Most people have had one or more of their windows of life jammed shut for years. As a result, they suffer from chronic maladies. Their remedy lies in discovering how to open those windows themselves and bask once more in the all-healing rays of the Divine.

2. Right attitude toward diet
You must strike a balance between non-attachment to outer things and sensible concern for your present realities. So long as you are centered in body-consciousness, you must take sensible care of your body and follow the God-made laws that govern health and the physical body. At the same time, don’t over-emphasize the importance of the body or become too fastidious about diet. Many food faddists only weaken their systems by depending excessively on dietary principles.

Since you have to eat, eat the right kind of food. Choose a balanced diet, stick to it, and then forget the body. Devote your time to meditation and right living.

3. Do’s and Don’ts of Proper Eating
Every day the tissues of the body must be supplied with the proper body-building materials. In plastering a house, if you mix less lime in the sand, the plaster will begin to fall off in a short time. Similarly, our bodies decay when not “plastered” with the right type and quantity of body-building elements. The body begins to lose vigor, the tissues become flabby, the skin begins to wrinkle, and the cells begin to lose their building power.

In planning your breakfast, lunch, and dinner, be sure to give your body the proper type and quantity of body-building materials.

Eat sparingly of the right foods
Overloading the stomach with unnecessary food is one of the most common abuses of the body. Eat sparingly and notice the great change in your health for the better. Eating too much at one meal, followed by lack of exercise, develops the body disproportionately.

Eating freely of fruits and vegetables will greatly benefit your health, whereas eating too much starchy food and protein retains the poisons in the body.

Drink milk each day
Drink at least a glassful of good milk each day. Milk is the only food except eggs that alone can support human life. Drinking milk will help prevent old age and the sudden deterioration of the body, which result from not giving the body all the elements necessary for its healthy maintenance. Drink milk alone or with fruits—never with meals.

Avoid drinking ice water
Doctors say that drinking ice water lowers the temperature of the stomach thirty degrees. This is shocking and disastrous to an individual’s digestive power. Never drink ice water with your meals or when you are overheated. It’s best not to drink water of any kind with meals.

Eat only when hungry
The man who eats without real physical hunger is skating on the “thin ice” of digestibility. When he begins to tax his poor digestive power by greedily gulping unmasticated food in large quantities, and washing it down with ice water, he opens the door to illness and disease.

Eat in an atmosphere of calmness
Other important considerations in eating and digesting food are:

1. Proper selection of food
2. Attractive appearance and aroma
3. Pleasant environment

One should always partake of food with a thankful, joyful heart. Keep mealtimes calm and pleasant, and avoid eating when under the stress of emotion.

4. Analyze your mental diet
Have you ever analyzed your mental diet? It consists of the thoughts you think as well as the thoughts you receive from close contact with friends. Good thoughts are nourishing food for the mind, but thoughts of any other nature are poisonous to both mind and body. Peaceful thoughts and peaceful friends produce healthy, magnetic minds, whereas the wrong sort of friends produces inner disquietude and an unwholesome, gloomy mind.

No matter how busy you are, do not forget to free your mind regularly from all worries. Do not allow them to torture you. Remember that they were made by you. Learn to remove the causes of your worries without permitting them to worry you.

5. Add the “magnetic diet” of sunshine and oxygen
The magnetic diet consists of such food substitutes as sunrays and oxygen, which can be assimilated and converted into energy more quickly than solids and liquids. Oxygen and sunshine should have a very important place in people’s lives, because of their direct energy-producing quality.

When you are tired or hungry, take a sunbath and you will find yourself revived and recharged with ultraviolet rays. Inhale and exhale several times outdoors or near an open window, and your fatigue will be gone. A fasting person who inhales and exhales deeply twelve times, three times a day, is able to fully recharge his body with energy.

Practice the following exercise three times a day: Exhale slowly, counting from 1 to 6. Now, while the lungs are empty, mentally count from 1 to 6. Inhale slowly, counting from 1 to 6. Then hold the breath, counting from 1 to 6. Repeat eleven times.

6. How to remain youthful
You must take care of your body machine. As the years roll along, do not give up—as so many people do. Always be interested in life. Keep the mind busy by creating and doing new things. The infinite powers are at your command. Just as the ocean can help any wave to retain its form, so also can the everlasting ocean of Immortal Power behind the human body continue manifesting itself as that youthful, vital form.

Daily exercise
Walk daily and bathe your body in the bacteria-killing sunshine. During the winter months, take time to go skating, skiing, and walking. Breathe the fresh, crisp, invigorating air of winter. Perform some sort of exercise every day until perspiration breaks out over your whole body. Your colds and other similar ills will soon disappear.

Sufficient sleep
Sleep can be induced at will by lying on the back, closing the eyes, tensing and relaxing the body, and dismissing all thoughts. Try this until you learn to sleep at will.

Healthy teeth
Diseased teeth produce many ills. After eating, give your teeth a cleansing “shower bath.”  If you have no toothbrush handy, rinse your mouth with water ten times after each meal.

Periodic fasting
One of the main causes of arthritis, rheumatism, and many other diseases is autointoxication, which is due to faulty elimination. Uneliminated, decayed food stays like a paste on the walls of the intestines and is absorbed into the bloodstream. Disease naturally follows.

A three-day fast once a month on orange juice, with a laxative each night while fasting, will expel poisons and do much to make the body strong, healthy, and youthful to the last days of life.

Smile from the heart
There is no better reviving tonic than a genuine smile, and no beauty greater than the smile of peace and wisdom glowing on your face.

7. Rejuvenation through relaxation
Physical relaxation
For complete relaxation of the body, first gently tense the entire body. Then relax and withdraw all energy from the body and remain relaxed, without the slightest physical motion. The complete absence of motion and tension from muscles and limbs is “relaxation.” Imagine that the body is jelly-like, without bones or muscles. When you can do this, you have attained perfect muscular relaxation.

Deep relaxation with AUM
Sit on a straight chair, with your spine upright. Expel the breath quickly and hold the breath, counting mentally 1 to 10. Inhale slowly, hold the breath, counting 1 to 10. Repeat ten times. Then expel the breath and forget it.

Concentrate on the toes of the left foot and say “AUM” mentally on each toe. Do the same to the toes of the right foot. Then concentrate on the sole of the left foot and then the right foot, saying “AUM” on each.

Concentrate on the left and right calves, mentally saying “AUM.” Do the same with the left and right thighs, left and right hips, navel, abdomen, liver, spleen, stomach, pancreas, heart, left and right lungs, left and right hands and arms, left side of neck, right side of neck, and front and back of neck.

Say “AUM” mentally, concentrating on the pituitary gland, pineal gland, medulla, point between the eyebrows, mouth, tongue and uvula, left and right nostrils, left and right eyes, left and right ears, cerebellum, and cerebrum.

Then go up and down the chakras: coccygeal, sacral, lumbar, dorsal, cervical, medulla, and Christ Center at the point between the eyebrows, mentally chanting “AUM.” Try to feel that the whole body is surrounded within and without with the holy vibration of AUM.

Mental relaxation
Mental relaxation consists of the ability to free the mind from haunting worries over past and present difficulties. Mastery in mental relaxation comes with faithful practice. It can be attained by learning how to free the mind of all thoughts at will and to keep the attention fixed on the peace and contentment within. By the regular practice of meditation you can achieve mental relaxation.

8. Rejuvenation through “super-relaxation”
“Super-relaxation” is the complete, voluntary withdrawal of consciousness and energy from the entire body and mind through the practice of meditation. By the practice of meditation, one achieves complete mental relaxation by releasing the consciousness from the delusion of duality and resting the mind in one’s true nature of unity in Spirit. One also achieves complete physical relaxation, inhibiting decay and the breaking down of bodily tissues. This keeps the bloodstream pure and promotes physical rejuvenation.

9. Draw on limitless cosmic energy
Willingness and determination keep the blood vitalized with life-energy. If you can maintain an attitude of joyful willingness at all times, you will find your body constantly supplied with fresh cosmic energy drawn into the body through the door of the medulla oblongata. Your blood will be charged with life-current, making it immune to the invasion of bacteria.

To keep your body vibrating with life current, strengthen your willingness and determination in everything.

10. The highest form of rejuvenation
The highest form of rejuvenation is to unite the human consciousness with the infinite Cosmic Consciousness through meditation. When you are able to feel your body as vibrating currents in the ocean of Cosmic Consciousness, you will find not only perpetual rejuvenation in the soul, but also in the body. Meditation is the greatest way of resurrecting your soul from the bondage of body and all your trials. Meditate at the feet of the Infinite. Learn to saturate yourself with Him.

Excerpted from: How to Achieve Glowing Health and Vitality, by Paramhansa Yogananda, available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. This book will be available in February 2012. To pre-order click here

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By and by this rumor about A and the crows reached the ears of D. To verify the strange rumor, and in great excitement, D went to several village officers and asked about it. They all vehemently declared that they were positive that four crows flew out of A’s mouth during his ailment.

Curious, but disbelieving and dissatisfied, D went to his friend C and said, “Friend, rumor has it that A disgorged four crows out of his mouth. Is that true?” C laughed and laughed, and after the echo of his laughter subsided,  replied, “My, how people exaggerate. Our friend A only sent forth three crows out of his mouth.”

Hearing this, D thought to himself, “Well, I have boiled down the rumor to three crows. Now, let me inquire of B, who lives near A’s home.” When D found B and questioned him about the three crows that A was said to have expelled from his mouth, B nearly became hysterical with laughter and said, “My how people can froth and swell up things. Why, A only expelled two crows during his sick spell.”

More skeptical than ever, D thought to himself, “I have reduced the number of crows from four to two — now let me go to A himself and get from him the facts regarding the “two-crow” story. D met A in his home, and as soon as A heard about the four or three or two crows he was rumored to have expelled, he was beside himself with laughter. He fell from his chair and rolled on the floor with merriment.

After A had his fill of laughter, he sat on the chair again and said to D, “Friend D, I never dreamed that anyone could develop such an exaggerated yarn, so strange and unrelated to everyday facts.

“Well, my friend, here are the facts. I was walking near an open drain when I became ill with indigestion and expelled two black things at the edge of the drain, which rebounded and disappeared in the drain. B was passing by with a few people at that time and, hearing me violently coughing said, ‘What is the matter with you?’

“I replied, ‘Something strange just happened. I was severely ill with indigestion and expelled the contents of my stomach, and two dark things flew out of my mouth and disappeared from my sight.’ Later, I remembered that I had eaten too many dark mushrooms, which had caused my sick spell.

“I can see that B, in his excitement, heard that two dark things flew out of my mouth, and his imagination transformed the two mushrooms into two gloomy crows, winging their way into invisibility. When C heard this story from B, in his excitement and to convince unbelieving ears, he increased the number of crows from two to three. The gullible, gossip-loving villagers were not satisfied with the story of three crows but emphatically asserted that I, during my ailment, expelled four crows, which vanished into thin air.”

******

This story fittingly illustrates how people love to exaggerate. People love to believe the impossible and to exaggerate upon it, for it satisfies their hunger for weird, mysterious happenings. Man becomes tired of this prosaic world, so he enjoys living in the domain of fancy. Some men and women live so completely in the domain of fancy that they are not aware that their love of exaggeration gives birth to abject lies. Such people cease to behold the demarcation line between truth and falsehood.

There may be some facts in a rumor or a piece of gossip. If you want to know the truth about anything, find out what started the rumor. Someone has said: “Give a lie a twenty-five minute start and it will become immortal.”

It is best to combat lies by loud or silent protest, as the case demands. Although exaggeration and false accusations may be based on something factual, those accused may be entirely different from what people have been told. People lose faith in someone who has exaggerated, as soon as the complete truth is uncovered.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

May the religion of matter-worship be converted into loving, direct worship of Thee. Since, without Thy power to love, we cannot truly love anything, may we love Thee first and above everything else.

May the heavenly kingdom of Bliss, where Thou dwellest, manifest itself with all its divine qualities on earth, and may all lands be freed from limitations, imperfections, and miseries. Let Thy kingdom within us manifest itself without.

Father, leave us not in the pit of temptations, into which we fell by the misuse of Thy gift of reason. When we become freer and stronger—should it be Thy wish to test us, to see whether we love Thee more than any temptation—then, Father, make Thyself more tempting than temptation! O Father, if it be Thy wish to test us, help us keep our will power strong enough to meet all Thy tests.

Give us our daily bread: food, health, and prosperity for the body; efficiency for the mind; and, above all, Thy wisdom and love for our souls. Teach us to deliver ourselves, with Thy help, from the meshes of ignorance which we have woven through our own carelessness.

From Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda. Available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

When a dietician expounds upon the wonderful results of a certain dietary system, Mr. John is very enthusiastic. However, because he never tries out that system of diet, he loses interest in it. But if another dietician visits town, Mr. John goes to listen to him because he remembers the enthusiasm he felt while listening to the first dietician. Mr. John does not try out this new system of diet either, or if he tries it a little, he soon falls back on his unhealthy eating habits. In this way, Mr. John, impelled by a theoretical desire to eat properly, develops the habit of listening to all the new dieticians who come to town without ever following their instructions.

But Mr. John should remember that he cannot follow all dietary systems at the same time and that he should not discard a good system of diet for a lesser system, just because it happens to be new to him.

Carefully select the best teaching
The above principles apply to religion as well. Most people try to follow a variety of  teachings yet stick to none. Led only by curiosity, they love to listen to new ideas from new personalities without ever assimilating the ideas. They are like people who set out on a path to reach a certain destination but become so enamored with walking that they keep on walking and forget all about the point they wanted to reach.

Just as there is more than one true religion, so also is there more than one path that leads up the mountain of divine attainment. In the beginning of the spiritual search it is wise to seek truth through books and lectures and to compare different spiritual paths and teachers. But it becomes important at a certain point to carefully select the best teaching and the best teacher.

You can find the best teaching expressed in books, but to attain spiritual perfection, you also need the assistance of a guru. The willingness to accept divine guidance through one of God’s awakened channels differentiates the sincere seeker from the dilettante. To try to achieve spiritual perfection through a variety of channels shows not only a lack of commitment, but a lack of understanding of the universal path by which all souls find enlightenment.

The potential for confusion
Once you’ve made your selection, it is important to be firmly loyal to your way. You must simply accept that it is not possible to follow more than one teaching at a time, any more than you can reach a destination by following more than one route at a time. Once you’ve found a true teaching, the restless searching should cease.

Unfortunately, many students, even after finding a true teaching, continue to read other teachings and to investigate other paths, perhaps hoping to find easier, shorter routes to divine attainment. I once had a student who read other teachings all the time. She was a very nice person, always kind and polite to everyone. But I used to tell her, “Why don’t you read your own teachings?”

“Oh, all teachings are the same,” she said.

“That’s true,” I said, “but just the same, if you keep reading everything else you will get confused. You have to realize the truth behind those teachings. Only then will you know from realization that they are the same. Until that time, it will be like trying to cross a river with your feet in two boats. When the boats separate, you will fall between them and drown. Some differences do exist between the various teachings. With wisdom, they can be resolved. To the unenlightened mind, however, though they are superficial, they can be a cause of confusion.”

Unfortunately, this student didn’t heed my advice but kept on with her eclectic reading. After a time, she drifted off.

Loyalty is the first law of God
The very thought, “Oh, all teachings are the same,” has just enough truth in it to constitute also a pitfall. Until you have risen above your conscious mind and learned to live more by superconscious guidance, the differences between one teaching and another can easily lead into a bog of confusion.

To one who lives by superconscious guidance and is planted firmly on his own path, the differences between one teaching and another become superficial. Such a person understands the underlying purpose of each path, and sees why the good advice of one teacher may differ in some respects from the equally good advice of another. Newcomers to the path, however, may not perceive the unifying rationale behind those differences, and are often confused by them.

Always be wise in your seeking. The emotional excitement of finding new ways must always be balanced against the truth that “loyalty is the first law of God.” Eclecticism indicates a lack of serious purpose. This is not to say you should be fanatical, but on the other hand don’t be wishy-washy. If you would unite your soul with Him who is the foundation of the universe, you must be firm in what you stand for. Unswerving loyalty to one’s chosen path is necessary.

Seek God with deep sincerity
Why do so many people truly long for God, yet do not find him?  It is because they do not seek Him with deep sincerity and give up too soon.

Always be completely sincere with God. Without sincerity, the necessary focus and intensity will be lacking. God already knows what you are thinking, but sincerity lends power to your thoughts and prayers by focusing and centering them in Him. God never fails to listen to true soul-calls.

The devotional call, if sincere, deep and continuous, and supplemented by sincere efforts at deep meditation, always brings a divine response. The sincere truth-seeker tells himself, “I know what an arduous task it must be to achieve perfection, but I will give it all I have. With God’s help, success surely must be mine!”

What happens if you fall?
We are living in a new age when the standards of living are less strict. It becomes even more important, therefore, to remember always that the correct spiritual way to live is to go within and ask yourself whether what you are doing is right or wrong. Be absolutely sincere with yourself. If you are sincere you will rarely go wrong, and if you do, you will quickly correct yourself.

Sincere repentance for past wrong actions is needed before a person can go forward and make the kind of effort needed to attain divine freedom. For this reason, Jesus wanted to test the character of his fallen disciple, the woman of Samaria, to see if she could be helped. The woman of Samaria had had five husbands and was then living with a man who was not her husband.

To determine the degree of her degradation, Jesus asked her to call her husband. When she responded honestly by telling Jesus that she had no husband, he was pleased. Her truthfulness showed that her moral degradation was only temporary. Because of her honesty and recognition of Jesus as the promised Messiah, he was able to heal her. Thereafter, she became one of his disciples and devoted herself to the spread of his teachings.

Never indulge in hypocrisy or insincerity
No matter how far a disciple has strayed from the spiritual life, he can be saved if he is sincere and honest with his guru. Insincerity and prevarication toward the guru are the greatest sins for these are deliberate transgressions, unlike flesh transgressions which are often due partly to instinctive compulsion. It’s possible to help wayward souls if they sincerely confess their faults and are willing to accept the guru’s advice and blessings. But if the disciple practices insincerity toward his guru and tries to hide his moral disease, he shuts the door to the guru’s healing help.

Never indulge in hypocrisy or insincerity. Always remember: no matter how far you fall from the grace of goodness, you are spiritually safe if you sincerely try your utmost to become good again.

It was this all-important quality of sincerity that Jesus praised in his disciple, Nathaniel, upon their first meeting. As Nathaniel walked toward him accompanied by the disciple Philip, Jesus said, “Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile” — meaning, “Behold a soul who is completely free of all insincerity.”

Sincerity and courage attract divine strength
You can attain divine consciousness if you are sincere and persistent, and convince God that you want Him more than anything else. You must apply yourself energetically and put forth continuous personal zeal. No matter what your difficulties, you must not give up. Those devotees who never give up reach the divine goal.

Salvation is possible because sincerity and courage attract the strength needed for its attainment. God gives to the sincere seeker the power to achieve victory.

From books, articles, and lessons (1938).

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With this goal in mind, the Hindu philosopher asked, “Boatman, have you studied the first Hindu bible?” The boatman replied, “No sir. I don’t know anything about the first Hindu bible.” The Hindu philosopher, looking very wise, remarked pityingly, “Mr. Boatman, I am sorry to declare unto you that 25 per cent of your life is lost.”

The boatman swallowed this insult and kept on quietly rowing his boat. When the boat had gone some distance across the Ganges, the Hindu philosopher, his eyes sparkling with unholy wisdom, exclaimed loudly, “Mr. Boatman, I must ask you: have you studied the second Hindu bible?”

This question roused the boatman and he replied, “Sir, I tell you definitely that I know nothing about the second Hindu bible.” To this the Hindu philosopher replied with cool amusement, “Mr. Boatman, I am very sorry to declare unto you that 50 per cent of your life is lost.”

The boatman angrily settled down to his work at the oars. When the boat had reached the middle of the river and the wind was blowing a bit strongly, for the third time the Hindu philosopher’s eyes glistened with superiority and he demanded, “Mr. Boatman tell me: have you studied the third Hindu bible?”

By this time the boatman was beside himself with wrath and he shouted, “Mr. Philosopher, I am sorry you cannot find anybody else to practice your knowledge upon. I told you I don’t know anything about the Hindu bibles.”

The philosopher, in gloating triumph and with pseudo-wisdom resounding in his voice, declared nonchalantly, “Mr. Boatman, I am sorry to announce unto you that 75 per cent of your life is lost.” The boatman kept mumbling and somehow swallowed the words of this impossible philosopher.

Ten more minutes passed. Suddenly a demon of a storm seared the veils of the clouds and sprang over the waters of the river, lashing it into furiously excited waves. The boat began to rock like a little floating leaf in the madly raging river current.

The philosopher was shivering and trembling, while the boatman with a smile of assurance on his face looked at him and said, “Mr. Philosopher, you pelted me with many questions. May I now ask you one?” Receiving an affirmative reply, the boatman said, “Mr. Hindu Philosopher, knower of the four Hindu bibles, you established that 75 per cent of my life was lost. Now I will ask you a question: Do you know how to swim?”

To this question the Hindu philosopher tremblingly replied, “No, dear boatman. I cannot swim.” Then the boatman, with victorious indifference, smilingly replied, “Mr. Hindu Philosopher, knower of the four Hindu bibles, I am sorry to declare unto you that 100 per cent of your life is soon going to be lost.”

Just at that moment, as if fulfilling the prophecy of the boatman, a furious gust upset the boat, drowning the philosopher. The boatman, by powerful strokes, overcame the waves and reached the shores of the Ganges in safety.

*******

The moral of this story: No matter how prosperous or powerful you are, unless you learn the art of right behavior and right living, you will drown in the seas of difficulty. But if you know the art of swimming across life’s tumultuous river by initiating the right actions at the right time, with powerful strokes of will power, you will be able to transcend the tests of life and reach the shores of perfect contentment.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

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My imprisoned soul cried at last for freedom from the prison of confining flesh and solicitous maternal care. No more did I want to dwell within the fenced garden of the senses. Yes, I cried for freedom.

Then at last the cloud of silence within me, holding Thee remote, burst, and Thy mercy rained upon me, cleansing me with Thy grace. The rising waters of Thy Spirit broke the narrow boundaries of my soul, baptizing me in Thine expanding waters of infinity.

The power of Thy flood of cosmic consciousness broke the embankments of my senses, and every little bubble of my consciousness dissolved, to be baptized in the waters of Thine omnipresence.

From Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda. Available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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Science tells us that everything came from vibration and that all things in this universe are nothing but different rates of one vibration. Therefore it is one vibration which has created the solids, liquids, gases, and all substances. Isn’t it so?”

He said, “Yes.” Then I asked, “How is it that one vibration becomes solid, another becomes liquid, and another becomes gases, and how is it that these vibrations are so coordinated that human life becomes possible? Doesn’t it show that there is an Intelligence behind all this?” He said, “Yes, I have found the answer.”

All matter is composed of vibration. The difference between solids, liquids, and gaseous substances consists only in the different rate of their vibration. Heat a piece of iron and it will liquefy; further heat the liquid and it will evaporate into gas. Science does not tell us how this one vibration differentiates itself, but vibration could not differentiate itself into different forms if it did not have intelligence.

In support of human life
Intelligent vibration creates and guides the universe. The human body is simply a combination consisting chiefly of 16 elements that can be found almost anywhere in Nature’s realm. Unless intelligence is in the body, it is only a combination of these elements and nothing more. With intelligence added, it becomes a living and thinking human being.

If vibration were not intelligent, the earth might be a meaningless mass of mud without human beings or a food supply to support human life. Seemingly, the earth and the whole universe have been placed on a routine so that human life is possible.

For instance, there is the sun far away and here we are on this little earth and yet, due to the direction of a living intelligence, there is a cooperation between the sun and our lives. Without that sun we could not exist. Even the stars govern our lives to some extent. We have hunger, and Nature supplies our need for food. Some mysterious power transforms that food into energy and the tissues of our bodies. Why doesn’t one hand become longer than the other? Why is not the head as long as the body?

Everything we see in creation shows thought and design. Even the fibers of the tree show thought and design. The tree breathes and has sap pressure. Why do the seasons come on time? Why is the earth the earth, the ocean the ocean, and the solar system a solar system? Why is there this perceptible beauty and orderly arrangement in the universe?  It is because an intelligent force is guiding all things to a definite destiny. Not only do we see evidence of intelligence in everything around us, but the harmonious arrangement of all things suggests a conscious prearranged plan.

Human beings, the solar and stellar systems, the earth with its physical laws and routine of seasons, all stand in harmonious relation to each other. This shows the universe to be the work of one governing Intelligence or Universal Spirit who creates all things and arranges them in harmonious relationships according to an unseen plan.

The Factory of Cosmic Intelligence
The Infinite is inconceivable, but the finite gives us a starting point. Can the intelligence reflected in Nature come out of nothing? Is it not reasonable to suppose that somewhere there is some sort of “factory” that produces intelligence? We humans are only one of the many products of that Factory of Cosmic Intelligence. God is that invisible Factory of Intelligence from which stars, planets, and all manifest things are created, born and harmonized.

Despite Nature’s many pranks, throughout the universe there is a rhythm. This rhythm, and all things, are products of the Factory of the one All-Ruling Intelligence. In fact, the whole universe works in a coordinated way. It is a universe conducted in perfect order. Different rates of vibration, balanced in the cosmic rhythm, produce before us the majestic cosmos.

Beauty, morality, & nobility
You will observe that this universal Spirit is also trying to manifest beauty and a moral and a noble plan. Not only do we see intelligence at work, but we also see the beauty of Nature, of mountains rising in the ever-changing canvas of the sky. We see the beauty of magnanimous souls, the loftiness of certain minds, the depth of saintly love, the fountains of human mercy. Why is there this perceptible beauty and inspiration all around us? No doubt the universal power sometimes works under adverse circumstances, but it is evident that a secret force is at work trying to bring order out of the chaos of creation through beauty, and a moral and spiritual plan.

Everything in the universe is related. Hidden within us is the germ of an Almighty Power that has linked us all together. We find that our wisdom is a reflection from an infinite light of wisdom. We can say, “God is wisdom, the wisdom behind all wisdom, of which we can see glimpses through the intelligence of human beings and the intelligence expressed in all Nature.

The goodness of God
God is very good to us. If He wanted to punish us, He could give a little push to this earth and we would be gone. The earth is going at a terrific speed around the sun, but think what would happen if it whirled a little faster or a little slower–we would be completely wiped out.

Just like a man with a lot of luggage, so is this earth with its moon going around the sun. Even though many natural forces try to pull it away, the earth goes on its path. We think we are perfectly safe, but if the earth trembled just a little, where would we be? Think of the insecurity of earthly existence; and yet so many people go on forgetting God and His power!

The surest proof of God’s existence
God lies beyond the circle of our imagination and finite understanding. We can not prove God’s existence through the limited powers of the intellect. Intellect gives only a partial and indirect view of things. God is the cause of all things, but He is also beyond cause. Only our superconscious mind or intuition can fully grasp this truth. Intuition carries the conviction of direct experience.

The surest proof of the existence of God can only be found within, by the whole-hearted deep, daily practice of meditation.  When we have stilled the waves of thought within us and are calm, we can perceive the Infinite. Then the God that is templed in all creation manifests within us as the peace and bliss of meditation.

When that bliss comes over you, you will recognize it as a conscious, intelligent, universal Being to whom you may appeal, and not an abstract mental state. The experience of bliss is the surest proof of God’s existence. Finding Him within, you will find Him everywhere.

God gives us many incentives
Many incentives are given us outwardly to inspire us to seek a higher reality. There are Nature’s countless beauties. There is the amazing adaptability and precision evident in the natural order, the signs of a mighty, guiding Intelligence. And there are inspiring qualities in human nature, which sensitive people, as they become aware of them, want to develop in themselves.

It is evident that the harmony in Nature and the mathematics of planetary order reveal an intelligent law and cosmic plan. The unthinking person ascribes the law and order in this world to chance and nature, but the divine man, who consciously perceives God in everything, knows that everything, including all planetary and stellar systems, are linked to that one Infinite Intelligence and governed by His will.

From books, articles and lessons.

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The little frog thought to himself, “If I give up I will die, so I must keep on swimming.” Two hours passed, and the little frog thought he could do no more. But as he thought of his dead brother frog, he roused his will, saying, “To give up is certain death. I will keep on paddling until I die, if death is to come, but I will not give up trying, for while there is life there is still hope.”

Intoxicated with determination, the little frog kept on paddling. After hours, when he felt paralyzed with fatigue and could paddle no more, he suddenly felt a big lump under his feet. His incessant paddling had churned the milk into butter! Standing on the butter mound with great joy, the little frog leaped from the milk pail to freedom.

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Remember, we are all in the slippery milk pail of life, trying to get free from our troubles like the two frogs. Most people give up trying and fail like the big frog. But we must learn to persevere in our effort toward one goal, as the little frog did. Then we shall churn an opportunity by our God-guided, unflinching will power, and we will be able to hop out of the milk pail of trials onto the safe ground of eternal success. By not giving up, we develop will power and win in everything we undertake.

From the Praecepta Lessons.

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When the time comes to depart, I will retire to wakeful sleep on the bosom of Thy infinite joy, a ripple ever dancing with billows of all joy. I am a bubble of joy, struggling to burst and unite with the ocean of joy.

I feel Thy joy in all things! Make me a lighthouse of joy also, guiding storm-tossed vessels of life to safety on the shores of Thy joy.

Let every vine of my activity bear large grape clusters of Thy joy! Let me drink the divine wine pressed from the grapes of all life’s little joys!

From Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda. Available from Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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I have no habits,
In eating, thinking, behaving
I am free, I am free.

I command Thee, O Attention
To come and practice concentration
On things I do, on works I do.
I can do everything
When so I think, when so I think.

In church or temple, in prayer mood
My vagrant thoughts against me stood
And held my mind from reaching Thee
And held my mind from reaching Thee
Teach me to own again, O own again
My matter-sold mind and brain
That I may give them to Thee
In prayer and ecstasy
In meditation and reverie.

I shall worship Thee
In meditation
In the mountain breast and seclusion.
I shall feel Thy energy
Flowing through my hands in activity
Lest I lose Thee
I shall find Thee in activity.

From Scientific Healing Affirmations, 1924 edition.

Related reading: Affirmations for Self-Healing by Swami Kriyananda. To order click here

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Your success in life does not depend only upon natural ability; it also depends upon your determination to grasp the opportunities that are presented to you.

