Preparing for a Storm

Recently the majority of the East Coast experienced multiple days of hurricane warnings and subsequent weather with winds and rains causing flooding in some regions and power outages for days to weeks in others. Road signs flashed everywhere to prepare for the hurricane and stay home.

As I was preparing for the storm in southern Maine, it occurred to me it might be helpful to share ideas with others about preparing for a storm. This particular storm lasted maybe 24 hours with little inconvenience for us and multiple days of power outages and even flooding and trees falling on homes for others.

What if the power was out for weeks or even months? What if the stores were closed and there was a food shortage? Paramhansa Yogananda and Swami Kriyananda have shared there is likely a global economic collapse and subsequent depression that is ahead. My guess is it will last for years. So much of the way our country and world currently operates, from healthcare to government spending, to printing volumes of paper money, is simply not sustainable. Each day, the news is full of the latest economic woes in Europe, the US and elsewhere in the world. People are feeling uneasy like there is a BIG storm to come!

I have heard Swami Kriyananda say, “When you know a storm is coming, you batten down the hatches.”

How can we best prepare for such a long storm? Clearly our basic needs are food, water, shelter and heat (where I live). All the money in the world is of little value without one’s basic needs met.

Aside from the physical needs we all have, many people will be seeking meaning as they watch the world change dramatically. Yogananda said of the upcoming depression, “People in America will have half as much wealth, but will be much more spiritual!”

There is no greater preparation than the inner one in which we each find “the center of life’s storms” where we are “safe from crashing worlds!” I am referring to inner communion with the Divine Reality through the practice of meditation. Ananda’s course in meditation online and through books and meditation colonies and groups around the world are extraordinary resources available to you if you would like to learn to meditate and share fellowship with others.

Swami Kriyananda’s new online book, Economic Collapse – A Solution, just became available and I refer you to it for more about preparing for the global storms ahead. I will continue to write about local and personal preparations in future blogs.