[Address at the inauguration of a website for the Nijanand Sampradaya given on August 28, 2005, at Jaipur, India. — Eds.]
We are living in interesting times of technological development in which brotherhood has really become a practical worldwide affair. In the past, distance and expense limited contact and the dissemination of information. Nowadays communication, friendships, as well as quarrels and wars, know no borders.
Why do we need to communicate in this way? Isn't there anything in nature like this modern technology of the internet? Yes, there surely is: there has always been communication among all forms of life. Universal brotherhood has been mentioned as a fact of nature by great sages even in the far past. Then why were telecommunications and the internet invented only recently, rather than 10,000 or 100,000 years ago?
In fact it was invented much earlier than 100,000 years ago by nature itself, even before humanity was walking the earth. All beings are one in that which is beyond all forms, and at the same time they comprise an almost infinite number of varieties of individualities. From the moment individual living entities came into being there must have been communication. Every single being — be it a human, an animal, a plant, a stone, or even an atom — has the ability to communicate with others. We know that planets and stars have this ability: floating millions of kilometers from earth, they influence our behavior — even that of animals and plants — our character, moods, events on earth and elsewhere, our successes and failures.
As Hindus know, pranas or vital energies stream forth from the inner being of every living thing. These pranas enter beings with every breath, moving up and down and back and forth through our bodies. They are moving through and over our planet, through the mountains, rivers, trees, animals, humans, and gods, in and out of the poles of our planet, our solar system, our galaxy, connecting every individual creature in the universe. All these pranas are loaded with specific information.
There is a special pranic link between all real spiritual centers of the earth, just as snowy mountaintops are connected through their whiteness and purity. Sometimes in deep meditation separation may vanish and then communication on a subtle level is not hampered by distance or gaps of time. Sometimes we know that we are communicating with our loved ones without telephones or the internet even when they are on the other side of the world. If that is so, what do we need the internet for?
While a spiritual internet has always existed, now we are living in an age of matter known among Hindus as kali yuga. What was once common, when our hearts were open to the subtle forms of prana in more spiritual periods, has now become translated to the realm of matter. Our senses have become coarse and no longer susceptible to the subtle vibrations of spirit.
But even within eons of darkness like the present there are possibilities: we can use the coarser vibrations of material electricity and magnetism to carry messages aided by instruments made of metal and other materials. We can use these accomplishments of modern science for good: to spread messages of high quality which people all over the world can consciously take in through their eyes and minds; messages which can inspire people to think finer thoughts and choose a purer path in life. Then thousands of minds the world over will help the great compassionate souls of our planet in their never-ending spiritual effort to purify the atmosphere of thoughts in which we live and help humanity to evolve more quickly and with more harmony and happiness than is the case at present. Let us fill our minds, and our websites, with thoughts of purest unselfishness, and we will have added our stone to the building of a heavenly palace meant for all.
(From Sunrise magazine, February/March 2006; copyright © 2006 Theosophical University Press)