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You are always demonstrating success or failure, according to the kind of thoughts that you habitually entertain. If your trend of thought is usually negative, an occasional positive thought is not enough to change the vibration to one of success.

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Along with positive thinking, you must use will power and continuous activity in order to be successful.

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You must train yourself to use conscious, not mechanical, will. And you must be sure that your will power is used constructively, not for harmful purposes or trifling things.

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Even failure should act as a stimulant to your will power, and to your material and spiritual growth. Weed out the causes of failure, and with double vigor launch what you wish to accomplish.

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Initiative is the creative faculty within you, a spark of the Infinite Creator. It may give you the power to create something no one else has ever created. It urges you to do things in new ways.

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There are always two forces warring against each other within us. One tells us to do things we should not do, and the other urges us to do things we should do and things that are difficult. One is the voice of evil, and the other is the voice of God.

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Until you are master of yourself and you are able to command yourself to do the things that you should do, but may not want to do, you are not a free soul.

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Some of the attributes you must cultivate in order to achieve success are positive thoughts, dynamic will, self-analysis, initiative, and self-control — but these are only the first steps. Many popular books stress one or more of these, but do not give credit to the Power which is behind them.

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God is the source of all mental power and prosperity. Do not will and act first, but contact God first and thus harness your will and activity to the right goal.

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When you want to create something important, sit quietly, calm your senses and your thoughts, and meditate deeply upon what you want to do or acquire. Then you will be guided by the great creative power of Spirit.

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To lead a successful life you must first have a dominant purpose. That purpose must be the right one for you, then all the powers of God will guide you in your plans and activities.

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The entire purpose of life becomes futile if you cannot find happiness. Therefore, success must be measured by happiness, by your ability to remain in harmony with cosmic laws, rather than by health, wealth, or prestige.

All quotations are from How to be a Success, by Paramhansa Yogananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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There was a time when I believed that Satan was a figment of the mind, but now I know from personal experience and add my testimony to that of Jesus Christ and countless others that Satan exists, and is responsible for the creation of evil on earth and in the minds of men. He is a universal, conscious force whose sole aim is to keep mankind bound to delusion. Many times I have seen Satan trying to obstruct me by mysterious misfortunes, and by taking on materialized forms.

Satan is part of God’s drama
Philosophically, Satan represents the outward flowing creative force which brings creation into manifestation. Without Satan, there would be no creation; no universe; no cosmic drama.

Satan is necessary to God’s drama, just as the villain is necessary in a stage play to personify evil. Without the villain, we might not feel the necessary incentive to love the hero, who represents the good. Similarly, evil and its painful after-effects are meant to awaken in us love for goodness and God.

Both evil and good exist only in the realm of maya, of duality. God is beyond them both. God could destroy Satan in a minute, but He would be going against His own laws if He did so. God knew that some evil would result from His creation, but He also knew that the power of love was stronger than the lures of evil, so He is trying by love to draw us back to Him and away from the influence of Satan.

The origin of all evil
Some intellectuals, while not denying the existence of evil, claim that evil does not originate in an objective power such as Satan, but arises when man yields to temptation and, by his repeated transgressions over many incarnations, creates in himself evil habits. According to this view, evil is wholly man’s fault and neither God nor any conscious evil power is responsible for the evil in the world. This viewpoint asserts that evil is wholly subjective, originating in the bad judgment of man.

This viewpoint fails to answer many questions. Why do millions of bacteria and virulent armies of germs move silently about the earth seeking to destroy human lives? Why do millions die by floods and cataclysms? It does not seem possible that the ten million people who perished in the 1931 flood and famine in China all suffered that fate due to past actions in previous lives. Think also of the innumerable diseases which infest plants and animals who have no free choice and who, consequently, could not attract evils due to bad karma.

The eternal warfare of bacteria, germs and diseases, and the unceasing upheavals and cataclysms in Nature, distinctly show that there is an evil force trying to thwart the efforts of the Infinite Good to express His infinite goodness throughout creation. Knowledge of an objective Satan explains the origin of all evil, which cannot be explained by the individual or collective subjective ignorance of man. Satan can work as wrong subjective consciousness in man, or he can become the objective evil in Nature.

Remember: the conscious evil force of Satan could not influence human minds if they did not allow it. It is therefore better to know all the lures of evil and the ways to combat them than to blindly deny their existence. Knowledge only, not indifference, can produce final emancipation from the lures of Satan.

The two realms of conscious cosmic energy
The two distinct realms of conscious cosmic energy, the heavenly and the satanic, can be found within the human body and throughout all space. In the human body, the heavenly region extends from the heart center up to the Christ center at the point between the eyebrows. The satanic region — the region of the senses and man’s lower instincts – is located in the three lower centers below the heart. People who do not meditate find their consciousness falling from the heavenly region of the brain down to the region of the senses, rendering them vulnerable to the lures of Satan.

There are also two vast rivers of consciousness that flow through the universe, one of them heavenly, the other satanic. All good is organized by God, His angels, and the enlightened masters sent to earth to awaken in humanity love of goodness and God. All evil is organized by Satan, who uses a vast horde of evil spirits to carry on his cosmic campaign of wickedness. To the ordinary man, Satan appears as subjective temptation subtly luring him according to the quality of his thoughts and feelings.

Patterns of good and evil
Do not deny the existence of an objective evil power, but become aware of the destructive patterns of evil as temptation within yourself and as imperfection and strife in Nature. We find that Jesus, whose knowledge was born of intuition, did not deny this evil. Jesus spoke of a conscious Satan who lured Him to the wilderness and tempted Him with destructive patterns of evil arrayed side by side with the good patterns of God.

What are those good and evil patterns? They are manifestations of duality, or the outward flowing cosmic energy that brought creation into existence. Thus, for every good pattern created by God, Satan has created a corresponding pattern of evil. For love and forgiveness, Satan has created hatred and revenge. For wisdom, Satan has created ignorance. For calmness, fearlessness, unselfishness, peace, and happiness, Satan has created restlessness, fear, selfishness, anger, and sorrow.

Man stands in the middle, with God on one side and Satan on the other side, each ready to pull him in whichever direction he wishes to go. Conscience, the voice of God, always beckons you to do what’s right. Temptation, the voice of Satan, coaxes you to do wrong.

Remember that you are a free agent endowed with free will, and that Satan can only influence you when you allow yourself to yield to his temptations. Strengthen your consciousness of goodness, and in its light drive away the darkness of evil. Perfect self-honesty and dynamic self-effort will help you eliminate forever the influence of satanic delusion in your life.

Meditation—the way out
Meditation is the only way to escape permanently the net of satanic delusion and to return to your true home in God. No matter how busy you are with work or other affairs, strive always to enter the inner silence to attune yourself with God. Contact with God through meditation reminds the soul of the unending fulfillment of bliss and destroys all seeds of earthly desires.

Make it a point always to keep your most important engagement: your daily appointment with the Lord. Twice daily, enter the inner silence. Worship God on the altar of the dawn. At the day’s end, sit quietly in the temple of the night; let darkness conceal you from the distractions of the day. Meditate deeply if you would know God.

When one goes into deep samadhi (oneness with Spirit) one perceives Spirit as the only Reality, the only eternal substance existing. Then you know that only ever-new, ever-joyous Spirit exists and that Satan is a delusion. Before attaining this exalted state, one must acknowledge the existence of duality. God and Satan are facts, even if the latter exists only in delusion and not in reality.

Freedom comes not by uttering wheedling prayers, but by attuning oneself deeply with the all-loving Inner Silence. When the influence of Satan is completely terminated in the soul, the liberated devotee finds only the presence of ever-existing, ever-conscious, ever-new bliss. All evil disappears as forgotten shadows from the consciousness of the illumined devotee.

There is no eternal punishment
People do not intentionally love to be evil. They are evil because they do not know the greater fulfillment of good habits and are unable to compare and select the best. As soon as man realizes that evil promises happiness and results only in unhappiness, he begins to wish for emancipation and for God. This wish for goodness and freedom serves as a portal through which God is again invited to come into the life of the prodigal son and lead him to the abode of freedom.

Even fathomless evil cannot destroy man’s soul, for he is essentially immortal and eternally good. If man continuously listens to the whisperings of conscience within himself and gets used to better ways of living, he ultimately discovers the eternal good in him and that he is made in the image of God, and thus becomes liberated.

From articles and books.

“Yes,” the man said. “All my life I’ve been weak, thin, and unwell. I would like in my next life to have a strong, healthy body.

In his next life he was given a strong, large, and healthy body. He was poor, however, and found it difficult to keep that robust body properly fed. At last, still hungry, he lay dying. The angel appeared to him again and asked, “Is there anything more you desire?”

“Yes,” he replied. “For my next life, I would like a strong, healthy body, and also a healthy bank account!”

Well, the next time he had a strong, healthy body, and was also wealthy. In time, however, he began to grieve that he had no one with whom to share his good fortune. When death came, the angel asked, “Is there anything else?”

“Yes, please. Next time, I would like to be strong, healthy, and wealthy, and also to have a good woman for a wife.”

Well, in his next life he was given all those blessings. His wife, too, was a good woman. Unfortunately, she died in her youth. For the rest of his days, he grieved at that loss. He worshipped her gloves, her shoes, and other memorabilia that were precious to him. As he lay dying of grief, the angel appeared to him again and said, “What now?”

“Next time,” said the man, “I would like to be strong, healthy, and wealthy, and also to have a good wife who lives a long time.”

“Are you sure you’ve covered everything?” demanded the angel.

“Yes, I’m certain that’s everything this time.”

Well, in his next life he had all those things, including a good wife who lived a long time. The trouble was, she lived too long! As he grew older, he became infatuated with his beautiful young secretary, to the point where, finally, he left his good wife for that girl. As for the girl, all she wanted was his money. When she got her hands on it, she ran away with a much younger man.

At last, as the man lay dying, the angel again appeared to him and demanded, “Well, what is it this time?”

“Nothing!” The man cried. “Nothing ever again! I’ve learned my lesson. I see that, in every fulfillment, there is a catch. From now on, whether I’m rich or poor, healthy or unhealthy, married or single, whether here on this earth or in the astral plane, I want only my Divine Beloved. Wherever God is, there alone lies perfection!”

Related link: click here to learn about our online course, Karma and Reincarnation

From: Karma and Reincarnation, by Paramhansa Yogananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

Suddenly I beheld myself in rags. Seated on the hard stones of poverty I wept, and my teardrops fell on the unheeding, unrelenting stones of my present circumstances.

The world passed me by in mocking silence. I cried out for Thy help, and Thou didst wake me at last through the force of my desperation. I laughed to find myself at last neither rich nor poor, but safe forever in Thy arms.

Oh! Waken all anxious souls from their dreams of smiling opulence and crying poverty.

O Maker of dream-worlds, deliver me forever from the nightmares of disease and death!

Wake me to immortality! Wake me to unshaken calmness, that I may know the fierce terrors of mundane delusion to be only dreams.

From: Whispers from Eternity, by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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Human suffering is not a sign of God’s anger with mankind. It is a sign, rather, of man’s ignorance of the divine law.

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Whatever we did in the past we can undo. All we need now is the right determination, born of our increasing inner freedom.

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To feel sorry for yourself is to dilute one’s inner power to overcome. Instead, affirm, There are no obstacles: There are only opportunities!

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The more we live guided from within, the greater our control over outer events in the great game of life. For when we live at our own center, in superconsciousness, we live in the only true freedom there is.

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Perfect surrender to God’s will is not in any way passive. Great will power and great concentration are needed to attune the mind perfectly.

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To do everything in the world to please God is the highest ideal. With God in your heart, let your face smile and your hands work ungrudgingly for Truth alone.

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It is best to feel by visualization and by divine contact in meditation that you are already perfect in health, wisdom and abundance, rather than to try to succeed by begging for health, prosperity, and wisdom.

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Once the ego has been transcended in soul-consciousness, the realm of karmic law is transcended also. The soul remains forever unaffected, for karmic consequences accrue only to the ego.

From: The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda, Volume 2, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

Made as you are in the image of God, you have within you God’s hidden power. That power is your own, but God-given, and comes from soul levels deep within yourself. It is impossible to live without using this power. Without the use of will power you cannot walk, talk, think, work, or feel. Even the slightest movement of the muscles or the winking of the eyelids is initiated by the use of will power. The challenge of life is to learn to live and work from a sense of His strength and guidance within, and not from ego-consciousness.

A strong will always finds a way
Learning to use your will power dynamically is the first step in this direction. There is dynamic will and mechanical will. Mechanical will is an unthinking use of will power, but dynamic will is a vital force involving continuous, never-discouraged determination and effort. When your will power is dynamic, your silent slogan is: “I will continue my efforts until I achieve my goal, no matter how difficult the task.”

A strong will, by its own dynamic force, creates a way for its fulfillment. It sets into motion certain vibrations, and Nature responds by creating circumstances favorable to its accomplishment. But dynamic will power alone is not enough. It’s also necessary to use your will power constructively, for wholesome purposes. When will power is used for harmful or trifling ends, it becomes weaker due to the lack of support from Truth. By developing dynamic will power, and using it in the right way, you will be able  to attune your will to God’s infinite will.

Three important rules
There are three important rules for making your will power more dynamic:

• First, determine to do some of the things you thought you could not do. Attempt simple tasks first. Then, as your confidence strengthens and your will becomes more dynamic, you can undertake more difficult accomplishments.
• Second, be sure you have chosen something constructive and feasible, and then refuse to consider failure.
• Third, devote your entire will power to accomplishing one thing at a time; do not scatter your energies or leave something half done to begin a new venture.

Fitful explosions of energy
By keeping your concentration at the spiritual eye, at the point between the eyebrows, it’s possible to develop great will power. But this practice must be combined with, and supported by, the heart’s devotion. Otherwise, the development of strong will power can lead to fitful explosions of energy that serve no practical purpose—or even worse, to harshness, cruelty, and the use of power to control or abuse others.

Fear is one of the greatest enemies of will power. Avoid it both in thought and action. Fear depletes the life force flowing through the nerves, and causes the nerves themselves to become as though paralyzed. Fear doesn’t help you to get away from the object of fear; it only weakens your will power. You must be cautious but never afraid. When the consciousness is kept on God, you will have no fears. Faith and courage will enable you to overcome every obstacle.

Other enemies of will power include: worry, indifference, timidity, restlessness, boredom, mental and physical laziness, pessimism as regards the future, and an unmethodical life. Worries are often the result of attempting to do too many things at once.

Acting in attunement with the Divine Will
God made you in His image, so that you might guide your will with wisdom, even as He does. Your ultimate task in life is to find your way back to God, but He has also given you a task to perform in the outer world. Often, however, God’s plan for how you are to fulfill that task is buried beneath the conflicting desires of human life, and you fail to receive the guidance that would save you from error.

Always sit in silence and ask God for His guidance and blessing, especially before deciding about any important undertaking. Always be sure, within the calm region of your inner Self, that what you want is right for you and in accord with His purposes. Then use all the force of your will to accomplish your objective, while keeping your mind centered on the thought of God, the source of all power and accomplishment. When you act in that way, behind your power will be God’s power; behind your mind, His mind; and behind your will, His will.

Human will, no matter how powerful, is limited by the boundaries of the human body and the perceptible physical universe. Divine Will has no boundaries; it works in all bodies, in all things. Divine Will can change the course of destiny, wake the dead, put a mountain into the sea, and change the course of the solar or stellar systems.

You must exercise your will in every undertaking, until it drops its mortal delusion of being human will and becomes one with the all-powerful Divine Will. You will not know what Divine Will is until you have developed your own will and learned to harmonize it with God’s supreme will.

Why struggle is necessary
People often demand to know why life is so challenging, and filled with so much tragedy and pain. Life was made purposely difficult for you, that you might develop your inner powers by directing will power and discrimination toward the solution of life’s mysteries. If the world were perfect, with nothing but angelic beings soaring about and singing everywhere, there would be no struggle, no inner growth—and, in the end, no worthwhile victory.

The Divine has given you the power to overcome your difficulties, and you must learn to use it. You were not meant to await passively the declaration of God’s will, but to strive actively to be His channel of divine love and joy. Only by arduous effort can you bring out God’s image in yourself.

Live more dynamically in the awareness of God’s presence, attuning your will to His infinite will. The more you do so, the more you will find His power strengthening and guiding you in everything you do. Through soul attunement, you will be able to think correctly concerning life’s challenges and difficulties, and if your thoughts or actions go astray, you will know how to realign them.

Awaken to divine truth
The power of will is yours. If you make a determined effort to awaken to divine truth, you will no longer walk nervously in fear and uncertainty on the path of life. The Cosmic Power will light your way, bringing you health, happiness, peace, and success. Power from the dynamic source of your being will flow through you.

From articles and books.

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This saint, who had lived as a recluse, so loved baby squirrels that he wanted to incarnate as a mother squirrel so that he could bestow his maternal affection on the helpless little ones. The story tells how this saint reincarnated as a holy mother squirrel and lived with her tiny babies on the top of a tree by the sea. Devotees soon realized that this was not an ordinary squirrel, but that the furry little body housed a great soul who had reincarnated thus to demonstrate the will of God even in the animal body. Many people learned of this unusual mother squirrel, and it is said that whosoever fed her either became prosperous, or was healed of whatever affliction he possessed.

Once when the holy squirrel had gone far away from the shore in quest of food, a storm lashed the ocean into high waves and swept away the tree with all the baby squirrels. The loving mother, on her return, discovered the dark work of the sea and commanded, “Ocean, give me back my babies or I will destroy you.”

When the ocean paid no attention to her warnings, the mother squirrel was seen, day and night for seven days, dipping her bushy tail in the water and then brushing it on the sand. Seeing this curious, determined activity, an angel of God appeared and said, “Holy mother squirrel, of all the strange things, your action of dipping your tail in the ocean and rubbing it on the sand is the strangest. Please tell me the reason for your queer activity.”

The squirrel replied, “Heavenly angel, the audacious sea swallowed my babies in my absence and paid no heed to my request to return them, so I am resolved to run the ocean dry.” The angel laughed and remonstrated, “Why, mother squirrel, in seven days more you won’t have any brush left on your tail with which to attempt to run the ocean dry!”

But the tiny mother, with the determination of eternity written on her face, replied, “A thousand million lives or more will I be born again and again as a squirrel, and I will grow as many bushy tails as are required to dry the ocean.” Saying this, the holy squirrel went on with her strange activity.

Seven days later, the brush of her tail had almost disappeared, and yet the mother squirrel had not stopped her work. In fact, her dynamic will, perfected in attunement with the divine will in former incarnations, had prepared her to continue as long as the world endured. And so the angel of God came back, and with folded hands said, “Holy squirrel, your will is law; please stop punishing the ocean and we will return your babies.” Only then did the mother squirrel rest.

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Remember, dear student, if all mortal methods of seeking happiness have failed you, do not be discouraged, but rouse your slumbering, all-powerful divine determination. Then you will find that the divine laws of God are bound to give you the dream-happiness that you desire.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1934.

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I smoothed the slopes of my mind with wise restraint, that the thirsty pores of temptation might absorb none of my strength.

I am Thy prodigal dewdrop, quivering in the hollows of life and death, waiting to slip down when it can to Thy shoreless sea. Though long truant, I, Thy tiny dewdrop, am homeward bound however long the journey take.

After this rhythmic dance of life, rising with birth, and sinking with the downbeat of death, I will refresh myself at last in Thy unmoving sea.

I do not want to lose myself. Thy tiny dewdrop craves only, by merging in Thee, to feel that I am one with all the other drops in Thy ocean.

I will be a rainbow-hued dewdrop, one with Thy omnipresence, and yet, in my omniscience, aware of my former dewdrop existence. I pray that all God-thirsty souls will come and drink from the Great Source of all our lives.

From Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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God created man in his own image, male and female created He them. And God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and out of the ground God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; and also the tree of life in the midst of the garden, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil….And God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden and commanded the man, saying: “Of every tree of the garden thou may freely eat. But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die….

Now the serpent said unto the woman: “Hath God said, ‘Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” And the woman said unto the serpent: “We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it lest ye die.” And the serpent said unto the woman: “Ye shall not surely die….” And the woman took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. And the eyes of them both were opened….Therefore God sent them forth from the Garden of Eden.

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Originally I thought it ridiculous to think that Adam and Eve were thrown out of the Garden of Eden just for eating an apple. Later, when I understood that there is a message for all humanity in the Adam and Eve story, I made up my mind to broadcast its allegorical truth to the whole world. As an allegory, the story of Adam and Eve tells how the first human beings fell spiritually by allowing their spiritual energy to be drawn downward in the inner spine.

What is the Garden of Eden?
God or Divine Will materialized the original man and woman, symbolically called Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve represent the two natures of God, reason and feeling, expressed in separate bodies. In man, God kept reason uppermost and feeling hidden; and in woman, He kept feeling uppermost and reason less prominent.

In the original plan of creation, man and woman, ideal soul mates, were to lead a heavenly life by keeping their minds in the “paradise” region at the point between the eyebrows, the spiritual eye. Spiritual marriage consisted of woman or feeling, uniting with reason or man, and attaining oneness with God through the perfection of that union.

The “Garden of Eden” represents the inner bliss Adam and Eve knew when they lived focused at the spiritual eye. The “tree of life” in the midst of the garden symbolizes the inner spine that runs through the center of the human body. When focused at the spiritual eye, the divine energy flows upward through the inner spine.

Adam and Eve, having been made in God’s perfect image, were in constant communion with the Almighty. God told them they were free to enjoy all the different “fruits” or senses in the bodily garden—attractive sensations of sight, hearing, smell, and taste—but not to partake of the “fruit” of the tree of life in the middle of the garden. The fruit of this tree, the sex instinct, is sometimes spoken of as the “apple.” God warned Adam and Eve that if they ate of this fruit, they would surely “die,” meaning they would fall from divine consciousness.

A lingering subconscious memory
Why did God issue this warning? The first human bodies appeared on earth as a special creation of God. When God materialized the first man and woman, he created bodies with a brain and nervous system that allowed for the full expression of divine consciousness.

Yet the souls of Adam and Eve had once been in animal bodies. Evolving upward from lower animal forms, their souls had attained a level of development that fitted them for a more refined physical vehicle for the expression of their consciousness. God caused the animals’ souls, for further advancement, to reincarnate in specially created human bodies, beginning with Adam and Eve.

However, the memory of past sex indulgence in lower animal forms lingered in the subconscious of Adam and Eve. God’s warning was intended to prevent them from awakening that subconscious memory. As children of the Divine, Adam and Eve inherited the free will either to obey God’s warning or to affirm a separate egoic reality and forsake their divine attunement.

Falling under the sway of duality
The “serpent” that tempted Eve is the powerful kundalini energy at the base of the spine, which stimulates the sex nerves and draws the energy downward in the inner spine. When tempted by the serpent, Eve, the feeling aspect in human nature, subconsciously recalled the procreative process in the animal kingdom, and felt an attraction to sexual expression. Feeling or emotion, once awakened, overpowered the faculty of reason, symbolized by Adam.

Through their misuse of feeling and reason, Adam and Eve came under the sway of duality or maya (“the knowledge of good and evil”) and lost their attunement with the Divine. Their “sin” was in choosing the outward sexual energy over the inner bliss to which God had invited them.

A unified harmony of Eden
When Adam and Eve were in perfect attunement with the Divine, they could produce physical offspring in the same manner as God, materializing them by the power of will. By indulging in physical union, Adam and Eve forsook the heavenly union of reason and feeling in divine spiritual marriage, and were relegated to the physical method of propagating the species.

The germ of Adam and Eve’s error remains in all human beings, and is experienced as the first temptation of the flesh. Ever since Adam and Eve’s fall, each individual has had to do battle with this cosmic temptation. When the sex instinct is not controlled, men and women are driven away from the “paradise” of happiness that accompanies a life of self-control and moderation. In spiritual marriage, pure love must predominate.

The dual nature of reason and feeling symbolized by Adam and Eve exists within each individual, male or female. The personal responsibility of all persons is to restore their dual nature to a unified harmony of Eden. That perfect balance comes only through ever-deepening divine contact. In God alone lies perfection.

The missing link is a myth
Adam and Eve’s fall has contributed to the widely held impression of human nature as inherently sinful. It was no great leap, from that view, for Darwin and others to attribute mankind’s very appearance on the stage of evolution to the monkeys.

According to the theory of evolution, all animal bodies are interrelated and evolved from the lemur, and the lemur from the fish family. Science has uncovered in the earth’s lowest strata seashells, then vegetation, then animals, then different kinds of primeval man, but no one has found any missing links of half-man, half-animal in the strata where human or animal skeletons were found. Why? Because the missing link is a myth. There is no missing link. Human bodies appeared on earth as a special creation of God.

How do you explain man’s animal characteristics?
The evolutionist asks: “If man is a special creation, how do you explain the existence of animal characteristics in man?”

It is true that man has animal characteristics and that his body reflects the pattern of animals: Human ears resemble sea  shells, and the tail at the end of the human spine is reminiscent of the tail of primates. The Darwin point at the top of the ear is the vestige of the long ears of the donkey, and our intestines resemble the snake. Man’s quick movements, restless eyes, and grinning face resemble the monkey. The running power of man suggests the racing power of the horse. Man is brave like the lion, foxy like the jackal, cruel like the tiger, meek like the lamb, and hypocritical like the quiet cat who has just eaten a tame canary. He can sing like the nightingale and is ferocious like the wolf.

The answer to the evolutionist is this: Man’s animal characteristics reflect his long evolutionary history through mineral, plant, and animal lives. But beginning with Adam and Eve, God caused the souls of animals, for further advancement, to reincarnate in specially created human bodies.

Our original perfection in God
Modern science points downward to the subconscious and to man’s animal origins, claiming that therein lies man’s basic reality. The ancient Hindu view of life, however, saw life’s deepest motivation as a reaching out toward its true origins in infinity, and not as a blind instinct to avoid being slain and gobbled up as propounded by Darwin.

The ancient rishis gave mankind a vision of where he is headed on his long evolutional journey. They perceived man’s longing for self-perfection not as a distortion of his animal nature, but as the result of a deeper-than-conscious memory of his eternal divine reality. They understood that the soul, though temporarily identified with various sorts of bodily and mental states, tries gradually and naturally to return to its original perfection, symbolized by Adam and Eve when they lived in the bliss of divine attunement in the Garden of Eden.

From the 1934 Praecepta Lessons and articles and books.

Transformation: Women, far more so than men, have the potential to uplift humanity. For feeling, not reason, is that aspect of human consciousness which can inspire, purify, and transform. The Hindu Way of Awakening, by Swami Kriyananda.

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Because of this wholesale murder of birds, the remaining birds, having eluded the hunter’s evil-eyed guns, became so intuitively wise that they flew away at the faintest sound of his approach. When the hunter realized that he had so scared the birds that they now avoided him, he became beside himself with wrath and began shooting at random through the thick foliage of the jungle.

His wrath spent, and completely dejected, he walked for a long time and finally emerged from the jungle. The spectacle that greeted him stirred fresh hope in his breast. To his amazement, he saw an orange-robed saint standing knee-deep in the lake on the outskirts of the jungle, with all kinds of game birds trustingly perched on his head, shoulders, and hands, and peacefully flying around him.

A sudden idea flashed across the hunter’s mind: “If I put on an orange robe every day and pose as a harmless saint, then I can create enough trust in the birds that they will perch on me, and swarm all around me. Then, at my convenience, I can club quite a few of them to death. In that way, I can get even with the birds for flying away at my approach.”

The hunter watched motionless from behind a tree to see how the saint, like St. Francis of Assisi of yore, fed and sang a sermon to the birds. After the saint finished his bath in the lake and began to move away, only with difficulty did he get away from the birds, who kept flying after him.

The next day the hunter concealed several guns and knives on his body and dressed himself in an orange robe, as is customary among the saints of India. So attired, he calmly walked into the same lake. To his great glee, and scarcely believing his eyes, the very same birds that used to fly away at the sight of him now trustingly, like little children, perched all over his body and swarmed around him.

The hunter was happy beyond dreams. But as often as he made up his mind to pounce suddenly on the birds and choke them to death, his hands froze. He could not do it. He did not have the heart to betray the birds that so innocently and trustingly found shelter with him.

He began to sermonize within himself: “I have been a hateful hunter shunned by all the birds. But behold the magic of a saint’s outward orange robe. Even though it covers a wolf in sheep’s clothing, it has caused the birds to trust even my very hateful self.” “Just think,” the hunter reflected, “if the mere outward garb of a saint can create so much trust and confidence in dumb animals, how much more trust and wholesome influence could a real saint create in people.”

Thinking this, the hunter threw his knives and guns into the water and walked away, determined to become a genuine, full-fledged saint. As he did so, the trusting birds followed him as long as they could, and finally parted from him reluctantly.

After the hunter became a saint, he was known to wade daily into the lake and to feed the birds and sing to them. He made so many bird friends that all the watery seats of the lake were fully occupied by an audience of feathery folks. After making friends with the birds, the hunter-saint became a great spiritual teacher who attracted all kinds of human friends, whom he served with the song of Truth from the core of his heart.

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We find that the hunter, just by imitating the garb of goodness, ultimately became good. Never forget that even though you cannot overcome your inner weaknesses all at once, it is all right to wear the garb of goodness if you are sincerely trying to be good. It is better to imitate goodness than to imitate wickedness. One who imitates good actions, even outwardly, gets a chance to smell the alluring fragrance of goodness, whereas, one who  imitates evil, no matter what the reason, smells the repulsing odor of the polecat of evil.

Of course, to deliberately use goodness to deceive people is the greatest blasphemy against God and yourself. But if you are sincerely trying to be good, don’t let it bother you if people call you a hypocrite on account of a few failings. Why should those who are sincerely trying to be good be labeled as hypocrites when they are discovered doing wrong? To do so is a great blasphemy against God and His children.

“Judge not, that ye be not judged.” Naughty or good—all are equally loved by God. God rejoices when His good children come back to His home of wisdom, but it gladdens Him most when He finds His naughty, prodigal children returning home from their truant wanderings.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1934.

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The tragedies, comedies, and paradoxes of life; the dreams of birth and death; the changing scenes and places that surge round us: all these are nothing but movies, designed to engage us in the Cosmic Illusion.

O Divine Operator, with Thy cosmic vibratory light Thou dost show us ever-new thrills: a motion picture true to all our five senses, keeping us amused and entertained through sight, sound, smell, taste, and touch. O Magic Operator, Thy true-seeming spectacle beams daily onto the screens of our consciousness.

