A bold and powerful self-affirmation
Jesus Christ, even among great masters, was exceptional in his mission, and in his need to affirm his own importance to that mission. Sometimes he spoke in terms that, from anyone who had attained a union with God less perfect than his, must surely have seemed almost embarrassingly boastful and arrogant. He said, for example, “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.” *

Jesus’ self-affirmation did not indicate any lack of humility. He had no ego of which to be either proud or humble. Jesus came, however, with a particular expression of the eternal truths, and it was necessary for him to focus people’s high spiritual aspirations in himself as an instrument of divine grace. Otherwise, the many schools of thought that were rampant in his day would have diluted his message and made it seem merely another “school of philosophy,” from whose teachings people could select as they chose.

Reading his words in the Bible, one is nonetheless surprised at how powerfully he affirmed the importance of his own mission on earth. Repeatedly through the New Testament we find Jesus referring, without the slightest hesitation or reticence, to himself. Sometimes he spoke of himself as the “son of man;” sometimes, as the “Son of God.” It was, however, necessary for him to speak in that way. Very little valid spiritual tradition remained among the Jews of his time. Few would have been accepted his new expressions of eternal truth had he declared them self-effacingly.

A way-shower and conqueror of unknown territories
The age Jesus lived in was a hard one. He had to survive a public mission in a rough, dogmatic, and intolerant society. Never did he hesitate to “thunder” when the occasion called for a divine rumble. To those who like their saints “soft and cuddly,” Jesus would have been—shall we say?—an embarrassment. Indeed, to some people he must have seemed glaringly offensive!

It is, indeed, perfectly understandable that the self-assertiveness with which Jesus so often spoke would have seemed offensive to the unenlightened rabbis of his day. They were, in their own opinion, the supreme authorities in Judaism. If Jesus were to appear and teach in the same way on earth today in any country in Christendom—not as himself, but as someone unknown—I venture to say that almost every priest, pastor, minister of religion, and every other sort of prelate would probably consider his bold self-assertion quite as outrageous as did the Pharisees.

To those at the top of any social ladder, Jesus might well have seemed “pushy” and “a bit over the top.” In fact, he was “pushy.” It wasn’t himself he was pushing, of course, but divine Truth and God. He had come as a way-shower, a road builder, and conqueror of unknown territories. The more restrained and socially approved way of expressing oneself, always with tactful care, was not at all what was needed in his times.

One wonders, even, how the expression — “Gentle Jesus meek and mild” — ever got started. Jesus fitted perfectly the Vedic description of the man of God, as Paramhansa Yogananda quoted it in Autobiography of a Yogi: “Softer than the flower, where kindness is concerned; stronger than the thunder, where principles are at stake.”

A “firebrand revolutionary”?
Certain modern writers have claimed that Jesus Christ was a firebrand revolutionary, citing, among other things, his statement, “Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I come not to send peace, but a sword.”

Viewed literally, it would be easy to take Jesus’ words as bellicose. Viewed in the broader context of his life mission, we quickly see that he was not issuing an inflammatory call to arms, but speaking thus only to light a fire of divine courage in the hearts of devotees. The conflagration Jesus sought to ignite was a fire of pure love for God, underscored by renunciation of every lesser attraction and attachment.

Jesus’ reference to “sword” was a reference to the “sword” of discrimination, essential for slicing through the chains of outward attachment. He also meant “sword” symbolically, referring to the determination one needs to find God.

As for revolutionary zeal, the only “uprising” he encouraged was to urge people to “revolutionize” their inner, spiritual outlook. Jesus Christ came on earth to inspire people to seek union with God. “My kingdom,” he said, “is not of this world.” Constantly he urged them to seek God-consciousness: “He that taketh not his cross, and followeth after me, is not worthy of me.” Christ’s message was that the spiritual path is not for armchair devotees but for spiritual warriors, for those who would embrace death itself, rather than abandon their divine search.

Fiery power, conviction, and courage
Nor did Jesus comport himself like a rabble-rousing firebrand—a suggestion that a few modern commentators have also made. He spoke with magnetic courage, joy, and unshakable faith, but it is very evident from the Gospels (Yogananda, too, corroborated this statement), that Jesus never spoke with personal anger. He could, however, when the occasion demanded it, speak with fiery power and conviction, reflecting the wrath of God, as when he drove the moneychangers out of the temple!

Jesus, as a human being, was joy-filled, loving, and, to an amazing degree, courageous. On the occasion the Jews accused him of blasphemy and were about to stone him, he replied (I paraphrase), “I’ve done all these good works among you. For which of them do you intend to stone me?”

There could be no other explanation than courageous openness to anything, based on perfect non-attachment, in the way he replied. Only such supreme detachment could have made possible his good humor. Think of it: There he was, threatened with disaster by a hostile mob. Could what he said have been due to self-pity? (“Just look at all the favors I’ve done you. Is this your way—sniff!—of showing gratitude?”) Absurd! He challenged them, almost with a laugh!

Small wonder the orthodox Pharisees rejected him as fiercely as they did. One might almost say that Jesus, by his outspokenness, virtually invited their rage, causing it to erupt, finally, in the Crucifixion!

The Sermon on the Mount: “a revolutionary teaching”
Though Jesus himself was no “firebrand revolutionary,” his Sermon on the Mount has been described as “a revolutionary teaching.” And indeed so it was: its summons to live for God alone was uncompromising. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God,” he declared, “and His righteousness; and all these things [the requirements, in other words, for human fulfillment] shall be added unto you.”

The sermon is the longest single statement by Jesus in the New Testament. It includes some of his most important teachings, including the Beatitudes. Tradition depicts Jesus as delivering this sermon to the multitudes. It is more likely that he was addressing his disciples. The orthodox rabbis of the day were accustomed to the spiritual compromises demanded by worldly people. Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount challenged their lukewarm devotion.

That Jesus was speaking to a more intimate group is implied at the very outset of the Beatitudes: “And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him. And he opened his mouth, and taught them.” His statement, “Ye are the light of the world,” would hardly have been directed at everybody. Jesus was addressing devotees whose deep desire was to dwell constantly in the consciousness of God.

Personal sincerity is what Jesus demanded. Jesus wanted to inspire all to seek God with the same ardor he showed, the ardor of dedication to the divine search. His mission was to help those refined souls whose egos were still trapped in limitation, but who desired earnestly to get out of their egos and to know God.

Why Jesus scolded his disciples
If Jesus sometimes scolded his disciples, it was to urge them to deepen their spiritual insight. Thus, when Peter asked him why it isn’t what goes into the mouth, but what comes out of it that defiles a person, Jesus answered, “Are you still unable to grasp these things? Don’t you see that whatever goes into a man’s mouth passes into the stomach and then out of the body altogether? But the things that come out of his mouth come from his heart and mind.”

Peter’s request for an explanation on a question that should have been clear to someone as spiritually developed as he showed how powerful prior conditioning can be. His thoughts wavered between the orthodox Jewish teachings on which he’d been raised and the new statements of eternal truth that were being taught by Jesus Christ.

Jesus seldom, if ever, explained his meanings either to the Pharisees or to the spiritual wanderers. The people of his times, and to some extent even his own disciples, were not ready for teachings that were too far ahead of the general knowledge of their day. It was to his disciples that he clarified them, even when their understanding fell short of his expectations of them.

“The truth shall make you free”
Jesus issued a stirring summons to the highest adventure there is: the quest for truth. By his self-affirmation and example, he challenged everyone to deepen his experience of life until he stands face-to-face with Truth itself. Thus, to Nicodemus he said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, We speak that we do know, and testify that we have seen.”

The challenge Jesus gave us was to make truth our own. “Ye shall know the truth,” he said, “and the truth shall make you free.” By “truth” he meant the intuitive perception of our essential nature, which is one with God.

From Revelations of Christ and The Promise of Immortality, by Swami Kriyananda, available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

*Bible verses in order:
John 14:6
John 18:36
Mathew 10:38
Mathew 10:36
John 18:36
John 10:30-31
Mathew 6:33
Mathew 5:14
Mathew 15:16-20
John 3:11
John 8:32

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For it was obvious to me even then that, if I trampled on others in my efforts to “get to the top,” I would also be trampling on myself. The attitudes that I projected onto others would become imbedded in my own consciousness. If I was indifferent to the feelings of others, I would lose my own sensitivity to feeling itself as a fundamentally important part of human nature. And if I lost my sensitivity, I would cease to be a human being, and would become a mere automaton of flesh and blood.

What I must do, I decided, was exactly the opposite: I must deepen my own ability to feel, my sensitivity to life and to everything and everybody around me. Some of those theater friends paid me a visit after my conversion to the spiritual path, and departed afterward with the same cynical smiles of inner emptiness.

******

A fundamental reality we all share is our egos. Reality, as far as each of us is concerned, is centered in ourselves. Yet we know that there is a vast reality out there to be explored, and if possible, to be understood. Some of us reach out to embrace it. We want to know how this little ego of ours relates to the vastness around us, how our realities fit in with those of other people. Others, however, seek protection from what they perceive as a threat in all that vastness: not just the vastness of the universe, but the vast diversity of human customs, attitudes, desires, and ideas; in short, other people’s realities.

Although born with egos, all of us are part of, and belong to, a universal reality. We are self-fulfilled to the degree that we partake of that reality. And we offend against our own deepest nature when we divorce ourselves from that reality.

******

The following suggestions will help you to recognize and affirm your broader reality, which dwells within everyone. As you adopt them in your daily interactions with others, your understanding of yourself and others will deepen. As you begin to understand others more deeply as extensions of your own self, harmony follows automatically. These suggestions are therefore helpful also as a checklist for how well you are succeeding in your efforts to live in harmony with others.

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A checklist for living in harmony with others

1. Never judge anyone. Accept all as they are.

2. Realize that each person has a duty to change and improve himself. Whether or not he does so is not your responsibility.

3. Develop a sense of humor, first as regards your own foibles, and second as regards the foibles of others.

4. Don’t accept error when you see it, but accept simply that people do make mistakes. (Haven’t you yourself made a fair share of them?) Thus, love people not for their faults, but in spite of them, and because everyone is trying, each in his own way, to find his way out of his own pits of error.

5. Look upon other people as friends and acquaintances of yours whom you may have known in past incarnations, and some of them perhaps closely and dearly. It is, indeed, probable that you have known many of them before, for we live a vast number of lives on earth.

6. Whether or not they are your friends from before, God in His infinity is omnipresent. He therefore resides in everyone—as everyone! See all whom you meet as expressions of our one common Father/Mother God.

7. Be strict in practicing the moral principle of ahimsa, or harmlessness. Never wish harm to anyone or to any creature—nor even (if you are deep in this practice) to any thing. Automatically, as you continue this practice, you will find yourself wishing everybody well.

8. Never covet another’s property. Wish everybody happiness in their possessions, and in their ideas and inspirations.

9. Dismiss from your mind the thought of personal attachment to anything. Thus, when dealing with others, you will find you have no ulterior motives to warp your understanding of them.

10. Never view anyone with the thought of needing or desiring anything from him. Give him perfect freedom, mentally, simply to be himself, and to be complete in himself.

11. Be ever truthful and sincere—first of all with yourself, and then with everyone you meet.

12. Never tell yourself, regarding anyone else’s shortcomings, “I could never be like that!” The sad fact is, you could be. We all have the potential to be like anyone on earth, from the most debased to the most saintly. Be compassionate, therefore. Pray inwardly to God never to let you fall into that error again. For who knows what mistakes you may have committed yourself—perhaps in the far distant past.

13. Smile at others when it seems right to do so. Smile with them, not only at them. Let your smile be not only with your lips, but from your heart. Let it rise from there to shine out through your eyes.

14. Laugh with others, never at them.

15. When others grieve, never withhold your sympathy from them, but, instead of grieving with them, try to give them your heartfelt joy.

16. When others tell you of their troubles, try gently to steer them in the direction of finding possible solutions to them.

17. Try to love people as extensions of your own self. We may think of each person as specializing, on behalf of the whole human race, in being, simply, himself!

18. Live in the thought of God’s loving, blissful presence within you. Next, try, when in the company of others, to share with them His inner bliss.

******

As you follow the above principles, your own inner understanding may suggest to you countless other ways of recognizing and affirming your own broader reality, which dwells within other people also. Seek ways, then, to befriend and help them. All creatures, indeed, each in his, her, or its own way, are parts of your own one, greater Being.

From the essay, “Understanding People,” in Religion and the New Age, and Material Success through Yoga Principles, Lesson Nine, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Dear ________:

Partly it is a question of re-training one’s subconscious habits.  Partly, too, one must learn to live more superconsciously. To learn to live superconsciously, God’s presence must be experienced, not merely affirmed.  The more actually aware one becomes, in meditation, of God’s presence within, the more this inner awareness spills over effortlessly into his outward activities.

Inward awareness of the Divine Presence awakens also the understanding that there exists a Divine Law, and that all things are in fact ruled by this Law, and not really by our own little human efforts except to the extent that we serve as its willing instruments.  One knows then that the most important thing in life is to serve and please God alone, not man.

Again, when tests come, if one can hold onto the inner peace born of meditation one will find the inner strength to overcome them. But without this peace it is difficult to handle even minor nuisances without fairly disintegrating emotionally. Next to meditation, the most important thing is sat-sanga, good company. Among devotees a subtle magnetism is exchanged that gives to the strong as well as the weak added strength to maintain their calmness in the midst of daily activities.

Finally, to re-train your subconsciousness, always sing inwardly to God.  Japa this practice is called in India. And remember, when your love for God becomes a constant, silent yearning of your heart, all other things will melt away like morning mist before the rising sun. The greatest way to cling to God is to cling first to love.

May God and our Gurus bless you.

From Letters to Truthseekers, Crystal Clarity Publishers (Currently out of print). Related reading: In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection by Swami Kriyananda. To order click here

Serve, not people, but God through people.

God is happiest not in our efficiency, but in our increasingly humble attitude.

Get yourself out of the way—don’t think of yourself, but of Him.

Serve joyfully, even in obscurity. Don’t look to others for endorsement. Be content to seek the Lord’s smile in your heart.

Be centered in the inner self. Don’t let circumstances or people pull you down. Let Christ’s light fill you when you work with others.

Be an open window through which the Lord’s sunlight can flow to all.

God will support you the more you live in Him.

Let God radiate in your heart, and live by His inner inspiration. Work more listening to God inwardly.

Ask only, “Lord are you pleased? How can I please you more?” And again, “Dear God, tell me what you want. Help me to do what you want.”

You are God’s child. There is nothing that is not yours.

Be a radiant spirit—large, not small.

Greater dignity and greater strength add nicely to your childlikeness. Be joyfully courageous, majestically confident.

Be filled with the confidence that the Holy Spirit will use you. The power of the Infinite is in you.

Live more and more in that center where God dwells. Radiate this to others, and their lives, and your own, will be changed.

From a January 4, 1989 talk at Ananda Village.

Q: How can I develop self-confidence? Every book I’ve read about achieving success stresses the importance of developing confidence in one’s self, of knowing that one is good at whatever one wants to do. Unfortunately, I simply haven’t that confidence. No matter how hard I try, I never seem to do things as well as I’d like to do them.

SK: I’ve glanced through some of those books, and find that what they’re trying to do is promote egotism. Egotism means pride, which Paramhansa Yogananda said is “the death of wisdom.” Without wisdom, any success achieved will be fragile. What I suggest is that you study the different kinds of success, and the kind of self-confidence that led to that success, and see which works the best.

Q: Are you saying that some kinds of self-confidence work better than others?

SK: Yes. Self-confidence that is not boastful, but rooted in calm self-knowledge, is much more effective than the “crowing rooster” kind.

Q: Well, I’m not interested in outstanding achievements! I just want to be able to do well whatever I do, without dreading the possible consequences.

SK: Evidently, then, you’re struggling with an inferiority complex. Most supposed “cures” for an inferiority complex focus on helping a person to build up his self-esteem. Their purpose is to resuscitate a weak or ailing ego. That can be helpful if the ego has been damaged, but it doesn’t take into account the fact that having an ego at all can be damaging. Why? Simply because it is self-limiting!

The goal of life is to find God. In that search, the first thing you need to overcome is the usual focus on the egoic self. What those attempts at creating self-esteem and self-confidence accomplish, generally, is to replace an inferiority complex with a superiority complex. Both of these “complexes,” Yogananda said, are more or less equally obstacles to true and long-lasting success.

Q: Can you explain further why both of those complexes are obstacles to success?

SK: Ego, considered as a flaw, is simply exaggerated self-involvement. To be insecure can be as much an expression of exaggerated self-consciousness as to be over-confident.

An inferiority complex is like a sponge. It sucks energy into itself, leaving little energy for what needs to be done. Over-confidence, on the other hand, cuts one off from the source of life-giving energy, rendering dry and uninspired whatever one accomplishes.

Q: Can you suggest ways to help me overcome this weakness—this inferiority complex?

SK: Certainly. There are essentially two ways. One is to shift one’s focus away from self-preoccupation, and direct it toward whatever is being done. Once people become really good at doing anything, they usually accept that competence. Self-confidence is no longer an issue.

The second way is to focus on seeking to channel a higher power.

Q: I think I understand that I need to focus less on myself, and I can see the importance of praying for God’s help when the work one does is for Him. My problem, however, relates to work I do for personal ends: seeking work to support my family, or even doing something trivial like defending my point of view in a discussion.

SK: The devotee should always try to include God in everything he does.

Q: But isn’t it somehow wrong to ask Him to inspire me with ways of winning a discussion on political issues?

SK: I agree with you. In my desire to rise above ego, I have always refused to pray for my own needs—such as for a healing when I am ill, or even for reduced pain when I am suffering. Once I had an acute kidney stone attack, and suffered for several hours from the most intense pain I had ever experienced, but I didn’t want to bother God with a plea for help.

It was only hours later, when I suddenly realized that in fifteen minutes a roomful of people were expecting me to give Sunday Service, that I finally said to God, “If You want me to give that service You’re going to have to do something about the pain!” Unbelievably, almost like breath fading from steel, the pain vanished from my body and was replaced by an equally intense joy!

Still, you see, I didn’t pray for myself: I prayed to be able to serve those people if God wanted me to. It’s important to exclude ego-motivation as much as possible. I have held to this principle throughout my life of discipleship.

Q: I do see your point, and hope I won’t forget it. Here’s another point: I find my self-confidence failing in situations where I’m expected to “produce”— such as to speak in public, or even to express my ideas before a small group of people. Under such circumstances, I certainly do pray to God for help — desperately! But I’m so worried about the impression I’ll make that the thought of Him gets crowded out of my mind when I’m speaking.

SK: What I’ve always done, and it has helped me also as a public speaker, is to keep in mind a “worst case scenario.” I’ve said to myself, “What am I afraid of? Isn’t it the thought that people might think me a fool? Very well then, I’ll just accept that maybe I am a fool! If that’s really my problem, what concern should it be of mine that others find out about it?”

If in any other way I turn out to have bungled anything, well, I’ll certainly try my best the next time, but all I can do, even then, is leave the matter in God’s hands. I can’t be responsible for being something I’m not. My only responsibility is to do my best, trying always to improve.

Q: Some of the books I’ve read tell me to visualize myself doing a good job. Might it have helped you to try to visualize yourself as a good public speaker?

SK: Most of a person’s ability to succeed at anything comes from attuning himself to whatever state of consciousness most closely resonates with success in that field. Yogananda one time, as the young director of his school at Ranchi, India, hired a well-known artist to paint a portrait of Lahiri Mahasaya, his guru’s guru. When the job was completed, Yogananda saw that the artist, though competent, had not captured the spirit of that great Master. The artist was upset by Yogananda’s response and challenged him to do a better picture.

Yogananda accepted the challenge, bought a set of paints and brushes, and set to work on creating another painting. His first few attempts were unsuccessful. Each time he failed, however, he tried again more carefully, gradually attuning himself to the skill required for the task. After a week, the new painting was finished.

When the artist saw the new painting, he had the humility to admit that it was better than his own. Yogananda, I suspect, had felt his sincerity, and therefore took the trouble to show him the importance of concentrating more on the deed than on oneself as the doer!

So you see, you must bring God into your work. However, don’t just pray, “Make me successful.” Say, rather, “Guide me, that I understand how to do better whatever it is I do.”

Q: This idea of attuning oneself to the task to be done is new to me. Can you elaborate some more?

SK: Yes. Whenever I’ve really wanted to do something well, I’ve found that by asking God to guide my understanding, rather than asking for the blessing to succeed, I’ve done many things for which no experience could have prepared me better. I’ve found, moreover, that by tuning in to what was needed the answers simply came to me, almost without effort.

Strange as it may seem, I’ve never had much confidence in myself about anything. Writing, I suppose, might be considered an exception: I’ve always known I could write. It is probably safe to say that my self-confidence here was a memory carried over from a previous incarnation and the only exception I remember to my usual lack of self-confidence.

On the other hand, I’ve always been certain I could do anything well I set my mind to — not because I considered myself particularly adept, but because, instead of holding the thought hopelessly, “I can’t do that!” I’ve told myself, “Even though I don’t see how I can do that, I know God can do anything, even through the poorest instrument!”

When I was asked, years ago, to write a book for Ananda’s twentieth anniversary in 1988, my schedule was such that I only had one week free to write it; after that, I had other commitments. With regret I replied that it just wasn’t possible.

Afterward, however, I suddenly thought, “It’s true I myself can’t do it, but God can do anything! Let me open the flood-gates and see what flows out.” Banishing all doubt as to my own ability, I sat down and, not affirming that I myself could do it, simply let come from God what would come. Ideas, and the right words in which to clothe those ideas, simply poured through my fingertips onto the computer keys. I was able, in spite of the time limitation, to write the book within that week.

So here, for the devotee, is an important solution to the problem of lack of self-confidence. If you think, “I don’t see how I can do it,” remind yourself, “but God can do anything!”

The matter goes even deeper than that: It shows that lack of self-confidence can actually be an aid, not a hindrance, to successful accomplishment. Frankly accepting one’s own incompetence will dismiss from one’s mind the whole agonizing process: “Can I? How can I? Do I have the experience to make the job even remotely possible? Couldn’t others do it better? ”

Remember the formula: “I can’t, but God, through me, can do anything!” How many times have I found my solution in that simple thought! In fact, one consequence has been that my own deep-seated self-doubt, brought over from past lives, and its accompanying lack of self-confidence, have been important keys to what perhaps few would deny has been a successful life. That lack of belief in myself, directed outward from myself, has resulted in finishing innumerable projects simply because, in self-forgetfulness, I was able to concentrate one-pointedly on the projects themselves.

Q: Is that formula another reason why you’ve never been nervous about public speaking?

SK: In part, yes. My initiation into public speaking was surely as dramatic as anyone might wish for. I was only twenty-two years old and had been with Yogananda only eight months, when I was asked to take the Master’s place in giving the Sunday morning service at our church in San Diego, California. The announcement had already gone out that he would be speaking that day.

When the curtain opened on the stage that next morning, to reveal this callow youth standing there instead of the great Guru everyone was expecting, a tangible shock went through the whole congregation. Strange as it may seem, I wasn’t nervous. Slightly apprehensive, yes, but I was so keenly aware of the letdown everyone was experiencing that I could only pity them; I hadn’t energy left over to feel sorry for myself.

Well, but that’s another key for overcoming lack of self-confidence: Lose yourself in the thought of (or, in my case, in my concern for) the people, or of the job at hand. Don’t make a big issue of getting yourself out of the way: simply focus all your attention on what needs to be done, and on the people you’re serving.

I’ve found it very helpful to focus also on the “worst case scenario.” I’ve imagined the most dreadful results that might loom before me. Then I’ve asked myself, “Well, so what else? Such things happen, and most people manage somehow to survive them.” Even death, when it comes, is not really the end of very much: just of another phase of existence. Thus, even if death should be the outcome of that “worst case scenario,” think to yourself, “What of it?” Death will have to come some day, so why not prepare yourself for it now?

With that thought in mind, I’ve found I can relax and forget all about being nervous. I should add that it does take a certain firmness of resolution to entertain such thoughts as these.

Q: Frankly, it would be difficult for me to focus on the “worst case scenario.”

SK: Doing so will contribute greatly to your own peace of mind. Often, people fear what will happen, but accept the thing calmly once it has happened. Thus, that “worst case scenario” can help as a visualization. Visualize that worst, then mentally accept it. In this way you’ll stop worrying about your competence, or lack of it, or anything.

Basically, I think the reason I haven’t had a problem with lack of self-confidence is not that I lacked it, but rather that I simply accepted that lack. I haven’t had enough self-confidence even to bother about not having it. By accepting it, and telling myself that God, on the other hand, can supply every lack, I’ve always found there was nothing to worry about.

The whole secret lies in accepting that we, of ourselves, really can’t do anything right, but that God through us can literally do anything!

From the essay, “How to Develop Self-Confidence” in Religion in the New Age, (Crystal Clarity Publishers), and other writings. To order: click here

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Paramhansa Yogananda told us he’d once gone to see “The Song of Bernadette,” a movie about the life of Saint Bernadette of Lourdes, France. “I was deeply moved,” he said, “for there were many similarities between her life and my own. And then I chanced to look up, and saw the light coming out of the projection booth. Everything taking place on the screen was an illusion, created by variations of shadows and light. Such is human existence. It is all God’s light producing everything. Yet how completely real it all seems to human beings.”

The “cosmic motion picture” is true not only to two human senses, sight and hearing, but to all five. It is presented to us three-dimensionally, and includes the illusion of smell, taste, and touch. And yet, just as the light emanating from the projection booth in a movie house produces mere images of reality, so also does God’s light produce mere appearances. For all its persuasiveness, life is as fundamentally unreal as any movie.

The universe is only a projection of shadows and light. Everything is produced by God. Indeed, not only does He produce a movie true to the five senses, He also writes the script, directs the action, plays all the parts, composes and plays all the music, and even provides the audience!

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Learn to say: “What a fine picture!”

When the English novelist, Charles Dickens, was writing his famous tale, The Old Curiosity Shop, he realized at a certain point that it would be necessary to the integrity of his story for Little Nell, his main character, to die. It is said that when this understanding came to him he walked the streets of London for hours, weeping. Yet he had no artistic choice but to “kill” her. Otherwise, he would have been untrue to his own story line.

God, Yogananda said, also weeps for mankind: for man’s follies and sufferings. He weeps for human wickedness, also, for though it produces grief for the recipients of wickedness, it produces even more grief, in time, for the wicked themselves. Yet the Lord lets His show go on. He created it without any sense of personal involvement. The drama of every individual’s life must work its slow way, by however winding a road, to its eventual, inevitable conclusion: reabsorption in the bliss of Satchidananda.

Yogananda once said: “When we go to a tragic motion picture and see death and suffering on the screen, we may leave saying, ‘What a fine picture!’ Why then can we not say as much of this motion picture of life? For the truth is, we are only shadow players on the screen of life. We are immortals sent here on earth to act our roles and then depart. We should not take the play seriously. Whatever picture is showing, we should not let it disturb our minds.

“Let us just say, ‘This is a good picture. I am learning much from this experience.’ If you can face life with this attitude, you shall see the light of eternal bliss dancing through all life’s experiences.”

*******

The Story of Narada

Though an illusion, life is the most convincing movie of all. The Indian scriptures relate a story that allegorically describes the illusory nature of human existence, and how easy it is to become ensnared in that illusion.

Narada, an ancient Indian sage, after years of meditation, realized God  in the form of Vishnu. When the Lord appeared to him as Vishnu, he asked if Narada would like to request from Him a boon.

“Yes, Lord,” replied Narada. “Please help me to understand how people get caught up in Your maya—the cosmic delusion. It all seems so simple to me, now that I’m out of it. How can people be so foolish?  Help me to understand that power of delusion which keeps humanity roaming in spiritual ignorance for so many countless incarnations.”

“Very well, My son,” replied the Lord. “Come, let us go for a walk.”

As they went, they came to a desert. The day was hot, and the sand made it much hotter. After some time, both of them felt the need for water to drink. And then, on the horizon, they saw a wisp of smoke rising, giving evidence of a village.

“Narada,” said Vishnu, “I am very thirsty. Would you go to that village and fetch me some water?”

“Certainly, Lord!” replied Narada.

He trudged over the hot sand until he reached the small village. At the first house he came too, he knocked on the door. It was answered by a beautiful maiden. Anciently familiar she seemed to him. In an instant he forgot everything else! Her parents, who were at home, welcomed him as their own. He and the maiden were married, and set up a home and business in another part of the village. Years passed. They had a son; then another one.

After twelve years, his wife gave birth to their third child. While this third one was still a baby, there came all of a sudden a flash flood from a swollen river high up in the hills. In little more than a moment the flood wiped out their home, their business — the whole village. Narada escaped with nothing but his little family and the clothes on their backs.

As the flood waters rose all around them, they set off together in desperate search of high ground. They waded through the swirling water, as high as their knees. Narada held one child by each hand, and slung their baby over one shoulder. His wife struggled along by his side.

Suddenly Narada stumbled slightly on a submerged stone. As he tried hastily to regain his balance, the baby slipped off his shoulder into the water. Desperate to save it, he released his other two children’s hands and reached out to rescue the baby. Alas, it was swept away before he could catch it. The older boys, lacking his strong grip, were swept away also. At that moment Narada’s wife, her knees buckling with grief, fell also and was carried off in the flood. In just a few minutes Narada had lost everything he had worked so hard, over twelve years, to create. Despondent, his will failed him, and he collapsed, letting the water take him, too.

Long afterward, it seemed, he came back to consciousness. Looking around him, he saw on all sides what looked like a muddy expanse of water. “I must,” he thought, “have been swept onto a little mound.” Then, recalling his tragedy, he began softly to weep.

“Narada!” sounded a voice nearby. Why did it seem so familiar? He looked about him again, and realized that what he’d seen around him was not muddy water, but a vast expanse of desert sand.

“Narada!” came the voice again. He looked up. To his amazement, he saw Vishnu standing there.

“Narada, what happened?” inquired Vishnu. “Half an hour ago I sent you for a drink of water, and now I find you sleeping in the sand. What has happened?”

*******

For all its persuasiveness, life is as unreal as any movie. There is no substance at all to the manifested universe—except inasmuch as movies are real: as appearances, merely. The vast drama of time, space, and active life is a colossal fiction!

*******

From Conversations with Yogananda by Swami Kriyananda and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam Explained, by Paramhansa Yogananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

VISUALIZATION
A World of Virtual Reality

by Swami Kriyananda

Paramhansa Yogananda stated that spiritual progress can be greatly accelerated by keeping one’s mind focused all the time at the point between the eyebrows, the Christ center. However, one problem with visualizing the Christ center during activity is that it represents mental fixity. Everything we do outwardly, however, involves motion. It is difficult enough even while meditating to bring the mind to a still focus. During activity, this difficulty is increased a thousandfold.

Here, then, is a suggestion: Visualize a video screen at the point between the eyebrows! Project your mind through the screen, as if through a window, into a world of “virtual reality.” That is in fact what everything around us is: a world of virtual reality. It is an illusion, simply—more real to us than any video we see only because it is faithful to all five of the senses, and not only to the senses of hearing and sight. Nevertheless, it is not more real, fundamentally, than any video movie.

As you act and interact with the world around you, and with others, project your consciousness and energy out to them through the “video screen” of your spiritual eye!

From Meditation for Starters, by Swami Kriyananda, available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Beginners on a ski slope make a good study in worry-consciousness: chins jutting forward, rear ends jutting backward, knees bent as if they thought the slope was planning to attack them, arms stiff and flailing as though they expected, after the fall, to be reincarnated as windmills. But most people have to be extra attentive to the details of a thing while they’re still learning it. The worrier goes them one better. He remains at his post far beyond the call of duty. He goes on acting the novice — tense, apprehensive — long after he should have learned to “stand up and flow with the slope.”

I remember a friend of mine in college (in fact it was Julius Katchen, whose remarkable talent as a pianist later brought him fame) passing my window one day, shaking his fists in the air and crying, “Problems! Problems!” That image has always lingered in my mind as epitomizing the attitude so typical of the worrier. Julius couldn’t have had all that much to emote over, except maybe finding another tenor for the glee club. But he looked as though the problems of the universe were nesting in his hair.

The basic problem of the beginning skier is too much concern for his own body. The basic problem of the chronic worrier is too much concern for himself. This concern may express itself in various ways — as excessive self-consciousness, or an exaggerated sense of responsibility for the success of every undertaking, or a tendency to hover protectively over others like a mother hen, or even (strange to say) as absent-mindedness and inattention to the outward details of living — a result of being absorbed in too many inward-drawing, mental vortices. The first lesson, then, for every worrier is to learn to relax, to offer himself more and more freely into life’s flow.

Unfortunately, the worrier even more than most people finds it difficult to see life as a flow. As his exaggerated sense of ego (please understand, I don’t mean egotism, or pride) separates him mentally from the rest of the world, so he tends to fragment things objectively, too, to see them in terms of separations. Details of one kind and another, usually minor, absorb him. Again, over-attentiveness to his little self creates in him a bias toward minutiae, such that even if an enemy army invaded his country his chief concern might be over what the invaders were doing to the condition of the roads. In other words, he loses the sense of objective proportion.

But the world is not divided into two classes of people — the worriers and the non-worriers. Most of us worry sometimes, and most worriers are at times full of confidence. I’m writing here of a general line of human development, not of rigid categories of people and behavior. In fact, the tendency to break things up mentally into categories is both a symptom of worry-consciousness and, to a greater or lesser degree, a weakness of most of the human race.

Even moderately good skiers, who can afford to forget their bodies and think more about the problems of the slope, betray their lack of expertise in the exaggerated attention they give to every bump and turn. The mark of an expert is not only the fact that he knows how to execute the necessary movements, but that he sees the slope as a continuity; he absorbs the obstacles as they come, into a sense of graceful, flowing movement.

Remember, faith is a dynamic practice, not a passive acceptance of whatever you believe to be true. Try exercising more of this sort of faith — in life, and especially in God. Even if life doesn’t always seem like much of a flow to you, depend more on God’s power to work things out always for the best. The more you dynamically, lovingly offer your life and ego to Him, and the more you think of Him as the real Doer even when it is you who seem to be acting, the more amazed you will be to see how very capable He is of running things quite competently Himself!

Our job as human beings is to try to do His will, but at the same time to understand that we can never be more than willing soldiers in the eternal war of light against darkness. We must do our best, but it is not for us to decide the outcome even of minor skirmishes. That is why the Bhagavad Gita says that one should act willingly, but leave the results of his actions to God. (Nishkam karma the Gita calls it: desireless action.)

Always remember, worry-consciousness, and the tendency to fragment reality into separate, static, mental images, not only creates problems where none really exist, but actually interferes with one’s efforts to resolve problems where they do exist. The worrier tends to think that he alone is realistic in a world of daft dreamers, but in fact he would be much more realistic if he saw himself as he really is: a humble soldier in the struggle of life, not a general; and if he saw life as it really is: a divine flow.

From Letters to Truthseekers, Crystal Clarity Publishers (currently out of print). Related reading: In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection by Swami Kriyananda. To order click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

There are miracles, yes, but magnetism is what draws those miracles. Magnetism is the most important thing in life. I believe we’re on the eve of difficult times but if you have the right kind of magnetism, even if there’s a depression, it won’t be a predicament for you. Success in every aspect of life depends on the power of your magnetism to attract it. By developing “success magnetism,” you will find victory in all situations even in the midst of widespread difficulties.

Step One: Will Power and Concentration
How does magnetism work?  Magnetism is generated by the strength and quality of your energy flow. When you pass electricity through a wire, it generates a magnetic field. The more electricity passes through the wire, the stronger the magnetic field.

Human magnetism works on the same principle. Whenever you will something to happen, a ray of energy goes out, projected by the power of your thought. That energy generates a magnetic force-field which can attract to you the objects of your expectations. The strength of that magnetism depends on your level of energy. People of low energy generate very little magnetism. Those with high energy can perform miracles.

“The greater the will, the greater the flow of energy” was one of Paramhansa Yogananda’s oft-stated maxims. The more you focus your energy one-pointedly, the stronger your magnetism to attract what you need. Concentration is thus the first necessity in developing that kind of will power. If your energy goes out in many different directions, you have very little magnetism. When you can focus your mind one-pointedly, you are already far on the way to developing a powerful will and the magnetism to attract success.

Step Two: Enthusiasm
For your magnetism to gain power, it is vitally important to summon up strong feeling for what you want to accomplish. Whatever you are doing, do it with all your heart. Magnetism is the result not only of focused energy but also of enthusiasm.

It has been said that nothing great has ever been accomplished without enthusiasm. Thomas Edison, for example, went through 43,000 experiments before he found the right filament for the light bulb—such was his deep feeling for the work he was doing. If you look at the lives of great scientists, you will find that they were passionate men and women and absolutely dedicated to the search for scientific truth. They could never have accomplished what they did without enthusiasm.

Always be careful to keep your enthusiasm from spilling over into excitement. For the will to become will power, it must be directed calmly, with control. As that happens, even when others have failed, somehow you will succeed.

Step Three: Positive Thinking
To develop magnetism, always be positive in your thinking. You will attract success if your mind is positive, and you will attract failure if it isn’t. A positive attitude will bring a positive response.

I had a very interesting experience of this principle at the airport in 1955, when I was leaving for France. When checking in at the airline counter, I stood behind a man whose baggage was obviously overweight. This man, when told he had to pay more, became very upset and made threats about not using that airline in the future. He even asked to see the manager. The angrier he got, the firmer the airline official became in his refusal to back down.

My baggage was much heavier than this man’s, but as I went up to the counter I thought, “This man is a friend. God is in this form,” and with that positive thought, I smiled at him. He looked at my baggage and said, “Well, what have we got here?” And without another word he allowed my baggage to go through. When your thoughts are positive, when they’re kind and helpful, you will find that others will want to help you.

I passed my music composition exam in college using this same principle. I didn’t go to any classes, but right before going in to take the exam, I read the bold print rules in the textbook. Two rules stuck in my mind, one of which was that a bass line should go in the opposite direction to the melody. Armed with this information, and with a very positive, cheerful outlook, I went in to take the exam.

We were asked to write a melody for a bass line. Suddenly, into my mind came a beautiful oriental melody. Later, the professor told me that it was on the strength of that melody that he gave me a good grade in the course.

The inspiration for that melody came because I was positive in my expectations and free of doubt. If you have doubt, if you think, “Well, gee, I don’t know if I can do this,” inspiration won’t come. But if all your energy is strongly focused in a positive direction, you will develop the kind of magnetism that will attract inspiration, answers to questions—all sorts of things. Even the right, pertinent knowledge can be attracted by the right, magnetic expectation.

Step Four: Solution Consciousness
“Solution consciousness” is another important aspect of magnetism.  Many people have “problem consciousness.” You ask them to do something and their response is always: “Yes, but!”  People like that never succeed. Whenever you have a problem, don’t think of it as a problem. See it as an opportunity. You will be amazed how much you can accomplish when you eliminate the word “can’t.”

Yogananda was very strong on solution consciousness. During World War II, he wanted to build a church in Hollywood, but new buildings were not allowed in Los Angeles.  Everybody told him, “It’s not possible.” He said, “Oh, yes it is.” Since there was no law against renovation, he found an old building that was barely standing and moved it on to property he had bought. The neighbors complained bitterly but he developed the building into a beautiful church.

