With a flowing orange robe and a flowing beard, which was growing gray, he was like a father and we were his kids. There was a great feeling of security in his presence. If we had questions, personal or moral or spiritual, he seemed to have the answers. I don't say this sarcastically. He was, in fact, a wise and benevolent figure. Although he never made this claim for himself, we all believed he was "enlightened," which in the Hindu view is something akin to being God.

Though Swamiji (as we called him) had come from India, he spoke English quite well in the melodious way many people from India do, and he was not sectarian. For him, the highest form of Hinduism was Vedanta, a very pure metaphysical view which accepts all religions as vehicles to the one divine reality. We would meditate early each morning in the ashram temple, in front of a large "yantra" -- a geometric pattern centered on a stylized lotus flower. It had eight petals, forming a circle, and each petal represented one of the world's religions. It was summed up in the saying, "Truth is one; paths are many."

This global ecumenism was at the heart of Swamiji's teachings, and he taught it widely. Although he had a separate house on the ashram grounds, he had many teaching centers around the world and traveled a great deal. He spoke before large audiences (I had first heard him myself at a public lecture in New York City), and he knew many prominent people.

The Guest

One of those prominent people was C.V. Narasimhan. Certainly he was not
a household name in America, but as Under-Secretary General of the United Nations, he was a man of great responsibilities. Those of us who lived at the ashram met him because one weekend he came to Connecticut and spoke to us at the evening "satsang," the time of gathering together to be in the presence of truth.


That night, Sri Narasimhan talked about his work at the UN: how difficult it was to have to deal so often with the urgent, rather than the truly important, for there was much important work that needed to be done if mankind was to have a future. We needed to create a unified world, free of war, and to overcome the terrible inequities that plagued the world, where so many lived in poverty.

We could feel his passion and commitment as he spoke. And then he turned his attention to us. He was happy to have this opportunity to speak to us because we were, in part, the hope of the world. Not just because we believed in the unity of mankind, but because of the way we lived. We had eschewed the values of materialism and lived a simple life, one that did not consume the limited resources of the planet. We didn't live richly, at the expense of all those multitudes who lived in poverty.

The problems of poverty that plagued the world, he said, could never be solved unless America consumed less, unless America came to accept the kind of life style, the standard of living, we had chosen. This change would have to come about -- would come about -- because there was no other way. We were the model for the future.

As he spoke, a slight uneasiness formed in the back of my mind. Yes, we lived simply. We slept on the floor, sometimes 2 or 3 or more to a room. We donated our labor to the ashram, in the spirit of karma yoga (the yoga of working without attachment or gain). All we received materially was room and board (and the board consisted of a vegetarian meal in the early
afternoon, with a little fruit in the morning and evening). But we did so voluntarily.

I was uneasy about an agenda, however idealistic, that would create such a life for others whether they wanted it or not, an agenda for the severe reduction in the American standard of living, to be implemented without the consent of those who would be affected.

L'Envoi

A year or two later my wife and I left the ashram. We had both become uneasy about many aspects of life there, both practical and spiritual.

It wasn't a sudden break or an outright rejection. It was just a gradual moving away, which gathered momentum once we were no longer at the ashram. We continued to see Swamiji, but less frequently.

Today I see many things differently than I did then, but I still appreciate the wisdom and good will that Swamiji showed to many, and to me personally. He died in 2002 at age 88 (his followers would say he achieved "mahasamadhi," the great or final exit from the physical realm). I think of him now as a man who did much good and some harm, a man who was committed to fulfilling a certain role that he wasn't really comfortable with, a man whose spirit was greater than the form into which it was cast, like the religions symbolized on his altar.

Today, I also think about changes here in America -- how a once prosperous and productive society has been hollowed out -- how American jobs have been outsourced and American companies moved overseas, how countries like China and India have been promoted by American policies while America has been opened up to massive immigration.

Sri Narasimhan (who also died at 88 but in 2003) seems more and more like a prophet now, a man who knew what was coming and how it was going to come. I wonder now if his vision will prevail, and if it does, whether it will be a new world of peace and justice or a nightmare world of even greater poverty and war.