I take it as Thy grace that I’ve been chosen to play both tragic and comic parts in Thy drama. I am happy to have acted all those parts, both of sorrow and of joy. Still, Father, give me now and then a few days of respite from my task! Let me retire to my closet of introspection, stand before my own thought-audiences, and behold with laughing heart all the tragedies and comedies I have enacted.

Teach me to look upon all that happens in my life with a pleased, interested attitude, that at the end of each episode, no matter how sad or difficult, I may exclaim: “Ah, that was a good show, full of thrills, suspense, and excitement! I am happy to have seen it, and I have learned much from it for my own benefit.”

From Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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Every devotee must forsake the egoic thought, “I have meditated so much; therefore God must manifest Himself.” Along with deep meditation there must be deep devotion, humility, and surrender to God. God becomes entrapped in the net of the devotee’s unconditional devotion.

God loves mental whispers
Those who love God are always thinking of Him. You don’t have to fly away from the world. You can perform your daily activities and still think of Him. Just as the pianist is always thinking of her music, so the lover of God is always thinking of God.

God loves mental whispers. You are never so busy that you can’t whisper your devotion to God mentally. There is no possible excuse for not talking to Him inwardly. Whenever you have a real need, the thought of it is in your mind all the time, no matter what you are doing. You think, “If only I could have this,” or “if only I could do that.” That mental whisper is the real appeal of the heart. You can practice mental whispers anywhere, all the time. By this constant practice everything eventually vanishes but God.

See God in everything
Christian thinkers have denounced Hinduism because its teachings are pantheistic. Their error lies in thinking pantheism means worshiping God as everything, instead of as expressed in everything. In the highest sense God is none of the forms in which people worship Him, but it is helpful to use human concepts as a means of deepening our devotion to Him.

Isn’t it much sweeter to see His manifestations everywhere—His beauty in the sunset; His tears for human error in the rain; His tenderness expressed in a mother’s love for her baby? If God is omnipresent, isn’t it obvious that He must also be in everything? The flowers, birds, and the beauties of nature all speak of the Mother aspect of God—the creative, motherly instinct. When we look at all the good things in nature and feel a tenderness rise within us, we are seeing and feeling God in nature.

All things in creation, for those who love God, become reminders of Him. Through the beloved God helps one to find the selfless intensity of divine love. Through people’s children, He helps them to understand love as something precious, as a thing to be protected from harmful influences and nourished with devotion. We must, of course, seek God behind His veils, but even a veil may suggest the form that it hides.

Love is a selfless sharing
God is the ever-loyal Friend behind all earthly friends. Who could be a better friend than God? Through your friends, God shows you that love is a selfless sharing, without any hint of compulsion. Those who love others selflessly are already well on the way to learning the secret of divine love. All they need is to direct that love upward to God.

Radha, the greatest of the gopis, had that kind of love for Krishna, who felt free, therefore, to demonstrate his selfless, divine love for her, though in reality he gave that love equally to all. There came a time, however, when the other gopis grew jealous of Radha, and Krishna decided to teach them a lesson.

One day when Radha happened to be absent, Krishna suddenly, with a groan, cried, “Oh! Oh! I have a terrible headache! Please, won’t someone do something for me?” “What, Lord, can we do?” the gopis cried in desperation. “We’ll do anything!”

He replied, “If only one of you will press her feet on my head, my headache will go away.” The gopis gasped in horror. In India, it is sacrilegious to place one’s feet on the head of the guru. In deep consternation the gopis looked away.

After some time had passed, Radha appeared and learned of Krishna’s distress. She anxiously asked what she could do to help, and Krishna cried, “Please, just press your feet on my head! Nothing else will help me.”

“But of course, Lord. Instantly!” replied Radha.

“No! No! You mustn’t!’ cried the other gopis. “If you do, you will go to hell!”

Radha scoffed. “Why, if pressing my feet on our Lord’s head will give him one moment of relief, I will gladly go to hell for eternity!” She was about to do as he had asked, when Krishna sat up smiling. His headache was gone. And then the other gopis understood. They had been concentrating on their own safety, not on Krishna’s well-being. Now they all bowed before Radha’s greater, because selfless, love.

Human love is a reflection of God’s love
Through human relationships, God wants us to learn to love the Spirit within. Human love is so imperfect; it always ends in delusion. We must be in love with the Spirit behind the body before we can love others truly.

In one of my classes there were two beautiful young married persons. They were ideal lovers and the envy of all the class. The young man said, “If only I could get a job, we would be supremely happy. Please pray for me.” I said, “You shall have a job, but at the end of a year I shall visit you and see if that is all you need to be happy.” A baby was about to come.

One year later, I saw the young man. His back was bent, his brow was wrinkled, and he said with a bedraggled smile, “I got a job all right, but it is such hard work. However, I still believe in God.” Then I saw his wife. Another baby was coming and she greeted me with a tired, worried face, and said, “I never see my husband any more. He is working from eight in the morning until eight in the evening. We hardly have time to meditate.”

I said, “Look at my serene face. My love for my Eternal Beloved has only deepened. Wake up! Without God’s love, your love, which is merely a reflection of His love, will fade away. Feed your love with the ever-flowing power of God’s love, or it will wither into nothingness.”

The light of practical sympathy
Only one who has begun to feel his oneness with every human being can know what divine love is. We must love others not for their human personalities, but because they are manifestations of God, Who dwells equally in all.

The lesson of reincarnation is to neutralize the waves of likes and dislikes, of desire and aversion. We do this by the expression of kindness, forgiveness, and compassion to all, and by steadfast contentment in the Self. The light of practical sympathy dispels the darkness of separation and enables you to see all hearts tied with one golden cord of divine love. One who extends his love to friends and enemies alike finds the duality of love and hate vanish, and he beholds only the presence of one love everywhere.

Learn to see God in all persons, of whatever race or religion. When your mind is free from prejudice, when you unreservedly sympathize with everybody, when in mutual service you forget the little self—only then will you see the one measureless Self of the Spirit running through all.

You must yearn for God
One must yearn for God and churn the ether with the rod of devotion or He will never manifest Himself. Every night when you sit to meditate, pray to Him unceasingly. With the love of your heart, tear at the veils of silence again and again. Cry as you would to your mother or father: “Where are You? You made me. Come to me. You must come to me. You must!” Those who really mourn and wail for God incessantly, with ever-increasing zeal, are comforted by God’s own presence.

It is very difficult to reach God. If even a concert pianist must work hard to become successful in his profession, how much more earnestly must the devotee “work” at meditation and devotion in order to realize the Infinite!

Here, however, is an encouraging thought: Everyone who makes a sincere effort on the spiritual path will surely reach his goal. You cannot say that of worldly ambition. Not everyone can become a famous pianist, no matter how hard he tries. In every field of endeavor there is room at the top for very few. Everyone, however, can equally claim God as his Heavenly Father and Divine Mother. If our way of worshiping Him is incorrect, but the love of our hearts is selfless and pure, God will have no difficulty in correcting our error.

The most enjoyable experience possible
How should you love God? Love him as the miser loves money; as the drowning man yearns for breath; as the desert wanderer craves water. Love Him with the first love of true lovers. When you have learned to love Him with all your heart, you will have Him. You will then be a yogi–one who is united with God.

Union with the Cosmic Beloved is the most enjoyable experience possible. It is dream after dream, joy after joy; a thousand million divine romances in one, ever thrilling your heart. In every point of space you behold searchlights of His love, shining like a million suns. As often as you think you have exhausted His love, again and again, like a rolling surf, it crashes anew upon the shores of your mind. That is ecstasy!

From books and articles.

Growth: “The mark of spiritual growth is that for every setback there is an increased determination to succeed.” The Art and Science of Raja Yoga, by Swami Kriyananda.

One day as the King’s procession passed along the boulevard, he saw two blind men, sitting about twenty yards apart, shouting for alms. The king stopped his carriage to investigate. The first blind man was shouting, “To whom the King gives, he alone becomes rich.” The second blind man was shouting, “To whom God gives, he alone becomes rich.”

Whenever his procession drove along the boulevard, he heard these demands for riches from himself and from God. At last, the King, feeling flattered by the first blind man’s utterance that “To whom the King gives, he alone becomes rich,” ordered a large loaf of bread to be baked with the inside filled with solid gold. The King gave this loaf to the first blind man, and completely ignored the second blind man, who believed that God alone could make him rich.

After being away on a hunting trip for several weeks, the King again passed along the boulevard and came to the first blind man to whom he had given the loaf. This man was still shouting, “To whom the King gives, he alone becomes rich.” The king asked, “What did you do with the loaf I gave you?” The blind man replied, “Your Royal Highness, the loaf you gave me was too large and heavy. I’m afraid it was not well baked, so I sold it to the other blind man for ten cents. I was happy to receive those ten cents.”

The second blind man was no longer on the street. Upon inquiry, Akbar discovered that the second blind man had given the loaf to his wife, who had opened it and found the gold. With this she bought a home.

Upon learning this, the King, with inner humility but with outward wrath, rebuked the first blind man, saying, “You fool, you gave away my gold-stuffed loaf to your friend who depended upon God and not upon me for wealth. From now on you must change your motto and shout, like your friend, “To whom God gives, he alone becomes rich.”

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This story has a wonderful moral. Millions of people today think that all wealth comes from banks, factories, jobs, and through personal ability. This great depression* has proven that America is the most prosperous starving nation on the face of the globe. When the wealthiest country on earth, without any national catastrophe, can be suddenly thrown into poverty, it proves that there are divine laws that govern our physical, mental, spiritual, and financial lives.

Every day, as you try to become better and happier, strive also to help others become better and happier. Learn to include the happiness and welfare of others in your own happiness. The happiness of  individuals, families, and the nation depend entirely upon the law of mutual cooperation, unselfishness, and living up to this motto: “Father, bless us, that we may remember Thee always, and that all things flow from Thee.”

*This article was written during the 1930s depression.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1934, and How To Be a Success, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Growth: “The first condition for any genuine growth in understanding is an openness to receive.” The Jewel in the Lotus, by Swami Kriyananda.

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I have stridden bravely through the strewn ashes of my past and future fears.

I am the Eternal NOW, having torn to shreds my enclosing cocoon of ignorance with the sharp knife of free will.

Now I am Thy soaring butterfly of eternity, flitting freely through immeasurable skies of time.

The beauty of my wings I spread out through Nature everywhere, to entertain all beings.

My wings are sprinkled with suns and stardust. Lo! I am beautiful!

May every silken thread that shrouded my past folly be severed forever.

See! They trail now behind me, only adding to my beauty as I wing my way to my own Self in Thee.

From Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

To order click here

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Sorrow has no objective existence. If you constantly affirm it, it exists. Deny it in your mind, and it will exist no longer. The “hero” in man is his divine or essential nature. To acquire freedom from sorrow, man must assert his heroic self. When the heroic element is lacking in a person’s mental make-up, his mind becomes amenable to all passing sorrows, but as long as the conqueror in man is awake, no sorrow can shadow the threshold of his heart.

Tears and sighs on the battlefield of life are the liquid cowardice of a weak mind. Life is nothing if not a continuous overcoming of problems. Every problem that awaits your solution is a religious duty imposed by life itself. There is no life that is not full of problems. Essentially, conditions are neither good nor bad; they are neutral, seeming to be either depressing or encouraging according to the bright or sad attitude of the mind.

When an individual rises above circumstances by the power of courage, all conditions of life, however dark and threatening, become like the blanket of mist that disappears with the warm glance of the sun. The sorrows of the normal man are not inherent in the conditions of life. They are born out of the weaknesses of the human mind. Awaken the sleeping hero in yourself, and no sorrow will ever darken your door.

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The sincere seeker, in contrast to the armchair “seeker” who wastes his life spinning intellectual theories, takes heart at the thought of the hard work before him. A true warrior, though afraid, plunges courageously into battle when the strength of his arm is needed. A true alpinist, though apprehensive of the sheer cliff he faces, sets out resolutely to conquer it. And the sincere truth-seeker tells himself, “I know what an arduous task it must be to achieve perfection, but I will give it all I have. With God’s help, success, surely, must be mine!”

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Secret fear creates tension and anxiety, and brings ultimate collapse. We must have faith in our ability. If we lack this quality, we can acquire it through determined and long-continued practice. First, we must identify our defects. If we are lacking in will power, through meditation and conscious effort, we can develop strong will power. If we want to overcome fear, we should meditate upon courage and, in due time, we shall be freed from the bondage of fear.

Through concentration and the practice of meditation, we develop the power to focus our attention. Continual practice will enable us to concentrate our energy upon any problem without effort—it will be second nature to us. This new quality will bring success in all undertakings, both spiritual and material.

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Instead of being overcome and discouraged when confronted with challenges, thank the Father for offering you the opportunity to see what you need to learn, and to develop the strength and wisdom to meet the challenge. Every day is a fresh opportunity to gather more exploits of heroism. Retire to your center of poise within, and commune with your Father there. He will show you the way.

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Affirmations for Courage
There is a right solution to every problem. I have within me the wisdom and intelligence to see this solution, and the courage and energy to carry it through.

God is within me and around me, protecting me, so I banish the gloom of fear that shuts out His guiding light and makes me stumble into ditches of error.

Calmness: the Source of Power

Calmness is more dynamic and more powerful than peace. Calmness gives the devotee power to overcome all obstacles in life. Even in human affairs, the person who can remain calm under all circumstances is invincible.

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The soul, made in the image of the Spirit, is ever calm and eternal. By worldly desires, an individual becomes identified with the weakness of the body and fears death and bodily limitations. No matter how long you have been meditating, if you still fear bodily diseases or death, you have advanced very little. You must meditate more and more deeply until you achieve ecstatic communion with God and realize that you are formless, omnipresent, omniscient—far above all bodily changes.

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Remember that God is always beside you, guiding and encouraging you. Learn to listen inwardly to His guiding voice all through the day. No matter what your work, if it seems exhausting, confusing, or impossible, just say to Him inwardly, “Father, this is your work. Willingly I give myself to serve You.” This will immediately release all tension, and the task will seem easy.

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A businessman seeking success must always keep his mind calm. Like a tractor, he must be able to move easily over ups and downs in the field of life. A businessman who is not over-elated by success finds that his concentration is not deflected from the path of even greater success. On the other hand, the businessman who becomes depressed by business failure loses the focusing power of his concentration, and thus is unable to make renewed efforts for material success.

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The moral aspirant should not be overjoyed when victorious over a mighty temptation, nor discouraged if he finds himself suddenly a prisoner of temptation. The resolute, even-minded moral individual moves steadily forward until he reaches his goal of complete self-mastery. He does not allow temporary success or failure to obstruct his way to moral progress.

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A devotee who, after a few years of deep meditation, acquires a divine joy, should not be over-confident in the lasting nature of that experience. Similarly, a devotee who meditates regularly but experiences a sudden explosion of restlessness should not become discouraged. The aspiring yogi must keep his mind steadily fixed on the inner perceptions acquired by meditation, and not allow his mind to be ruffled by temporary outbursts of joy or restlessness. Until a devotee is firmly anchored in the Infinite, he must steer his ship of concentration over both calm and rough seas. An unruffled calmness comes only through deeper and deeper meditation.

A devotee whose mind becomes like a rippleless lake, free from the waves of mental elation, sadness, and emotional disturbances—finds within himself the unruffled clear reflection of Spirit. His altar of calmness becomes the resting place of the ever-new joyous Spirit.

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Many people know the way to peace and permanent happiness but are slow to follow it. Make use of your spiritual training. If you want to live in peace and harmony, affirm divine calmness and peace, and send out only thoughts of love and goodwill. Live a godly life and the mere contact with you will help everyone who crosses your path.

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Affirmations for Calmness:
The moment my mind is agitated, restless, or disturbed, I will retire to silence, discrimination, and concentration until calmness is restored.

The light of Christ shines through me, and therefore my mind is clear. Order and harmony reign in all my affairs.

Confidence: You Are a Child of the Infinite

Man, having been created in the image of God, is the master of his own destiny, if he will but accept and use his God-given power. The only limitation on man is self-imposed, through his thoughts. It is well-known that “thoughts are things.” The statement in Proverbs, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he,” is a truth which has transformed the lives of thousands.

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If you have an inferiority complex, remember that success, health, and wisdom are your rightful heritage. Your difficulty can be overcome by determination, courage, common sense, and faith in God and in yourself. If you believe you are a failure, change your mental attitude at once. Be unshakable in your conviction that you have all the potential needed for great success.

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Cultivate the consciousness that the Divine Spirit, the owner of the whole universe and all of its abundance, is your own Father. You, as His beloved child, have the absolute right to possess everything He does. Never beg or pray for anything, but hold the thought that you have everything already, and that all you have to do is to seize it with the natural confidence of a child of God.

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No matter what your trials have been, or how discouraged you are, if you will make a continued effort to be better, you will find that, being made in the image of God, you are endowed with an unlimited power that is much stronger than your worst trials. Make up your mind that you will win, focusing all your concentration on ceaseless efforts to succeed, and you will surely be victorious.

Remember that your difficulties did not come to crush you, but to strengthen your determination to use your limitless divine powers to succeed. God wants you to conquer the difficult tests of life and to come back to His home of wisdom.

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There are many avenues through which outer influences percolate into the mind and form the inner environment. Watch the quality of the books you read. Watch the kind of people with whom you associate. Watch the influence upon you of family, country, and daily associates. Many people are unsuccessful because their families have infected their subconscious minds with paralyzing, discouraging thoughts, such as: “Oh John, no matter what you try, you make a mess of it.”

Disabuse yourself. Wake up! Affirm: “Whatever conditions confront me, I know that they represent the next step in my unfoldment. I welcome all tests, no matter how trying, because I know that within me is the intelligence to understand, and the power to overcome. I am willing to learn the lesson each experience can teach, and I am thankful for the strength and understanding developed by overcoming each trial.”

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Affirmations for Confidence:
As a perfect pattern for an oak tree is encased in the acorn, so a perfect pattern for my life was placed in me in the beginning. I shall endeavor to let this perfect plan emerge into manifestation without hindrance.

I know that each seeming difficulty is but a call to release the power which I already possess. As I express this power, I grow stronger and wiser.

* From the new book, How to Have Courage, Calmness and Confidence, Crystal Clarity Publishers. (See ad on homepage).

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

Roaring with sadness and hunger, and heavy with the baby lion, the lioness fell asleep at the edge of the forest near a pasture. As she dozed, she dreamt of seeing a flock of sheep grazing. When, in her dream, she pounced on one of the sheep, she jerked herself awake. With surprise and great joy, she discovered that her dream was true: a large flock of sheep grazed in the pasture right near her.

Forgetting the heavy baby lion in her body, and impelled by the madness of hunger, the lioness pounced on one of the young lambs and took it into the depths of the forest. The lioness did not realize that during the exertion of her mad leap at the lamb she had given birth to the baby lion.

The flock of sheep were so paralyzed with fear by the attack of the lioness that they couldn’t run away. When the lioness had departed and the panic was over, the sheep woke from their stupor. They began to bleat out lamentations for their lost comrade, when, to their great astonishment, they discovered the helpless baby lion crooning in their midst. One of the mother sheep took pity on the baby lion and adopted it as her own.

The young lion grew up amidst the flock of sheep. Several years passed, and there, with a flock of sheep, roamed a huge lion with long mane and tail, behaving exactly like a sheep. The sheep-lion bleated instead of roaring and ate grass instead of meat. This vegetarian lion acted exactly like a weak, meek lamb.

One day, another lion strolled out of the nearby forest onto the green pasture, and to his great delight beheld this flock of sheep. Thrilled with joy and whipped by hunger, the great lion pursued the fleeing flock of sheep, when, with amazement, he saw a huge lion, with tail high up in the air, fleeing at top speed ahead of the sheep.

The older lion paused for a moment, scratched his head, and pondered within himself: “I can understand the sheep flying away from me, but I cannot imagine why this stalwart lion should run at the sight of me. This runaway lion interests me.” Ignoring his hunger, he raced hard and pounced upon the escaping lion. The sheep-lion fainted with fear. The big lion was puzzled more than ever, and slapped the sheep-lion out of his swoon. In a deep voice he rebuked, “What’s the matter with you?! Why do you, my brother, flee from me?”

The sheep-lion closed his eyes and bleated out in sheep language, “Please let me go. Don’t kill me. I’m just a sheep brought up with yonder flock.”

“Oh, now I see why you’re bleating.” The big lion pondered again, and a great idea flashed upon him. He caught the sheep-lion by the mane with his mighty jaws and dragged him toward a lake at the end of the pasture. When the big lion reached the shore of the lake, he pushed the sheep-lion’s head so that it was reflected in the water. He began to shake the sheep-lion, who still had his eyes tightly closed, saying, “Open your eyes! Look! You are not a sheep.”

“Bleat, bleat, bleat. Please don’t kill me. Let me go. I am not a lion, but only a poor, meek sheep,” wailed the sheep-lion.

The big lion gave the sheep-lion a terrible shake. The sheep-lion opened his eyes, and was astonished to find that the reflection of his head was not, as he expected,  a sheep’s head but a lion’s head, like that of the lion who was shaking him with his paw. Then the big lion said, “Look at my face and your face reflected in the water. They are the same. My face roars. Now! You must roar instead of bleating!”

The sheep-lion, convinced, tried to roar, but could only produce bleat-mingled roars. As the older lion continued to exhort him with slapping paws, the sheep-lion at last succeeded in roaring. Then both lions bounded across the pasture, entered the forest, and returned to the den of lions.

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The above story aptly illustrates how most of us, though made in the all-powerful image of the Divine Lion of the Universe, have been born and raised in the sheepfold of mortal weakness. We bleat with fear, lack, and death, instead of roaring with immortality and power, and preying on wisdom and unlimited prosperity.

These teachings are the new lion that will drag you to the crystal pool of meditation and give you such a hard shaking that you will open the closed eyes of your wisdom and behold yourself as the Lion of Divinity, made in the image of the Cosmic Lion. Those of you who strive continuously will forget your mortal fears of weakness, failure, and death, and will learn to roar with the power of almighty immortality.

From: Praecepta Lessons 1934; See also, How To Have Courage, Calmness, and Confidence, Crystal Clarity Publishers. ( See ad on homepage).

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I beheld Thy bliss-face emerge from the dark shadows of my ignorance, where it had been hidden for long aeons by my indifference. And, seeing Thy smiling joy, I know that my own happiness mirrored Thy blessed image. My heart’s tiny capacity for love mirrored Thy infinite love. My little peace of mind mirrored Thy awe-inspiring, majestic calmness.

I will blame the fates no longer for any suffering that comes my way. Beloved Divine Mother, it was my self-made darkness that hid the glory of our mutual love. Now I see myself reflected in Thy bliss, and know that I, too, am perfect bliss. For my own mirror is clear, now; I behold Thy reflection in it, O Thou ever-sacred, omnipresent, perfect bliss!

I pour libations of my love at Thy feet of immortality! I pour out my heart to Thee from the overflowing chalice of my soul! I wash with the precious musk of my reverence Thy feet of ever-moving progress in everything.

From: Whispers from Eternity, by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers. To order click here

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But this, dear students, is a jellyfish philosophy. It is not the way to truth. What is true is that if your father died of cancer and you continue to live as he did, you may follow in his footsteps.

Sickness is the result of breaking some mental or physical law, either in this life or in a past incarnation.  It is your job to free yourself from the shackles of undesirable hereditary tendencies, including habits of ill health. Like everything else worth attaining, you must work for it!

Divine healing at Bethesda
The mind controls the body. The will of a person who has been ill for a long time becomes so weak that he cannot overcome the illness. However, faith can revive the power of his will and effect a healing. The Bible tells of such a healing.

In Jerusalem, Jesus went to the pool of Bethesda, where a crowd of people waited to bathe in the healing waters. At certain times the waters vibrated and emanated healing currents. The first one to enter after the waters moved was healed.

Jesus saw a man who had been ill for thirty-eight years lying by the pool. He had no one to help him, and when the waters vibrated—someone else always got in ahead of him. Filled with compassion, Jesus asked, “Wilt thou be made whole?”  When Jesus found that the sick man was receptive and desired very much to be healed, He said, “Rise, take up thy bed and walk.”

The man was healed by his own awakened faith and the revival of his will, which aroused the latent life energy of his own brain and served as the antenna for the cosmic energy from Jesus.

The power of the mind
Most physical diseases have their roots in the mind. You can produce disease in your body merely by allowing yourself to be hypnotized by the thought of disease. In trying to get rid of an illness, people often concentrate more on the gripping power of the illness than on the possibility of a cure, and thus permit the illness to become both a physical and mental habit.

It is a mistake to think this way. Never allow your mind to entertain thoughts of illness or limitation. The subconscious habit of “disease consciousness” exerts a strong influence on the continuity of chronic diseases. In fact, chronic mental or physical diseases always have deep roots in the subconscious mind.

That is why all affirmations ought to be impressive enough to become mental habits in the subconscious mind, which will, in turn, influence the conscious mind. In this way, strong conscious affirmations can influence the mind and body through the medium of the subconscious.

Fear: the enemy of will power
Will power is the main dynamo of the body, converting cosmic energy into life force. The stronger the will, the greater the flow of energy into the tissues and body parts.

Often during illness, however, people become discouraged and permit subconscious tendencies to hamper the will. If the illness is serious or prolonged, memories of previous ailments, as well as past failures and disappointments, often fill the mind with fear that the body cannot recover.

Fear is one of the greatest enemies of will power and health. It paralyzes the will, disrupts the life force flowing through the nerves, and lowers the vitality of the entire body. Physical health slowly fails from want of life force. If, however, a person resolutely refuses to be afraid or disheartened, his will can produce the life force needed to heal the body.

Health: your divine birthright
Fear of sickness belongs to the domain of ignorance. Of course, if you are stricken with ill health, you should strive for health without being afraid of failure. While struggling, however, you must understand that the struggle for health is born of delusion, for you already have what you need in the inner Self.

Once a healthy, wealthy, and wise prince dreamed that he was poor and ill. In the dream he shouted, “Oh, I am suffering from cancer and I have lost all my wisdom and riches.”

His wife, the queen, woke up and roused him, saying, “Look, prince. Laugh and rejoice, for you are neither suffering from sickness, nor have you lost riches and wisdom. You are comfortably lying at my side in health and wisdom, in your rich kingdom. You were only dreaming about these catastrophes.”

So it is that many people are dreaming about lack when they might claim their birthright of joy, health, and plenty as children of God. Only by meditating and attuning to God’s consciousness, do we realize the truth that this universe is God’s dream. In a dream you may think that you are ill but once awakened, you see it is not true. When awake in God, so also do you  know that this life is nothing but a dream.

Meditation leads to permanent success
We can change certain aspects of our own ego-dream by altering the way we think. For example, when we are ill we can make a strong affirmation of good health and become well again. But meditation alone leads to permanent success.

By connecting your individual energy with the unlimited storehouse of inner cosmic energy, you can overcome ill health. To achieve permanent success, you must meditate morning and night, and concentrate the superconscious peace rays on the brain, scorching out the seeds of past failures and stimulating the success tendencies.

During meditation, you feel the power of concentration in the will center at the point between the eyebrows, as well as a feeling of complete peace throughout the body. To scour the seeds of past sickness from the brain cells, you must transfer the power of concentration felt at the point between the eyebrows and the peace feeling of the body, to the brain. This impregnates the brain cells with peace and power, and modifies their chemical and psychological composition.

By repeatedly concentrating this vital power on the brain for long periods of time, you will eventually destroy all lurking disease tendencies from the past.

Right approach for devotees
Illness can be a serious obstacle on the spiritual path. Do your best, within reason, to achieve health, but always keep your efforts proportionate to the true, long-range goal of life, which is to find God.

Many saints have had serious illnesses. The test of spirituality is one’s inner state of consciousness, and, above all, the purity of one’s love for God.

There was a saint who fell ill. His disciples pleaded with him, “Master, so many have been healed by your intercession. Why don’t you pray to the Divine Mother to heal you, too?” This seemed to him not a bad idea; he accepted their suggestion. When he prayed, the Divine Mother appeared to him.

“Of all things!” She rebuked him. “You, who have realized your oneness with the Infinite, and who have so many bodies you live through, want now, by praying for this one little form, to limit yourself to it? For shame!” The saint deeply regretted his error, and prayed, “Mother, Your love alone is all-sufficient!”

It is wisest to be impartial. If you have health, but are attached to it, you will always be afraid of losing it. And if you fear that loss, but become ill, you will suffer. It is better to rise above outer conditions altogether, so that they cannot affect you. Try to rise above the pairs of opposites: pleasure and pain, heat and cold, sickness and health.

Conditions are always neutral
Remember: conditions are always neutral; they seem happy or sad owing only to the attitudes of the mind. If a man is ill, afflicted with arthritic pain, and slogging through deep mud on a winter night, he can yet be happy just the same. With a strong will, he’d be able to ignore every difficulty and his happiness would remain unaffected.

Not that those circumstances would have been pleasurable. Nonetheless, a human being can be happy under the worst circumstances. Mind has no connection with the body apart from whatever connection you choose to give it. To pass life’s tests, you need to develop elasticity of the mind.

When your mind can remain completely apart from the body at will, you will be free. Why not remain forever joyful in the Self? By tuning into God and waking up in His consciousness, you will know that this life is nothing but a dream.

From articles, and books, 1930-1942.

To view Swami Kriyananda’s talk, “Attaining Radiant Health and Well-Being,“click here:

A rediscovery of ancient knowledge
Much modern knowledge, indeed, is not new, but only a rediscovery of what was known before. The ancient Greeks knew, for example, that the earth is round, and that it is not at the center of the universe. The ancient calendar of the Mayas, in Central America, was more exact than the modern calendar. And the writings of ancient India indicated sophisticated knowledge of the cosmos, including the atom.

Modern scholars, however, blithely believe that 10,000 years ago all men were sunk in a barbarous Stone Age. They summarily dismiss as “myths” all records and traditions of very ancient civilizations not only in India but also in China, Egypt, and other lands.

Knowledge of the subatomic world
The “atomic theory” is generally considered a new advance of science, but the atomic structure of matter was well-known to the ancient Hindus. One of the six systems of Indian philosophy is Vaisesika, which deals with the atomic nature of matter.