Don’t dwell on difficulties longer than it takes to define them clearly. With solution-consciousness you can have success. Solution-consciousness actually attracts right answers to itself, whereas problem-consciousness prevents answers from even arising in the mind.

Step Five: Kindness
An attitude of kindness is also important for magnetism. Kindness is very magnetic. When people are kind, they draw other people’s help in return. In true kindness, there is much more giving than receiving. True kindness is an all-giving energy.

Paramhansa Yogananda was all-giving in just this way. Once he went to a cane shop, and being a representative of an organization, he wanted to spend the organization’s money wisely, so he bargained. After bargaining and getting the best price he could, he thought, “This man has such a poor shop. I want to help him.” And he gave him back more money than he had saved!

The shopkeeper said, “You are a gentleman, sir.” He gave Yogananda the best cane he had. When Yogananda came home, he said, “What a poor floor that man had. I think I’ll get him a new floor.” That kind of kindness is what you need to develop.

The more you give generously of yourself—to God, to life, to other people, the more the karmic law supports you in return. Your ability to succeed in business, or in any other endeavor, increases to the extent of your awareness of your kinship with the great web of life.

Step Six: Non-attachment
One of the basic teachings in the Bhagavad Gita is nishkam karma: action without desire for the fruits of action. Many self-help books say you should desire intensely whatever you want, for that very intensity will draw to you the object of your desire. When desire and attachment exist, however, what you attract may not be what you need or it may be much less than you could have had. When putting out energy to achieve a goal, it is much better to focus on the energy flow itself, not the specific objective, even when your need is for a specific sum of money.

Years ago members of Ananda Village were invited to pledge different amounts of money to help with the enhancement of “downtown Ananda.” We needed $3000 to pave the entrance driveway. I knew that no one else could come up with that kind of money so I decided (secretly) to pledge the whole amount myself, even though I didn’t have nearly that amount. The money was needed in two weeks.

Although I made a request for a specific sum of money, in praying to Divine Mother I concentrated on the energy of the prayer, rather than the specific request. With great will power, I projected the energy of the prayer upward from my heart and then out through the spiritual eye. I didn’t visualize a specific sum of money or how the money might come. Instead I focused on the purpose this money was meant to serve with the thought, “Divine Mother knows more than I, and will take care of that end of things.”

One morning nearly two weeks later I saw an envelope lying on the floor inside my front door. In it was a letter and check for $3000 from a friend who had once lived at Ananda and had recently received an inheritance.

When you act with non-attachment, you can be sure of one thing: when success comes, it will be in the best possible way. Whatever you need, send energy outward as a “loving demand.”  Energy flows much more forcefully when you think of it as a flow, without fixed and definite goals.

Step Seven: Attune to a Greater Reality
The power to attract success of every kind increases in direct proportion to your ability to recognize, and attune yourself to, a reality greater than your own. The more you unite your awareness to the Infinite Consciousness, the more effective your power will be. What you can on your own do is limited but what God can accomplish through you is limitless.

It’s absolutely thrilling to live life this way and to experience how much can be accomplished. I want to assure you of this because in hard times, there will be a lot of suffering. But you don’t have to suffer if you put out the right kind of energy.

From an April 2011 talk in Los Angeles, California.

Related link: click here to learn about our online course, Success and Happiness Through Yoga Principles

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SK. You should offer yourself to God and forget about finding your guru. When the time comes, God will lead you to the right one.

Q: Can you speak about how we can deepen our love for God?

SK: The spiritual path, in a sense, is very narrow. There’s no room for both your ego and God. The more you think of yourself, the less you think of God. But the more you think of God and forget about yourself, the more He gives you of His love.

God is love. You don’t develop your love and then give it to Him. It’s only with His love that you can love Him. The more open you are to Him, the more you find your heart becoming flooded with that love. He gives you that love when you get yourself out of the way and offer yourself up to Him.

Q: Do you have any advice for newer devotees?

SK: In the beginning of the spiritual search you have to put out as much energy as you can because if you don’t, the world will pull you away. If you do that, then you’ll have the strength to carry on. The middle period of the spiritual search is more difficult, but if you get a strong flow of energy going in the beginning, you’ll get through the middle period just fine.

Otherwise my advice for newer devotees is very simple: love God!  Just love God and everything will work out.

Q: The Bible* states that when the Israelites were trying to escape from Egypt, God said He would “harden the hearts” of the Egyptians to enable the Israelites to escape. How can we reconcile God’s action with the concept of free will?

SK: These concepts are difficult to understand, but when things are destined to happen, God makes them happen. In the case of the Egyptians and the Israelites, the Egyptians’ hearts had to be hardened for the Israelites to be able to separate themselves from Egypt.

The only free will we have is to turn toward God or to reject Him— to love Him or to spurn Him. Otherwise, since God is omniscient, everything that we do — and will do– is already known, even what color shirt we will wear this morning. Nonetheless that degree of free will determines whether we move toward happiness or toward suffering, and how long we will wander in delusion. You can become free of delusion when you make up your mind that you want to love God more and more.

Q: How we can know if we have a divine friendship with someone?

SK: A divine friendship is one in which your energy is more toward giving than receiving; there’s mutual giving, not mutual taking. You think in terms of what you can do for this other person. In the process, you of course also receive, but when the energy of giving is pure, there’s no expectation of return. We have wonderful friendships at Ananda just because of that principle.

Q: What would be the most important piece of advice you could give to those who are trying to start communities in today’s world?

SK: Things were very difficult when I started Ananda. Most of those who came in the beginning had their own ideas about what communities ought to be like. I found, however, that by giving energy to those who were in tune with my vision, and ignoring those who were not, the naysayers fell away and the solid core became stronger.

Now that Ananda has established the pattern for successful community living, the best thing for someone wanting to start a community would be to come to Ananda Village, live among us for a while, and learn how we do things. Successful community living is a matter in which understanding must come largely by osmosis. After that, they can leave and start their own community and add whatever changes are needed to make it their kind of community. They don’t have to do things the way we do at Ananda. But if they take with them an understanding of the principles that have made Ananda successful, it will free them from endless burdens and headaches.

Q: Can you speak about developing calmness within one’s activities?

SK: Krishna gave a very good answer to that question. He said to act with non-attachment– nishkam karma, action without desire for the fruits of action. With non-attachment, you can act calmly and still do whatever you need to do.

God has given me an ability to write without difficulty, in a flow, but one reason the writing flows is that I have no thought for the future. I’m just doing it for the fun of it. I wrote The Time Tunnel, which will be published soon, in two weeks.  I’d never thought of writing a children’s story, but without any effort at all, it flowed out of me, including all the ideas about ancient Egypt and ancient Atlantis.

So, to develop calmness:  Don’t have any desire for the fruits of your actions. In addition, try to feel that God is acting through you, keep a joyful attitude when you work, and meditate every day.

Q: How do you conquer fatigue?

SK: Paramhansa Yogananda gave us the principle: “the greater the will, the greater the flow of energy.” Your level of energy depends entirely on the strength of your will power. When you use your will power to generate enthusiasm, you’ll find that you have energy. If you can generate even a little enthusiasm, you’ll find that fatigue doesn’t bother you anymore.

Q: How important is it to go to group meditations instead of meditating alone? Is it a solely a matter of personal preference?

SK: Magnetism is one of the most important things in life. When you have a group of people doing the same thing there’s much more magnetism than when you’re doing it alone. When you have a group of people meditating together, there is a power that comes that helps each person in the group to meditate more deeply.

Magnetism can be used in so many ways. In The New Path, there is the story of how I passed the Greek exam in college by convincing myself that I was a Greek. With the very strong thought that I was a Greek, I had the magnetism to attract that knowledge. I had a similar experience in Bali. There came a point when I thought: “I’ve just got to learn this language.” I was there only two weeks but by the end I had a vocabulary of 600 words and I was able to talk about philosophy and all kinds of things. How? By having the magnetism that allowed that understanding to flow through me. Magnetism creates that flow.

When you have electricity going through a wire, the stronger the flow of electricity, the stronger the magnetic field generated. And the same is true with you. The more energy you put out, the greater will be your magnetism, and through that magnetism there is virtually nothing you can’t accomplish.

Very few people realize how important magnetism is in their life. Some people go into a new field of work and suddenly everything flowers for them. With other people, no matter how they work, nothing succeeds. If you develop magnetism you can learn languages, you can succeed in business, you can attract inventions, you can attract ideas for a book, you can attract friends.

How is it that people become friends? When you love somebody and that person dies, you don’t lose them. Your love becomes a magnet that draws you together again and again. You can live on the opposite sides of the world but you’ll be drawn together.

Q: I have trouble thinking of God as “he” or “she.” Can you talk about that?

SK: God is neither masculine nor feminine, but He’s also both. In the West, because Jesus talked of God as the Father, we have the tradition of calling God, “He.” But although I say “He,” in my heart I always think “She.” To me, God is my Divine Mother. It’s easier to love God as mother than as father because the mother is closer to us than the father. She forgives us always. Women are more merciful by nature than men because men go too much by reason. I think many of the troubles in the world come from that rational bias.

Man represents reason. Woman represents feeling. Feeling, however, is the essence of consciousness itself. You can’t reason your way to understanding; you have to feel it. Of the two, I think the feminine is the more important because it’s the most basic. Without the feminine aspect, man would be very one-sided. Kali Yuga, the dark age that ended in 1900, was one-sided in its emphasis on masculine energy. I think that in the new age of Dwapara Yuga feminine energy is going to become very important.

Q. What is my first step to getting out of depression?  I have low energy. What should I do?

SK. Being with high-energy people will give you higher energy. Bring your energy upward with positive thoughts and positive expectations. Don’t let your energy go downward. You can have higher energy—anybody can. Your karma is pulling you downward but by your will power, you can change that.

From satsangs and classes in Los Angeles and at Ananda Village in April 2011.

Related reading: The New Path by Swami Kriyananda, To order click here

A Place Called Ananda by Swami Kriyananda, To order click here

*Exodus 10:1

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

A devotee was saying the other day that she feels repelled by the thought of using techniques to know God. Many people feel that way. But their feeling is based on a great misconception. They believe that yoga techniques reduce to mechanics what ought to be a relationship of love. In fact, that isn’t what yoga techniques are about at all, as may be inferred from the great love that is manifested by true yogis.

For people like this devotee, perhaps the word law might be more helpful. For surely they would not deny that God requires of us that we abide by His law, and not flout it. The techniques of yoga are simply a recognition of certain laws of our own spiritual nature that are unfamiliar to most people.

If a girl tried to win a man by using “techniques” such as flattery, or pretending a sweetness that she doesn’t really feel, she might well be accused of insincerity. But if, on the other hand, she were to recognize that her inability to win him has been due to certain flaws in her own nature, then surely it would be a sign of her sincerity if she tried to improve herself.

This is the purpose of using yoga techniques. They are a means of self-improvement, that we might make ourselves a more fit instrument to receive and express God’s love. They are in no sense a means of “compromising” God into revealing Himself! But if we know that for lack of such self-improvement we keep Him out of our hearts—so much so that He simply cannot come—surely it will be a sign of our love for Him if we practice those methods which have been found helpful by others who have known Him. The true devotee will leave no stone unturned in his search for the Infinite Beloved.

Another point, too, might be considered: If you know that a friend is planning to visit you, and if you are eager to receive him, will you busy yourself making noises in the kitchen that might prevent you from hearing the knock at the door when it comes? Will you not rather stand in the doorway, and watch for your friend’s approach from afar? Divine grace enters the body in certain definite ways. Is it so insincere to put oneself in readiness to receive it? The reason yogis teach one, for example, to concentrate at the point between the eyebrows is because that’s where the divine light, when it comes, appears to the devotee. Yoga techniques are simply a process of cooperation with divine grace; they are not an imposition on it.

All, truly, is God’s grace. Yoga practices are not intended as a bypass of that fact. Kripa is the Sanskrit word for grace; it is used more often in India than our English word is ever used in this country. Yogis well know that one cannot command God’s grace. But if we truly believe in His love for us, we must believe also that His grace is not whimsical—that He would bless us even NOW, if we were but ready to receive His blessings. Our task is not to wheedle or “con” Him into giving us more than our fair share of grace; it is to ready ourselves to receive. Were we fully receptive, by God’s grace we would become Christlike even now—today!

From Letters to Truthseekers. Crystal Clarity Publishers (currently out of print).

Related reading: In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection by Swami Kriyananda. To order click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

The yogi who feels hopelessly out of tune with money will learn much from Swami Kriyananda’s early resistance to having to think about making money, and what he gained when, out of necessity, he transcended that resistance. During the beginning years of the Ananda community, when money was clearly needed on many fronts, Kriyananda experienced the need to raise it as a “great burden on my mind.” He resisted what he perceived as becoming enmeshed in materialism.

Interestingly, many of us who came to Ananda in the formative years shared Kriyananda’s attitude toward money. I arrived in 1974 with thirty dollars—and no thought except to serve the community. My income was about four hundred dollars a year. (I had cashed in my worldly goods and my father had kindly used the proceeds to purchase public utility stocks for me.) My life was one of hard work, very simple living, gardening, and rebuilding after the fire of 1976. We lived in teepees, old trailers, and homemade shacks. It was a great day when we had spigot for water and no longer needed to carry gallon jugs over the hill from “downtown” Ananda.

Kriyananda showed the way
It was in this atmosphere of extreme “simple living” that Kriyananda undertook the considerable task of leading us to understand the world in which our service was to lie—material, money-based twentieth century America.

As always in his guidance of us, Kriyananda himself undertook the spiritual discipline required before asking it of others. He overcame his own resistance and learned how to deal with money. But by so doing, his real gain, he tells us, was in developing tremendous strength of will.

From that experience, and many others, came the central principle of Money Magnetism: How to Attract What You Need When You Need It. Money is a form of energy. In learning to attract money, to use it rightly, we learn to attract energy, and to use energy rightly. In the process, we develop will power and concentration—essential attributes not only for success in the world but also on the spiritual path.

A wonderful sadhana
Money Magnetism is of course intended for a much wider readership than only those who resist the very idea of prosperity. I have spent the last several months going through the book slowly and meditatively—taking notes not only on the principles themselves but also on the episodes in my own life that illustrate, or become clear, in light of the principles.

It has been a wonderful sadhana. A special blessing comes with such an undertaking—for we have not truly understood a teaching until we have practiced, and ultimately become that teaching. Such a practical book as Money Magnetism, Kriyananda writes, exemplifies Yogananda’s insistence that “the search for God includes uplifting one’s consciousness in whatever one is doing. As he once said to me, “You must be practical in your idealism.’” An interesting sidelight: I have noticed that my best meditations often come in the transition from active work to rest, as though the energy of work were preparing the way for a deeper, more interiorized spiritual practice.

A daily guide
In a more immediate sense, Money Magnetism can be used as a daily guide—particularly the summarizing paragraphs at the end of each chapter—each one suitable as a focus for meditation, and as a principle to be practiced in the midst of workaday activity.

In the first chapter, “What Is True Wealth?” Kriyananda lays down the foundation principle: money is energy. It is in fact an expression of our energy. If we allow this energy to flow freely, like water from a mountain spring, it will remain fresh, life-giving. If we bottle it up, it will grow stale and lifeless. That is, money can be used constructively to do wonderful things; or it can be hoarded. Hoarding, however, blocks the energy flow and warps the consciousness of the hoarder.

Energy must flow
I thought of my mother’s recent passing. She was as kind and generous a soul as I have known. She loved Ananda, and the people who lived in and visited the community quickly became her friends and extended family. And yet, after her passing, when a packet of materials relating to her estate arrived, from the pages there rose a peculiar odor— musty, moldy, decaying, and depressing. I had to keep the packet outside. When I attempted to read and understand the contents, I would feel my mind being pulled down into depression. What was this?

The moldiness could not be a reflection of my mother’s bright spirit. My sense was that the smell of these “wealth management” bank materials and their depressing effect were simply an expression of trapped energy, and the concomitant stagnation of consciousness. The answer lay clearly in the first principle of Kriyananda’s book—energy must flow. My mother had understood the teaching perfectly. What came to her she shared, as her heart guided her.

I followed her example.  Once I’d plowed through the bank documents enough to have a sense of the income, I simply added the increase to certain Ananda fundraising efforts, and to equipment for the work I do caring for the land in the community. Immediately my spirits lifted. What has happened? The “wealth management” people send statements, and checks. By redirecting those checks to ends that inspire me—the nauseating smell has disappeared.

A doorway to opportunity
Kriyananda writes in Money Magnetism: “The purpose of this book is to help you to attract money in such a way as not to make it a burden on your peace of mind, but a doorway, rather, to genuine opportunity. It is to help you to learn how to use money wisely, in such a way as to acquire the greatest possible benefits for yourself and for others.”

I have imagined myself stranded with only this one book for spiritual nourishment. There is of course much that cannot be addressed in such a book, and Kriyananda himself urges the reader to continue his study particularly with his course, The Art and Science of Raja Yoga. And yet I find all the basics present in this single book—energy, magnetism, will power, concentration, levels of consciousness, affirmation.

Someone who reads Money Magnetism to find practical help in financial matters ends up finding help that extends all the way to the search for God and inner joy. This book, like so much that Kriyananda has written, is a doorway to the ancient teachings of Sanaatan Dharma, the eternal religion at the heart of all true paths to God.

Money Magnetism – How to Attract What You Need When You Need It by Swami Kriyananda is available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

Nayaswami Prakash is a long-time member of Ananda. He currently serves at Ananda Village doing forestry and landscaping work.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Judas was a prophet
I once had an interesting talk with my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, on the subject of Judas. He told me, “Of course, Judas was a prophet.” When I expressed surprise at this astonishing description of the greatness of Judas, Yogananda replied, “Oh yes! He would have had to be, to be one of the twelve disciples. But he had to go through two thousand years of suffering for his treachery. He was finally liberated in this century. Jesus appeared to Judas’ guru in this lifetime, a great master in India, and asked him to give Judas final liberation.”

As an interesting aside here: to be a prophet means to be united in consciousness with God. Paramhansa Yogananda, however, included in the meaning of the word prophet those disciples of a great master who, even if they are not yet liberated, are highly advanced spiritually.

Pausing a moment, Yogananda added, “I knew Judas in this lifetime.”

“What was he like?” I inquired, naturally eager for more information.

“Always very quiet and by himself,” my Guru responded. “He still had some attachment to money, not in the sense of desiring it personally but as a means of helping others. The other disciples began to tease him for it one day, but the guru said to them, ‘Don’t. Leave him alone.’”

A terrifying lesson
Lest anyone doubt the power of delusion to draw people into actions that are diametrically opposed to everything they believe, the fate of Judas must stand as a salutary, even a terrifying lesson. Judas fell so deeply into the delusions of money attachment and worldly acceptance that he was capable, as if in a dream, of accepting silver from the chief rabbi for the betrayal of Jesus. Committing suicide, Judas met his death in a crash of remorse and horror at what he’d done.

Nevertheless, he was a great soul—far greater, indeed, than the many peripheral disciples who had come to Jesus more recently in their divine search.

It is better, in other words, to seek God and fail in the attempt—and even to fail greatly—than to be a lukewarm seeker—or, worse still, not even to seek Him at all. Judas Iscariot was, spiritually speaking, far ahead of the most successful materialistic businessman.

Karmic causes and effects
It is important to understand that it was not Judas’ absolute destiny to betray Jesus. Yogananda explained that Judas could have overcome the bad karma that ultimately led to the betrayal. Jesus, in fact, predicted his betrayal by Judas in order to warn him, so that he might reform and refrain from committing the evil act. Karma is almost always mixed. Judas, for example, could not have betrayed Jesus if he not also had the good karma to be born as a direct, close disciple.

There was, however, a definite destiny in the betrayal itself — it would have come about in one way or another. Judas had to suffer personally the consequences of the part he’d played in that drama.

The bad karma Judas incurred from the betrayal was especially great because he had sinned and blasphemed against Jesus, someone who was one with God. One of the greatest sins is to inflict harm on a saint who has achieved Self-realization. In so doing, one commits an offense against the Christ consciousness itself, which resides within us all, but is fully manifested in those who have realized God.

Judas’s betrayal of Jesus was, however, an even greater sin because it was a “sin against the Holy Ghost” (AUM), with whom Judas had already been blessed to commune. To experience God’s presence as AUM, and then, subsequently, to turn away from it, can finally be “forgiven” only by the seeker himself, by embracing once again the divine experience he has spurned. The return is not so easy, however, because that particular sin sets up an inner vibration of restlessness, or uneasiness with one’s self that can only be overcome by great personal effort.

Nonetheless, it is a karma that can be overcome. Yogananda, in his commentaries on the New Testament of the Bible, wrote that Judas, instead of hanging himself for betraying Jesus, should have devoted the rest of his life to seclusion and meditating on God. In other words, Judas could have started the process of redemption during his lifetime, had he summoned from within himself the inner strength and courage to do so.

You first extend the invitation
It is interesting that the Biblical account of the betrayal of Jesus describes “the devil” as putting the thought of betrayal “into the heart of Judas.” Indeed it so happens because, as Yogananda said, “Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted.”

We first tap the source of negative consciousness in the universe by ourselves thinking wrong thoughts, and by mentally toying with any wrong desire we harbor even lightly in our hearts. Those thoughts and desires send rays of magnetic energy into the infinite, attracting a compatible energy, depending on whether our “invitation” is positive or negative. Thus it is that our thoughts and desires can lift us either heavenward, or cast us down into ever-deeper darkness and suffering.

Yogananda used to say: “Here is a line. On one side of it is God; on the other side, Satan. Neither can influence you until you yourself turn toward the one or the other. Once you allow yourself, however, to turn either way, the divine or the satanic influence will begin to act upon you consciously.” You yourself, in other words, first extend the invitation. God or Satan then comes to you, and influences you further in the direction you’ve already indicated.

Invite goodness into your consciousness
If you want to cleanse yourself of impure motives, or to strengthen your inner purity, the best place to start is by spurning every impure imagining, which people tend too easily to “play with” mentally in an effort (they may tell themselves) to “understand” and reason their way out of that thought. Instead, you should concentrate on raising your feelings from the heart to the higher centers in the throat and the head. If you can harmonize those feelings, uplift them, and then channel them to the spiritual eye (the “Christ center”) in the forehead, you will find that your tendency to harbor impure feelings will change completely. Almost automatically, those feelings will be purified.

Above all invite goodness into your consciousness. The battle will be half won when you realize that you are not the source of any virtue that you manifest, or of any delusion, but that you can, if you choose, become an instrument of divine love and bliss in the world. Yoga emphasizes the importance of keeping the heart filled with what Jesus referred to as “good treasure”: kindly thoughts, devotion, love, calm feeling, non-attachment to everything material.

No one, however, is safe from delusion until he is firmly established in God-consciousness. Jesus, like Yogananda, placed the strongest emphasis on inner communion with God. It is God alone who can save us through our ever-deepening inner communion with Him. The tragedy of Judas shows that even highly advanced disciples can still fall spiritually until they reach the final stage of liberation— nirbikalpa samadhi—when at last they attain full awareness that only the Infinite Self, God, exists.

Not a permanent state
Although Judas acted under the influence of Satan, the story of Judas must be understood as not indicating a permanent state of alienation from God. As great as was Judas’s betrayal—owing, my Guru said, to “a little bad karma”—its fruits were only temporary. Judas was, inherently, a great and true disciple. His problem was merely that there were in him still a few deep-seated faults that remained to be worked out. He suffered greatly for that betrayal, but his good karma stood him in good stead also, and flowered at last by taking him to divine liberation.

Yogananda was once relating to his students the story of Sadhu Haridas, an eighteenth century holy man in India, who fell from the spiritual path even though he was highly advanced. Yet, my Guru said, he achieved full liberation in that same lifetime. A student of Yogananda’s, who was present when Yogananda related this story, objected, “How can that be? Isn’t the punishment far greater for one who, though knowing the law, breaks it?”

“Mm-mm,” replied the Master, shaking his head. “God is no tyrant. When you have eaten good cheese, then resume eating stale cheese again, you soon realize your mistake. If, then, you once again want only the good cheese, God won’t deny you.”

Yogananda made a similar observation about one of his own close disciples who had betrayed him in nefarious ways. As Jesus had done with Judas, Yogananda had predicted that betrayal. Yet, that disciple was nonetheless a great soul. Yogananda stated firmly that he would be liberated in another three lifetimes.

God will do the rest
For ourselves, we must understand that no matter how many times, or how far, we fall, God will ever wait for us with outstretched arms until we return to Him. Never fear, therefore, but give to God as much of yourself as you are capable of giving. He will ever do the rest.

Excerpted from: Revelations of Christ, proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda, Presented by his Disciple, Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers, and other sources.

*“And Jesus answered him, The first commandment is: ‘Hear, O Israel, The Lord our God is one Lord.’”

Two American boys, Donny and Bobby, while exploring the Transylvania forest, came upon the ruins of some kind of science laboratory. Inside they found various items used in chemistry experiments and a few file cabinets.

In the back of the laboratory was a room with a large hole in the wall big enough for people to walk into. The boys started to enter the hole, but finding themselves enveloped in darkness, turned back. Back outside, they discovered a huge dinosaur skeleton with bits of flesh still on the bones. Remembering that one of the files in the laboratory had said something about time travel, they decided to return the next day to find out if the hole in the back room led to a time tunnel.

The boys enter the tunnel and begin shrinking

The next morning the boys again entered the hole, which in fact was a tunnel leading gently downward. The first thing they noticed as they got deeper inside was a low humming sound, coming in rhythmic pulses from below them but also from all around them.

“It reminds me of the engine of a huge ocean liner,” cried Bobby. They had already been across the Atlantic more than once.

“You’re right!” Donny answered. “On a ship, that sound is everywhere!”

“Do you notice something else? The further we walk into this tunnel, the more it keeps shrinking!”

Bobby cried out fearfully, “And we’re shrinking with it! Oh! Let’s get out of here!”

They tried to turn back. “I can’t!” Donny cried.

“Neither can I!” whispered Bobby. The pulsing sound seemed to be forcing them forward. What could they do? Terror-stricken, they joined hands for mutual protection.

They keep on shrinking

A speck of dust floated by them: it looked like a huge boulder! And they themselves went on shrinking! What had been a mere hint of moisture on the floor became all at once a puddle, then a pond, then a lake. And they were in that lake! Soon, huge monsters were floating in the water all around them.

“They look like paramecia!” Donny cried. “I saw some through a microscope in a pre-science class.”

Bobby shouted, “Look at those whirling lights around us! They look like pictures of atoms I saw last week in a book!”

Donny cried, “And even they keep growing bigger!”

“My gosh!” Bobby cried excitedly. “They look like suns and planets and moons!”

“And still we’re shrinking!”

A large zero and a sphere of light

“Is this good, or is it horrible? We keep shrinking, but still we continue to be ourselves!”

“We no longer seem to have bodies,” cried Donny, “but we’re still conscious!”

“More conscious!” Bobby cried. “I not only see everything more clearly, but I seem to be more aware of everything around me!”

“Oh my God!” cried Donny, “my body seems to have shrunk to nothingness! What is this! A large zero is forming around us!”

All of a sudden they emerged from the tunnel. That large zero had become a sphere of light, surrounding them both like a luminescent bubble. Outside the bubble they saw a countryside of trees, flowers, and great natural beauty.

A border zone between past and future

“Where are we?” cried Bobby.

“Remember what we read in that file?” Donny answered. “The summary, as I still remember it, went something like this:

Time, basically, is an illusion. Whatever was in the past not only was, but is now, and will be, forever. Whatever happens doesn’t really happen at all, except as a mental concept. If one could divorce himself from passing time and reduce his sense of selfhood to absolute zero, he would find it possible to appear again at any specific time, whether in time past or time future.

“My gosh!” Bobby exclaimed. “Then this light around us is that zero!”

“Is this scene around us some sort of border zone,” Donny cried, “between past and future? We must be out of time, as we know it, altogether!”

“Look!” Bobby cried. “Over there! Somebody’s lying on the ground!”

They thought themselves in that direction, and — to their astonishment — the sphere moved with their thought!

“It’s a man!” cried Donny. The man seemed asleep.

“Hey there,” Bobby shouted. “Wake up!” The man slept on. They stared at him a moment in silence. “Are you dead — like that dinosaur out there?”

The man stirred. “Dinosaur?” he muttered as if vaguely remembering the word.

“Yes, dinosaur!” shouted Donny.

“You mean, you actually saw the dinosaur?” asked the man, rising now in panic to a sitting position.

The man’s head seemed to be clearing. “I’m beginning to remember!”

Hansel explains the time-light spheres

The man’s head seemed to clear completely. “Yes! It’s understandable to me now. My name is Hansel, but first, I’ve got to get you out of that time-light sphere. As long as you’re in it, you’ll be visible only to me, because I too came out of that tunnel.”

Donny asked, “So how do we get out of this sphere?”

“It’s easy enough. Its light is a vibration of energy. The time-light sphere formed around you when you reduced yourselves to zero. But now what you need to do is stand up straight in that sphere.”

The boys followed his directions, and to their amazement, they saw the light around them disappear in a downward-rolling scroll. When their arms touched their sides again, the sphere was gone! After also explaining how they could create separate spheres around each of them, Hansel said: “These time-light spheres are very important for you. They will keep you invisible to others, and also inaudible by them. And the spheres will protect you from anything going on around you.”

Egypt and the construction of the Great Pyramid

The next day Donny and Bobby emerged once more from the tunnel in their bubbles of light — calmly this time, however. Hansel, their new friend was waiting for them. After dissolving their light bubbles, they greeted him. The boys were ready for an adventure.

“What if we went back to the time of the pyramids, and saw what the people were like then!” cried Donny.  His mother had already told them about those ancient wonders.

“We could see how they built those great buildings!” added Bobby.

“The people who created the pyramids lived in a much higher age than ours,” said Hansel. “They knew how to manipulate sounds, and had innumerable instruments — big drums for the low hum of solid earth; flutes for liquid matter; harps for fiery matter; deep gongs for gaseous matter; and a rushing sound produced by another instrument, which is no longer known today.

“In addition, many priests and priestesses loudly chanted certain sacred sounds. All of these sounds together lifted the huge rocks into place, and inserted them between the other stones in a way that researchers have long marveled over. For in fact those stones could not have been placed as precisely as they were except from above.

“Oh, my!” exclaimed Donny. ” Why don’t we go there and see for ourselves?”

They scrolled up their time-light spheres, and found themselves suddenly on a wide, sandy plateau. They remained in their spheres, invisible to and inaudible by anyone else, but finding it easy to communicate with one another.

The three of them watched the pyramid’s construction rising quickly (they swept forward over the many years it took for the pyramid to be finished). Suddenly they saw before them — not a great pyramid of rocks, but a smooth, gleaming white sandstone structure, shining for many miles, reflecting light over the flat desert.

“Centuries later,” Hansel told them, “when modern Cairo was built, people took the surface stone from the pyramid to construct their homes. Long ago, it wasn’t the massive pile of blocks seen today. Instead, the pyramid stood gleaming in the desert.

“One interesting fact about Egypt,” Hansel concluded, “is that, as a civilization, it started at its height. There is no indication of an earlier rise from obscurity.”

“Do you mean,” Donny asked, “that all of Egypt’s known history has been downhill?”

“That’s what the evidence shows.” Hansel answered.

******

“Shall we try going to the future — maybe tomorrow?” Hansel asked.

Bobby said. “Oh, I’d like first to go to Atlantis!”

“Atlantis!” cried Donny. “I know nothing about it. But they were highly advanced then. Do let’s go there first!”

“Very well, then,” Hansel concluded. “Tomorrow: Atlantis!”

Atlantis and the conquering of nature

“What was Atlantis like?” inquired Bobby, eager with anticipation. “I once asked Daddy about it,” said Donny, “and he answered, ‘It can’t have existed.’”

“Well, here’s something to think about,” said Hansel: “Atlantis was situated (this seems obvious) in the Atlantic Ocean. The nearest land mass west of it could easily have been Mexico. Consider, then, the names of many cities in Mexico: Acatlán; Mazatlán; Zacatlán; and names without the first or the last ‘a,’ but with that strange ‘tlan’ sound, like Ixtlán; Ocotlán; Tepoztlán; Tezuitlán.

Often you can find clues to the past from the sounds of language itself. I don’t believe that ‘tlán’ sound is found anywhere else on earth. Certainly it must be very uncommon. And, as part of that puzzle, what about the name of the ocean itself: “Atlantic”? I know of no connection between that name and any ancient language. Where did it come from?”

“Gee,” said Donny thoughtfully, “that is a good argument!”

“And anyway, I’ve been there!” said Hansel, clinching the matter. “Atlantis existed all right! Atlantis was a very high civilization. On it there stood, at its center, a huge crystal. That crystal gave energy to the whole island.

“Were the Atlanteans a scientific people?” Donny asked.

“Too much so!” said Hansel. “Everything was man-made and artificial. They believed in conquering Nature, not in working with her.”

******

Hansel and the boys enclosed themselves in their time-light spheres, and Hansel (who alone knew where they were going) willed themselves back to ancient Atlantis thousands of years ago.

On arriving, they found themselves in a gleamingly white city — super clean, super neat in its construction, super efficient, super — well, super everything! High buildings towered around them. People rode about in neat, small metal “sheaths,” easily avoiding contact with one another. If one car happened to touch another, the surfaces of both cars adjusted instantly, bending softly inward to avoid any damaging clash.

After scrolling down their time-light spheres, the three travelers found there were no sidewalks. They stepped onto a flat square and found themselves almost instantly transported up two storeys to a translucent sidewalk. Beside them they saw a beautiful shop window in which were displayed styles of clothing they’d never before seen, nor even ever imagined. Fascinated, they entered through an open door.

Just then, a lady passing by them, also going in, cried out, “Great Crystal! What are you three doing dressed like that?”

******

Later, after Bobby, Donny and Hansel were again outside the tunnel, they reminisced about their recent visit to Atlantis.

“Well,” said Hansel, “bleak is what we found it to be underneath that outward glamour.”

“Yes, bleak. That’s the word!” cried Bobby earnestly.

*****

Forward to a glorious future

“At last, it’s time to soar off to the future!” Hansel said to them. ” Let’s go forward very slowly. That way, you’ll catch a glimpse of other time zones on the way.” They enclosed themselves in their time-light spheres, and moved slowly through time….

******

After they had seen enough, Hansel spoke: “I thought we might go further still — thousands of years into the future. Would you like to speed up? The boys agreed and all of a sudden, passing time became a blur of quickly changing scenes; then a simple blur of colors; then, white space.

Suddenly they landed on a flowery meadow. Scrolling down their time-light spheres, they stepped out of them (so to speak) onto the meadow and looked about. The weather was balmy. A soft breeze played over long meadow grass as if on harp strings. As the breeze did so, it created delightful, slightly energizing sounds, within which subtle melodies seemed to be playing.

They noticed that their own bodies seemed lighter, almost airy. Everything around them was graceful. Even the trees grew gracefully. And the hills seemed somehow to have been molded into harmonious shapes.

A beautiful horse ran about freely in the meadow. After making a few turns about the periphery, it trotted over to Donny, butted him playfully, ran off, then came back and nudged him — all this with obvious affection.

“Look!” cried Donny. “It wants to make friends!”

With their bag of three sandwiches, which they had brought with them, they sat on the grass under a graceful tree and ate them. Their brief repast finished, they stood up. Just at that moment, a visitor appeared. He was tall, dignified, apparently middle-aged, draped in a long blue robe, the material of which seemed soft and completely comfortable.

“Welcome, Friends!” said the man with a kindly smile. “I thought I would wait until you’d finished your meal. My name is Satyan.”

*Crystal Clarity Publishers. The book will be available summer 2011.

Dear ___________:

Do you practice Paschimotanasana, the Posterior Stretching pose? You should do it very slowly and carefully, not forcibly, but rather relaxing further and further forward, concentrating especially on releasing tension at the base of the spine. Hold the pose comfortably for two or more minutes. Dhanurasana, the Bow pose, might be helpful, too. (But hold this one much less time, of course.)

Have you ever gone to a good chiropractor or osteopath? It should be one who takes x-rays. You might try cutting onions, garlic, and eggs out of your diet. (I am assuming you no longer eat meat, but if you do I suggest you omit that also.) These foods have a heating and somewhat irritating effect, especially on the lower nerves in the spine.

Do you practice Maha Mudra? It has a very healing effect. You might even try doing it twice as many times as you have been taught at Kriya Yoga Initiation.

Practice healing affirmations, too, with firm faith and deep concentration, and always visualize yourself free of any difficulties. I especially recommend Paramhansa Yogananda’s book, Scientific Healing Affirmations.

Remember, your body changes constantly. Every few years all its cells are replaced. The only reason they keep falling into the same old patterns is that you have established those cellular patterns for them to fit into. If you will change your mental “picture,” the incoming cells will fit themselves to the new pattern. People will then exclaim what a miracle has been performed. No such thing! You will simply have put into operation a basic aspect of natural law as it applies to the human body.

Be free!

Blessings to you, and prayers for your good health.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

From Letters to Truth Seekers, 1973 (Currently out of print).

Related reading: In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection by Swami Kriyananda. To order click here

In response to his mother’s concern, Jesus replied: “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”* (See sidebar below for Bible account)

From then on nothing more appears in the Bible on the life of Jesus until his apparently sudden arrival on the scene at the age of thirty. Often people have asked the question: What transpired during those missing eighteen years?

Jesus had begun his mission
Assuming that what we find in the Bible is true—that Jesus returned to Nazareth with his parents, and was “subject unto them”—his “subjection” to them can hardly have lasted for eighteen years considering the “declaration of independence” he made to them at the age of twelve. Christian tradition has him working as a carpenter. Jesus, however, seems flatly to contradict that tradition, for his own words were, “Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?”

After this strong statement, it is unthinkable that he would have simply gone home, remained there for eighteen years, and become a common apprentice and journeyman carpenter under Joseph until the age of thirty, and only then commenced his life’s mission. At twelve he had already told his parents he had God’s work to do. And, as he strongly implied, he had begun that mission already.

Westerners are likely to object, “But twelve is too young for any boy to begin a life mission!” His parents evidently held the same view. It is obvious, however, that Jesus did not hold it, for we find him telling them in no uncertain words—words very different, moreover, from what one would expect of any child of twelve—what he must do. In fact, he seems almost to have scolded them for finding him. Reflect that he made that statement after he had been missing for three whole days. Surely the event was extraordinary.

The tradition in India
The only episodes I know that were comparable to this story about Jesus, who was virtually renouncing every blood tie to his family, have occurred in the lives of great reincarnated masters. Paramhansa Yogananda recounted the following story to me as a historic fact: Swami Shankara told his mother at the age of six that he had decided to renounce the world for God. When she tried, quite naturally, to hold him, he jumped into a river and allowed himself—so the story goes—to be caught by a crocodile.

“Look, Mother!” he cried. “Either you give me your consent, or I will let this crocodile take me. Whatever happens, you won’t have me anymore!” Hastily she gave her permission. And the child, who had been born with divine power, made the crocodile release him, whereupon his life mission began.

