Dear Ones:
Here it is, 2012: the year people all over the world have been dreading, because the Mayan calendar ends on the last days of December in this year. Shall I add my two cents to the predictions? I have always felt it important, for the sake of those who look to me for guidance, and also as a close disciple of a great avatar, to keep abreast of important happenings in the world. One of the reasons I created Ananda was to offer people protection during hard times. And here the dreaded year is upon us!
Most of you know how urgently Yogananda stressed his prediction that the immediate future will be difficult. He said there will be a global depression — “much worse than that of the 1930s” — and that “the dollar will not be worth the paper it is printed on.” Obama’s urging Europe to go further into debt as a solution to its economic woes points directly to a policy of further inflation. The ensuing financial chaos will result in world wars. “Europe will be devastated,” Master said (though he didn’t say when); “Russia will be annihilated.” America will fare better than most, because it has basically good karma (and hasn’t had time to accumulate bad karma!). America and India would end up leading the world together toward a more dharmic (righteous) way of life. I was in the Hollywood Church one Sunday when Master, during his sermon, paused to shout, “You don’t know what a terrible cataclysm is coming!” I still remember his exact words.
He urged people to get out of the cities, to buy land, and to live in little communities in the country, growing their own food, and becoming self-dependent instead of depending on government to save them.
One evening, when he’d received one more absurdly constrictive ruling from city hall, he commented wryly (as people do), “There ought to be a revolution!” He paused then a moment, and commented more quietly, “There will be one.” That comment makes me think of the mass protests recently in Zuccotti Park and elsewhere. Those protests were peaceful, but it would not take much more outrage on people’s part to make them violent, and then organized. Again, good reason to get out of the cities.
And a final reason: He said atom bombs will fly. Where do you think it more likely for atom bombs to fall — on Mt. Shasta? or on Los Angeles?
He added, finally, that those who love God will be protected. I myself have been teaching now for over sixty years. And I have noted a definite increase in spirituality all over the world. Yes, materialism too has increased, but there are more people now who think seriously about life, and who want to live more for God. I don’t think I could have started Ananda back in the forties.
I think this year may see many problems at least beginning. I urge you to look for land out in the country near you. If you live in a city, try to gather those around you who share high ideals. The communities you start needn’t be Ananda communities, but I can attest to the difficulty, on a human plane, of getting people to work harmoniously together. It will be much easier to start a new community for which the pattern has been already established. You can then tell dissidents, “This is what we are, and how we do things. If you don’t like it, go elsewhere.” So even if people don’t want to establish Ananda communities, they can pattern what they do on what we’ve worked out painstakingly over many years. (The first Ananda community is now over forty years old.)
A final word: Don’t get involved in mass hysteria. It won’t give you clarity. Be somewhat apart from any mania that seizes mankind in the years to come. This may be a difficult year, especially financially. Store food in advance of any crisis. Have some gold or silver as protection against the time when your nation’s currency loses value. And above all, live more for God. He alone can be our bulwark against the hardest of times.
love,
swami kriyananda