One of the foremost Vaisesika expounders was called Kanada, “the atom-eater,” born about 2800 years ago. Kanada brilliantly described the atomic structure of matter and assigned the origin of the world to atoms. In the Vaisesika treatises, the atom is described as resembling a miniature “solar system” and possessing an incessant vibratory motion.

The scientific knowledge recorded in the ancient Vaisesika treatises covered a vast spectrum. Other known scientific Vaisesika expositions include:

• The relativity of time and space
• The law of gravitation and its causes
• The movement of needles toward magnets
• The circulation of water in plants
• Heat as the cause of molecular change
• The nature of kinetic energy
• The radiation of heat and light rays (the modern “cosmic rays” theory)

Duality: the “texture and structure” of creation
The ancient Hindu scriptures declare that the physical world operates under the law of maya, the principle of duality. God’s one consciousness took on the appearance of opposites—positive and negative, light and darkness, pleasure and pain, etc. Every great scientific discovery of modern times has merely confirmed this simple pronouncement of the rishis.

Newton’s Law of Motion, for example, is a law of duality: “To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction.”  To have a single force is impossible. There must be, and always is, a pair of forces, equal and opposite.

The entire physical world reflects this polarity. Electricity is a phenomenon of repulsion and attraction—its electrons and protons are electrical opposites. Similarly, the atom, like the earth itself, is a magnet with positive and negative poles.

Maya or duality is the very texture and structure of creation. Scientists can do no more than probe one aspect after another of its varied finitude.

The limits of scientific knowledge
All creation is governed by law. Natural laws manifest in the outer universe and are discoverable by scientists. But only through the inner science of yoga is it possible to know the subtler laws ruling the hidden spiritual planes. Science, for example, understands that the activity of electrons and protons underlies all material forms. But scientists do not know how electrons and protons rearrange themselves into different forms and create different kinds of matter.

It is the fully Self-realized master who understands the subtle laws governing the material levels. He knows, through intuition, that it is the Divine Intelligence that commands electrons and protons to arrange themselves in different combinations. Atoms and electrons are blind forces, but prana, the intelligent life force, guides their activity according to the karmic design.

Science studies the nature of the universe outwardly, proving its existence by experimentation. But what is true to reason and sense perception is not always true. The only way to know truth is to intuitively realize it. Can you know the taste of sugar without tasting it? No! So it is with the yogi.

The yogi goes beyond experimentation to actual experience–he experiences everything within himself.  The scientist investigates the atom outwardly through experimentation, but the yogi becomes the atom. From within alone can a thing be understood in its true essence.

Future steps in man’s awakening
As steps in man’s awakening, God inspires scientists to discover, at the right time and place, the secrets of His creation. When we think of how fast light and electricity move, the flight of airplanes seems like the movement of an ox cart.

The time will come when man will learn to change the atomic vibrations of his gross body, make them into an astral force—and shoot along with the astral light rays, traveling faster than the speed of light. However, when man learns the full mystery of mind and matter, he will be able to travel faster than any force—material astral, or light. If he wished to be in the sun or the moon or the fastest star, he could be there instantly.

Truth—a constant rediscovery
Yoga is an ancient science, thousands of years old. Its perceptions form the backbone of the greatness of India. However, the truths espoused in the yoga teachings, are not limited to India, nor to those who consciously practice yoga techniques.

Whenever a great scientific or spiritual figure arises, East or West, his message does not differ in any essential respect from the ancient philosophy of India. Truth is One, though men call it by various names. There can be not be two truths.

Destroy all books, all traditional learning, and still the basic truths of life would be discovered all over again, exactly the same, by the inquiring spiritual mind with its penetrating insight.

Excerpted from books and articles.

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Curious, one day he hopped over to the well to take a look at his brother-frogs. As soon as he looked into the well, all the well-frogs greeted him in frog language saying, “Hey, you homeless derelict, jump in and enjoy our spacious home.”

The sea-frog smiled but shook his head, gently declining and saying, “Some other time. Not now, friends.”

On the way back, the sea-frog nearly burst out laughing as he recalled Mr. Big-Talk, the narrow-eyed leader of the well-frogs saying, “Come into our huge home.” The sea-frog pitied the frog-leader’s ignorance and was disturbed to see the frogs living like sardines in the little well.

The sea-frog thought, “Maybe here’s a chance do some good. Perhaps I can help the over-crowded well-frogs by bringing them to my spacious home.” Thus thinking, the sea-frog retraced his footsteps back to the well. The well-frogs croaked out another welcome.

The sea-frog jumped into the well and, instead of falling into the water, landed on the back of a brother-frog. The well was so crowded that the frogs covered every inch of the water. Mr. Big-Talk, the frog leader, came hopping on the backs of a few slave-frogs and greeted the sea-frog.

After entertaining his guest with delicacies, the frog leader asked, “My friend, whence comest thou?”

The frog of the sea replied, “From a very vast place called the sea.”

The well-frog then asked, “What is your purpose in honoring us with a visit?”

The sea-frog replied, “To take you all to my sea home, where you won’t die of suffocation and can live in freedom and security.”

In response, the proud frog leader answered, “But pray tell me first the size of your sea?” Jumping the distance of one foot, he asked, “Is your sea as big as that?”

The frog of the sea replied with a slight smile, “Nay, nay, my friend, the sea is much bigger than that.”

The well-frog, with a smile of superiority, jumped two feet and asked, “Is your sea as big as that?”

The sea-frog, smiling more than ever, replied, “Nay, nay, my friend, it is much bigger than that.”

The well-frog then jumped from one side of the well to the middle and hoarsely asked, “Is your sea as big as that?”

The frog of the sea, now laughing loudly, said, “Nay, nay, nay, my friend, it is much bigger than that.”

Then the poor well-frog puffed up in wrath to his full strength and jumped from one side of the well to the other and said, “Can your sea dare be as big as that?”

The frog of the sea, restraining his laughter, confidently replied, “Nay, nay, nay, my friend, my sea is much bigger than sextillion wells like yours.”

The frog of the well was completely beside himself because he could not inflate himself with more wrath. He shouted, “Imposter! Impossible! Nothing could be bigger than our great big well!”

After many hours of word-battle in frog language, the sea-frog persuaded the frog of the well and his brother-frogs to visit the ocean.

The frog of the well, upon seeing the great body of water, bowed at the feet of the sea-frog and exclaimed, “Mighty brother-frog, indeed your watery mansion is much larger than we ever could conceive. We never would have known this if we had remained in our confined little home in the well. It is only by comparing our home in the well with your huge sea home that fortunately, we now understand the littleness of our own homestead.”

The frog of the sea shook hands with the frog of the well, and all of his brother-frogs, and they all lived happily in the sea forever afterward.

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The above story illustrates how worldly people live in the over-crowded “well” of sense-happiness, clamoring and shouting for a little room for peace. The sense-bound man cannot comprehend the inner experiences of the spiritual man who communes with God and roams in the sea of Bliss. Only if the materially minded man actually launches his consciousness into the ocean of Bliss, which is reached by meditation alone, can he understand the limitations of his meager happiness.

Similarly, a bigoted religionist gets a little joy from following a hide-bound religion, but he can never even imagine the boundless happiness of seeing all churches as one church of God, all religions as one Truth, and all religionists as the  children of the same one God.

The dogmatist in life lives in a prison of limitation, and after he passes the portal of the grave, he can only expect to live in another prison of dogma there. However, a wise man, after death, finds each speck of space a temple of Spirit, each spark of wisdom a tabernacle of His Presence, and each heart the sanctum of the Infinite.

Leap out of the well of limitation and plunge into the sea-bosom of unending wisdom and bliss, which is continuously roaring on the banks of your inner silence.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

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Never will I let my mind dwell on anything that reminds me not of Thee! I will disdain the nightmare of ignorant behavior. I will court all dreams of noble achievement: those of love, kindness, and understanding, for they are Thy dreams.

Though I dream many dreams, wakefully I will ever think of Thee. In the sacred fire of constant remembrance, kept ever alight on my soul’s altar, I will ever behold Thy presence with the watchful eyes of devotional love.

Thy grace has shown me that the dualities of health and sickness, life and death, joy and sorrow are but passing fantasies. I am finished with those eternally self-canceling delusions!

I am persuaded at last that there is but one abiding reality: Thy eternal, ever-conscious, ever-new, ever-thrilling, infinite Bliss.

From Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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Never discourage a dying person
Once two students of mine, a brother and sister, had a very interesting experience. The sister lay dying in a room with her brother and doctors in attendance. When the brother left the room for a moment, his sister had a spasm and appeared to have died. The doctors exclaimed, “All is over; her pulse has failed.”

As soon as the brother came back, he ordered everybody out of the room, and then shook his sister vigorously, crying, “Sister, remember what Yoganandaji told you: If you make the effort you will live.”

His sister made a supreme effort and her breath returned. She sat up and told of her experience: “I was trying through my will power to stir the life force in my inert body, but as soon as I heard the doctors say, ‘All is over,’ I lost the will to live and experienced a complete inertia in my muscles and internal organs.”

So remember, never say anything to discourage a sick or dying person from making the effort of will to live, even if death appears certain. It is the exercise of will power that connects the life-sustaining energy to the body.

To keep your will power strong, try never to lose interest in life. Death comes when your will gives up. You become so tortured by illness or pain that you say, “All right, let me go.” And you give up.

The process of dying
When the average person dies, the entire body usually becomes paralyzed, just as when a part of your body sometimes “goes to sleep.” In the beginning the dying person is conscious of this process.

When the heart begins to grow numb, there is a sense of suffocation because without heart action, the lungs cannot operate. This sense of suffocation is a little painful for only one to three seconds, but because souls reincarnate many times, they retain the memory of this painful feeling of suffocation. This memory causes fear of death.

During this feeling of suffocation, attachments to possessions and loved ones sometimes come strongly to mind and there is a struggle to bring the breath back. At this time, a condensed review of all the good and bad actions of this lifetime takes place in the mind of the dying person. The senses of touch, taste, smell, sight, and hearing then vanish in succession, with the sense of hearing being the last to leave.

The soul next finds itself suddenly relieved of the body’s weight, the necessity of breathing, and any physical pain. When the soul realizes that its body is gone, it becomes reconciled to dying and experiences a sense of soaring through a very peaceful tunnel.

When a person dies suddenly, as by a gunshot or sudden accident, he experiences practically no physical pain. If he has lived a good life, he seldom suffers any mental agony.

The period between death and rebirth
In the astral world, people of worldly consciousness enter a sort of gray mist. Some of them are vaguely conscious, depending on the sensitivity of their perception, but for many it is like a dream. They aren’t quite sure what is going on.

If your intuition is even slightly developed, however—especially if you’ve meditated and prayed some in this life, but also if you’ve served others, even as a soldier who fought heroically in battle—you will find that the astral world is far more beautiful than this one, and extremely enjoyable!

What binds us to this world?
Many superficial devotees are haunted by the fear of death. Rather than lament the inevitability of death, they should try in every way to become free of all earthly attachments by tuning in to Spirit in meditation.

There is the story of a man who, as he lay dying, saw that the oil lamp in his room was burning too high. He called out to his son, “Hey, Ramu, turn down that light: It is wasting oil!” There the man was, on the point of leaving his body—the “oil” in his own “lamp” was nearly exhausted. And still he worried about wasting the oil in that lamp! Such is worldly attachment. Even at death, people cling to what they call life.

Most people lose all interest in this world at the time of death. That is natural and right: After all, they are soon going to have to leave it! Besides, this world is God’s, not ours. That mental disinvolvement at the approach of death should remind everyone of the need to be inwardly non-attached throughout life, even while busily engaged in worldly activities. Eternal bliss awaits you if you remain non-attached to this world, and “attached” only to God.

Always be vigilant and monitor your reactions
Devotees haunted by the fear of death must learn to separate the immortal soul from the consciousness of the mortal body. You are sent on earth to witness earthly experiences—heat and cold, disease, war, famine, pain and suffering—as unaffectedly as you would watch a motion picture. When you are able to watch your own life’s experiences as unaffectedly as you watch motion pictures, you will leave this earth in death as a free master.

Earthly experiences do not create attachment until the heart is touched. The heart, through its likes and dislikes, binds an individual to the wheel of birth, death, and earthly suffering. So always be vigilant and monitor your reactions. Gradually learn to control your reactions to both agreeable and disagreeable experiences.

Remember, however, that renunciation of material objects, of itself, does not insure freedom from attachment. It is by communing with the greater bliss of Spirit in meditation that a person learns, through deep inner conviction, to rise above the likes and dislikes of the heart and to relinquish the lesser joy of earthly experiences.

The devotee who meditates deeply and experiences the pure joy of Spirit attains an unwavering mental calmness and is able to rise above the duality of pain and pleasure.

Learn to die “consciously”
Although the ordinary person at the time of death is not conscious of his soul moving through the spiritual eye, devotees who are unattached to the body, and who have  achieved control over the life force, experience no loss of consciousness at death. They move consciously through the spiritual eye and experience what is known as “conscious death.”

In the superconscious state of meditation, the eyes become fixed at the spiritual eye at the point between the eyebrows. As human beings, we are like the unhatched chick in the shell. By meditation and concentrating on the spiritual eye, we can bore a hole in the roof of the shell and the soul can slip out into the infinite.

In other words, by deep concentration at the light of the spiritual eye, we gradually learn to send our energy and consciousness through the spiritual eye into the infinite.  Many devotees have beheld this tunnel of light (the spiritual eye) ushering them into the infinite at the time of death.

An unshakeable inner conviction
The ordinary man fears death, but the wise man sees birth and death as changes playing on the bosom of Spirit—just as waves repeatedly rise and fall on the bosom of the sea. A soul awake in omnipresent Spirit loses his delusive nightmares of births and deaths.

A poet or religious fanatic may imagine this cosmos to be only a dream in the mind of God, but that will not help him overcome death and attain immortality. The yogi, however, through ecstatic communion with God in meditation, achieves an unshakeable inner conviction of the unreality of the physical cosmos. By beholding the universe as a dream of God, he becomes one with the omnipresent Spirit and attains immortality.

From articles and lessons, 1930-1938, and Conversations with Yogananda, recorded by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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The Buddha and his disciples were all vowed to celibacy and the renunciation of carnal love. And yet, one day, when the great Buddha and his disciples were resting in the cool shade of a tree, a courtesan approached him, attracted by the glowing body and face of the Master.

No sooner had she seen the celestial face of the Lord Buddha than she fell in love with him, and with open arms ran to Buddha to embrace and kiss him, exclaiming loudly, “O beautiful Shining One, I love thee.” The celibate disciples were astonished to hear the Buddha’s reply to the courtesan. He said, “Beloved, I love thee too. Do not touch me now, however. Not yet.”

The courtesan replied, “You call me beloved and to me you are my beloved. Why, then, do you object to my touching you?” The great Buddha replied, “Beloved, again I tell thee, I will touch thee later; not now. Then I will prove my true love for thee.” The disciples were shocked, thinking that the Master had fallen in love with this courtesan.

Years later, as Buddha was meditating with his disciples, he suddenly cried out, “I must go! My beloved, the courtesan, is calling me; she needs me now. I must fulfill my promise to her.” The disciples ran after their Master, hoping somehow to save him, though he seemed madly in love with the courtesan.

The great Buddha, followed anxiously by his worried disciples, came to the same tree where they had met the courtesan before. There she lay, with her beautiful body covered with putrefying, odorous smallpox sores. The disciples cringed and held themselves far from her.

The Buddha, however, took her decaying body, held it like a child, and placed her head on his lap, whispering to her, “Beloved, I have come to prove my love to thee, and to fulfill my promise to touch thee. I have waited a long time to demonstrate my true love, for I love thee when everyone else has ceased loving thee. I touch thee when all thy summer friends fear to touch thee any more.”

Thus speaking, Buddha healed the courtesan and invited her, now purged by him of all carnal desire, to join his growing band of disciples.

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Personal love is selfish, and considers its own comforts—often at the cost of everything else. Divine love is unselfish; it seeks the happiness of the object of its love, and is not limited or partial. God loves both the wicked and the good equally, for they are His children. All those who aspire to know Him must prove to Him that their love, like His love, is for all.

When a soul proves to the Heavenly Father that he loves his good and evil brothers equally, then the Father will say, “My noble son, I accept thy love, for thou lovest all with My love, even as I do.” To love those who love you is natural, but ego-inspired. To love those who do not love you, or who even hate you, is to express supernatural love and to see God in all.

From The Praecepta Lessons, 1934. See also Spiritual Relationships by Paramhansa Yogananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Through the bursting vibration of cosmic sound and the surging of Thy holy name, I have removed the cork of ignorance which so long separated me from Thee, though we lived together so closely!

Now my body-consciousness will meet Thy all-surrounding, all-pervading consciousness. No longer will I walk heedlessly, in Thee, but never knowing and feeling Thee. Thine image within me shall meet Thine image everywhere.

By releasing the “I-ness” in me, I will know that I am Thou, and that Thou alone art the little egos of us all.

From Whispers from Eternity by Paramhansa Yogananda, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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Pitfalls of luxury
Fostering the desire for luxuries is the surest way to increase misery. Day and night the worldly man thinks of money, clothes, food, drink and other material objects.

Though he obtains these things, he does not enjoy them fully, for he is never satisfied. Either he is always looking for more or he is afraid of losing what he has. Often he becomes so engrossed in making money that he doesn’t have time for the material comforts after acquiring them.

A luxurious material life is pleasing only to the eyes; few realize “what price material comforts.” Overly luxurious living results in an excessive expenditure of nerve and brain energy and a reduction in longevity.  Worries, lack of freedom, and misery are the harvest of a materially busy life, devoid of God and the appreciation of God’s beauty in life and nature.

Don’t be a slave to money or possessions. Those who work for the ego and its desires become entangled in the net of ever-recurring earthly desires. Learn to live simply, renouncing unnecessary “wants” and constantly increasing desires.

What are your real needs?
People are so busy multiplying their material comforts that they end up considering many unnecessary things as essential. Often they are in debt from buying new automobiles and clothes on the installment plan, while ever grasping for more things and plunging deeper and deeper into prolonged work.

It is important, therefore, to differentiate between true “needs” and “wants.” A desire for a pleasurable sense object is often mistaken for a need instead of an artificially created want. Very few people know the real meaning of needs or necessities.

What are your real needs? Shelter, food, clothing, health? There is little difference between eating food from a gold plate or an iron plate. The food in both cases is equally satisfying to hunger. Learn to use cheaper things in an artistic way. Your needs are few, while your wants can be limitless.

Concentrating on needs is an antidote for the insatiable greed for money or possessions. Boil down even your needs. If the need is boiled down to specific things, it can then be easily satisfied. Focusing your attention on one “need” at a time is the first step in the right direction.

Your real needs must be met, but too much time is wasted in rushing about acquiring more and more transitory “necessities,” which merely support the impermanent bodily house of the immortal soul.

God will give you what you need
Houses, money, and automobiles may be necessary to modern existence, but unless you give some time to God and meditation, you can never make life truly happy. To cut life off from its divine invigorating source depletes it of the truly satisfying joys of existence.

Seeking first the Kingdom of God, as Jesus taught, is the surest way to lasting happiness. When by meditation you reclaim yourself as a true child of God, you will receive not only God’s imperishable kingdom of everlasting bliss, but also all the perishable things you need. The imperishable Kingdom of God contains within it all the perishable goods of the world.

The essence of true spiritual living
When Jesus told people to seek God first, he was not telling them to neglect the material life. He was speaking only against giving it one’s entire attention.

Few people, however, know how to balance the material and spiritual life. Many people think they must first have prosperity and only then can they think of God. But those who ignore God to seek perishable material things end up wallowing so deeply in the mud of desires and mundane worries that they cannot extricate themselves.

Everyone can follow the inner teachings and true essence of Christianity. They can avoid luxury and satisfy only their real needs. True Christian living, and all spiritual living, consists of seeking God’s peace and joy in meditation and making one’s material life very simple.

Balancing the material and spiritual life
The material life should not be neglected but it should be lived in God-Consciousness. You must put your principal thought on God, the Giver of life and its necessities. Acquire everything you need with the thought of God, with your attention resting on Him.

Most people, however, are unable to balance the material and spiritual life. The material man acts with the consciousness that he is the doer and makes himself miserable through his likes and dislikes. He is unaware of the joy and freedom that come from knowing that God is the Doer and working with one’s attention focused on Him.

By regular meditation, people can train their minds to perform all the duties of daily life with the consciousness of God within. All materially-minded men and women should understand that their lives can be freed from endless physical and mental ills simply by adding deep daily meditation to their schedule.

Make service your goal
People must also realize that all work and business activities are for the sole purpose of serving others. Without this understanding, strenuous work and business activity produces nervousness and greed for money. Make service to mankind, rather than money, the goal of all your activities and you will see your life change for the better.

God has sent man into this life so circumstanced with hunger and desires that he must work. Whoever eats has to pay for the food, and it is better to be able to buy your own food than to live on charity.

A man of God, however, works diligently not for any selfish desire but to please God and to share the fruits of his actions with God’s children. Learn to work with the consciousness that God is the Doer and with the goal of serving others. That is the sure way to happiness.

Simplicity leads to happiness
Happiness blooms naturally in the hearts and minds of those who are inwardly free, contented with simple living, and willingly renounce the clutter of unnecessary, so-called “necessities. True happiness is lasting, because it is spiritual in nature, whereas the “happiness” based on sense pleasure soon turns to sorrow.

God is the source of all life and all prosperity. When, by meditation, you achieve a deep contact with God, you will know that whatever God has, you also have. It isn’t what you own, but what you can acquire at will, that is real prosperity.

From articles and lessons, 1930-1942, and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, Explained, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Resources: To read, “What is True Wealth?” by Swami Kriyananda, click here To learn more about Money Magnetism by Swami Kriyananda, click here

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Master and disciples woke with the dawn, spreading their prayers with the sun rays and subsisting on jungle fruits and roots. They slept beneath the Nature-hewn caves on the lower spur of the forest-hills.

Disciple Rama had renounced the sophisticated environment of his parental manor and had joined the jungle hermitage in order to live its very simple life. As time went by, however, Rama began to display his usual over-critical spirit and started finding fault with the simple disciplinary duties of the hermitage.

His Master had warned him not to go to extremes, but nonetheless, one day Rama said to his Master:

“Honored sir, I find I have left one family only to get into another, larger family here. I used to perform duties at home and here I have to do the same thing. At home we ate and worried about food and cleanliness, and I see that we do the same thing here.

“Master, I am fed up with the material duties of your hermitage, which are nothing but substitutes for the worldly duties I performed at home. I want to get away from all materiality and live in solitude by myself in the temple of contemplation.”

The Master answered warningly: “Son, you may go, but beware that you don’t get enmeshed in delusion by living surrounded only by your own erroneous thoughts. You may escape the good people of the hermitage, who are far better than worldly people, but it will be very difficult for you to fly from your own restless thoughts, which may lead you astray.”

Rama paid no heed to the entreaties of his Master and fellow-disciples and sallied forth in search of a solitary spot. To be free from all encumbrances, Rama left behind all the simple belongings of his hermitage-life, taking with him only two pieces of rag to serve as loincloths, and a begging bowl for water.

At last Rama found a very quiet place on the top of a hill at the outskirts of the jungle and the local village. His home was now a hollow rocky ledge under a huge shade tree. The first night passed in peace, though he was lulled to sleep by the howling of jackals, coyotes, and jungle tigers.

When dawn arrived, the young anchorite, Rama, was dismayed to see that a mouse had made a few small holes in the second piece of rag, which he had hung on a tree branch. That silent thief–a nocturnal monkey–had stolen his begging bowl.

Rama thought: “Heavenly Father, I left all for You and now You have taken my bowl and sent a mouse to make holes in my very last possession — the piece of rag.”

At this moment a villager was passing by the rock, and having caught sight of the young anchorite, halted to pay him respect. Seeing that he was worried, he inquired: “Honored Saint, prithee tell me what is worrying you?”

On hearing about the rag, the villager advised, “Your Holiness, why don’t you keep a cat to frighten away the mice?”

“That is a marvelous idea, but where will I get a cat,” remarked Rama anxiously. “Well, that can easily be fixed, for I will bring you a cat tomorrow,” replied the villager.

The next day Rama added to his possessions a fuzzy Persian cat. This solved the problem of the rag, for the mice knew better than to hazard death for a tiny bit of rag.

Every day, with a newly acquired begging bowl, Rama would go to the village to fetch milk for his cat. A year went by and the villagers ungrudgingly supplied free milk for Rama and his cat. Then one day, the village elder said to Rama as he begged for milk, “Holy Rama, we are tired of supplying you with milk.”

“But how is my cat going to live?” retorted Rama. “Why don’t you keep a cow?” replied the village elder. “How can I get one?” asked Rama. “I will give you one right now,” was the village elder’s happy answer.

Rama, beside himself with joy, returned to his sylvan home with a cow. Now Rama, the cat, and the cow formed a nice family, cheering one another in mutual language of affection. This cow, which was known as the “Saint’s Cow,” would roam about, marauding the paddy fields of the villagers for food, causing them extreme anguish.

Another year passed, and finally one day the villagers came in a group and complained about the ravages wrought by the “Saint’s Cow.”

“Well, how am I going to feed my cow?” asked Rama. “Why don’t you have your own land? We will give you a twenty-five acre piece of land,” the villagers said.

Rama was delighted with this. He gathered together the children of the village and, exhorting them in the name of God, had them build a cottage-hermitage, till his soil, feed his cat and cow, and, in short, do all the hard work required on his farm, for no pay.

The villagers mutely tolerated these saintly privileges for two whole years until they found that they could not get their children to perform their own duties at home. In a body they went to Rama and complained.

“Your Holiness, we shall have to stop loaning you our children to do the work on your farm. Our own farms remain neglected without the help of our children.”

“Well, how am I going to manage my farm without the help of your children?” asked Rama.

“Why don’t you get a mate and raise your own children? Any of us will be happy to give you a marriageable daughter. It will be an honor, for you will be a wonderful spiritual husband,” cried the villagers in unison.

“That is a brilliant idea,” cried Rama.

In a month Rama was getting ready to be married, when his Master, alerted by intuition, came to the rescue. The Master, on meeting Rama, said, “I thought you left the hermitage to get rid of material duties, and now I see you have a cat, a cow, land, home, and I hear that you are going to get married. What is the matter with you?”

“Well, Master,” cried Rama, “This is all for a rag. I got the cat to save my rag, and took the cow to feed my cat, and accepted the land to supply my cow with fodder, and now I have planned to marry to have children to work on my farm because the villagers refused to lend me their children.”

After Master and disciple had indulged in a hearty laugh, Rama left his newly acquired family and farmhouse and returned to live under the benign wisdom-saturated influence of the jungle hermitage.

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This story illustrates that if you leave the world for God, see that you also  forsake worldly thoughts from within. Otherwise, wherever you go, your worldliness will go with you, attracting to you a worldly environment.

Live simply if you are a renunciate. Do not complicate a boiled-down material existence and entangle yourself in material things, gathered in the name of spiritual necessity.

This story illustrates also that one must never go to extremes in the spiritual life, but by gradual steps, conquer the sense-inclined mind.

Finally, this story shows that no one should live without performing some material duties. But it is better to perform material duties in the company of wisdom-guided people than among materially-minded relatives, or in the company of one’s own habit-governed mind.

From the Praecepta Lessons, Vol. 3, 68-70, 1938.

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My lot is small, and my life’s season is short, yet now I would produce a mighty harvest. I will expand my kingdom of will power. To do so, I must conquer new states of consciousness, enlarge my achievements, and outgrow, in consciousness, every limiting horizon.

But, O Father Divine, there are billions of my hungry thought-families and their little ones to feed! And, for them, I need a big harvest during this short season of my earth-life.

The irrigating waters of my craving many times grew dry, while my soil of inner culture was left undeveloped. Now I will work all the harder, using the machinery of scientific technique in my search for Thee.

O Divine Sower, with Thine unseen hand throw Thy living seeds of inspiration into the cultivated furrows of my awakened resolution.

In this short, remaining season of my earthly life let me reap the largest harvest of all: Thy cosmic vision!

* Full title: “May I Reap the Greatest Harvest in the Short Season of this Earth Life,” from Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

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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)

All the wealth of this earth
All the riches of the universe
Belong to Thee, belong to Thee.

I am Thy child.
The wealth of earth and universe
Belongs to me, belongs to me,
O belongs to me, belongs to me.

I lived in thoughts of poverty
And wrongly fancied I was poor
So I was poor.

Now I am home and Thy consciousness
Has made me wealthy, made me rich.
I am success, I am rich.

Thou art my treasure, I am rich, I am rich.
Thou art everything, Thou art everything.
Thou art mine.
I have everything, I have everything.
I am wealthy, I am rich.

I have everything, I have everything
I possess all and everything
Even as Thou dost, even as Thou dost.
I possess everything, I possess everything.

Thou art my wealth.
I have everything.

From Scientific Healing Affirmations, 1924 edition.

“O thou of little faith”
Doubt is a common obstacle on the spiritual path. Even Peter, Christ’s leading disciple, succumbed to doubt. Peter, by the power of faith, had become attuned to the Divine and free enough from matter attachment to be able to walk on water. When Peter saw Jesus walking across the lake toward the boat carrying him and the other disciples to their destination, Peter — at Jesus’ request — left the boat and walked on the water toward Jesus.

But when the wind grew strong, Peter became afraid and started to sink. He cried, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus caught him and said, “O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou doubt?” *

By “faith,” Jesus did not mean mere mental belief, but the deep intuitive realization of the body’s immaterial nature that comes through meditation. Only by the unshakable conviction that God is the sole reality can a devotee permanently transcend the consciousness that matter is real and the habit of doubt. When the devotee attains that realization, he is able to walk on water or fly in the air, at will.

The blind alley of curiosity
Devotees who are trying to contact God through meditation often fall into doubt from spiritual curiosity. I would find great joy in contacting God by meditation but then, suddenly, my mind would become very curious and ask: “If you know and feel God, why not ask Him what happened to Jesus, Shakespeare, Krishna, and other great human luminaries — or your own departed relatives?” When God did not immediately respond to my questions, I would become a “Doubting Thomas,” thus losing the joyous contact of God in meditation.

Beware of the dangers of spiritual curiosity. Many devotees would have found God and understood all the mysteries in the cosmos had they not strayed into the blind alleys of spiritual curiosity. The only way to know the beginning and end of all beings is to contact God in meditation.