Another example which occurred more recently involved Swami Pranabananda, a disciple of Lahiri Mahasaya.** Pranabananda, my Guru told me, attained full liberation and left his body. “In his next incarnation,” Yogananda said, “he left home at the age of six. His declared purpose was to join Babaji in the Himalayas.” After a brief pause, Yogananda continued with a smile, “It caused a lot of commotion in that village at the time!”

In the light of spiritual tradition—especially in India, where the lamp of spirituality has burned brightly for centuries—the declaration by Jesus at the age of twelve, that he must “be about his Father’s business,” was not unique. That he had, moreover, a karmic tie with India had already been indicated by the visit, soon after his birth, of the three wise men of the East.

Clearly then, those eighteen years must have been deliberately omitted from the official account of Christ’s life. Two vital questions forcibly intrude themselves on this picture: What was omitted? And, What was the reason for that omission?

The decision of the early Church Council
In 1958, I had an interesting conversation with a prominent spiritual leader in India: Swami Bharati Krishna Tirtha, the Shankaracharya of Gowardhan Math. He was at that time the senior representative of the ancient Shankara Order of Swamis. Throughout the land people respected him highly as a man of truth and honor. My own experience with him, which covered many months, supports that reputation. I will quote something he told me, in his own words as exactly I can remember them, about one of the early Church Councils of Constantinople. He told me the date of that council, but I don’t recall it:

Some years ago I came into possession of one of only three copies of an ancient document which purported to be an account of the proceedings of one of the early Councils of Constantinople. In that council, the question was raised as to how the Church should deal with the record, which still existed, of the missing eighteen years of Jesus Christ’s life.

The problem raised was that the account might unsettle the faith of devout Christians. The Bible stated that Jesus had spent at least a number of those ‘lost’ years with great masters in India, to which land he had gone to study with them. The question raised in the council was whether Christians might not be shaken in their faith if they thought that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, had studied under anyone. The general feeling of the prelates was that the account should be removed in order to protect the devotion of the faithful.

At that point, someone in the audience got up and stated, ‘I am a layman, not a priest, and am aware that it is not customary for such as I to speak at these councils. However, I feel I must speak out. What I have to say is, if the apostles themselves were not shaken in their faith by this revelation, why should we who truly believe, all of us, that Jesus was the Son of God, have less trust then they? Surely the simple truth will not in any way diminish his stature in people’s eyes!’ The man’s objection was not considered, however, and the account of those eighteen years was removed forthwith from the Bible.

Testimony of a Master
Let me submit, also, what to me is the strongest testimony of all: the fact that Paramhansa Yogananda himself declared many times, as a definite fact, that Jesus Christ did visit India, and that he lived there for some years.

I had been with my Guru for just a month when he invited me to his desert retreat at Twenty-Nine Palms, California, where he was dictating his revised correspondence-course lessons. During one evening’s session he stated during dictation: “The three wise men who came to honor the Christ Child after his birth in Bethlehem were the line of gurus who later sent me to the West: Babaji, Lahiri Mahasaya, and Swami Sri Yukteswar.” This was heady stuff, especially for a young neophyte!

Yogananda announced to us also, “Jesus, in his youth, paid a return visit to India to study under the ‘wise men’ who had come to honor him as a baby.” People may wonder, as those prelates did at the Council of Constantinople, why an Incarnation of God needed to learn from anybody.

A liberated master, whose mission it is to mix with the public, must comport himself in such a way as not to impose his wisdom on those who hear him. It would be no help to them were he to overwhelm them with his omniscience in everything. He must, for their sake, seem down-to-earth and, in that sense, perfectly normal. Thus, it was perfectly normal for a great master—indeed, for an avatar like Jesus, which is to say an Incarnation of God—to assume for a time the slight veil of delusion, as well as the behavior of a normal human being, in order to help others, later.

The discovery of an ancient manuscript
There are records in India which support the claim that Jesus lived in that country for several years. In 1887, the Russian writer Nicolas Notovitch discovered in the ancient Tibetan monastery of Himis, in Leh, a province of Ladakh in northern Kashmir, an ancient manuscript which detailed the life of Jesus (called Issa in that work). It recounts that Issa had traveled there as a young man, and had later “preached the holy doctrine in India and among the children of Israel.” It tells how Jesus (Issa) left home to avoid pressure from his parents, Joseph and Mary, to take a wife. Legend has it that he traveled by camel caravan over the “Silk Road,” which was the main passage between the East and the West. Notovitch published a book which became famous in his time, called The Unknown Life of Jesus Christ. In it he described Issa (Jesus) spending time in Puri, Orissa, among the priests at the famous Jagannath Temple.

A prominent disciple of the great Sri Ramakrishna, Swami Abhedananada, later (in 1922) went to Ladakh in order to verify the account by Notovitch, and actually succeeded in doing so. Later still, Nicholas Roerich, the Russian artist who was then already well known as a veritable “Renaissance Man,” wrote in 1929 of the many legends he had heard in Kashmir about the visit of Jesus Christ to that land, and about the manuscripts at Himis monastery. In 1939, Madam Elisabeth G. Caspari, a Swiss musician, and her husband visited the Himis monastery and also learned about the manuscripts, which were shown to them.

The account of Jesus leaving home as a boy to avoid marriage is very much in keeping with ancient tradition in India. Marriage in Israel, too, was arranged in those days after a boy reached the age of thirteen.  Jesus himself explained his return  to Israel, after the “lost eighteen years,” when he declared that it was his destiny to fulfill his mission in Israel. He therefore returned to Israel.

* Sidebar
Luke 2:41–52

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up to Jerusalem. And, as they returned, the child Jesus tarried behind in Jerusalem; and Joseph and his mother knew not of it. They, supposing him to have been in the company, went a day’s journey and then sought him among their kinsfolk and acquaintances.

And when they found him not, they turned back again to Jerusalem, and after three days they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions. And all that heard him were astonished at his understanding and answers.

And when they saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said unto him, “Son, why hast thou thus dealt with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee sorrowing.” And he said unto them, “How is it that ye sought me? Wist ye not that I must be about my Father’s business?” And they understood not the saying which he spake unto them.

And he went down with them, and came to Nazareth, and was subject unto them. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.

** An account of his life appears in  Autobiography of a Yogi.

From Revelations of Christ, proclaimed by Paramhansa Yogananda, presented by his disciple, Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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Victim consciousness puts the blame on other people. It’s the kind of thinking that says: “I have these difficulties and problems because of what people did to me. I am the product of my environment, of the way I was treated as a child, or of the way my boss treats me.” But this perspective is wrong. You’re the way you are because you made yourself that way—if not in this life, then in another.

Your consciousness creates your life
I saw this kind of thinking in one of my college friends. He had an unfortunate habit of excusing his personal weaknesses, whenever they were pointed out to him, by blaming them on his parents. “I know I’m weak,” he would cry, plaintively, “but how can I have more self-confidence? You see, I had a domineering mother. My father never shared my interests. Besides, my parents always favored my older brother.”

It is true that our outer circumstances are often the outcome, the “materialization,” of other people’s energies as well as our own. It is also true, however, that we attract those energies according to the quality of energy that we first manifest ourselves. An instructive instance of this involved Bernard, a brother disciple of mine at Mt. Washington, who was prone to getting involved in car accidents. Our guru would counsel him to be more careful.

“But Master,” protested Bernard, self-righteously, “none of these accidents has been my fault! One car crossed into my lane from behind, and hit me. Another hit me when it went through a red light. Twice my car was actually hit after I had parked it!”

“You must be more careful,” repeated the Master, unimpressed by these explanations.

Bernard thought the Master was simply being difficult. But one day it dawned on him that he did, at least, have a careless attitude. To his astonishment, once he had changed this attitude, his seemingly unrelated accidents ceased to occur.

Your life—in the last analysis, all of it—is the outward manifestation of your own consciousness, through the medium of the energy that you generate. Even the unexpected, the undesired, is drawn to you because of some attitude in your own mind. For it must be understood that our consciousness functions on various levels, many of them too deep for immediate, conscious recognition. This is, in fact, the greatest difficulty that we encounter in changing ourselves or our outer circumstances: We are not always aware of those deep currents of consciousness which have made our lives what they are.

How, then, can we change those currents? To become fully conscious of them, deep meditation is the surest and most direct method.

We want to pay for our mistakes
Suffering is familiar to all people but very few understand why they suffer. People’s natural tendency is to seek the cause of their suffering outside themselves. One often hears the cry, “I didn’t ask for this!” If people can find no one else to blame, they sometimes rage in anger against God Himself.

The truth is that on certain levels of our consciousness we actually do ask for the pain we experience in our lives. In some part of ourselves, we want to pay for our mistakes, and to be healed of our ignorance. On a soul level, we understand that no earthly suffering could approach the eons-old agony of exile from our true home in God. Human beings experience suffering because, although created as God’s children and welcome to dwell with Him forever, we have chosen to wander afar.

The wrongs we have done in life must sooner or later be paid for. Our mistakes must be righted. Isn’t it better that our mistakes be righted while we are still here on earth? For then, when the time comes for us to leave this world, we shall enter the other one in a state of freedom.

We need our difficulties
The truth is we need our difficulties, our trials. It’s only with opposition that we can grow. When we become strong enough in ourselves, we are able to transcend anything that comes to us.

There are people who have had tremendous adversity in life, and yet they have come out as heroes and heroines. Richard Wurmbrand is a good example. I first heard Wurmbrand lecture in Lugano, Switzerland. It was a deeply inspiring experience. Wurmbrand was an orthodox Christian, and a very spiritual man. He was arrested and thrown into prison because of his religion and his outspoken criticism of the communist regime in Rumania. He spent many years in prison where he was subjected to cruel punishment, and often torture.

Wurmbrand was able to endure and transcend such punishment because he took it with courage, faith, and love—love for God and love for God in his tormentors. Most people would be broken by that kind of experience but Wurmbrand came out stronger and more joyful than ever.

We need to learn to take responsibility for our lives. This understanding is one of the most important contributions that the yogic teachings of India are giving to the world. Not only do life’s trials help us to pay off old karmic debts, when accepted with understanding, they help us develop the inner strength to focus our love single-pointedly on the only reality where joy is never dimmed: union with God.

A way out of victim consciousness
Victim consciousness puts a person in a contractive mode. His perceptions turn inward on himself—he concentrates on how others treat him, not on what he can do for them. The way out of victim consciousness is to get into an expansive mode by affirming a more generous, giving attitude toward others.

When you are in a giving mode, you grow. But when you are focused on receiving egoically, with great concern over how people are treating you, you contract and suffer. Only after cultivating an expansive outlook can a person see himself accurately in his relation to others, and to the greater scheme of things.

Here’s a simple example: If at a party I see that there’s not enough cake for everybody, am I going to rush in there and get mine? Most people might think that way, and they may feel good in the short run. But there’s something inside that says, “It would have been nicer to share it, or to let somebody else have it.”

As we grow more sensitive, we reach the point where we find that happiness comes not from getting the cake for ourselves, but from seeing that somebody else got it. And as we grow spiritually, we want to include the happiness of other people in our own, even to the extent of not wanting the cake for ourselves, but wanting it for them. We discover that there’s real freedom in realizing that nothing outside ourselves makes us happy, but that our happiness is something that we can carry with us all the time.

Our allotted task
The world is God’s dream. Our allotted task is to wake from our own dreams within the cosmic dream, and to live in obedience to the Dreamer’s plan for us. Wise are we when we are able to perceive God as the hidden Doer behind His multifarious roles in creation.

Wise are we also if we give God the credit for anything we do well, and attribute any trials or misfortunes to a deficiency in our attunement with Him, if not in this life then in the past. To blame our upbringing, or to hurl accusations at others, is futile and self-defeating.

From books and talks.

Related link: click here to learn about our online course: How to Be Happy.

You ask what my views are on drugs. In a nutshell I might say that I do not approve of them, but nor do I condemn them completely, for I have seen many people brought to the spiritual path as a result of them. Yet I don’t think it is drugs that have actually given those people anything concrete. What has been accomplished, rather, is that the drugs have released certain spiritual samskars, or impressions born of past spiritual actions, that were lying dormant within them, awaiting the opportunity to express themselves. Those impressions would have to come out sooner or later anyway. My claim that drugs release what was there already, instead of giving one anything new, is supported by the fact that some people, taking the same drugs, have had quite opposite and even terrifying experiences.

But I have noticed that when people take drugs not only once or twice, but continuously, the effect on their personality seems to be deleterious. One or two doses may at least make one aware that uncommon states of consciousness exist (though it seems foolish to me even then to offer one’s mind up as a guinea pig to dangerous experiments). But what I have observed is that, in time, a subtle form of egotism develops which is even more insidious than the competitive, worldly ego toward which drug users are so condescending.

The path to God—to Truth; call it what you will—is one of self-offering, not of self-indulgence. My Guru’s guru, Swami Sri Yukteswar, said, “Many people forsake worldly attachments only to seek them again on a subtler level of miracles and astral phenomena.” It is not what God gives us in meditation in the form of visions and the like that determines our inner progress, but our increasing willingness to give all that we are to Him.

Drugs seem to inspire a sort of spiritual self-centeredness, an attachment to experiences, that is the very opposite of self-giving. Quite apart from the fact that the experiences themselves are certainly of a lower order (subconscious, mostly, not superconscious), the very human attitude that these drugs engender is one of indifference to the “realities” of other people. In this sense drugs, in the long run, actually reduce one’s sensitivity to reality as a whole, in spite of the claim that they make one more sensitive.

I suggest you bear in mind the words of Sister Gyanamata: “Remember, your religion is tested in the cold light of day.”

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

From Letters to Truth Seekers, 1973 (Currently out of print)

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An amazing degree of change
Since 1900 A.D., we’ve been in the ascending age of Dwapara Yuga and we find, amazingly, just in one century, how much people have advanced. Everything we know of modern times—airplanes, cars, electronics, radios, television, computers— started after 1900. And we’re just at the beginning. The discoveries that lie ahead of us are enormous, but all of them will be based on an awareness of energy as the underlying reality of matter.

A very different kind of world and universe will open up as we advance into this age. Before the end of Dwapara Yuga in 4100 A.D., mankind will conquer the delusion of space, and people will realize that the most distant galaxy is just as close as our present surroundings. (See sidebar below for explanation of the yuga cycles, and diagram at right.)

The start of interplanetary travel
According to science, it’s not possible for people to go from one solar system to another because of the distance and time involved. In 1949, however, there was a worldwide “stir” of sightings of “flying saucers” or UFOs (unidentified flying objects). The newspapers generally made light of the reports, but Paramhansa Yogananda’s brief comment was: “What people have seen is true. Those phenomena are not imaginary.”

There’s a movie about what happened in Roswell, New Mexico, where a flying saucer crashed in 1949. Local residents and military personnel saw the beings on the ship—some of whom survived briefly, and examined the bodies. The beings looked similar to us, only smaller, and they didn’t have the same cardiovascular system that we have. Theirs was more like that of plants. We have a carbon-based system, but there’s no reason why other physiological and biological systems couldn’t work just as well.

Modern science declares it would be impossible for the inhabitants of planets situated many light years away from Earth to make such a journey. Yogananda’s answer was that science is still in its infancy. He said: “Modern man thinks that everything must be accomplished by physical force. There are many subtler forces in Nature. These will come to light as the general sensitivity of man becomes more refined. Someday it will be a simple matter to travel from Earth to Mars, or to other planets.”

In the different yugas, mankind transcends certain aspects of maya or delusion. By the end of Dwapara Yuga, mankind will know how to bypass the laws of physics that say you can’t go faster than the speed of light. People will be able to go, not only to other planets, but to distant galaxies.

Treta Yuga: the power to manipulate events
As planetary consciousness continues to evolve, people will become more aware of the power of consciousness. They will understand that consciousness precedes energy and that with their own minds they can direct energy to accomplish things. This  understanding will be the hallmark of the next age, Treta Yuga, or “The Age of Mental Power,” which will start in 4100 A.D.

We know this principle to some extent even now. This is what Yogananda’s Energization Exercises teach us—that by will power we can send energy to the body. When we do the Energization Exercises, we’re directing energy through the power of consciousness, and that energy acts upon the muscles by tensing them. As we go deeper into that thought, we realize we can ultimately send energy to manipulate the events around us.

A woman in India told me about her guru, who lived very simply in the forest. Once, when a number of his disciples were with him there was a heavy downpour of rain, but it remained completely dry around them. It was as if he had created an astral umbrella. When you have that kind of inner power, it’s a very small thing to ward off the rain. You can prevent rain or cause rain, or even change the seasons. In Treta Yuga most people are aware enough to be able to manipulate energy with will power.

If you could put all your will into making something happen, and not have any conflicting doubt, you would find that your will is enormous. Will power isn’t just generating the energy—it’s also removing the obstacles that prevent that energy from being effective. Masters are able to perform miracles because they know that when they will something, they must send out all their energy, and there’s no conflicting energy blocking it.

I saw an ad in a magazine once for somebody who was supposed to be channeling an entity. I had to laugh when I looked at his picture because his face was all screwed up with the effort. When Yogananda did miraculous things it was effortless, because there were no conflicting thoughts. He just sent out a thought, and even though he had tremendous will, there was never any sense of struggle. It’s not as if God had to get all worked up to project the universe—it just happened very naturally.

Yogananda described Treta Yuga as an “age marked by common knowledge of telepathic communications and other time-annihilators.” Mental telepathy will occur naturally as mankind’s mental control, intuition, and knowledge of the universe evolve.

By the end of Treta Yuga, most people will understand that time, like space, is a delusion, and that the most ancient civilizations exist, not in the distant past, but right now, in the eternal present. Certain writings penned back in Treta Yuga, five thousand years ago or so, discuss the lives of individuals living today. In one such writing, The Book of Bhrigu, I found a page discussing my own life, and accurately describing events that had not yet occurred.

Nonetheless, there is still warfare well into Treta Yuga because people don’t yet have the degree of mental control that enables them to act in attunement with God’s will. By Satya Yuga, the highest age, people will have learned that.

A portal of entry into subtler realms
With the arrival of the golden age of Satya Yuga, the Age of Truth, in 7700 A.D., mankind will live more perfectly in the realization that all is Spirit. In Satya Yuga there will be a much greater degree of Self-realization, and the majority of people will understand that the universe is simply a projection of the Divine Consciousness.

This doesn’t mean there won’t be people whose consciousness is negative or dark. Even in the depths of Kali Yuga there are still a few masters around, and in the heights of Satya Yuga there are still a few evil people. It’s rather that in Satya Yuga relatively more people have an enlightened awareness, so that warfare is no longer a problem.

During Satya Yuga, most people are no longer interested in using energy as a means of manipulating and controlling matter. For them, matter is merely a “portal of entry” into higher, subtler realms. They live in effortless communion with angelic beings, and with the pure nature spirits that bring life, order, and beauty to this physical world.

These enlightened souls are interested not so much in creating beautiful forms as in achieving beautiful states of awareness. Whatever they create materially, however, is effortlessly beautiful, graceful, and beneficial to themselves and to others. They have little need to construct grand edifices, or even sturdy homes. They prefer the “shelter of trees”—as the great master Babaji, one of Yogananda’s teachers, once put it—for Nature herself becomes temperate when mankind projects thoughts of love and harmony. Even today there are saints who don’t need houses.

Descending Dwapara Yuga: incantations and black magic
We have now entered the upward swing of Dwapara Yuga. It’s interesting to think what was happening at the point when Dwapara Yuga was descending into Kali Yuga, the darkest age. What would be the natural tendency of a civilization that was coming down from higher levels of spiritual awareness and losing its ability to use mental power? It would be to turn toward magic. People would still have the memory of past civilizations when one could influence everything with the power of the mind, but they wouldn’t understand how to do it. Eventually they would try to recapture this lost power by doing everything with incantations and magic.

I went on a pilgrimage to Egypt in the early 1980s. I felt very strongly while there that the entire civilization at the time of descending Dwapara Yuga had fallen into black magic. There was a darkness over the land. But I was able also to feel the consciousness of Egypt further back in time during a higher age, and I felt something much more uplifted. When I visited the Aswan Dam area, I had the very strong feeling that I’d lived there long before in a higher age. I could imagine lush greenery everywhere and that it had been a very simple, harmonious time.

Eternal rounds of maya
What are the lessons we can personally draw from understanding the yuga concept? Paramhansa Yogananda described these cycles as the “eternal rounds of maya.” With the progression of the yugas, mankind gradually escapes from duality, and awakens to realize its unity with God.

To devotees, in a sense, it doesn’t matter what yuga we find ourselves in. We need to tune in to the higher octave of the time in which we live, and to use it for our spiritual development. Dwapara Yuga is the Age of Energy, and Paramhansa Yogananda came at this time to give us techniques of energy to help us achieve Self-realization. Let’s use these techniques well, and transform our inner world into a higher age of divine truth.

Sidebar: The Cycle of the Yugas

Swami Sri Yukteswar is the first person, to my knowledge, to give an explanation for the cycle of the yugas, a teaching that was known back in ancient times but lost during the dark age of Kali Yuga. The cycle of the yugas represents the progression from the time our sun and solar system are the farthest from the center of the galaxy, to the time when they are the closest.

The explanation that Sri Yukteswar and the ancient seers give for the progression of the yugas is that our sun has a dual, and that the two revolve around each other. Along with this revolution, our sun and solar system move in a great elliptical orbit toward, then away from, the center of our galaxy, a tremendous vortex of energy. Rays of spiritual energy pour out from this galactic center, and as our sun and solar system come closer to it, more energy floods our planet. Because of this increased energy, human consciousness becomes more aware.

When our solar system moves away from that center of energy, human consciousness becomes duller, not able to understand things as well. Our solar system reached its farthest point from the galactic center in roughly 500 AD, during the heart of the dark age of Kali Yuga.

Our solar system is now moving again toward the galactic center, and human consciousness, since it’s receiving more energy, is able to understand things better. People have begun to recognize, for example, that matter is not essentially solid, but that it’s really energy. In fact, it’s only because we’ve moved into the more enlightened age of Dwapara Yuga that mankind is even able to understand the concept of the yuga cycle.

When our solar system is closest to the galactic center, mankind becomes increasingly enlightened. The two highest ages are Treta Yuga, “The Age of Mental Power,” and Satya Yuga, “The Age of Truth.”

From: Light of Superconsciousness; The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita; Conversations with Yogananda; and The Promise of Immortality, Crystal Clarity Publishers, and recent talks.

Transformation: The obstructions and problems that arise when dealing with inert matter are transformed into opportunities for success, once a person becomes conscious that he is dealing with the living reality behind that appearance of inertness. Religion in the New Age by Swami Kriyananda.

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As soon as she agreed to wear the cap, he stopped insisting and put the cap away. He had only wanted her to surrender that little bit of ego that says, “I won’t be recognized as stupid!” Her reluctance to wear the cap seems like a small thing, yet Yogananda later told her: “I saw God and Satan on opposite sides of you. If you had turned toward the wrong side, you would have been lost for this life.”

We are always at that point of decision. Our aspiration for soul-enlightenment takes us upward toward the Divine, but there is also the downward pull of past habit and subconscious tendencies. Which way will you go? Once you go the wrong direction, you then see all the reasons why it’s the right direction for you. Don’t risk these things.

Two types of failed seekers
There are two ways of failing in yoga practice. One of them is fairly common: to return to a worldly life. Such failed seekers may wander for incarnations after such a fall, until the desire for God reawakens in their hearts. For although that desire may seem to disappear, once it has been wakened in the heart, it can never die.

Another type of fall takes place, so to speak, on the battlefield. A person practices yoga zealously at first. After some time, however, he relaxes his efforts and loses his focus on the divine goal. Doubts assail him: “Is there, possibly, no hope for him to rise any higher?” “Is it really worthwhile to sacrifice everything to find God?” Unfortunately, the farther the devotee slips into delusion, the less he is likely to realize his mistake and return to the divine search.

It is always very sad for me to see the grief in the eyes of those who have decided that they didn’t need God after all. They have turned away from the spiritual path, but they can never get away from the feeling in their hearts of having left something precious. Fortunately, most people manage to pull out of their tailspins before losing their discrimination altogether. If anyone, however, rejects life’s higher goals, he may retain a superficial hold on morality but he will end up shrinking in consciousness.

There can be no stasis in life. The choice between seeking God or turning away from Him is absolute. Not to seek Him, or, worse still, to turn away from Him, is to opt for delusion.

A seed cannot suddenly become a tree
The chief reason people become discouraged and abandon their spiritual efforts is their expectation of specific results. There was a man, for example, who came to Mount Washington and was accepted by Yogananda for training. The man received Kriya Yoga initiation and practiced it with great fervor for a few months. Impatient, however, with the seeming slowness of his progress, he left at last in discouragement.

Spiritual growth is rarely sudden. Unless an individual is already blessed from birth with exceptionally good karma, spiritual growth can take a long time. The aspiring yogi would do best simply to love God, and leave the decision as to his fate in the hands of the Divine. Nishkam karma — action without desire for the fruits of action — should be his motto.

A seed cannot suddenly become a tree. The seed will grow if it is watered regularly. That watering process, for a devotee, is daily meditation, constant practice of the presence of God, and devotion.

Ultimately, devotional love is what lifts the devotee’s consciousness toward the Divine. Without love, one lacks the necessary urgency of desire to reach the divine goal. Whether meditating, discriminating, or acting, a devotional attitude must underlie everything one does.

“But it’s so difficult!”
Another common lament among devotees who abandon their spiritual calling is: “But the spiritual path is so difficult!” Well, of course it is! Can the pearl of great price be won without serious effort? A friend of mine recently said, “I’m tired of suffering; I just want to rest.”  That friend will find his true rest only in God, and then only by putting out all the energy he can.

God is ever near. If people will do the work needed to calm their thoughts and, above all, their feelings, they will find Him. They need only apply principles that they know already from the challenges of daily life. If they want worldly success, they sooner or later learn that they must work for it! No one is going to drop it in their laps. Similarly, effort—indeed heroic effort—is needed to win in this most challenging but most important of all struggles: the search for God.

Karmic bombs of restlessness and desire
It often happens on the spiritual path that selfish desires spring up from the subconscious mind with surprising vigor to attack one’s devotion. The devotee may be progressing steadily, confident that God is all he wants in life; then all of a sudden, worldly opportunity knocks and he thinks, “Here’s my chance—perhaps the only one I’ll ever get.

“Karmic bombs” is what Yogananda called the restlessness and selfish desires that spring up from the subconscious mind with surprising vigor to attack one’s devotion. I’ve never seen such desires, if pursued as an alternative to seeking God, end in anything but disappointment.

Unfortunately, these desires can be so strong that even the guru’s warning is of no avail. There were two disciples of Yogananda, for example, who talked of very worldly things while returning from Encinitas on the bus. When they arrived at the gateway of Mount Washington, Yogananda met them and repeated everything they had said. He told them, “Don’t mix with each other.” Unfortunately, they didn’t listen and fed each other’s weaknesses by talking of worldly desires, which eventually resulted in their leaving the ashram.

Always watch the heart for any ripple of attraction there. You may feel safe from worldly desires, but if in your heart you find the least tremor of excitement, even on hearing about the pleasures of the senses, shun them like the infection they really are. People may scoff, saying, “It’s just in the mind.” Exactly so! The mind itself is the battlefield. There is no other. In the very act of “pondering” objects of the senses, the energy flows toward them, and with energy, feeling. With feeling comes ego-involvement and personal attraction.

Regular habits of meditation are the best defense against “karmic bombs.” Once the habit of daily meditation is firmly established, one can cruise steadily through many a storm.

Self-honesty is essential
To remain steadfast on the spiritual path, it’s very important to overcome the tendency to hide from the truth and to justify oneself. Mistakes on the path are always possible. The devotee should acknowledge his mistakes sincerely and then simply forsake them. There is no need to make a big issue of it. Just say, “I’ll do better the next time.”

You don’t need to tell everybody what you’ve done—it’s hard to overcome your faults when other people hold them up to you. But you must tell the truth to God, to yourself, and to those who are wise and are trying to help you. Many times I see people make mistakes but say nothing because I know they lack the self-honesty to admit that they were wrong. One of the most important things is the willingness to admit when you are wrong.

The help of the guru
Without the help of the guru it’s impossible to get out of delusion. Yet, so many people come to the guru and think, “Well, I have my own will.” A brother disciple once said to me, “I don’t feel that it would be right to submit completely to Master’s will. It’s important for me also to develop my own will. Otherwise how would it be called ‘free’?”

The proof of the pudding is in the eating. When Yogananda’s disciples followed his will, they found inner freedom and bliss. And when they didn’t follow his will, they couldn’t achieve anything spiritually and most of them fell away. That same brother disciple who refused to submit completely to Yogananda’s will was among those who fell away.

The guru’s assistance is primarily inward, in the form of blessings and needed strength. Gradually, as the disciple tunes into his guru’s consciousness, he finds his own consciousness changing. Old habit patterns disappear and new ones manifest, opening him to superconscious inspiration and guidance. Negative tendencies the disciple has unsuccessfully tried to eradicate by his own efforts disappear suddenly in attunement with the guru.

“God will never let you down”
The spiritual path requires courage, dedication, and the absolute conviction that only God can ever satisfy the soul’s yearning for true happiness. Whether a fall, when it occurs, is permanent for this lifetime depends on whether you still put God first in your life, and refuse to accept even the severest setback as a final defeat. “So long as you continue to make the effort,” Yogananda said, “God will never let you down.”

“The only solution,” Yogananda said, “once one knows deeply the true meaning of life, even if, afterward, he abandons his calling to it, is to turn back to it again: to resume a life of meditation and devotion.” You were born to know God. This is the only purpose of human life.

From: recent talks and the following books: Essence of the Bhagavad Gita by Paramhansa Yogananda as remembered by his disciple Swami Kriyananda; Conversations with Yogananda by Swami Kriyananda; and Rays of the Same Light, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Transformation: It isn’t sufficient merely to have a guru: You must do what he tells you. If you follow his prescription even a little bit, your life will be transformed. Conversations with Yogananda, by Swami Kriyananda.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

You remarked that there can be nothing wrong in two people sharing. Surely you were right. But what of the kind of sharing that limits itself to two people, and does not expand freely to include all men? The beauty of human love is its power to expand the heart to include another human being in its sympathies. The weakness of human love is its exclusiveness of others outside this magic circle.

You have asked what my personal feelings were on the subject. Let me put it this way: There have been times when the thought of two people alone on a boat at sea suggested a kind of fulfillment. (This image from a beautiful book by Marie Corelli, The Life Everlasting.) But then I think, “Why this half-way station? If more than one person, then why not a joyous crowd of God-seekers? And if both people and God, why not God alone in meditation, and God everywhere in this world—not God trapped and limited in a single form?”

Love, to me, means consciousness reaching out to embrace the universe, not merely a human emotion that confines the heart to one or to a few human beings. The love that most inspires me is that which rushes outward in blissful self-forgetfulness to find Him, man’s only true Beloved, and to see Him alone reflected in the hearts of all. I do not want ever to say, “So much will I give of myself to God, and no more.” I know that even if I give myself wholly, it will not be enough—no, not nearly enough!

In this life I want to think not of my own personal pleasures. It is a life of joyous sacrifice for God.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

From Letters to Truth Seekers, 1973 (Currently out of print).

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

During my 28 years as an Ananda minister, I’ve seen that people’s life challenges generally fall into four categories: relationships, health, finances/job, and spiritual life. Of these, spiritual life is the most important. Even so, the marriage relationship is usually the focal point of the greatest tests a person faces, whether it’s wanting a relationship but not having it, or being in a relationship that’s not working out.

A handbook for relationships of all types
Self-Expansion through Marriage is very well named, because the book itself is so very…well, expansive! I describe it as a “handbook for relationships of all types, not just marriage.”

I suggest that if you are married, you get this book and read it often. If you already have the book, try to re-read it once a year at least (a perfect thing to do for your wedding anniversary). If you are contemplating marriage, then you too should read this book and insist that your fiancé read it also. And if you are in an intimate relationship that doesn’t involve marriage, the suggestions in the book are still applicable and will help you very much. (To complete the gamut of what may come along in a committed relationship, there’s even a chapter on “Expansive Child Raising.”)

Even if you are divorced, single, certain you don’t ever want to marry or re-marry, or are already happy in a marriage and don’t think you need any help — nevertheless, I still say you NEED to read this book. That’s how important it is. Relationships are God’s great gift to us. They serve as a mirror for self-improvement and help us “knock off our rough edges.” None of us is an island, disconnected from others. Relationships are how we grow and learn.

And OUCH, how that can hurt, especially in the most intimate of all relationships: marriage. A good marriage is a rare and wonderful thing. Keeping it good is HARD WORK! A bad marriage can fill your life with aching misery.

A not-so-good marriage and an excellent one
I know this from first-hand experience, because I’ve had both kinds of marriages. I met my husband of 30 years, Sudarshan, when I first moved to Ananda Village in 1978. At the time, I was separated from my first husband, and moving slowly and painfully toward a divorce.

Sudarshan and I were married in 1980 and it’s been a great blessing, though the marriage has been filled with many intense learning experiences—some of them very tough for both of us. We are both very strong-willed people!

What about that first marriage? My first husband and I married young and for all the wrong reasons. Our uneasy marriage lasted nine years. If I had read Kriyananda’s book beforehand and understood it well, we could have avoided a great deal of suffering. Nevertheless, I learned a lot from the marriage, to say the least, and he and I have been able to remain friends at a distance. He too has remarried.

One of the most important things I learned as I moved from a not-so-good marriage to an excellent one, is something Kriyananda emphasizes in the early pages of Self-Expansion through Marriage: Don’t expect marriage, or any other relationship, to fix everything in your life. It’s unfair to impose those kinds of expectations on another person; no relationship can possibly bear up under that load.

The only “ones” who can permanently change everything in your life for the better are God and Guru. If you really understand that part first, then your relationship has more chance of not just surviving, but of being filled with joy.

Why “opposites attract”
Another important point made in Self-Expansion through Marriage is that “opposites attract.” Often we feel attracted to someone who has qualities that we don’t have, or wish we had more of. Such attractions reflect an attempt to find balance and harmony in life.

Someone once asked my mother the primary reason she and my father had such a good marriage. She laughingly answered: “I think it’s because the knobs in his head fit the holes in my head.” Problems arise when we don’t appreciate the differences, even though the differences are what drew us together in the first place. Learn to appreciate those differences, or as the French say: viva l’différence! They add spice to life.

All the “big” questions
Self-Expansion through Marriage takes on all the “big” relationship questions—why marry at all, growing together spiritually, commitment on every level, sex, communication skills, intuition—and does so with grace and beauty, as well as down-to-earth practicality. At the end of each chapter are a dozen or so concise review statements, any or all of which would be great for a couple to sit and discuss together, or as an outline for a relationship seminar.

I found it interesting that Swami Kriyananda entitled the chapter discussing sexuality: “Sex in Marriage.” Immediately I wondered: is Kriyananda saying that sex should happen only within a marriage? I’ll let you read that chapter to find out the answer.

My favorite statement from this all-important chapter is one that Kriyananda often makes to couples when discussing this topic: “Let your physical union be an expression of love. To keep it that way, let it only be occasional; that is to say, let it be an occasion.” The society we live in is so confused about sexuality (due to media exploitation and other factors) that anyone would be hard-pressed to say anything about this subject in a clear and calm way. And yet Kriyananda does so gracefully and with true compassion for the wide gamut of feelings on the subject, including people’s perceptions of their individual needs.

Seek to please God first
To be able to go forward to the end of life with the love and support of a spouse is a noble goal and a worthy dream. But it’s a dream that becomes possible if our priorities are right. “Seek ye first the kingdom of God (within you)…and all these things shall be added unto you.” The “things” referred to in that Bible verse surely include joy-filled relationships!

In the chapter entitled: “For Those Who Are Seeking God,” Kriyananda comments: “The important thing in a marriage committed to spiritual development is to allot God the primary place in life…. [The spiritual seeker who is married must seek] to please God first and one’s wife or husband secondarily.” When married couples live this way, everything else falls into place.

*Self-Expansion through Marriage, by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. Formerly entitled: Expansive Marriage.  Available 2011. You may place an advance order now.

Nayaswami Savitri is an Ananda Lightbearer and a 32-year resident of Ananda Village. She and her husband Nayaswami Sudarshan recently celebrated their 30th wedding anniversary. Savitri is the Director of Ananda’s Meditation Teacher Training Programs. She also serves as administrative assistant to Ananda’s Spiritual Directors.

Transformation: Old concepts of marriage fail to embrace the expansive awareness of this age of energy-consciousness into which we have emerged after centuries of matter- and form-consciousness. Expansive Marriage, by Swami Kriyananda.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

After we’d parted, I mulled over his words. His grandmother’s sensitivity, I thought, was greater than his. Granted, the radio itself wasn’t aware, but how else could she demonstrate her gratitude to God outwardly for the truths she’d been hearing? To her, the radio was simply a symbol, as also was the flower she placed on it.

“I Myself accept their offering.”
Certain images remind us more naturally of God and noble qualities, but any expression of selfless love—to images as well as to people—can help to stem the tides of natural selfishness in the heart. Images in themselves are neutral. Their influence is positive or negative depending mainly on our reaction to them. One might worship a stone if, through that symbol, one invokes God and views the stone as a reminder of the Infinite Lord. Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita: “In whatsoever form people worship Me, I Myself accept their offering.”

Because it is difficult for people to feel love for something completely formless and without personality, Paramhansa Yogananda recommended clothing God in a form—for people to think of God as their Divine Friend, their Cosmic Beloved, their all-compassionate Divine Mother, their Heavenly Father.

Devotees may also be inspired to love God by visualizing Him as manifested through one of the great masters who are sent to earth by God as messengers of His love. In visualizing a master’s kind eyes and loving smile, it is often easier to visualize the infinite love of God. Others may feel more devotionally inspired if they visualize the Lord as an invisible Presence in every tree, every flower, in the mountains, and in all creatures.

The Hindu, for example, visualizes God not only as omnipresent but as consciously expressed everywhere. Consciousness, according to the Hindu teachings, even in its dimmest manifestations, is actively manifested throughout the universe. The Hindu imagines God smiling from the hearts of clouds, from the rocks, from the rivers. All things, viewed in this light, are seen to belong to a universal awareness in which we, too, participate. Everything is inter-connected—like the members of an extended, and indeed cosmic, family.

A means of activating God’s response
Visualizations are helpful not only for the devotion they inspire in the devotee, but also as a means of activating God’s response. The Divine responds consciously according to whatever form we visualize lovingly. If we look to Him in Nature, He responds through Nature. If we look to Him as our Father, He responds as a Father, with deep wisdom and understanding. If we look to Him as our Divine Mother, He responds to us with motherly love.

Many Protestant Christians oppose the Roman Catholic practice of worshipping the Mother aspect of God in the form of Mary, pointing out that the scriptures don’t describe Mary as being one with the Father. However, in condemning this dogma, they close themselves to God in His motherly aspect: Her sweet concern for humanity, Her kindness, Her compassion. The Mother aspect of God is not limited to a specific form. Mary was the mother of Jesus, but she also symbolizes, and may be thought of as expressing, the Divine Mother of the universe, whose Son is the Infinite Christ.

