Understanding consciousness in the higher yugas
When I was in India in 1990, I met a female Hindu mystic who was able to use her consciousness in a way that I never imagined. Just by deeply attuning her own exalted awareness to particular mythical deities from the higher yugas she could invoke them to tell her their stories.
Years later, I returned to India on an Ananda College tour. I summoned the courage to ask her how she was able to do this. “Each year I take a long seclusion up into the Himalayas to a very quiet place where I can write. Then, I invite the deity I am wanting to write about to tell me their stories”.
For most of us, this would be a Herculean task.
The year I asked her about this technique she was writing her book on Hanuman, the half-human, half-monkey king from the epic Ramayana. As we drove by her ashram on the way to visit her, a large group of Hanuman Monkeys perched on her ashram fence, as if by sheer magnetism her invocations brought them there. Her name is Vanamali Devi, and she still lives in her Rishikesh ashram.
This, indeed, is the way higher consciousness works. Magnetism is the subtle energetic power to attract what is needed. A spiritually advanced human through which God’s magnetism can flow, can do many things. They can write detailed books from higher ages, create uplifting events or even spiritualize others through the magnetism of their eyes.
Magnetism and attunement do not come easily. Vanamali’s many years of constant attunement to her spiritual practices throughout the day, chanting mantras, doing pujas, meditating, and nonstop service to humanity have given her these powers.
As well as voluminous spiritual practices, there are other ways we can strengthen our own magnetism and attunement. We do this by looking into the eyes of saints and highly evolved humans, feeling as if we are there with them, absorbing their consciousness. Remember, the saints incarnate not to show us how great they are, but to show us how great we can become. It is a wonderful practice to use the tools of magnetism and attunement in our own lives, provided we are doing so for higher good, and not for selfish gain.
The Indian teachings come from a much higher time, very similar to the higher ages in Greece. According to Sri Vanamali Devi, most myths are true events, many that happened in the higher Treta or Dwapara Yugas, when humans had unimaginable powers that our current level of consciousness is incapable of comprehending.
“When Greece’s Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey, people in those days spoke of ‘Divine Homer’ and I have long suspected that the Iliad and the Odyssey are like the Mahabharata and the Ramayana from India, great allegories from a higher age. Like the Iliad and the Odyssey, the vibrations of great teachings are powerful—they can change your consciousness, and uplift you, just by studying their words.”—Swami Kriyananda
It’s estimated that The Odyssey and the Iliad were written almost 3,000 years ago in Greece, which would have been during the higher Descending Dwapara Yuga. Today, the island of Ios, Greece, where Homer’s tomb is, is close to Santorini, Greece. About 3,600 years ago (Descending Treta Yuga) the most explosive volcanic eruption ever witnessed by humans took place off the island of Santorini. This event surely would have displaced many humans.
Homer is said to have written his epic poems of higher consciousness 600 years after this cataclysmic event. While the Iliad tells the story of the mythical Trojan War, The Odyssey tells of Odysseus’s journey back home once the war is over. During that journey he must use strategy, patience, wisdom and adaptability to outsmart his enemies.
Abstract figurines from the mysterious Minoan Civilization, (Descending Treta Yuga to Descending Dwapara Yuga), a period of higher consciousness on our planet.Over 3,000 years ago in Ancient Greece’s Cycladic Islands, these Cycladic statuettes of harpists represent the importance of musicians, poets, and oral traditions as communication. They not only provided entertainment, but also transmitted common history, mythology, and folklore through stories and singing, much in the same way Homer may have done.
Self-knowledge is the ultimate goal of every genuine spiritual path. Sri Yukteswar writes that the highest aim of religion is atmajnanam, self-knowledge. In Greek, Gnothi Seauton means Know Thyself. These words were inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi. In Yogic terms, to know oneself is the most important thing in spiritual inquiry. To find the truth, we have to first know the one who is searching for the truth and that is indeed one’s self. This maxim reminded pilgrims journeying to the Delphi Oracle to seek guidance that the answer to all their questions was within themselves.
Delphi was an ancient religious sanctuary dedicated to the Greek god Apollo. It was home to the Oracle of Delphi, and the priestess Pythia. She was known for divining the future and was consulted before all important undertakings.
The history of oracles and psychics reaches nearly as far back as the dawn of recorded time. Ancient civilizations across the globe speak of individuals who had the power to prophesy the future. The Oracles at Delphi were considered human vessels through which the wisdom of the gods was channeled.
Swami Kriyananda, the founder of Ananda, used a female oracle/psychic named Marcy Calhoun, who consulted for him up into the last years of his life. Today, there are psychics, Akashic Record readers, Book of Bhrigu readers, mediums and others with unique oracle abilities.
In the mental age of Treta Yuga, which is the second highest time period in the Yuga Cycles, humans are clairvoyant, communicate telepathically, and use their powerful minds to create.
The more we meditate, the more our intuition grows. Meditation, which was first on the cover of Time magazine in 1975, has been infiltrating our current early Dwapara Yuga for many years, preparing the human race for what is to come in the higher ages.
“You must have a room, or a certain hour or so a day, where you don’t know what was in the newspapers that morning, you don’t know who your friends are, you don’t know what you owe anybody, you don’t know what anybody owes to you. This is a place where you can simply experience and bring forth what you are and what you might be. This is the place of creative incubation. At first you may find that nothing happens there. But if you have a sacred place and use it, something eventually will happen.”
― Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth
In Greece, some deities had dominion over nature. Plato embraced the idea of reincarnation. Greek religion had an extensive mythology. Some have said that mythology is the ultimate truth—perhaps because the ultimate cannot be articulated. It expands the mind to furthest reaches of belief, to what can be known, but not told.
At Ananda College, we are offering online learning programs and events that open new doorways to understanding higher consciousness. To compliment this, we host tours throughout the world that explore the evidence for ancient and higher age cultures.
We invite you to join us next year on our tours to Greece or Egypt, or let us know if you’re interested in future travels to Peru, India, or Italy.