Pitfalls of the mind
Don’t depend too much on your reasoning faculty. Wisdom can’t be achieved through reason and intellectualizing the truth. With too much reasoning comes hesitation, confusion, and doubt. In the end, you may find that your will power has become so paralyzed that you are incapable of acting at all.

Similarly, the long-continued over-study of all sorts of philosophical principles and treatises, without assimilating and testing them in one’s own life, results in doubt and disbelief in all spiritual laws. Such practices not only kill the hunger for truth, they also destroy your power to discriminate between good and bad teaching.

The harvest of wisdom
With God-consciousness comes unlimited powers, but there are few people who steadily develop themselves by meditation and form an unshakable conviction of the all-powerful nature of God. God does not speak in words. Being a Spirit, He vibrates His consciousness through the vibratory sound of AUM, which can be heard in meditation by devotees with developed intuition.

When less receptive devotees first hear the cosmic sound in meditation, they are filled with delight by both the sound and its wisdom vibrations. But as soon as they are tempted by material pleasures or persecuted by tests, they fall away — that is, they cease to meditate.

But there are those devotees who, surrounded by good company and good thoughts, contact the cosmic sound in meditation and patiently continue their meditative efforts until they contact God more deeply as bliss. By contacting God as bliss, they reap a harvest of wisdom far beyond their dreams.  Those with any lingering  questions as to the “whys” of life — the disparities of fortune,  the seeming injustice of life, the intricacies of karma — find all their questions answered.

The vast image of God
God made us in His image, and as we meditate more, the image of God becomes predominant. Our tests are only designed to show us that we are Spirit. So never give up. Earth-life is not perfect. It is the arena in which we test our spiritual attainment. We must be able to behold the image of God at all times.

The physical body is a dream, and death is a dream. Every time you are tested, just say, “I am dreaming.” Ultimately nothing can really happen to you. The big fish eats the little fish, and both are dreams.

* Matthew 14:22-31.

Excerpted from East West and Inner Culture Magazines, 1925, 1934-1942; Conversations with Yogananda; and The Essence of the Bhagavad Gita.

In ancient times, Hindu householders would eat beef or veal, and they offered veal, especially, to distinguished guests. Later, beef and veal eating were condemned because it disturbed the vibrations of the human body and also because cows were needed to supply orphans with milk.

When Saint Sananda and his group of forty disciples arrived at the home of a rich farmer, the farmer arranged that a calf be killed in order to entertain the saint. Saint Sananda accepted the veal dinner, but strictly prohibited his disciples from eating any meat. He explained that they were under training to learn how to control their passions and appetites, and should subsist only on fruits, herbs, and vegetables, which had a calming effect.

Saint Sananda ate a hearty veal dinner and, in the presence of some of his disciples, even took a second helping. After dinner, the saint ordered the disciples to take up their little bundles, which they carried over their shoulders fastened to bamboo sticks, and to begin a fifty-mile march under the over-zealous tropical sun.

Saint Sananda walked briskly ahead but repeatedly went around to the lagging disciples, urging them to walk cheerfully and quickly in order to reach the next village before nightfall. The saint, however, could feel the rebellious vibrations of a disciple named Markat, who was both a Judas and a “Doubting Thomas.” So he exhorted his disciples to use their mental powers to transcend the body and dispel fatigue.

No sooner had Saint Sananda finished his encouraging speech than Markat began whispering to a few nearby disciples, “Look at our teacher and listen to his veal-vitalized speech. He can walk cheerfully because of his second helping of meat, but the rest of us are sustained only by the energy of fruit juices, which have already evaporated under the seething glare of the sun.”

Saint Sananda, being highly advanced spiritually, was aware of Markat’s words and the doubt and dissatisfaction they incited. So he turned and walked back to Markat. In front of other discontented disciples, he casually said, “Dear Markat, would you like to eat what I eat? Can you digest what I eat?”

Markat, thinking that the Master was offering him veal cutlets, said emphatically and with assurance, “Honored Sir, just try your food on me and see how fast I can melt it with my digestive fire.”

When the forty disciples reached the end of their fifty-mile journey, Saint Sananda casually told them to tarry a while at a huge fiery furnace where a blacksmith was preparing red-hot nails. On the other side of the furnace a big calf was being roasted.

After being welcomed by the blacksmith, the saint said, “Well, children, sit in a circle around this fire, for I am going to offer you some very vitalizing food, which I have long prevented you from eating. But before I invite you to eat, I want Markat to come and sit by me, for he has assured me that he will eat and digest what I eat.

The hungry Markat, beside himself with joy at the sight of the veal roast, leaped to the seat beside the saint. No sooner was Markat seated than Saint Sananda put his hand into the pile of red-hot embers and nails and began to swallow them as fast as he could.

While doing so, he smilingly but forcefully said to his disciple Markat, “Come on, keep your promise and eat what I eat, and then we will see whether you can digest it or not.”

Markat, highly chagrined, hid his face in shame and fell at the feet of his Master, sincerely asking his forgiveness.

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This story illustrates that a disciple should follow with faith the discipline enjoined upon him by a true Master. Doubting the motives of a true Master only retards the disciple’s progress while willing obedience leads to freedom.

From The Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

Whatever treasures have lain in the secrecy of my soul, I
bring eagerly to Thee.

I bring Thee all the honey from the hive of my heart. All
that was ever mine is now Thine alone.

The sunlight of this world, shining upon my eager hopes
and brief, fickle fulfillments, burned me repeatedly with
dissatisfaction.

Now I will quench my thirst forever in Thy radiant waters!

The taper of my aspiration toward happiness will burst
aflame with Thy coming into a conflagration of bliss.

In Thy vast, enchanting sea of light I will swim joyfully
forever.

Teach me to drown in Thee and live, rather than live in a
mirage-paradise of earthliness and die.

From Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda,
Crystal Clarity Publishers.

Even the smartest businessmen became children in the hands of destiny. Businessmen who were certain of their ability to invest properly and preserve their fortunes lost everything. When a materially-minded businessman’s brain is befuddled with greed, his mind causes him to initiate one failing plan after another. This is the price all selfish, materially-minded people are bound to pay eventually.

However, even in the worst depression, an unselfish businessman who keeps his mind concentrated principally upon God, the Giver of all things, will never lose everything, unless it is a divine test intended to help him spiritually. And those who consider the world their home, and work for the advancement of group or world prosperity, will find prosperity even in poverty-stricken environments.

It is a popular error to think that unselfishness involves tormenting sacrifice and loss. Unselfishness is the only lasting way to secure individual prosperity.

Vibrations travel through the ether
We are all indissolubly linked together and bound up in a common fate. Vibrations travel through the ether from one place to another; when depression starts in one place, it starts everywhere. No one can get away with disturbing one part of the world and preventing the disturbance from moving through the ether waves to other parts of the world.

That is why such a monumental disaster as recently occurred in Florida* from the devastating two-day hurricane deserves our universal sympathy and financial assistance. It was occasioned by the sum total of wrong human thoughts. As a world race, we are all responsible for it.

The wrong vibrations of war and industrial selfishness invariably bring about natural calamities. The death struggles of those killed by the civil war now raging in Spain** are floating in the ether, causing floods in America, storms in England and Portugal, and earthquakes in India.

We are the creators of this universe. Our thoughts and deeds have contributed throughout the ages to the making of tidal waves, forest fires, and volcanic upheavals, just as they have flowered forth in spiritual giants, innocent children, and the soft petals of flowers. The more spiritually civilized we grow, the more we control Nature. But Nature rebels when the master of the house of civilization sleeps.

The root of all troubles
Selfishness is the root of all troubles, whether individual or national. National selfishness is just as evil as personal selfishness. The state of Texas in America could produce enough wheat and corn to supply the whole world. Why, then, is there any starvation in the world today? Because of man’s national and industrial selfishness, which is against the divine law of cooperation, mutual service, and sharing God-given prosperity with other nations of the world.

When a member of a family becomes sick or disabled, he honorably shares the family food and wealth; he is not the object of charity. The same should hold true for each member of the world family. No one should starve because he has no job, or is old or disabled. If individuals and nations followed the law laid down by Christ, “Love thy neighbor as thyself,” starvation would cease to exist.

The competitive spirit in business
The competitive spirit in business kills the spirit of unselfishness. It breeds the attitude: “Get the money anyway you can, just for yourself and not for your country or your suffering world.”

In business there should be cooperation, not competition and cut-throat methods. If each one of two thousand people in business were to help one another, then each one would have one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine helpers. But when each member of the business community tries to take away money from his neighbor, then each one lives surrounded by one thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine business sharks.

The competitive spirit in business must focus on the superior desire to do universal good.  Only when business competition awakens the desire to do the greatest good for the greatest number will there be a real foundation for lasting prosperity and happiness.

The meaning of “neighbor
Always avoid the evil of selfishness. Any person who lives selfishly for himself does not really live at all, for he chokes the expansion of his life. But when a person extends his sympathy from his family, to his neighbors, and to the world, he expands and connects his little life to its source in the eternal life of God.

In the parable of The Good Samaritan, Jesus marvelously shows the meaning of “neighbor” and every person’s duty to his fellow man: Thieves had robbed and wounded a man, leaving him half-dead on the road. Two people later passed on the same road, but each crossed to the other side. The third person, a Samaritan, had compassion for the wounded man. He cleaned and bound his wounds, took him to an inn, and cared for him.

Here Jesus is saying that you should help any afflicted person who is thrown in your path. If you see someone meet with an accident, you should consider him a neighbor and assist him in every way possible, just as you would like to be assisted if you were in the same position. Helping any such person who happens to be near you, whether in your own neighborhood, or in a foreign land, is to “love your neighbor as yourself.”

Thomas à Kempis once said, pointing to a condemned criminal, “There, but for the grace of God, goes myself.” That is true from a limited standpoint, but from a universal, spiritual standpoint, we may well say of every man, “There goes myself.”  From a spiritual standpoint, everyone is your neighbor for God is our Father and we are His children, one with Him

Universal sympathy and love
Disease, universal depression, war—all these are making nations realize more and more that national security, prosperity, and health are dependent upon international development and world unity. We are a part of the world family and cannot exist without it.

To seek world unity only for its practical usefulness to individual nations will give us, at best, a temporary peaceful life on earth by preventing wars. But unless we can unite our consciousness with the cosmic consciousness of God and find the cord of one life, one law, and one wisdom uniting us all, we will not have real world unity. Real world unity and permanent prosperity, peace, and joy require that we feel that we are all children of the One Father, God.

You can only develop this kind of universal sympathy and love through meditation and spiritual effort. Actual steps must be taken to live the brotherhood preached by Christ and the masters of all religions, and to learn to “love thy neighbor as thyself.”

From articles and lessons, 1926-1942.

*A hurricane of great magnitude hit downtown Miami, Florida, September 17-18, 1926. There were sustained winds of seventy-six miles an hour for twenty-four hours, resulting in 240 deaths and 115 million dollars in damage. It’s said that the hurricane gave Miami a three-year head start on the Great Depression.

**The Spanish Civil War, 1936-1939, involved the Popular Front, a coalition of left-wing parties, on one side, and the Nationalist Party led by the fascist General Francisco Franco, on the other. The Nationalist Party prevailed and Franco became the de facto dictator of Spain until 1975.

A proud prince and his large retinue galloped into a Hindustan jungle on a hunting expedition. After bagging many game birds and animals, the prince and his party lost their way in the jungle. They had food but no water, and though they searched frantically, they found no water.

As the danger-filled tropical night approached, the prince and his retinue rode even faster, now seeking shelter. Just as the sun was silently fading away, they came upon a crumbling old cottage. The prince dismounted, pushed open the unlatched door, and went in. The cottage was dark except for a faint glimmer of sunlight coming through a hole in the roof.

Looking around, the prince saw the hole in the roof and despaired at the thought that the cottage was deserted. He was about to leave when he decided to call aloud: “Hello, anybody here?” To his surprise, a calm, firm, peaceful voice replied, “I am here. Do you want water?” The prince was astounded that this person knew his thoughts even before meeting him.

Soon the prince and his retinue were joyfully partaking of the water and fruits offered by the holy man who lived in this lonely jungle retreat. “Who are you?” the prince asked the hoary gentleman, who replied, “I am a poor, old hermit.”

“Aren’t you afraid of tigers and snakes?” the prince asked. “Oh, no,” the hermit replied. “The tigers are my pussycats, and the cobras are my pets. We are friends, ever basking in the sunshine of Love, which is in everything.”

The prince scrutinized the hermit and was taken aback to see two cobras hanging from his neck in the shape of a garland. The prince tried to get a closer view of the snakes but, sensing his fear and vengeful spirit, they hissed and lifted their hooded heads, ready to strike at his approach. Just then, a huge Royal Bengal tiger came into the cottage and calmly sat down at the hermit’s feet, causing a near panic among the prince’s retinue. After the hermit petted the tiger on the head, it slunk slowly away into the dark jungle.

Amazed still more, the proud prince thought, “This old hermit is good and kind and saved us from wild beasts and parching thirst, so I want to make him rich and prosperous.” To the hermit he said, “Hoary hermit, your face is beaming with kindness and sincerity. Because I appreciate all you have done for us, I am going to tell you a secret of becoming very rich, a secret I am revealing for the first time.

With this, the prince pulled out a Philosopher’s Stone from beneath his garment. He said to the hermit, “I am going to entrust you with this Philosopher’s Stone for a year so that you may become rich by using it. A great mystic alchemist gave this stone to my father, and it has the power to convert into gold anything you touch with it. Use it every day for a year to convert all the rocks into gold, and then build a golden palace.

“I will return in a year to get my precious Philosopher’s Stone, which I value more than my life. And for heaven’s sake, don’t lose it!” The hermit did not want to accept the responsibility, but at the prince’s repeated insistence, he agreed to keep the stone and tucked it under the light band of clothing at his waist.

The prince and his retinue left and returned again after a year. The prince was stricken with horror when he saw, not a golden palace, but the same cottage in a greater state of decay. Getting down from his horse, he rushed through the open cottage door and shouted, “Hey, hermit, are you alive?” A deep, sonorous voice responded, “O yes, prince. Welcome to my humble home.”

Without pausing, the prince rudely shouted, “What did you do with my Philosopher’s Stone? Why didn’t you use it to become rich?” Scratching his head, the hermit replied, “What’s this about my using a stone? I don’t want to be richer.” Beside himself with rage and terror, the prince demanded, “Don’t you remember the gold Philosopher’s Stone I gave you a year ago? What have you done with it?”

“Oh yes, now I remember that precious stone of yours. It must have dropped out of my waistband the day I went to bathe in the river while immersed in the deep thought of Spirit.”

The prince cried, “I have lost everything” and fell into a swoon, but the hermit sprinkled cold water on his face and brought him back to consciousness. When the prince’s retinue demanded the death of the “careless thief of a hermit,” as they called him, the hermit laughed and said, “I didn’t know you would make such a fuss about a stone. Come along with me to the river and let me search for it.”

The prince replied derisively, “What? Search for the stone when it slipped in the swift currents of the river a year ago?” The hermit, undaunted, commanded in a loud voice, “Princeling and all the rest of you, come! Don’t make another fuss until we have searched the river bed.”

Under the spell of a strange magnetism, the prince and his retinue followed the hermit to the river without saying a word. At the river, the hermit asked the prince to pull out his handkerchief, hold its four corners with his hands, dip it into the waters of the river, and cry out, “O Prince of the Universe, Maker of all precious stones, give me back my Philosopher’s Stone.”

The prince followed the hermit’s instructions and as he raised his handkerchief out of the water, he beheld two-dozen Philosopher’s Stones, exactly like the one he had lost. With unbelieving eyes, he came out of the water and tested each stone and found that each one could convert other stones into gold.

The prince then tied all of the gold-making stones in his handkerchief and threw them back in the river. The prince’s retinue cried out, “Hey, why did you do that?”

The prince turned to the hermit and fell at his feet. With folded hands he said, “Honored Saint, I want whatever you have that causes you to regard gold-making stones as worthless pebbles.” And the prince left his earthly kingdom to acquire the imperishable kingdom of Spirit.

*        *        *

Moral: This story shows that you should not waste time striving only for perishable earthly riches. Use the precious stone of your God-given creative ability to store up the imperishable riches of God.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1935.

Each human being is but
one Flame, separate-seeming
from all others, and also from
Thy Universal Source of Power.

Thou dost appear many,
finite, limited, small or large,
but ever divided, shooting
up as separate entities through
the pores of living organisms.
But Thou alone art that one,
eternal flame. All things other
are but Thy multifarious appearances.

From Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

When you yield to bad habits, they become stronger and your will power becomes weaker. Nonetheless, there is no evil habit, however strong, that you can not overcome through meditation, good company, and the continuous effort to adopt the counteracting antidote of a good habit.

Importance of will power
Weak will power is one of the main reasons people fail to overcome their bad habits. Most people are “half-hearted” in their thoughts and actions; hence they do not succeed.

Find out, through daily introspection, whether you eat, work, and meditate according to the dictates of your will power, or whether bad habits undermine your efforts. Then, convince yourself that you want to “overthrow” the undesirable habit.

Self-pity, sorrow, self rebuke, and even violent but spasmodic rebellion are of little avail. You are the maker of your habits and you must undo them by strong, persistent effort.

Remember: the greater your will power, the less the enslaving influence of your bad habits. One of the best ways to strengthen your will power is always to follow through, no matter what the obstacles, on any decision you make to do something you know to be right.

Avoid discouraging influences
People are often unsuccessful in overcoming bad habits because their families or friends have infected them with habit-forming, discouraging thoughts. To overcome bad habits, be especially aware of the kind of people with whom you associate. Watch to see how family, close friends, or others with whom you regularly spend time influence you.

Watch also how books, movies, and other leisure time pursuits influence your thought-habits. Distance yourself from anyone or anything that reinforces your bad habits.

Use good habits to overcome bad
Good habits are your best helpers. Reinforce their strength by good actions and use them to crowd out all bad habits.

If, for example, you have a bad habit of telling lies, cultivate the opposite good habit of telling the truth. Similarly, if you are suffering from ill health or poverty, use thoughts and affirmations of health or prosperity to crowd out thought-habits of ill health or poverty. By affirming the new attitudes morning and night, with full attention, you will also strengthen your will power.

Give your new actions enough time, attention, and energy to gain strength and don’t become discouraged over an occasional lapse. A bad habit takes time to attain supremacy, so why be impatient about the growth of its rivaling good habit?

Meditation cauterizes bad habits
If a person carries over from past lives the seeds of bad habits, his efforts to create good habits will bring only limited results unless, through meditation, he cauterizes the pre-natal seeds lodged in the brain. Thus, for a person with a prenatal tendency towards ill health, affirmations and other actions will not, of themselves, create good health.

Meditation, which cauterizes “evil-saturated” brain cells, is the best way of uprooting bad habits. In a non-meditative person, the life force is concentrated in the muscles and senses. During meditation, the life force relaxes away from the body and sensory motor nerves and accumulates in the brain. The superconsciousness uses the relaxed energy in the brain to go deep into the brain grooves, seeking out evil habits. It cauterizes the “evil-saturated” brain cells with divine energy, changing them into “good-saturated” brain cells.

The time needed to form new habits through meditation varies with an individual’s nervous system and brain cells, but is determined chiefly by the quality of attention. You can install new habits in the brain almost instantaneously through the power of deep attention in meditation.

The receptive power of love
A divine soul like Jesus has the power to charge the brain of another with cosmic energy and cauterize all evil-saturated brain cells. In the Bible there is the story of the sinful woman who sought Jesus out when he was visiting a certain house. Weeping remorsefully, she washed Jesus’ feet with her tears, wiped them with her hair and anointed them with ointment.

Jesus healed the woman of her sinful tendencies saying, “Her sins, which are many, are forgiven; for she loved much.” By the receptive power of her love, the woman was able to draw divine energy from Jesus, which cauterized all seeds of sinful tendencies lodged in her brain.

The moral: No matter how error-stricken you are, when by meditation you feel God’s love deeply, you can attract the grace of the Guru and overcome all bad habits. The Guru is able to transmit cosmic energy into the brain of the disciple and burn out habits of ignorance from many incarnations.

What is true freedom?
True freedom consists in doing such things as eating, reading, meditating, and helping others based on right judgment and conscious exercise of will, and not being compelled by habits. The way out of the dark delusion of habit lies in using your will power to meditate deeply each day until you can achieve the bliss-contact of God at will. A person of unbounded will power can fix a new habit in the brain instantly.

Excerpted from East West Magazine, 1926; Praecepta Lessons 1933-1935; and Inner Culture Magazine.

Upon recovering, Mike, in shame and sorrow, left Philadelphia and moved to Miami, vowing to get even some day.

Paul of course forgot about the hurt he had caused Mike. Mike, however, being the maltreated party, could not wipe the grievance from his mind even though each evening, before going to bed, he affirmed: “Day by day, in every way, I am forgiving Paul more and more.”

After several months, Mike was amazed to realize that during his affirmation of forgiveness, he had been hatching the egg of revenge. In the background of his mind he had been praying for an opportunity to settle his old grudge against Paul.

At last, by the attractive power of hatred or by chance, as the case may be, Paul came to Miami. Not suspecting any trouble, one dark, drizzly evening he was strolling on a lonely road under the tiled roof of an open shed that adjoined a warehouse.

Paul did not know that Mike had learned he was in Miami and was, at that moment, slinking in the dark, following him. Wearing rubber-soled shoes, Mike was dogging his steps, ready to pay him back with compound interest for what he had done years ago.

Under the cover of the rain, now falling harder, Mike noticed a large tile lying unbroken on the ground. Paul walked unheedingly over the tile, but Mike picked it up and struck Paul on his bald pate with all his might. Struck senseless, Paul lay on the cold, muddy ground much longer than Mike had lain on the sidewalk after the beating Paul had given him long ago in Philadelphia.

When Paul woke up, the sky had cleared. With the moonlight peeping through the opening in the roof where the tile had loosened, Paul could see all around him. He was puzzled to find himself lying in a pool of blood on the cold earth.

Then he noticed the tile lying near his head and looked up and saw the square opening in the tile roof. He gasped: “What blooming chance! Driven by the rain, I ran under the shed and the tile, loosened by the rain, fell on me!”

**********    **********    **********

This story illustrates how easily we forget our misdeeds, though the results of such actions never forget us but silently pursue us through the darkness of our ignorance. Just as the cow can find its calf amidst a thousand other calves, so the results of our good or bad actions, of this life and past lives, find us wherever we happen to be.

If, after beating Mike, Paul had weighed the consequences of his actions and apologized to Mike, then no injury would have lurked for him in the dark womb of the future.

The moral: Judge well before you act, for after you have acted, you must reap the results of your action. Remember that all actions leave traces that are stored as tendencies in the mind. Unless the seeds of evil tendencies are burned up through the power of meditation and wisdom, under favorable evil influences, those seeds may suddenly germinate.

So meditate more and more deeply each day and, in the fires of meditation and calmness, roast all ungerminated seeds of evil tendencies.

From Praecepta Lessons, 1935.

Sadly, Thy warning sermons pass unheard by souls deafened with the static of sense pleasures.

O Divine Broadcaster, tune our souls, long distracted by the static of our indifference. “Fine tune” us with the delicate touch of soul-perception. Grant us the privilege of hearing Thy magic melodies in the ecstasy of divine awakening!

From Whispers from Eternity, edited by Swami Kriyananda.

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.

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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.

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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 followed, offered exhibitions of paintings, sculptures and photographs by Ananda artists and others; musical concerts; a performance of The Peace Treaty; and classes and workshops exploring all aspects of artistic expression.

Perspectives: Devi Novak
“I’ll Try To Do Better”

What Ananda brings to the arts is the ability to live from your own center and the divine power and inspiration that come when you do that. The Festival of the Joyful Arts is almost an allegory—a symbol of people channeling a higher power.

While in India in 2004, my husband, Jyotish, and I had the blessing of experiencing how powerfully that can happen. We went to a recording session with Swami Kriyananda where he recorded an album of songs, I Lived My Life as a Stranger. He was accompanied by guitar, tamboura, and piano.

The pianist, a devotee and a very accomplished pianist, had been asked to accompany Swami on the song, “In the Spirit,” but he had never played it before and had only been given the music that morning. When it came time to record that song, Swami had been in the studio three or four hours and he was tired. There were no windows and it about 110 degrees inside.

The pianist started playing, but he couldn’t get the mood of the music, or the melody— he couldn’t get any of it right. Finally, Swami stopped singing and asked,  “What are you doing?”

The pianist said, “I’ll try to do better tomorrow, Swami.”

He spent all night practicing, returned to the studio the next morning, and again played the song while Swami sang. At one point Swami paused. He said, “No one has ever captured that piece like that. You played it the way I heard it, and no one’s ever done that before.”

The pianist later told us, “I played it and I played it and I played it—until I felt it within myself and it was a part of me.” He had gone into his center and attuned to the inspiration Swami felt when he wrote the piece.

19
New Models of Living

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“If God is not conceived in such a way that we cannot do without Him in the satisfaction of a want, in our dealings with people, when earning money, in reading a book, in passing an examination, in the doing of the most trifling or the highest duties, then it is plain that we have not felt any connection between God and life.” Praecepta Lessons 1934

Swami Kriyananda:
“I saw Paramhansa Yogananda’s teachings as the hub of a great wheel from which central truths radiate out in all directions like spokes on a bicycle wheel. The hub that formed the center of his teachings had the potential to energize humanity’s entire existence.” The Story Behind the Story

The spokes of a wheel
Some of Swami Kriyananda’s creative applications of Yogananda’s teachings are discussed above. Others include the following training system, books, and lessons:

1979: Superconscious Living (SCL): A system of training that explains the importance of living from the highest level of consciousness, the superconscious, and offers practical techniques and exercises that help people develop that level of awareness.

1987: The Art of Supportive Leadership—A Practical Guide for People in Positions of Responsibility: A view of leadership based on service to others and concern for their highest good, not on personal power or position.

1994: Money Magnetism: A discussion of the universal principles and techniques that enable one to attract true abundance, both material and spiritual.

1995: Expansive Marriage—A Way to Self-Realization: An approach to marriage based on the understanding that the purpose of human love is to expand one’s consciousness to embrace a universal love.

1999: Art As a Hidden Message: A discussion of art as a vehicle for bringing a deeper purpose and vision to life.

2004: Material Success through Yoga Principles: A 26-lesson course explaining why living by spiritual principles brings both inner and outer success, and offering techniques and practices to guide one’s efforts.

Perspectives: A New Approach to Friendship

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“In pure friendship you will find God. If you would be a true friend, you must recognize the soul. When you consider yourself as a soul, then you can be a perfect friend.” Inner Culture Magazine, 1940

Swami Kriyananda:
“Remember, God is the soul’s one, true Beloved. Only when He is loved first can there be true harmony in human life. Seek the Lord first. Be impersonal, even somewhat distant from others. That is the road to freedom. Remember, all that you are seeking can only be found in your own Self.” The Art and Science of Raja Yoga

Nirmala Schuppe: “A Gift from God”

People often think that in the early days Ananda was a cozy little family, because we were so many fewer people. It is a mistake to view Ananda in this personal way. It misses the point. Ananda is not about getting cozy, creating a utopian suburb: having barbecues, singing songs around the campfire, and creating the “good old boy” network!

Ananda is about spiritual support. This is the support Swamiji has given every person, relating to every individual soul to soul. Following his example, and seeing what joy it can bring to life, Ananda people try to relate to the God in each other, not to the personality. This has created many very deep friendships.

These true friendships have a foundation in Spirit; they aren’t a product of “ego vs. ego.” This is why Ananda friends can be apart for years, but when they come together again, it is as though no time at all has passed: the joy and love are ever fresh.

Because Ananda people consciously bring God into their relationships with others, God uses these friendships to help us in countless ways. They are truly a gift from God. That spirit of divine friendship is the same now as it was forty years ago, and available to everyone.

Savitri Simpson: “I See the Divine within You”

I see Swami Kriyananda very seldom these days, but when I do he always greets me and looks into my eyes with a look that says to me, “I see you, Savitri, but not the ‘little you’ with all your struggles and faults. I see the Divine within you.” In that look there is a blessing that far surpasses any human love or friendship I have ever known.

Nakin Lenti: “Invited to a Banquet”

Kriyananda’s influence on my life had been both personal and impersonal at the same time. Personal in the sense that I have a relationship with another human being, yet, it is a sacred trust that doesn’t lend itself to an easy-going familiarity, but demands the highest in me. This impersonal quality is what has made his spiritual leadership at Ananda unique, and very different from other teachers I have known, because grounded in the higher qualities of the soul.

Swami tries to help us in what we are already trying to do, which is to find God. I have found that to the extent that I am inwardly receptive to his help, to that extent is he able to work with me. It’s a reciprocal thing, like being invited to a fine banquet. If you’re not hungry, no one is going to force you to eat.

Dhyana Lynn: “Tune into Master”

Swami Kriyananda describes his role as that of our divine friend—someone who helps and guides us along the path and offers us loving friendship in God. I came to understand in time what it meant to have Swami as our divine friend.

In 1984, when four of us from Ananda USA were helping to get Ananda’s work started in Italy, I was still fairly new to Ananda and had no experience in starting a center. In the beginning, Swami was in Italy with us and gave many talks that attracted large crowds.

When Swami was about to return to Ananda Village, I asked him if he had any advice on developing our work. I was looking for concrete answers and a step-by-step plan. Instead Swami said, “Tune into Master and Divine Mother, and you will know what to do.”At first I didn’t understand what this meant, but as I tried to follow his advice and “tune in,” I began to feel the flow of ideas, inspiration, and inner guidance. I could also feel Swami’s prayers and silent support. Even though he called us frequently and offered advice, it was clear that he wanted us to gain our own strength, and to make decisions from inner attunement to Master.

More than anything else I feel the greatest gift of Swamiji’s friendship has been his attunement to Master and his guidance on how we can develop our own inner attunement to find Master’s guidance within ourselves.

Anandi Cornell: “Meditate on This”

One of the things I appreciated about Ananda from my first days at Ananda Village was the respect with which people treat each other. Everyone is given the space to develop naturally from the inside out — to make their own decisions and to let their own integrity guide them. People rarely give you unsolicited advice.

Swami Kriyananda has been a great model in this. He’s not afraid of people making mistakes because he knows it’s the way people learn, and he trusts that our good intentions, sincerity, and intelligence will bring us to the truth eventually.

In the early years, when I asked Swamiji for guidance about new directions in my life, he gave the questions back to me with the guidance, “Meditate on this. Ask God what He wants you to do.” He wanted me (and all of us) to develop our own intuition, to learn to get our answers from within.