Through great masters, and to a lesser degree through saints and angels, God responds in a special way. As conscious emissaries of His love, their mission is to help those who long for spiritual understanding. The best practice is to call to God in whatever aspect you find most inspiring, but then also to invoke the help of a great master, saint, or angel in order that, by attuning yourself to their love for God, you deepen your own love for Him.

Spiritual masters: only a hint of infinity
One should not lose sight, however, of the fact that God is infinitely beyond any devotional symbol or man’s ability to visualize Him. In no single expression, nor even in the sum of all of them, is the Infinite Consciousness fully manifested. “The wave,” Paramhansa Yogananda used to say by way of explanation, “is not the ocean.” Nor can the combination of all the waves ever describe the ocean as it truly is.

Even the spiritual masters, enlightened though they are, cannot express fully through their physical bodies the realization they enjoy inwardly. Infinity can never be more than hinted at through a finite vehicle.

Above the human level exist angels, or advanced astral beings. These devas, as they are called in Sanskrit, are less highly evolved than spiritual masters, even if a master is still living on this earth, for the devas are still evolving spiritually, whereas a master has transcended evolution itself. The devas hasten their evolution by stooping down to help human beings. To pray to a deva or angel for help need no more imply lack of faith in God than would a request for help from a brother or sister instead of taking all of one’s problems to one’s parents.

The universe abounds with innumerable entities
Indeed, the Supreme Spirit seldom, if ever, intervenes directly in the affairs of man. It may be compared in this sense to a power station, the voltage of which must be stepped down by transformers so as not to incinerate the wiring in people’s homes. The universe abounds with innumerable entities that actively direct the growth of plants and of living creatures, the manifestation of new species, and the working out of individual and group karmas.

The majority of these astral entities, whom we might call “nature spirits” or even “astral functionaries,” thrive on love, and give us more energy if we offer them our love and appreciation. If they feel unloved and ignored, they withdraw in much the same way people do when their expressions of good will are misunderstood.

The more love we give out, the more all things respond, reciprocating our feelings with harmony and abundance. Indeed, to express love toward the lower astral “deities” is, in the great scheme of things, one way of sharing God’s love, particularly if, by expressing that love, we are offering appreciation to Him, above all, for His inexhaustible bounty.

Human beings, even if unenlightened, express the Infinite Consciousness more fully than do the lower animals. Having achieved some measure of self-awareness, human beings have a duty to help uplift creatures on lower levels of evolution. Kindness to animals helps them in their spiritual unfoldment and helps us, too, for it increases our attunement to the Source of All Love.

A need for heroic dedication
It’s important, at the same time, to remember what Krishna says in the Bhagavad Gita—“Those who worship the lesser gods, go to their gods. Those who worship Me (the Infinite Consciousness), come to Me.” He is referring to the different grades or levels among the forms used by devotees to focalize their devotion. Not all of these forms lead to the inner purification, and the deepening awareness and love, which gradually lead the mind to perfect stillness within.

To find God takes serious effort: the sincere offering of every thought and feeling up to Him. Ultimately, you have to offer your own self. The Bhagavad Gita tells us that God is pleased with any sincere effort to know Him, but that same scripture reminds us that if we want to know Him, we shouldn’t delude ourselves into thinking that the task is easy. Only by heroic dedication can we reach the spiritual heights; not, be it noted, by mere belief.

A quest for transcendence
The ultimate purpose of visualization and devotional images is to lift the mind into communion with the Absolute. Always, the quest must be for transcendence. Paramhansa Yogananda used to say, “Even if God comes to you in vision, as for example the Divine Mother, try to see shining in Her eyes the consciousness of Infinity. Don’t be attached to form of any kind, but concentrate on achieving union with the Absolute.”

In light of Yogananda’s statement, it would be well to add that the deeper a person’s devotion to God, no matter what his religion, the less interested he or she will be in its outer forms and symbols. Why, indeed, study the advertisements for a product when you have the product itself in your hands? As your devotion grows, you will naturally incline to seek God more in the formless Self within.

Formlessness is the higher reality. Saint Teresa of Avila in Spain once had a vision of what she called the “formless Christ.” Her spiritual confessor expressed doubt. How could Jesus appear without form? He found corroboration, however, in the writings of Saint Thomas Aquinas, foremost among Christian theologians. The formless Christ, St. Thomas had written, is indeed the higher spiritual experience.

I myself, on entering a Hindu temple, prostrate with love and devotion before the form I see displayed there, but afterward I close my eyes and meditate on the formless Spirit within, for which those forms are but symbols. I worship above all that One who resides in my own heart. For the true temple is the human body.

Behind all their symbols, what all true religions teach is communion with God and the upliftment of the individual’s consciousness into ever-broader, ever-deeper perceptions of Truth. The devotee who at first loves God as his Divine Mother, and visualizes Her in a human form, comes in time to perceive Her everywhere: formless, infinite, and omnipresent.

From: The Hindu Way of Awakening, The Promise of Immortality, and Rays of the Same Light, Crystal Clarity Publishers; and the 1996 talk, Kriya and the Evolution of World Religions.

Growth: “The secret of growth lies in finding more and more strength inside yourself.”  Eastern thoughts—Western Thoughts by Swami Kriyananda.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

A delusion, then, is a widespread misperception of the actual state of things. All delusions suggest distorted images of reality. Worst of all, they cause us to seek fulfillment in means that always prove to be, in the end, mere shadows.

The “great delusions” are classically three in number: wine, money, and sex. To that grouping I have added another two: the desire for power, and for fame.

Wine (Intoxicants)

Wine includes any intoxicant whose effect on human awareness is depressing or deadening, and addictive. Intoxicants are (as the word implies) toxic, and reduce one’s ability ever to relate realistically to objective circumstances. For even when people recover from their alcoholic hangovers, they find themselves less able than before to cope with their difficulties.

“Wine” doesn’t include medication — anesthesia, for example, — nor the medicines people take to reduce severe physical pain. But even pain medication can become addictive by prolonged use. Addiction is the most particular danger of drinking any form of alcohol. And although some people claim that marijuana and various “hallucinogenic” drugs are non-addictive, they present at least the danger of psychological addiction.

Escaping reality by numbing one’s awareness
Those who aspire to superconscious awareness and inner soul freedom should shun, if possible, anything that dulls one’s awareness. What makes such things delusions is that they promise escape from reality by numbing one’s awareness of it. For this reason people will often seek refuge in sleep or over-eating. However, such a “way out” is no better than that of the legendary ostrich, which hides its head in the sand at any approach of danger.

The spiritual path, on the other hand, far from being an escape from reality, offers the only way out of delusion itself, and to the only abiding reality there is.

Paramhansa Yogananda: abstain from alcohol
Many people, of course, take alcoholic drinks not to deaden their awareness, but simply to be sociable, or for the stimulation they say it gives them. Any stimulant, however, brings one under the sway of duality. Raising one’s spirits by artificial means leads inevitably to a corresponding lowering, later on.

It is a mistake, therefore, to take alcoholic drinks even socially. And although the negative effects of light drinking may not be immediately noticeable, they will become so, in time.

A student of Paramhansa Yogananda heeded for a time the Guru’s counsel that she give up drinking alcoholic beverages. After a few weeks, however, finding it socially inconvenient to abstain from alcohol altogether, she began drinking a little beer or wine at parties. When she saw the Master again a few weeks later, he looked at her sternly and said, “I meant all alcoholic beverages!”

Desire for Money

The next of the “great delusions” is money. Money is not, as tradition tells us, “the root of all evil,” for we obviously need it in countless situations. In this sense, money is a “necessary necessity,” to use an expression of Yogananda’s. We should try, therefore, to make good use of it. Money itself isn’t the problem. The problem is people’s desire for money, which can indeed be called “the root of all evil.”

False hope of finding happiness
Money never, in itself, gives happiness, nor can we derive happiness from anything we buy with money. The desire for money is a principal delusion for the simple reason that it offers endless opportunities for satisfying the desire for everything we hope (falsely) will bring us happiness.

Rich people, unless they are free from attachment to wealth and use their money primarily to help others, are seldom happy—statistically, they have been found to be less happy than poor people. Possessing wealth opens up the possibility of “satisfying” an almost limitless number of desires. The rich person is likely to devote himself to looking around for “what more” possessions and exciting experiences he can accumulate in his attempt to find happiness. Yet happiness eludes him completely, for as my Guru succinctly put it, stating the law that governs desires: “Desires, ever gratified, are never satisfied.”

An affirmation of lack
Indeed, the very desire for things is itself an affirmation of lack, which in turn is a kind of poverty. We must understand that the source of all happiness lies in oneself, never in outside things. To nourish it, we must develop an inner life.

Sexual Desire

What about the third of the “great delusions,” sexual desire? Sex is, indeed, the greatest delusion of all.

“I want something from you”
What is delusive about sexual attraction, above all, is its reaffirmation of ego-consciousness. Men and women, feeling a natural attraction to one another, hold particularly to the thought, “I — you.” That thought “I” predominates, of course: “I want something from you.”

For the devotee who wants to know God, ego is the supreme delusion to overcome. Ego is the post to which every other delusion is tied. As long as we engage in any activity (including thought) with ego-commitment, it will be difficult to escape from ego-consciousness, and the inevitable suffering it brings.

Constant thoughts of lower fulfillment
Indulgence in sex is physically and mentally debilitating — especially so for men, but also, in time and particularly with over-indulgence, for women. It keeps one’s energy firmly locked at the base of the spine, whereas the higher one’s consciousness is centered in the spine, the greater one’s inner contentment, freedom, and happiness. Sex, moreover, binds people’s consciousness, in a way that no other delusion does, to constant thoughts of lower fulfillment.

Sexual indulgence prematurely ages people. It prevents them from exercising fine discrimination, and from enjoying finer esthetic pleasures. But worst of all, as I said, it binds people firmly to the post of ego-consciousness.

Benefits of overcoming sex-consciousness
The difficulty involved in overcoming sex-consciousness is more than compensated for by the freedom that comes with inner conquest. The resulting benefits are:

a) greater energy
b) greatly increased inner happiness
c) great inner freedom
d) better health
e) much greater mental clarity
f) an ability to give love equally to all
g) joy

How can one overcome this natural urge? Not by shame, nor by disgust or any other negative attitude. One must learn to see it as a perfectly natural function, placed there by Nature to ensure the continuance of the species. The way out of it is first to think of it as a holy act — one, however, which can be transcended by even greater holiness in the thought of God.

The next thing is to be more impersonal in one’s behavior toward others, especially those of the opposite sex. To be impersonal does not mean to be cold. One can be very kind in one’s treatment of others. The important thing is not to want anything from them for oneself.

A natural magnetism exists
The next most important thing is to recognize and accept that a natural magnetism exists between men and women. It can affect them, in one another’s company, even if they are physically blind. The principal conduits for this magnetism are the eyes, and the sense of touch. It would be unrealistic to tell men and women to stop mixing with one another, though this is ideal for monks and nuns. However, to rise above this instinct, or to keep it under control, one should avoid gazing too closely into the eyes of the other sex.

Many scoff at the existence of sexual attraction simply because he (or she) meets so many of the other sex who exercise for him no attraction at all. Nevertheless, it’s always possible that an affectionate relationship may exist between certain people from past lives. That sense of special bond may awaken within him (or her) at any time.

Is there an age when the attraction is lessened? My Guru said, “No age. It is always present, until with God’s grace one has truly overcome it.” My sister-in-law once mentioned that her little daughter, aged about three, had a special giggle reserved just for little boys. And old people, even when the instinct is physically dormant, often show a special affection for young people of the other sex.

Limit the field by marriage
Avoid especially, therefore, the common practice of hugging others or touching them unnecessarily. A hug may be only a sign of friendship, but why express feeling for anyone through such a volatile sense as touch?

The best way, for most people, is to limit the field for themselves by monogamous marriage. Only when a person can mix with relative freedom from any thought that sexual differences exist does he find it easy not to be drawn downward by this “greatest delusion,” as my Guru called it. Complete immunity comes only with spiritual advancement, and even then one must be careful until the state of nirbikalpa samadhi is attained.

Desire for Power

Beyond these three “great delusions,” there are two other major ones. Supreme among them is the craving for power. What makes this craving a delusion is, again, the accompanying affirmation of ego-consciousness. All delusions, indeed, endanger one’s peace of mind, strengthen the ego, and deepen one’s sense of isolation from others and from any sense of support from the universe.

The desire for power may be less obvious than the first three “great delusions,” but with many people this desire, too, is obsessive. Indeed, in our present technological age, the desire for power is, if anything, growing in strength as the opportunities for achieving it increase.

The thought of controlling others
Power might be compared to the manipulation of chessmen on a chess board, with this important difference: a chess player may preen himself on winning a game, but the manipulation of people awakens in the manipulator the thought of controlling them. This thought causes one to reaffirm constantly his own egoic consciousness.

A true leader views his position as an opportunity to serve others. He therefore identifies himself with those whom he leads, which lessens any sense of separation he may feel owing to ego-consciousness. If, however, a person exults in exerting power over others, he will necessarily think in terms of forcing them to obey him. Power, therefore, necessarily increases a person’s ego-consciousness, making it more difficult for him to broaden his spiritual identity.

Dependence on the Good Opinion of Others

Last, I’ll mention a delusion that is actually three delusions in one. They come under the general heading of “dependence on the good opinion of others.” This little bundle of delusions combines the craving for recognition, for fame, and for worldly prominence. Anyone who harbors any of these cravings will seek support from others for his ego, rather than developing confidence in his own inner Self.

To be centered in the inner Self is the spiritual ideal. To base self-recognition on the opinions of others is to build a house on shifting sand. The greatest error in courting their good opinion lies in the fact that such dependence strips away any solid basis one might have for self-understanding. Even when others may be right — and especially where their opinions of you are concerned — you should depend on your own self-perception before God.

From Religion and the New Age and Other Essays.

Growth: “Self-control in all things is the direction of true growth.” The Art and Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Dear ___________:

The truth does seem to be that when we put our faith in people and in circumstances we are doomed to disappointment. There is only one who disappoints us never: God.

But if we act in the right way—not to please people, but to please Him—then it is true that all things begin to flow smoothly, and a world so full of a mixture of circumstances, pleasant and unpleasant tumbled and tangled together, suddenly is seen to be basically good and right.

Our own outlook is the most important thing to be improved. With a right attitude, even harsh-seeming treatment may appear full of hidden purpose, even kindness. To act kindly toward others with nothing but a view to buying their kindness in return would imply a selfish, mercantile attitude. The merit of kindness could never be proved in this way, for the initial act would have little in it of genuine feeling.

Rather, an attitude of true kindness will be its own greatest reward. In whatever way people respond, the kind person sees kindness somehow being reflected back to him from all sides. He is able to turn even curses into blessings, and hurts into an opportunity for inner growth.

But what I said remains true objectively also. You are looking at the short view. What we draw to us now is the result of many attitudes of the past. If people treat us harshly despite our present kindness to them, it is because the seeds of harshness have not been completely erased from our own subconsciousness. For the short view, you can certainly say that goodness begets more goodness in return than badness does. Then is it not reasonable to suppose that, if you perfect that goodness, those relatively desirable returns will improve proportionately?

Still, as I said, in the end only God can never disappoint us, for only God is real.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

From Letters to Truth Seekers, 1973 (Currently out of print).

Growth: “Every growth in awareness is, in the last analysis, a growth in Self-awareness.”  Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness by Swami Kriyananda,

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During my college years, my friends and I were in agreement on the deficiencies of the education we were receiving. In literature, art, and philosophy, we were subjected to the pervading influence of the French writer and philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, who reveled in meaninglessness. For all of us, it was agonizing to imagine a sterile world bereft of meaning and inspiration.

Years later, I was thrilled to discover Out of the Labyrinth by Swami Kriyananda. That book answered all my questions about life’s meaning, and replaced the barren ideas of Jean-Paul Sartre with a vision of hope and inspiration. Later, when Kriyananda published Education for Life: Preparing Children to Meet the Challenges, I recognized it as the “cure” for the ills of our society because it explained how teachers and parents could give children a sense of life’s joyous possibilities, starting at the earliest age.

In Education for Life, Swami Kriyananda writes:

A growing child needs faith just as urgently as he needs to breathe. When he is stripped of his last vestige of faith, his disillusionment transforms itself into a desire for vengeance against those who have deprived him of something so precious to his very existence.

That “vengeance” is evident everywhere today and especially in nihilistic music, high suicide rates among teenagers, violence, and addiction.

An expansion of consciousness
At the start of the book, Kriyananda asks a fundamental question: What do people truly want from life? And the answer he gives is irreducibly simple: the underlying motivation behind all human actions, however disguised or misguided, is that we want to experience greater happiness, and avoid sorrow.

We cannot help children learn to be happy, Kriyananda continues, if we merely cram their heads with facts. We must show them that true happiness comes by expanding our awareness. He explains:

An expansion of consciousness has always, in the long history of civilization, been associated with an expansion of such feelings as sympathy, empathy, and love. Far from setting oneself apart from, or even against, other human beings, self-expansion naturally includes a concern for the well-being of all.

How different, this, from the teaching of Sartre, who wrote: “To be conscious of another is to be conscious of what one is not.”

Children’s hearts receive “equal time”
Most schools focus on developing the students’ ability to memorize facts and use their reason. Little attention is paid other important facets of their natures, which, Kriyananda argues, are indispensable to the search for happiness and success.

In Education for Life, he issues a clarion call for a more balanced approach, in which children’s hearts receive “equal time.” Developing children’s calm, sensitive feelings, he says, is essential even for academic success, since reason is wisely guided only when it includes intuitive feeling.

Education for Life offers methods for reintroducing the heart into education, without sacrificing academic achievement. That this approach works is abundantly demonstrated in Ananda’s Living Wisdom Schools, where the students consistently score well above average on standardized national tests of academic achievement.

The “Stages of Maturity”
Swami Kriyananda points out that every child is unique, and must be guided sensitively, with respect for his or her present awareness. With the concept of six-year “Stages of Maturity” he gives us a wonderful framework for understanding children, and how their needs change over time.

In the first stage of a child’s development, from birth to about age 6, the child’s primary developmental task is to master the body and senses. From 6 to 12, feelings come to the fore – this is a time when children are receptive to learning through the “media of feeling” – stories, art, music, and dance. The “feeling phase” is, Swami Kriyananda points out, the most important phase in a child’s development, because it lays the foundation for everything that follows.

From 12 to 18, teenagers flex the muscles of their will, in preparation for independent adulthood. It’s essential that they know how to use their will expansively, with a heartfelt sense of right and wrong, and with sensitive awareness of the realities of others. Similarly, the life of the mind, which dominates the years from 18 to 24, needs to be guided by calm, intuitive feeling.

Kriyananda devotes several chapters to understanding children’s special needs during each six-year phase, and he gives many suggestions for teaching them to use the “Tools of Maturity” – body, heart, will, and mind – to achieve ever-expanding awareness, happiness, and success.

A unitive approach to school subjects
Education for Life makes a powerful case for a unitive, expansive approach to traditional academic subjects, one that gives children a picture of the world that is rich in meaningful connections. It includes, for example, assigning new names to traditional subjects – science, for example, can be called “Our Earth – Our Universe,” while “Understanding People” is the name he proposes for history, geography, and psychology. He writes:

The relevance of every subject should be seen in the context of human needs and of our own ability to understand. Every subject studied in school should be studied also for its relevance to other subjects.

Science, for example, has evolved a method that can provide a new tool for understanding in all the branches of knowledge. For these other studies, the scientific method — hypothesis tested by experiment — needs only be restated as belief tested by experience.

What of “spiritual” values?
Since the introduction of “spiritual” values into public school curriculums would unquestionably be met by vigorous protests, Swami Kriyananda suggests that the principles of Education for Life be introduced in small, independent schools. (The Ananda Living Wisdom Schools have applied these methods for more than thirty years.) But he also suggests that teachers in public schools can at least introduce principles, since at no point does Education for Life require the support of sectarian claims.

Qualities such as humility are by no means sectarian dogmas. It doesn’t take much experience of life to see that pride does in fact “go before a fall,” as the wisdom of the ages has always told us. Humility, like countless other virtues, is a practical concept. Why not teach it as such in the classroom?

Role models of the expansive life
Children, Kriyananda says, need role models who exemplify the expansive life. In the Living Wisdom Schools, children live and breathe the examples of great human beings – not by merely memorizing facts and dates, but by absorbing their qualities.

An outstanding example is the yearly play produced by the Palo Alto Living Wisdom School. Now in its 18th year, the all-school theater event draws hundreds of students, teachers, and theater-goers from the surrounding community to be inspired by the lives of great world teachers such as Buddha, Christ, Krishna, Moses, Rumi, Quan Yin, and the Dalai Lama.

No pompous moralizing
Education for Life argues that children learn values most effectively by being shown how values operate in their own lives. A well-known incident in the lore of Ananda beautifully illustrates this practice. A winter storm blanketed Ananda Village with snow, and the teachers compassionately let the children go out to play. They soon started a snowball fight, in which several younger children were hurt and began crying. Later, when the children were calmer, they built a snowman.

The teachers recognized a priceless opportunity to help the students learn from their own experience. Back in the classroom, they asked them, “Which did you enjoy more – the snowball fight, or making a snowman?” The children replied, “The snowman!” One student said, “Yeah, the little kids got hurt and were crying, and it made me feel bad.”

No pompous moralizing or dry logic is needed when teachers are able to help children understand how values “work” in the laboratory of their lives. In this case, the lesson was clear – hurting others is contractive and makes us feel unhappy, while cooperating is expansive and fun and makes us feel wonderful.

How to be successful? How to be happy? The answer is simple: by using our God-given Tools of Maturity – body, heart, will, mind, and soul – in ways that expand our awareness. If children everywhere learned these skills, the cloud of meaninglessness would disperse, and the light of wisdom would shine once again on their lives.

Tyagi Rambhakta lives in the Mountain View Ananda Community. He is the author of a book on fitness and sports training by yoga principles as taught by Paramhansa Yogananda (see www.fitnessintuition.com).

To order Education for Life from Crystal Clarity Publishers click here

Growth: “Growth must come naturally, not in violence to one’s nature.” Art & Science of Raja Yoga by Swami Kriyananda.

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It’s very important to understand that your dharma is uniquely your own, the things you need to do. There’s a general dharma that’s true for everyone—we all need to love, to forgive, to be in joy, to live peacefully, to be honest and truthful. But there are specific things that are inwardly right for you because they will help you to find God—and they aren’t necessarily the things you’re good at. You may be a good actor, but it may go against your dharma to be an actor because doing so could feed your ego.

It says in the Bhagavad Gita: “It’s better to fail in your own dharma than to succeed in someone else’s.” Whatever is the right way for you, that is your dharma. This principle is very important to understand because it follows from this that there are no more or less important roles in life. There isn’t anything important except knowing God, and the position you hold is totally extraneous.

I met a saint in India who had received a few letters from someone I knew, and he asked me what her work was. I explained that she was the head of an organization and described her responsibilities. He said: “Because of her position, she is able to work out her karma more quickly. It happens to be her karma to do it that way—not good karma, just karma. But it would be a misfortune for someone without that karma to be in that position because it wouldn’t help them to move forward.”

Work is not important for its own sake
People on the spiritual path sometimes make the mistake of  thinking that what they do is important for its own sake. They begin to think: “Oh, we can do big things,” or “We can accomplish wonders,” or “We can teach the multitudes, and won’t it be wonderful when everybody in the world is meditating because we got the message across to them in the right way?”

It doesn’t ever happen that way. The world drifts along in its own direction. You do things on the spiritual path with the ultimate purpose of helping yourself. If it’s other people’s karma to be helped, then they will find that help. They’re not waiting for incarnations until you arrive on the scene to help them. They will get what they’re meant to get.

And even if we can do some good in this dream-world, it isn’t good to think so. It’s much better to focus on the deeper purpose for all spiritual activity, which is to bring good things out of yourself.

The key to dharma: doing it for God
Dharma means “duty” but often, when we think in terms of duty, we think of something that’s a burden, something that goes against our desires. And, in fact, there were times in my life when I felt that way.

When I was first trying to build the Ananda Meditation Retreat, I had to leave Ananda for many months to earn the money to pay certain debts; otherwise I would have lost the land. I kept thinking, “Divine Mother, why have you given this to me?  I’ve never been interested in money, but now I’ve got to devote nearly all of my time and energy to earning money when I’d much rather stay here.”

But there came a very important lesson. After I’d met the challenge successfully, I realized that my gain wasn’t the money I’d earned. It was a spiritual gain: I felt stronger in myself. And slowly I came to understand that we don’t need to make a distinction between higher and lower duties if we act in joyful surrender to God’s will. When we understand that our joy lies in doing whatever God has given us to do, then what we do is no longer a burden but a wonderful opportunity to grow spiritually. And when we act in that spirit, He blesses us.

Succeeding against impossible odds
A very interesting example of this involved one of my fellow monks at Mt. Washington. When he first arrived at my Guru’s ashram, he had many physical problems. He only had one lung, double curvature of the spine, and there was no cushioning between many of the vertebrae. Every time he walked, it was painful. In the morning he would wake up totally paralyzed and couldn’t get out of bed. By sort of rolling from side to side he’d get up enough momentum to fall onto the floor. His muscles would then slowly begin to move and he could start his day’s work.

Yogananda put him in the kind of work that seemed impossible for a man in his condition. He had him driving the tractor, climbing scaffolding, and plastering the sides of buildings. Yet this monk did it joyfully and eventually did it very well, without difficulty. He transcended all that pain and became a person of great energy and drive.

Unfortunately, his ego later started to get strong and he became out of tune. He began to think, “I shouldn’t be doing this kind of work with a body like this. I’m getting a little older.” (He was only 35.) “I should let the younger men do this hard work.” After he began having a few physical problems, he asked Yogananda to give him a different job. Yogananda gave him a nice room and outfitted it with file cabinets and whatever else he asked for. Later Yogananda said, “No matter how much I do for him, he keeps getting worse because he’s not in tune.”

When people are in tune and work joyfully with the thought of pleasing God, then, somehow, everything seems to go well, even against impossible odds. God gives us the energy we need. Even if we don’t know all the rules, the Divine is always there, supporting us and preventing us from making disastrous mistakes. That’s one of the main lessons of the Bhagavad Gita. Krishna never took part in the battle, but his very presence on the side of the Pandavas insured their ultimate success.

You must act with the right consciousness
It’s also important to understand that unless you act with the right consciousness, your dharma won’t take you any closer to God. You may get good karma but you won’t get divine freedom. The consciousness with which you do your work is the most important aspect of all, not the outward form.

For devotees, the purpose of all work is to put into action those divine qualities you’re developing inside—kindness, love, joy, peace, and calmness. If, when working, you allow yourself to become frazzled and to think, “Oh, I only have a little time to get this done; I’ll think about God later”—then there’s something wrong with the way you’re doing it. While working you should always be reinforcing those feelings of peace, calmness, love, and joy.

Your only responsibility in this drama is to express that divine inspiration as perfectly as possible. This means that you should act with the understanding that this is God’s world, not yours. You should try to do as good a job as possible without involving yourself egotistically. And you should always be trying to express those divine qualities.

Dharma is not black and white
The laws of dharma must be understood on a spiritual level, above all, and secondly, on a relative level, in the sense that there are different degrees of dharma. As it says in the Indian scriptures, “When a lower dharma conflicts with a higher, it ceases to be a dharma.” It ceases to be a right action. This is a very subtle teaching and it’s not always easy to apply.

Take the example of marriage and divorce. One of the great mistakes in this country is that people get divorced for trivial reasons—because it doesn’t “feel” right anymore, because it’s become “inconvenient.” And, of course, divorce, for such reasons, is not right. Divorce in principle is not right.

But there are times when it’s necessary. Suppose you’re married to someone who is holding you back from your spiritual life? Which is the higher duty—to waste another incarnation or to use this incarnation to find God? The Indian attitude is that if a marriage conflicts with the higher dharma of deeply offering your life to God, then it isn’t right.

There are different levels of dharma, and choosing between them is not always easy. How do we know what the right choice is?

To be truly guided by dharma in such situations, you must be able to pull back from your desires and get in touch with your soul. Only from a soul level can you understand dharma perfectly. Otherwise, you can easily come up with all sorts of rationalizations to justify what is obviously a wrong act, and you end up using this teaching as an excuse to get out of a duty rather than as a reason to cling to a higher duty.

You will receive the right inner guidance only when you have developed the inner freedom to be able to say to God in meditation: ”Everything that I have I offer at your feet. If I should die tonight, I will die a free soul because I’m not attached to anything in this world. I don’t need or want anything. I work enthusiastically for you, not for myself.” When you say that with deep sincerity, then and then only will the right guidance come. Otherwise, seek the advice of those more advanced on the spiritual path.

There is only joy
Always remember, dharma is that which leads you toward the Divine. Whatever your dharma is, it’s an opportunity not a burden—a wonderful opportunity to grow. Even if your dharma may initially be difficult because it requires of you a new kind of discipline, once you’ve got all your energies moving in the right direction, there is only joy.

From talks at Ananda Village: Following the Highest Dharma, August 11, 1985; Being and Doing, August 13, 1981; and Reincarnation, Service, and Love, 1979. To order a CD or MP3 of these talks, click here or call Treasures Along the Path (530) 478-7656.

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All avatars have realized the eternal, unchanging truth, and they have never opposed one another’s teachings. Their disciples and followers, however, due to their limited understanding, have repeatedly introduced incorrect interpretations into their guru’s teachings. Thus the avatars come again and again, to correct people’s misunderstandings of the eternal, unchanging truth.

Why Buddha didn’t talk about God
Buddha came at a time when people were abusing the Vedic teachings to gain worldly ends. So Buddha, a Hindu, was not sanctioning sectarianism when he urged people not to depend on Vedic gods and rituals. He was seeking only to correct their misunderstanding of the scriptures. By emphasizing self-effort, he sought to encourage people to take spiritual responsibility for their lives, and not to depend passively on God, or on minor “gods,” for boons of temporary fulfillment.

Because Buddha was working against a strong trend, when he talked about the importance of self-effort, he couldn’t afford to say, “But on the other hand, grace is also important,” without leaving people totally confused, even though the truth includes both teachings. Buddha came during the dark age of Kali Yuga when mankind had fallen into a lower state of consciousness, and couldn’t easily bring these two teachings together.

So when people asked about God, he consistently refused to speak of God and affirmed the need for the individual self-effort. Because of that emphasis, his disciples thought he didn’t believe in God. As a result, Buddhism evolved as an atheistic religion. But the fact that Buddha never said not to pray—indeed, Buddhists themselves pray to the Buddha—shows that he didn’t exclude God or divine grace: He simply emphasized the importance of personal effort in addition to faith in God.

Ultimately, the problem with Buddhism, as the Buddhists presented it, was that it offered  nothing toward which people could direct their love and devotion. Without love, spiritual progress is ineffectual, like a man on crutches in a race against Olympic athletes.

Swami Shankaracharya: Seek union with the Absolute
Swami Shankaracharya or Shankara (as he was also known), centuries later, corrected misconceptions on the part of Buddha’s followers, and brought many people back to Hinduism. But it wasn’t Buddha’s teachings he contested, only people’s misunderstandings of them.

Rejecting the atheism of Buddha’s followers, Shankara explained that God is pure Spirit beyond all duality and the only reality in existence. He taught that the goal of life is union with that Absolute, which he described as Satchidananda—ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss. One attains union, according to Shankara, by meditation on the inner Self and discrimination.

Shankara also corrected the mistaken understandings of the doctrine of nirvana on the part of Buddha’s followers, who defined nirvana as a state of nothingness or annihilation. Shankara explained that nirvana exists, but that beyond nirvana there is another state of consciousness, which we all are longing for: Satchidanandam.

Paramhansa Yogananda later elaborated, saying that in the final merging into God there is, in the beginning, nirvana—a cessation of all waves and desires, a state of nothingness. But then, in that darkness, suddenly comes the great bliss of Satchidanandam.

Misconceptions among Shankara’s successors
Shankara’s followers later took his teaching not only as his reply to the mistaken understandings of Buddha’s followers, but as a new definition of Hinduism. Nothing, they proclaimed, exists except that Absolute; all else is delusion, a dream. And since, by their understanding, manifested creation is only a dream, it doesn’t even exist.

Here was another of the misconceptions that surface repeatedly in religion. For dreams do, of course, exist—as dreams! If a person hits his head in a dream, his dream head will hurt. Creation, in other words, does exist in its own context. It simply isn’t what it appears to be.

Shankara’s followers became known as Advaitins, believers in advaita or a non-dualistic view of reality. The problem with advaita, as Shankara’s successors presented it, was comparable to the problem with Buddhism as interpreted by Buddha’s successors: there was no place for love or devotion. Love implies the duality of subject and object, of lover and beloved. But if only the Absolute exists, then the duality of lover and beloved cannot exist. Who can be devoted to whom?  Overlooked by Shankara’s followers was that Shankara himself had composed a book of devotional hymns to God as the Divine Mother.

Ramanuja and Chaitanya: a relationship of love with God
Ramanuja tried centuries later to correct this flaw in advaitic reasoning by teaching a devotional form of advaita known as Vishishta-Advaita. He declared that the soul is not a delusion but exists eternally; when we merge into God, we never lose the soul. Therefore we can, and must, develop a relationship of love with the Creator.

Chaitanya, centuries after Ramanuja, also emphasized the importance of devotion.  Already famous as a brilliant scholar when a dramatic vision of Krishna changed his life forever, he began urging people to abandon philosophical speculation as dry and useless and to immerse themselves in the love of God.

Man, he said, needs nothing except God’s love. He taught people to worship the Lord by chanting to Him devotedly in the form of Krishna. “The Lord’s name, the Lord’s name, the Lord’s name is man’s only path to salvation!” This was his famous declaration.

Misconceptions among Chaitanya’s successors
Many of Chaitanya’s followers (Vaishnavas, they are called) took his teaching literally and insisted that Krishna himself is the Lord. The truth, of course, is quite the opposite. Krishna, the man, could not possibly be God. God, rather, is all His manifestations, including Krishna. The wave is not the ocean. On the contrary: the ocean has become all of its waves. It is a fallacy to claim that any one wave can be the whole ocean! Christians have made this same mistake regarding Jesus Christ.

Images of Krishna symbolize a number of deep truths. Vaishnavas, however, have accepted those symbols as the truth itself. Because tradition depicted Krishna as blue-skinned, for example, Vaishnavas say his skin was therefore actually blue. His traditional coloring is, in fact, symbolic of the sky, which in turn is a symbol for infinity. God, in other words, is infinite. Indeed, He is also formless.

Moses: a teaching similar to Buddha’s
In Palestine, another great master, Moses, taught people to worship one God instead of many gods. In this respect his teachings were like Buddha’s. Both masters insisted on self-effort and right action. And both spoke against the worship of lesser deities—angels as they are called in Christian tradition—in the hope of receiving wealth, pleasure, success, and worldly power in recompense. Moses again, like Buddha, urged people to develop their own inner strength, and to shun all lesser goals as ultimately disillusioning. He taught people to love the Supreme Lord, and to obey His commandments faithfully.

In the centuries following Moses, the Jews, with considerable ingenuity, developed endless ramifications of the Law of Moses. They forgot his supreme commandment, to love God with one’s whole heart, and to love everyone in God’s name. Instead, they fell away gradually from devotion to God, and became engrossed in religious technicalities. Such always is the danger, when the priesthood of a religion gains too firm a hold on guiding it: Minor details—important to professionals in every field—take precedence over the spontaneous expression of love.

Again and again, the prophets sought to guide the Jewish people back to a closer relationship with the Lord. Alas, again and again the Jews returned to their legalisms. They even went so far as to persecute their prophets, whose only desire was to help them.

Jesus Christ: the supreme importance of loving God
What Jesus Christ taught was not a contradiction of the Mosaic Law but, as he himself stated, its fulfillment. He stressed the supreme importance of loving God. Western emphasis on group consciousness, however, soon changed what was an essentially Eastern approach to truth, bringing his teachings under the control of a central organization. In exercising this control, the church diluted Christ’s message, developing an essentially outward focus. Herein lay its own special misunderstanding of the truth.

Christianity, too, needs to balance its understanding of truth: to bring organizational control into harmony with individual conscience.

Is there any hope for religion?
Is there any hope for religion in this tumult of contradictions? Indeed there is! The hope for religion lies in religious history itself—not in its lamentable squabbles, but in the repeated efforts of great masters to return mankind to the underlying, eternal purpose of religion.

The great Moslem woman saint, Rabbi’a, once said, “He is no true lover of God who does not forget his suffering in the contemplation of the Divine Beloved.” The message of every great master is the same: “Forget your sorrow-producing conflicts: Love God!”

From: God Is for Everyone; Awaken to Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity Publishers; and Kriya Yoga and the Evolution of World Religions, a May 1996 talk at Ananda Village. To order these inspiring books & CDs click here

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January 8, 1976

Dear——:

Thank you for sending me the transcript of that “reading.” I appreciate your letting us know about this material. I must say, however, that Paramhansa Yogananda didn’t recommend going to mediums. In fact, he recommended definitely against it. It can too often, he said, be a real trap. I urge you not to get involved in such things. For while it is true that good things sometimes do come through such channels, that good is usually mixed up with a great deal that is not valid, and is not helpful at all. The question remains, how to tell the difference? The mere fact of being in the astral world doesn’t make souls omniscient!

As for the specific threat of destruction to Ananda, I can only say that I truly don’t expect such to happen. On the other hand, if it be God’s will, then there is nothing we can do to prevent it. We are doing our best to serve God as He wills. The rest is in His hands.

But to get some perspective on the matter, it is important to realize that, of the predictions made in this manner, the majority—the vast majority—have proven false. Someday, of course, the earthquakes may come, but even Edgar Cayce spoke only of changes to the coastline, not of the whole state being destroyed. Since California is, at this time, the most spiritual part of America it is difficult to imagine that the entire area will be wiped out.

God, truly, is our only protection in any case. It seems far better to trust in Him, and to try to follow His guidance, derived through meditation and prayer, rather than to get sidetracked in the questionable truths of astral beings who purportedly speak to us through mediums.

You seem to have a fairly good understanding of the limits of this kind of experience. I would repeat again, however, that Yogananda recommended that we not get involved in such matters.

My best wishes to you and your family.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

From: In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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I was browsing in a used-book store, not intending to buy anything, when I first saw this book. I picked it up and, with what felt like only natural curiosity, started to turn to the table of contents to look up “Gemini.” Instead, the first thing that caught my eye was Kriyananda’s statement dedicating the book to the reader “patient enough” to resist the temptation to “skip back and forth,” looking up specific signs.

Laughing at myself for having been caught red-handed, I simply purchased the book and took it home to read properly.

An emphasis on self-help
Many people think of astrology as simply describing the more-or-less fixed aspects of our personality: whatever “the stars” may have decreed for us. But as devotees, we know that a wise spiritual teacher can guide us in how to use our “pre-existing tendencies” to achieve further spiritual growth.