20
Yoga Institute

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Dr. Lewis and I halted above the lotus pool near the hermitage. Below us lay the illimitable Pacific.

“We shall arrange here for many conferences and Congresses of Religion, inviting delegates from all lands…. As soon as possible,” I went on, “I plan to open a Yoga Institute here.” Autobiography of a Yogi

Swami Kriyananda:
“Yoga means union. As a yoga institute we will offer teachings that unite the various branches of learning in a higher vision of spiritual purpose. Basic to this approach will be the universal insights and world mission of India’s great modern yoga master, Paramhansa Yogananda.” Prospectus, Yoga Institute of Living Wisdom

2003: Ananda Institute of Alternative Living (Meditation Retreat)
2006: Yoga Institute of Living Wisdom (India)
2007: Ananda Institute of Living Yoga (Seattle)

A new approach to higher education
Inspired by Yogananda’s vision of a yoga institute, the three Ananda yoga institutes now in existence offer an approach to higher education grounded in Yogananda’s teachings.

The Ananda Institute of Alternative Living that began in 2003 at the Ananda Meditation Retreat, offers a full curriculum of standard academic subjects together with a wide variety of spiritually based courses, including Education for Life, holistic health and healing, dharmic business, and others.

The Yoga Institute of Living Wisdom in India, which got underway in 2006, will eventually address “every essential aspect of modern knowledge.” Already there are programs in inspirational art, leadership, dharmic business, and yoga philosophy, among others.

The Ananda Institute of Living Yoga in Seattle now offers teacher training and certification in Ananda Yoga, meditation, and Education for Life, as well as programs in Raja Yoga and other yogic disciplines.

Perspectives: Gaurja Prasher “The Best of Both Cultures”

I came to America to study at the Ananda Institute of Alternative Living because I believed that whatever I was to do in my life would start here.

I had always been fascinated with America. Growing up in India, I would often be around the American and British people who did business with my parents. Those interactions were very positive and I saw how each side gained from them.

Then, when my mother became involved with the Ananda work in Gurgaon, India, I was introduced to the spiritual side of America. How surprising it was to meet an American swami!

More and more, I’m discovering that all people seeking God are similar. Many of the institute students are from different countries, and it’s been interesting to learn how each of them was drawn to a spiritually oriented education, and especially to Ananda. Six of us are Kriyabans and the rest are very open to Yogananda. Many of the classes are based on his teachings.

As I try to make the most of my time here at the Institute, I am realizing more and more that Master is not just giving me good experiences, but he is also teaching me how to share these experiences and blessings with all. Right now, I am learning the best of both cultures, East and West, and my goal in future is to share that with others in every way I can.

I would like to be actively involved in spreading Master’s vision of world brotherhood colonies, perhaps by helping different groups start communities or perhaps by becoming involved in Education for Life.

But whether I work with children or adults, ultimately I see my life being dedicated to helping others find happiness within themselves through Master’s teachings.

21
The Future of Ananda

Paramhansa Yogananda:
“Wars are bound to go on in the world until the United States of Europe and the United States of Asia are evolved, to prepare the way for the United States of the World, with God guiding all nations through their realization of human brotherhood.” Inner Culture, 1942

Swami Kriyananda:
“At Ananda, brotherhood is a living reality, one which readily expands into a kinship with all life. Cooperation, rightly understood, ought not by any means to be limited to the community. It should reach out to embrace the larger ‘community’ of mankind. Hence, of course, Yogananda’s term, ‘world brotherhood colony.’” Intentional Communities

Perspectives: Swami Kriyananda
The World Is Our Community

People ask me what I see for the future of Ananda. The divine blueprint for Paramhansa Yogananda’s mission is not something that’s fixed.  It’s an energy, a direction. For the future I see more of the same spirit as there is now; how it expresses itself is secondary. If we have the right spirit, then everything will go right.

At Ananda we are not trying to create a beautiful New Age village. We’re here to serve God and to create an environment supportive to our devotion, one that will enable us to grow toward the universal goal of all life: Self-realization in God.

The ideal of communities is something that devotees everywhere should seek. Apart from that, people everywhere would do well to seek another kind of community. Human beings live together in planetary community. The good of each must be sought for the good of all.

Much thought has been devoted in modern times to finding solutions that depend entirely on human effort, without God—and without even such high ideals as love, happiness, and voluntary (as opposed to enforced) cooperation. Is there any hope that a community without such a foundation can succeed?

No, frankly, I see no such hope. If people live selfishly, what hope have they of clambering out of their habit-worn mental ruts? Attempts have been made, and the results always have been disappointing.

No mere economic system can possibly create a successful community. No mere decision to live and work together, without a high purpose in life, can possibly bond people in unity during stressful times. No merely social experiment will ever work.

It’s people who make communities, and more than that, it’s people in tune with a state of divine consciousness. This state of consciousness is something given to us by God, and it’s this consciousness that makes Ananda what it is.

In today’s world where people are adrift in a sea without direction or spiritual values, God wants to use Ananda to show others a positive way to guide their lives. It’s not you or me doing it, but God through us, because He has something to say to the world at this time about the need for communities.

We are living in an age when coming together in spiritual communities will bring new understanding, new perspectives. The world needs a focus for this movement, and Ananda provides this focus.

In our Ananda communities we have shown that people can live by high ideals, love all, and have communal harmony. Through our example, we can be of practical service to those who feel in harmony with what we’ve done.

Paramhansa Yogananda predicted that, “The day will come when this colony idea will spread through the world like wildfire.” Ultimately, Ananda’s isn’t the story of a community. It’s the story of great waves of consciousness that are needed in our times.

Perspectives: Shivani Lucki
“It’s People I Care About”

A conversation I had with Swami Kriyananda that especially stands out in my memory occurred in the mid 1970s while we were at a spiritual conference in Vancouver, Canada.

Swamiji had been invited and introduced as “the father of spiritual communities,” an honorific he gently rejected with this interesting comment: “I don’t care all that much about cooperative communities; it’s people I care about, and their spiritual growth. That is the only reason I’ve created Ananda. And if ever in the future it is not helping people in this way, then it should not continue to exist.”

Vidura Smallen:
“Ananda Exists for You”

From a political standpoint, the core values of Ananda very much represent the early values that America was founded on—in God we trust. Hard work and God’s blessings have made Ananda what it is.

Swami Kriyananda laid down the principle that the primary job of the Spiritual Director of Ananda is to guard the rights of the individual. He once said, “You do not exist for Ananda, Ananda exists for you.”

At Ananda, you have many people living this principle and, as a result, people look out for one another. For instance, the primary qualification of an Ananda minister is the willingness to put the needs of others before his own.

Contributors

Swami Kriyananda is the founder of Ananda Worldwide. Now retired and living in India, he serves as Dharmacharya (upholder of the spiritual vision) of Ananda  Sangha Worldwide.

Jyotish and Devi Novak are the Spiritual Directors (Acharyas) of Ananda Sangha Worldwide. They are both Kriya Ministers. Jyotish is also Spiritual Director (Acharya) of the Ananda Sevaka Order, Worldwide.

Parvati Hansen is the Executive Director of The Janaka Foundation based at Ananda Village.

Helen Purcell is Principal of the Ananda Palo Alto Living Wisdom School.

Jaya Helin is a teacher and Kriya Minister at Ananda India.

Mary Kretzmann is Director of The Healing Prayer Ministry at Ananda Village.

Asha Praver, together with her husband David, is Spiritual Director (Acharya) of Ananda Palo Alto.

Lorne Dekun is Center Leader for Ananda Michigan.

Savitri Simpson is a teacher at the Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village and also serves in the Sangha Office.

Bhagavati Nani is a flutist and part of the Music Ministry at Ananda Village.

Patrick Lynch, together with his wife, Amber, is Center Leader for Ananda Ashland (OR).

Peter Kretzmann works as a computer specialist for Ananda Village.

Gyandev McCord teaches Ananda Yoga at The Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village.

Nirmala Schuppe, together with her husband Dharmadas, is Spiritual Director (Acharya) of Ananda India.

Nakin Lenti serves in the Sangha Office at Ananda Village.

Dhyana Lynn is a Kriya Minister and Director of the Kriya Ministry at Ananda India.

Anandi Cornell teaches at The Expanding Light Guest Retreat at Ananda Village.

Gaurja Prasher is a student at the Ananda Institute of Alternative Living at the Ananda Meditation Retreat.

Shivani Lucki is a teacher and Kriya Minister at Ananda Assisi.

Vidura Smallen is a teacher and Kriya Minister at Ananda India.

Parents and children should understand that their relationship is not fortuitous, but is due to a divine plan. Family life is the laboratory in which human love can be transformed into God’s perfect love.

Parents should look upon their child as the honored temple where their conjugal love can be purified and expanded into filial love. They should feel that they are serving God in that little temple.

Children, in turn, should look upon their parents as visible representatives of God on earth. Obedience and respect should activate their behavior.

For parents, kindness and loving guidance should prevail, never harsh treatment.  If parents are harsh or unkind to their children, owing to a lack of self-control, they will surely prevent God from expanding His love from the parental heart to the heart of the child.

Parents should take care never to scold their children before others, or to bring an erring child to rebellion by continuous harshness. Strong, loving suggestions, alongside their good example, will do more to change a child than anger or harsh words.

The reforming power of love
Some time ago, I accepted a boy into my school in India who was much older than most of our students. He had been causing difficulties because his parents did not know how to discipline him properly.

Before accepting him, he and I had a heart-to-heart talk.  I said, “You have made up your mind to smoke, but your parents do not want you to smoke. You have succeeded in defeating your parents, but you have not succeeded in defeating your misery—think of what you have done to yourself.” My “arrow” struck him and he began to weep. He said, “They are always beating me.”

I told him, “I will take you on one condition. I will be your friend but I will not be a detective.  As long as you are willing to correct your mistakes, I will help you, but if you tell lies, I will do nothing for you because lying destroys friendship. You may decide not to tell me everything but do not lie.” Then I said, “Anytime you want to smoke, I will get you the cigarettes.”

One day he came to me and said, “I feel a terrible desire to smoke.” When I offered him money to buy cigarettes, he could scarcely believe his eyes. He said, “Take back the money.”  I kept pressing him to take it, but he did not want it. At last, after a tug-of-war, he said, “You will not believe me, but I don’t want to smoke any longer.”

The result of this discipline was that he finally became a saint. Spiritual growth lies in making a strong inner effort to resist bad tendencies and to go upstream toward real lasting happiness.

Give children necessities only
All children need to develop the inner discipline that enables them to resist bad tendencies and wrong choices. For this reason, wealthy parents should not leave too much money to their children. More often than not, it chokes the development of initiative and self-earned success and happiness.

Give children necessities only, not luxuries. Take care not to enslave them to material things or selfish greed by too many possessions or too much money.

A child’s exercise of will power
Parents often impose their wills on their children. Don’t break your child’s will by always denying his inconvenient requests. It’s important that your child develop his will power.

As a child, when I made up my mind that I wanted something that could do me no harm, the members of my family had to consent. I always listened to reason; if ever I was wrong I was willing to be corrected. When I was right, however, I remained firm even if the whole family united against me.

I will tell you of an experience I had as a baby. A baby usually cries because it feels a physical need. This first expression of will, arising from that need, is called “physiological will.” As the baby grows, and the mother directs its will, it expresses “mechanical” or “unthinking will.”

I remember being in that state of mechanical will, always doing just as mother told me. Everyone called me an angel. One day when with my nurse, I saw some little orange-colored candies at a drug store, and I asked my nurse to buy some for me. He refused and took me home.

At home, after having my dinner, I told my mother I wanted some candy. She said, “No, go to bed.” A little later I said, “Mother, I want those little, orange-colored candies.” “Go to bed,” Mother said. Thereupon I cried all the more loudly: “I want those orange-colored candies!”

I continued in my determination to have my way, unheeding of her appeal. Mother finally had to go and wake up the drug store owner to obtain those candies for me.

I was happy. Why? Because I had exercised my own will power. I found it the most wonderful feeling. The next morning I was called a “naughty baby,” but only because I had exercised my will power.

Give your child freedom
Remember, when you’re young children are self-willed about something that isn’t wrong, don’t call them naughty. Listen to their little desires and offer suggestions based on love and understanding. Reason with them, but don’t curtail their freedom.

If they insist, don’t say anything. Let them have their own little hard knocks, if necessary. In that way, they’ll learn much sooner what is right. Try not to ask anything of your child that you can’t back with a good reason.

Quicken your child’s evolution
Children should be taught to concentrate and meditate. By practicing the scientific techniques of meditation, they will, from early life, reveal intuitive faculties that will enable them to grasp knowledge with extraordinary quickness.

Education does not consist of pumping ideas and facts into the brain. It consists of developing one’s intuitive faculties and bringing the hidden soul-memory of all knowledge onto the plane of human consciousness. All new truths are simply the hidden truths of the soul; they give us joy upon rediscovery.

The development of  intuition quickens human evolution. Teach children to quicken their own evolution through meditation. Have a little family altar where parents and children gather to offer deep devotion to God, and to unite their souls in meditation.

Excerpted from: Spiritual Relationships, Crystal Clarity Publishers and the Praecepta Lessons, 1934-38.

Like the good child who is unaware of his goodness, the devotee who is absorbed in the beauty of God is unaware of his own divine qualities. Just as a child lives happily and confidently secure in the protecting power of parents, so also does the devotee, by becoming a divine child, relinquish all fear and depend completely on the all-protecting power of God.

By contrast, the person who does not cultivate the childlike qualities latent in the souls constantly tortured by self shyness, worries, fear, and attachments, which drown his peace in an ocean of misery.

Before our Heavenly Father we should be like little children.  He likes that.  He doesn’t need from us carefully contrived theological definitions.  And He doesn’t want prayers that are chiseled to perfection lest they give offense to His imperial ears.  He wants us to love Him in all simplicity, just like children.

Excerpted from: Inner Culture 1938-40; Essence of Self-Realization, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

I am not advocating neglect of one’s duties; that, of course, would be contrary to the laws of spiritual development. I am entreating my students, in whatever walk of life, to devote some portion of each day to personal physical improvement. This will speed one’s spiritual unfoldment. Nothing is gained by physical neglect; in fact, it retards spiritual evolution.

Life itself is God-given and our physical vehicle comes from the same source. How, then, can we in good conscience abuse or neglect that which is lent us for our earthly sojourn?

The care we give ourselves enables us to render greater service to mankind. While we cannot force salvation upon another, we can do our best to set an example of overall well-being. Bodily health is a magnet that draws others to us.

Whether we are blessed with it at birth or acquire it, good health is a symbol of spiritual progress. Sometime, somewhere we have worked for it. If we are suffering now, then health is a treasure we have lost, and its absence points to an important lesson we came here to learn.

“In all things, moderation”
We are told: “In all things, moderation.” This admonition applies to health in its various aspects: work, eating, rest, and recreation. Most of us over-do, at least in one direction.

Practically all of us overeat. Few, indeed, ever leave the table feeling only partially full, yet that is one of the chief secrets of maintaining a healthy body, and getting real benefits from our food.

Others have so great an appetite for their work that all else is subservient, and health suffers as a consequence. For the over-conscientious worker, frequent periods of complete relaxation are recommended, and also some form of amusement. Without “respites” that take the mind completely off work, one’s perspective narrows and the sponge of energy is squeezed dry.

Then there are those in whom the play spirit is hyper-developed. Though it is good to indulge in some form of amusement, that, too, taxes our time and energy if done too often.

Everything we eat, think, and do affects bodily health. Periodically, we need to take inventory and ask ourselves: What we are aiming toward? How are we progressing toward that goal? Is it at the expense of our health?

Cultivate personal attractiveness
Contrary to the views of many teachers, we do not advocate developing the spiritual at the expense of personal attractiveness. Even though your work may involve serving humanity, you nonetheless must make the most of your personal appearance.

Beauty in all its myriad forms is part of the divine plan. We see evidence of that everywhere: in the flowers and trees, in the birds and sky, in music and the creative arts, in the face of a child, in a voice. Why, then, if God has seen fit to recognize its worth should we try to eradicate it from our lives in the name of spiritual attainment?

The old idea of a long-faced missionary, moving among his fellow beings clad in ugly, drab costumes, is not an image we wish to implant in the hearts of students. Nothing is gained by disregarding that which will enhance your personal appearance, tempered always, of course, with good taste.

If you are a homely woman, then adopt all the reasonable beauty-parlor tricks to make yourself attractive. Better still, decorate your soul with the rich ornaments of sincerity, a magnetic personality, intoxicating smiles, and all-round serviceability.

Recapture your lost health
If you have been ailing physically, there is no more legitimate ambition, nor one that will pay greater dividends, than making the attainment of your health your one great aim.

By doing so, you will begin to “clean up your own little back yard” of the accumulated debris that each soul comes into this life to overcome. On the physical level, it will pay you dividends beyond your fondest dreams; from the spiritual standpoint, you will have overcome a delinquency similar to selfishness, cruelty, and dishonesty.

Visualize the physical perfection you would like to attain. Refuse to become discouraged at apparent slow progress, for natural healing is not necessarily a rapid “cure.

Be persistent. Demand and determine to rebuild your abused physical vehicle. The earnestness with which you apply yourself will determine the degree of success. In your daily period of meditation, remember to ask God for the help needed to develop physically, mentally, and spiritually. Then, just as when we post a letter, forget about it and go about your other business, trusting in God’s power to answer your prayer.

Nature unaided fails
Remember, the body is the link between our higher and lower natures, the cart which carries within it the essence of all we shall eventually be. Why not speed up the transition?

Resolve to heal yourself, whatever the difficulty. Supplant wrong habits with good, and adhere to them with all the power of will that you can muster.

There is a maxim: “Nature unaided fails.” You must give attention and loving care to whatever you possess, whether talents or health, else they will languish and wither. Particularly is this true of health.

Excerpted from the Praecepta Lessons, 1934-1938

Likewise, enable me to wash all souls with love,
and to behold even the darkest souls as Thy children,
as my very own—as my sleeping brothers.

Through the kindly strength of tolerance, instead
of the weak brutality of force, let me lead all stumbling
and stubborn ones unto Thee.

Thou art eagerly waiting to reveal Thyself whenever
the world wants to emerge from the sea of
wrong-doing.

Thy silence before an error-steeped world proves
Thy patience and ever-ready forgiveness.

Likewise, soften me with such patience that I shall
ever wait and stand ready to help all truth-forsaken
souls when they wish to awake.

Guide Thou my understanding and powers,
so that I may turn evil, dark minds into sparkling
wisdom rays.

Excerpted from: “Demanding Forgiveness,”
Whispers from Eternity, 1949 edition.

That attachment will do neither you nor your friend any good. Rather, you should wish your friend happiness and tell yourself that some day you will understand why he left. Whatever is God’s will, and whatever is best for your friend—that should be your wish.

“I am happy for his sake”
It is important never to be too seriously attached to anything or anyone. A mother should train herself to say, “When my child grows up and moves away, or even if he dies and is taken away from me so that God may glorify him, I am happy for his sake.”

When a mother can withdraw her natural human attachment, she will understand what true love is. Attachment cannot foster that love. Rather, it destroys love and is the source of much misery.

Personal love is selfish
Why does Nature cause us to love some people so dearly, only to snatch them away from us, at least from our view?  Divine Love says: “If you love Me, you will love Me not in one being, but in all. Though you try to cage Me in one person, I will destroy in the end the body-frame which holds him, so that you may learn to find Me in all.”

Personal love is selfish and considers its own comforts, often at the cost of everything else. Divine love is unselfish; it seeks the happiness of the object of its love, and is not partial or limited. All those who aspire to know Him must prove to Him that their love, like His, is for all.

It is natural, but ego-inspired, to love those who love you. To love those who do not love you, or who even hate you, is to see God in all. When a soul proves to the Heavenly Father that he loves his good and evil brothers equally, then the Father will say: “My noble son, I accept thy love for thou lovest all with My love, even as I do.”

You belong to no one
Reflect always on this deep truth: You belong to no one, and no one belongs to you. You are on this earth for only a little while. Your family claims you as its own. Should you die, however, and be reborn next door, will they love you? Will they even recognize you?

Your friends claim you as theirs, but if you cease in some way to please them, perhaps even by some trivial misunderstanding, how many of them will remain loyal to you? Not all of them, by any means. People say that they love others, but in fact they love themselves. For the love they feel for others is only to the extent that others please them.

Only our love for God is ever fully requited—indeed, far more than requited, for God understands us when all others misunderstand us. God loves us when others turn against us. God remembers us when everyone else forgets us. We are God’s, and God’s alone, for all eternity.

Feel with the hearts of others
To feel God, you must extend the territory of heartfelt feeling itself. You feel, at present, only with your own heart. Each day you should also try more and more to feel with the hearts of others. Feel their woes, their struggles, their joys, their fulfillments.

Begin with sensitivity to the needs of one person. Day by day, widen your circle of sensitivity to include more people. Let your feelings for them be active, not merely passive and sentimental. Try to love them actively by helping them every day, especially those who love you.

Keep on acting in this spirit until you can do the same for those who care nothing for you. Finally, let the feeling of love, good will, and spontaneous helpfulness expand to enfold those who don’t know you and even those who hate you.

This is a practical way by which the soul can expand its victories from heart to heart, ever enlarging its boundaries until at last it recovers its rightful kingdom in the hearts of all creatures. As you recognize the God-love burning secretly in all heart-lamps, you will realize that it is God’s love alone flowing through everyone and everything.

Every time you meet a receptive human being, show interest in his physical, mental, and spiritual welfare. Never neglect to do whatever you can for yourself in the forms of others.

The only purpose of life
All things are held together by the bonding force of God’s love. All love, in its native purity, is God’s love. The laws of God are the laws of brotherhood and love. The only purpose of life is to find that love. There is no greater tonic. It beautifies man in both body and mind. That love cannot be described or defined. It can only be experienced, as a deep feeling.

Man’s love is born in his human relations and in recognition of mutual usefulness. Pure love, however, becomes freed from every condition, including the condition of mutual usefulness. Although love is born in that sense of usefulness, in pure love, one ceases to be aware of any such outward condition.

Excerpted from Spiritual Relationships, Crystal Clarity Publishers.

John failed in every business he tried, but being crooked by nature, he became highly successful at undoing men of achievement. Telling lies and blackmailing were his favorite games. Many people knew about the network of evil John cast over the city’s prosperous people, but none dared to curb him.

As soon as John heard of Mr. Maxwell’s phenomenal success, he prepared to do mischief. First, he invented a lie about Mr. Maxwell, saying that he was dishonest and had used cheap materials to build a frail building while pocketing huge profits.

Well-dressed henchmen circulated this lie among Mr. Maxwell’s business associates and clients. At first people ignored this lie, but after a while, they began to talk about it until the gossip finally came to be considered as truth.

Next, John arranged for Mr. Maxwell to design and erect a building. While it was being built, John bribed the masons to put very cheap material in the walls and to fill them with watered sand. The walls looked fine outwardly, but were ready to crumble if given a good push.

John invited many prominent architects and guests to a dinner at the home built by Mr. Maxwell and spoke about the wonderful solid walls in this home. After dinner, to show the strength of the house, John dashed his full weight against one of the walls. The frail wall collapsed, revealing the sandy contents.

Maxwell was dumbfounded. Although he sensed foul play on the part of John, he was speechless with shame.

News of Mr. Maxwell’s so-called dishonesty ran riot. He faced many lawsuits, and his success and fame vanished. Silently he bore this affront, and being a student of Truth, he refused to leave the city until he was vindicated.

By strenuous effort, Mr. Maxwell challenged all the owners to examine the homes he had built. Every house was found to be well built and sound. People began to believe in Mr. Maxwell again, saying: “Well, he slipped only once; we hope he will never again build a house with frail walls.”

No matter how often Mr. Maxwell explained that he never built such a house, the facts were so overwhelmingly against him that no one believed him.

Many years later, Mr. Maxwell was coming down the elevator in a hotel, and whom do you think he met? Yes, that old scoundrel, Mr. John, who turned his head, pretending not see Mr. Maxwell. But Mr. Maxwell, with a divine smile on his face, patted Mr. John on the back and said: “Hello, old fellow, how are you? I am glad to see you.”

In dismay, John looked at Mr. Maxwell’s face and wondered if he was ridiculing him. But there was nothing but golden sincerity in Maxwell’s face.

Leaving the elevator, John walked fast, trying to get away from Maxwell. He quickly turned around to buy a newspaper from a stand. Catching up to him, Maxwell paid for the newspaper before John had a chance.

Then Maxwell firmly held conscience-stricken John by the arm and said: “Come along, old fellow. I will drive you home.” John, under the spell of Maxwell’s all-conquering magnetic love, found himself following him. As Maxwell drove, he comfortingly said:

“Well, old top, can’t you forget the little misunderstanding we had long ago? I have long since forgotten it, and I am really glad to see you. Now let’s be friends. We are both children of God and we don’t want to go to our graves with hatred in our souls. Really, John, will you accept my sincere friendship, and will you forgive me if I ever angered you?”

When the car arrived at his house, John was speechless and his eyes filled with tears. Without looking at Maxwell or saying anything, he walked toward his home.

Six months passed. One day while Maxwell was sitting in his parlor meditating, the doorbell rang. And who was there but John with extreme penitence on his face. He cried aloud at the sight of Maxwell, hugged him again and again and sobbed: “Dearest friend, Maxwell, I saw in your face your loving heart, and I was amazed at how genuinely you loved me, even though I almost ruined your business.

“Since that day on the elevator, I have passed many sleepless nights and I have beheld your loving face staring at me, pleading: ‘Will you accept my friendship?’

“Now I have come to tell you that I am trying to be worthy of your friendship. I invited all your old friends and associates to dinner at my home and confessed how I had framed you by bribing the masons who built the frail house. And now will you accept my unworthy friendship?”

Maxwell and John hugged each other and were great friends ever afterward. Maxwell regained the high esteem of his friends and John was considered a brave man for confessing his guilt.

This story proves that love can change and reform a man, while hatred and revenge will succeed only in making him your bitterest enemy.

From Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

The divine law of supply
You must show God that you are not attached to your God-given possessions, and that you are ready to share them with others. Most people are willing to offer advice and sympathy, but when it comes to sharing their hard-earned money, they become “tightwads,” believing only in family happiness — “us four and no more.”  As you naturally and joyously buy things for yourself, so also must you learn to do the same for others.

There are people who don’t hesitate to buy yachts and costly new cars, but become very tight when it comes to giving a hundred dollars to a needy cause — they feel righteous when giving five or twenty-five dollars to needy causes. The primary lesson to be learned on earth, as exemplified by God, is to share either possessions or money with worthy, needy people or, even better, with worthy, needy divine causes. The divine law of supply will secretly work for you once you learn to give to others as freely as you give to yourself.

Self-expansion through others
You must learn to give gifts to others in secret, even as God gives sunlight, air, food, life, love, and wisdom shrouded in utmost secrecy. If anyone gives money to another and brags about it, he destroys its sanctity. The divine law does not give the reward of revelation to bragging souls. God wants all gifts to be presented in secret, unmarred by pride or publicity. The greatest givers are those who are so engrossed in giving that they have no time to think of their giving.

To present gifts to others silently, and in the spirit of seeing their needs as your own, expands your self-identity: you begin to feel God’s omnipresence in other hearts. The boastful, egotistical giver is better than the miser, and reaps some benefit from his giving, but he misses the reward of Heaven: self-expansion in the hearts of others.

Proud giving concentrates the mind on the false, insincere applause of men, but humble, silent giving unites the heart of the giver with the heart of the one benefited and with the spirit of God. If you present material and spiritual gifts to others silently, as if you were giving to yourself, God will reward you with the perception of Omnipresence.

The gift of love and peace
Always be sure that love and good will go with your gifts. What God receives when you give material gifts to a temple or church is not only the gifts but also the devotion that prompts one to give. More than material gifts, God loves the gift of love, peace, and devotion offered in the temple of one’s heart.

That is why Jesus said that before you offer a gift to God in a temple, you should become reconciled with an estranged brother so you can offer God a temple of your own love and peace. To behold an enemy in any soul is to eclipse God’s presence there. Never lose the consciousness of God’s omnipresence by failing to see Him hidden in an enemy-brother’s heart.

A spirit of sacrifice is important
In God’s eyes, the nature and amount of the gift are unimportant, only the quality of devotion infusing those gifts. Small gifts saturated with selfless devotion and given in a spirit of sacrifice are more pleasing to God than large gifts given without similar difficulty. True devotees find their highest fulfillment in giving and sharing all they can, even at the cost of personal sacrifice. Indeed, for such devotees there is no sense of sacrifice, only joyous self-offering.

Devotees should ask themselves from time to time: “In what spirit am I giving?” It’s important to always give in a spirit of love and sacrifice, and not according to what you can easily afford.

Expressing gratitude helps us
We should be thankful each day for all the gifts of life–for sunshine, water, and the luscious fruits and greens we receive from the Great Giver. God makes us work so that we may consciously and gratefully receive His gifts.

There are millions of people who, drunk with egotism, think they keep themselves alive with the money they earn. They never stop to think that man can make neither a grain of wheat nor a green leaf. Nor can he create the life force that gives power to life.

The All-Sufficient One does not need our thankful hearts, but when we are grateful, our attention is concentrated upon the Great Source of all supply, which alone can bestow upon us the gift of abundance and the lasting gifts of love, joy, wisdom, and peace.

From articles and lessons, 1934-1942.

Continually he would ask himself whether he loved anything more than God. He thought: “If I ever stoop to love someone or something more than God, I will remove that obstacle.”

After a while, the saint and his wife decided to go on a pilgrimage. His wife was about to give birth to a baby, and both thought it would be auspicious for the baby to be born in the holy city of Benares.

On the way to Benares, as they passed along the outskirts of a certain city, the wife was stricken with labor pains. The saint hastily took her into a dilapidated, deserted house. As the wife writhed in agony, she said to her husband, “Saintly one, I feel I am going to die. Promise me that you won’t, under divine impulse, desert our new-born baby.”

Extremely touched by the words of his stricken wife, the saint was torn between his love for the child about to be born and his paramount love for God. Then he thought: “I could love neither my wife nor the baby unless God gave them to me, and also gave me the love with which to love them. No matter what happens, I will never let anything come in the way of my love for God. I will forsake everything for God.” He then resolved to cut off his hand, pluck out his eye, or otherwise maim himself if, by so doing, he would become worthy of God’s love.