This is exactly what Swami Kriyananda has accomplished in this book. Your Sun Sign as a Spiritual Guide gives excellent advice on what we can do, given who we are, to achieve the highest spiritual expression of each of our qualities. With all there is to learn and practice on the spiritual path, it’s very helpful to have someone with Swami Kriyananda’s insight to recommend what we might need to focus on.

No sign, Kriyananda emphasizes, is inherently more or less spiritual than any other. We all have our strengths and our weaknesses, and since we are all children of God, we will all eventually make our way back to Him. But the next step on that journey is different for each of us. This book gives us specific concepts, techniques, and practices to work with to make that next step in the most positive direction possible. 

“What’s your sign?”
The sun sign is the one most people know about, the subject of the classic question: “What’s your sign?” My own sun sign is Gemini, and Kriyananda very accurately zeroes in on many of the qualities that make us Geminis such a mentally-oriented lot. For each sun sign, however, he offers a clear perspective on how any given trait can be either positively or negatively directed.

For Geminis, for instance, he emphasizes the importance of mental detachment, which for a Gemini may make the difference between wit and wisdom, or between true understanding and mere cleverness. Similarly, a Gemini tendency towards worry, fickleness, and unreliability is really just an expression of the same qualities that can be positively developed into adaptability, creativity, and, as Kriyananda puts it, “great subtlety of thought.”

Kriyananda also discusses various yogic practices that are particularly applicable to each sign. For Sagittarius, as well as other fire element signs, he offers a fire meditation for burning away ego attachments. Addressing the discriminating, critical faculty of Virgos, he recommends the practice of neti neti — “not this, not that” — for delving into the deeper source of all desires and experiences. And for regulating the constant rising and falling of a Gemini’s restless mind, he recommends the practice of Kriya Yoga.

Your moon and rising signs
Though the book’s title refers specifically to sun signs, Kriyananda also briefly discusses the moon and rising signs. Unlike your sun sign, which is the “public facing” aspect of your personality, your moon sign describes your inner system of value and meaning—what makes things important to you. Your rising sign, on the other hand, concerns what Kriyananda calls your “basic quality of receptivity,” how you form initial reactions and impressions.

If you know your moon and rising signs (or other components of your horoscope), you can simply read the analyses of the appropriate sun signs with a view to applying them to specific aspects of your personality. For example, my moon and rising signs both happen to be Scorpio, which adds a significant shading to my Gemini characteristics.

The moon in Scorpio gives me a strong sense within myself of what is right and important, and a disinclination to try to conform to other standards. Contrary to the talkative extroversion of a Gemini, this Scorpio influence will often have me behaving in a more introverted way. My Scorpio rising sign reinforces this introverted tendency, directing my initial reactions in an inward direction, particularly in new or unfamiliar situations.

Knowing this about myself, I find a great deal of helpful practical advice in the Scorpio chapter, particularly about balancing aspects of my nature. Since a Gemini can be prone to living too much in the mind, the intensity and control of Scorpio can be a powerful aid to focusing my thoughts and turning them into actual accomplishments.

An interconnected whole
Kriyananda does an excellent job throughout the book of presenting the entire zodiac as an interconnected whole. He shows how the different signs can be related to each other by season, by planet, or by element (earth, air, fire, or water). This gives us a variety of perspectives from which to understand any quality.

Gemini, for example, is one of three Spring signs, and therefore has a connection with the two other Spring signs, Taurus and Aries. Each of these signs manifests the Spring-like energy of new beginnings and growth in a different way, and each is necessary for success in any venture. Tuning into this overall flow of energy helps me carry my ideas forward, beyond the purely mental stage. I am able to see the subsequent steps in the process not as foreign to my nature but as an actual extension of it. 

Universal characteristics
While working on this book, Kriyananda wrote a letter to an astrologer discussing some of his ideas.* In it, he described what he was doing as “universalizing each sign by addressing myself not only to Geminis, Leos, etc., but also to the Gemini, Leo, etc., in all of us.”  He writes that one of the “fascinating” things about the signs is “how they pin-point basic universal characteristics in man.”

Kriyananda’s observations are worth keeping in mind as we read this book. We all manifest the various qualities of each sign to some extent. Indeed, the very qualities that describe each of us as individuals are often the same ones that connect us as brothers and sisters in God.

Graham Waldon became a part of Ananda in 2009 and now lives in the Palo Alto community. Currently unemployed, he has spent much of the last year doing volunteer work, meditating, and devouring books by Swami Kriyananda and Paramhansa Yogananda.

* See In Divine Friendship, Crystal Clarity Publishers, page 253.

To order Your Sun Sign as a Spiritual Guide by Swami Kriyananda,  click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

What is needed today is a spiritual army of souls demonstrating—not militantly or aggressively, but with sincerity declared—their commitment to higher values, to God, and to a firm rejection of worldly values.

Just consider a modern street in the pulsing heart of any city, with crowds rushing here and there bent on the business of profit, acquisition, and involvement with desires. In any such crowd there may be a few people whose thoughts are focused on higher goals. But who, on beholding that crowd, would gain any inkling of the fact?

It is time, certainly, for those few who know from within that there is a higher way of life, to demonstrate clearly, in some outward manner, that they have a more valid goal than mere absorption in materialism and ego-consciousness.

A renunciate order in which people demonstrate their commitment not by shouting their beliefs, waving flags and banners, or in other ways campaigning outwardly, but simply by the garb they wear—this, surely, would be a minimal way to “stand up and be counted.”

Why a new renunciate order?
In my new book, A Renunciate Order for the New Age, I propose a new model of renunciation for this new age of energy. I also propose to open the path of renunciation to all those, whether married or single, who deeply yearn to know God. Both women and men may become swamis and couples may work together toward that goal.

The monastic order of swamis in India was reorganized many centuries ago by the first, or adi, Swami Shankara. The age in which he lived, Kali Yuga, was far more materialistic than the age in which we live today. People weren’t nearly so mobile and their mental horizons were narrowly circumscribed.

To find God, or to realize the Divine Presence in one’s life, was almost impossible for those who were not specifically devoted to spiritual progress. Those who lived in the world, who engaged in profit, and particularly who were married and had families, simply could not expand their horizons to include the divine search.

The old way was right for those days, when mankind’s awareness was much narrower. In modern times, matter is known to consist only of vibrations of energy. People’s thinking is more fluid, more intuitive, more centered in principle than in outer forms.

Renunciation, as practiced in the past, no longer appeals to people in this age of greater freedom of thought and consciousness. It is more uplifting nowadays to concentrate on the positive aspects of renunciation. Burn up all attachments—to home, for instance—but concentrate positively on the complete absence of ego itself. Be humble, but not self-abasing; instead, see God as the true Doer of everything.

The old method of renunciation was world-negating; the new one is samadhi-affirming. One’s concentration, in other words, is on the joy of soul-freedom in God.

It is now possible, in this age of increasing enlightenment, to emphasize such positive aspects of renunciation as soul expansion; the inner freedom of simple living; greater mental and spiritual clarity through sexual moderation or, best of all, through complete sexual abstinence; and the sheer delight of discovering joy within oneself.

Freedom from ego consciousness
During Kali Yuga, most people could not comprehend that the ego really has no existence except in its fleeting dream-reality. Today, however, people are able to understand, at least intellectually, that our separate reality is but an illusion and that we are all, in truth, but a single reality. It is thus easier for people today to focus on ego-transcendence directly instead of approaching it indirectly through non-attachment and strict non-involvement with the material world.

The real delusion to overcome is the bondage of ego-identity. The true goal of renunciation is to help one to rid himself of that self-limiting identity. Freedom from ego-consciousness, therefore, is the primary direction I envision for true renunciation.

More important than working on specific desires, attachments, and outwardly directed delusions is the work we do to eliminate our sense of separatness from the great Ocean of Life. All who would become worthy of the kingdom of God must expand their ego-consciousness to the vast Self of which the ego is but a little part—a mere grain of sand on a vast beach surrounding the ocean of cosmic consciousness. All must seek infinite self-expansion. As Paramhansa Yogananda wrote in his great poem, Samadhi:  “Myself in everything enters the Great Myself.”

The stages of renunciation
To become inwardly sure that you are ready for full sannyas, or complete renunciation, you should first go through the stage of preliminary renunciation— brahmacharya, if you are single, or tyaga, if you are married. Men who practice tyaga are known as tyagis; women, as tyaginis. Single men are called brahmacharis; women, similarly, are called brahmacharinis.

Married people may often do better to wait until they are past the child-rearing years before embracing the stage of tyaga. How long should a couple wait before they commit themselves to a life of tyaga? It should not depend only on age. Young persons, too, may be ready. But all must prove themselves—to others as well as to themselves—before taking this step.

The vows of brahmacharya and tyaga are vows truly, and not mere resolutions. You must have sufficient conviction to be able to say, “I am sure, now, that this is the direction I want to go, and I will build my life around it.”

When you feel ready to proclaim outwardly your complete commitment to the spiritual path, you may embrace formal sannyas and become a swami. At this stage, renunciates ought to no longer see themselves as men or women. Thus, renunciates of both sexes should be given the same title:  swami.

Because this is a new renunciate order, I recommend that all swamis receive, in addition to the title, the designation naya—that is to say, “new.” Thus, my own name would be Nayaswami Kriyananda.

Only God is qualified to judge
What this new renunciate order will emphasize is direction, not fixed attainments. Fixed rules belong to Kali Yuga. The true path to God is directional. It does not consist of fixed and absolute regulations.

Regardless of any future slip in one’s dedication to one’s ideals, so long as the direction of his aspiration is upward, there should be no outward punishment or “demotion” from whatever status he has attained. One is fit to be a renunciate at every level, including that of swami, as long as he shows that his heart is firmly dedicated to achieving final perfection.

Because many of the virtues mentioned here are questions of attitude, one’s worthiness to continue to keep the title tyagi or nayaswami must be left up to the individual’s conscience. There comes a point where only God is qualified to judge.

The important thing is that one’s true direction be toward God, not away from Him. A slip is not a fall, and does not in any way deserve to be condemned. I once said to my guru, “I would rather die than succumb to temptation.” He remonstrated, “why be so absolute? If you keep trying, God will never let you down.”

Why stand up and be counted?
A new order of renunciation would lose much of its spiritual merit were it kept a secret. It is desperately important today for people who long for a higher way of life to be reassured that they are not alone. If there is safety in numbers, there is also the need for reassurance from a sufficiency of numbers.

I don’t say, “Join Ananda.” Rather I say, wherever you are, and whatever your path or stage of life, join this order; embrace its ideals; commit yourself to them in action.

If you are married, discuss this way of life with your spouse. I haven’t asked you to roam the highways like the sannyasis of old but simply to change your attitude toward life. Married couples would admittedly find it difficult—in the streets, or even about the home—to wear the garb of tyaga, but on special spiritual occasions, surely, they can do so.

Brahmacharis, brahmacharinis, and swamis (whether married or unmarried) should be less reticent. To show the courage of their convictions seems to me right, and even necessary. The face they show to the world should normally include not only their eyes, mouths, and noses, but also their life commitment.

A signal to those who share your ideals
Such a social change must be introduced gradually. Paramhansa Yogananda, when in America, dressed in a normal business suit. He demonstrated the differentness of his calling, however, by wearing a scarf—not orange, in fact, but white—covering his chest. In India, he wore the traditional orange garb of an Indian swami.

Although he wanted our daily garb to be normal, he did say that he wanted us someday to wear monastic garb. Has that day arrived yet? Perhaps not in the West. In India? More probably.

Married couples would find it very awkward to wear a special garb except at public spiritual functions. They can, however—indeed, all monastics can—wear something suggestive of their spiritual vocation: turquoise for tyagis; golden yellow for brahmacharis; royal blue for nayaswamis.

They could wear shirts or blouses of the appropriate color. When men wear suits, they could wear an appropriately colored handkerchief folded visibly in the breast pocket; women could do the same with scarves, sashes, or something else that is suitable.

The point in any case is not to stand up and be counted by others, but as a signal to those who share your ideals: “You are not alone.” Gradually the signal would become more and more widely known and accepted. The time when it becomes widely respected will be, I suggest, when a monastic might feel free to go anywhere, fully dressed in the suitable garb.

A non-institutional renunciate order
I have tried to make it clear, and want to emphasize again, that this new renunciate order  is not my movement. It is not confined to one organization nor is it limited to the members of Ananda. It is intended to stand alone.

Since Paramhansa Yogananda was sent, however, to help bring fundamental change to an entire civilization, I have proposed that all swamis of this new renunciate order accept him as their adi (first, or supreme) guru.

But I don’t want to approach the order to the slightest degree as something sectarian. It should become sufficiently widespread to effect a broad change in society. For I deeply feel that this movement can help to uplift the world.

I state urgently that mankind very desperately needs our new renunciate order. Many thousands of people need, now, to “stand up and be counted.”

Excerpted from A Renunciate Order for the New Age, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk, “The True Purpose of Life”,“click here:

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

The Bhagavad Gita is the story of how to fight that battle and reunite with eternal bliss, our true nature. It’s not an easy battle. While a part of you is saying, “I want freedom, I want joy, I want the higher Self,” the other part is saying, “Oh, no! Please let me hang onto this!”

To fight this battle and achieve the highest attainment takes a great deal of will power and determination.  It’s not enough to say, “Well, I’m trying.” No, don’t just try. Do the right thing until you can do it with all your will power. God won’t be satisfied if you just “mean well.”

Summoning sufficient will power
I recall a monk who lived at Paramhansa Yogananda’s Mt. Washington headquarters while I was there. This young man experienced many high spiritual experiences, but his karma, our Guru told him, was very complex. He had good spiritual karma, which gave him his deep experiences, but those experiences were, as the Master hinted, the result of the disciple’s soul desperately trying to keep him from leaving the spiritual path.

Yogananda once said to him, “If you leave the spiritual path this time, you will wander for another 200 incarnations before you return to the point you have reached already in your spiritual evolution.”  Alas, the young man did leave the path. Later, he visited the Master and wept “so bitterly” that, Yogananda told us, “I wept with him.” There was nothing our Guru could do about it, however.

Yogananda did say to him, when he paid that visit, “If you try hard now, you may reduce the number of those incarnations to seven.” But the young man’s directional flow of energy was already too strongly toward worldliness. From all I’ve heard about him since then, he simply resigned himself. Instead of saying, “I haven’t yet succeeded,” he accepted, sadly, that in this life he had fallen completely. He wouldn’t have had to accept this conclusion, had he summoned sufficient will power.

Right attitude toward mistakes
The Bhagavad Gita is set on a battlefield to help us understand that to find inner peace we must fight against those qualities that pull us downward from our higher aspirations—anger, jealousy, passion, greed, and so on. The natural tendency of human beings is to go downward. But only by reversing that flow, which means bringing our energy up to the spiritual eye and the brain, do we find freedom.

So be very firm. Remember yes, you can make mistakes; and yes, you can go in the wrong direction; and yes, if you do so, it is not going to be easy. Every step toward darkness is a step toward suffering. Those who suffer are those who are out of tune with the Divine.

But the more in tune you are with your higher Self, the more blissful you always feel. Then nothing can touch you. People can persecute you, martyr you, but it won’t touch you. Nothing will bother you when you have that consciousness of God’s peace within yourself.

Which side won?
The Bhagavad Gita tells us that at the end of every day we should ask: “Which side won?” This is very important. Before you go to sleep, meditate and then ask yourself: “Did I err in any way? How have I improved? What shall I do tomorrow to improve myself?” When you see that you made a mistake, admit it honestly to yourself. Don’t feel badly; just say, “I’m trying and I will do better.” But you must be absolutely ruthless in your truthfulness.

There’s the story in the New Testament of Jesus meeting the woman of Samaria at the well. Paramhansa Yogananda said she was a fallen disciple of another lifetime and that Jesus had purposely gone to Samaria to find her and, if possible, to redeem her.

When Jesus said to her, “Go call your husband,” and she said, “I have no husband,” he was pleased with her answer. He told her, “You have had five husbands and the one you are living with now is not your husband.” He didn’t ask the question to bring out her moral degradation; it was to test her truthfulness. When he saw she was completely truthful, he knew she was fit to be redeemed.

Don’t bury your mistakes under the carpet. If you honestly face your faults and say, “I will fight this tendency in myself. I am not that”—you can be free.

“Get Thee behind me, Satan”
We need to understand that as we meditate more deeply, our lower subconscious tendencies become a little anxious and try to stir us. You sit there meditating and the ego begins to think, “Ah, a glass of milk would be pretty good right now, or a walk —and I’ll get back here sooner or later.”

This is the symbolism of Yudhisthira in the Bhagavad Gita. Yudhisthira represents the soul-quality of calmness, and the tendency, when a person feels very calm and very much in tune, to think, “Well, I can gamble; it can’t touch me.” I’ve seen people do this. They say, “Oh, I couldn’t be hurt by that delusion.” But the world has its own power and unfortunately the dice are loaded. If we go in that direction, that’s how we’ll get caught. Yudhisthira had a weakness for gambling. He gambled against a skilled gambler who knew how to win by cheating, and he lost everything.

Temptation always comes to spiritual seekers at their points of special weakness: pride; sexual desire; the longing for romance; a desire for money, fame, vengeance, or worldly power. These are examples, merely. Delusion can assume countless forms.

The world is full of angels and demons. It wouldn’t hurt to realize that any time you feel angry, lustful, greedy, or any of the negative attitudes that come to people—that this is not you. This is something you have accepted into your aura. If you treat it as a separate being, then you can say, “Get away from me!” As Jesus said, “Get thee behind me Satan!”

How to fight temptation
In trying to decide whether or not a thing will be good for you, always ask: “Will it raise or lower my energy?” Things may seem like great fun but if they will lower your energy—stay away from them. If they will seriously lower it—shun them like the plague. Remember, you should always try to turn your energy inward and upward toward the spiritual eye and the brain.

The principles of self-control are primarily sexual, but self-control in all ways is very important—not to drink too much, not to eat too much, not to laugh too much, not to do anything too much, because it will spill your energy outward. But the greatest spill of all is through sex.

Temptation is anything that tempts you out of yourself. If your want to find God, a part of you should always be somewhat withdrawn, observing.

The power to uplift the inner energy
In fighting the battle with your lower nature, the key is to reach the point where it becomes more pleasurable to sit thinking of God, praying to Him, and feeling his presence, than forgetting Him and becoming restless. Focusing within on God, and on the higher attractiveness of His love and bliss, is the best way to overcome any lower sensory attraction.

The most important thing on the spiritual path is to love God. It’s not enough just to get good karma. You have to open your heart to God, and that doesn’t mean simply keeping an open mind. (“Yeah I’m willing.”) There has to be an aspiration for the light, for divine love.

From that heart quality comes the power to uplift the inner energy from the senses and the body. As you lift one hand up to God, God will lower two to pick you up. Divine grace, ultimately, is the key to everyone’s salvation.

The need for a guru
So, it’s very important to reach the point of knowing that you want to know God and to feel the bliss of His presence in your heart, and that these are the most important things in life. To achieve that, you also need a guru.

A true guru is the highest kind of saint, having attained oneness with God. This means he is able to infuse into receptive disciples his own spiritualized consciousness, and raise those who are spiritually ready to the same exalted state as his own. The power of God and Guru is greater than all delusions. As you meditate deeply, that power will come more and more to the fore.

When “efforts end in ease”
So, in the beginning there is a constant struggle between your higher and lower tendencies, but there comes a point when, as Yogananda put it, “efforts end in ease.” After a while, as you meditate more and more deeply, there’s no struggle involved.

The truth is that you can be liberated in this lifetime if you work hard at it, especially with the practice of Kriya Yoga, which gets the energy flowing right where the battlefield is: in the inner spine. When you can bring your energy strongly into the spine, it dissolves all those things that are holding you back, and you become free.

From Religion and the New Age, Keys to the Bhagavad Gita (Crystal Clarity Publishers) and recent talks on the Bhagavad Gita.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Dear ——:

It is a mistake to think that you will ever find the perfect mate. Life, outwardly, cannot be other than a compromise between the ideal and reality. This is true in every walk of life, even in the ashrams of saints, for the world is limited, relative, and otherwise conditioned in countless ways.

Seek perfection, therefore, within yourself. The more you depend on outer circumstances to give you perfection, the more you will find disappointment. Remember, too, that your path to perfection depends not only on inner growth, but on the application of that inner growth to outer circumstances.

In other words, a relationship that seems lacking in personal fulfillment may be a great spiritual blessing for the opportunity it gives one to be a channel for divine love and service to help the other person. “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Service and sacrifice, not outward fulfillment, are the essence of spiritual development.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

Excerpted from, In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

He predicted that there would be worldwide economic instability, hardships, and other upheavals—things that sound very negative if they didn’t presage extraordinary spiritual opportunities for us individually, and also for society as a whole. These difficulties, he said, will bring about a widespread change in values, away from materialism toward simplicity and a greater dependence on God. He prophesied three hundred years of peace, with prosperity becoming relatively equal throughout the world.

For devotees, such a time presents an extraordinary opportunity for service and spiritual growth, greater than any in recorded history. Especially because of the difficulties, and because there is so much to be learned, there is an opportunity to accrue great good karma, even to be freed from all delusion, if we think in terms of being instruments for the Light.

I read a book by a woman who regressed people to the time before they were born and asked them, “Why did you choose this particular time of upheaval and suffering that we are likely to experience?” She found that not one spoke of suffering. Every single one spoke of opportunity. This is one of the most wonderful times in the history of mankind to be alive.

A new wave of consciousness
Understandably, no one wants to hear predictions of doom and disaster. I don’t insist that you accept this view of the future. I do consider it my duty, however, to share with you what I consider to be more than likely developments. The events Yogananda predicted are already unfolding. The change from one yuga to the next is often the normal time for such things to happen.

With the start of Dwapara Yuga in 1900, a new wave of consciousness entered the world—one that emphasizes energy and flow; that sees religion not as fixed and dogmatic but as based on individual experience; that sees the world as one community, not just separate little countries all fighting for their own rights.

Opposing this new Dwapara Yuga consciousness are old Kali Yuga institutions and ways of thinking. This opposition has been building up for over a century and it’s coming to a head. We need to be prepared for upheavals and hardships, and one of the best ways to prepare is to band together with like-minded friends and start communities.

Paramhansa Yogananda’s urgent message
Paramhansa Yogananda had a vast mission. It included not just the enlightenment of a few disciples but the upliftment of an entire civilization. An important step toward the accomplishment of that mission was the creation of cooperative spiritual communities—“world brotherhood colonies,” as he put it. In his last years, Yogananda repeatedly urged his listeners to start such communities.

“Band together,” he would cry, “those of you who can do so, in small spiritual communities where you can grow your own food, produce your own vegetables and eggs, and, if possible, have your own fresh milk!  Live simply, close to God, and with other people who love God.” Such communities, he said, would serve as models for the new age, when countless similar self-sustaining communities will popularize voluntary cooperation over competition as the true key to lasting prosperity and inner fulfillment.

Yogananda’s message went beyond simply presenting people with an attractive idea. There was urgency in his plea because he foresaw the challenges and hardships that awaited mankind. A community is the best insurance possible when there’s hardship, because a group of people can support one another in ways that individuals living separately cannot. I offer this as a fact, but not as an inducement to join Ananda; I want people to join Ananda because they love God, and want to find God.

I believe these communities are the wave of the future. Many of them will form for the selfish reasons I’ve given because they’re valid reasons. Today anyone who is truly aware of human directions believes we’re in for very hard times. Friends have been sending me articles which advise people to think seriously of living close to the land, where they can grow their own food and live simply. We no longer need to rely on prophecy alone to instill a sense of urgency.

Why a spiritual focus?
In the 1960s, hundreds of communities were started in a great “back-to-the-land” movement. Why did most of them fail? They failed because the people involved didn’t put spiritual principles first in their lives, but concentrated on outward material goals: solar energy, new economic systems, revolutionary architectural concepts. Their idea of heaven on earth was of some system where everything material would function perfectly. Given this materialistic approach to the ideal of finding a new way of life, they were bound to fail.

One of the most persistent human delusions is the belief that good systems will produce good people. It’s people, not systems, that need perfecting. Good systems will function well if the people running them have the good will to make them work. If people have good will, even bad systems can be made to limp along somewhat successfully.

It’s people who make communities and, more than that, it’s people in tune with a divine state of consciousness. For a community to succeed, you have to love God. You have to dedicate yourself to a principle that transcends the potential pettiness of human nature.

Love of God is the first and most important ingredient in a community’s success. One thing that love of God accomplishes is that it opens the heart to wisdom and joy. Without love and joy, judgment and intolerance will surely enter the scene, sooner or later. Judgment, whether of others or oneself, is discouraging and keeps one from rising in inner freedom.

When you live with people who have God as their ideal, you find that it’s much easier to raise your own consciousness. One very important thing you learn is self-giving and sharing. If you want to find God, a self-giving life is essential.

Choose one spiritual teaching
If you start a community, it certainly doesn’t have to be an Ananda community. I hope that long into the future Ananda will be inspiring the start of other communities, but not supervising communities. Try, if possible, however, to spend some time in one of our Ananda communities—live among us for at least a few weeks. Successful community living is a matter in which understanding must come largely by osmosis. It cannot come only through the written or spoken word.

Without the strength and inspiration that come from affiliating with an already-functioning network of communities like Ananda, the wisest thing may well be to “think small.” Paramhansa Yogananda himself recommended to most people that they pool their resources with a few friends.

It’s important that a community agree on certain basic spiritual principles and dedicate itself to one spiritual teaching.  During Ananda’s first years, when people in the kitchen at the Ananda Meditation Retreat were cooking with onions, someone would come in and say, “Oh, Krishna doesn’t like onions.” After this went on for a while I said, “Listen, this is not Krishna’s kitchen. It’s Yogananda’s kitchen and Yogananda liked onions.”

You don’t want to have to tiptoe in your own “living room.” If there were lots of people living at Ananda Village who didn’t believe in reincarnation, out of consideration and respect, in their presence we wouldn’t be able to talk about something central to our beliefs.

The social pattern of the future
Paramhansa Yogananda said that the idea of communities would spread worldwide and become the social pattern of the future. During hard times, the Ananda communities will offer an answer on how to live simply and put God first. In more than 40 years of existence, the Ananda communities have demonstrated that people can live by high ideals, love all, and have communal harmony.

It’s by having communities where people can see spiritual truths being practiced by a number of people that this way of life becomes convincing to people. Ananda offers an example that can be useful to people wherever they live. From all over the world people write and say that their lives are more meaningful because of what Ananda is doing. This is a model that can change the world in a positive way.

When you can’t live in a community
What if you can’t live in a community or start one? Place your faith in God above all, but God expects you to use common sense also. Since it’s evident that there is a likelihood of  hard times ahead, it would be wise to make a few preparations, at least, for the possibility of upheavals.

But don’t concern yourself too fearfully with creating a situation, or finding a place, of perfect safety. Your very fear might attract danger like a magnet. Do what seems reasonable to you, then leave the results in God’s hands. Be sensible, however, and don’t expect to be protected by faith alone—unless, indeed, your faith is so strong, and focused so one-pointedly, that all your energy flows toward God.

Wherever you live, try always to be a channel for the Light. How do you serve the Light? By giving joy, not sorrow; peace, not nervousness; love, not hatred. It’s people who love God and think of God who are keeping this country and world afloat. If it weren’t for such people, this world would plunge into even greater darkness.

So don’t be afraid. When you love God and act sensibly, He takes care of you whatever happens, wherever you live. Even if you’re going in the wrong direction, He’ll correct you. This is something Paramhansa Yogananda promised. I know it’s true because I’ve seen that protection again and again in my life, and in the lives of other devotees.

From a July 4, 2009 talk at Ananda Village; books and publications; and the following recording, “Preparing for Challenging Times.”  To order a CD or MP3 of these talks, click here or call Treasures Along the Path (530) 478 7656

To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk, “How To Overcome Worry,“click here:

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Are moral values a matter of social convenience, or do they exist in the natural order?  Are moral values only subjective?  Or are they universal?

The Western either /or approach
In the West, moral values traditionally have been viewed as absolutes—right or wrong, good or bad. This type of moral rigidity actually makes a person less moral, not more so. The extremes of self-righteousness which this view permits has led to the Crusades, the witch-burnings, the Spanish Inquisition, and countless other ungodly acts committed in the name of God.

How, you might ask, was it possible for religiously minded people to imagine that they were serving God by such deeds? Only one answer suggests itself. They believed in the absoluteness of right and wrong. Convinced that the authority of the Church was an absolute good, they persuaded themselves that any challenge to that authority was a threat and therefore absolutely evil and wrong.

They considered themselves the champions of the good. Whatever means they used in defense of their convictions were thus, to them, inconsequential.

Nihilism: life has no meaning
The discovery of the relativity of time, space, motion, and nearly everything else in the universe has undermined people’s faith in the existence of absolute moral values. Not only the young, but many people now insist that values are “merely relative” and that no higher law exists. Many have embraced the philosophy of nihilism—that life has no meaning.

Jean-Paul Sartre, a proponent of this philosophy, maintains not only that life is meaningless, but that every human being is free to determine his own moral values, and no one else can decide questions of right and wrong for him.

Are moral values truly arbitrary and subjective?  Can we really say people can just do what they like, and that there are no personal consequences they will have to suffer, outside of the need to maintain social order?

The example of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was the ideal of Sartre’s philosophy. Here was a man who was completely lacking in conscience. He bowed to no God, honored no laws, and scorned the most time-honored traditions. His only values were those which suited his own convenience. If the populace opposed him, he was perfectly capable of causing millions to perish.

But he was not free. He was a slave of countless fears and suspicions. As he had dealt fairly with no one, so also was he incapable of imagining fairness or goodwill to be genuinely a part of anyone’s nature. Always he was steeled to meet his foes, lest they spring on him unawares.

Stalin’s life was an example of a simple, universal fact of human nature: If a person acts to hurt others, or if he ruthlessly opposes the interests of others, he will automatically—indeed, necessarily—steel himself to receive their opposition in return. The man of ruthless ambition can never relax trustfully. Forever tensed (since he knows not when the opposition may strike), he is unable to find even a moment’s peace.

And so, too, for other crimes. Anyone who makes his living by thievery may be completely amoral, and not at all perturbed that he is behaving in a way that others consider wrong. But he punishes himself nonetheless.

The thief has several fears. He has the normal concerns of ownership. He also knows that  what he’s taken is not rightfully his and is therefore in constant danger of being reclaimed. And, since he sees the world with the consciousness of a thief, he suspects that the world is full of people who want to rob him of all that he owns.

Happiness—the key to moral values
Paramhansa Yogananda writes that everybody wants basically only two things: to find happiness and to avoid pain. What we see is that some people find it and some people don’t. Why?  Because there are principles involved, and they’re universal.

One of the most natural impulses in life is toward self-expansion. All creatures reach out for new experiences, new knowledge, broader identifications. To help someone in need is a virtue not because scripture or society says so, but for the simple reason that nature implants in us an urge toward self-expansion.

When you think of others, you’re expanding your own awareness. Jesus Christ taught, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” It is more blessed, indeed, because giving is self-expansive and creates joy in the giver. The generous heart beholds a trusting, not a hostile, world.

A self-serving attitude, by contrast, is contractive because it goes against that natural impulse toward self-expansion. To kill someone, to desire to hurt another living being in any way—or even to harm our environment, which too, in varying degrees, is alive and conscious— is to go against that natural urge for self-expansion.

The moral justification for behavior
Moral principles thus have their roots in our own nature. The moral justification for generosity is not that some deity, or society itself, demands it of us, but that our own fulfillment depends on expanding our awareness and sympathy from that which we know to infinity. Sooner or later, everyone who lives in the right way will find himself becoming happier and happier.

Similarly, it is wrong to steal from others, or to injure them, not because of societal or scriptural strictures, but because one is punished by his own nature, which causes physical contraction and tension, and a mentally self-defensive attitude. As a consequence, we experience pain.

If the goal of every person is to avoid suffering and attain happiness, then the eternal question of right and wrong can be decided quite simply by this criterion. What makes an act right? The answer: its capacity to increase happiness. And what makes an act wrong? The answer, again: its power to lessen happiness and increase suffering.

The more selfish you are, the unhappier you are. The more selfless and giving you are, the happier you are. It’s a formula that never varies.

Judging the rightness of an action
The philosophy of nihilism is thus ultimately self-defeating. But the answer is not a return to moral absolutes. Values, along with everything else in the universe, are subject to the vagaries of relativity. In the realm of daily, practical living, right and wrong must be considered in the context of specific acts and situations.

To give an example: Were a lazy fellow one day to declare with energy, “I’m going to go out and get a job, and then work hard to become a millionaire!” everyone, including saints, would applaud. Were a nobler person like Gandhi, on the other hand, one day to make the same announcement, his decision would be met with universal dismay, even by worldly people.

In true moral law there are no absolutes, only directions. We should therefore view moral and spiritual perfection as a directional development, and not demand absolute perfection of anyone.

The Indian attitude toward morality is directional, not absolutist. In India, perfection is viewed as a goal toward which one must strive. The Indian attitude accepts everyone as being at a different stage of development, and encourages him to grow toward perfection, however distant the horizon may seem at the moment.

Is it not better, after all, to encourage a baby to crawl than to scold it because it can’t run? A truly generous person, for example, might find joy (as St. Francis did) in giving away his last possession to a beggar. A selfish person, on the other hand, might suffer acutely in being forced to give away even his second piece of cake.

There are degrees of maturity. The rules must necessarily change according to the degree. Action that too far outstrips a person’s actual understanding may result only in frustration; certainly it will not result in meaningful growth. That is why the Bhagavad Gita says, “In doing the activity appointed to one’s own state of being, one does not acquire any fault.”

Expanding beyond relativity
Values at every level of society should be taken out of the rusty enclosure of absolute definitions and viewed as a directional development. The “good” should motivate one to achieve the “better,” and the “better’ should inspire one toward the “best.”

However, the spiritual challenge that every great master delivers to humanity is no mere exhortation to be “moral.” It is to become as perfect as God is! We are asked literally to expand our sense of selfhood to infinity.

It is in contact with the deeper Self that the natural urge toward self-expansion comes into its own. Ego-consciousness belongs in the realm of relativity, but true bliss is found in that deep state of consciousness which is the very heart of existence, and is beyond relativity.

From Out of the Labyrinth, Crystal Clarity Publishers, and talks and articles.

To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk, Self-Abandon vs. Self-Control,” click here:

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Courtesy
Courtesy is
a healing balm;
it can soothe troubled hearts,
and win cooperation
even from the hostile.

The secret of right understanding
Understanding comes by sympathy,
and still more by empathy.
As undampened notes on a piano
will resonate with the notes
played on other instruments,
so kindness and generosity
remove the “damper” of egotism,
helping one to
“resonate” with others
in their pains and difficulties.

First, be true to yourself
Inner peace is like oil:
It lubricates the machinery of life, and enables
everything to function smoothly.

Reflections everywhere!
People mirror back to you
the feelings you hold toward them.
If you want to be liked, first of all,
show others that you like them.

The loving heart
The heart is like
the door of a building:
The air and light of truth can enter only
when the door is kept open wide.

Face life’s trials
Trials are like dogs:
They lose heart
when we confront them, but give eager chase
the moment we turn and flee.

Spiritual progress
Spiritual progress should
be relaxed and natural,
not forced. Think of it as a growing tree
reaching out gradually to touch
a greater reality. One reason for not
judging others is that one learns thereby
not to judge himself. Remember:
Nature never makes sudden leaps.

Loyalty
Make loyalty the
rudder of your barque of life.
If you stand firmly by high principles, not even
the strongest gales of wrong opinion will be able to
blow you off course. Be loyal above all to
truth as you most deeply understand it. You will
then keep growing in strength and understanding.

True security
The wise have ever said that
one should place his full
trust only in God.
To rely too much on outer circumstances
is like expecting stability of a ship at sea.

You are part of the vastness of life
Accept reality as it is,
and try to harmonize yourself with it.
Truth, like Mohammed’s mountain,
won’t come to you: You must go to it.
In another sense, of course, there is
neither coming nor going:
the pilgrimage you must make is
to plumb your own inner depths.

True understanding
Dogmatism is like still photography.
True understanding is like cinematography:
It helps one to perceive constant change,
and then to observe that change
as proceeding from a single beam of eternal light

Our bridge of ascension
Divine grace, like a ray of light, is needed
to illuminate the darkness of this world.
Only on rays of grace can we rise,
and only by so ascending can we escape
the dense fog of cosmic delusion.

* From the forthcoming book, Images of Wisdom, Seeing God in Everyone, Crystal Clarity, Publishers.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Dear ________,

Question:
How is yoga of particular importance (for everyone) in today’s electronic, stressful world?

Answer:
You’ve paired two things that needn’t of their own nature be paired. So here, in fact, there are two questions in one. The first is, “How is yoga of particular importance in today’s electronic world?”

The answer is that yoga makes us more aware of ourselves as bodies of energy, not merely of material substance. The more aware we become that we are energy, the greater control we have in our lives.

By increasing the flow of energy to the body, one can maintain good health, and overcome illness and other physical setbacks in record time. By increasing the flow of energy in one’s work, one can be more successful in everything one attempts, and can greatly shorten the time for achieving it. With great energy, indeed, one can do in a few minutes what others may require weeks or months to accomplish.

By increasing the flow of energy to other people, one can vastly increase and deepen the love and friendship between oneself and them, and also affect them for the good in their own lives. By increasing the flow of energy in one’s life, one finds abundant happiness, insight, and wisdom in guiding one’s affairs.

As for the question of stress, yoga helps one to become calmer, more centered in oneself (in a good way—that is to say, it produces the opposite of self-centeredness), it puts one more in control of oneself and one’s own life, and helps one to resolve problems with much greater ease.

Question:
Why do you think yoga is so intriguing to many Hollywood celebrities—that is, why do you think so many of them are getting interested in it?

Answer:
I think that living in a world of fiction helps to develop in those people who are more aware a sensitivity to alternate realities.

Of course, the physical aspects of yoga are attractive to people whose livelihood depends on their looking young and physically fit, which they can accomplish through Hatha Yoga.

But the inward, truer aspects of yoga are most attractive to those whose minds are open and are not enclosed in habit-created patterns of thought. Certainly the movie profession invites new ways of looking at things.

I hope this helps.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

From In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

Master revealed to us that he himself had been Krishna’s closest friend and disciple, Arjuna. (“Prince of devotees,” the Bhagavad Gita calls him.) We found it easy to believe that he had been that mighty warrior, for Master’s incredible will power, his innate gift for leadership, and his enormous physical strength (when he chose to exert it), all pointed to someone with the tendencies of a mighty, conquering hero.

Divine power is rooted in love
People who knew only of Paramhansa Yogananda’s extraordinary love and compassion, his sweetness, and his childlike simplicity were sometimes taken aback when they encountered his power. Few realize that power and divine love are opposite sides of the same coin.

Indeed, divine love is no gentle sentiment, but the greatest force in the universe. Such love could not exist without power. Great saints would never use their power to suppress or coerce others, but power is, nevertheless, inextricably a part of what it means to be a saint. It took extraordinary power, for example, for Jesus Christ, alone in a crowd, to drive the money-changers from their tradition-sanctioned places in the temple.

Worldly people fear this power in the saints, and, fearing it, persecute them. They don’t realize that a saint’s power is rooted in love, or that it threatens nothing but people’s delusions and ignorance-induced suffering.

Yogananda’s power was not only a product of his divine awareness; his human personality, too, reflected past incarnations as a warrior and conquering hero. In Calcutta, in his youth, he was approached more than once by people who wanted him to lead a revolution against the British. There was something in his very bearing that bespoke the intrepid warrior.

William: noble, generous, forgiving
He told us more than once that in a former life he had been William the Conqueror. Educated as I had been during my early years in the English educational system, I had always thought of William as one of history’s great villains. On learning that that supposed “villain” was my own Guru, I made it a point, needless to say, to study several biographies of William in order to get a broader picture of what he’d really been like.

I found that William the Conqueror was indeed, in every way, a great man. Morally, in an age of widespread profligacy, he was chaste and self-controlled. Spiritually he was deeply religious, and never (so I read) missed a day of mass in his life. He was noble, generous, and forgiving.

A divine commission
He lived, however, in an age when conquest could be accomplished only by a very strong will. He told us he had been given a divine commission, which I have since come to understand was to bring England out of the Scandinavian sphere and under the influence of Roman Christianity.

During his lifetime, William promoted the recovery of old monasteries and generally gave great support to the church, endorsing also the concept of chastity for the clergy. William and Archbishop Lanfranc, together, unified the church, and reorganized it from the ground up.

Quite as important in the context of those times, they connected the church administratively and liturgically with Rome. His closest friends were spiritual men like Archbishop Lanfranc (who in this life, Yogananda stated, was Swami Sri Yukteswar) and Saint Osmund, Bishop of Salisbury.

“The will of a single man”
William’s occasionally harsh behavior was forced on him by necessity, and never sprang from personal anger (though, consistent with my observation of Master himself on occasion, William’s demeanor sometimes appeared very fierce). I asked Master once (I was thinking of his lifetime as William): “Sir, is an avatar [a divine incarnation] always aware of his oneness with God’s omnipresence?” “He never loses his consciousness of inner freedom,” Master replied.

William’s life, when studied in this light, gains new luster and meaning. The British historian, E.A. Freeman, wrote in his biography, William the Conqueror: “[What we English are today] has largely come of the fact that there was a moment our national destiny might be said to hang on the will of a single man, and that was William [the Conqueror].”

Earlier, Freeman stated: “The Norman conquest has no exact parallel in history largely owing to the character and position of the man who wrought it. The history of England for the last eight hundred years has largely come of the personal character of [that] single man.”

William’s legacy: a united kingdom
England itself was by no means so Anglo-Saxon as relatively recent writers, including Sir Walter Scott, imagined. The north, according to recent DNA testing of old bones, was heavily Scandinavian, and the east came under what was called Danelaw, and must have been more Danish than Anglo-Saxon.

It was William who united the constantly warring earldoms into one kingdom. His legacy, moreover, which bound every native to primary loyalty to his king, saved England the fate of medieval Europe, which saw constant baronial conflicts.

England’s government dates back to the conquest by William, who brought England to a level of security, stability, and legal organization that made it possible for it to survive the death of medieval society and continue on into the modern age. England is the oldest continuous government in the world, the second being the United States.

Swami Kriyananda: William’s youngest son
Some months after Master’s passing, an inspiration came to me: I suddenly realized that I had been his youngest son, Henry, who later was crowned as Henry I. I had always known with an inner certainty that I had been a king in the past—not that it mattered to me in the present. Leadership had always come to me naturally, however, and in no way caused me to feel important because of it.

I now went to the Los Angeles public library and read up on facts about Henry that were too detailed to appear in a book intended for the general public. It surprised me to see how many parallels there were, even in little matters, between Henry’s life and my own.

Henry had been born late enough in William’s life to be in a position, after a relatively brief hiatus, to carry on William’s mission. The last thirty-three years of Henry’s life were years of exceptional peace and prosperity in England.

The most powerful king in Western Europe
Though Henry I is considered the “least-known” of all English kings, the reason for his obscurity is that he simply worked quietly to establish his father’s mission. Albeit known in his lifetime as the most powerful king in Western Europe, he never expressed an interest in enlarging his dominions.

All he ever did was conquer back territory that had been lost by his older brothers’ ineptitude. His Coronation Charter became the basis of the future Magna Carta.

An embarrassment to his memory
William’s first two sons were an embarrassment to his memory. He bequeathed Robert, his oldest, the dukedom of Normandy, knowing that he could not give him the crown of England because of his traitorous nature. (Even as William was lying on his deathbed, Robert, with the aid of the king of France, was staging a rebellion against him.)

William Rufus, the second son, was loyal to their father in his fashion, but gave no evidence of understanding William’s mission, and dedicated himself wholly to his own power, position, and glory. Perhaps a hiatus in William’s mission was necessary for his true spiritual heir, Henry, to develop a deep understanding of it.

*******       *******       *******

A different kind of conquest
Yogananda, like William the Conqueror at Hastings, came to America to establish a beachhead—not, in this case, of worldly conquest, but of divine communion.

Like William the Conqueror, Yogananda was divinely ordained to play a very difficult role. He came to a whole new continent where he was completely unknown and opposed by many. He needed an indomitable spirit of conquest to be able to bring God’s message to the world for this new age of energy, the age of Dwapara Yuga.

Yogananda’s mission was to change world consciousness. The model he established on all levels of life has been so all- encompassing that I believe he will one day be called, “The Avatar of Dwapara Yuga.”

Yogananda’s spiritual family
Many have been born and are being born in the West to assist Yogananda in his mission. Many others are being attracted to it for the first time by the radiant magnetic influence, the spiritual “gravitational field,” it has created.

Yogananda’s spiritual family forms part of a greater spiritual “nation” of which Jesus Christ and Sri Krishna (in this age, Babaji) are also leaders. Such families are like mighty nations. To them is given the real task of guiding the human race—not in the way governments do, by official ordinances, but by subtler, spiritual influence.

*Excerpted from The New Path — Chapters: “Reincarnation,” “The Guru’s Reminiscences,” and “A New Way of Life.”  (Supplemental excerpts from: The Light of Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity Publishers; and a March 2007 talk in India.)

For a related article, see below: William the Conqueror: Laying the Foundation for an Age of Energy, by Catherine Van Houten.

Resources:
To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk in India discussing Paramhansa Yogananda and William the Conqueror, click here Discussion of this subject starts at 13:27 minutes.

For information on The New Path by Swami Kriyananda, click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

If we had the blessing of being suddenly drawn up into that superconscious state and seeing our lives from that perspective, we would realize how utterly trivial it is whether we sign that big contract or get a raise, whether somebody insults or praises us, whether people understand us or not. We would realize that these things just don’t matter.

In the superconscious state, we understand that this world is a delusion, a cosmic dream. We are no longer attached to the body, to the opinions of other people, or to any outward realities.

Live centered in the Self
The whole spiritual life is a process of learning to live superconsciously. To do that, we must become completely centered in our higher Self because that’s where our power and growth begin.

In human terms, you can accomplish a great deal if your will power is strong and you direct your energy with enough positive expectation. But beyond a certain point, the ego can’t accomplish very much unless it is attuned to the superconscious, and it takes a lot to tune in.

You must recognize that there is a higher aspect of consciousness, even of your own consciousness, over which you have no control. You are offering yourself up into something you can’t command, but the consciousness that comes, which is your own higher Self, doesn’t impose itself on you.

You must first be receptive. But when you have the courage, determination, and faith to accept whatever it gives, you find that life’s greatest tragedies can become doorways to the greatest joy.

Right attitude: the main requirement
Years ago there was a movie, “Brother Sun, Sister Moon,” which depicted St. Francis as a sort of glorified hippy, loping dreamily through fields of flowers—nothing at all like the life he actually led, which included many tests and trials.

Many people were inspired by the movie, but if their understanding of the spiritual path remained on that level, they wouldn’t last very long. The spiritual path is very challenging and you’ve got to approach it with the right “weapons.” Those “weapons” are the attitudes we take on when we come onto the spiritual path.

Many people think that the spiritual path is seeing visions and having all sorts of wonderful phenomena, but basically the spiritual path is right attitude.

You can’t run away from difficulties
How do you react when a test comes?  I once said to a brother disciple who was going through a big test: “Well, after all, you’re young. You have at least 40 more years on the path, and you’ve got to get through this sooner or later.” That practically threw him into a pit of despair. That’s because he didn’t have much courage.

You won’t be worthy of God if you try to run away from your difficulties, if you aren’t willing to do whatever work is necessary to achieve freedom. To succeed on the spiritual path you need that level of courage that allows you to think, “No matter how long this test lasts, it will pass in time so why worry about it?”

When a nail is buried in a board, you don’t know the size of the nail, but if you keep pulling on the nail, eventually it will come out. Similarly, you may have very little bad karma left to pay off, or you may have a lot more.

What does it matter? Work at it, and sooner or later it will pass. Remember, God will never let you down if you love Him and keep seeking Him.

Love: the divine wavelength
Love is the most important quality of all. Love is what pulls us out of delusion.

In fact, we can’t put one foot in front of the other on the spiritual path until we begin to develop that devotional quality, that self-giving love—the sweetness, tenderness, and softness of feeling that come when you’re no longer protecting the ego. Ultimately, we must learn to approach God with the total trust and faith of a child.

The first duty of every devotee is to keep alive the lamp of devotion. Without love, you won’t grow spiritually because love is the wavelength on which the Divine functions.

“Maybe I can do better”
An attitude of learning is also fundamental. Always be ready to listen to what seem like silly points of view; they may have something to teach you. We need to feel there’s a great deal of truth we don’t yet know, and to be open to that truth, regardless of the source.

In fact, I’ve seen that the moment I write somebody off as too stupid to teach me anything, God uses that very person to teach me something. We need an attitude that says, “Maybe I can do better; maybe I can learn from this situation.”

Willingness is pleasing to God
Willingness is one of the most important attitudes and something Paramhansa Yogananda always emphasized. When you’re willing to give up your own desires to serve God, when you’re willing to put yourself out that extra bit, when you’re willing to say “yes” instead of “no” —that’s what pleases God.

Remember the principle: “The greater the will, or willingness, the greater the flow of energy.”  The more willing you are, the more energy you have.

When you have an attitude of openness, of saying “yes,” you find that things start to go well for you spiritually because willingness gets your energy moving in a positive direction. The goal of the spiritual path is to get all of your energy moving in that direction.

Calm, cheerful acceptance
Right attitude means being able to accept everything impartially. Paramhansa Yogananda used to say, “What comes of itself, let it come.” That doesn’t mean only the good things; it means anything.  And it doesn’t mean whipping yourself up into a false sense of well-being.

The basic attitude is to be “even-minded and cheerful”—an attitude of neutrality, of calmly and cheerfully accepting whatever God gives.

In the spiritual life, attitude is more important than anything else and it’s something we can keep growing in until we reach the perfection of union with God.

Seek higher guidance in daily life
How do we bring more of the superconscious into our lives?  We must understand that there are two levels here: daily life and meditation. In our waking state we can lift our consciousness up and be guided by the superconscious level.

Always try, if a problem comes up in your life, to put your mind at the point between the eyebrows, the center of superconsciousness. Then withdraw a little into yourself and try to feel in your heart what the right solution is.

Let that calm, inner feeling be your guide. Otherwise all the reasoning in the world can lead you astray, no matter how right it looks. The heart and intellect need to work together. You will be surprised at how easily you can do this once you have the practice, and how much better everything flows.

Open yourself inwardly in meditation
But the other side of this is meditation. We must go deeper and deeper in meditation, because it is there, really, that we come into contact with the superconscious. The more you open yourself inwardly in meditation, the stronger that ray will be on all levels of life.

Years ago, when I was busy building Ananda, I was going through a time of great trial, giving classes in city after city, and putting out as much energy as possible just to stay afloat. The only person helping me was my secretary who answered letters, sent out book orders, and helped set up talks and advertising. One day she decided it was just too much, found another job, and quit without notice.

I felt so hurt that a friend of mine would betray me like this. I had all the tools to reason my way out of it, but my feelings kept getting in the way. I would tell myself, “Well, it’s all a dream,” but it just didn’t work. My mind was going more and more into a tailspin. So I said, “O.K, my rational mind isn’t capable of getting out of it. Let me meditate.”

I meditated and when I became very calm, I asked God to come to me. Suddenly I felt this great peace and love come over me. When I felt that presence very strongly, I said, “God, I have this problem, but I don’t want to think about it anymore. You just show me how I should feel.”

You think in a different way
All of a sudden, a wave of understanding came upon me, and I saw the situation in a completely different light. Suddenly I was concerned for her because she was a friend who had made a mistake.

I was so concerned for her that I no longer thought about myself. I even went and visited her. I discovered that she was ill in bed, and I did what I could to make her feel better.

That may seem like a preposterous way to behave when she was the one who left without notice, but God can give us these superconscious attitudes that make everything look different.

When you’re in tune with the Divine, you think in a completely different way. You look for the hardest jobs, not the easiest; you look for what you can give away, not what you can get; you look for how you can help people, not how they can help you. You don’t think in terms of, “What am I receiving?”  but, “What can I do to please you more, God?”

A deep memory
You will only be happy if you live, day by day, the realities of the superconscious level of your own existence. We carry within us the deep memory of where we came from in God. It’s a quiet voice in the background, hardly to be noticed. By living in tune with it, we become that.

Excerpted from Intuition for Starters and The Light of Superconsciousness, Crystal Clarity Publishers, and from the following recordings: “Right Attitude, The Basis of the Spiritual Life”; “Tools of Superconscious Living”; and “Good Friday.”  To order a CD or MP3 of these talks, click here or call Treasures Along the Path (530) 478 7656

Resources:
To view Swami Kriyananda’s recent talk on meditation, click here
One meditation expert called it “the best short talk on meditation” she’s ever heard.

For information on Swami Kriyananda’s book, Awaken to Superconsciousness, click here

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

This book represents a complete revision of a former book of mine, DO It NOW!  Today, fourteen years later, I offer this revised version both because of  my continued enthusiasm for the book, and out of my continued growth in the insights it expresses.

Feb. 7. Never lend money unless you can feel, in your heart, that you are giving the money away. This practice will spare you much grief. For as Shakespeare said (through Polonius in Hamlet), “Loan oft loseth both itself and friend.” Tell God that you place the money in His hands. He will then see to it that you will not lack. Be sensible in your lending, however. Make sure you are helping someone whose need is real. I’ve often pondered movie actors who carelessly gave away vast sums of the money they were earning, but years later died in penury.

June 10. Honor your commitments, even those you make to yourself. If you’ve told someone, “I’ll go out and buy a newspaper today,” and the news you wanted then reaches you by some other means, go out and buy the paper anyway. Do so purely to maintain your promise—to him, and to yourself. For you should view even casual commitments in the light of promises. To do so will give you such a power of truth that your mere word will have materializing power.

July 5. My bottom line for many years has been, not money or profit, but inner peace. I’ve refused to allow anything to stress me to the point of stealing away that treasure. It is better, I’ve felt—and experience has borne me out—to leave undone even important things, if attention to them might undermine my peace. For without peace, one is all too prone to error. From inner peace, moreover, come enlightened decisions. People’s expectations of me can never equal what is expected of me by God.

July 16. Is there any subject on which you feel sensitive? If so, decide, “I will change myself.” A sore spot on the body tells us something is wrong there. When people “rub you the wrong way,” see what is wrong in you, that you’ve been made to flinch.

July 25. Why is there so much violence in the world? Surely it is that people are disharmonious in themselves. Today’s terrorists imagine they’ll improve the world by making it over in their own image. Were they ever to succeed in destroying everyone who disagreed with them, they’d only turn their energies to butchering one another. Ultimately, the only way for the world to know peace is for people everywhere to seek it within themselves.

July 27. Never resort to self-justification. If people are interested in hearing your explanation, state the facts simply and impersonally, but never descend to the embarrassment of self-defense.

Aug. 23. Live as much as possible at the center between every duality. Everything is dual; that is how the one Spirit manifested its Creation. Every up is balanced by a down; light is always balanced by darkness; pleasure, by pain; emotional love, by hatred. I say “emotional love,” because there is no opposite to divine love. Nor is there a balancing opposite to divine joy. Eternal truths lie at the center between all opposites. Therefore I say, live more at that center: in the heart center, or chakra, of your own spine.

*From the Forthcoming book, Do It Well, (a completely revised version of Do It Now), Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Clarity Magazine articles can be printed in “text only” format, using your own computer.

In this letter Swami Kriyananda responds to the question: What exactly do we mean by saying we have been given free will? If all actions are done by God, how are we free?

Dear ___________

I’ll be glad to try to answer your questions.

First, soul freedom is a reality, but it must be understood on a deeper level than that of the ego.

Freedom, to begin with, is true only of the soul. Limitation of all kinds is the meaning of bondage, and ego-consciousness is the greatest limitation of all, from which all others proceed. Ego makes us think we have a separate, individual reality.

As waves on the sea appear individual, yet have no lasting reality except as manifestations of that one great body of water, so we ourselves, in ego-consciousness, rise and fall, wavelike, on the ocean of God’s consciousness, success followed by failure, happiness followed by sorrow, fulfillment followed by frustration, ever subject to the contrasting states of duality. Our separateness from the ocean, however, and even from one another is a mere appearance. Man may be described as simply a bundle of self-definitions.

Paramhansa Yogananda described divine consciousness as “center everywhere, circumference nowhere.” Man’s limited existence is the “circumference” formed by his egoic self-definitions. When those limiting self-definitions are removed or dissolved, nothing remains to prevent his consciousness from merging into and becoming one with God. In that stage it is not that we lose all identity; rather, we expand our identity to infinity.

Being omniscient, it must be added that we retain the memory of having been, each one of us, a separate ego. In this way, Yogananda explained, nothing is lost in the Infinite—not even the ego. We can revive that memory of individual existence again, if ever the Divine wills that we return to earth to uplift and save other wandering souls.

Man cannot be free in ego-consciousness, except in the sense that his soul-consciousness within him can impel him to direct his energies and aspirations toward God, or toward maya. Everything man does in his egoic state is conditioned by his own past actions, and by the countless outside influences to which he is subject. For man is integrally a part of the great Web of Existence. Egoic individuality is an illusion.

Man has only this much freedom: his soul, being a part of God, is not separate from Infinity. Thus, all of us in our souls have the power either to turn toward God or to reject Him; to love Him, or to spurn Him. This, in essence, is our only true freedom. Since karma and worldly influences prevent him from expressing that freedom, it must be added that man is free also to the extent that he can free his mind from all habits and separative samskars.

In other words, if he is self-controlled he has greater freedom than someone who is completely bound by habits. Good qualities, which are the attributes of Sattwa guna, cannot in themselves bring release from ego. All qualities, however noble, being born of ego-consciousness, conceal the inner soul. The Gita tells us they hide it as smoke hides a fire: A little puff of wind, and the fire becomes fully visible.

Sattwa guna is like a thin veil covering soul-consciousness and concealing it. A little meditative effort is all that is needed in order to blow away the last delusions of egoic separateness.

The darkening qualities of Tamo guna, on the other hand, form a thick covering which conceals the soul within them as if in deep darkness. The Gita compares Tamo guna to an embryo in the womb: Time alone will enable the embryo to emerge into the clear light of day.

God does indeed do everything, but He also created delusion, and operates through the three gunas to bring about His cosmic magic show. We cannot operate through the ego without becoming intrinsic parts of the cosmic illusion. Hence, in our egos we are free only to the extent that we turn back, even with great effort, toward God. Only as we shed ego-consciousness can we reclaim our divine freedom, which means becoming one with God again.

I hope this answer proves helpful.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

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Our Guru seldom praised me for my labor. But he did, sometimes, praise me for my devotion. For he was more anxious that we work to develop and perfect ourselves in this heavenly quality than that we do tremendous outward labor, but in forgetfulness of God. The chief purpose of his mission was to teach us, and all people, an inner, divine productivity.

I knew Master three and a half years. And if there is one point that stands out in my throng of sweet memories, it is the fact that what pleased him always, above everything else, was devotion, and a constant inward remembrance of God. Good work without devotion might have impressed him, but it never thrilled his heart.

How many weep for the Divine Mother as Master wept when he was a boy? Our greatest work in life should be to express that divine yearning, that love. When we can reflect it, we shall be able to work ten times as hard, and a hundred times as effectively, as we do when we draw only on our own scanty powers. When we think of the Lord first, our hearts sing for joy and all our work goes easily.

We must discipline the mind! Divine Mother has given us a project more urgent than the printing of any book, and that is to learn to live constantly in the consciousness of Her. Her deadline of death is more important, and less alterable, than any publishing date.

Our work should be a conscious, loving service to the Lord. It should be a devotional offering to Him.

*Excerpted from Letters to Truth Seekers, copyrighted 1973 (Currently out-of-print).

Who among these, then, was the more truly wealthy? It isn’t merely a matter of how much you have, but rather of how well you know how to use what you have. Wealth cannot be equated with some fixed quantity. If one is wealthy in his mind, or in his spirit, he may require very few material possessions to be perfectly satisfied with life. If, on the other hand, one considers himself wealthy only for his material riches, he may be convinced he is poor even if he has fifty million dollars, perhaps only because some former classmate of his has ninety million.

Wealth is the consciousness of abundance. And poverty is the consciousness of lack. Wealth and poverty are both states of mind. You are as rich, or as poor, as you believe yourself to be.

Essential to my theme in this book is the importance of the right mental attitude, not only for defining the parameters of happiness intelligently, but also for attracting wealth in the first place.

The purpose of this book is to help you to attract money in such a way as not to make it a burden on your peace of mind, but a doorway, rather, to genuine opportunity. It is to help you to learn how to use money wisely, in such a way as to acquire the greatest possible benefits for yourself and for others.

*Excerpted from Money Magnetism by Swami Kriyananda

Resource:
To view Crystal Clarity Publishers’ “Leadership & Money” section, click here

He was no misanthrope, shunning the society of men because they displeased him. He loved people, and endeared himself to them by his kindness, his wit, his ability to inspire them. But he wanted God, and he knew that to find the Supreme One he would have to be one-pointed in his inner search.

After coming to the hermitage of his guru, Sri Yukteswar, he became if possible more in earnest than ever. Other disciples talked instead of meditating. Yogananda spent many hours in solitary communion.

Other disciples forgot God, whether they worked or loafed. Yogananda kept his mind all day long focused at the Christ center, mentally talking to Divine Mother. Wherever he went, in his heart there was a never-ending song of divine love.

He had been sent to earth charged with a tremendous mission. Lesser teachers would have bowed under the mere thought of the responsibilities involved. Lesser teachers would have destroyed their health and their peace of mind worrying, struggling frantically to get everything done. They would have consumed themselves with a sense of their own importance.

But Yogananda never forgot for an instant that the real Doer was God. He was only an instrument. God’s was the hand that guided that instrument. Inwardly, he was always free and at peace.

When organizational responsibilities threatened to take his mind from the Divine Mother, he never said, “Well, I will do this work first; it is more important. Later I shall think of God.” “No work is possible,” he wrote, “without the power to perform it borrowed from Thee.”

He would put everything aside to chant or meditate until his mind was firmly rooted in God. Only then would he return to his work. That is how he was able to accomplish such tremendous things in his life. He never acted from ego-consciousness.

Man’s power is limited, but God’s is without limitation. And always Yogananda’s prayer was, “Lord, guide and strengthen me, for without Thy help I can do nothing.”

*Excerpted from Letters to Truth Seekers, copyrighted 1973. (Currently out-of-print)

1. Blocks distracting odors
Often, during meditation, the nearby odors from such things as car exhausts, food cooking, cigarette smoke, or even upholstery in the room where one sits can be distracting to the mind, and indeed may also awaken mental associations that have nothing in common with the mood of inner upliftment.

The gentle, pervasive scent of incense can help to block that often-bewildering diversity of smells, smoothing them out into a single, prolonged, and continuous sensation that itself, especially with repeated association, becomes uplifting. Gradually that one, over-all scent becomes an aid, not a distraction, in directing the mind one-pointedly toward contemplating higher realities.

2. Creates an uplifted mood
A second benefit from incense pertains to the sense of smell itself, which is said to be the most memory-stimulating of the five senses. How often does the smell of something become immediately associated in our minds with some memory—perhaps from years ago, perhaps even from our early childhood.

The regular use of incense during devotional and meditative practices gradually causes an association of that scent with those practices. Thus, the scent helps one to return more instantly, without effort, to an uplifted mood.

3. Helps to focus the mind
The third benefit is more particular. During the yoga practice of watching the breath, the best place to concentrate on the flow of breath is the point where it enters the body. I don’t mean the nostrils, but rather where the breath enters the head. This point is, of course, quite close to the point between the eyebrows, the Christ center recommended in yoga teachings as the best point at which to focus one’s concentration.

An awareness of the scent of incense at that point, and the association of the scent itself with devotional upliftment, help one to keep the mind focused on the breath entering and leaving the body.

Excerpted from a longer article in Religion and the New Age, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To read the full article, click here

You don’t have to be a slave to your bad karma. It was energy you put out in the past that created that karma, and if you put out the necessary energy now, you can get rid of it. Every hardship you meet with the right attitude and energy makes you stronger and helps to rid you of some of that karmic burden.

Accepting what is
There are two things we can do to get through life’s difficult periods. We must learn to accept the difficulties and also to overcome them—and we must learn to do both.

When I say that we must learn to accept the difficulties I’m not saying that if the world treats you badly, you should get a hangdog expression and wait to be kicked again. You don’t have to do that, but you don’t have to fight back either.

Success depends to a great extent on one’s willingness to accept reality as it is: as something to be faced if you don’t have the ability to control it. When you accept reality as it is, your energy becomes positive and that positive mental attitude, if directed wisely, will help you transform failure into success.

The real source of success
When I speak of success, I mean the kind of success you attain by sheer hard work. There’s success that comes to you on a platter due to past good karma, but if you just passively ride that wave, you’re not making progress. The energy you put out is the real source of your success.

I knew a group of people who were starting a company and kept talking about all the millions they would make. But I could see that they weren’t putting out the energy necessary to get those millions, and the business never did get off the ground.

Often the most successful people are those who have had the most to overcome because they’ve had to put out a great deal of energy to transcend their challenges. So don’t worry about the obstacles you’re facing. See them simply as things to overcome. If you put out the necessary energy, the results will take care of themselves.

Focused, solution-conscious energy
Success at anything depends upon concentrated energy. One-pointed concentration, if directed with will power and energy, generates a magnetic field that can attract success.

So, do everything with keen interest. People who work with only half their mind focused on their task never really succeed.

Equally important is solution consciousness. Don’t mix with people who only see the obstacles, but with those who find solutions and succeed in their efforts. At Ananda, when I see people with problem consciousness, I keep them at a distance. I don’t mean to be unfriendly to anyone, but low energy people can pull you down with their failure consciousness.

The solutions to our challenges are in the ether. When you’re solution conscious, you put out the kind of magnetism that attracts success, and a higher force begins working in your life. You’ll be amazed how often answers come to you, sometimes out of the blue.

Similarly, when you become deeply concentrated, as in meditation, you reach a superconscious level of awareness, and at that level, God can work through you. By becoming open to His inspiration, you can accomplish things well beyond your self-perceived abilities.

People are really seeking happiness
What we’re really looking for when we think of success is happiness. Many people think, “When I have money, I’ll be happy.” The truth is that people with a great deal of money are often among the most miserable.

Nor does human love bring you happiness. That, perhaps, is the greatest delusion of all. Everybody wants a mate and I’m not saying it’s a bad thing in itself, but it’s such a compromise with what the heart really wants. We’re looking for perfection of love, and we won’t find it in another person. In fact, you won’t find fulfillment in anything unless you have it in yourself.

The success you’re looking for doesn’t depend on anything external; it depends on your attitudes and inner self. The more you can share whatever life gives you with others, the more you will find the kind of success you’re really looking for—which is happiness.

Seek the best for everyone
I was in Sicily a few years ago, and I went into a shop to buy a hat to protect me from the sun. I don’t usually wear hats so I asked the woman there, “Which hat do your customers like best?” She said, “They pay me and they leave. I have no more interest in them.”

I said, “Here you are, wasting eight hours a day just thinking of how much money you’re going to get, and not seeing these people as an opportunity to make friends? You’re not finding happiness in your work because you’re not thinking of how to make other people happy. What is the use of living like that?” I left, and I didn’t buy a hat.

The next year I was again in that town. I happened to be walking past this woman’s shop, and she was outside. She came up to me with tears in her eyes and said, “Thank you. You taught me a very good lesson.” She was weeping because it was so important to her to have understood that simple principle.

When a person seeks the best for everyone, actively and generously, his chances of finding happiness are great. This is why Jesus Christ said, “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” When you give, you feel more bliss because you’re expanding beyond the little ego.

Leveling out the duality
The world has a million ways of involving you. The more you get caught up in the outward expression of life, the more you will have to deal with the duality of it. Every success will be balanced by a failure, every victory by a defeat.

But the more you can remain even-minded and cheerful at all times, the more you can level out the duality and achieve the kind of success that is worthwhile. It depends entirely upon your courage and equanimity, especially your refusal to be upset when things don’t go well.

When William the Conqueror landed in England, the first thing he did was fall in the sand, and a gasp of horror went through his entire army. They were thinking, “Oh, what a bad omen. We’ve come to conquer a country and the first thing our leader does is fall down flat on his hands and knees.”

But William was a man of extraordinary courage. He said, “I am so determined to grasp this country that I have taken it in both my hands!” And everybody cheered.

If you take everything that comes to you with that kind of attitude, the worst failure can bring success. I’ve had many failures in my life. I’m grateful for them because they’ve helped me to develop the power to find the success I truly want.

Seek success in the Self
How do you develop that power? The more you can live centered in the spine, the less anything will affect you. This is why Kriya Yoga is such an important science. Kriya helps you to get control over the energy in your spine and to raise your energy and consciousness completely toward God, who is beyond the states of duality.

When your mind is settled within, you find that you are always happy because you experience the joy of the soul, to which there is no opposite joy. You are joy. It’s not something you achieve by getting anything.

Hold your consciousness up
Always remember that God is not up in the heavens. He’s part of your own consciousness. The more you open yourself to Him, the more whatever you need— opportunities, inspiration, understanding—will come to you. But if you turn away from Him, even a little, you begin to lose that grace.

You have to hold your consciousness constantly up to Him. If you can do this, you’ll find success in whatever you do, and also the highest kind of success — realizing God’s bliss within.

From a July 26, 2008 talk in Los Angeles and Material Success through Yoga Principles.

Resources:
How to Be a Success by Paramhansa Yogananda

Sometimes that’s also all you can do with yourself. You’re not able to understand something mentally, but if you do the right things by living in a godly way, gradually the energy flow will be right and mental clarity will follow.

Learning by doing
My Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, sometimes wouldn’t even allow us to talk about things. Instead, he would give us certain things to do because only in the process of doing them would the understanding come. He’d put us in situations where we would have to learn our lessons, and once we’d learned them through that experience, we had something worthwhile.

For example, there was a young man at the SRF Lake Shrine in Pacific Palisades who each day was given the job of clambering up and down the steep and rather muddy hillside watering the plants with the hose. The work was wet, muddy, and cold, and he just hated it.

Yogananda never sat him down and said, “Look it’s good for you to learn to accept whatever you have to do. It’s good for you to overcome your likes and dislikes.” He never gave him any kind of explanation at all. He just let him fight it out within himself.

Every morning this young man woke up thinking, “God, I hope I’m not given that job again,” and every morning he was given that job. Finally he woke up one morning saying, “Well, if I’m going to be given this job, I might as well learn to enjoy it. So today I’m going to enjoy it.” He went to breakfast actually looking forward to the work. And that was the day he was taken off that job.

Again and again I have seen that we learn our lessons by going through certain experiences, not by mentally learning them. It probably took this young man quite a while to be able to look back and say, “Oh, that’s what I learned by that experience.” That’s certainly been my experience with lessons I’ve learned. Often I would know that I had changed, but sometimes it took quite awhile, even years, for me to understand exactly what the change was.

Avoid an overly mental approach
Our culture is far too overbalanced on the side of intellect. It’s very important not to rely too much on mental understanding. We think we’re going to understand something when our brain has grasped it, but often the brain is a barrier to understanding.

People in this country have fewer spiritual experiences than in many other countries because we’re so intellectual, so rational. Sometimes a person may get into a deep state of meditation and suddenly start seeing lights, or feeling an expansion of consciousness. Then the mind says, “Wait a minute, I’ve got to understand this.” And the experience is gone.

You don’t have to pick a thing apart and understand it with your brain. In fact, an overly mental approach can actually hinder you from ever really understanding something.  People who think too much go in circles and are often in a continual mental cloud.

I remember a woman at SRF headquarters in Los Angeles who wrote letters. She would spend days on one letter, thinking that if she could just say it exactly right, she would be able to manipulate and guide the development of SRF’s work in Europe. And the longer she wrote, the worse it became.

She finally began to lose her own common sense and become slightly crazy because she thought that everything had to come from the brain. She had the idea that she was keeping these centers in Europe from exploding. And it just became too much for her. She exploded.

True understanding is intuitive
Understanding never comes on a purely rational level. It comes on an intuitive level, and the more we seek that plane of understanding, the more we’ll understand.

Sometimes when trying to discipline or train someone, Yogananda would say something totally irrational. Faced with a statement that made no sense at all, the person would just stop for a moment in amazement. Yogananda’s only purpose was to get that person to stop for a moment in amazement, so his brain would quiet down. And when his brain was calm, Yogananda was able to speak in a way that would reach those deeper intuitive levels where understanding really occurs.

You understand a thing when you are that. You develop humility not by analyzing it but by doing those things that will help to instill humility—acting for God, acting without desire for the fruits of action, seeing God as the Doer. Even if you can’t explain it clearly, you will have become that.

So the important thing is to get into the practice of doing what you need to do. You don’t have to understand; you simply need to do it.

A process of attunement
The other thing to keep in mind is that it’s not what you do that imparts the spiritual lesson. It’s using what you do to attune yourself to the consciousness that can flow through your service.

Ramakrishna used to tell a lovely story of a play about Krishna in which the audience could see two rooms with a divider between them. Krishna was in one room and the gopis were in the other room singing, “Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna, Krishna, Hare, Hare,” and getting more and more excited. Krishna paid them no attention. He just went on doing certain things.

After the gopis left, Radha came into the room and sat down. She softly said, “Oh, Krishna.” Krishna dropped everything and ran to be with Radha. Why?  Because she had called with her soul. In whatever work we do, we need to do it with our souls — in attunement with God. Some people can give a beautiful sermon simply by walking silently down the street. You feel their peace.

The more we use our service to attune ourselves with the Divine, the more we begin to express Him and the more things go right. And we don’t even know how it happens. It just does.

Excerpted from the following recordings: The State of Superconsciousness, and Receptivity. To buy a recording (CD or MP3) call Treasures Along the Path, (530) 478 7656 or email treasures@ananda.org.

Dear ——:

In any line of work one can’t expect constant wins. What one loses, however, if one reacts unhappily, is that people hesitate even to offer suggestions. In time, they begin seeking help elsewhere, even if they like your ideas better than someone else’s. After all, who wants to face a possible upset when one is only trying to get a job done?

Can’t you see that your distress over their reactions, and not your actual work, is what makes them so often skirt around you rather than work with you? Who wants to upset you? No one! Their natural reaction will be to avoid you, even for your sake.

My point here is that what we need to do in life is seek reactions that work for us, reactions that are useful. The only person who suffers when we allow negative thoughts to intrude is ourselves. And who wants to suffer?

The world is not out to get you. If, however, you keep feeling misjudged and unappreciated, people will leave you to yourself, for your peace of mind as much as for theirs. They’ll suffer in doing so, but who wants disharmony if he can avoid it? And you will suffer even more. Why? It’s all completely unnecessary!

When others don’t like some idea you come up with, don’t look on it as a failure. It’s your discouragement that is your failure—a spiritual failure. For you are on the spiritual path to grow spiritually! The first thing is to develop a right attitude. What you do in your work is of minor importance. What you do in your work on yourself is of major importance, and is the only thing God wants of you.

Be stronger in yourself. Absolutely refuse to feel sorry for yourself. The truth is, whatever attitude you put out will be a magnet that draws back to yourself situations that reflect your expectation. If the attitude is negative, the “echo” will be negative also. If it is positive, everything will turn positive for you. It is you who create your own universe!

Remember, finally, that people like working with others who like working with them. It’s all that simple! Try to learn this truth! It will be the cornerstone of anything you build of your own happiness and fulfillment.

In divine friendship,

Swami Kriyananda

I thought it might be useful to talk about things I have learned from my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda.

True Learning Is Not Intellectual

He talked to our souls: With Master, learning was a form of recognition; it was not intellectual.  He would state truths so as to reach your soul, and your soul would rise in recognition to whatever level it could. In a group, each person might understand him differently.

Those who teach on behalf of Ananda should remember this truth: People will understand according to their own maturity. Don’t feel you have to hammer your points. Touch on them lightly. Those who are ready to learn will understand, and those who aren’t will let it pass.

Always a deep message: In everything Master said or did there was a deep message. He didn’t explain himself; he expected us to intuit his meaning. Over the years, I’ve come to understand his meaning on deeper and deeper levels.

Once, for example, I asked one of the monks if Master was doing things in certain ways to teach us organization? “Organization, heck!” He replied. “All he ever does is disorganize!” Well, that attitude took him off the path. But I felt he must be teaching us something, and I later understood he was teaching us that you don’t organize things; you go by an intuitive flow. This is how I built Ananda.

One with the Infinite

The Infinite in human form: Master said, “Don’t focus on this personality.” He never would tell his age and urged us not to tell ours. He said, “I have no age; I feel timeless.”

I never focused on his personality. I would look into his eyes and there was no ego; he was the infinite consciousness in that form. But he was also a person and it’s through the guru’s humanity that we can begin to understand the different aspects of God (love, joy, peace) and what we need to become.

The highest octave of human love is the unconditional love a guru gives to a disciple, which means that he’ll hang on to you until you find God. To find God, we must learn to love Him the same way: unconditionally.

“The blueprint”: He never gave us any “blueprint.” He said again and again, “The blueprint is in the ether.” It was through my attunement with him, and having to understand his will from within, that I knew what to do. He would sometimes give little suggestions or hints, but he didn’t tell me.

When people ask, “What is the blueprint for Ananda?” I say, “God will show us.” Each step of the way he shows us what we should do. God’s will is not fixed and determined; it depends on many things. Yogananda himself would sometimes look for signs.

For example, I was to go to India with him in 1951 but he said, “Don’t tell anybody.”  One of the monks tricked me into telling him and he complained to Master, who took it as Divine Mother’s sign that he shouldn’t go that year.

God through him: A monk once said to him, “Whenever I see you I see Divine Mother.” Master said, “Then behave accordingly.” He always knew it was Divine Mother working through him.

It’s important that we, too, in working with people, learn to allow the Divine to work through us. For teaching and leadership that’s very important. Be in the Self; let God do it through you.

The most important thing you can do in any work is to put your vibrations into it. Master said that when you lecture don’t think only in terms of words; put your vibrations into the words. Your vibrations will change people more than anything else.