Although inwardly resolved, the saint, to console his wife, replied to her repeated entreaties by saying, “I will try my utmost to carry out your wishes.”

But hard are the tests of God and subtle are the ways of delusion. It happened that the wife died, leaving behind the beautiful baby boy which the saint and his wife had hoped to attract. The baby was crying piteously when, all of a sudden, there was a great rumble in the ether and a great light. A divine presence possessed the saint and a voice said, “Beloved, come to me. We will remain in the ecstasy of divine love in the Himalayan caves.”

Shaken with his love of God on the one hand, and his love of the helpless baby on the other, the saint thought: “I could not know what love is, nor have this baby to love, without God’s love. If I cannot forsake father, mother, wife, child, and life itself for God, I am not worthy of Him.”

He then prayed: “Lord, master of my life. I must you show that my love for you is greater than my love for this baby. So now, Lord, please take care of the baby, as I must depart for the bower of the Himalayan caves to commune with You.”

As if in response to his prayer, his eyes suddenly rested on the floor where he saw a lizard give birth to an egg and silently slink away. The egg broke; a little baby lizard was born. It opened its mouth in hunger and suddenly a small insect flew in its mouth. Its hunger satisfied, the little lizard began to move toward a hiding place. Seeing this, the saint thought: “If the Lord feeds the baby lizard, forsaken by its mother, so also will He take care of my baby, forsaken by his mother and father.

In the deep ecstasy of God’s love, the saint ran out of the house. But  as he heard the baby’s cries, his heart was shaken and his love for the child nearly suffocated him. He stood under a tree and prayed: “Lord, although my love for you is greater than my love for the child, you gave me a human heart and I am worried about this helpless motherless, fatherless baby. Lord, I beseech you: show me that my baby will be cared for.”

Just then, the saint saw the royal coach stop at the deserted house, attracted by the child’s cries. The queen climbed out of the coach, entered the house, picked up the baby and swiftly departed for her palace.

While lingering in the city for a day or two, the saint heard that the king and queen, having no children of their own, had adopted the foundling as their child and successor to the throne. Much pleased, the saint left the city to keep his tryst with God in the Himalayan caves.

MORAL: Love God with all your heart and soul. Love God more than you love anything, for you cannot know love, nor love anyone or anything, without first receiving that love from God. Seek the kingdom of God first; then all your desires will be fulfilled.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

Teach us to feel that no duty is more important than our duty to Thee, since no duty is possible without Thee.

And teach us to love Thee above everything, as we cannot live or love anything or anybody without Thy life, Thy love.

From Whispers From Eternity, 1958 edition.

Not a few such claims have been aired, without proper authentication, in works of pure fiction. Others have been made by scholars who, though serious, demonstrate a lamentable absence of spiritual insight. In both cases, the claims to authenticity are based on the supposed antiquity of their sources, supported by a skillful misuse of reasoning.

God has intervened many times in human history. If there ever was a time when His intervention was needed, the time is now. My purpose in writing this book is, therefore, to offer Christians spiritual support based on revelation.

Countering the bee swarms
Paramhansa Yogananda was sent by God to the West with the commission of restoring the teachings of Jesus Christ to their full and original glory. Only a declaration of certain deep truths in Christ’s original divine teachings, proclaimed once again by a truly enlightened spiritual master, can bring the authority that is needed in the world today to counter these bee swarms attacking from all sides.

Paramhansa Yogananda’s commentaries on the words of Jesus Christ are profound, convincing, and of inestimable inspiration to Christians everywhere who want answers to the doubts that are being forced upon them nowadays—indeed, forced upon every thinking person, especially the apparent conflict between old religious concepts and the ever-expanding horizons of modern knowledge.

The message Yogananda was sent to deliver to Christians was one that he himself called the Second Coming of Christ. His teachings, though wholly Christian in content, opened up new “windows” onto the eternal truth of Christ’s teachings.

What is Sanaatan Dharma?
The Bible is full of esoteric teachings that might be described as “pure yoga.” How could it be otherwise? Truth is universal. There is no such thing as a “true, Christian vision,” from which anyone belonging to some other religion is, by his “wrong structure of beliefs,” automatically debarred.

Sanaatan Dharma is a Sanskrit term meaning, “The Eternal Religion.” Sanaatan Dharma has for long ages been the accepted name in India for the universal Truth: God, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, every atom of which, being a conscious projection, is destined eventually to merge back consciously into the Supreme Spirit. Sanaatan Dharma is the eternal Truth underlying all manifested existence.

“Hinduism,” the popular name for India’s ancient religion, was imposed on that country, by foreigners, in relatively recent times. “Hinduism,” however, is a misnomer. Sanaatan Dharma belongs not only to India—the religion it proclaims is universal.

Not a man-made religion
It should therefore be understood that Divine Truth has nothing to do with separative or sectarian beliefs. Sanaatan Dharma is not a man-made religion, but explains, rather, how God brought all things into manifestation and how every soul, each one a “Prodigal Son,” can return and merge back into Him.

Sanaatan Dharma shows people how to achieve for themselves the inner revelation of the highest truth. The fundamental truths of Sanaatan Dharma can be perceived by everyone who has the willingness to offer himself up completely to God, in deep humility and devotion.

Satan: a conscious, universal force
Christ, who taught that Eternal Religion, gave it particular emphases that were suited to the understanding of the Judaic people of his day. He referred, for example, to the cosmic power of maya (delusion) as Satan, and emphasized (as great masters in India have not, to my knowledge, done) that Satan is a conscious force dedicated to man’s spiritual downfall.

The emphasis of Jesus Christ on this subject differs from the teachings of India on maya, but the truth of it isn’t different. Both maya and Satan refer to a conscious force—not to a specific being, but to a universal reality, for nothing in creation is unconscious.

In Hinduism—which is only one expression of Sanaatan Dharma—the emphasis, in discussions of maya, has been on subjective delusion rather than on maya’s cosmic, all-pervasive power consciously to influence all men to submerge themselves in ever-deeper delusion. In fact, however—as Hinduism teaches also, even though less explicitly—the satanic influence is not only individual, but universal.

In Autobiography of a Yogi Paramhansa Yogananda wrote, “Thoughts are universally and not individually rooted.” Jesus Christ’s allusions to Satan as a conscious force, therefore, while they may sound strange to Hindu ears, belong nevertheless intrinsically with the truths of Sanaatan Dharma.

Was Jesus as “the only Son of God?”
It is a dogma in Christianity that Jesus is “the only Son of God.” Paramhansa Yogananda declared this to be a truth. He also said, however, that it is a deeply esoteric truth, and applies as much to the foundation of the universe as to that divine human being who was born in Bethlehem.

God could never in essence, of course, be anthropomorphic; that is to say, He could never, in essence, possess a human form. It is inconceivable that the Creator of a hundred billion galaxies, each with its own innumerable stars and planets, could have any intrinsic form at all.

It is even more inconceivable that such a God, needing help in getting His “job” done on earth, could have created one human being as His “only son.” Paramhansa Yogananda stated that the dogma that Christ is God’s “only Son” is true only if we understand it in the deeper sense expressed in the Eternal Truth, Sanaatan Dharma.

The deeper meaning of “Son of God”
The “Son of God,” as Yogananda declared, is not Jesus the man, but the infinite Christ consciousness, which dwelt consciously within him: the reflection not only in his own body, but in every atom of creation of the omnipresent, eternally motionless Spirit beyond all vibration.

This omnipresent reflection of the Supreme Spirit in all creation is the one and only true Christ, for which “the only begotten Son” is but a metaphor. Jesus had attained that state. Therefore he was called the Christ. All souls who merge consciously into the Infinite attain that all-pervading state of consciousness.

I once asked my Guru, “To what state must one have attained to be called a master?” He replied, “One must have reached Christ consciousness.”

Heaven compared to a “mustard seed”
Jesus once compared the kingdom of heaven to a tiny mustard seed (Matthew 13:31). Has anyone ever made the leap from that thought of a sprouting, and then upward-growing mustard seed to the shining astral heavens? If so, it is a leap my own little brain is incapable of making.

What Jesus referred to in that parable was, again, man’s own latent potential to raise and expand his consciousness, spiritually, into oneness with Omnipresent God. That expansion is accomplished by removing, one by one, all the self-enclosing veils which constitute our egoic limitations.

Forever doomed to hell?
The orthodox dogma—clearly specified by many churches—is that mankind is naturally sinful, and doomed to hell. There is a “but” here, however.

We can be redeemed by special grace if we “receive” Christ, who sacrificed his life for us on the cross. Christians are encouraged to think of Jesus Christ, through that penitential offering, as their “personal Savior.”

Receiving him has always been understood as the essence of true Christianity because of those words in St. John’s Gospel: “As many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God.” (John 1:12)

What does it mean to “receive” Christ?
That word “received,” however, demands extra-cautious attention. Does “receiving him” mean simply formal baptism—followed years later by equally formal confirmation? Does it mean instead, perhaps, a single ardent act of self-offering before the altar in a church? Considering any one of these explanations as a hypothesis, we should submit it to the test of experience.

Do people really emerge from the first ceremony, or at least from the second one, purged and permanently changed? Is it enough even to make a single, emotion-charged self-submission?

Again, thinking of Christ’s sacrifice as having been made for all men, did human nature everywhere undergo a radical transformation after his crucifixion? What about humanity as a whole? Judging at least from the gloating sadism of the mobs at the Roman Coliseum…one must conclude that the Crucifixion was not followed by any notable mass upliftment.

Paramhansa Yogananda stated that to “receive” Christ means to receive Christ’s presence consciously and inwardly, on a soul level, which is to say, in a deep state of ecstasy. Anything less than that is superficial and should not be taken seriously, since it produces no real or lasting change in a person’s consciousness and no increase of spiritual power (such as one would expect of a “Son of God”).

Did Christ die “to save the whole world?”
Jesus said that his physical presence among his disciples was a great help to them, spiritually. What happened, then, after the Crucifixion?

His death did help them enormously, in relieving them of some of the burden of their own past karma. What Jesus accomplished through his divine self-sacrifice on the cross was [thus] the upliftment—but not, be it noted, the spiritual perfection—of his faithful disciples, that they might continue, on his behalf, his redemptive work after the death of his body.

The impact on the whole world, however, was definitely to a lesser degree. Water always flows downhill, and if it issues out of the mountains onto a desert, it soon expends itself on those sands. Similarly, the karmic penance of Christ’s crucifixion, being a single act and not renewed again and again in compensation for man’s further and uninterrupted sinning, cannot have fully relieved the sins of all mankind.

A finite cause, as I stated earlier, cannot have an infinite effect, for even though Jesus Christ’s consciousness was infinite, the crucifixion of his body was a finite event. Wishful thinking, we should remind ourselves, is not “binding on the universe.”

View life’s ups and downs with a serene mind, as you would a movie. After viewing a good drama, even a tragic one, you exclaim, “What a good story! I learned much from it.” Similarly, even after experiencing tragic events in your life, tell yourself, “I am grateful for that experience! It taught me much.”

Life needs variety to be interesting. If a novel makes us laugh or cry, we appreciate it. Think of life as a good novel, or a good movie. Step back from it a little, mentally. If you don’t like the plot, remember: the freer you are inside, the greater will be your ability to change it.

A wise and just law
This law of action, which dictates that you reap in this life what you sowed in a past life, is a just and wise law. It explains the apparent injustices in human life and gives faith in the justice and wisdom of the working of God’s laws in the lives of men.

Medical doctors would say that John inherited insanity from his insane father. The metaphysician would say that John attracted an insane parent in this life because his soul brought back the tendency of insanity from his former life.

If a person lives one hundred years, he has time to struggle against evil and to become good. But if a child dies at the age of five he does not have time to use his reason and free choice to win the battle of life.

Such a young child dies because of some former, self-inflicted transgression. He must be born again and again in various schools of life until he educates himself to right behavior.

People are conditioned to blame others
Every human tendency is self-acquired either in this life or in former lives. It is the result of individual choice. To rationalize one’s shortcomings by such claims as, “I am bad only because my karma makes me so,” or, “Satan pushed me; it is his fault, not mine,” is to reason dangerously.

Unfortunately, many people take this line of argument. Somewhere, they hope, hidden in the vast, crowded warehouse of their past experiences, there must exist some good excuse: some long-forgotten sin committed not by them, but against them, some influence before which they were but victims.

In modern times, with psychoanalysis a subject of widespread fascination, people are conditioned to blame their problems on others’ treatment of them—on the cruelty or indifference of parents, teachers, society—anything, to avoid having to face the need to improve themselves.

It is mere subterfuge on the ego’s part to plead helplessness in the face of difficulties. The root causes of our problems grow out of sight, in the subconscious. We put down those roots ourselves, originally, by wrong deeds that we performed in the past. Today, however, if anyone behaves badly toward us, it is him we blame for our hurt.

That we might in some way have attracted that hurt never enters our minds. If our “luck” turns against us, we blame anything and anyone but ourselves. Yet it is we, by the magnetism projected by our own karma, who drew that hurtful behavior, or that “rotten luck,” to ourselves.

Every circumstance in our lives, every characteristic, every habit, however much we now repudiate it, was something we ourselves created, whether recently or in the distant past. Each one is due to our misuse of the free choice God first bestowed on us.

Blame no one for the evils that beset you. Accept responsibility for your own life, and for whatever misfortunes you encounter. Do your best, with firm resolution, to eliminate the harmful tendencies in your own nature.

The karma of over-eating and suicide
If you transgress the laws of health by over-eating, it is quite likely that you will be born with indigestion or tendencies toward stomach trouble, which result in an early death. After you pay the karma of overeating in the next incarnation, in the third one you may be born with the tendency to overeat, but may also live long enough to overcome greed, if that is your choice.

Babies who die in their mother’s womb are usually suicide cases from before. They spurned life in the past, and in the process of re-birth they emanate spasms of latent repulsions of life, which derange the body so much that it dies in the embryo.

Those who had acquired riches, health, prosperity, wisdom, or spirituality in past lives are born with specific advantages from the beginning of their present lives. Likewise, those who created poverty, disease, and ignorance through negligence in past lives will meet those conditions from the very beginning of their present lives.

Equanimity is the secret of freedom
Equanimity is a secret to freedom from the need to reincarnate. If we can remove the consciousness of sickness and not fear sickness if it comes, nor desire health when we suffer from ill health, then we can remember the soul, which is forever well.

Of course, if we are stricken with ill health, failure, or ignorance, we need not continue to remain so. We should strive for health, prosperity, and wisdom without fear of failure. But we should remain non-attached and even-minded, throughout.

It is best to feel, by visualization and by divine contact in meditation, that you are already in perfect health, wisdom and abundance, rather than to beg for these things. In fact, since the laws of cause and effect govern man’s mortal efforts, he cannot get more than he deserves.

The constant desire for health and prosperity, which is so much harped upon in modern spiritual organizations, is the way to slavery. We must seek God first, and find our health and prosperity in Him. By realizing his oneness with God, man can acquire everything he needs.

Physical pain comes from Satan
Satan, the outward flowing force which struggles to keep all things in manifestation, created the illusion of pain, which is a purely a mental phenomenon. But Satan is defeating his own purpose. It is physical pain and sorrow that cause matter-imprisoned souls to seek freedom in God.

A child’s pure soul feels very little pain. A doctor friend in an orthopedic hospital told me that children vie with each other to get their deformed limbs operated upon, whereas adults have to be coaxed for weeks, and at the time of surgery they are usually overcome with emotion and fear.

Originally, man had great self-control and a mind that was unattached and impersonal, and so he did not feel pain when the body was injured. He could behold his own body without pain, even as one can witness an operation on another person’s body without becoming mentally excited or suffering physical pain.

If you have no fear or nervous imagination, you will feel less pain. The farmer’s waterproof, heatproof, less sensitive child feels much less physical suffering than the sensitively brought up son of the rich man.

Do not waste this hard-earned human life
Reincarnation requires souls to travel through the mineral, plant, animal, and human kingdoms, including all the races of brown, white, black, yellow, and red, so that they may transcend confinement to one body or one race, and may learn to perceive themselves as omnipresent children of God, present in everything.

As long as one has hatred and repulsion in his heart, so long must he keep roaming through the corridors of incarnations. According to Hindu masters, after eight million prior lives, human life is finally attained.

Do not waste this precious, hard-earned human life wading in the mud of the senses and ignorance. Realize that you have the chance, by conscious unity with omnipresent Spirit and by feeling brotherhood with all creatures, to know yourself as not wholly belonging to any group, or to any race, but as belonging to everything and to every being.

You must long for freedom
The Bhagavad Gita describes reincarnation as a wheel, constantly turning. To get off the wheel, you have to desire freedom very intensely.

You must long for freedom as the drowning man longs for air. Without sincere longing, you will never find God. Desire Him above everything else. Desire Him that you may share Him with all: That is the greatest wish.

Resources: Karma and Reincarnation
The Wisdom of Paramhansa Yogananda, Volume 2

Flowers are given to us for a purpose. They talk to us more about God than anything else. They tell us every day that God is right here. The flower that is talking of God all the time loves to serve all with its beauty.

Flowers have been in use in the temples of all countries. They are not just for demonstration but are for declaring the fragrance and beauty of God that you may behold through them the presence of God. Each flower is a divine temple through which the Divine One comes to us.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

One day this master-bandit and his band set out on a mission to plunder a poor little village at the outskirts of a forest. When he arrived at the end of the forest, the bandit-leader saw a dirt road leading into the village, shaded by an avenue of tall trees. One of the bandits remarked that the tall trees shaded travelers from the heat of the sultry Oriental sun.

“Well,” the bandit-leader remarked: “all of you get busy and circle those trees. Cut their bark and let them die, so that they may no longer be liberal with their shade.”

Arriving at the entrance to the village, the band of robbers had to walk over loose bricks laid in a muddy puddle of water. After crossing this puddle, the bandit-king thought: “Let me remove the bricks lest anyone else enjoy the comfort of walking over them.” Suddenly, however, he remembered that he had to re-cross the bricks on his way back to his den, so he refrained from removing them.

Shortly after this bandit and his followers entered the village, a few saints happened to be leaving the village. These saints were delighted to walk on the bricks, thus saving their sandals from getting soiled by the mud.

Now, fix in your minds this incident of the holy men crossing the mud puddle, using the bricks left there by the bandit-king for his own selfish purposes.

The bandits went on to plunder the village and slaughter many people before starting on their return trip home. Once again they had to walk over the bricks in the mud puddle. After crossing the mud puddle, the bandit leader, using his long spear, pushed the bricks into the deepest holes of the mud puddle, lest anyone else try to use them.

Now the scene changes. Shortly afterwards, one of the robbers in the band, who wanted to be the leader, treacherously killed the bandit-leader.

The Hindu scriptures say that every man has two angels invisibly residing at his left and right shoulders. The angel on the left records all the man’s misdeeds, and the angel on the right records all his virtuous actions. So, when the soul of this most atrocious robber was being escorted to the darkest, most hideous part of Hades, the angel-leader in charge of Heaven and Hades asked the two angels to look into their records.

The angel on the left side said: “Honored Sir, the book of sin is so full of this man’s wicked deeds that I had to write in the margins of all the pages.”

The angel on the right said: “All the pages of my book are blank. I cannot find a single record of good action performed by this cruel bandit.”

After being asked to re-examine his book more carefully, the angel on the right exclaimed: “Ah, I find on the last page a single, indirect virtuous action. This bandit once left a few bricks in a puddle of mud so that he might later re-cross them. He has a reward coming because a few holy men happened to use those bricks to cross the puddle.”

The angel-leader in charge of Heaven and Hades then said to the bandit soul: “You have two hours of complete freedom in Heaven or Hades. Pray let me know your last wish.” The bandit soul, still gorged with wickedness, thought it over and harshly growled: “Get me a flying bull from Hades with long, sharp horns.”

The ferocious flying bull arrived. The bandit got on the bull’s back and issued a command: “Mr. Bull, charge all the keepers of Hades.” Wild havoc ensued.

Hearing of this confusion, the angel in charge of Heaven and Hades, with his assistants, arrived on the scene to save the keepers of Hades. In great glee, the bandit soul now ordered the bull to drive his long horns into the angel-leader.

Seeing the approaching doom, the angel-leader and his assistants began to race for shelter behind Heaven’s safe gates. The bull entered the Pearly Gates hot on the heels of the fleeing angels, and all of Heaven was in an uproar. But just as the fleeing angels and the bandit on the flying bull reached the Golden Throne of His Majesty, the bandit’s two hours had passed. The bull suddenly stopped his outrageous activity, and the angels folded their wings and rested.

The angel-leader of Heaven and Hades approached the now powerless bandit and shouted: “So, even in this other world you followed your wicked ways. We will give you and your flying bull overtime work in the worst part of Hades. Heaven is too good for you.”

All the angels were suddenly frozen into stillness as the Heavenly Father exclaimed: “No, you will not throw the wicked bandit and his bull back into Hades. They are already free, for they have reached Heaven. It doesn’t matter how anyone gets here. Even if it is by only a very little goodness, he shall never go to Hades again.”

**********

And so, dear friend, by its AUDACITY, this strange story is designed to help you remember that no matter what you have done in the past, if you sin no more and cultivate even a little goodness, that may be the portal to the Heaven of eternal joy and freedom.

Never brood over the distance between you and Truth. Keep walking toward it by doing some good every day, and you will finally reach your goal.

Excerpted from the Praecepta Lessons, 1938.

I stand by this rocky shore of matter, looking for Thy smooth shores of peace, beyond.

My inner architects are building for me a bridge of my constant remembrance of Thee.

The girders of my strength of self-control are all being riveted together.

My dreams of Thee are gathering together to make a rainbow-bridge of Self-realization, by which I will soon reach unto Thee.

From Whispers From Eternity, 1949 edition

Soul magnetism is expressed partly through the eyes, weakly or strongly, depending on one’s spiritual development. Some highly developed people are able to spiritualize or heal others solely by the magnetism of the eyes.

First develop spiritual magnetism
Unless your magnetism is right, you will draw the wrong people or things. Fear, for example, creates a malignant magnetism by which a person attracts the very object of his fear. The magnetism of humility, on the other hand, attracts the all-protecting presence of friends, saints, and God.

You must learn to develop that fine quality of magnetism by which you can draw the things that are good for you. If you use all your magnetism to gain material things, sooner or later you will be disillusioned. But if you first develop spiritual magnetism, it will guide you in the proper ways to supply your material needs.

Strong and weak magnetism
Everyone possesses the power of magnetism, but very few people are truly magnetic. Negative qualities such as material desire, passivity, revenge, hatred, and feelings of inferiority obstruct that magnetic power.

If you are absent-minded, thinking one thing while doing something else, your energy is divided and you have little magnetism. Doing everything with will power and one-pointed concentration greatly strengthens your magnetism.

If you are a slave to any of the senses, you are losing magnetism. If you have control over them, you are developing magnetism. Emotionalism is very de-magnetizing, whereas even-mindedness in the face of all difficulties leads to magnetic living.

In order to have magnetism, it is necessary to keep the body free from poisons that obstruct the flow of energy. Only with inner cleanliness can all of your energy be displayed through your eyes, face and body.

We exchange magnetism with our associates
We must be careful with whom we associate because we are continually exchanging magnetism with people through our thoughts, shaking hands, and through our eyes. We become like the people we mingle with, not through their conversation, but through the silent magnetic vibration that goes out of their bodies. The stronger person gives his vibration to the weaker.

For example, if a reformer of weak character endeavors to influence a stubborn, confirmed evildoer, it is quite likely that the reformer will draw evil qualities. Only in a very limited way will the evildoer draw good qualities. (See below for other examples).

The right kind of magnetism
The right kind of magnetic power has expanding, uplifting, spiritual qualities. Some people are so magnetic that they vibrate kindness and you love them immediately. Such vibrations are eternal and leave a permanent impression. This is the sort of magnetic power we should try to develop.

Try always to be dressed in the magnetic qualities of calmness, fair-mindedness, firmness, wisdom, and understanding. Wherever you go, scatter kindness; let your eyes and heart be charged with God. That is what Jesus meant when He said: “Be ye fishers of men.”

One can develop spiritual magnetism through will power, regular meditation, and thinking of God and saintly people. By visualizing and meditating on saintly people, one attracts their spiritual magnetism. If our whole heart is with someone, we draw that person’s qualities.

Use your time to develop spiritual magnetism to attract the Imperishable. When you have developed the power to attract the highest, you can easily attract all lesser things.

From articles and lessons, 1934-1938.

Developing the Right Kind of Magnetism
by Paramhansa Yogananda

• One strongly good individual plus one weak evil individual—the good magnetism will be predominant.

• One strongly evil individual plus one weak spiritual individual—the evil magnetism will be predominant.

• A person of great anger plus a person of mild disposition—the anger magnetism will be predominant.

• A person of great calmness plus a person with a slightly angry disposition—the magnetism of calmness will be predominant.

• A strong failure plus a lesser failure—the failure magnetism will be predominant.

• A strong success plus a lesser success—the success magnetism will be predominant.

• A strong moral power plus a weak moral power— the strong moral magnetism will be predominant.

• A strong intellectual power plus a weak intellect—the strong intellectual power will be predominant.

• A strong spiritual power plus a strong business success results in both a strong spiritual magnetism and a strong business magnetism.

• A strong failure plus a strong success can result in either a strong failure magnetism, or a strong success magnetism.

*****     *****     *****

A Great Failure Who Made Success His Slave
by Paramhansa Yogananda

Just as there are naturally successful people, so also are there habitual failures. My friend and student, John, was a born failure. He was young, intelligent, diligent, and painstaking in his pursuit of financial success, but he failed at whatever job he held. Harassed and penniless, he sought my advice.

I questioned John as to the cause of his troubles. He replied: “Sir, I am a great failure. For some mysterious reason, not only do I lose my job, but my employer usually loses his business after hiring me. I hate to seek a job for fear of destroying the business of my new employer.”

Through my influence John got a job in a small business concern. I advised him to affirm daily, before going to bed and upon waking: “Day by day, in every way, I am succeeding more and more in my job.”

A month passed and John warned me: “Honored Sir, the business concern you got me into is going downhill. Perhaps my resignation will save the business from destruction.”

I told him to keep up his affirmation of success. After a fortnight John came to me and exclaimed: “It happened. The business collapsed ”

I said to John: “Every night and morning, when you have been mentally parroting the affirmation, ‘Day by day I am getting better and better,’ in the back of your mind a little octopus of negativity has been saying: ‘You little simpleton, you know that day by day, in every way you are getting worse and worse’”

John admitted this was true. I advised him to cast out all negative thoughts as soon as they visited his mind.

I managed to get John into a bigger business concern and after six months (the longest period he ever held a job) he said: “Sir, get me out quick. Business is getting pretty bad.”

I ignored John’s misgivings and told him to keep on with his job. After a few weeks, he announced: “Sir, the second business you got me into has evaporated.” Calmly I said: “John, never mind, I will get you another job.”

It was at this point that I explained certain timeless truths to John. I told him that through affirmation, he could release a subconscious mental barrier to success, but that only by contacting the all-powerful superconscious mind in meditation would he be able to create a new cause for success.

By continuous effort, I at last secured for John a very good job in a big concern. A year passed and nothing happened. Then, I asked John to invest his money in a business of his own, assuring him that he would succeed.

In a few years, John owned a few chain stores and possessed a large capital. Now, thoroughly convinced of his success, he found himself succeeding in everything.

One day he laughingly said: “You and God and have changed me from a great failure to a great success. I now understand why I failed, but I don’t understand why I caused other peoples’ business to fail.

I replied: “You did not cause the collapse of those businesses. The law of attraction, which governs people of like vibrations, was operating. Your being a failure attracted a business about to fail, and vice versa. So by the law of inner affinity, you and the businesses went down the hill of failure side by side.”

From Praecepta Lessons, 1935.

Lemons
The lemon is truly a gift of the gods, and its uses are legion. It is the richest source of hydrogen, the most radiant and high-vibrating of all the organic chemicals. In the realm of natural healing, hydrogen is a potent medicine, giving life, energy, and radiance.

Its high hydrogen content makes lemon juice the best disinfectant for the internal organs. The juice of one lemon diluted in warm water, without sugar, taken daily on an empty stomach, is very good for the liver, spleen, intestines, and kidneys.

As an antiseptic, the lemon has no equal. The following uses of lemons have been tested and proven effective:

• Toothache—place a slice of lemon against the sore spot.

• To ease a bilious (gall bladder) attack—drink sour lemonade.

• To heal burns when no standard burn remedy is at hand—first generously apply olive oil, then a little strained lemon juice.

• To help heal inflammations of the finger or toe—apply lemon packs consisting of 1/2 lemon juice and 1/2 distilled water. Lemon packs have also proved helpful in cases of appendicitis and applied to the eyes for cataracts. For the latter, first apply olive oil to the skin.

• To help heal wounds—use lemon water. If the skin is broken first apply olive oil. Vary the strength of the lemon solution according to the seriousness of the injury and the fortitude of the patient.

There are, of course, occasions when citrus fruit is contra-indicated, temporarily at least. This is especially true of the lemon, which thins the blood.

In the case of the anemic, the very thin, the aged, and whenever there is a tendency toward profuse bleeding, the lemon should be used with discretion and under capable guidance.

Tomatoes
Not long ago, the luscious tomato, or so-called “love-apple,” was unknown in the human diet. Considered poisonous, it was tolerated in the garden only for its decorative red coloring.

Today, dieticians consider it one of the most important vegetables, due to its high alkalinity and wealth of vitamins and minerals.

If you have a garden, include this plant in your next crop and use them in abundance. If fresh tomatoes are unavailable, the canned product is a splendid substitute. Although any food should be kept as near its natural state as possible, the tomato is one of the few foods that does not lose its nutrients with cooking or canning.

The tomato is an excellent overall curative food and a specific curative for most liver conditions. As the largest organ in the body, the liver has a tremendous amount of work to do. When over-worked, it rebels and lies down on the job.

To ensure liver health, avoid overeating and fast periodically on fruit or vegetable juices. Among these, very few help the liver as much as tomato juice.

Pineapples
Pineapples, which have the same vibration as the heart, possess many marvelous attributes.

They nourish the glands, are a natural antiseptic for sore throat, sore tonsils, and the bowels, and have great cleansing qualities. Due to its dissolving and cleansing properties, pineapple is an excellent reducing food.