Learning from His Example

Always positive: Through Master I learned that the answer to everything is to have a positive attitude. Some disciples have described him as a stern disciplinarian and intolerant of anything being wrong.  He wasn’t that way at all. Once he entered the monks’ dining room when it was an absolute mess. He sat down and said, “Well, it might be worse.”

Whenever he encouraged us to strive to be better, it was always in a positive way. I once behaved very judgmentally toward a devotee who loved visiting Master but never kept his appointments with me to learn the meditation techniques. When he next visited Master I was present, and I wouldn’t even look at him.

Master later said, “How dry you were with him. How many people would still be here if I had been so judgmental of them?”

He taught me to be loving, forgiving, and to always look for the good in people. When you look for the good in people, you see God there. You can help them if you focus on their goodness. If you criticize them, they erect defenses.

Listen to others: He taught me to listen to others. One time he was telling me a story and I anticipated the ending and gave it. He calmly went on and stated it himself—it was a  little different from what I’d said. Then he looked at me and I understood: I should not be bristling with my own opinions.

Always listen to what other people have to say before you answer. Don’t jump in there bristling with your opinions.

Humility: Master was so humble and childlike. He sometimes spoke with firmness but he never put himself above anybody. He was completely capable of saying, “Well, I was wrong then.” That was his greatness.

Credit to his gurus: Master always gave credit to his line of gurus.  Somebody asked him once, “Why are you teaching the Bhagavad Gita and the Bible, especially?” He answered, “This is what Babaji wants.”

In the chapter, “The Resurrection of Sri Yukteswar” in Autobiography of a Yogi, Master describes himself as awestruck at what he was learning from his Guru in 1936. In 1932, however, Master had written an article giving those same descriptions of the astral world.  He already knew it all, but he gave credit to his Guru.

The last word: I noticed many times that he would leave the last word with other people. For example, when he discussed Mahatma Gandhi and nonviolence in Autobiography of a Yogi, he left the last word with Gandhi even though he didn’t fully share his views. Master believed in nonviolence as an inward attitude, but he said there are times when you must do certain things for a higher motive.

Respect for everyone: It was wonderful how he had respect for everybody. Once there was an Indian man who was a bit drunk and being too familiar with Master. In Bengali, Debi, one of the monks, said something deprecating about the man. Master signaled to Debi to stop. Master saw the man with respect as a child of God.

Always have that little distance of respect for those closest to you. Respect will endure under all circumstances.

True to myself: He allowed me to be true to myself. Some of my fellow disciples would say to me, “Don’t you think you should be so and so?” Master never said that to me. He told me what he thought I should do, and I did it, but he allowed me to be true to myself.

It’s important for a teacher to allow each person to be himself. An institution will try to mold you into one form and make you toe that line. I don’t ever want Ananda to do that.

“A Saint Is a Sinner Who Never Gave Up”

Our highest potential: Master always saw us in our highest potential. He said, “A saint is a sinner who never gave up.” No matter how many faults a person had, he would always try to help them aim for the highest.

This was perhaps the most important thing he gave me. There were times when I felt discouraged, but I always remembered that saying, “a saint is a sinner who never gave up,” and I kept trying. We should always see ourselves as potential saints.

Attunement and right effort: What Master emphasized most with the disciples was, “to be in tune,” to open our hearts to him and ask him to take charge of our lives. We have to act, but we should always ask Master to guide our thoughts and show us what he wants.

Ask him even in little things, “What should I do?” If you make a mistake, say, “God, I want to be good, help me to be good.” His help will be there.

Unconditional love: One time he had been away and I felt a deep longing to see him. I drove down to Encinitas and he welcomed me with great love. He said, “I have missed you.”

That same night, I was with the monks and we were discussing a book one of them had read, and I lost a little of that attunement. The next day, at the San Diego church, Master blessed me and said, “I have missed you.” It was a slight reprimand. I had fallen a little in my attunement but his love was always there.

How often I have remembered that occasion to help me understand that he loves me, no matter what. He loves everyone that way.

Share with Others

How to use money: Master said if you use money for the welfare of others, then you grow spiritually and it’s a great blessing, but if you use it only for yourself, then it becomes a misfortune.

I once saw a group of gypsies begging outside Calcutta and one of them was a young girl whose look said, “What am I doing here?” She appeared to be a reincarnated queen who had lost everything through selfishness.

The truest disciples: There were two prayers Master said were the greatest. One was, “I will reason, I will will, I will act, but guide Thou my reason, will, and activity to the right path in everything.” The other was, “Give me Thyself, that I may give Thee to all.”

I believe the truest disciples of Master are those who try to share the blessings they’ve received with others. That was the essence of his life.

Resources: My life With Master (Yogananda)

It is love of God that gives you the power, as Paramhansa Yogananda put it, “to stand unshaken amidst the crash of breaking worlds.” This is something to remember, to write on your heart, because it’s the truth: Nothing will take you down if you inwardly always love God.

In fact, when you’re really in love with God and in tune with the divine flow, you find that nothing else matters very much. You understand that things happen as they ought to and that ultimately, everything works out for the best.

Let God solve your problems
People who are very worldly have a tendency to laugh at devotees as “impractical.” What they can’t figure out is why things somehow go so well for those devotees who don’t worry too much about any of the things worldly people consider so important.

But when you love God and put your trust in him, you find that He solves your problems for you, through you. All you need is to be enough in tune and your intuition will guide you. The way to achieve that attunement is through devotion and, in that devotion, to uplift yourself in Him and let Him work through you.

A very interesting case in that context is that of Jacinta, one of the three children in Fatima in Portugal who had the visions of the Madonna in 1917. Jacinta was seven years old and lived in a tiny village. Her entire life was one of devotion, prayer, and helping others through prayer.

Because of her devotion, and the intuition that resulted, she was able to give counseling to adults concerning the kinds of problems and difficulties that only adults have. She was able to understand their problems, not necessarily from the mind, but she said things that showed a deep understanding was coming through her.

That kind of understanding comes from being in tune with the divine flow. Saint Teresa of Avila said, “In a moment of ecstasy, you understand things that it would take you many years of study to grasp on a mental level.”

The mind functions at a very low level of your total potential but in ecstasy, in that experience of oneness with the Divine, suddenly you understand. You understand how God manifests in the world—how He manifests through languages, through food, through the flow of history, through an individual’s problems. You understand without reading, studying or thinking.

God watches the heart
I have often seen people on the spiritual path who think they can have their feet in two boats, who think they can combine a worldly life and a spiritual life and do well at both. Rama Krishna used the illustration of a woman who had lost her husband and before casting herself on the ground in an “agony of bereavement,” carefully removed her glasses and jewelry for fear of breaking them.

Many people pretend great love for God, but first they want to be sure that everything’s in order, that the stock market’s behaving itself, and that they’ve been practical on every possible level. They say, “Oh, Lord, I give myself to you,” but one eye is on the door to make sure it’s locked.

It’s not possible to have your feet in two boats. Inevitably, a moment of decision will arrive and it will be necessary to decide whether to please the world or to take the more difficult step of pleasing God. God watches the heart. If you love Him but give Him a secondary place in your heart, He won’t be able to come to you.

What is true devotion?
True devotion means to love God purely and not to think of anything except, “I long to know You. I long to serve You. I long to be one with You.” In pure love, there are no ulterior motives, no likes and dislikes, only the desire to please Him.

Saint Thérèse of Lisieux said, “I would like to go to hell to be able to love God even there.” It is beautiful to think: “Wherever I am, I don’t want to lose my love for You, Lord. This would be the worst possible mistake. You can put me wherever You wish, if You give me the grace not to lose my love for You. This is all I ask.”

So pray for devotion. It’s a gift of God and by your very act of prayer you will be putting out the magnetism to draw that gift to you. Pray this simple prayer as often as you remember: “Divine Mother, awaken your love in me, and then help me to awaken that love in all.”

When you meditate, do so with an attitude of self-giving, with no thought of any reward, only of His pleasure. Try to develop the kind of love that says, “I want Him now but if it be His will, I’m willing to wait forever.” The more you offer yourself up to Him in that way, the more His love will be able to flow through you.

“God, my life is in your hands”
A very good attitude to have when difficulties and trials come to you suddenly is: “God, my life is in your hands.” Try to develop that attitude by practicing over a period of time until you can come up with it instantly. It’s very helpful to imagine the worst.

God will give you joy if you live in Him and even if calamities come to you, his blessing will be there. People who leave their bodies with God in their hearts don’t suffer; any pain they might feel is minimized or non-existent. Those who die thinking of God or for God, like a Joan of Arc, go in bliss.

If in the face of death itself you feel joy, that itself is a great victory. All victory depends upon being in tune with God, the source of all truth. So try to love in a divine, unconditional way as much as possible.

Excerpted from September 2008 talks at Ananda Village and the following recordings: Devotion vs. Emotion; Overcoming Obstacles to Spiritual Growth; and The Wisdom of the Heart. To buy a recording (CD or MP3) call Treasures Along the Path, (530) 478-7656

In all sincerity our first concern can only be for those whose suffering is right now. I cannot honestly spare my heart’s love for the people who perpetrated this suffering. Nor can I love them for the hatred and anger by which they define themselves. Yes, I love their souls, but I must leave their salvation to God. Within my own limited scope of feeling, my love must go primarily to those who are now suffering.

Surely, in an abstract sense I can love those enemies also, but they have invited God’s retribution for their crime. They have lessons to learn if they are ever to become receptive to God’s grace. While I’ve no desire to see them suffer, I leave the state of their souls to God; my present energy is for those whom they have made to suffer. The important thing is not to be drawn into reflecting others’ negative emotions.

What, then, do I pray for? I pray for myself, that I become a clear channel for God’s grace. My prayer goes to my fellow human beings, too, that as many be strengthened as I can reach in the divine light.

An ocean consists of countless little drops of water. If each of us, like those drops, offers himself up to God, praying, “Lord, use me as You will. Give me the strength to channel Your kindness and love to all—impersonally, not with personal pride or desire”—I think we will have done the most we can possibly do.

Thus only may we help most greatly our poor, belabored earth, beset as it is by hatred and ignorance. If we understand that, by loving, it is God’s love we express, He will surely flow through any barrier we erect of ego and self-interest, and uplift significantly the consciousness of the world.

One raindrop adds but a little moisture to the earth. Once, however, it unites with enough other raindrops, they become a mighty torrent of water flowing down to the sea. So also we, by uniting our energy and directing it toward the ocean of divine consciousness, can participate in the great drama that is being waged between the forces of light and of darkness.

In Master’s love,

Swami Kriyananda

From In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Nowadays if a person wants to spend all of their time in spiritual pursuits, there is the question of how they will survive. In India, a person who wants to give his life completely to God is supported. People there believe in this way of life and feel that they will get good karma by helping others pursue it.

The way of a sadhu
The classic way of a sadhu is to sit in one place and meditate. People bring him food if they wish to and if not, he’ll go without food that day. A sadhu will sometimes go from house to house, but he never asks for anything; he just stands there. If people wish to give to him they can; if not, he goes on.

He depends completely upon God but within the framework of a society whose teachings support this way of life. This is the ideal, and there are those who, because of this system, are able to dedicate all their energies to seeking God.

That time will come
My dream is for something similar here at Ananda, but it won’t come about quickly. In the West there have been monastic communities in the past that were supported by a church and a large congregation of believers. Today, however, the monasteries are practically empty because people aren’t able to understand the relevance of that way of life.

When we can bring society as a whole up to a level where people commonly include God in their lives, then it will it be time for the next stage, where a group of people can meditate and chant twenty hours a day. That time will come. For now, however, our duty is to seek God but also to help the world.

A hunger for spiritual values
The first step is to create communities like Ananda to bring back spiritual values. Today spiritual values have been eclipsed by the dry, rationalistic approach of modern science. There is such an emphasis on facts and reason, and such a fear of the “corrupting” influence of feeling, that people believe you must exclude all feeling in order to see things clearly.

Feeling, however, is one of the most important aspects of finding truth, even in the scientific world. Einstein said that great scientific discoveries aren’t possible without a sense of mystic awe before the universe. It’s that sense of awe, of feeling, that uplifts the consciousness to where it can receive the intuitions that permit great discoveries.

Society has lost touch with that level of intuition, and one finds, in many parts of the world, a growing hunger for spiritual values and a new consciousness emerging. But it’s unfocused; people don’t know how to express it. They don’t understand that to live spiritually means to live in the consciousness of God, and to bring Him into every aspect of life: work, marriage, child-raising, money, recreation—into everything.

Small communities like Ananda, where people can create new models of living based on spiritual values, will bring this new consciousness into enough focus that it will have the clarity and magnetism to inspire others.

A new kind of marriage
Marriage is one area of life very much in need of redefining. I had a very interesting discussion about this with friends who wanted to join Ananda and weren’t married. I said, “Why, if you have this love for each other, don’t you get married?”

Their response was surprising. They said that a number of their friends had lived together happily for years without being married. After they married, within six months they were divorced.

The couple explained: Without marriage these friends were able to define their own relationship. As soon as they took the formal step of marriage, suddenly there was this weight of social conditioning that says, “Now that you’re my spouse, you’re supposed to treat me a certain way.” With all these new expectations, the relationship became a burden they weren’t able to handle.

A broadening of ideals
Marriage, to be successful, must be based on a free sharing, not on a mutual sense of obligation. Obligation can be another form of bondage. When married people look at each other with the thought, “What’s in it for me?” love flies out the window.

We need to stop thinking of marriage as a closed corporation. Marriage should be a means of dedicating oneself to a broadening of ideals, of vision. It should be a means by which two people give each other the strength to reach out and embrace the world, not to create a little castle with a mote that excludes the world.

Unfortunately, people are not raised to think expansively. There is, rather, a growing tendency in society these days to think in terms of what the world owes us, and of getting ours, rather than of what each of us, personally, can do for others, and for the world, to make it a better place to live in.

Attitudes such as these are threatening the very structure of society. We are living in an atomic age, and if we are to have the maturity to deal with the challenges posed by weapons that can kill millions at a time, we must learn to think in new ways.

Attunement with nature
Our relationship with nature is another area of life in need of redefining. We must realize that we have a responsibility not only to unborn generations but also to this planet that has lovingly given us birth.

To think that we can plunder the planet and take all of its resources for this generation’s needs is totally irresponsible. The saints in India say that the planet has become so erratic in recent years because people are no longer in tune with the harmony of nature. That’s why we have floods, droughts, excessively cold weather, and similar extremes.

Reawakening the divine forces
The divine forces are leaving this planet because we give them no attention. The spring box near my home at Ananda Village is an example. When I bought the land I was told that the spring had never gone dry. Yet, when we moved there, it was giving us only one or two gallons a minute.

I kept insisting that there was more water, and eventually the others started clearing out the spring box, cleaning the spring. More and more water began to come until very soon we were getting ten to fifteen gallons a minute.

Just as a spring goes dry if it isn’t regularly flushed out and used, so also does the flow of the Divine in nature close down if we ignore it. It’s like a person to whom you don’t give appreciation; gradually he stops giving. In our relationship with nature, as with people, there has to be reciprocity.

We recently started the “nature channels” at Ananda to try to reawaken the divine forces. As each person makes it his or her particular mission to see God in the trees, rivers, stars, or some other aspect of nature, it will help to re-open those channels for the Divine.

A shared vision
Ananda can bring these and other areas of life to a focus through expansive new models. By living according to high ideals and setting that example, we will make a tremendous impact for good on society.

Recently a friend said, “I think that Ananda is the most important thing happening on this planet.” I didn’t say what you might expect, “I’m glad you think so.” I spoke rather from a sense of certainty and said, “Yes, I know it is.”

It’s not that Ananda specifically is the important place. It’s rather a spearhead, one of several, of something happening today that’s showing people a way to the future.

Throughout history, the real steps forward have often come when a few people are fired by a new vision and support each other. A good example is the Renaissance in Florence, Italy where many of the artists knew each other and fed each other’s inspiration.

This pattern occurs over and over throughout history. For the current age, it’s communities like Ananda that are laying the groundwork for the future. We are creating a way of life so dynamic and beautiful that it’s destined to become a force to be reckoned with because it’s a solution to so many of society’s problems.

Excerpted from an August 26, 1985 talk at Ananda Village, The Light of Superconsciousness, and Expansive Marriage, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To buy a recording of the talk (CD or MP3), call Treasures Along the Path, 530 478-7656 or email treasures@ananda.org.

All negative attitudes spell our own undoing because they draw the mind away from God and affirm a separate reality. Only when you’ve overcome the carping, doubting spirit can you uplift your mind in attunement with the Divine.

Should we repeat negative statements?
I once had a very interesting conversation with my Guru, Paramhansa Yogananda, which taught me an important lesson about negativity.

After reading Autobiography of a Yogi, I went to Encinitas, California expecting to be greeted by Yogananda with open arms and accepted immediately. Instead, I was greeted by Sister Gyanamata, his most advanced woman disciple, who told me it would probably be months before I was accepted.

I became very resentful. My first thought was that she was just one of those little old ladies who tend to choke religious organizations. Later that day, however, I recalled her eyes, which were very deep, and I prayed and asked her forgiveness for having misjudged her.

When I told this story to Yogananda, including my initial negative view of Sister Gyanamata, he said, “Why did you say that?” I replied, “Well, I later understood that she was a saintly person. In the beginning I didn’t understand that.”

He said, “You shouldn’t talk about such things. That’s just being negative.” In other words, Sister Gyanamata was a saint. Why mention anything else? He always wanted us to be positive and to focus on goodness.

The power of negativity
Yogananda also cautioned me against speaking about negative situations. He once asked me to attend an installation ceremony at the Masonic lodge of one of our members. The ceremony ended in shambles, with half the lodge members walking out in angry protest.

When I told Yogananda what had happened, he said, “Don’t say anything about it.”  At first I was surprised, since the Masons would never get wind of my remarks, but I realized that he was warning me of the power of negativity itself.

“Avoid speaking negative things,” he would tell us. “Why look at the drains, when there is beauty all around? When we concentrate on the good, we take on goodness. When we look at the negative side long enough, we ourselves take on negative qualities.”

Radiate love and harmony
Always try to keep away from negative influences. Mixing with people who are negative tends to influence one to see things in negative terms.

Learn to radiate love and harmony. By loving others, you will overcome the tendency to judge them. Therese of Avila trained her nuns always to think something positive about a person whenever they came into view. This would be a good practice for everyone to adopt.

A negative wish or feeling
Is a critical attitude invariably negative? A critical attitude becomes negative to the extent that it has a negative feeling behind it. We might be offended by what someone does and even need to reproach him. The important thing is never to disapprove of him as a person.

You become negative when you have a negative feeling, or a negative wish about a situation or person. Judgmental people, for example, want only for those they scorn to be hurt or destroyed.

Practicality is not negativity. It’s important to have both feet on the ground, to be able to see where things could go wrong, and to respond accordingly. That’s being realistic, not negative.

The yes-saying principle
In overcoming negativity, it’s very important to learn to say “yes” to life.  Instead of becoming angry and resentful when something unpleasant comes to you, say, “Yes, “I attracted this to myself. There’s something I’m meant to learn from it.”

Anger and resentment are useless emotions, but you can change things if you say, “It was energy I put out that drew this experience to me. What can I do to prevent this from happening again?” With that attitude you place yourself in the driver’s seat.  No longer are you a leaf blowing in a wind over which you have no control.

Accept everything that comes to you as coming from the hand of God, as His gift even, and you will see that your greatest challenges in life turn out to be your greatest blessings. They are His way of helping you to see things more deeply, more beautifully.

“God gave it to me”
There is a lovely example of this from the life of St. Francis. At the start of his mission, St. Francis would go to people’s houses with a bucket and ask for whatever food they could give him. In the beginning, no one respected his way of life, so people gave him horrible stuff from their garbage pails. His first reaction was a turning sensation in the stomach.

But then he would say, “This is wonderful because God gave it to me.” And he would eat the food with joy. With that positive, accepting attitude, he brought people to the point where they began to treat him differently, too.

Importance of meditation and centeredness
To overcome negativity, mental resolutions are not enough. You need to introduce meditation and the higher dimension of the superconscious.

The more you meditate, the more you become centered in yourself, which gives you the ability to direct your will in a positive way and to filter out negative thoughts—you simply don’t accept them.  When your will power is strong, you can quickly and easily say “no” to whatever you want to exclude from your life.

Otherwise, you get caught in the ego, which will feed back thoughts and attitudes from the subconscious mind—thoughts that you are weak, a failure, that it’s all right to be angry, and so on.

Why saints aren’t negative
You will transcend negativity when, like the saints, you have completely overcome the tendency to wish ill toward anyone or anything, and when you can accept this world as it is, without criticism or judgment.

Saints are non-judgmental, forgiving, and accepting of all things. As Yogananda wrote of Master Mahasaya in Autobiography of a Yogi, they see the world “without a breath of criticism” because they have realized that behind all the pain, disappointments, and challenges, there is only God’s love and bliss.

They’ve understood that even the most evil people are a part of the divine play and that they, too, will eventually turn toward God. It may take many, many lifetimes, but it will happen.

Excerpted from an August 26, 1985 talk at Ananda Village and a 1979 seminar on superconscious living. To buy a recording of the 1985 talk (CD or MP3), call Treasures Along the Path, (530) 4870-7656 or email treasures@ananda.org.

Dear_____

In my relationship with Master, I have found that I’m the most in tune with him when I don’t have the thought of what I’m getting from him, but dwell rather in the thought of what I’m giving to him. When with my whole energy I give him joy, appreciation, openness, service—in short, my very self—I receive from him the greatest energy and blessings.

It has nothing to do with pleasing his ego. Nor—obviously!—does he need my joy. It is rather that that open feeling in myself puts me onto that wavelength on which he himself functions, because his own energy is always directed toward giving, not taking.

If I can lift myself at least somewhat up to that giving level, rather than thinking only of gaining for myself, I am able to receive much more. On a lower, taking level I have found that his energy only trickles down slowly, as it were; I haven’t exposed myself to its full flow.

Perhaps the disciple also helps the guru, by giving him energy for the fulfillment of his mission. At any rate, the disciple certainly gains from what he gives to the guru. Even now, long after Master’s earthly life, I find that my highest attunement comes from thinking not in terms of my work, but rather of, “How can I do your work?”

But whenever I’ve allowed thoughts like these to come in: “What do I want?” or, “How am I going to grow?” or “What am I going to get out of it, because, after all, you’re there already, whereas I’m the one who needs to advance spiritually?”—I’ve always sunk to a lower level, and there has been no blissful inner flow. In self-giving, especially to Master, I have always gained the most, inwardly.

We must try, you see, but our self-effort must be directed primarily toward deepening our attunement with the guru—not as a person, but as a channel for the Infinite Lord.

In divine friendship

Swami Kriyananda

Excerpted from In Divine Friendship, Letters of Counsel and Reflection, Crystal Clarity.

In this 40th anniversary commemorative issue, we invite you to see how “high thinking and simple living,” as Paramhansa Yogananda phrased it, is not only a possible way to live but, in his words, destined to “spread like wildfire.”

There have been specific events and developments in Ananda’s forty-year history that have set an overall direction for Ananda’s work—events such as the start of a householder monastic order; the 1976 Ananda fire; the start of centers and urban communities; the publication of certain books, to mention only a few.

In this 40th anniversary commemorative issue, we review these events and developments, often following them up to the present day. Whenever future directions are apparent, we also take a look ahead.

One of the themes emerging from this account is the over-arching importance of the type of leadership provided by Swami Kriyananda: strong, supportive, visionary, intuitive. Without his leadership, Ananda would never have survived.

This issue also provides glimpses of the spiritual challenges, inner awakenings, and divine blessings that form the heart and soul of Ananda’s forty-year adventure in spiritual living. Through the perspectives of Swami Kriyananda and others, we offer a composite portrait of the many individuals whose selfless dedication and divine attunement have produced the miracle of Ananda.

Perspectives: Swami Kriyananda
Why Has Ananda Succeeded?

Ananda was not so much founded by me as by Paramhansa Yogananda. It was founded by his inspiration, and with his blessings. He declared on the occasion of his garden party speech exhorting people to start communities, “I am sowing these words in the ether, in the spirit of God.”

For this reason I consider him the patron saint of intentional communities, of “world brotherhood colonies,” as he called them. In creating Ananda, I did my best to carry out his teachings and ideals.

The most important factor in Ananda’s success, certainly, has been the fact that every day since our beginning, I have given this whole project to him and asked him to do with it as he would, albeit it through our own physical struggles.

A principle I established—one with which everyone came in time to agree—was: People are more important than things. In practice, this means that people’s spiritual well-being is more important than anything else. If a job needed to be done, but the best person for it would not benefit from it spiritually, someone else was sought for the job. If no one was found, an entire project was sometimes abandoned.

Closely related to this is the second principle: Where there is dharma [adherence to truth and right action], there is victory. This means that any hardship imposed by life will prove, in time, to be a blessing when embraced with courage, gratitude, non-attachment, and deep faith in God.

A spirit of harmony and cooperation has been fundamental to Ananda’s success. We have found that the inner peace that comes through meditation acts like a lubricating oil on the machinery of human relationships. Through meditation we learn also to see God in one another, and in all people, which dissolves all sense of differences between us.

People who are harmonious and do things together, instead of each one battling alone, can move mountains. An Ananda saying puts it well: “Many hands make a miracle.”

Finally, and most important, as a spiritual community, we always try to tune in to the will of God. The essence of life at Ananda is attunement to God and to the universal consciousness that Yogananda expressed. Ultimately, we want only to project God’s will for this time in history, in response to humanity’s needs to which God Himself is responding.

1
The Vision

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Brotherhood is an ideal better understood by example than precept! A small harmonious group may inspire other ideal communities over the earth.

“Far into the night my dear friend–the first Kriya Yogi in America–discussed with me the need for world colonies founded on a spiritual basis. Man is a soul, not an institution; his inner reforms alone can lend permanence to outer ones. By stress on spiritual values, Self-realization, a colony exemplifying world brotherhood is empowered to send inspiring vibrations far beyond its locale.” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“I remember how stirred I was by a talk Paramhansa Yogananda gave at a garden party in Beverly Hills on July 31, 1949.

“ ‘This day,’ he thundered, punctuating every word, ‘marks the birth of a new era. My spoken words are registered in the ether, in the spirit of God, and they shall move the West. We must go on—not only those who are here, but thousands of youths must go North, South, East and West to cover the earth with little colonies, demonstrating that simplicity of living plus high thinking lead to the greatest happiness!’”

1967:  Land purchased for a meditation retreat
1968: Ananda officially starts
1969:  Land purchased for a community

Ananda officially starts
The dedication of the Ananda Meditation Retreat in August 1968 marked the official start of Ananda. The first Retreat buildings had been built, and a few hardy souls were able to stay there during the winter of 1968-69.

The first Retreat season began the summer of 1969, with Swami Kriyananda leading meditations, giving classes, conducting Sunday morning worship services, and leading evening programs. At the end of the 1969 season, Ananda held its first annual Spiritual Renewal Week—seven days of classes, kirtans, satsangs, and concerts, culminating with the first Kriya Yoga Initiation.

On July 4, 1969, Kriyananda purchased land six miles down the road from the Retreat for a community. Soon after, a number of people at the Retreat moved to the new land.

Perspectives: Jyotish Novak
Spiritual or Not?

Early on, the new community faced a crisis of self-definition as new people came more out of a desire to live in a commune in the woods than for spiritual reasons. Would Ananda be a community of Yogananda disciples and based on his teachings? The issue was resolved when Swami Kriyananda called a meeting and asked that people make a choice, adding that he was willing to leave if people did not want a spiritual community.

He didn’t impose his will, but simply made it clear that people needed to make a choice. I’ve always appreciated his non-attachment, his being ready to leave everything behind if that was what people wanted. Fortunately, most of us wanted a spiritual community. Those who didn’t soon decided to leave.

2
Sustainability—Housing and Jobs

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“To earn money abundantly, unselfishly, honestly for God and God’s work, and for making others happy, is to develop many sterling qualities of character that will aid one on the spiritual as well as the material path.” East West Magazine, 1928

Swami Kriyananda: Regarding the challenge of having to raise large sums of money to launch Ananda: “My gain was far more than the money I earned. Most of all, it was spiritual. I’d grown in inner strength by doing what I’d had to do despite every obstacle, even that of intense personal reluctance. And I’d done it for God.” A Place Called Ananda

1969: The first dwellings
1969-70: Community businesses started

Finding a way to survive
The most difficult challenge the first year was establishing a community that could actually survive. Since there were no suitable living spaces on the new land, most people put up teepees, simple but adequate dwellings. The bigger challenge, however, was to find ways to earn an income.

To earn money and create jobs, a few enterprising people started businesses to make products that could be sold: incense, essential oils, jewelry, granola. By the end of 1970, there were nearly ten businesses, including the Meditation Retreat and the publishing business started by Swami Kriyananda to sell his books and new yoga correspondence course.

The next few years saw the start of a farm, a community market, a dairy, new cottage industries, and a contract with the U.S. Forest Service for seasonal tree-planting work. New people came who started private businesses, including, in 1974, a construction company.

Looking ahead: Earning income
Today it is possible for individuals and groups of people to sustain themselves far away from the big cities without depending on the usual rural means of self-sustenance, like farming. With telephones, computers, e-mail, and fax machines, even isolated areas can be in active contact with the world. There are individuals living in the Ananda communities who support themselves and their families through computer-based work, often from their homes.

Perspectives: Jyotish Novak
A Strong Spiritual Focus

Amidst the flurry of building homes and starting businesses, we managed to keep a very strong spiritual focus. Swami Kriyananda gave Sunday services and spiritual classes weekly and, in the beginning, his magnetism was the primary force keeping our consciousness focused on God.

Gradually, as we matured spiritually, there developed a large group of people who were unshakably committed to the yogic path. But it took some years to establish a strong spiritual magnetism.

Devi Novak:
Exploring New Frontiers of Consciousness

The life and growth of Ananda, and its story, have become for me my life and growth, my story. From the beginning there was an exciting feeling that we were pioneers, both in the sense of creating a new way of life, and of exploring new frontiers of consciousness. These two concepts went hand in hand.

Through the practice of meditation, we deepened our awareness of being part of a greater reality than we could experience through our individual egos. This, in turn, developed our understanding of how to create these communities.

This openness to the guidance from higher wisdom was one of the keynotes of how Ananda developed. The experience of trying to find the truth in a situation, rather than just responding to our own opinions or desires, began to change all of us who lived here.

3
Sustainability: Farming and Food

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Let every man gather from five to ten thousand dollars and, in groups of thirty, build self-sustaining, self-governing colonies, starting with California. Buy farms and settle down with harmonious friends and have time to meditate and constructively exchange divine experiences.” Praecepta Lessons, 1934

Swami Kriyananda:
“There were several things Master wanted to do that he could not accomplish during his lifetime: a school in America (he tried to start one at Mt. Washington in 1925); “world brotherhood” communities; and another one we might do well to consider now: self-sustaining farms.” January 2005 letter to Ananda

1970: Community farm started
1972: Community market started

A biodynamic farm
In 1970, Swami Kriyananda invited Haanel Cassidy to move to Ananda Village to help develop a self-sufficient organic farm at the new community. Then in his sixties, Haanel was a long-time disciple of Paramhansa Yogananda with considerable experience in biodynamic gardening.

The soil at the community was poor, however, and the climate far from ideal. With hard work and composting, the farm began to produce vegetables, berries, herbs and flowers, and eventually produced nearly six tons of food a year, including, in the summer months, food for the Meditation Retreat and the community market. Ultimately, however, the farm proved uneconomical and the effort was abandoned in the mid-1980s.

Looking ahead: Cooperative farming at Ananda Village
In 2008, Ananda Village entered into a cooperative farming arrangement with a nearby farmer by leasing him two acres of land at Ananda Village for an organic farm. Community members participate in the farming venture on a subscription basis by paying in advance for a percentage of the harvest.

The Ananda Village sustainability effort also includes a new central composting system, the hiring of a gardener to assist community residents to grow food in the housing clusters, the building of green houses, and the planting of more fruit, nut and olive trees.

The tradition of gardening is well established in Ananda’s urban communities. There are flourishing community-wide vegetable gardens and fruit orchards at the Ananda communities in Palo Alto and Sacramento, California, and in Seattle, Washington.

Perspectives: Parvati Hansen
The Start of Master’s Market

By the fall of 1972, the need for a place where people could buy food was becoming very apparent. Swami Kriyananda had been saying to us in almost every satsang: “If you see something that needs to be done here, then do it!”

He was letting us know, right from the beginning, that we were the ones who were going to make this community a reality. He was also teaching us by his own dynamic example of energy and magnetism, how to use the spiritual principles taught by Paramhansa Yogananda.

So starting with a few boxes of fruit, which was all I could afford, the market began in a vacant room in the old farmhouse — the only adequate building on the land at that time. My understanding of how to begin a business was limited, but Divine Mother helped me each step of the way. A few months later, a young man interested in helping the market grow moved to the community and donated five hundred dollars—a huge amount in those years. After that, the market grew rapidly.

Jyotish Novak: “Management by Willingness”

From the start of the community, Swami Kriyananda was the type of leader who let others take responsibility and make their own decisions. By empowering people, he was much more subject to the vagaries of human nature, but it allowed everyone to develop their own strength. As soon as people were willing to take responsibility, he gave them not only responsibility, but also authority—the right to make decisions and to experience the successes or failures of those decisions.

I would call the management style that permeates Ananda, “management by willingness.” As soon as someone begins to show the willingness to take responsibility, he’s given the opportunity.

Devi Novak: A “Dharmocracy”

Over the years Swami Kriyananda had to work out a new style of leadership. In the beginning he made only two rules: no hallucinogenic drugs, and no alcohol. He wanted the community to be guided not by rules, but by the creative exercise of common sense.

He also wanted people to have the freedom to grow in their own understanding and ability, and not to be forced to accept decisions mindlessly, simply because the decision had been made. As much as possible, he allowed decision-making to take place at a “grass roots” level.

Thus, Kriyananda’s leadership style emerged slowly as one based on wisdom, compassion, and enduring patience. In community decisions, he guided people to ask, “What is right?” and, “What does God want?” rather than, “What do I want?” Swamiji has described Ananda’s government as a dharmocracy, “a community dedicated to actions leading to soul-freedom, and not to furthering one’s ego-involvement.”

4
Education for Life

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“The ideal of an all-sided education for youth had always been close to my heart. I saw clearly the arid results of ordinary instruction, aimed only at the development of body and intellect. Moral and spiritual values, without whose appreciation no man can approach happiness, were yet lacking in the formal curriculum.” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“Paramhansa Yogananda laid much of the groundwork for Ananda’s Education for Life system in the school he established in Ranchi, India.

“Inspired by his efforts, we committed ourselves to the premise that a growing child needs to learn how to live in this world, and not merely how to find and hold a job. He or she needs to know how to live wisely, happily, and successfully according to his own deep inner needs, and not to meet life with the expectation that money and a nice home will give him all that he really wants in life.

“The goal of Ananda’s Education for Life system is to teach children the art of living, while giving them, in addition, the knowledge imparted by a conventional education.” Education for Life

1972: The first Ananda school
1986: Publication of Education for Life

The philosophy
The Education for Life system emphasizes the balanced development of body, feeling, will, and intellect. By developing this foundation, or “tools of maturity,” students are optimally prepared for the life-long adventure of finding ever-deeper levels of purpose, meaning, and lasting happiness.

The first school
Ananda’s Education for Life system got underway in 1972 when Nitai Deranja, a newly arrived teacher, was asked to start a school for seven community children, ages four to seven. Starting out in a ten by twelve shed and a budget of fifty dollars a month, the school moved into one of the first new buildings at the community six months later. Both the elementary school, and the junior high school that came later, soon attracted day and boarding students from outside the community.

To more clearly distinguish them from the Education for Life system, Ananda’s schools have been renamed “Living Wisdom Schools.” Today there are Living Wisdom Schools in Palo Alto, California; Portland, Oregon; Seattle, Washington; and Assisi, Italy.

Looking ahead
As a non-sectarian system based on universal spiritual principles, the Education for Life system can be implemented wherever there is receptivity and interest. Hundreds of like-minded teachers in public and private schools have taken the teacher training programs offered yearly at the Ananda Institute for Alternative Living at the Ananda Meditation Retreat.

Beginning Fall 2008, the newly formed Seattle Institute for Living Yoga will offer a week-end teacher training program in both Seattle and Portland led by Usha Dermond, an  experienced Ananda Education for Life teacher and founder of the Portland Living Wisdom School.

Education for Life teacher training is envisioned as one of the main thrusts for The Yoga Institute of Living Wisdom, recently started by Ananda India.

Perspectives: Helen Purcell
Changing the Educational Landscape

In 1986, right after Education for Life had been published, Swami Kriyananda called a meeting at Crystal Hermitage with a number of people to discuss how to disseminate the ideas in his book.

I was surprised when Swami began the meeting by asking us to share our thoughts on the subject of education. However, over the years, I came to realize that this was Swami’s way: to plant the seeds and then let us use own creativity and inspiration to nurture them.

The ideas Swami had articulated in the book thrilled us, both as parents and as educators. We saw Education for Life as a breath of fresh air in a system that has become stagnant. We shared from our own experience how it could be adapted for any classroom, by any teacher who was not afraid to re-evaluate the fundamentals of traditional education.

Swami was emphatic that the Education for Life philosophy is much more expansive than any single spiritual path. He wanted us to share it with anyone who would listen. When the meeting broke up, the energy was high even though the task was daunting—a small group of six or eight people sent out to change the whole educational landscape!

Today, as principal of the Living Wisdom School in Palo Alto, I receive emails from teachers all over the country who want guidance to create their own Education for Life schools. Recently I received an email from a teacher with nineteen years of experience in public elementary school. She dreams of opening a school like our Living Wisdom Schools. “Just knowing that your schools exist brings healing to my heart,” she writes.

5
Renunciation

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“A true yogi may remain dutifully in the world; there he is like butter on water, and not like the easily-diluted milk of unchurned and undisciplined humanity. To fulfill one’s earthly responsibilities is indeed the higher path, provided the yogi, maintaining a mental uninvolvement with egotistical desires, plays his part as a willing instrument of God.” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“Renunciation of egoic desires forms the basis of the spiritual life, regardless of a person’s outer calling. At Ananda we’ve based our lives on renunciation, but generally it’s householder renunciation. It was Lahiri Mahasaya who first established this pattern of life. Paramhansa Yogananda approved of it, and, indeed, recommended it for most people.” Sadhu Beware

1971: Start of “The Friends of God”
1987: Start of a householder monastic order

The evolution of new model of renunciation
In 1971, Swami Kriyananda started a renunciate order for men and women, “The Friends of God.” It was not possible, however, at that stage in the community’s development to segregate the men and women as in a traditional monastery and, over time, many of the monks and nuns decided to marry. The monastery was dissolved in the early 1980s.

Building on that foundation, in 1987 Swami Kriyananda started a new kind of monastic order that includes householders, based on the ideals of non-attachment, simplicity, service, and self-control. To live a monastic life as a householder, the primary requirement is not celibacy but a dedication to doing God’s will, even though it may be personally difficult.

Looking ahead: A new monastery
As a spiritually mature work, Ananda is now able to accommodate a renunciate order with a degree of separation from the main communities. In 2005, Swami Kriyananda started a traditional monastic order for men and women, focused initially on a monastery for men in India.  He gives these reasons for the new direction:

I feel that spiritual communities need a monastery to set the example of selfless service, which is harder keep in mind when you have children to support. When you have people who truly feel that they don’t want anything except God, and that all they own belongs to Him, their example will make it easier for everyone else to tune into that attitude.

It would be good if new Ananda residents could get grounded in the monastic attitude before they thought about marriage. In the Buddhist tradition at least the young men live in a monastery for one year.

Let’s first be devotees seeking God. Then, as we bring that level into marriage, we can begin to set an example for people everywhere of a kind of marriage that our culture doesn’t prepare us for. We need to have a different concept of human love than what Hollywood films give us. It’s got to be on a soul level. Future of Ananda, 1999.

Perspectives: Jaya Helin
A Lifelong Commitment

In 1971, Swami Kriyananda invited a number of people to a meeting at his dome at the Meditation Retreat to discuss the idea of possibly starting a monastic order. At the meeting, Swamiji spoke very personally. He spoke about his life with Master, his life as a monk at SRF, the six months he had spent at a Catholic monastery near Big Sur, and the lessons he had learned.

He discussed his vision for Ananda, and whether a monastery would be possible. When he talked about renunciation, it was not in terms of what one is giving up, but as a life lived wholly dedicated to God.

I was enraptured listening to this. At the end of his talk, he looked at me and said, “Would you like to embrace such a life?”

After I said, “Yes, “ I knelt before him and he blessed me and gave me a piece of a rose petal from an initiation by Paramhansa Yogananda. He then asked the same question of everyone else and blessed each of them in turn.

I walked out of there deeply inspired and from that moment forward, my life totally changed. I became a different person. I began to understand what it meant to be a devotee on the spiritual path. I realized that renunciation is not about what we give up. The heart of renunciation is what we embrace, and what we embrace is God. We give our life to God. That’s the spirit of renunciation that Swamiji asked us to embrace that evening.

I eventually left the monastery to marry as did others. But when I left, I didn’t feel I was leaving. I simply moved to another room of the house, you might say. I was still in my heart, and to this day, a renunciate.

6
The Ananda Fire

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“An even-minded individual is like a mirror of discretion reflecting the true nature of seemingly favorable and unfavorable events. He thus holds himself in readiness to act wisely and properly without being misled by emotional disturbances.” Inner Culture Magazine, 1938

Swami Kriyananda:
“When you meditate and feel God’s presence, then these things are all just a dream. I don’t mean that the fire was nothing. But in truth conditions are neutral. It’s the way we take them that determines whether they’re positive or negative, whether they’re bad experiences or happy experiences.” From a talk after the fire

1976: Forest fire sweeps through Ananda

A time of testing
A June 1976 forest fire that destroyed 450 acres and twenty-one of the twenty-two homes at Ananda might easily have sounded the death-knell for the community. Ananda had no insurance and no financial reserves from which to rebuild. Many decided to leave the community at that time, and most departing members asked Ananda to pay them for houses they had lost.

It was later discovered that faulty county road equipment had caused the fire. Ananda had sustained the largest loss and could have sued the county, but Swami Kriyananda wrote to the Nevada County Board of Supervisors,  “We don’t want to take our bad luck out on our fellow citizens by increasing the county’s insurance rates. Anything that harms the county will, in the long run, harm Ananda also.”

Ananda eventually repaid all departing members, and with hard work, joyful faith, and God’s grace, rebuilt the community. The fire had tested the community’s commitment to one of its guiding principles, “Where there is dharma there is victory,” and Ananda’s commitment to that principle had held firm.

Perspectives: Jyotish Novak
“This House Is Yours, God”

The fire started several miles from the community, and we could see smoke for quite a long time before we realized our property was being threatened. At one point, the fire jumped the road and began to move through dense brush towards one of our housing clusters.

My wife, Devi, and I had a geodesic dome about three hundred yards from where the fire was burning, so I hurried back down to our house. I tried to save the house by cutting a trench around it and hosing it down with water.

A teenager, Dwayne Smallen, came down the hill in a truck very excited. He shouted, “You’ve got to get out of here. The flames are really high and will be here in five minutes.” I looked up the hill and saw this enormous wall of fire and it was obvious my little trench wasn’t going to save anything.

At that point I went into a state of complete detachment, saying to myself, “I’m not attached to anything. This house is yours, God. If you want to take it, go ahead. Take everything.”

Dwayne had the presence of mind to yell, “Grab what you can and throw it in the truck.” Devi had recently boxed up everything in our meditation room to clean it, so I grabbed the box, took an armful of clothes from the closet, and that was it. We threw it in the truck and drove downhill through the brush and out of danger.

Only days after the fire, Ananda began to rebuild itself. Because of our strong foundation in meditation, there was no sense of devastation, which was so prevalent among our neighbors. We knew we would have to put out a lot of energy, but the challenge of rebuilding was exciting rather than distressing.

7
Community Planning

Swami Kriyananda:
“Ananda Village has grown from Spartan beginnings to become a place of man-made as well as natural beauty. Simple but charming homes, school buildings, offices, and places of business express in architecture the twin principles Yogananda recommended: ‘plain living and God-thinking’” The Path (1996): Afterword

1974-1978: Ananda develops Master Plan

A community-wide upgrade
The initial “plan” of the Ananda community reflected two main concerns: the desire for privacy and the need to get a road and water to one’s home. The result was scattered, uncoordinated clusters of houses.

The purchase of three hundred and twenty-six acres next to Ananda Village in 1974 was the first impetus for the community to think more seriously about planning, but only after the 1976 forest fire did in depth planning actually begin. By then, county building regulations and Ananda’s desire for a more “conscious” community gave birth to a “Master Plan” for Ananda.

The Master Plan, which went through three drafts in four years before being finally approved by the county, provided for cluster housing and large areas of open land. The plan also allowed Ananda to move its public retreat to the newly constructed Expanding Light Guest Retreat in the early 1980s.

Perspectives: Jaya
Helin Starting Over

Once the new Master Plan was completed, it was as if we were building the community all over again, but this time in a more socially “responsible” way. We couldn’t continue living in teepees, trailers and tiny cabins; everything needed to be brought up to code.

This meant we had to have better houses, better roads, and better water systems. Many people in the community were starting to have families and needed more adequate housing and suitable places to send their children to school.

Devi Novak: Opening to the Light

In time, with hard work and better planning learned from experience, Ananda became more beautiful than ever. Even more importantly, the community had come of age. As one member put it, “We’re not here to build buildings. We’re here to build character, by living for God.”

The challenges we faced in creating Ananda on the physical plane were the exact same challenges we each faced in our quest for spiritual expansion—the ability to focus and commit to the deepest spiritual goal we could perceive.

As each individual at Ananda opened more to God’s light, then that same power was expressed in the community. For the individual, there was a gain of inner freedom; for the community, there was the creation of a physical, social and spiritual manifestation that reflected the inner growth of individuals.

8
A New Phase of Outreach

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Strive to become an apostle of Christ-Consciousness. Try to be one of the world’s ‘Fishers of Souls’ with your inspirational words and writings, and with your voice saturated with the Holy Ghost vibration of Aum.” East-West Magazine, 1932

Swami Kriyananda:
“Emphasize principles. Win people on the strength of their needs. We need to talk in terms of solutions to those needs, not just of the needs themselves. In short, we need to stress positive values: inner happiness, peace of mind, love of high ideals, cooperation, and kindness—in fact, all the good things we’ve learned from Master. We are part of a great tide of loving, joyful energy that wants to give and give as long as people are happy to receive it.” From a 1999 talk

1977: Publication of The Path
1977: Circle of Joy started
1978-79: The Joy Tours
1983: World Brotherhood Retreat opens

Expanding the light
Outreach has been central to Ananda’s vision from the beginning, but the publication of Swami Kriyananda’s autobiography, The Path, his first major book with broad appeal, launched a new, more dynamic phase of outreach.

Swami Kriyananda traveled twice across America in 1978 and 1979 with ten to twelve Ananda members on what he called “The Joy Tours,” addressing large crowds in dozens of cities. The tours drew many new members to Ananda, including some of Ananda’s current leaders.

A spiritual family forms
As Ananda began to view itself as a spiritual movement that embraced like-minded people everywhere, it established the “Circle of Joy” as a way for people to belong to Ananda wherever they lived. The name was later changed to the “Ananda Spiritual Family,” and more recently to “Ananda Sangha.”

Since 2002, Ananda has supported Spanish-speaking members of its spiritual family through its Spanish Ministry, which has focused initially on devotees in Central and South America, Spain, and Portugal.

A new guest retreat
Ananda’s need to expand its guest facilities led to the construction of a new guest retreat on a newly acquired parcel of land adjacent to the community. Initially called “Ananda World Brotherhood Retreat,” Swami Kriyananda was later inspired to rename it “The Expanding Light.”

Since officially opening in 1983, The Expanding Light has attracted thousands of guests from around the world.

Looking ahead: Electronic outreach
The Internet has opened an important new avenue of outreach with the potential of making Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings available to anyone in the world free of charge through website offerings from Ananda Worldwide.

Recent live, interactive videoconferencing with Swami Kriyananda portends another important new direction for Ananda. Swami Kriyananda and others can now address groups from a distance, with questions, answers, and other interactions.

Perspectives: Mary Kretzmann
“A Wave of Peace”

It was 1978 and I had recently read Autobiography of a Yogi.  I was desperate to know if Paramhansa Yogananda was my one true Guru.  I then heard that one of his direct disciples, Swami Kriyananda, was on a national tour, and speaking in Chicago!  My husband, Tim, and I drove the 750 miles from our home in Arkansas to meet him.

At Swamiji’s talk, I was inwardly praying to Master, ”Please give me a sign if you are my Guru.” At the end of the lecture, Swamiji played his piano sonata, The Divine Romance, and I felt a wave of blessings and love fill my heart. I knew without a doubt that Yogananda was my Guru.

One of the Ananda devotees traveling with Swamiji encouraged us to start a meditation group and we agreed. When Swamiji met us and heard of our deep interest, he invited us to come see him again in Houston, several months from then. So this time, my husband and I drove 1000 miles roundtrip to see Swamiji and ended up staying with him in the new Ananda ashram in Houston.

It was powerful staying in the same house as Swamiji. While there, in meditation, I saw Master’s face at the spiritual eye and felt his deep blessing—and I knew that Ananda was my spiritual path. We told Swamiji that we were interested in Ananda and wanted to go check it out but that our jobs made it difficult to get away: Tim had a landscaping business and I was a preschool teacher. Swamiji said, “Why not move to Ananda?”

Riding back to Arkansas in the pickup truck, Tim and I felt a wave a peace surrounding us and we knew, then and there, that we should sell our house and move to Ananda Village sight unseen. We moved two months later.

9
Start of Centers and Colonies

Swami Kriyananda:
“Ananda Village is the model community, and it is taking my energy and presence to get it started. But once the model is established, it will be easier to reproduce it, and others will be able to do so.” Reflections on Living

1977: Start of Sacramento Center
1979: Start of Ananda San Francisco
1984: Start of Ananda Europa
1989-1995: Start of urban colonies

• 1989: Palo Alto acquires apartment complex
• 1991: Sacramento acquires apartment complex
• 1992: Seattle acquires apartment complex
• 1995: Portland acquires apartment complex

2003: Start of Ananda India
2007: Start of Ananda Los Angeles

A common pattern
Beginning with the Sacramento Center in 1977, Ananda’s urban colonies all began either as meditation groups or small ashram-based centers. With the support of local devotees, these small beginnings evolved into apartment complex communities in Sacramento, Palo Alto, Portland, and Seattle, each with beautiful park-like settings and separate temples or mandirs for worship services and classes.

In 1980, Ananda purchased East-West Bookshop, a large metaphysical bookstore in Menlo Park, California. Today the Menlo Park bookstore (now in Mountain View), and  two East-West bookstores in Seattle, Washington not only serve the larger spiritual community, they also attract new members to Ananda and provide jobs for local devotees.

An international work
The interest of European friends drew four people from Ananda to Como, Italy in 1984 to launch Ananda’s first work in Europe. Now based near Assisi, Italy, Ananda Europa includes residents from throughout Europe. Its Temple of Light is dedicated to all religions.

Since 2003, Swami Kriyananda and a small group of Ananda members from different countries have been building a new Ananda colony in Gurgaon, India near New Delhi. They recently purchased land in south India to start a residential community and teaching center.

Looking ahead: New centers and meditation groups
Ananda’s newest center in Los Angeles, California officially opened July 22, 2007 with a dedication ceremony led by Swami Kriyananda. By November 2007, the center was offering ongoing classes and worship services.

As meditation teachers receive training in programs offered throughout Ananda worldwide, many are starting meditation groups and actively spreading Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings in their own areas.

A likely new pattern
The start of Ananda Michigan in 1999 heralds what may be the pattern for other new Ananda centers and communities. Unlike Ananda’s main colonies, which were sponsored by Ananda Village, Ananda Michigan owes its start to the inspiration of a single Ananda individual, Lorne Dekun. (See below, “Perspectives”) Ananda Michigan serves devotees in Lansing, Michigan and the Detroit Area.

Perspectives: Asha Praver
“Babaji Is Very Pleased”

“Babaji is very pleased with this community.” When Swami Kriyananda said those words to the few hundred people gathered for the dedication of our community in Palo Alto in 1989, it caught me and everyone else by surprise.

We tend to think of Babaji as being off somewhere in the Himalayas, overseeing the unfolding of major cosmic dramas but too lofty, too exalted, to be concerned with the establishment of Ananda’s first apartment complex community. Continuing, Swamiji said, “Ananda’s purpose is to show people that because we’re now in an ascending age, Dwapara Yuga, they can integrate spirituality into their every day lives.”

The masters have come at this time to help us, and others like us. Babaji said, “The vibrations of many spiritually seeking souls come floodlike to me. I perceive potential saints in America and Europe, waiting to be awakened.”

Throughout Ananda we are planting seeds for the coming Dwapara Yuga. Will we see the fruit of what we are planting? I don’t think we’ll see a huge amount. We’ll see little bits of growth, little bits of change.

But our masters are avatars. They come with power, and the power they plant is never obliterated. Paramhansa Yogananda said that he had planted the thought of thousands of world brotherhood colonies one day covering the earth “in the ether, in the spirit of God.”  He predicted that his words would “move the West.”

Though we may not live to see it, we can be certain that the divine effort we put forth to establish this everlasting work in the name of God and Guru will go on and on.

Lorne Dekun: A Message in a Dream

Ananda Michigan officially began on May 1, 1999 when I returned to Lansing, Michigan  after spending twenty years in California,  twelve of  them at Ananda Village, Ananda Palo Alto, and Ananda Sacramento combined. However, one could say Ananda Michigan began ten years prior to 1999. It began with a dream.

In 1989, another Ananda Village resident and I went on a book-selling tour in the Mid-West as representatives of Crystal Clarity Publishers. After we finished in Chicago, we drove to Grand Rapids, Michigan and stayed overnight at the home of a good friend of mine.

That night I had a dream of a short conversation with my first spiritual teacher, Yogacharya Oliver Black, Paramhansa Yogananda’s direct disciple. At the time, Mr. Black was ninety-six years old and living at his summer home in Northern Michigan. At least I thought he was living there. I was to soon learn that he had left his body just a few hours earlier.

In the dream, Yogacharya was sitting across from me at a table. He gave me one of his radiant smiles and said, “I want you to help with the work in Michigan.”

After I returned to Ananda Village, I sought out Seva Wiberg who had guided me to come live at Ananda Village. I told her of the dream and the circumstances under which it had happened. Seva smiled at me in friendship and love and said, “I think you need to start making plans to move back to Michigan.”

It wasn’t until ten years later that I made the move. By then, I had been acting in a ministerial capacity at Ananda Palo Alto by teaching classes at the Palo Alto teaching center and giving Sunday Service at two nearby Ananda centers. I felt I now had something to offer Ananda Michigan.

10
Rajarsi Day

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Rather than be always striving for personal happiness, try to make others happy. In being of spiritual, mental, and material service to others, you will find your own needs fulfilled. As you forget self in service to others, you will find that, without seeking it, your own cup of happiness will be full.” Praecepta Lessons, 1935

Swami Kriyananda:
“Service is ennobling. It is a way of offering up our human littleness into the great Reality that is God.” Affirmations for Self-Healing

“It isn’t really important what we do, so long as we see everything we do as an opportunity for service, for working for the welfare of all, for expanding our sympathies and awareness, and for attuning our consciousness to the Infinite Intelligence. Money Magnetism

1981: First Rajarsi Day

A tradition of volunteering
Regular workdays, times when people at Ananda come together as volunteers on community projects, are an integral part of Ananda’s commitment to selfless service. Workdays started with the building of the Meditation Retreat in 1969.

Since1981, Ananda Village has also held an annual “Rajarsi Day,” named after Paramhansa Yogananda’s spiritual successor, Rajarsi Janakananda. Community members spend an entire day working together on community projects such as remodeling buildings, landscaping, creating new walkways, and removing debris.

Most of Ananda’s urban communities now also hold annual Rajarsi Days. In addition, teams of volunteers from throughout Ananda periodically travel to the Palo Alto, Portland, Seattle, Sacramento, Assisi, and Gurgaon colonies to assist with construction projects.

Perspectives: Jaya Helin
Learning Teamwork

Workdays received an important boost the winter of 1971-72 when a group of about fifteen of us from Ananda Village embarked on three weeks of tree-planting in northern California, under contract with the U. S. Forest Service.

We approached everything cooperatively, sharing all risks, responsibilities, losses and rewards equally. Although physically stretched to our core, in the midst of everything, we meditated, chanted, sang, joked, and shared our adventure together as a community.

Out of this experience came teamwork and habits of mutual trust, friendship and cooperation—all things that were used to build Ananda in subsequent years.

Savitri Simpson: “Service is Joy!”

Most people think of a job as a nine-to-five experience; after work you go home and have your own life. Not so at Ananda! When something important needs to be done in the community, we’ve learned to put aside our own desires and concentrate on the project at hand.

I recall the time in the 1970s when I was still fairly new at Ananda. I worked as office manager of the Meditation Retreat and got called upon to wash dishes in the Retreat kitchen on a Sunday afternoon at the end of major guest weekend.

There was no dishwasher and everyone else had gone. I was there by myself washing mountains of dishes and, briefly, the thought came to me: “What am I doing washing dishes? I have a college degree!” In that same moment, however, I realized that this was exactly what was needed at the time.

“Service is joy” is one of the themes of Ananda workdays and Rajarsi Day, especially, epitomizes this spirit of service. The magnetism and joy become very strong when people work selflessly together toward common goals.

A few years ago, my husband and I had guests during the Rajarsi Day weekend. This couple was fairly new to Ananda and had never participated in an intense workday of this sort. We had explained to them that we would be busy all day Saturday and that they could join us or not, as they chose.

Not only did they choose to work along with us, they worked hard. At the end of the day, they were both pretty exhausted but all smiles. And to this day, these friends often comment on how this was one of the most important days in their lives—a day during which they got to see and feel firsthand the spirit of selfless service which is the essence of Ananda.

11
A Music Ministry

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Because man himself is an expression of the Creative Word, sound has the most potent and immediate effect on him, offering a way to remembrance of his divine origin.” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“Music is the most important of the arts because it affects feelings, consciousness. It’s not just entertainment; it’s not just a nice melody. Listening to certain music and absorbing it, changes your consciousness. That’s why we should listen to music that is born of Spirit.” Music and The Art of Living

1981: The Joy Singers
1983: Christ Lives: An Oratorio

A turning point
Two events in the early 1980s launched Ananda’s music ministry as we know it today: the formation of The Joy Singers in 1981, and Swami Kriyananda’s composing of Christ Lives: An Oratorio in 1985.

In the early 1980s, the newly formed Joy Singers toured California and western states, presenting Swami Kriyananda’s “Songs of Divine Joy”—songs that express in words and music the consciousness of humility, devotion, and joy.

A deeply inspiring pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1985 led Swami Kriyananda to compose an Oratorio of the life of Jesus Christ, Christ Lives. Discussing the Oratorio, he said,  “I couldn’t have expressed myself more sincerely, musically, than I did in that Oratorio.”

In the mid to late 1980s, Ananda singers and musicians presented the Oratorio to Christian churches in northern California and the San Francisco Bay area. Since then, it has become an integral part of musical programs throughout Ananda.

In 2001, a fifty-five-member choir from various Ananda communities toured Italy with the Oratorio, giving concerts in six cities. A French man said after hearing a performance: “I couldn’t understand a word of what was sung. Yet I understood everything! The inspiration of this Oratorio was extraordinary!”

Instrumental music: a new dimension
In the early 1990s, Swami Kriyananda began a fifteen-year period of composing primarily instrumental music, which brought an important new dimension to the music ministry. With the writing of instrumentals, the music alone, without words, could transmit the underlying consciousness.

Today there are choirs and instrumentalist at all Ananda colonies, and the beginnings of an orchestra at Ananda Village.

Perspectives: Bhagavati Nani:
“Something Profound Was Happening”

When I first came to Ananda Palo Alto in 1998, I had been working as a professional freelance flutist and private teacher in the San Francisco Bay Area for over fifteen years. I’d never met Swamiji and, although I was well on my way to accepting Paramhansa Yogananda as my Guru, I had a harder time understanding how Swami Kriyananda fit into the picture.

I had picked up a free tape one Sunday after service, entitled “The Spirit of Ananda in Music,” which consisted of a variety of Swamiji’s music—including several selections of him singing solo. So one night I decided to play it while I worked on an art project.  On the one hand, I was enjoying the vibration of the music, but on the other hand, my trained musician’s ears were critically assessing every note and intonation.

When “Love Is a Magician” began and Swamiji started to sing the words, I felt something pierce my heart, bypassing my mind and intellect altogether, and I began to cry. Actually, sob is a more accurate word, and that’s what I did for the entire song. Thankfully, I had some experience of how God works, so I immediately “got it” that something very important and profound was happening to me.

From that moment I simply accepted that Swami Kriyananda was someone I could trust—as my spiritual teacher and friend, and as a musician—and I opened my heart to him.

12
Crystal Hermitage

Swami Kriyananda:
“I remembered how often Paramhansa Yogananda quoted the suggestion made to him by an architect: ‘Immortalize your teachings in architecture.’ The Master agreed with him. A spiritual teaching ought to be clothed in a form that expresses the consciousness it seeks to inspire.” A Place Called Ananda

“I built Crystal Hermitage not as the perfect ‘headquarters’ for myself, but to make it possible for me to share better with others. Crystal Hermitage is a personal statement, but vital to that statement is the wish to offer the energy of this house in non-attachment into a larger flow of energy: into the streams of others’ lives; into the river of humanity everywhere.” Space, Light, & Harmony

1984: Crystal Hermitage created

A beautiful spiritual center
In 1984, Swami Kriyananda expanded the buildings and grounds around his dome to create a beautiful spiritual center for Ananda residents and visitors, and for his own enjoyment, which he named, “Crystal Hermitage.”

Crystal Hermitage includes a large main building used for meetings, banquets, and social gatherings; Swami Kriyananda’s apartment on the lower level, beautifully landscaped upper and lower gardens; a chapel; a museum containing relics of Yogananda, Sri Yukteswar and other masters of this path; a boutique; and a nearby guest house.

The chapel and upper gardens are open to the public for weddings and receptions. The expansive lower garden adjoining Kriyananda’s apartment is used for outdoor concerts and other programs.

Six thousand tulips!
Nearly four hundred people from the local area visited the Crystal Hermitage gardens in April 2008 after a front-page article in the local press announced a Crystal Hermitage Open House featuring six thousand tulips in bloom. Both upper and lower gardens and were open to the public.

One first-time visitor to the community commented, “When I first saw the gardens at Crystal Hermitage, I felt God’s presence in my heart and I understood what Ananda was all about.”

Perspectives: Patrick Lynch
“An Old Dear Friend”

I was participating in a Kriya Prep Week at Ananda Village when I first visited the Crystal Hermitage. Walking into the museum felt like going to visit my Guru.

I was filled with such joy to see relics from each of the masters in Paramhansa Yogananda’s lineage: Yogananda’s meditation mat, instruments he played, his mother’s wedding bangles, Lahiri Mahasaya’s water pot, Sri Yukteswar cane, and much more.

Afterwards, we walked through the gardens to Swami Kriyananda’s home. I went out onto the back deck and gazed across the beautiful canyon. I then went inside for the group meditation. Though I had been having difficulty meditating during this first visit to Ananda Village, the minute I shut my eyes I was powerfully pulled into a deep meditation.

Over the next few years, whenever I visited Ananda Village, I would spend time at the Crystal Hermitage and meditate in the museum or chapel. I had never met Swami Kriyananda or even seen him, and thought I might never have the opportunity. Nonetheless, I discovered I could have a relationship with him as a friend.

Knowing of his receptivity, I would inwardly share with him my thoughts, concerns, and questions, as well as always give him my gratitude. And I always got a response. I would mainly do this in meditation. At other times I would just think about him.

By developing an inward friendship with Swamiji, I learned that I could do this with anyone who is receptive.

In 2007, I learned that Swamiji was going to be at Ananda Village for his birthday celebration, and I wasn’t going to miss it!  I met him in person at his home at the Crystal Hermitage and expressed my gratitude. When I first looked into his eyes it was like seeing an old dear friend.

13
New Ceremonies

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Religious ceremonies are symbols of wisdom.” East West Magazine, 1929

Swami Kriyananda:
“Nothing, perhaps, could so clearly convey our sense of inspiration in the life we lead as the Festival of Light.” Cities of Light

1987: Festival of Light and other ceremonies introduced

In 1987 Swami Kriyananda introduced a number of new ceremonies designed to make Yogananda’s teachings a more dynamic part of spiritual life at Ananda. He also created new levels of ministers, including Lightbearers.

In one of the most important ceremonies, the Festival of Light, God’s light is invoked to flow down to earth, and into the hearts of worshipers both present and afar, through the channels of Ananda’s line of masters and the great saints of all religions.

There are also ceremonies for inner purification, for higher attunement, and for when people leave this world.

Perspectives: Swami Kriyananda
Why a Festival of Light?

For years I felt the need to condense our central message into ceremonial form that would make it possible to repeat it at every service without the repetition becoming tiresome. But whenever the thought arose in my mind, the answering thought came, “The moment isn’t right.”

Then when I felt the inspiration for the first of them, the Festival of Light, it came in a flash. I was in Assisi in seclusion, and the inspiration just flowed. The other ceremonies came almost as smoothly.

The ceremonies we have serve to remind us of the need for inner awakening, for an inner upliftment of consciousness. When, for example, we offer “the little light that is in us” in the arati during the Festival of Light, and again when we receive that light into ourselves, we are reminded repeatedly of the changes we need to effect in our own consciousness.

If you don’t know what to do when you go inward, these things can be helpful. If on the other hand, you are deeply dedicated to the inward path, these outward reminders can still help to make that path more dynamic to your awareness, particularly in your worship with others.

These ceremonies are not a combination of Eastern and Western religious practices. The similarities, such as they are, are more a matter of “feeling.” Otherwise, they express, simply and clearly, the way God’s light has been expressed in this age, through our line of Masters.

We have a message in each of our ceremonies that is universal, inasmuch as it is focused not on single events in human history, but on the cosmic “event” of creation itself. This is the eternal aspect of the ceremonies.

There is also another benefit in having these ceremonies. Not every minister is a born speaker. The Festival of Light enables every minister to give the congregation something living and uplifting.  It even helps the minister to attune himself more deeply to the truths he has to offer.

Master believed in ceremonies, though he, too, stressed the need for simplicity. These new ceremonies came through meditation on him, and I think that it is in keeping with his teachings that we perform them.  Interview, Clarity Magazine, 1988

14
Kriya Yoga

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“‘Kriya Yoga, the scientific technique of God-realization,’ Babaji finally said with solemnity, ‘will ultimately spread in all lands, and aid in harmonizing the nations through man’s personal, transcendental perception of the Infinite Father.’ After a vibrant pause, Babaji addressed me again, ‘You are the one I have chosen to spread the message of Kriya Yoga in the West.’” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“Kriya Yoga is the most central of all techniques because it helps to magnetize the inner spiritual spine, and thus bring everything into alignment with a higher reality.” The Light of Superconsciousness.

1990: Start of Kriya Ministry

Kriya Yoga at Ananda
Although Kriya Yoga initiations have been given annually at Ananda since 1969, the establishment of a formal Kriya Ministry in 1990 marked the beginning of an especially dynamic phase in Ananda’s dissemination of the ancient science. Since then, Ananda Village has offered monthly initiations and ongoing support to Kriya initiates worldwide via phone, email, newsletters, recordings, booklets and a special website.

Today, there are thirteen Ananda Kriya ministers serving devotees in the United States, Europe, India, and Central and South America, where they offer programs and ministries tailored to the specific needs of the devotees in those locales. As Paramhansa Yogananda said, “The time for knowing God has come!”

Perspectives: Peter Kretzmann
“What Is It They Are Doing?”

Having grown up around hundreds of Kriyabans* at Ananda Village, I always thought that becoming an adult meant that you were an honest, respectable, trustworthy and generally joyful person. After attending the local public high school and meeting my friends’ parents, I realized that this was not necessarily the case!

While some of the adults that I met were good happy people, many were unhappy, jaded, disillusioned, and angry at the world. After seeing this again and again, I had to step back and ask myself, “What is the difference between Ananda adults and the parents of my friends at school?”

Swami Kriyananda has mentioned that when you find such a high quality collection of people in one place, you have to assume that it is not so much the people that are amazing, but more what the people are doing. Naturally, the next question I had to ask myself was, “What is it that these Ananda adults are doing that sets them apart?”

As I had learned growing up, Ananda practices the teachings of Paramhansa Yogananda, at the core of which is Kriya Yoga. In my heart I knew that Kriya Yoga was what I wanted.

While the world so often offers bitterness and frustration, here right in front of my nose, I had the tools to fill my heart with love, peace, happiness and joy! What a divine blessing simply to be given that choice. With these tools, I knew I could grow to become the person I want to be.

As my Kriya practice deepens, I know in my heart I am on my way to becoming who I want to become and achieving the ultimate goal of Self-realization.

* One who practices Kriya Yoga.

15
Unity of Religions

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“When the blindness of ignorance and denominational prejudice is healed by the Self-realization of God, then the whole elephant of Truth will be perceived as the essence of all religions. Then inter-denominational wars and religious and racial prejudice will cease, and there will be one church, one brotherhood, one scientific highway of religions, and one Temple of Truth everywhere.” Praecepta Lessons, 1938

Swami Kriyananda:
“Paramhansa Yogananda told us clearly and repeatedly the kind of religion that will predominate in the new age. He said it would be free from dogmatism, free from rigid institutionalism, and strong in its emphasis on Self-realization.” Religion and the New Age

1987: Publication of Rays of the Same Light
1998: Publication of The Hindu Way of Awakening
2001: Publication of Promise of Immortality
2006: Publication of The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita
2007: Publication of Revelations of Christ

An inner approach
One of the main goals of Paramhansa Yogananda’s mission to the West was to show the unity of religions through his commentaries on the original teachings of Jesus Christ and Krishna in The Bible and Bhagavad Gita.

Yogananda’s basic message was that the unity of religions is achieved not through outward religious similarities but through the inner experience of divine communion. For as Swami Kriyananda writes: “In silent communion with God there no longer remains Christianity, Judaism, Islam, or Hinduism, as such.”

It is this inner aspect of the unity of religions that Kriyananda clarifies in some of his most important books, including Rays of the Same Light, The Promise of Immortality, The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita, and Revelations of Christ, showing it to be the essence of all true religions.

In The Hindu Way of Awakening, Kriyananda explores the subject of unity through the deeper teachings of Hinduism, which he describes as the only religion in the world whose adherents “present Self-realization as the goal of life.”

Perspectives: Swami Kriyananda
“You’re Doing the Right Thing!”

Master stated that he had been sent to teach the original teachings of Jesus Christ. It is clear also that Master was sent from Hindu India, rather than born into the Church as a reforming Christian saint, because such reform from within would have been impossible, given the realities of the present Church with its rigid institutionalism.

Padre Pio, a modern Christian saint, gave confession many years ago to an SRF member in Italy, a friend of mine. This friend related the story to me.

“During my confession, I told Padre Pio that I practiced Kriya Yoga.

“‘Oh, hush!’ Padre Pio replied. ‘You shouldn’t talk about such things. But,’ he added with a conspiratorial smile, ‘you’re doing the right thing!’”

Saints themselves, you see, are powerless to change the teachings of their own church, heavily institutionalized as it is.

For contrast, look at religion in India. There, religion is not really organized at all. Yet the original teachings of the Vedas—thousands of years older than the New Testament, and indeterminately older than the Old Testament—are still offered in a relatively pristine form.

It is true that Master came also, as he told us, to bring back the original yoga teachings of Krishna. The basic truths expounded in the Vedanta, however, are widely known in India, and are as purely and sublimely expressed today as they ever were.

The difference is that, in India, the purity of the teachings has been preserved from age to age not by some smoothly run institution, but by living saints.

16
“Yogananda for the World”: A Twelve-Year Battle for Freedom

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“We must have fellowship for the good of all, one “Church of God” to shed its light to all mankind, and not sects and “isms” which cause separativeness. The time will come when only souls of realization will give instruction and draw souls and crowds.” Praecepta Lessons 1938

Swami Kriyananda:
“God was using Yogananda as the avatar of a new age, to change an entire civilization. Don’t let anyone tell you that one organization, one person, one statement can ever, even remotely, define what he brought to the world. The present legal tiffs are not between two organizations, but between two different ‘takes’ on his cosmic mission.” In Divine Friendship

1990: Ananda changes its name
1990:  Publication of Essence of Self-Realization
1990: Self-Realization Fellowship (SRF) sues Ananda

A challenge to universality
In 1990, SRF initiated a major lawsuit in federal court to prevent Ananda from using “Self-realization” in its name. SRF also demanded that Ananda not use Paramhansa Yogananda’s “name or likeness” in any advertising or publicity, and that it not use quotes from any of Yogananda’s writings without its permission.

Ananda had changed its name to “Ananda Church of Self-Realization” to convey more clearly the nature of its “religion” and the universality of its work and mission. “Self-realization” was the name used by Paramhansa Yogananda to describe his “religion.”

The universality of Yogananda’s teachings was the focus of The Essence of Self-Realization, a compilation of Yogananda’s statements, recorded by Swami Kriyananda, published shortly before the lawsuit.

After twelve years of litigation, Ananda won on nearly every count—essentially ninety-five percent of the lawsuit.

The court invalidated SRF’s trademarks in the names “Self-realization” and “Paramhansa Yogananda.” Numerous photos of Yogananda, many of his articles and lessons, and all books published by him before 1952, including Autobiography of a Yogi, were declared to be in the public domain.

The court also found that since SRF did not own Yogananda’s publicity rights, it could not control Ananda’s use of his name, likeness, voice, or signature.

Perspectives: Swami Kriyananda
“The Power To Rise”

God has given us countless marks of His love for us. He has given us tests also, and for these we should be just as grateful. For only when we are challenged to our foundations can we know inner peace and love for Him as truly our own. By remaining unshaken during trials, it is ourselves we convince that God is truly our only Beloved, and the wellspring of our existence.

Whatever happens to us in this life, it is God’s dream. If we live steadfastly for Him alone, whatever trials we are put through will generate in us the power to rise ever higher in divine consciousness, until we achieve our hearts’ only lasting desire: oneness with Him.

17
Ananda Yoga

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Through yoga postures we can remove or relieve the congestion in the nerves or vertebrae and permit the free flow of life energy.” Scientific Healing Affirmations, 1924

Swami Kriyananda:
“Hatha Yoga [yoga postures and breathing techniques] is the physical branch of Raja Yoga and its real purpose is spiritual—to still the body so you can meditate deeply. I consider Ananda Yoga to be Paramhansa Yogananda’s system, and that he taught it through me.”  Interview with Gyandev McCord

1967: Publication of Yoga Postures for Self Awareness
1995: Publication of Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness

A new system
Ananda Yoga dates back to the 1960s when Swami Kriyananda gave yoga postures classes in various northern California cities. In keeping with Hatha Yoga’s original spiritual purpose, he introduced a new dimension through affirmations that enable one to attune to the consciousness underlying each posture.

Kriyananda presented this new system in Yoga Postures for Self Awareness, published in 1967. More recent editions of the book have been renamed, Ananda Yoga for Higher Awareness.

Ananda Yoga is now taught in most Ananda colonies and centers. In extended programs such at the Yoga Teacher Training program offered at The Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village, students are introduced also to meditation and Yogananda’s Energization Exercises.

The spread of Ananda Yoga:
Since 1978, thousands of teachers have been trained in the Ananda Yoga system. They remain connected with Ananda through the Ananda Yoga Teachers Association  (AYTA) and its newsletter, “Awake and Ready!”

Similar yoga teacher training programs are now offered at the Ananda colonies in Palo Alto, Seattle, Portland, and Assisi.

Perspectives: Gyandev McCord:
“I Am So Much More Than I Ever Thought”

In January 2008, The Expanding Light began a study of the therapeutic effects of Ananda Yoga, the Energization Exercises, and meditation on 28 people with multiple sclerosis. The experience was tremendously inspiring, starting when participants braved a severe winter storm to come to the initial five-day program. I thought, “These people are doers”—which is, of course, exactly who we wanted.

We taught them a specialized program of the Energization Exercises, yoga postures, meditation, affirmation and visualization. Ananda Yoga, for example, has an entry point for everyone, and we adapted the practice to what each individual could do. We also gave them DVDs to guide their home practice during the four-month study.

These warriors for wellness gave it their all, and we saw gains after just five days. At the tear-filled farewell, one participant said, “I think you guys are onto something here.”

Fast-forward to the joyous reunion and final assessments in May. We knew just from seeing participants move and hearing their stories that they had made great strides. (Analyzing the data will take longer.) Every component of the program made its own contribution. Energization was a valued tool, and meditation proved more popular than we had dared hope.

I had expected the gains to be more physical and psychological than spiritual because we had emphasized the first two more than the latter. Yet many others echoed one woman who said, “I don’t know what lies ahead for me, but I do know this: No difficulty could outweigh what I’ve gained spiritually from this. I am so much more than I ever thought, and nothing can take that away from me.”

Participants departed amid great optimism, love, gratitude, and plans for an October reunion. We too were deeply touched and grateful—to God and Guru as well as to those great souls.

18
Joyful Arts Festival

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“In India, music as well as painting and drama is considered a divine art.” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“If art is to fulfill a divine mission—and everything on earth is a divine mission if understood properly—it should help you to uplift your consciousness through color, form, melody, harmony, or rhythm.” Joyful Arts Festival 2007

2005: First Joyful Arts Festival at Ananda Village

Why an arts festival?
Swami Kriyananda introduced The Festival of the Joyful Arts at Ananda Village to increase awareness of the importance of art in producing positive, uplifting changes in individuals and also in society as a whole.
The first Joyful Arts Festival, and those that