If the fresh pineapple is not obtainable, use the canned, unsweetened variety. Cottage cheese and pineapple is an excellent combination for those needing more calcium in their diet.

Low Cost Nutritious Foods

The Potato
Highly nutritious, the potato should be used whenever there is a need to consider expenses without lowering the standard of nourishment. Besides being inexpensive and widely available, the potato is an alternative to bread and can be prepared in a wide variety of ways.

Consider using the baked potato as the center around which you build  the meal. This enables you to vary the accompaniments based on the tastes of family members and the foods in season.

Never discard the uncooked potato skins—they are an invaluable source of important minerals. You can make a broth for soup by boiling the skins in water for 45 minutes.

Lima beans
Lima beans are another splendid entrée—inexpensive, highly alkaline and nutritious. Because of their exceedingly high alkalinity, many people who cannot tolerate grains have no difficulty with bread made of lima bean flour.

Lentils
Lentils, another inexpensive, alkaline food, can be used in a soup, vegetable loaf, patties, or simply as plain baked lentils. They are an excellent substitute for animal protein.

Rich in vitamins and minerals, lentils are an important source of silicon, which nourishes the brain, ligaments, hair, and nails.

Properly Combining Foods

Could you follow a musical score, read, walk, write, talk, and meditate simultaneously, doing justice to them all? Well, that is often what the digestive organs are called upon to do three times a day, year in and year out.

To obtain the best results from food, one should give careful consideration to properly combining the items used at one meal, and reducing them to the minimum. The fewer the items used at one meal, the better, especially if one has digestive difficulties.

Even of fruits, it is well to use one at a time. In fact, frequent meals composed of only one fruit are an excellent idea.

Although the body requires various types of food for harmonious balance, it cannot handle them all at one sitting. In the beginning, healthy, normal cells are able to select what they need and to discard what they cannot utilize. Due to misuse, they lose that power of selection, as do the taste buds in the mouth.

There are five separate digestive fluids in the body, designed to handle the variety of foods we need. But when too many different foods are foisted upon an overtaxed “public servant,” the resulting confusion is similar to when the manager of a big manufacturing plant issues conflicting orders to the various departments.

In all creative expressions, the laws of harmony manifest themselves. When eyes and palate dictate how we nourish this physical temple, to the exclusion of the governing laws of health, ill health is the inevitable, eventual result.

From Praecepta Lessons, 1934-1938.

As I float on the crest of the waves of pleasure and pain,
or shrink down into the depths of indifference, still I am looking
for thy shoreless shore.

With every stroke of my powerful prayer I am moving nearer to Thee.

I shall never give up, for I know that Thou lookest for my coming.

From Whispers from Eternity, 1949 edition.

If you open the door to the magnetic power of friendship, souls of like vibrations will be attracted to you. The friendlier you become toward all, the more real friends you will have. Cultivate true friendliness, for only thus do you attract true friends.

The divine law of self-expansion
There are people who do not trust anyone, and utterly doubt the possibility of ever having true friends. Some, in fact, actually boast that they get along without friends.

If you fail to be friendly, you disregard the divine law of self-expansion, by which alone your soul can grow into oneness with Spirit. Friendship is God’s trumpet call, bidding us to destroy the partitions that separate us from all others, and from Him. No one who fails to inspire love in other hearts can hope to expand his consciousness into cosmic consciousness. If you cannot conquer human hearts, you cannot conquer the Cosmic Heart.

Extend the boundaries of your friendship
True friendship is broad and inclusive. Family love is merely one of the first lessons in the Divine Teacher’s “Course in Friendliness,” intended to prepare your heart for an all-inclusive love. Extend the boundaries of your love to include your neighbors, your community, your country, and all countries.

Consider no one a stranger. Feel that the life-blood of God is circulating in the veins of all races. We are Americans or Hindus for just a few years, but we are God’s children forever. The soul cannot be confined within man-made boundaries.

Be also a cosmic friend, imbued with kindness and affection for all of God’s creation—flowers, birds, animals and all sentient creatures. Such was the example set by Jesus Christ, Swami Shankara, and my Masters.

Friendship should not be influenced by people’s relative positions. Friendship may exist between lovers, employer and employee, teacher and pupil, parents and children, etc.

Mutual service: keynote of friendship
Love is real only when it is useful. To win the love of friends, you must be useful to them; the greater the mutual service, the deeper the friendship.

True friendship consists in offering good cheer in times of distress, sympathy in sorrow, advice in trouble, and material help in times of real need. Friendship gladly forgoes self-interest for the sake of a friend’s happiness, without consciousness of loss or sacrifice. Why does Jesus have such a wide following? Because he, like the other great masters, was unequaled in his service to humanity.

An enemy disguised as a friend
True friendship cannot witness with indifference the false, harmful pleasures of a friend. Do not agree with your friend when he is wrong. If you encourage a friend in his vices, you are an enemy disguised as a friend.

This does not mean that you must quarrel. Send suggestions mentally, or if your advice is asked, give it gently and lovingly. Help your friend also by being a mental, aesthetic, and spiritual inspiration. Never be sarcastic to a friend and never flatter him, unless to encourage him.

Finding friends of past incarnations
There are people you meet who give you the immediate feeling that you have known them always. This indicates that they are friends of previous incarnations. Do not neglect them, but work to strengthen the friendship between you. Be on the lookout for them always, as your restless mind may fail to recognize them. Often they are very near you, drawn by the friendship born in the dim, distant past.

Overeating and lack of exercise will often distort a friend’s features, and he may thus escape your recognition. A fat, distorted body may harbor a real friend. Sometimes a beautiful woman will fall in love with an ugly man, or a handsome man, with a physically unattractive woman, due to the loving friendship of a past incarnation.

Therefore, do not be deceived by physical beauty. It is more important to ascertain whether you and the other person are mentally and spiritually congenial, whether your tastes and inclinations essentially agree. Delve deeply into the other person’s mind and guard against being prejudiced by little peculiarities.

Bright soul galaxies
Seek your friends of past incarnations so that you may continue your friendship in this life and perfect it into divine friendship. One lifetime is not always sufficient to achieve such perfection.

Friends of past incarnations constitute your shining collection of soul jewels. Add to it constantly. In these bright soul galaxies you will behold the one Great Friend radiantly smiling at you.

The antidote to all hatred
There are people you see each day for whom you feel no sympathy. Learn to adapt to them, and to love them. Always practice loving those who do not love you, feeling for those who do not feel for you, and being generous to those who are generous only to themselves.

The heart’s love is the antidote all hatred. If someone is broadcasting hatred to you and you are tuned to that hatred, you will receive it, but if you are tuned to love, the hateful vibrations will not touch you. You need not fawn on your enemy, but silently be of service to him whenever he is in need. If humility and apologies on your part bring out your enemy’s good qualities, by all means apologize.

The person who can do this will have attained a certain spiritual development, for it takes character to be able to apologize graciously and sincerely. Do not, however, encourage a wrong doer by being humble and apologetic.

To be a true friend to all, you must learn to see that God is just as much in your enemy as in your closest friend. Constant contact with the Infinite in meditation will fill you with divine love, which alone enables you to love your enemies.

The canopy of perfected friendship
True friendship lies in seeking soul progress together, culminating in perfect divine friendship. Perfect friendship between two individuals, or among the members of a spiritual group, becomes an open door of unity through which other souls can enter and evolve toward perfection.

When the canopy of your perfected friendship includes all souls and all creation—the busy stars, the whippoorwill, the nightingale, the amoeba, the dumb stones, the shining sea sands—you will lift the veils that hide God from your sight.

The Divine Friend will then rejoice to welcome you home after the wanderings of countless incarnations, and you and He and will merge in the bliss of eternal friendship.

From the Yogoda Lessons, 1930.

Many pilgrims and disciples braved the forest dangers in order to visit the great saint. No disciple ever went empty handed to the master. All who came brought offerings of fruits and flowers.

A metamorphosed mouse
Everyone who visited marveled at the great friendship between the saint and the little mouse, who was universally known as the “saint’s mouse.” Often, the visiting disciples and pilgrims would throw tidbits of food to the saint’s pet.

One day, when a group of students was visiting the great master, they suddenly saw the mouse being chased by a cat and running to the feet of the saint for protection. Using his miraculous powers, the saint stopped the cat from carrying out its intended crime, and right before the wondering gaze of his students, changed the trembling little mouse into a huge, ferocious cat.

The metamorphosed mouse thereafter went fearlessly unmolested in the company of cats. The mouse was happy, but resented it when some of the disciples would exclaim: “Oh look at the saint’s glorified mouse-cat!”

“Be thou a wild dog”
One day, when the same group of students was visiting the master, the mouse-cat, this time fiercely pursued by wild jungle dogs, came meowing at top speed to the saint for protection. The saint exclaimed: “I am tired of saving you from the vicious dogs. From now on, be thou a wild dog.”

Suddenly, to the amazement of the disciples, and bewilderment and disappointment of the wild dogs, the mouse-cat changed into a wild dog. Thereafter, the mouse-dog became friendly with the other wild dogs, playing with them and eating the same food. He did so, however, with a scornful sense of superiority.

A petrified tiger
On another occasion, when the same group of students was studying with the master, they heard a commotion. Turning around, to their utter dismay they saw a full-grown Royal Bengal Tiger chasing the mouse-dog, who was racing for shelter at the feet of the master.

By his miraculous powers, the saint petrified the tiger and exclaimed: “Mr. Mouse, I am sick of constantly protecting you from your enemies. Henceforth, you must be a tiger.”

No sooner had the saint uttered these words than the mouse-dog was transformed into a wild tiger. Relieved that the mouse-dog was protected from harm, the students laughed heartily, exclaiming: “Look at the saint’s wild tiger. He is only a glorified mouse!”

As days went by, visitors to the hermitage, upon learning that the fearsome tiger patrolling the place was none other than a mouse uplifted through the miraculous powers of the saint, made sarcastic remarks. Other students would tell newcomers who were afraid of this tiger: “Don’t be nervous. That is not a tiger. It is only a mouse glorified into a tiger by the master.”

An affront to his dignity
The mouse-tiger grew tired of hearing such words and enduring this constant affront to his dignity as a tiger. So he thought: “If I could only kill the saint, this would remove the ever-present memory of my disgrace at being his transformed mouse.”

Thinking this, the mouse-tiger sprang at the saint to kill him, to the great consternation of his disciples. Unperturbed, and instantly beholding the audacious ingratitude of his transformed pet, the saint loudly commanded: “Be thou a mouse again,” and lo, the roaring tiger was transformed into a squeaking little mouse.

*                      *                               *

Dear friends: never forget that it is only by using your God-given will power that you have changed from a little human mouse, squeaking with failure and fear, into a brave tiger of success and power. If ever you turn against that power, you will change again from a tiger of success and power to a mortal mouse of failure.

So, never forget God when you go about your duties. No matter what duties you are performing, in the background of your mind, always hum a silent devotional song of love to your beloved Heavenly Father.

From Praecepta Lessons, 1934.

My hands were made to serve Thee willingly, to remain folded in adoration, waiting for Thy coming; and, when Thou comest, to bathe Thy feet with my tears.

My voice was made to sing Thy glory.

My feet were made to seek Thy temples everywhere.

My eyes were made a chalice to hold Thy burning love and the wisdom falling from Thy nature’s hands.

My ears were made to catch the music of Thy footsteps echoing through the halls of space, and to hear Thy divine melodies flowing through all heart-tracts of devotion.

My lips were made to breathe forth Thy praises and Thine intoxicating inspirations.

My love was made to throw incandescent search-light flames to find Thee hidden in the forest of my desires.

My heart was made to respond to Thy call alone.

My soul was made to be the channel through which Thy love might flow uninterruptedly into all thirsty souls.

From Whispers from Eternity, 1949 edition.

To seek happiness outside ourselves is like trying to lasso a cloud. Happiness is not a thing: It is a state of mind. It must be lived. Neither worldly power nor moneymaking schemes can ever capture happiness.

Mental restlessness results from an outward focus of awareness. Restlessness itself guarantees that happiness will remain elusive. The more widely we scatter our energies, the less power we have left to direct toward any specific undertaking. Octopus habits of worry and nervousness rise from ocean depths in the subconscious, fling tentacles around our minds, and crush to death all that we once knew of inner peace.

Happiness is a choice
Persons of strong character are usually the happiest. They do not blame others for troubles that can be traced to their own actions and lack of understanding. They know that no one has the power to add to their happiness or detract from it, unless they themselves allow the adverse thoughts or wicked actions of others to affect them.

A strong determination to be happy will help you. Do not wait for your situation to change, thinking that therein lies the trouble. Try to be happy under all circumstances.

Happiness depends to some extent upon external conditions, but chiefly upon conditions of the inner mind. Without internal happiness, one can be a prisoner of worries in a rich castle. Happiness comes from struggling against the difficulties of life with an acquired attitude of unshakable inner happiness.

The habit of preserving an internal happy attitude of mind should have been started when you were very young, but it is not too late to begin now. From today onward, make up your mind that when you meet your trying relatives, when you come in contact with your overbearing boss, and when you experience the trials of life, you will try to retain your internal calmness and happiness.

Always remain even-minded and cheerful
The most important condition for lasting happiness is even-mindedness. Remain ever calmly centered in the Self, within. As a child’s sand castle disintegrates before invading waves, so does a restless mind, lacking strength of will and perseverance, succumb to the pounding it receives from the waves of changing circumstance.

A diamond, however, retains its strength and clarity no matter how many waves crash down upon it. The man of inner peace, similarly, his consciousness made crystalline by inner calmness, retains his equanimity through even the storms of mighty trials.

A good rule to live by, and one that will take you sailing through many tests in life is, under all circumstances, to remain even-minded and cheerful. Tell yourself simply, “Whatever comes of itself, let it come.”

Toil and struggle are the norms of life on earth. They are blessings, not misfortunes, for they provide us with a testing ground for our own inner development.

As we hone our peace of mind—its pure metal forged in meditation—on the abrasive surface of outer difficulties, we develop the clear discrimination with which to slice through to delusion’s heart. Eventually we arrive at that blessed state where the very luster of our peace protects us during all our activities.

Why sneer at the world?
The worst pests that attack our plant of happiness are: lack of the desire to progress, self-satisfaction, and skepticism. The chill of inertia—or lack of definite, constant effort to know the Truth—is the greatest ill.

It requires only shallow wisdom to be disillusioned with life. World-weary metaphysicians pride themselves on their “aloofness from it all,” and turn up their noses at the mere mention of anything beautiful. Granted, life is riddled with inconsistencies. Earthly fulfillments are, in fact, short lasting. Recognition of these realities is not, in itself, a proof of profundity. Nothing of value is ever attained by negativity alone.

Wisdom must be approached with a positive outlook. Why sneer at the world? World-weariness is inadequate as a cure for life’s sufferings, for it fosters an attitude of indifference, the progenitor of spiritual laziness.

Pride and lust cause unhappiness
Evil is the absence of true joy. That is what makes it evil. Otherwise, can you say that a tiger commits evil in killing its prey? To kill is the tiger’s nature, given to it by God.

Evil comes into the picture when one has the potential for attaining inner joy. Anything that separates us from that divine state is evil for us, because it distances our awareness from what we really want in life.

Hence the scriptural injunctions against lust, for example, and pride. The commandments are for man’s welfare, not for the Lord’s gratification! They are warnings to the unwary that, although certain attitudes and actions may at first seem fulfilling, the end of the road for anyone pursuing them is not happiness, but pain.

Overspending leads to constant worry
Most people spend more than they earn, yet to spend more than you earn leads to constant mental worry. The extra money is acquired by borrowing, or by buying with promises to pay in the future.

Think for a moment: If you should get sick suddenly, how would you continue without the usual income, if you have no savings put away? Along with the art of moneymaking, it is well to learn the art of money saving.

Simplicity is the key. Simplicity is not grinding poverty. To live simply is to pursue a  path of moderation. In a life of balance between extremes lies inner happiness.

Accept change as life’s only constant
Change is often approached with apprehension. In giving up something, people think, “Will I be left with nothing?” It takes courage to renounce a familiar pain for an unknown, therefore uncertain, happiness.

As long as one’s hopes for better things are opposed by fear of their attainment, the mind can never be at peace. Accept change, therefore, as life’s only constant.

Our lives are an endless procession of gains and losses, of joys and sorrows, of hopes and disappointments. At one moment we find ourselves threatened by the storms of trials; moments later, a silver lining brightens the gray clouds; then, suddenly, the skies are blue again.

Neither brood on life’s disappointments not revel in its fleeting victories. See God’s changeless beauty as the heart of all change.

The cause of all suffering
You are living directly by the power of God. Suppose God suddenly changed the climate of this country. Where would be the food? How would you live? Why not remember that God is the sole support of the life He gave to you?

Even though He made that life dependent upon food, He is the cause of everything. When you lose your connection with God you are bound to suffer.

The law of life is this: The less one lives in harmony with the truth within, the more he suffers; but the more he lives in harmony with that truth, the more he experiences unending happiness.

Nothing then can touch him, even though his body waste away with disease and people ridicule and persecute him. Through all the vagaries of life, he remains ever blissfully centered in the indwelling Self.

Millions of earthly joys crushed into one
The purpose of human life is to find God. That is the only reason for our existence. Job, friends, material interests—these things in themselves mean nothing. They can never provide you with true happiness, for the simple reason that none of them, in itself, is complete.

Only God encompasses everything. Divine joy is like millions of earthly joys crushed into one. Divine joy is the blazing Reality. Before it, earthly joys are but shadows.

The quest for human happiness is like looking around for a candle while sitting out of doors in the sun. Divine joy surrounds us eternally, yet people look to mere things for their happiness.

“He is always with me”
Yogis have learned that God can never be found outside. But when you go deep within your soul, in the temple of God, then you can say: “No one in the whole world cares for my health, prosperity, and happiness as my Father does. He is with me always.”

Excerpted from How To Be Happy All the Time by Paramhansa Yogananda. Available from Crystal Clarity Publishers, to order click here

Christian Science is a new presentation of truths the Hindus first preached long ago. By emphasizing the power of mind over body, and the dreamlike nature of this phenomenal world, Christian Science has awakened many matter-bound people to the power of the mind.

Hindu teachers agree with the basic principles of Christian Science but express them differently. Instead of saying, as the Christian Scientist does, that matter does not exist, they say that matter is materialized mind-force. While believing fully in the power of the mind to heal physical sickness, they do not reject the healings brought about by certain doctors.

Hindu teachers do not deny the miraculous healings wrought by Christian Science practitioners, but humbly ask them, “Do you know why mind power effects physical healing in certain cases but not in others?”

It takes great preparation to change the mental habits of a person living wholly on the material plane. A man contradicts himself when he talks of the non-existence of matter and the uselessness of medicine but thinks he cannot exist a day without eating. If one believes in food, one necessarily believes in medicine, for both are only combinations of chemicals.

Many have died of disease though they believed in mental healing. Until belief in mind-power is based on scientific knowledge, a person relying on mental healing is in danger of disillusionment, for God’s physical laws operate just as truly as His mental laws. Both come from the Divine Source

To be absolutely sure of mental healing, one must learn how to lift one’s consciousness from the physical to the superconscious plane. The man who, through a long series of self-disciplinary steps, has awakened in God by expanding his consciousness into the world of unchangeable reality—he alone can say that matter has no existence.

Excerpted from East West magazine, 1926.

Grow old along with me.
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which
The first was made.

As the diligent student is happily expectant on the last day of school, so also at the second half of life should we find ourselves in fuller possession of our faculties and talents, zestful for new worlds to conquer, and eager to pass on whatever wisdom we have gleaned.

Instead, all about us we see broken bodies, disillusioned and confused slants on life, and spiritual floundering. Life is, for most people, a great disappointment. Before forty, everything seems rosy and full of promise, but after forty most people’s bodies begin to change. People complain, “I’m no longer the person I was in my youth.”

Aging starts with the mind
Why do some elderly people remain youthful and others not? Why are some young people already old? Diet and exercise play a part, but aging starts primarily with the mind.

The mind, by constant worries, grows old quickly and makes the body look old and unhealthy. Boredom and dissatisfaction with life have a similar effect. Many people, after forty, think they have exhausted all of life’s joys.

Others fall into the habit of thinking they know exactly how things ought to be. They identify happiness with fixity instead of accepting life’s natural flow. Everything they do is predictable. Even the melodies they whistle or sing are the same—year in and year out. They become in time what I call “psychological antiques”—wanting nothing moved, nothing changed, nothing even improved. Stability is their concept of permanence.

In America one finds many elderly people who have remained youthful. The American temperament is marked by qualities that make for mental youthfulness—active thinking, openness to new ideas, and a love of experimentation. Americans have the consciousness that everything is possible. Of all the people in the Western hemisphere, they are the most spiritually curious — one grows younger seeking Truth.

A world of solace
Reading good books will keep you mentally youthful. If you are worried, grieved, or bored, good books offer a world of solace. They keep your mind busy and your intellect exercised, protecting you from idle thoughts that create boredom and dissatisfaction. Good books are your best silent friends.

Always read with full attention and always try to assimilate what you read. Through assimilation and thoughtful reflection on what you have read, you will be able to garner wisdom from the great minds of all ages and make it your own. Only go to movies or plays occasionally, and then only to see the best spiritual movies or plays. Unlike good books, most movies and plays fail to stimulate the mind.

You can also overcome  negative tendencies such as worry and boredom by serving God through others. Tender to mankind the highest service which your talent and training afford. Through service you automatically divert potentially self-serving energy toward the development of good tendencies.

Importance of mental stability
Mental stability is the foundation of lasting mental youthfulness. A smile that cannot be extinguished by any financial, social, or physical trials helps to keep the body looking young.

To be able to cheerfully experience health and disease, including sudden intense pain (while always seeking a remedy), financial reverses, and the loss of friends and loved ones is the way to attain mental stability. This comes through meditation.

Meditation: the best rejuvenator
Meditation is the best way to keep the mind and body rejuvenated. The soul, by meditation, rises above its identification with the body and beholds itself as a pure image of Spirit. It develops eternal mental youthfulness as it grows indifferent to the illusive consciousness of past and future.

By feeling the ocean of immortal Bliss-God underlying the changeable waves of past and present life experiences, the soul finds perpetual rejuvenation in body and mind. When not meditating, constantly tell yourself inwardly: “I am the Infinite, which has become the body. The body as a manifestation of Spirit is the ever-youthful Spirit.”

Excerpted from Praecepta Lessons, 1934, 1938; and The Essence of Self-Realization.

DO’S

• Oil, particularly olive oil, has been used as an aid to skin beauty throughout the ages. It is said that chief among Cleopatra’s beauty and rejuvenation secrets was the generous use of olive oil.

• Combine equal amounts of high quality olive oil and strained lemon juice. The lemon juice assists the oil in penetrating and prevents unseemly hair growth.

• Almond oil is another excellent facial oil and a good base for powder.

• Use lemon juice combined with a few drops of olive oil as a bleach for discolorations. Fresh cucumber juice is also excellent for this purpose.

• Give your skin a daily air bath and sunbath.

• Take daily friction baths using a rough towel on the entire body.

• Work up a good perspiration by some sort of exercise. Also, an occasional sweat bath is beneficial.

• Take a warm shower or bath each night to wash away the accumulated waste of the day, and to allow the skin to breathe during sleep.

• Take a cool or cold shower in the morning to tone the skin and to help it function properly as a heat regulator.

• You can make an excellent facial astringent at home. Beat egg white until stiff. Apply it to the face and neck and leave on four or five minutes. Wash off with cool water. After a few applications, notice the effect upon formerly flabby skin

• Applying oatmeal to the face is soothing, healing, and nourishing. It adds an aliveness and luster like nothing else. Mix whole grain oats with little warm water and let stand until the oats are soft. Then gently massage the mixture over the face for several minutes. Wash off with cool water. You may also use left-over cooked cereal.

DON’TS

• If the skin is too oily, it is often advisable to discontinue the use of dairy products, for a period at least.

• Don’t allow your skin to become dry–dry skin wrinkles faster than well-lubricated skin.

• Don’t take frequent or prolonged hot baths unless expressly for therapeutic purposes. While they do relax, they have a tendency to dry the skin, and are also demagnetizing. Best time to take hot baths is at night.

From the Praecepta Lessons, 1934.

THE STAGES OF SUCCESS

The stages of success are the following: (1) Choosing a vocation that suits you. (2) Performing your work with attention, interest, and love. (3) Developing unfailing patience and ongoing interest.

1. Choose a vocation that suits you
Select your vocation according to your inner inclination and intuitive meditative guidance. Don’t seek success in a business you hate. Someone who is a vegetarian out of spiritual conviction, for example, should never go into a business of butchering animals or selling meat.

In my own case, it would have been folly to become a railroad man as was planned for me.  I loved philosophy and religion from boyhood, and I made up my mind to establish my own schools and institutions and never hold a job under anyone.

By developing your concentration and creativity, you can learn to love any kind of work and succeed in any field. But it is better to use your creative ability in work to which you are instinctively attracted.

2. Perform your work with attention, interest and love
Developing your usefulness is the surest way of succeeding in any job. Take as much interest in the business as the owner. By “business” I mean any systematic plan to achieve a goal through self-help or the help of others. To lecture, run a religious organization, earn money, or sell something requires the application of business principles.

It’s important each day to add to your knowledge of your job. One of the most effective ways to do this is through creative thinking. By this I mean meditating and putting your entire concentration on how you can improve your performance, and how the business overall can be enhanced.

If you do this every day for at least a half-hour, your understanding of what will make for success will increase a hundred-fold. For me, understanding and success came mainly through trust in God, meditation and creative thinking.

For example, in 1925 when I was beginning a lecture series in San Francisco, I had only $200 in the bank and no other funds. When I mentioned this to my secretary, he nearly collapsed. I said: “What is the matter with you? God is with us. He won’t leave us now. In seven days He will give us all the money we need.”

Sure enough, a few days later a man walked up to me and said: “I would like to help you.” I argued: “But you do not even know me.” He replied: “I know you from your eyes.” Then and there he wrote me a check for $27,000.

Remember that your real employer is God. Anyone who works for God and respects those for whom he works can never fail. No matter how your small your duty, do it with the cheerful, careful consciousness of pleasing God.

Many people think that unless they are “at it” in their jobs day and night they will not succeed. That is not true. Success comes from living in a balanced way and never sacrificing your daily engagement of meditation. Don’t let your business engagements always come first.

3. Develop unfailing patience and ongoing interest
Learn to tolerate a cranky employer by increasing your kindness and courtesy and inwardly ignoring his behavior. During meditation, concentrate at the point between the eyebrows and broadcast the following: “Father, calm my employer.”

Avoid the pitfalls of mechanical habit by always thinking of how to improve what you are doing. You must express the limitless power of the soul in everything you do. Be in love with your present work but strive always to advance.

In striving to get ahead, take advantage of every opportunity for advancement but never infringe upon the rights of others. In Boston, I once had an experience that illustrates my point. The sidewalks were jammed with people coming home from work.

I said to myself: “Thousands are walking ahead of me, but I must be at the head of this crowd. If there is a little opening anywhere, I shall go through it.” And so, wherever there was a space I went through it until I got to the head of the crowd.

This was fine because all I did was take advantage of my opportunity. I only went through where I saw a space. I never tried to push anyone out of his place.

Use your creative ability to develop your employer’s business so as you can continue to learn or advance to a higher position. If your work becomes mechanical and there is no opportunity to advance, secure a position in a business where you can continue to grow creatively.

Material versus spiritual work
Destroy the false division between material and spiritual work. Only work done with a purely selfish motive is material. All work is spiritual if done with the goal of serving others. Businesses that concentrate on serving their customers with the best items at the lowest cost will always succeed.

Choosing the Right Business Associates
by Paramhansa Yogananda

Most businesses concerns fail because due to hiring the wrong people. In selecting business associates, look for people who are creative, intelligent, efficient and, above all, trustworthy.

1. Test the character and ability of applicants
Find out confidentially from the previous employer all you can about the character and ability of the person you are thinking of employing. Don’t take the integrity of a prospective business associate for granted.

If possible, test him directly or indirectly through friends or detectives. Place temptation before him and see how he reacts. Have your friends try to make him talk against you.

2. Read character through the eyes
Remember, an individual’s mind, character, and habits are reflected in the eyes. Look penetratingly into the eyes of the business applicant the first time you meet him. Your first impression will be correct if you remain calm, receptive and open-minded. If you feel an automatic shrinking, beware of that person. Always beware of people with shifting, crafty, sarcastic, or revengeful eyes.

After meditating deeply, visualize the eyes of your prospective employee at the point between the eyebrows and study the feeling in your heart. If you experience fear, don’t employ that person.

3. Pitfalls to avoid
Don’t employ anyone who is mentally and physically lazy or slow-to-understand. Mentally lazy people consider it an imposition to plan creatively or to think about the success of your business.

Business must be conducted strictly on business principles. Never take into business a friend who is apt to be too familiar and not take orders or follow your advice. It is good, however, to employ young people and train them in the business if they agree to cooperate with you fully.

4. Keep control in your own hands
As a business owner, no matter who your associates are, always keep control of the business in your own hands. After all, the biggest responsibility lies with the owner of the business.

5. When to discharge a person
If a business associate dissipates or drinks too much, excuse him several times and give him a chance to reform. If he fails to show signs of remorse and improvement, discharge him.

Forgive every minor fault two or three times but never overlook treachery. A treacherous business associate will cause irreparable damage when you least expect it. Similarly, don’t keep a dishonest person in your employ. You can never tell what such a person might do.

Praecepta Lessons, 1935, 1938.

O Adorable Boss of the Blue
by Paramhansa Yogananda

Adorable One, you are the most colossal businessman, running the factory of the cosmos, yet you never speak about your great work. You have caparisoned this cosmos with the paintings of ever-changing scenery, yet you have made yourself very unimportant and your mansion of space obscure and invisible.

You work hardest of all, since you produce everything, but we have to work hard to fulfill the unending needs of our lives. We work hard and chisel things to suit our pampered desires and doing so, falsely imagine that we are the makers of everything.

We know that we have been very rowdy and intoxicated with ignorance, but O, Adorable Boss of the Blue, it is you who can mend our manners. It is your unlimited power alone that can help our meager faculties and spur our battered wills to make the effort to redeem ourselves.

We do not mind working for you, but do not let us be strangers. Help us to know that we are all your children, equally loved by you. You must forthwith leave your business and attend to the most important business of awakening us.

Praecepta Lessons, 1938.